Greyson Abid is a sixth year graduate student in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He mainly works in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science.
What are you most proud of in your professional life?
I’m an Arab-American, but I’ve never taken a course in Arabic philosophy during my undergraduate or graduate studies. One thing I’m proud of is that I recently developed a lower-division Arabic philosophy course I plan to teach next summer. I’m excited because my department, to my knowledge, hasn’t offered a course like this before.
What are you working on right now?
I’m writing a dissertation about our capacity to recognize familiar people, places, and things. There are many interesting ontological and epistemic issues that arise when thinking about recognition in this sense, but right now I’m thinking about the phenomenological aspects of recognition.
One question that arises in this context: What does it mean for something to look familiar? If I’m walking around Philly and notice a person on Walnut Street, I might say they look familiar. But Walnut Street itself might look familiar, too. How can this be, given that people look nothing like streets? One possibility is that something looks familiar just in case it’s perceived in a certain way, or manner. So, while the person on Walnut Street and Walnut Street itself have very few superficial features in common, they both look familiar to me because I perceive both in a familiar way. I think this idea is plausible, but what exactly is this “familiar” way of perceiving? Very roughly, my suggestion is that we can think of it as a lazy way of perceiving, one in which we are not inclined to perceptually explore a thing and, from a perceptual point of view, take it for granted.
What topic do you think is under explored in philosophy?
Within philosophy of mind, I would love to read more work on signal detection theory (SDT). SDT was originally developed in the context of radar systems, but it is now utilized in the scientific study of perception and consciousness.
What is SDT all about, you ask? To take a toy example, suppose I’m asked to press a button whenever I notice a purple dot presented on a pink background. The task might not be very easy if the dots blend in with the background. I might mistakenly press the button even though no dot is present. This is called a false positive. Alternatively, I might fail to press the button even though a dot is present. This is called a false negative.
Across a number of trials, it’s easy for an experimenter to vary the rate of each type of error I produce. For example, if you say you’ll pay me $5 for correct button presses but charge me $1 for incorrect presses, I’ll produce many false-positives and few false-negatives. I’ll adopt what’s called a “liberal” bias. If the payoff structure were reversed, I’d instead produce few false positives and many false negatives. This is called a “conservative” bias.
If you’re concerned with my betting behaviors, you’ll be interested in studying these biases. But if you’re interested in how my perceptual system works, you may want a bias-free measure of my dot detection sensitivity. A central focus of SDT is in disentangling sensitivity and bias.
I think there’s a rich philosophical discussion to be had about the relationship between various measures in SDT, the psychological processes these measures are commonly taken to reflect, and consciousness. I’ve written one article about these issues, which you can find here, but I’d love to read (and write) more.
What do you like to do outside work?
I love backpacking. I recently hiked the High Sierra and John Muir Trails. It was a whirlwind. The worst part was when I found myself alone, caught waist-deep in snow at nearly 13,000 ft, while suffering from terrible altitude sickness. There were many best parts: I bathed in a remote hot spring along the Kern River, woke up next to alpine lakes and rivers almost every day, and saw a handful of bears in their natural habitat. In the near future, I’m hoping to hike the “L2H” trail, which takes you from the lowest point in North America (Badwater Basin in Death Valley) to the highest point in the lower 48 (the summit of Mt. Whitney). In the more distant future, I’m hoping to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.
What is your least favorite type of fruit and why?
String beans because they’re only technically fruit and, unlike other fruits, they need to be cooked before being eaten. And, even if you cook string beans and come to terms with the fact that you’re eating fruit, there’s still a good chance that they’ll taste like baby food, especially if you overcook and forget to salt them. If all this isn’t convincing enough, imagine being told that you’ve received a fruit basket in the mail only to later discover that it’s just string beans. Wouldn’t you be disappointed?
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
