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Another Interface Problem: Action

The interface problem: explain how intentions and motor representations, with their distinct representational formats, are related in such a way that, in at least some cases, the outcomes they specify non-accidentally match.
‘both mundane cases of action slips and pathological conditions, such as apraxia or anarchic hand syndrome (AHS), illustrate the existence of an interface problem’ \citep[p.~7]{mylopoulos:2016_intentions}.
Two collections of outcomes, A and B, \emph{match} in a particular context just if, in that context, either the occurrence of the A-outcomes would normally constitute or cause, at least partially, the occurrence of the B-outcomes or vice versa. To illustrate, one way of matching is for the B-outcomes to be the A-outcomes. Another way of matching is for the B-outcomes to stand to the A-outcomes as elements of a more detailed plan stand to those of a less detailed one.
Imagine that you are strapped to a spinning wheel facing near certain death as it plunges you into freezing water. To your right you can see a lever and to your left there is a button. In deciding that pulling the lever offers you a better chance of survival than pushing the button, you form an intention to pull the lever, hoping that this will stop the wheel. If things go well, and if intentions are not mere epiphenomena, this intention will result in your reaching for, grasping and pulling the lever. These actions---reaching, grasping and pulling---may be directed to specific outcomes in virtue of motor representations which guide their execution. It shouldn't be an accident that, in your situation, you both intend to pull a lever and you end up with motor representations of reaching for, grasping and pulling that very lever, so that the outcomes specified by your intention match those specified by motor representations. If this match between outcomes variously specified by intentions and by motor representations is not to be accidental, what could explain it?

The Interface Problem:

How are non-accidental matches possible?

Motor representations specify goals.

As we have just seen, motor representations specify goals.

Intentions specify goals.

And of course, so do intentions.

Some actions involve both intention and motor representation.

Further, many actions involve both intention and motor representation. When, for example, you form an intention to turn the lights out, the goal of flipping the light switch may be represented motorically in you.
The nonaccidental success of our actions therefore depends on the outcomes specified by our intentions and motor representations matching.

Intention and motor representation are not inferentially integrated (because representational format?).

Two outcomes, A and B, match in a particular context just if, in that context, either the occurrence of A would normally constitute or cause, at least partially, the occurrence of B or vice versa.

But how should they match? I think they should match in this sense: the occurrence of the outcome specified by the motor representation would would normally constitute or cause, at least partially, the occurrence of the outcome specified by the intention.
Now we have to ask, How are nonaccidental matches possible? If you asked a similar question about desire and intention, the answer would be straightforward: desire and intention are integrated in practical reasoning, so it is no surprise that what you intend sometimes nonaccidentally conforms to what you intend. But we cannot give the same sort of answer in the case of motor representations and intentions because ...
Intention and motor representation are not inferentially integrated.
Beliefs, desires and intentions are related to the premises and conclusions in practical reasoning. Motor representations are not. Similarly, intentions do not feature in motor processes.
Failure of inferential integration follows from the claim that they differ in format and are not translated. But I suspect that more people will agree that there is a lack of inferential integration than that they differ in representational format. (must illustrate format with maps).
So this is the Interface Problem: how do the outcomes specified by intentions and motor representations ever nonaccidentally match?

‘both mundane cases of action slips and pathological conditions, such as apraxia or anarchic hand syndrome (AHS), illustrate the existence of an interface problem.’

Mylopoulos and Pacherie (2016, p. 7)

Having an intention is neither necessary nor sufficient.
Jeannerod 2006, p. 12: ‘the term apraxia was coined by Liepmann to account for higher order motor disorders observed in patients who, in spite of having no problem in executing simple actions (e.g. grasping an object), fail in actions involving more complex, and perhaps more conceptual, representations.’
Can people with ideomotor apraxia form intentions?
\citep[p.~7]{mylopoulos:2016_intentions}: ‘Typically the result of lesion to SMA or anterior corpus callosum, AHS is a condition in which patients perform complex, goal-oriented movements with their cross-lesional limb that they feel unable to directly inhibit or control. The limb is often disproportionately reactive to environmental stimuli, carrying out habitual behaviors that are inappropriate to the context, e.g., grabbing food from a dinner companion’s plate (Della Sala 2005, 606). It is clear from many of the behaviors observed in these cases that the anarchic limb fails to hook up with the agent’s intentions.’
In the rest of this talk I’m not going to suggest a solution to the interface problem. Instead, I want to mention some considerations which may complicate attempts to solve it.