The Interface Theory of Perception

Abstract

Perception is a product of evolution. Our perceptual systems, like our limbs and livers, have been shaped by natural selection. The effects of selection on perception can be studied using evolutionary games and genetic algorithms. To this end, we define and classify perceptual strategies and allow them to compete in evolutionary games in a variety of worlds with a variety of fitness functions. We find that veridical perceptions--strategies tuned to the true structure of the world--are routinely dominated by nonveridical strategies tuned to fitness. Veridical perceptions escape extinction only if fitness varies monotonically with truth. Thus, a perceptual strategy favored by selection is best thought of not as a window on truth but as akin to a windows interface of a PC. Just as the color and shape of an icon for a text file do not entail that the text file itself has a color or shape, so also our perceptions of space-time and objects do not entail (by the Invention of Space-Time Theorem) that objective reality has the structure of space-time and objects. An interface serves to guide useful actions, not to resemble truth. Indeed, an interface hides the truth; for someone editing a paper or photo, seeing transistors and firmware is an irrelevant hindrance. For the perceptions of H. sapiens, space-time is the desktop and physical objects are the icons. Our perceptions of space-time and objects have been shaped by natural selection to hide the truth and guide adaptive behaviors. Perception is an adaptive interface.

How Reliable is Perception?

“…14 See also (Lupyan, 2015b) for a short commentary on Hoffman et al (2015) 15 Firestone and Scholl (2016) reinterpret Peterson and colleagues' findings by arguing that the differences between figure-ground assignment in their familiar and unfamiliar orientations "don't involve effects of knowledge per se [because] inversion eliminates this effect even when subjects know the inverted shape's identity" (see sect. 2.5 of their paper).…”

Theism, naturalism, and scientific realism

“…They begin by showing that textbook evolutionary theory contradicts Plantinga. Our perceptions are "a detailed and accurate view of reality, exactly as we would expect if truth about the outside world helps us to navigate it more effectively" (Hoffman, Singh, andPrakash 2015, 1481). Perceptual mechanisms that were not veridical would be weeded out 6 by natural selection.…”

“…This explains why male beetles will swarm empty beer-bottles, ignoring the females in the process and causing at least one population to collapse. In these and many other cases the perceptions were not based on veridical information, "but rather on heuristics that worked in the niche where they evolved" (Hoffman, Singh, andPrakash 2015, 1481). Perceptions like these, based on fallible heuristics, are "good enough" in the sense that they usually promote survival.…”

“…Frogs do not detect flies. They detect moving black spots of a particular size (Hoffman, Singh, andPrakash 2015, 1481). Some frogs can be surrounded by edible, recently deceased flies and not detect them.…”

“…Never" (Gefter 2016). More precisely, various studies apart from their own show that when interface perceptual strategies compete with any realist strategy, the former will drive the latter into extinction (Hoffman, Singh, andPrakash 2015, 1487). Not co-existence, which is an option.…”