Predicting peace : the end of the representation wars ; a reply to Michael Madary

Abstract

Michael Madary’s visionary and incisive commentary brings into clear and productive focus some of the deepest, potentially most transformative, implications of the Predictive Processing (PP) framework. A key thread running through the commentary concerns the active and “organism-relative” nature of the inner states underlying perception and action. In this Reply, I pick up this thread, expanding upon some additional features that extend and underline Madary’s point. I then ask, What remains of the bedrock picture of inner states bearing familiar representational contents? The answer is not clear-cut. I end by suggesting that we have here moved so far from a once-standard complex of ideas concerning the nature and role of the inner states underlying perception and action that stale old debates concerning the existence, nature, and role of “internal representations” should now be abandoned and peace declared.