Against Cognitive Representation

In a recent conference presentation, William Ramsey (2015) argues that when it comes to the question of representations in the brain, the burden of proof lies with those who deny the existence of these alleged entities. He makes it clear that the consensus amongst “the vast majority of cognitive scientists” is that “representations are realised in the brain” and he agrees with Godfrey-Smith (2006) that the term “representation” is not used in a technical sense but is based on the standard definition in which representations are stand-ins for the things they represent.

Ramsey focusses his attention on what he calls "representational deflationism." By this he means "views that deny that the value of representational theories depends upon the existence of actual representational structures in the brain." Ramsey argues very persuasively that representational deflationism either falls into anti-representationalism or what he calls "representational realism."

If the burden of proof lies with those who deny the existence of nonentities and impossibilities, then our philosophical travailles would be endless. I'll nonetheless take up Ramsey’s challenge.

1. To represent, it must first be possible to present. No evidence of presenting has ever been produced in the brain.
2. If a representation stands in for something else, then it becomes another item in the chain of negotiation between organism and world. It introduces an additional thing with properties of its own that must be taken up, interpreted, used, ignored, accepted or rejected. Merely asserting that a representation stands in for what it represents therefore explains nothing. It simply adds another element whose relation to both organism and world must itself be explained.
3. Representations are products of social interaction and communication. They mediate between parties, not between the constituent parts of those parties, and no evidence has yet been produced that would justify abandoning this ordinary distinction.
4. We know what ink, paint, clay, photographs and written symbols are. We know what it is to alter, refine and correct them. The representationalist has yet to identify an equivalent medium in the brain. Invoking electrochemical signals does not answer this challenge. The question is not whether brains contain electrochemical activity, but what makes any of that activity representational.
5. Brains have no manipulative agency or raw materials that can be deployed for representational practices to emerge and evolve.
6. Without corrective feedback, representation is impossible. To represent is to be capable of getting things right or wrong, and of being corrected accordingly. No account has been given of how a merely causal system acquires such norms.
7. All representations that are not manifested as behaviours, are manifested as artefacts produced by tool manufacturing creatures. Brains cannot fashion artefacts of any kind.
8. Representation has evolved in response to social pressures and opportunities. There  are no social pressures or opportunities for speculative exploitation of available resources in the brain.
9. Representations either resemble or symbolise the things they represent. If there are any resembling representations in the brain, then they must be observable. Causal correlations between world and brain are commonly observed, but cognitive representations remain elusive.
10. Symbolic representation has an evolutionary reliance on more rudimentary skills in the use of resembling representations (imitation for example). Not even the most simple brains contain any evidence of mimetic representation or any other rudimentary representation, let alone more sophisticated forms.
11. Representations are purposefully produced by intelligent creatures. Brains are inextricable parts of the central nervous systems of many creatures, but they do not have any intentions that are not the intentions of those creatures as whole organisms.
12. Cognitive representations are often invoked to explain intentionally directed action, but this explanatory strategy is circular because all representations presuppose intention. There are no unintentional representations, only occasional artefacts and patterns that happen to resemble representations to varying degrees. Cognitive representations are therefore explanatorily vacuous in this important respect.
13. If brains act on their own intentions, then we are host to forms of agency which need to be explained without recourse to an infinite regress of further intention initiating representations. Thus, all cognitive representations must necessarily be unintentionally produced and cannot therefore contribute to an explanation of intentional behaviour.
14. Representations are necessary for communication. Brains do not need to communicate because they have direct causal influence over their own processes and those of the organism as a whole. Unlike the brain/body relation of influence, the influence of representations is always indirect (see note 3 above).
15. If brains were sufficiently intelligent to develop as yet undetectable representational systems during their evolution without leaving evidence of more rudimentary systems observable in simple brains, then there is no reason to believe that they would need such systems in the first place.
16. The only entities in need of encoded representations are creatures with secrets and those they wish to share them with.
17. Representations are used to mediate between intelligent agents capable of exploiting opportunities and of making mistakes. Brains do not exploit anything that the organism as a whole does not exploit and they do not make any mistakes that the organism as a whole does not make.
18. Ramsey claims that all representations have content. Representational content is culturally determined. There is no culture in the brain. Isomorphic representations (copies, replicas etc.) do not depend on content, but there is no unequivocal evidence of such isomorphic representation in the brain.
19. Symbolic content (what representations are about as opposed to what they are of) is not fixed. Disputes over the content of representations are arbitrated according to social norms and discursive practices. There are no social norms or discursive practices in the brain.
20. If there are multiple agents in the brain capable of producing and interpreting representations, then there is no possibility of clearly explaining agency because there is no way of explaining how final arbitration is reached in cases of conflicting representational interpretations.
21. Ramsey suggests (pace Putnam 1975) that it would be a miracle if there are no representations in the brain. There are two replies to this claim: A: The real miracle would be if there are representations in the brain. B: If a creature has a capacity to produce representations, then this capacity alone is sufficient to fit the explanatory job description. The capacity to make a pot is not an inner pot.
22. Ramsey argues that the widespread scientific consensus on cognitive representation is a reason to be a realist on the subject. This amounts to nothing more than the observation that cognitive representation is a widespread article of faith amongst scientists who believe that they have better things to do than to determine whether their philosophical foundations are firmly rooted or not. It is the job of philosophers to point out the significant conceptual weaknesses in this theoretical position.
23. To see or otherwise experience a representation of X is not to experience X. Thus, an experience of a representation cannot be an experience of the thing/s represented.
24. Representationalists cannot explain how absence is represented. Causal systems deal naturally with what affects them. The absent, the imaginary and the merely possible do not enjoy this advantage. Appeals to future discoveries merely substitute promissory notes for explanations.

"Suppose someone were to coat the occipital lobes of the brain with a special photographic emulsion which, when developed, yielded a reasonable copy of a current visual stimulus. In many quarters this would be regarded as a triumph in the physiology of vision. Yet nothing could be more disastrous, for we should have to start all over again and ask how the organism sees a picture in its occipital cortex, and we should now have much less of the brain available in which to seek an answer." (Skinner 1969, 232)

If you have any suggestions of further objections to representationalism then please let me know.