moves, it is probably because something or someone pushed it. If the
leg of an animal moves, it may well be because the animal is pursuing a
particular goal.
This description may give the impression that sorting objects along
ontological distinctions and producing category-specific inferences is
a matter of explicit, deliberate thinking. Far from it. The distinctions
are constantly produced by the mind. We do not have to think about
them. To get a sense of how smoothly inference systems work, imag-
ine the following scene:
In a quiet and prosperous suburb, a dapper old gentleman with a hat
[96] comes out the back door of a house and walks across the lawn. He is
carrying a big screwdriver and a crowbar, which he puts in his trousers'
side-pockets. He looks around a few times and then proceeds along the
pavement. Not far from there, a child is playing with a huge Labrador
on a leash. All of a sudden, the dog starts at the sight of a cat in the next
garden and gives a sudden pull that makes the leash snap out of the
child's hand. The dog dashes after its prey, charges across the pavement
and knocks over the old man, who trips and falls flat on his face, his hat
rolling in the gutter. The man yells in pain as the screwdriver has
sprung out of his pocket and badly cut his arm. The man picks himself
up and limps away, massaging his bloodied hand, leaving his hat in the
gutter. You were not the only witness of all this; a police officer was
patrolling the neighborhood. She picks up the hat, runs after the gen-
tleman, puts her hand on his shoulder and says "Hey, wait!" As the man
turns he recoils in visible shock at the sight of the police officer, looks
around as if trying to find an escape route and finally says: "All right, all
right. It's a fair cop." From his pockets he extracts a handful of rings
and necklaces and hands them over to the bemused police officer.
Although perhaps not altogether riveting (we are far from Jane
Austen), the scene illustrates how multiple inference systems are
involved in the perceptionof apparently simple events. Were you a wit-
ness to all this you might be surprised by some events but you would
understand all of them. This is not because there is some center in the
brain that is busy understanding "what is happening to the man, the
little girl, the dog and the police officer." It is because a whole confed-
eracy of different systems are involved in handling particular aspects
of the scene. Consider these:
- Understanding the physics of solid objects: The dog yanked the leash
out of the child's hand and knocked over a passerby. The link
RELIGION EXPLAINED