tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post5579269216705537691..comments2024-03-09T09:06:35.288+00:00Comments on Notes from Two Scientific Psychologists: Affordances are Not Relations, Part 1: Chemero (2009)Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-8796113912672148092017-01-09T16:06:12.379+00:002017-01-09T16:06:12.379+00:00Critique 2 seems odd. It seems to derive from A) a...<i>Critique 2 seems odd. It seems to derive from A) an unnecessarily strong read of the claim that all perception is of affordances, and B) an unnecessarily strong claim that one can only perceive what is afforded to one's self.</i><br />I don't think we only perceive affordances; but Chemero's account is, I think, committed to the idea that relations exist between current abilities and the environment. This falls out of his move to make them dynamic. If that's the case, then when we perceive affordances we only perceive what we can currently effect and thus anything that entails perceiving something else needs an explanation separate from Affordances 2.0.<br /><br />From my view, because affordances are properties of the environment, they can serve as stable targets of perceptual learning. You can learn an affordance just by learning to discriminate the stable information created by the stable property without any other ontological pieces.<br /><br />Relations are real; but few relations of the kind cited by the 'affordances are relations' people are made of stuff that light can bounce off (for example). Just because something is real does not mean it creates information; it HAS to interact with energy so as to structure than energy into an array.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-9232742952424788042016-12-30T12:39:57.077+00:002016-12-30T12:39:57.077+00:00Do you really think Chemero is shaking his stick a...<i><br />Do you really think Chemero is shaking his stick at something that doesn't exist? Or do you simply think the thing he is shaking his stick at doesn't work as a definition of "affordances"? </i><br />The latter. Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-90763010947131119452016-12-29T17:26:07.312+00:002016-12-29T17:26:07.312+00:00I'm worried that a lot of these discussions se...I'm worried that a lot of these discussions seem to become linguistic rather than factual (definitional rather than scientific?). <br /><br />My bias is towards the relational approach, for various reasons. That said, I think those who like the dispositional approach are shaking their stick at real phenomena. People have dispositions: True. The environment has dispositions: True. When complementary dispositions smack into each other, things happen: True. <br /><br />Do you really think Chemero is shaking his stick at something that doesn't exist? Or do you simply think the thing he is shaking his stick at doesn't work as a definition of "affordances"? <br /><br />----- <br /><br />As for the critiques...<br /><br />I agree with Critique 1, and I think Tony is wrong to make a strong (metaphysical?) claim that affordances persist even when part of the relation is absent. I think you are correct that it is like the "loveliness" of the female hippo. All that means is that people often talk about affordances slightly wrong. They should say something awkward like "To such-and-such animal, which doesn't happen to be here at the moment, X would be afforded, but it technically isn't afforded to said type of animal at the moment, because said animal isn't here." Instead of such an awkward locution, those in our field commonly statements like "Those stairs afford running-up for a dog", even when there isn't a dog around, and everyone knows what is meant. <br /><br />Critique 2 seems odd. It seems to derive from A) an unnecessarily strong read of the claim that all perception is of affordances, and B) an unnecessarily strong claim that one can only perceive what is afforded to one's self. However, even if we keep those unnecessarily strong claims, there are still ways to get where you want to go! For example, we could spell out a system in which: I could potentially perceive - as a social affordance - that a high object is retrievable through certain actions directed at a taller social partner. I only perceive an affordance, and it is something afforded to me. <br /><br />Critique 3 is also odd. If relations are real, and real things create patterns in ambient energy under the right circumstances, and some of those patterns are capable of specification, then relations can be specified. I agree that the inertial tensor isn't the most intuitive example for that. However, to the extent that what happens when I move a rod creates information about both the rod and about myself, there is no a priori reason to declare it impossible that through such a process I would perceive a relation between the rod and myself. <br />Eric Charleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com