This post is a reply by Phil Corlett (Yale) (pictured below) to Dan Williams's recent post on Hierarchical Bayesian Models of Delusions . Dan Williams has put forward a lucid and compelling critique of hierarchical Bayesian models of cognition and perception and, in particular, their application to delusions. I want to take the opportunity to respond to Dan’s two criticisms outlined so concisely on the blog (and in his excellent paper) and then comment on the paper more broadly. Dan is “ sceptical that beliefs—delusional or otherwise—exist at the higher levels of a unified inferential hierarchy in the neocortex . ” He says, “ every way of characterising this proposed hierarchy... is inadequate .” Stating that “ it can’t be true both that beliefs exist at the higher levels of the inferential hierarchy and that higher levels of the hierarchy represent phenomena at large spatiotemporal scales . There are no such content restrictions on beliefs, whether delusional ...
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