Before I start with my ‘background check’ for what we need for the creation and maintenance of a shared perspectival systemic space, I want to address two core issues of perspectivity. I already alluded to the first issue in this posts title, which is an amusing typo to be found on page 92 of Talmy Givón's (2005) book "Context as Other Minds: The Pragmatics of Sociality, Cognition and Communication"
The first issues is largely an epistemic one. In a speculative account of what might have happened evolutionary so that we have the ability to entertain cognitive perspective, I would begin like this:
- The first necessary component for perspective is the ability to form mental representations, i.e. internal representations of outside reality.
But I think it is important that at this point we are still talking “Beanbag Semantics” (Dennett 2003, Dennett 1995): Nowadays we know, for example, that the relation between single genes and the actual phenotypic traits an organism develops is not as easy as Mendelian beanbag genetics, but is in fact incredibly complex and depends on a variety of factors. Yet in some contexts it still makes sense for a biologist to speak of a ‘gene for x’, which then only implies that there seems to be a causal connections between to things, which can later be investigated more closely. Whereas in biology we by now have a pretty good idea how genes work, we still don’t really have a clue what ‘mental representations’ or ‘mental structures’ actually are, how they work, and how they are implemented in the brain. We are still at the ‘beanbag’ level, so to speak, and thus it seems perfectly alright to attribute ‘mental representations’ until we have found more about how this process actually works.
“There is, then, nothing wrong with using a term like ‘mental representation’ to label an entity whose physical properties we are only beginning to understand" (Cheney & Seyfarth 2007: 240)
it is important to note that this conceptualization is above all a “‘metaphor’ for individual systems of orientation” (Bredel 2002: 176, Graumann 1994: 61)
Another fascinating facet of any approach to perspectivity is the question of how rational decisions are grounded in the perspectives and of an individual and result in perspectival actions and choices.
To be more precise. On the one hand the frame of reference of an individual is one of the most basic parts of her perspective (Bischof-Köhler 2000, Bischof-Köhler & Bischof 2007) On the other hand, we can construe individuals a rational agents who try to act according to their “Natural Rationality”, based on multiple interacting processes of decision-making, trying to act as rational as possible given their precise perspective and choices, acting on clearly calculated incentives.
In this fascinating Blogginheads discussion, Tim Harford presents his new book “The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World”, in which he argues that even when a prostitute agrees to have sex without a condom, or someone starts smoking, these decisions are based on rational calculation, given the current perspective of these economically acting agents.
Similarly, Benoit Hardy-Vallée, on his cool blog Natural Rationality, regularly posts on decision-making in humans and non-human animals, based on the theoretical assumption that natural selection is a powerful player able to implement rational decision making strategies in organisms, and that many irrational-seeming decisions are based on calculations which seem perfectly rational from the agent’s present perspective. Hardy-Vallée cites Dan Gilbert’s work on affective forecasting as an example of this tendency to base rational decisions on faulty information. In this case, our predictions are imperfect because we are unable to predict our own future psychological states correctly. This happens because we often simulate future events based on memories that don’t represent the past only inaccurately. These memories are ‘essentialized’, only containing the core features of past events, and are abbreviate,
“which means that mental simulations tend to overrepresent the moments that evoke the most intense pleasure or pain.” (Gilbert & Wilson 2007: 1353)
The TED-Website features a very entertaining talk by Dan Gilbert on his research on our flawed prospective system.
A virtual systemic space thus is a key property of our ability to make advanced rational decisions, even if these still seem to be seriously flawed in some respects.
So it seems that shared systemic spaces do not only enable us to communicate, cooperate and share intentions about these mental representations. Neither do they only enable us to form mental models of reality and basing our predictions on these models by taking the physical, design, or intentional stance towards certain referents in these internal models.
On a more general level, in the optimal condition they enable us to base our decisions on our natural multiperspectival rationality.
2003: 135–155
Dennett, Daniel C. 1995.
Givón, Talmy. 2005. Context as Other Minds: The Pragmatics of Sociality, Cognition and Communication. John Benjamins.
Graumann, Carl F. 1994. Wieviel Zeigen steckt im Nennen? Zur Situiertheit des Sprachgebrauchs. In: H.J. Kornadt, J. Gabrowski, & R. Mangold-Allwinn (Eds.) Sprache und Kognition. Perspektiven moderner Sprachpsychologie.
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