The observer's observer's paradox

Perspectives are central to paradox, from perceptual illusions (Bruno, N. (2001). When does action resist visual illusions? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(9), 379–382), to dialetheism (Dietrich, E. (2008). The Bishop and Priest: Toward a point-of-view based epistemology of true contradictions. Logos Architekton. Journal of Logic and Philosophy of Science, 2, 35–58.; Dietrich & Webber, this issue). But why? We argue that apparent inconsistencies among perspectives are driven by the observer’s methods, goals, etc., of inquiry: The manner in which the observer is observing. It is well known in various areas of science that observers inherently disrupt the system that is being studied. But even after we have measurement schemes (or theoretical apparatus) for collecting maximally observer-untainted behavioural data, there remains an inextricable observer-centred influence. We consider the case of cognitive science, in which diverse theoretical frameworks on offer continue to be pitted against one another as if one were going to be churned out as true, and the others falsified. A simulation is developed in which the observer’s observer’s paradox is demonstrated in a highly idealised computational model of a scientist studying a system. We use a model-building method referred to as ‘e-machine reconstruction’ (Crutchfield, 1994) and provide readers a basic introduction to it. By using this framework to model the observer–measurement process, we explore how different measurement schemes impact resultant theories. The end product is a kind of existence proof, which we liken to more complicated circumstances of cognitive science. We argue that progress in cognitive science – overcoming apparently paradoxical persistence of several theoretical frameworks – may come from rendering the observer as an active aspect of these cognitive theories. The upshot would be one of two possibilities. Either theories are inconsistent because they ‘access’ divergent levels of organisation in the human cognitive system, or they may be integrated in an as-yet unknown theoretical framework.