Inference in Perception

The thesis of this paper is that perception is intelligent in that it is based on the same kinds of operations that characterize thought. However, the dependence of perception on sensory information makes for certain differences between it and “higher” cognitive functions such as imagination and thinking. Clearly the phenomenal experience of a percept is different from that of thought. Still the processes underlying these different mental end products may be quite similar. Although we know little about the nature of thought, a demonstration that perception results from cognitve operations does constitute an explanation. Others seek to explain perception in very different ways. To turn the problem around so to speak, it is entirely possible that thinking evolved from perception. Perception might be the evolutionary link between low level sensory processes that mediated simple detection of environmental changes in phylogenetically primitive organisms and high level cognitve processes.