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Steve Stewart-Williams to compare our tracking abilities to the simpler occurrence of a sunflower tracking the movement of the sun across the sky. He recognizes, of course, that there are important differences: “If the sun is temporarily obscured, the sunflower cannot project the trajectory; the mechanism that is sensitive to the sun’s passage does not represent the sun’s passage in this extended sense” (p191). In contrast, we are able to represent items even when we are not in direct causal contact with them, and are able to track their probable paths. Without this ability, we would in effect be solipsists, treating the immediate evidence of the senses as if it were all that is real. The ability to represent items that are not immediately present to us is thus an important element of everyday realism. It is not difficult to see how the understanding that unperceived parts of the world continue to exist would be adaptive. To provide a simple illustration, a predator without this understanding would stop pursuing its prey the instant it slipped from view. Solipsistic prey would be similarly disadvantaged. Looking more deeply into the issue, SOBER (1994) makes an interesting suggestion concerning the adaptively relevant difference between realism and solipsism. His contention is that solipsists can only make inductive inferences based on regularities in their own past experience, whereas non-solipsists can also make abductive inferences (inferences to the best explanation) for these regularities. Abductive inference requires the understanding that reality extends beyond what can be perceived. According to SOBER (1994), one of the evolutionary advantages of abduction is that, whereas induction simply allows us to generalize from past experiences to similar experiences, abduction allows us to make sense of novel experiences. So, for instance, a realist who came across a dead antelope for the first time could infer that a tiger might be nearby, and act accordingly. To a solipsist in the same situation, however, no such inference would be available. The solipsist would clearly be at a selective disadvantage. The consciously accessible understanding of the mind-independence of objective reality may underpin one of the most characteristic aspects of human behaviour: our behavioural flexibility. SOBER (1994) suggests that “selection will favor nonsolipsism over solipsism only when innate structures are an insufficient guide to effective behavior” (p38). Thus, if we were innately ‘hardwired’ to run away both from tigers and from dead antelopes, there would be no further evolutionary advantage in understanding that the dead antelope indicates that a tiger might be nearby. However, because humans have few innate behaviours and a high level of behavioural flexibility and novelty, a more abstract and general understanding of the world is necessary— an understanding that can underlie a wide variety of novel behaviours. Although these behaviours themselves are not innate, the capacity to understand that the world goes on without us may be. This understanding is of course part of our conscious picture of the world. Conscious aspects of the brain’s activity tend to be associated with the execution of novel, unpractised behaviours. This is consistent with the view that this understanding is an ingredient in the formulation of novel behaviours. Evidence and Arguments For and Against Innateness If nothing else, then, the assumption of an objective, mind-independent external world makes good evolutionary sense. In this section, I will explore evidence and arguments for and against the view that this feature of mental life does indeed have an innate origin. Evolutionary psychologists typically assume that complex products of selection are speciestypical (TOOBY/COSMIDES 1992). As such, to make the case that belief in an external world traces to innate aspects of the mind, I must first provide reason to believe that most people do in fact hold this belief. Universality is not sufficient to infer innateness, but it is commonly viewed as a necessary precondition (GEARY 1995; PINKER 1994). 2 First, I will deal with some potential criticisms of the idea that belief in an external world is universal. One is the idea that this belief is unique to modern Western thought. Various thinkers have hinted at this view, the truth of which would undermine the innateness hypothesis. For instance, VAN INWAGEN (1993) has described belief in a mind-independent external world as an element of what he calls the ‘Common Western Metaphysic’. The implication is that this view is a part of modern Western culture, and not necessarily found beyond this context. However, there is some reason to question this supposition. For a start, the view is not unique to modern Western thought. As NOZICK (2001) notes, the idea that “the world exists in a definite state independently of our observations” (p133) was traditionally viewed as so certain that it was classed as a metaphysical necessity. 3 Furthermore, indirect evidence suggests that these intuitions are also found in non-Western cultures. In all languages that have been examined, a distinction is drawn between dreaming and reality (BROWN 1991). Without an underlying belief in an Evolution and Cognition ❘ 126 ❘ 2003, Vol. 9, No. 2
Darwin and Descartes’ Demon external world, it is not clear what this distinction would amount to. But even if some people in every culture hold this belief, it might be argued that there are surely many who do not. There are some philosophers, for instance, who doubt or deny the reality of an external world (sceptics), and others who deny that the world is mind-independent (anti-realists). This appears to be inconsistent with the innateness hypothesis. However, again there are reasons not to give this argument too much weight. HUME (1978) pointed out that, although sceptical philosophers claim not to believe in an external world, in their everyday reasoning and actions they act suspiciously like they do. A similar point was made by Bertrand RUSSELL (1927), who was fond of telling the story of the woman who claimed to be a solipsist, but wondered why more people were not also. Postmodernists are a contemporary example. Like traditional idealists or solipsists, some postmodernists flatly deny the reality of the external world, but in giving lectures and preparing journal articles on this theme, their actions contradict their stated beliefs (GOLDMAN 1999). To borrow a phrase used by HUME (1978) in another context, it appears that the belief in an external world is “one of those maxims, which tho’ they may be deny’d with the lips, ‘tis impossible for men in their hearts really to doubt of” (Book I, Part III, Section III, Paragraph 1). Furthermore, an evolutionary perspective puts an interesting new spin on the issue of radical scepticism. Consider HUME’s comments about his own sceptical inquiries: “Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour’s amusement, I wou’d return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain’d, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.” (HUME, 1978, Book I, Part IV, Section, VII, Paragraph 9) The experience HUME describes might profitably be compared to the phenomenon of ‘instinctive drift’ (BRELAND/BRELAND 1961, 1966). Early behaviourists argued that the process of reinforcement and punishment could shape essentially any behaviour (SKINNER 1938). Instinctive drift was one among a number of discoveries that challenged this position. It occurs when animals are trained to act in ways that clash with the behaviours typical of their species. In time, the trained behaviour deteriorates, and the animals revert to more natural patterns of behaviour. HUME’s famous passage raises the possibility that something similar happens to people who pry their minds away from the natural intuition that there is an external world. We might maintain such a belief momentarily, but in time we may slide back to more ‘instinctive’ ways of thinking. These arguments do not establish beyond any reasonable doubt that the belief in an external world is universal across human cultures; they are suggestive rather than conclusive. However, they do call into question some of the main objections that may be brought against this position. As such, the universality hypothesis remains a live option. Although some profess to deny the existence of an objective world, it is reasonable to think that metaphysical realism is the intuitive position for most people in most cultures, and that it is a candidate for a species-typical component of our worldview. As mentioned, though, the universality of this position is not adequate evidence for its innateness. So the next question is: What is the origin of our realist bent Does it derive from experience, or is there an innate contribution There is unfortunately little evidence bearing on the issue of the innateness or otherwise of the subjective–objective distinction. At this stage, the best reason to entertain the innateness hypothesis is simply that it makes good evolutionary sense. However, a stronger case can be made in support of the innate origin of the understanding that the world continues to exist when unperceived. My main argument for this conclusion is a poverty-of-the-stimulus argument. This draws on epistemological arguments in the philosophical literature, but turns them to a new purpose. Philosophers point out that no evidence could prove beyond a shadow of doubt that our sensory experience is not all simply a dream or hallucination, or that the world continues to exist when we close our eyes, only to spring back into existence when we open them again. Such possibilities are usually raised in the context of asking how we can justify our belief that sensory perception is veridical. But they also raise another question, one more psychological than philosophical: If there is no evidence for this belief, how do we form the belief in the first place Consider the assumption of object permanence. As BERKELEY (1982) and others have noted, it is simply not possible to perceive an unperceived object. Nonetheless, with the Evolution and Cognition ❘ 127 ❘ 2003, Vol. 9, No. 2
Page 1 and 2: Contents Arthur S. Reber 102 Some P
Page 3 and 4: Some Perhaps Surprising Consequence
Page 17 and 18: The Effect of Fertility Risk on Rel
Page 23 and 24: Steve Stewart-Williams Darwin and D
Page 25: Darwin and Descartes’ Demon task
Page 29 and 30: Darwin and Descartes’ Demon tive
Page 31 and 32: Sanjida O’Connell/R. I. M. Dunbar
Page 33 and 34: A Test for Comprehension of False B
Page 41 and 42: Fredric J. Heeren Was the First Cra
Page 43 and 44: Was the First Craniate on the Road
Page 57 and 58: Ingo Brigandt Gestalt Experiments a
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Vertical and Horizontal Learning Co
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Of Brains and Minds does not detrac
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Of Brains and Minds brates. Instead
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Of Brains and Minds urges, while ne
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Of Brains and Minds signs of locali
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Of Brains and Minds References Ayal
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Steven M. Platek An Evolutionary Mo
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An Evolutionary Model of the Effect
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