Analog representations and their users

Matthew Katz

pp. 851-871

in: Thomas Ågotnes, Giacomo Bonanno, Wiebe van der Hoek (eds), Logic and the foundations of game and decision theory, Synthese 193 (3), 2016.

Abstract

Characterizing different kinds of representation is of fundamental importance to cognitive science, and one traditional way of doing so is in terms of the analog–digital distinction. Indeed the distinction is often appealed to in ways both narrow and broad. In this paper I argue that the analog–digital distinction does not apply to representational schemes but only to representational systems, where a representational system is constituted by a representational scheme and its user, and that whether a representational system is analog or non-analog depends on facts about that user. This aspect of the distinction has gone unnoticed, and I argue that the failure to notice it can be an impediment to scientific progress.