Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 June 2020
The commentaries address our view of abstraction, our ontology of abstract entities, and our account of predictive cognition as relying on relatively concrete simulation or relatively abstract theory-based inference. These responses revisit classic questions concerning mental representation and abstraction in the context of current models of predictive cognition. The counter arguments to our article echo: constructivist theories of knowledge, “neat” approaches in artificial intelligence and decision theory, neo-empiricist models of concepts, and externalist views of cognition. We offer several empirical predictions that address points of contention and that highlight the generative potential of our model.
Target article
Above and beyond the concrete: The diverse representational substrates of the predictive brain
Related commentaries (31)
A challenge for predictive coding: Representational or experiential diversity?
A modern materialist approach to abstraction, concreteness, and explanation in cognition
Above and beyond the content: Feelings influence mental simulations
Abstracting abstraction in development and cognitive ability
Abstracting reward
Abstraction still holds its feet on the ground
Abstraction: An alternative neurocognitive account of recognition, prediction, and decision making
Abstractions, predictions, and speech sound representations
Are all distances created equal? Insights from developmental psychology
Catching the intangible: a role for emotion?
Cognitive representations and the predictive brain depend heavily on the environment
Dynamic hierarchical cognition: Music and language demand further types of abstracta
Experiences of liking versus ideas about liking
Is it always so? Unexpected visions
Language as a mental travel guide
Mind wandering as data augmentation: How mental travel supports abstraction
Neuronal codes for predictive processing in cortical layers
On the implications of object permanence: Microhistorical insights from Piaget's new theory
Other and other waters in the river: Autism and the futility of prediction
Prospection does not imply predictive processing
Representation and agency
Representation, abstraction, and simple-minded sophisticates
Scale-free architectures support representational diversity
Shared reality and abstraction: The social nature of predictive models
Simulation across representation: The interplay of schemas and simulation-based inference on different levels of abstraction
Simulation and the predictive brain
Structured event complexes are the primary representation in the human prefrontal cortex
Successful simulation requires bridging levels of abstraction
The productive mind: Creativity as a source of abstract mental representations
The role of sleep in the formation and updating of abstract mental representations
Touch me if you can: The intangible but grounded nature of abstract concepts
Author response
Above and beyond “Above and beyond the concrete”