Coming from the math thread. Do animals have rational thinking? Do animals have communication skills? Is intuitive thinking rational or maybe something better?
Yes, rationality includes more than differentiating between accurate/inaccurate information. I was making that case.
— creativesoul
Yes. But it does include differentiating between accurate and inaccurate information, doesn't it?
I'm not fond of "information". It smuggles meaning.
There are all sorts of language less creatures(creatures devoid of naming and description practices) capable of differentiating between distal objects. Again, I'm not fond of invoking some notion of "information". That's adding complexity. I'd rather excise the unnecessary and unhelpful approaches to the topic.
Not all differentiation between accurate and inaccurate information requires articulated reason/thought.
...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads apart from observing their behavior and body language...
That's not true. We can know quite a bit about how biological minds work. It dovetails with knowledge about how all things become meaningful. How statements become true/false. How we can preserve truth with timestamping, etc. I wouldn't talk about thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience in terms of "what goes on in the head". It works from emaciated notions of all three.
Some people say that they think in images. That would be independent of language.
— Ludwig V
I very much wish I knew one of these people, so I could talk with them and ask many questions.
That's not true. We can know quite a bit about how biological minds work. It dovetails with knowledge about how all things become meaningful. How statements become true/false. How we can preserve truth with timestamping, etc. I wouldn't talk about thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience in terms of "what goes on in the head". It works from emaciated notions of all three.
You might know what goes on in your head via introspection. You won't know what goes in mine except I tell you truthfully and presuming I know myself. We can get a fairly good idea about what animals feel from their behavior and body language, or at least so it seems. We have no access to the inner workings of their minds. It's even questionable how much access we have to our own.
You won't know what goes in mine except I tell you truthfully
That's not at all true either Janus. I know beyond all doubt that you're drawing correlations between the words we use and all sorts of other things, including how the activity itself[hide="Reveal"](the fact that we're discussing whether or not we can know something about animal minds aside from our own)[/hide] is affecting you.
It's a matter of precision you're after, I suspect. In that case, I still disagree. I've been involved in conversation with someone embroiled in unsettled emotional turmoil who really believed that they were not.
That's not at all true either Janus. I know beyond all doubt that you're drawing correlations between the words we use and all sorts of other things, including how the activity itself is affecting you.
That is nothing more than a generalized notion of how minds work. It gives you no specific knowledge of what is going on in the minds of other humans, much less animals.
That's not at all true either Janus. I know beyond all doubt that you're drawing correlations between the words we use and all sorts of other things, including how the activity itself is affecting you.
— creativesoul
That is nothing more than a generalized notion of how minds work. It gives you no specific knowledge of what is going on in the minds of other humans, much less animals.
As if a universal criterion is a bad thing? We can know that a cat believes that there is a mouse under the cabinet. We can know that the cat's belief is meaningful to the cat. We can know that all meaningful experience is meaningful to the creature having it. There are all sorts of things we can know about animal minds Janus.
We can know that our own meaningful experience began long before we talked about it.
In order to know one is projecting human thought onto creatures incapable of forming, having, and/or holding such thought, one must know what the differences are between them such that they can know that the one is incapable of forming, having, and/or holding the others' thought, belief, meaningful experience.
Reply to creativesoul I haven't disagreed that we can make generalized conjectures about how human and animal minds work.
The point is we have no way of testing such conjectures and nothing to rely on but the imprecise subjective criterion of plausibility in our judgements of their soundness.
You have offered nothing that I didnt already know and nothing that would provide grounds for me to revise my understanding of our epistemic situation regarding other minds.
Its a generalization and I doubt animals have a generalized conceptual notion we could refer as 'danger'.
Then what do the sentries outside meerkat burrows, groundhog colonies, wild goose nesting grounds and rookeries shout when a hawk or kestrel or coyote or fox or cheetah or snapping turtle is spotted? Quoting Janus
So we are merely working with what seems most plausible, and plausibility is in the final analysis in the eye of the beholder.
As in all learning, yes, until a more complete answer, one that fits more criteria, becomes available.
Then what do the sentries outside meerkat burrows, groundhog colonies, wild goose nesting grounds and rookeries shout when a hawk or kestrel or coyote or fox or cheetah or snapping turtle is spotted?
I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. I have acknowledged that I believe animals sense danger. I'm not sure what you think we are disagreeing about.
What if it gets no interaction? Does the brain wire badly? Does a time come when it is too late for things to work out well, no matter what happens? And what about irrational people who got the interaction that works best in the vast majority of cases?
Your first three questions are empirical, not philosophical. My understanding is that there is empirical evidence that there are "windows" when the brain learns certain things particularly fast. If that window is missed for any reason, it will be difficult to impossible to learn it later. Examples are ducklings learning who is mum. They will fasten on the first large moving object they see and follow it faithfully until they are grown. Konrad Lorenz famously got one brood to imprint on him. That can't be changed, I believe. Another example is language learning in humans. If a baby doesn't get sufficient human interaction between specific ages, it till be very difficult to learn language later in life.
As to irrational people, We are all a mixture. More than that, rationality can't get going without some pre-rational starting-point. In any case, it seems to me that it is not really appropriate to call a new-born baby rational or irrational. Rationality develops quite slowly and I wouldn't say there was a threshold point between the two. Sadly, it also declines ln old age, but also slowly.
Not disagreeing; amplifying. People can be seen to act rationally even when they don't explain their motivations and sources of information. When you see someone doing the very same thing you would do in their circumstances, it's reasonable to assume they're thinking the same way.
OK. You are indeed perfectly right. Dortmunder :lol:
Its a generalization and I doubt animals have a generalized conceptual notion we could refer as 'danger'.
— Janus
Then what do the sentries outside meerkat burrows, groundhog colonies, wild goose nesting grounds and rookeries shout when a hawk or kestrel or coyote or fox or cheetah or snapping turtle is spotted?
"Our" concept of danger includes appropriate reaction to it. When animals exhibit similar behaviour in similar circumstances there's no good reason to withhold applying the concept to it. Apart from anything else, it enables us to understand what's going on - and that is the point of the exercise. But it is fair enough to say that any application need to be considered in the context of the overall patterns of behaviour that they exhibit. One case doesn't give us much insight, but each case contributes to our insight.
Plus there is nothing scientific about the accuracy of the train time shown on the website, why it has to be the info, and not otherwise.
I see. The only knowledge is scientific knowledge, which excludes second-hand knowledge. But science is only possible because research starts on the basis of the results of previous research, and no-one is expected to repeat all that work for themselves. Newton standing on the shoulders of giants. Moreover, in order to do experiments, read texts, discuss ideas and results, they have to rely on common sense and common knowledge.
I have caught the 7:00 train every working day for the last 5 years. Standing on the platform at 6:55, I notice the signal changing. I have noticed that same event every time I have caught the train in the past. I expect the train to arrive shortly. I think that's inductive reasoning.
Shorlty after the signal changes, I hear a loudspeaker announcement that the train will arrive shortly. The same thing has happened every time in the past. I therefore believe the announcement. I think that's also inductive reasoning.
Yes, I do have blind faith in inductive reasoning, as Hume noticed. One has to start somewhere. One also has to risk being wrong in order to be right.
Watching many different things fall through space leads one to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.
Careful! Things only fall through space at the same speed in a vacuum. Most people have never watched anything fall through space in a vacuum. Galileo certainly never did. His "proof" was a thought-experiment - or at least I understand that is the case.
Tacit and articulate reasoning overlap one another.
Yes. They interact as well. Our knowledge of language is mostly tacit, but we can articulate rules in various ways. Quoting creativesoul
I'm not sure how the notions of "tacit" and "articulate" are adequate tools for acquiring knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge of it.
Quite so. There are only two (maybe three) ways that I'm aware of. One is the idea that tacit knowledge is exactly the same as articulate reasoning, but very fast. That's the traditional philosophical approach and has mostly fallen into disfavour. (Who says philosophy never makes progress?) Then there's the idea of "unconscious" reasoning and belief. There are very ancient roots of this idea, but the modern concept was developed in the 19th century. It was very like conscious reasoning and belief but was, by definition, not available to "introspection". The last one is the modern model of the information processing machine. This seems to ignore the question of tacit vs articulate reasoning and belief.
I don't think that the fact that the phenomenon existed long before we knew of it is necessarily a bar to our acquiring knowledge of it. After all, the same applies to most physics and chemistry. The real problem is that we have no way, at least at present, of getting empirical access to it.
since there seems to be a commonality of body language across at least some species we can speculate about other animals experience.
I do agree that there is a commonality of body language, and you are right to say "across at least some species". But describing our experience is no different from a gesture, a grimace or a smile or a wagging tail in terms of knowing what is going on in someone's head. If we can know what human beings are experience or thinking from their non-linguistic behaviour, why is it speculation to interpret that (ex hypothesi) animal behaviour in the same way. I can see no rational difference.
If you are treating abstract objects as particulars then yes. My point was that numbers are themselves generalizations.
For me, a generalization is a statement or proposition of the logical form I described. So you are missing the point. I am indeed "treating" abstract objects as particulars. So are you when you describe them as abstract objects.
We have no access to the inner workings of their minds. It's even questionable how much access we have to our own.
That's why I think it is a mistake to think that explaining animal actions has much to do with divining the inner workings of their minds. Mind you, I don't think that it is a determining factor in explaining human actions, either. It's more like interpreting a picture. Yes, sometimes we set out to divine the intentions of the artist, but not always. Sometimes it is just a question of seeing what is in the picture. (Puzzle pictures).
I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. I have acknowledged that I believe animals sense danger. I'm not sure what you think we are disagreeing about.
You seem to consider symbols important. I don't think it makes any difference to the concept whether there is a call, a word or a pictogram signifying 'danger', so long as the message is transmitted and received - i.e. the concept is shared within a species or a tribe: everybody ducks for cover to escape the danger, or flies up in dive-bombing formation to combat it.
I have caught the 7:00 train every working day for the last 5 years. Standing on the platform at 6:55, I notice the signal changing. I have noticed that same event every time I have caught the train in the past. I expect the train to arrive shortly. I think that's inductive reasoning.
Yes, it is an inductive reasoning. You have your knowledge based on your past observations on the events.
...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads apart from observing their behavior and body language...
This is mistaken in more than one way. It is false.
We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways [hide="Reveal"]if and when we're testing hypothesis[/hide]. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more. If one theory proves beyond a reasonable doubt that X is the case, and another theory depends upon the opposite, well...
...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads...
That's false. It's also incomplete enough to be troublesome.
The point is we have no way of testing such conjectures and nothing to rely on but the imprecise subjective criterion of plausibility in our judgements of their soundness.
And yet, we are discussing what you claim we have no way of knowing about.
You have offered nothing that I didnt already know and nothing that would provide grounds for me to revise my understanding of our epistemic situation regarding other minds.
You are having a conversation about whether or not other animals can think rationally. How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads?
Behavior alone is utterly inadequate. We are seeking knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it. Meaningful experience prior to language.
We can know that language less thought and belief cannot include any language that is meaningful to the creature under consideration. Language is not meaningful to a language less creature. If doing X requires using language, the language less creatures cannot do X.
Thinking about one's own belief is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon common language/shared meaning.
Body language assessment suffers the issues of which you complain. Reading another's body language is to attribute meaning to the behavior.
Claiming to know how animals feel is unacceptable when accompanied by having no way of knowing what's in their mind.
We can know that a language less creature is incapable of metacognition. If doing Y requires metacognition, and creature 1 has no language, then we can know that creature 1 cannot do Y. If doing Y is required for achieving a goal, then creature 1 has no ability to achieve that goal.
I see. The only knowledge is scientific knowledge, which excludes second-hand knowledge. But science is only possible because research starts on the basis of the results of previous research, and no-one is expected to repeat all that work for themselves. Newton standing on the shoulders of giants. Moreover, in order to do experiments, read texts, discuss ideas and results, they have to rely on common sense and common knowledge.
If Newton had been observing the apples falling from the trees to the ground without the scientific discovery, then it would have been just described as daily perception of an ordinary bloke. But he discovered the scientific principle from the observation, which made into the history.
The same could apply to your case. If you had discovered some ground breaking new scientific principle such as a possibility of time travel or something like that, from your observation of the train arriving at 7:00 everyday to your station platform, then it would have been a case of inductive reasoning. However, only thing you have observed in that exercise was that train arrives at 7:00 every day to your platform, which is just a trivial part of daily life of an ordinary bloke. Would anyone class the case as a rational thinking based on the inductive reasoning? I doubt it.
Inductive reasoning is a scientific method of applying our reasoning in forming the principles and theories from the observations, not daily ordinary habitual perceptions of general public.
I don't think it makes any difference to the concept whether there is a call, a word or a pictogram signifying 'danger', so long as the message is transmitted and received - i.e. the concept is shared within a species or a tribe: everybody ducks for cover to escape the danger, or flies up in dive-bombing formation to combat it.
I would go further than that. Let's distinguish the word "danger" and the concept of danger. Creatures that don't speak human-style languages don't have access to the word. But the concept is wider than speech. It involves the possibility of harm to oneself (and others) and appropriate reactions (fight or flight) to that possibility. None of that requires any understanding of human-style languages. What's more, the behavioural reactions are more important in the concept that the ability to articulate what we would understand as a sentence.
Hume said that inductive reasoning can be irrational. Therefore your reasoning on the train arrival time could be irrational.
Well, he didn't say exactly that. But the point that is usually made is that inductive reasoning can be wrong - which doesn't necessarily mean that it is irrational. Hume made two points in the light of his argument. The first was that we are going to go on using it even though it may be wrong and the second was that it was as much of a proof as you will ever get of how the world works, and even ends up (in the section on miracles) calling it a "proof, whole and entire".
We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways if and when we're testing hypothesis. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more.
How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads?
More than that, we also rely on observation of behaviour to know what's going on in each other's heads, as you suggest.
I'm afraid that there's a certain ambiguity going on here, and it's my fault. There's an ambiguity between the sense of "what's going on in X's head" in which observation of behaviour is a normal and reliable way of discovery and the "experiential" or phenomenological sense of what's going on in X's head." In that sense, we have no access at all to what's going on in anyone's head, because the only person who has access to it is X. (As in Mary's room or bats.) I don't think discovering the rationality of animals or humans is particularly closely connected to latter. Nagel thinks (unless I'm mistaken) that it is not possible.
Inductive reasoning is a scientific method of applying our reasoning in forming the principles and theories from the observations, not daily ordinary habitual perceptions of general public.
The story of Newton's apple is a bit more complicated than the popular summary. But apart from that, it seems pretty clear to me that Newton would not have made any inductive inference from one case. If he did, it would not be rational.
So John Doe and his friends and relations are not rational - ever? You set a high bar.
There is another problem. When Newton wanders in from his apple tree for afternoon tea and a gossip, does he cease being rational because he's behaving in an everyday way?
Perhaps we are all sometimes rational and sometimes not.
Watching many different things fall through space leads one to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.
— creativesoul
Careful! Things only fall through space at the same speed in a vacuum. Most people have never watched anything fall through space in a vacuum. Galileo certainly never did. His "proof" was a thought-experiment - or at least I understand that is the case.
Tacit and articulate reasoning overlap one another.
— creativesoul
Yes. They interact as well. Our knowledge of language is mostly tacit, but we can articulate rules in various ways.
I'm not sure how the notions of "tacit" and "articulate" are adequate tools for acquiring knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge of it.
— creativesoul
Quite so. There are only two (maybe three) ways that I'm aware of. One is the idea that tacit knowledge is exactly the same as articulate reasoning, but very fast. That's the traditional philosophical approach and has mostly fallen into disfavour. (Who says philosophy never makes progress?) Then there's the idea of "unconscious" reasoning and belief. There are very ancient roots of this idea, but the modern concept was developed in the 19th century. It was very like conscious reasoning and belief but was, by definition, not available to "introspection". The last one is the modern model of the information processing machine. This seems to ignore the question of tacit vs articulate reasoning and belief.
I don't think that the fact that the phenomenon existed long before we knew of it is necessarily a bar to our acquiring knowledge of it. After all, the same applies to most physics and chemistry. The real problem is that we have no way, at least at present, of getting empirical access to it.
I'm working on a reply to this and what followed. Shows a bit of promise from where I sit, so to speak. Thanks.
Well, he didn't say exactly that. But the point that is usually made is that inductive reasoning can be wrong - which doesn't necessarily mean that it is irrational. Hume made two points in the light of his argument. The first was that we are going to go on using it even though it may be wrong and the second was that it was as much of a proof as you will ever get of how the world works, and even ends up (in the section on miracles) calling it a "proof, whole and entire".
You got it wrong again. Hume was not concerned on the fact that inductive reasoning can be wrong. What he was saying was that, "there can be no demonstrative arguments to prove, that those instances, of which we have had no experience, resemble those, of which we have had experience." (A Treatise, Hume).
You have been seeing the train arriving at the train station at 7:00 every morning for last x number of years. That does not logically warrants you to expect the train will arrive at 7:00 next morning. There is "no demonstrative arguments to prove."
It is not about right or wrong on the inductive reasoning, but isn't it about lack of logical or rational ground in the reasoning Hume was pointing out?
Hume was not concerned on the fact that inductive reasoning can be wrong. What he was saying was that, "there can be no demonstrative arguments to prove, that those instances, of which we have had no experience, resemble those, of which we have had experience." (A Treatise, Hume).
Oh, so now we are classifying as rational only what is proof against philosophical scepticism.
As to Hume, I suggest that the implication of there being no demonstrative argument is that one might be wrong - that's why everybody prefers demonstrative arguments. (Though it is possible to be wrong about even those.You are right, however, to interpret "demonstrative" as meaning conclusive and hence logical, in the strict sense. This is usually taken to mean sound by the standards of formal logic. Which makes almost the whole of humanity irrational.
But the devil is in the detail:-
Hume, Treatise, Pt II, Section XI, pg 124:Those philosophers, who have divided human reason into knowledge and probability, and have defin'd the first to be thaf evidence, which arises from the comparison of ideas, are oblig'd to comprehend all our arguments from causes or effects under the general term of probability. But tho' every one be free to use his terms in what sense he pleases; and accordingly in the precedent part of this discourse, I have follow'd this method of expression; 'tis however certain, that in common discourse we readily affirm, that many arguments from causation exceed probability, and may be receiv'd as a superior kind of evidence. One wou'd appear ridiculous, who wou'd say, that 'tis only probable the sun will rise to-morrow, or that all men must dye; tho' 'tis plain we have no further assurance of these facts, than what experience affords us. For this reason, 'twould perhaps be more convenient, in order at once to preserve the common signification of words, and mark the several degrees of evidence, to distinguish human reason into three kinds, viz. that from knowledge, from proofs, and from probabilities. By knowledge, I mean the assurance arising from the comparison of ideas. By proofs, those arguments, which are deriv'd from the relation of cause and effect, and which are entirely free from doubt and uncertainty. By probability, that evidence, which is still attended with uncertainty
Later on, in his "Enquiry" he says:-
Hume, Enquiry, Section VI, footnote 1:Mr. Locke divides all arguments into demonstrative and probable. In this view, we must say, that it is only probable all men must die, or that the sun will rise to-morrow. But to conform our language more to common use, we ought to divide arguments into demonstrations, proofs, and probabilities. By proofs meaning such arguments from experience as leave no room for doubt or opposition.
You have been seeing the train arriving at the train station at 7:00 every morning for last x number of years. That does not logically warrants you to expect the train will arrive at 7:00 next morning. There is "no demonstrative arguments to prove."
I don't think I ever suggested that I had logically conclusive evidence.
however, to interpret "demonstrative" as meaning conclusive and hence logical, in the strict sense. This is usually taken to mean sound by the standards of formal logic. Which makes almost the whole of humanity irrational.
Scientific principles and theories require justification and proofs backed by demonstrative argument. I am not sure what you mean by the standards of formal logic, which makes the whole humanity irrational. Why would formal logic make the whole humanity irrational? Formal logic is another area of academic subjects which enables human reasoning more rational.
Scientific principles and theories require justification and proofs backed by demonstrative argument. I am not sure what you mean by the standards of formal logic, which makes the whole humanity irrational. Why would formal logic make the whole humanity irrational? Formal logic is another area of academic subjects which enables human reasoning more rational.
It is not desirable to be 100% formal logic because what is so may not be so tomorrow and our thinking needs to be flexible. We need to be creative. We need to think about what is and what can be. Humans have taken creative thinking and created their own reality. This is beyond what animals do.
Even when the river has cement banks... Yes. There have always been movements in civilized societies, of a small number of people who lived, or attempted to live, a more genuine, nature-grounded lifestyle.
I wouldn't call the fugitive subsistence of the Mashco Piro Eden, exactly, though they look pretty healthy. I see no reason we couldn't strike a compromise between the destruction of nature and our own needs. But humans tend to run at everything at full tilt.
People around the world live as they did at the beginning of humanity. They can use nature to meet their needs, as animals do, but they did not advance as people in the modern world did. Why? Why don't all humans advance?
Maybe we don't all have the same definition of 'advance'. Maybe some territories were too remote and poor for conquest, and therefore the inhabitants of those undesirable lands didn't have their traditional lifestyle ripped away and destroyed, as so many others did. By the same token, having territory with scant resources means there is not much leisure time for contemplation or extra material for development.
But if you mean, what caused civilization where it did happen, that's a more complex answer. It probably doesn't belong here, but I can point you to a source for the basics. Fundamental difference: enough surplus (of food, natural resources and labour) to support specialized unproductive classes of people, such as administration, priesthood, judiciary and law enforcement, military and clerical, thus stratifying the society and perpetuating a power structure. The influential classes can then patronize artisans and inventors and allocate resources to their own comfort, enrichment, armaments/fortification and glorification through ritual, spectacles, monuments and elaborate burials.
Reply to Vera Mont It's not that I've been arguing that symbols are important but rather that there is an important distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic signs. I don't think it is controversial that one thing we possess that other animals don't seem to is symbolic language.
Also if you've been reading what I've been writing you should know that I agree with you that human exceptionalism is a mistake.
For me, a generalization is a statement or proposition of the logical form I described. So you are missing the point.I am indeed "treating" abstract objects as particulars. So are you when you describe them as abstract objects.
So you think I am missing the point when I describe abstract objects as abstract objects? :roll:
I don't think I am missing any point. Abstract objects may be treated as generalizations or particulars and I have not said nor implied anything that contradicts that.
That's why I think it is a mistake to think that explaining animal actions has much to do with divining the inner workings of their minds. Mind you, I don't think that it is a determining factor in explaining human actions, either. It's more like interpreting a picture. Yes, sometimes we set out to divine the intentions of the artist, but not always. Sometimes it is just a question of seeing what is in the picture. (Puzzle pictures).
It seems to me that you have missing the point of what I've been saying and not the other way around since I have said that whatever we know about animal minds is derived from observing their behavior and body language and I have not been concerned at all with explaining their behavior by purportedly
somehow knowing what is going on in their minds. The same goes for humans except that they can also explain themselves linguistically. Of course the verity of those explanations relies on the one doing the explaining being both correct and honest.
I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger.
— Janus
Sorry, I don't understand what that difference is.
A symbol is a kind of sign but not all signs are symbols. Smoke is a sign of fire, but smoke does not symbolize fire. An animal cry may be a sign of whatever but it does not symbolize whatever it might be a sign of.
It's not that I've been arguing that symbols are important but rather that there is an important distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic signs. don't think it is controversial that one thing we possess that other animals don't seem to is symbolic language.
When you don't have access to the other entity's mind, I'm not sure you're justified in assuming they have no symbolic communication. You're probably correct in that symbolic language is a uniquely human achievement. What I don't see in practice or agree with in theory is that symbolic language is a prerequisite of rational thought.
Why would formal logic make the whole humanity irrational?. Formal logic is another area of academic subjects which enables human reasoning more rational.
That's not quite what I said. I'm sorry if I was not clear. I left out the conditional "if formal logic is your standard of rationality" and qualified "the whole of humanity" to "almost the whole of humanity". As you say, formal logic is something that helps us to be more rational, which means that almost all of us have some level of rationality. Since very few of us know any formal logic, it follows that the rationality of most of us does not lie in our ability to do formal logic. That seems about right.
It is not about right or wrong on the inductive reasoning, but isn't it about lack of logical or rational ground in the reasoning Hume was pointing out?
Hume's criticism was aimed at the scholastic concept of some power, hidden from our experience, was what enable to first billiard ball to make the second billiard ball move. Many people have believed that the conclusion is simply that induction is invalid. However, Hume was not saying that we should or could just give up on it, in the way that one would simply give up on an invalid form of argument. There's room for debate about exactly what he was saying, but it was not that.
Induction is not deduction. It is better thought of as a trial and error process, which can never get us to deductive truth, but can get us nearer to it. Popper's version of this was conjecture and refutation, now often described as hypothesis and falsification. Neither of those formulations is really satisfactory. recognizes that hypotheses/conjectures that have been tested but not falsified are what we rely on pragmatically. Asking what rational ground we have for that is asking for a rational ground for relying on rational grounds.
Compare what happens when you ask for a rational ground for relying on sound deductive arguments. I refer you to C.L. Dodgson's article about the dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise after their race.
I have never heard of anyone trying to justify what they saw. One can confirm what one saw. But usually one doesn't justify what one saw. One justifies what one believes, said, done and think, but not one saw, smelt, felt, drank, ate or heard.
You said this earlier. It is another example of a situation in which asking for a rational ground (for believing that I saw what I saw, is not a question that has a rational answer. Yet believing that I saw what I saw is not irrational. For it can serve as a premiss in a sound deductive argument.
Humans have taken creative thinking and created their own reality. This is beyond what animals do.
"Creative" is a troublesome idea. There seems to be no clear boundary between creative and non-creative thinking. For example, I would say that the crow that we saw earlier in this thread was thinking creatively, when It realizes that a stick can serve as a way of getting the goodies.
Reply to Vera Mont
I agree with everything you say.
People often regard improvements in technology and in their own prosperity as advances, when they are usually double-edged swords.
A symbol is a kind of sign but not all signs are symbols. Smoke is a sign of fire, but smoke does not symbolize fire. An animal cry may be a sign of whatever but it does not symbolize whatever it might be a sign of.
Interesting. That makes sense. But I've barely read anything on the topic, and don't seem to have an intuitive understanding of it all. My first thought was that a stop sign is, just as it says, a sign. It doesn't symbolize a stopped car. I was thinking a symbol would depict, even if the depiction was stylized, the thing. But then I looked up 'symbol', and the first example is:
[I]for example, a red octagon is a common symbol for "STOP"[/I]
If you are treating abstract objects as particulars then yes. My point was that numbers are themselves generalizations. There are countless instantiations of 'two' just as there are of 'tree' or 'animal'.
I'm not at all sure that's a helpful way to think of them, but we would have to dive down the rabbit-hole to clarify that.
It seems to me that you have missing the point of what I've been saying and not the other way around since I have said that whatever we know about animal minds is derived from observing their behaviour and body language and I have not been concerned at all with explaining their behaviour by purportedly somehow knowing what is going on in their minds. The same goes for humans except that they can also explain themselves linguistically. Of course the verity of those explanations relies on the one doing the explaining being both correct and honest.
I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. I have acknowledged that I believe animals sense danger. I'm not sure what you think we are disagreeing about.
A symbol is a kind of sign but not all signs are symbols. Smoke is a sign of fire, but smoke does not symbolize fire. An animal cry may be a sign of whatever but it does not symbolize whatever it might be a sign of.
This is a much more pertinent, and illuminating, issue.
I think you are thinking of a distinction that was drawn quite a long time ago now to resolve a particular problem. "Clouds mean rain" and "'Cloud" means a mass of particles or droplets, as of dust, smoke, or steam, suspended in the atmosphere or existing in outer space". In other words, it was an attempt to distinguish what meaning means in the context of linguistic meaning and what it means in the context of drawing inferences from evidence. (I'm sorry I can't remember, and google doesn't find, any helpful reference)
I guess that if I must choose between the two, I would have to choose "sign", because the alternative "symbol" means attributing human-style language to the dog. But the catch with this is that if we say that a goose hissing is a sign of anger hostility or danger in your sense of sign, we are positing a purely causal relationship, which would be incompatible with attributing rationality, or even sentience, to the goose.
This means that we need to draw some more distinctions. Sign vs symbol is more complicated than ti seems. I don't have a neat account of the difference, just a few remarks towards a map. The same applies to the concept of action.
My first thought was that a stop sign is, just as it says, a sign. It doesn't symbolize a stopped car.
This is a bit complicated. The question to ask what the difference is between a sign and a symbol in this context. For example, when the police or road workers cordon off a section of road - even close it - with a tape across the road, is that equivalent to the stop sign? I would say that it symbolizes a blockage - like a heap of rubble. Is a red light a sign or a symbol?
I was thinking a symbol would depict, even if the depiction was stylized, the thing.
Mini-pictures have become a very popular way of conveying information, partly because they are supposed to be language-independent. They may be helpful, but in my view, they constitute another language; they are not always intuitive, but need to be learnt. I think the technical term for these is "icon", but it is obviously different from the sense that some rock bands are said to be "iconic". (I'm not suggesting that icons are not useful). (There are echoes here of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I don't know whether that book influenced their popularity now. It seems possible, but unlikely).
But then I looked up 'symbol', and the first example is: for example, a red octagon is a common symbol for "STOP"
"Sign" and "Symbol" don't seem to have a well-defined, technical, definition. The terms are applied differently in different contexts. One peculiarity of this specific example is that a stop sign is not merely reporting a situation, like the or a sign-post. It is giving an instruction.
So at a police road-block, when the officer holds up a hand, palm open and facing towards you (I think this is more or less universal), the officer is ordering you to stop in a non-verbal fashion. Is that gesture a sign or a symbol? Is it linguistic?
In the realm of actions, we have been mainly talking about actions that have a purpose, because that is where the question of rationality or not is clearest. But there are different kinds of action. Reflexes, habits, expressions (Ouch! I'm in pain!), are just the beginnings of a list.
When you don't have access to the other entity's mind, I'm not sure you're justified in assuming they have no symbolic communication.
Its not an assumption but rather a conclusion based on what I think is most plausible given the evidence (or lack of evidence). I'm the first to admit that plausibility is more or less like beauty— somewhat in the eye of the beholder. In other words not a highly determinable or definitive criterion for justifying any assertion.
Interesting. That makes sense. But I've barely read anything on the topic, and don't seem to have an intuitive understanding of it all. My first thought was that a stop sign is, just as it says, a sign. It doesn't symbolize a stopped car. I was thinking a symbol would depict, even if the depiction was stylized, the thing. But then I looked up 'symbol', and the first example is:
for example, a red octagon is a common symbol for "STOP"
The word 'stop' in that context symbolizes the act of stopping but does not resemble anything to do with stopping. Ikons resemble what they signify. Some early written languages used pictographs—characters which resembled what they represented. As far as I know Chinese characters evolved from these early pictographic characters. The difference with a pure symbol is that it doesn't resemble what it signifies. Think of the numeral '5'. It doesn't resemble five of anything. 'IIIII' would be a pictographic representation or ikon of the quantity of five.
Abstract objects may be treated as generalizations or particulars and I have not said nor implied anything that contradicts that.
— Janus
H'm. That's a large and tempting rabbit-hole, but I'm thinking that diving down it would be a distraction.
If you are treating abstract objects as particulars then yes. My point was that numbers are themselves generalizations. There are countless instantiations of 'two' just as there are of 'tree' or 'animal'.
— Janus
I'm not at all sure that's a helpful way to think of them, but we would have to dive down the rabbit-hole to clarify that.
I'm sure there are nuances that could make it a much larger enquiry but all I have in mind is that an abstract object is abstract on account of the fact that it refers to no particular thing but ranges over a whole class of particulars thus qualifying it as a generalization.
So the word 'tree' is both a particular word and a symbol that represents the abstract generalization that is the class of objects we call trees.
I don't know what you have in mind with wondering about the "helpfulness" of looking at things this way. Its just one of the possible ways of thinking about it. I see the distinction between abstract objects as particulars and generalizations as a valid one. It makes perfect sense to me at least.
I guess that if I must choose between the two, I would have to choose "sign", because the alternative "symbol" means attributing human-style language to the dog. But the catch with this is that if we say that a goose hissing is a sign of anger hostility or danger in your sense of sign, we are positing a purely causal relationship, which would be incompatible with attributing rationality, or even sentience, to the goose.
This means that we need to draw some more distinctions. Sign vs symbol is more complicated than ti seems. I don't have a neat account of the difference, just a few remarks towards a map. The same applies to the concept of action.
I think we can attribute rationality and meaning to animals in the sense of feeling. The hissing of the goose is an expression and in that sense a sign of "anger hostility or danger". But it has not been converted by a linguistic culture into a symbol that stands by convention as signifying anger hostility or danger.
I admit I have only given a basic adumbration and that more subtleties and nuances in the relationship between the concepts of 'sign' and 'symbol' could be induced by a detailed investigation of usage and association.
I left out the conditional "if formal logic is your standard of rationality" and qualified "the whole of humanity" to "almost the whole of humanity".
Formal logic deals with the propositions for their validities. Suggesting formal logic as your standard of rationality sounded very odd even as a conditional comment.
Hume's criticism was aimed at the scholastic concept of some power, hidden from our experience, was what enable to first billiard ball to make the second billiard ball move.
Didn't he say, it is the constant conjunction of the one event followed by the other, which gives us the idea of cause effect?
Asking what rational ground we have for that is asking for a rational ground for relying on rational grounds.
Really? Could you come up with an example? Much of the math, science and logic are based on formulating proofs from the valid premises based on the rational ground, and we do accept them when it makes sense.
It is not desirable to be 100% formal logic because what is so may not be so tomorrow and our thinking needs to be flexible. We need to be creative. We need to think about what is and what can be. Humans have taken creative thinking and created their own reality. This is beyond what animals do.
No one was suggesting to be 100% formal logic, Formal logic is a subject which studies propositional validities, which can aid human thoughts and scientific theories to be more rational.
In Scientific, Evelina Fedorenko, a neuroscientist who studies language at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says You Don’t Need Words to Think
Reply to Patterner
That would mean children born deaf can think well enough to function, communicate and learn sign language. In fact, they begin to invent their own signals between 8 and 12 month, and can be taught the rudiments of ASL at that time, just as hearing babies begin to learn spoken language. They all do need sensory and intellectual stimulation. For non-verbal feral children the requirements of survival would provide plenty of stimulation, as it also does for fox kits and fledgling geese.
Maybe we don't all have the same definition of 'advance'. Maybe some territories were too remote and poor for conquest, and therefore the inhabitants of those undesirable lands didn't have their traditional lifestyle ripped away and destroyed, as so many others did. By the same token, having territory with scant resources means there is not much leisure time for contemplation or extra material for development.
But if you mean, what caused civilization where it did happen, that's a more complex answer. It probably doesn't belong here, but I can point you to a source for the basics. Fundamental difference: enough surplus (of food, natural resources and labour) to support specialized unproductive classes of people, such as administration, priesthood, judiciary and law enforcement, military and clerical, thus stratifying the society and perpetuating a power structure. The influential classes can then patronize artisans and inventors and allocate resources to their own comfort, enrichment, armaments/fortification and glorification through ritual, spectacles, monuments and elaborate burials.
That is a good explanation. Now how about the Glory of Islam, 8th to 13th century, and the decline? How about China that was more advanced than all of Europe and its decline?
China's “Golden Age”: The Song, the Mongols, and the Ming Voyages
This period of Chinese history, from roughly 600-1600 C.E., is a period of stunning development in China.
From the Tang (discussed in the unit on the Tang Dynasty)
through the "pre-modern" commercial and urban development of the Song, ca. 1000,
to the Ming voyages of exploration (1405- 1433) with ships that reach the coast of Africa.
(The achievements of China under the Song are the subject of Marco Polo's "fantastic" reports when he journeys to China under the Mongols, who rule in China for eighty-nine years (1279- 1368) as the Yuan dynasty, between the Song and Ming) https://afe.easia.columbia.edu/main_pop/kpct/kp_1000-1450ce.htm#:~:text=The%20Song%20dynasty%20(960%2D1279,called%20%22China's%20Golden%20Age.%22
What has caused advancing civilizations to decline and in some cases to totally distruct?
In Scientific, Evelina Fedorenko, a neuroscientist who studies language at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says You Don’t Need Words to Think
Your link requires a subscription so I look for another. It is a fascinating subject and I am so glad you brought it up. Hellen Keller was deaf and blind and she did not have language until she was taught language. Young children are dependent on caregivers and function without language. And here is the link I found. Thank you for making us aware of such information.
The lack of an inner monologue has been linked to a condition called aphantasia — sometimes called "blindness of the mind's eye." People who experience aphantasia don't experience visualizations in their mind; they can't mentally picture their bedroom or their mother's face. Many times, those who don't experience visualizations don't experience clear inner speech, either, Lœvenbruck noted. You can participate in Lœvenbruck's research on aphantasia and inner speech via a survey starting this month.
https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monologue.html
Now how about the Glory of Islam, 8th to 13th century, and the decline? How about China that was more advanced than all of Europe and its decline?
Ecclesiastes 3:1 To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven.
Nations grow rich, then powerful and their rulers grow ambitious. They have the wealth to raise large, well-equipped armies, and the constant anxiety of being overlooked by envious neighbours and hostile rivals. So they go forth to conquer and build empires. The sons and grandsons of these war leaders may not be equal to the task of consolidating and maintaining their forebears' empires; they become complacent and self-indulgent. Factions form among the aristocracy, each group plotting to take over the reins if/when the legitimate ruler falters. The military is overstretched; too expensive to supply efficiently, unable to deliver enough booty from the colonies; the troops are fed up with occupation duties and replacements are harder to recruit, the farther from home they're expected to serve. There are too many subject peoples chafing under foreign domination, looking for a chance to revolt. Meanwhile, those hostile rivals haven't disappeared; they've been growing stronger and richer, forming alliances, perhaps amalgamating: a young, energetic empire is emerging to challenge the superpower of the day.
This historical pattern has nothing to do with human 'advancement', but during the period when each empire is near the top of its cycle, a great many cultural, scientific and technological innovations flourish, because the empire has access to untapped natural and human resources, is motivated to develop those resources and has the material wherewithal to support them.
What has caused advancing civilizations to decline and in some cases to totally distruct?
Shortage of funds, overreach, mismanagement, corruption, unsustainable disparity, internal unrest and ideological schism, external aggression, and sometimes climate change.
We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways if and when we're testing hypothesis. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more.
— creativesoul
Quite so.
Testing hypothesis via observing behaviour is comparative assessment and as such presupposes testability.
There are some things at work here, beneath all our discourse/conversation about what counts as rational thought/minds. We're looking to further discriminate between different, sometimes and often conflicting conceptions, notions, sensible uses of "thought", "belief", "mind", etc. We're looking to set out all meaningful experience. In doing so, we go a long way towards acquiring knowledge of all minds to whom such experience is meaningful.
We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways if and when we're testing hypothesis. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more.
— creativesoul
Quite so.
How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads?
— creativesoul
More than that, we also rely on observation of behaviour to know what's going on in each other's heads, as you suggest.
I'm afraid that there's a certain ambiguity going on here, and it's my fault.
Do we or do we not have a way to know what's going on inside of the head of another thinking creature?
I think we do, and you've responded in kind. My issue with the phrase "what's going on in the heads" is that it presupposes a false equivalence. We can know plenty about what's going on inside the heads of ourselves and all other thinking creatures. It takes a little work to fill out.
We're in dire need of a criterion; a standard; a metric to be reached.
What counts as rational thought of another creature if that thought is not somehow meaningful to the creature? This entire thread topic rests upon actively working notions of meaningful thought.
Meaningful thought emerged long before naming and describing practices.
Meaningful experience preceded accounts of it. If any notion of "meaningful experience" contradicts that, then they are flat out wrong.
Prelinguistic meaningful experience(s) happened prior to being talked about.
Some smart animals can learn how to operate certain latches such that they can let themselves out, whenever they want, whenever they should so desire or if the need should ever arise.
Latches, wants, memories, desires, needs... a creature capable of drawing correlations between these things such that the endeavor connects the creature to the world.
Thought consists of much more than what goes on in the head. We can know some stuff about what's going inside the head of all thinking creatures by knowing about how thought and belief emerge and/or work.
We can know that a language less creature cannot have all the exact same thoughts as a language user. For example, some creatures cannot think about their own worldview. Those missing such capabilities cannot think about other worldviews either. Such thoughts and beliefs require articulation<-------None of those are capable of being formed, held, and/or had by language less creatures.
All thought is the target. Articulated thought misses the mark. Propositional attitudes miss the mark. Belief statements miss the mark.
Meaningful experience does not. All meaningful experiences consist - in very large part - of thought and belief about the world and/or oneself(where possible). Internal and external elements. Spatiotemporal locations of thought/mind are a chimera. "In the head" presupposes such...
that an abstract object is abstract on account of the fact that it refers to no particular thing but ranges over a whole class of particulars thus qualifying it as a generalization.
You are quite right that that classes are abstract objects and that they range over particulars. But it doesn't follow that all abstract objects are classes.
But it has not been converted by a linguistic culture into a symbol that stands by convention as signifying anger hostility or danger.
You are quite right, particularly about the hissing being an expression. The difference between that and a symbol would take some teasing out but set that aside. The lack of a convention does suggest that it is not. When we say that the goose is expressing anger and hostility, we are recognizing (and telling others) that one should expect a defensive reaction if you behave in certain ways. Recognizing that pattern of behaviour is recognising the meaning of the hiss. Our interpretation of, and talk about, the hiss is our application of our description.
That would mean children born deaf can think well enough to function, communicate and learn sign language. In fact, they begin to invent their own signals between 8 and 12 month, and can be taught the rudiments of ASL at that time, just as hearing babies begin to learn spoken language. They all do need sensory and intellectual stimulation. For non-verbal feral children the requirements of survival would provide plenty of stimulation, as it also does for fox kits and fledgling geese.
Reply to creativesoul
There's a lot packed in to your comments of the last few days. Thanks. I've had to be selective in what I reply to. I hope I've identified the best places to focus.
My issue with the phrase "what's going on in the heads" is that it presupposes a false equivalence.
Do you mean false equivalence between human thinking and animal thinking? I was using the phrase to refer to what is often described as the phenomenology of thinking. Perhaps most helpful would be to talk about what people will report as their thinking.
Meaningful thought emerged long before naming and describing practices.
Quite so. But I don't think there's any reason to suppose that meaningful thought without name or describing has been banished from human life. The complication is that we often want to talk about, or at least express such thoughts or experiences, and then we often find ourselves struck dumb or confused.
There are some things at work here, beneath all our discourse/ conversation about what counts as rational thought/minds.
Yes, indeed. If we could identify what they are, we might make a leap forward in our understanding of what's going onin philosophical discussion of that topic. The question about animals is particularly useful because it is a specific application of those concepts in a particular context where we find it difficult to be sure how to apply them. Our paradigm of rational thinking is articulate thinking independent of action. But that depends on our language, and animals do not have that kind of language. So we disagree about how to apply them.
One of my difficulties here is that there is an almost irresistible temptation to think that what is at stake is a process that is independent of the action - a process that is referred to by "thinking" or "reasoning". I happen to have recently read Lee Braver's "Groundless Grounds". In that book, he articulates an idea of rational reconstruction as a way of coming to understand what is happening when we attribute the application of reason where there does not appear to be any such process involved. He doesn't mention animals, but I think that it is also a good way to understand what is going on when we attribute reason to animals.
One way of explaining this is by means of an analogy. Aristotle developed the concept of the practical syllogism. He doesn't claim that When I eat my breakfast, I must have said to myself "This is food. Food is good for me. I should eat this." (Partly because he recognizes that that process doesn't necessarily result in action.) What he is doing here is exactly parallel to what he does when he formulates the idea of the theoretical syllogism - "All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human. Socrates is mortal." It is a formulation that helps us analyze and understand the actual ways that humans think. Theoretical and practical syllogisms are rational reconstructions of thinking, not empirical descriptions.
But it doesn't follow that all abstract objects are classes.
I agree and I don't think I've said or implied otherwise. I'd say abstract objects are probably all generalizations, but I don't think generalization and class are coterminous. That said I'm not confident that on detailed analysis all abstract objects will trun out to be generalizations.
Well, we can agree on that, though we may find complications if we looked more closely at the detail.
Yes, that seems likely. Analysis always seems to discover complications since linguistic terms are only more or less definitive or determinate. Ambiguities proliferate under the analytic eye.
You surprise me. I thought that was what you were suggesting. It's good to know that I was wrong.
Asking for grounds or justification for your belief, knowledge, actions and perception is not Formal Logic. It is just a rational thinking process for finding out if your beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational.
Right, I think conventionality is the key difference between signs which count as symbols and those which do not.
So when the goose hisses at me that is a sign (expression) of anger or hostility, which means that I do well to behave cautiously, yet I can only articulate what the sign means by using symbols. Obviously, then, the way I understand what the goose's hiss means, is by means of symbols, which the goose cannot use. Yet the difference in meaning between the two is hard to discern.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure.
Asking for grounds or justification for your belief, knowledge, actions and perception is not Formal Logic. It is just a rational thinking process for finding out if your beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational.
Why does it matter whether our beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational? Is it because that is how we know that they are true - or, in the case of actions, justified?
So it seems that even if I believe my perceptions without any grounds, I can justify them - that is, provide reasons (grounds) for believing them - after I come to believe them.
Reply to Vera Mont That explanation of why civilizations fall is elegant. Does anyone here disagree with that explanation of why civilizations fall? If we all agree about why civilizations fall, can we use our rationale to prevent that from happening?
Why does it matter whether our beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational? Is it because that is how we know that they are true - or, in the case of actions, justified?
So it seems that even if I believe my perceptions without any grounds, I can justify them - that is, provide reasons (grounds) for believing them - after I come to believe them.
"Why does it matter"? :razz: What a delicious question. We can fall back on ancient beliefs to answer that question. Because, if we don't get things right and do the wrong things, the gods/nature will punish us. Coming from Athens the goal is to get things right. Meaning, understanding the universal laws and basing our decisions on knowledge of those laws, not our personal whims. However, to understand this, the masses must be educated to understand that reasoning and that is not how we have educated our young. Only the few who go to liberal colleges will understand that reasoning. If we wait until the young enter college before giving them a liberal education, the ignorant masses will outnumber the wise.
One serious problem is capitalism without wisdom or morals. If a person is going to work for low wages because the economy requires people who work for no pay or low wages, what is that person's reward for putting the health of the national economy first? Should we close these people out of society's benefits because they can not pay for those benefits, or do we need planning, cooperation, utilities and a big "thank you" as opposed to a snide "oh, that is welfare"? What is the rational way to educate and order a civilization?
I am not sure but I think animals tend to be limited by a might makes right mentality and because of our success and huge populations, our failure to base our decisions on knowledge of the bigger picture is disastrous.
Asking for grounds or justification for your belief, knowledge, actions and perception is not Formal Logic. It is just a rational thinking process for finding out if your beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational.
What you said defines a problem with our notion of being "rational". 600 years ago it might have been rational to believe the Bible is the word of God, there was an Eden, an angry God could and would punish people, but given what we know today, is that belief rational? Arguing the Bible is the word of God may be a rational thing to do if we have no standard for "rational" meaning a fact that can be validated. And if we believe rational means facts that can be validated then the belief that the Bible is the word of God, is not rational thinking. A definition of "rational" that treats fantasy as equal to thought based on valid facts is problematic, isn't it?
I think this matters because I think a democracy needs to be clear about the difference between fact and fiction. A democracy must have education for rational thinking based on facts and understand what this has to do with morality. If we believe a God made us closer to angels than animals, or if we believe we have evolved along with the rest of the animals, it really matters. That is the center of our understanding of reality and decisions that must be based on reality.
Reply to Athena
It's not just my explanation https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10529410/
Why should "we" prevent history? Which empire would you like to keep in play? It's probably not the same one a Chinese businessman would choose, or a supporter of Modi. Should there be any empires at all? I don't think so, but that's what happens when a nation outgrows is own territory and is powerful enough to annex other territories and exploit their resources. What is it we'd be preserving? The same economic and political arrangement that caused the rapid decline.
We don't have time for the usual process to unfold. Much of the world is either under or threatened by imminent totalitarian rule. The economic disparity is huge and growing in all developed and developing countries alike. The weather isn't just causing local problems anymore: increasingly violent and frequent climate events are rendering large areas of the whole world uninhabitable. There are more people than have ever been, and huge populations are being displaced by famine, environment and war - everywhere. They have no place to go except the populated places that don't want them.
This isn't a discrete, identifiable civilization: this economy is global. When it implodes, there is literally nowhere to hide. Here is a good article - of course, not everyone agrees.
Are we clear that this is a complete derail from the original subject? Saving or toppling the current civilization has no more to do with rational thinking than the life-cycles of previous civilizations did. Within the life of a tribe, nation or empire, many rational thinkers make decisions relating to whatever their role in that civilization is. But the social and natural and external forces that converge on it determine the path that civilization takes. That's more like an evolutionary process than a rational one.
Why should "we" prevent history? Which empire would you like to keep in play?
OMG, your question excites me so much I can't wait to read what you have to say next without reacting to your question. My first thought is Athens. Athens made some bad mistakes as the beautiful explanation of the fall of civilizations you gave us made clear. But Athen's gift to the world is logic, a concept of logos, and a burning need to get things right. My second thought is the remains of ancient civilizations and thinking I do not know enough of them to judge which one was best. In good times and with a good pharaoh, I think I would be very happy worshipping the pharaoh and being a laborer who helped build the Great Pyramid. Those are two extremes of authority over the people, or holding the citizens responsible for government and the future.
Hellenism coming from Athens survived the fall of Athens and I believe it is the only hope humans have. There are two ways to have social control; authority over the people or culture (liberty, justice, and wisdom). A culture devoted to truth and morals may have the best chance of surviving.
Wow, I sure wish we could have lunch together and talk about the link you posted. The final paragraph is why I say I think democracy and an understanding of logos and morals (understanding cause and effect) is our only hope.
The eventual outcome of this great implosion is up for grabs. Will we overcome denial and despair; kick our addiction to petroleum; and pull together to break the grip of corporate power over our lives? Can we foster genuine democracy, harness renewable energy, reweave our communities, re-learn forgotten skills, and heal the wounds we’ve inflicted on the Earth? Or will fear and prejudice drive us into hostile camps, fighting over the dwindling resources of a degraded planet? The stakes could not be higher. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-08-10/four-reasons-civilization-wont-decline-it-will-collapse/
.
While reading that link I thought of Youngquist's book "GeoDestinies". He was a geologist and wrote two books. The first one was "Mineral Resources and the Destiny of Nations". We are about to face the exhaustion of vital resources and this will impact our food supply, economy, and standard of living. Rome fell in part because it exhausted its supply of gold when its civilization was in the last stages of excess wealth and high expectations. But today when I make people aware that our coins had value because of the minerals in them, and we have taken the minerals out of coins, no one sees the problem.:scream:
Greer estimates that it takes, on average, about 250 years for civilizations to decline and fall, and he finds no reason why modern civilization shouldn’t follow this “usual timeline.”[3] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-08-10/four-reasons-civilization-wont-decline-it-will-collapse/
. Our history has pretty much paralleled the history of Athens.
If there is a Resurrection we may be in it now. The archeologist, geologist, and related sciences are resurrecting our past and it is our job to rethink everything and get past all our prejudices and notions of winners and losers and a God who has favorite people. Moving on to logos and universal thinking to save as much of our planet as we can save.
You're a bit late on that one! I meant - in response to Quoting Athena
If we all agree about why civilizations fall, can we use our rationale to prevent that from happening?
That would make it a choice among those that exist today.
Greer estimates that it takes, on average, about 250 years for civilizations to decline and fall, and he finds no reason why modern civilization shouldn’t follow this “usual timeline.
Couple of problems with that. Without having read The Long Descent (I did read Gibbon on Rome)I suspect that he's not taken into account the relative speed at which the American Empire achieved global dominance or the way the industrial revolution and electronic technology have increased the speed of decline-inducing events: the depletion of natural resources world-wide, the stratification of societies, the environmental degradation, population growth and the spread of disease.
Where Athens was a self-contained city-state that could divorce itself from satellites if they became troublesome; while Rome could gradually abandon occupied territories if they became too burdensome, the US cannot even disengage from local wars of its own making; nor can it shed its international financial interests.
Show me the Messiah(s) who will be followed to this new life.
Tell me when the movement reaches world-changing momentum. Quoting Athena
Moving on to logos and universal thinking to save as much of our planet as we can save.
If that had happened in 1975, we'd have stood a chance. Carter made some effort.... Reagan killed it. The way many Americans remember them is : Reagan, one of the best presidents, ever; Carter, one of the worst. Nearly half of them want an incompetent, incontinent, addled fascist for the next four crucial years. Logos is huddled in a corner, nursing his bruises and sniffling.
Obviously, then, the way I understand what the goose's hiss means, is by means of symbols, which the goose cannot use. Yet the difference in meaning between the two is hard to discern.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure.
You could respond instinctively to the gooses hissing which I would say would be a non-symbolically mediated understanding of it. Discursive knowledge would seem to be always in symbolic form I guess.
You could respond instinctively to the gooses hissing which I would say would be a non-symbolically mediated understanding of it.
Would that be an appropriate response? You might instinctively take it as a friendly greeting, or as just something geese do with no meaning.
In fact, it's a simple enough communication, usually accompanied by threatening stance and body language. Why do you need symbols as an intermediary? Why not regard what's in front of you, recognize the gestures as similar to those of other animals - including your own species - in similar circumstances, and reasonably assume that the goose does not welcome your presence in her personal space or nesting ground, and make a rational decision to retreat?
Why does it matter whether our beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational? Is it because that is how we know that they are true - or, in the case of actions, justified?
Any reasonable person would want his / her beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions to be rational than irrational. No one wants to have beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions which are irrational by human nature. That is why it does matter for your beliefs, actions, knowledge or perceptions to be rational.
600 years ago it might have been rational to believe the Bible is the word of God, there was an Eden, an angry God could and would punish people, but given what we know today, is that belief rational? Arguing the Bible is the word of God may be a rational thing to do if we have no standard for "rational" meaning a fact that can be validated. And if we believe rational means facts that can be validated then the belief that the Bible is the word of God, is not rational thinking. A definition of "rational" that treats fantasy as equal to thought based on valid facts is problematic, isn't it?
Religious beliefs always have been from the blind faith rather than anything to do with being rational or irrational. And at the time, when the religious authorities were ruling the society, it was more of the ruthless mad social system, which enforced people with the barbaric punishments rather than being rational or irrational. People had no options but abide by the system out of fear, rather than being rational.
I think this matters because I think a democracy needs to be clear about the difference between fact and fiction. A democracy must have education for rational thinking based on facts and understand what this has to do with morality. If we believe a God made us closer to angels than animals, or if we believe we have evolved along with the rest of the animals, it really matters. That is the center of our understanding of reality and decisions that must be based on reality.
You should be very careful not to be deceived by the word democracy. It could mean, that you must do anything irrational to justify the word. It would be wiser to stay critical and analytical on these fancy words which can be hollow inside, but can force people to irrational actions and thoughts.
Reply to Vera Mont What you have said here does not seem to disagree with what I've said. I think I've said several times in this thread that I believe we can read the body language of not only humans but (at least some) animals as well.
Reply to Vera Mont It's just the distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic signs. The former denote whatever they do by convention. As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language. Again though I want to stress that I don't see that fact as a justification for human exceptionalism.
If a person is going to work for low wages because the economy requires people who work for no pay or low wages, what is that person's reward for putting the health of the national economy first? Should we close these people out of society's benefits because they can not pay for those benefits, or do we need planning, cooperation, utilities and a big "thank you" as opposed to a snide "oh, that is welfare"?
Well, I would say that an economy that requires people to work for wages that cannot sustain a decent life is broken. But that requirement is so common that I suspect I'm just being idealistic. Still, it seems inhumane and immoral not to see those jobs as problematic.
If only we could get away from the idea that welfare is charity! In a broken economy, it may be true. But it just reinforces exploitation. Welfare is not charity. It is insurance - pooling risks that would be catastrophic for individuals so that they can be dealt with or at least ameliorated. Life insurance is not charity, but common sense. Of course, some people prefer to stick to the short-term and drive their cars. That's why car insurance is a legal requirement. But, rationally speaking, insurance makes sense and is not charity. More than that, rationally speaking again, there are some risks that are so large that only the state can take them on.
But the reason for the introduction of the very first state welfare system (in Prussia in the late 19th century) was neither charitable nor an insurance policy. It was a question of riot control by a rigidly conservative and aristocratic chancellor - Bismarck. There are articles about it in, for example, Wikipedia.
Welfare is enlightened and rational self-interest, not charity.
You could respond instinctively to the gooses hissing which I would say would be a non-symbolically mediated understanding of it. Discursive knowledge would seem to be always in symbolic form I guess.
Well, given the definition that we have of what a symbol is, any knowledge that is discursive would be in human-style language, so it follows that it would be in symbolic form.
But I like the idea of a non-symbolically mediated understanding it, though I'm taking that as what is called "tacit" knowledge. But then, we have to acknowledge that human beings are also capable of that same form of understanding.
"Instinctively" is a bit of a trap. Strictly speaking, instinctive behaviour is a set behaviour pattern that is not learned, but inherited. It is not, therefore, based on any process of learning or reasoning. It is capable of rational justification at the level of evolution as contributing to the ability of the creature to sruvive and reproduce. Most, if not all, behaviour, of sentient creatures is a combination of instinct, learning and response to the relevant context. Spiders do not learn to weave webs, but they weave them in a context and adapt the pattern to suit. Newly-born foals struggle to their feet and look for milk responding to and managin in the actual context they are in.
Thinking about this, there's no doubt that there are instinctive elements in our reading of body language - very small babies respond to smiling faces. But they can recognize mother at a very early stage, which must be learnt. Again, the behaviour of lobsters in cages when they are frightened is not difficult to recognize. But we do have to learn much body language in order to read it and it does not follow from the fact that we can read human body language that we can read the body language of other creatures without learning. But small children do have to be taught to recognize the body language of dogs.
Would that be an appropriate response? You might instinctively take it as a friendly greeting, or as just something geese do with no meaning.
In fact, it's a simple enough communication, usually accompanied by threatening stance and body language.
Yes. It is possible, of course, that the unlearned response of the goose to a threat is recognizable by analogy with the threatening behaviour of other creatures and is recognized on that basis. No doubt those unlearned responses have evolved to work across species. A threat that was only recognized by other geese would be much less useful that one that can be recognized by other species.
All true. So why the symbol question? I've seen it bandied about and argued over, but I can't figure out the significance of it.
The idea is that use of symbols is a distinctively human capacity - and the basis of our kind of language. If you look into what philosophers have said about it, there's a great deal of confusion about it. Peirce, for example, treats both what we call signs as distinct from symbols in the same class and calls that class "symbols". Cassirer doesn't seem to discuss what we are calling signs at all, though he does distinguish between symbolic meaning and "expressive meaning". This is not territory that I'm familiar with. I'm just illustrating how messy the philosophy of this topic is.
(Signs are here used to mean "Smoke means (is a sign of) fire" or "Clouds mean (are a sign of) rain" - causal connections. Not everyone draws the same distinction.)
It's just the distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic signs. The former denote whatever they do by convention. As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language. Again though I want to stress that I don't see that fact as a justification for human exceptionalism.
I agree. Discursive knowledge needs to be seen as a species-specific capacity alongside the species-specific capacity of bats and dolphins to find their way by echo-location, not as a radical distinction between humans and other species.
So it seems that even if I believe my perceptions without any grounds, I can justify them - that is, provide reasons (grounds) for believing them - after I come to believe them.
You could, but if it is irrational, then others will not agree with your justification. Being rational means also it has to be objective. Your problem seem to be confusion between intelligence and knowledge with reasoning and being rational. They are not the same.
.research offers the first evidence that parrots learn their unique signature calls from their parents and shows that vocal signaling in wild parrots is a socially acquired rather than a genetically wired trait.
Dolphins are known to use signature whistles, and to be able to mimic other dolphins' signature whistles. It seems likely that the more intelligent animals employ a limited range of symbolic vocalisations.
Any reasonable person would want his / her beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions to be rational than irrational. No one wants to have beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions which are irrational by human nature. That is why it does matter for your beliefs, actions, knowledge or perceptions to be rational.
Yes, that's a good way to answer the question. "Any reasonable person..." By definition, nobody could be reasonable unless they preferred being rational to being irrational. Which means that, as a definition, what you say is circular. But that's perfectly OK in this case.
The usual answer is that rationality is our way to truth (or justification in the case of actions). That's circular as well, since truth is what rationality delivers.
Rationality is what delivers the truth, so there can be no question whether rationality delivers truth. It would be like trying to measure the standard metre in Paris in order to find out whether it is a metre long.
What you end up with is that rationality provides the justification for everything else and therefore has no rational justification.
Religious beliefs always have been from the blind faith rather than anything to do with being rational or irrational.
H'm that's a bit quick. What about people like Aquinas or Descartes who believed that they had rational arguments for belief in God? That's quite different from belief from blind faith. True, most people (but not all) believe their arguments were not valid. But they certainly weren't blind faith.
There are theologians who take as their starting-point the "presupposition" that the Bible is the word of God. It has something of the status of an axiom. Something posited as true, but not capable of being proved or disproved. Their theology follows by rational process. Sometimes rational thinking has irrational elements.
Reply to mcdoodle
And whales learn songs both from their own and from other pods.
Learning is common to all species that operate in a complex environment (i.e. not underground of stuck to a cave wall) Some learning is solitary experimentation, the way an octopus does. But the social species of mammals and birds teach their young a considerable amount of knowledge and skills.
Rationality is what delivers the truth, so there can be no question whether rationality delivers truth. It would be like trying to measure the standard metre in Paris in order to find out whether it is a metre long.
We were not talking about truth here. We were talking about whether your knowledge or beliefs were rational or irrational. For that, you need to verify your knowledge or beliefs if they are not from deductive reasoning.
H'm that's a bit quick. What about people like Aquinas or Descartes who believed that they had rational arguments for belief in God? That's quite different from belief from blind faith. True, most people (but not all) believe their arguments were not valid. But they certainly weren't blind faith.
There are theologians who take as their starting-point the "presupposition" that the Bible is the word of God. It has something of the status of an axiom. Something posited as true, but not capable of being proved or disproved. Their theology follows by rational process. Sometimes rational thinking has irrational elements.
Aquinas and Descartes were the people who used rational thinking to prove the existence of God. They were not the religious authorities who punished the general public based on the faiths and religious social codes.
My problem is that I've never been able to grasp a clear meaning for the term "intelligence". So I mostly ignore it, especially in philosophy.
Intelligence means knowing something, or being able to do something in coherent way. It is not same as reflecting, analyzing, criticizing and proving something, which are what rational thinking does.
For that, you need to verify your knowledge or beliefs if they are not from deductive reasoning.
Doesn't "verify" mean something like to demonstrate the truth or accuracy of something, as by the presentation of evidence? In that case, we must be talking about truth. Though you are right that it is possible to believe something on rational grounds and be wrong.
Intelligence means knowing something, or being able to do something in coherent way. It is not same as The ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledgesomething, which are what rational thinking does.
I thought it was something like the ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge. That would make it something different from knowledge but more about how to acquire knowledge.
I thought it [intelligence] was something like the ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge. That would make it something different from knowledge but more about how to acquire knowledge.
Yes, it is an inherent mental capability - although, like all inborn, or *hold nose* hard-wired traits, it can be dulled or enhanced by environmental factors. Intelligent beings learn to navigate the world by gathering information through their senses and formulating experimental approaches to the problems they encounter.
The information on which they must base decisions comes from the environment. In the case of humans, that ambient information matrix is linguistic and cultural, as well as physical and sensory. If a religious concept, or gender prejudice or architectural style or economic organization is embedded in the culture, those things become, from infancy, part of the 'knowledge' an individual gathers. Those verities form part of the world in which he operates as a problem-solving entity.
At some stage of intellectual development, some of the sharper individuals may question the verities of their culture, the assumptions with which they were raised. In human cultures, such questions can be hazardous; it is often safer not to voice them. Whether a thinker believes in God or not, the example of Galileo fresh in his mind, he [Descartes] may deem it more rational to justify the existence of God than to cast doubt upon it. Or, understanding the dynamics of his society, a career priest [Augustine] might propound Christian/Platonic values as a rational way to support the status quo. Rational thought is less often used in the service of Truth than in achieving goals.
Doesn't "verify" mean something like to demonstrate the truth or accuracy of something, as by the presentation of evidence? In that case, we must be talking about truth. Though you are right that it is possible to believe something on rational grounds and be wrong.
Truth emerges when your belief or knowledge is examined and verified by reason. Reason itself cannot deliver truth as you claim.
You should trace back what you said in this thread. You said that your belief and knowledge are rational because you believe and know something. I said, no it cannot be rational or irrational until they are verified. Then you deviated from the point, claiming that rationality delivers truth. I am not sure what that means. You need to give more elaboration on that point what it means.
We were not talking about truth, and truth as a property of belief or knowledge has nothing to do with rational thinking. Your knowledge on something can be rational, but still be wrong.
Intelligence means knowing something, or being able to do something in coherent way. It is not same as The ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledgesomething, which are what rational thinking does. — Corvus
I thought it was something like the ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge. That would make it something different from knowledge but more about how to acquire knowledge.
You have modified the content of my post with your own writing. That is not what I wrote in my post on what intelligence means. It would help clarifying the points if you could go over what intelligence means, and what reasoning means in general terms, and think about the difference between the two.
Your knowledge on something can be rational, but still be wrong.
It is true that one can believe something on rational grounds, and be wrong. But if you are wrong, you didn't know it. Knowledge cannot be wrong. If someone believes that it will rain on Tuesday, and it doesn't, they didn't know that it will rain on Tuesday.
You have modified the content of my post with your own writing. That is not what I wrote in my post on what intelligence means. It would help clarifying the points if you could go over what intelligence means, and what reasoning means in general terms, and think about the difference between the two.
You seem to be misunderstanding me. I didn't modify your post at all. I simply presented to you my own definition of intelligence, which is different from yours.
We were not talking about truth, and truth as a property of belief or knowledge has nothing to do with rational thinking. Your knowledge on something can be rational, but still be wrong.
Clearly, we have different concepts of rationality. If rationality has nothing to do with truth, what is the point of it? How does it differ from reading tea leaves of consulting an astrologer?
There is certainly a problem about rational justification if one allows that someone can be justified in believing something and be wrong; it becomes even more confusing if you allow that someone can know something and be wrong. But the answer is to find a solution.
Yes, that's the idea that the psychologists are pursuing. But the evidence for the existence of such a mental capacity is thin, to say the least.
IQ tests were supposed to be such that one could not benefit from practising. But it turns out that you can, although it is also true that there is a limit to how much one can improve. It also turns out that IQ questions are culturally biased and it is very difficult to construct questions that are not biased in that way.
Everything that we learn to do is the result of our genes and our environment working together; one simply cannot disentangle one from the other.
Rational thought is less often used in the service of Truth than in achieving goals.
Yes, that's true. But I don't think we should be too hard on people who go along with the conventional views in society. It's perfectly possible to accept orthodoxy, not because it is easier, but because it seems to you to be true or even because you can't conceive of an alternative. It took thousands of years for us to develop the idea that there is something wrong with slavery and racism, and it seems absurd to think that all those people were morally deficient in some way.
I'm motivated by the reflection that much of what we believe and take for granted is likely to turn out to be false, or at least to be replaced by some other orthodoxy by our children or children's children. So I think I'm living in a glass house and don't want to start throwing stones.
IQ tests were supposed to be such that one could not benefit from practising.
They're also administered way too late. You have to be literate and numerate to take one; at least 10 years old. By then, whatever experiences you've had since birth formed most of your thinking. There are tests for development - generally aimed at detecting problems - but I'm not sure they're as reliable as the ones given to dogs and crows. Anecdotally, I can tell you that bright parents tend to have bright kids and stupid parents usually have dumb kids, and I could pick the most intelligent toddlers out of a day-care by watching them pay for twenty minutes. But that's not scientific evidence. Quoting Ludwig V
But I don't think we should be too hard on people who go along with the conventional views in society.
I'm not! Quite the reverse: I'm saying that those who didn't stick their necks out for what we consider "the truth" today were acting rationally. So are those who go along to get along now. (Maybe not Bezos, hedging his political bets...) Quoting Ludwig V
It took thousands of years for us to develop the idea that there is something wrong with slavery and racism, and it seems absurd to think that all those people were morally deficient in some way.
Some of them always knew. Very possibly, most of them did, whether they could conceive of an alternative or not. For damn sure, the gladiators in Rome did, and the abducted Africans in American cotton fields. The captives felt it was wrong to be captured, but when they had the chance, they would do the same to an enemy. Nobody wants to be first to stop: it's a sign of weakness. The Quakers knew, and early Mormons and the Cathari long before them. But... The Economy!!!! There is no bloody way a man doesn't know that it's wrong to batter his wife, or a woman doesn't know it's wrong to cripple her little granddaughter's feet, but one has license to unleash his temper and the other has cultural norms to uphold. It's convenient to go along, as well as safer and easier. But there have always been rebels who spoke out against the wrongs in their society - they mostly got killed in unpleasant ways - so we know those wrongs were perceived, even back then when everyone was supposed to be blind.
It is true that one can believe something on rational grounds, and be wrong. But if you are wrong, you didn't know it. Knowledge cannot be wrong. If someone believes that it will rain on Tuesday, and it doesn't, they didn't know that it will rain on Tuesday.
Checking out you knew or not, that is the work of reason. Reason itself is not truth.
You seem to be misunderstanding me. I didn't modify your post at all. I simply presented to you my own definition of intelligence, which is different from yours.
It is a very peculiar way of putting down your own definition on someone else's writing, making out as if it was written by someone else.
If reason cannot deliver truth, then it cannot verity my belief or knowledge.
Does reason deliver truth? It sounds not making sense. The sentence "Reason delivers truth." sounds not correct. Reason brings truth to you at your door step? Like a Amazon delivery van delivers what you have ordered from Amazon? I am not sure if that was what you meant. Hope not. You find out truth or falsity on something using reason.
Clearly, we have different concepts of rationality. If rationality has nothing to do with truth, what is the point of it? How does it differ from reading tea leaves of consulting an astrologer?
Rationality is a method to finding truth, but rationality itself is not truth. We do have different ideas not just on rationality, but also truth. All the best.
It took thousands of years for us to develop the idea that there is something wrong with slavery and racism, and it seems absurd to think that all those people were morally deficient in some way.
Sadly, they were. There are still many people like that. Slavery and genocide are still with us.
I'm not! Quite the reverse: I'm saying that those who didn't stick their necks out for what we consider "the truth" today were acting rationally. So are those who go along to get along now.
a career priest [Augustine] might propound Christian/Platonic values as a rational way to support the status quo.
I understood that as saying that Augustine might propound Christian/Platonic values in order to support the status quo - which is true. But then he would be guilty of hypocrisy. I wanted to point out that it is also possible that he might propound those values because he believed in Christianity and Platonism, whether or not they supported the status quo.
There are many cases when it is very hard to assess people. Heidegger (support for Nazism) and Hegel (support for the Prussian monarchy) are particularly difficult cases. Descartes has also been suspected, maybe because of his explicit policy of accepting orthodox morality while he is applying his methodology of doubt. I'm just saying that I don't think we should rush to judgement. But I see now that you were not rushing to judgement and I was. So I apologize.
Rational thought is less often used in the service of Truth than in achieving goals.
I'm not quite sure what you are saying here. Practical reason is inherently morally ambiguous; a bad actor can be entirely rational. It is only theoretical reason that is in the service of truth.
Sadly, they were. There are still many people like that. Slavery and genocide are still with us.
You are right about slavery and genocide. The (rather few) days when we could all be confident in the eventual triumph of western liberal values are long gone. It's all been a big let down.
But one cannot aspire to moral standards unless they can be articulated in the world that one lives in and I don't think it is appropriate to apply the standards of other societies to lives lived in that way. For example, the first traces in history of human rights did not appear until the fifth century BCE - in Persia. It took a long time before the idea was articulated in the late Roman Empire and even longer before Thomas Paine was able to articulate them with some clarity in the 18th century CE.
All that can be expected or required of us is to get along as well as we can in the world that we know, with all its many imperfections. That's the only standard that it is reasonable to apply. The virtues of saints and heroes are supererogatory - beyond what is required or expected. Certainly, they are to be admired, but it is not necessary to imitate them in order to live a good life.
I don't know about that, which is why I said 'might'. I do know Descartes was. I was only interested in the rationality of their thought, whatever the rationale - not in whether they actually believed in the product.
I'm not assessing people or judging their morals or psychoanalyzing them: I'm only concerned with whether the thought process being exhibited is rational or irrational. Without accusing anyone specific of lying, it is very often the most rational approach to a situation; a lunatic can shout out what he really thinks and feels, if he's heedless of the consequences. Quoting Ludwig V
Rational thought is less often used in the service of Truth than in achieving goals. — Vera Mont
I'm not quite sure what you are saying here. Practical reason is inherently morally ambiguous; a bad actor can be entirely rational.
Again, I'm not concerned with anyone's morality. I'm concerned with judging whether a thought process is rational or irrational. If it achieves a discernible goal, opens a gate, invents a helicopter, evades a predator, earns you a promotion, liberates the cookies from the box, it's rational thought, whatever motivated the goal, whatever tactics were employed.
It is only theoretical reason that is in the service of truth.
Both require facts which are true. If one's goal is to discover some particular truth, like who broke into the Watergate, or whether Christine has been unfaithful, or how magnetism and electricity interact, or how many marbles will raise the water level so you can reach the treat, it's still goal-oriented thought. I don't believe there such a thing as a great big all-encompassing Truth to which you can apply rational thought. You can think quite a lot about how to talk about Truth, but you can't comprehend it with reason; the Truth is too abstract to capture with anything but faith. (Not saying definitively that It isn't 'out there'; only that I can't believe in it.) Quoting Ludwig V
But there it can be very hard to tell which of them has really put their finger on an actual wrong, as opposed to a perceived wrong.
Of course. My point was only that social injustices were always perceived by some people, even against an overwhelming cultural norm.
You can only judge according to your own values. If you assume that enslaving people is wrong and somebody in 400BCE spoke up against it, you're likely to think he perceived correctly. If you think people should be equal under the law, you'll probably disagree with the perception of legislators who blocked women's and Chinese immigrants' voting rights. Whether you think they were/are right or wrong, these actions are rational. The perceived/actual grievances of Maga cultists would be very difficult to sort out, but we could each do it, given a comprehensive list to compare with our own convictions. (but I can't drink hard liquor anymore)
Show me the Messiah(s) who will be followed to this new life.
Tell me when the movement reaches world-changing momentum.
Let's use rational thinking. The Messiah is based on a myth. Information collected from science and history is based on valid facts.
It took doctors at least a hundred years to believe sanitation was important after the first curious people began looking at bacteria in microscopes. Today knowledge spreads much faster. People in biblical times could not know of a distant war, as we know of our wars today, as they are happening in live color and full sound. That does not mean climate change, disease, famine, and lack of resources will not bring civilizations down, but it does mean we have a chance of making better decisions and this might just happen if we had a functioning democracy. A functioning democracy depends on education for that purpose. We had such an education in the past but not since the 1958 National Defense Education BUT some teachers and schools are better than others and a few people are making a difference.
This discussion goes far beyond what animals talk about, and this is why we should understand the difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Squacking a warning and responding to the roar of a bear or lion is communication, but it is not the language of humans. It is language and rational thinking that separates some of us from animals. Believing a mythology about a god making humans and then cursing them and punishing them or rewarding them is not rational thinking based on facts.
In the 1920s a small article in a newspaper warned, "Given our known supply of oil and rate of consumption, we are headed for economic disaster and possibly war". Soon after that all industrial economies crashed and the world went to war. Following the war, we maintained the social and economic behavior that brought us to war. That is not rational. We are behaving like animals incapable of rational thinking because we evolved from animals. Our ability to be rational is blocked by religion and ignorance. That is something we can change. We may not do so before destroying our planet and making our present civilizations impossible, but I do believe we can make better decisions.
You should be very careful not to be deceived by the word democracy. It could mean, that you must do anything irrational to justify the word. It would be wiser to stay critical and analytical on these fancy words which can be hollow inside, but can force people to irrational actions and thoughts.
"All gods have anger issues. Athena was just as petty and vengeful as the others." Wikipedia
:rage: Obviously you are ignorant of the ideology of democracy. That is a widespread problem. It would be wiser for you to question what you believe and what I believe, instead of making assumptions and attacking something you may not understand. It matters because it is the difference of having hope for the future or complete hopelessness. That hope is based on human intelligence and potential and only by being rational is that hope founded. So explain what think democracy is and why you object to it. This is the difference between reacting like an animal or reacting like a rational human.
You should be very careful about offending Athena.
Well, I would say that an economy that requires people to work for wages that cannot sustain a decent life is broken. But that requirement is so common that I suspect I'm just being idealistic. Still, it seems inhumane and immoral not to see those jobs as problematic.
I agree with everything you said. When Britain had to prepare for the war, it realized most of its military-age men were unfit to serve in the army and it was a matter of national survival to improve the health of the labor force. Industry was asked to pay higher wages to improve the condition of those living in poverty and Industry said it could not pay higher wages because that make everything cost more and they would lose their competitive advantage on the global market. That is around the world workers are being used as cheap labor so their nations can compete for world markets. Welfare subsidizes Industry by providing the assistance low wagers need. Only we have very little understanding of this so we are not managing our reality well.
Remember the saying cheap as dirt? It meant we had land and resources than people, and housing was very cheap. That is no longer true.
That is something we can change. We may not do so before destroying our planet and making our present civilizations impossible, but I do believe we can make better decisions.
Like you said: hundreds of years for this, decades for that.... Have you noticed what's happening in the US election? We simply ran out of time. What's the point of 'making better choices' when everyone left on the planet is fighting over the last habitable acre?
I don't believe there such a thing as a great big all-encompassing Truth to which you can apply rational thought. You can think quite a lot about how to talk about Truth, but you can't comprehend it with reason; the Truth is too abstract to capture with anything but faith. (Not saying definitively that It isn't 'out there'; only that I can't believe in it.)
Oh, I agree with you entirely about Truth. But I do think there are truths. (After that, it all gets complicated.)
That's true. But I would only make judgement taking into account the situation or context of the action - especially when it is very different from my own. BTW, I've heard people commenting on Descartes' personal moral stance before, but I've never quite understood what the problem is.
Welfare subsidizes Industry by providing the assistance low wagers need. Only we have very little understanding of this so we are not managing our reality well.
It is very curious that industry can be relied on to adopt the narrowest point of view. It's not as if industry doesn't end up footing the bill for their starvation wages. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they might have to pay smaller taxes if only they paid a decent wage and make bigger profits because they would have a larger market for their goods.
Like a Amazon delivery van delivers what you have ordered from Amazon? I am not sure if that was what you meant. Hope not. You find out truth or falsity on something using reason.
No, not like that at all. Your way of putting it is better.
Checking out you knew or not, that is the work of reason. Reason itself is not truth.
But then, I just don't understand what you mean by these comments. Reason and truth are not the same thing. But they are connected. You seem to recognize that, but then deny it. I must be missing something.
BTW, I've heard people commenting on Descartes' personal moral stance before, but I've never quite understood what the problem is.
No problem. After Galileo had his little confrontation with the good fathers - and quite rationally stood down from his heretical belief in the Earth moving around the sun - every thinker in Europe had some difficult moments rethinking their strategy. So Descartes has his big truth-seeking exercise: purges his mind of all beliefs, everything he's ever been taught, delves way down in there for one incontrovertible fact and comes up with "I exist" OK... "But wait, here's another incontrovertible truth: God. Didn't learn about God; it wasn't a belief: I just happened to find Him in here at the bottom of my completely empty mind. And now, I shall proceed to unfold my theory of a mechanistic universe, only God's winding all the clockwork animals. Oh, and people are a mechanistic body with a completely independent, immaterial soul.
Are you convinced of his sincerity?
You can't be moral when you're dead - so you compromise to stay alive. That's rational. The same person who made that compromise might still be honest with his friends, faithful to his wife, accurate in his court testimony, prompt in the payment of his debts and play a clean game of billiards.
Why insist that anyone be pure in both thinking and probity? That's just not human. The insides of our heads are never swept clean like Descartes imagined that one time.
But then, I just don't understand what you mean by these comments. Reason and truth are not the same thing. But they are connected. You seem to recognize that, but then deny it. I must be missing something.
I think I have tried to clarify the points enough from my side. There is nothing much more for me to add here. You seem to keep going around circle of deviation. I will leave you to it.
I am bowing out from this thread. All the best.
I agree. I don't even understand what you mean by a circle of deviation. I was indeed deviating in the sense that I was trying to break out of your circle of repetition. Best wishes to you as well.
After Galileo had his little confrontation with the good fathers - and quite rationally stood down from his heretical belief in the Earth moving around the sun - every thinker in Europe had some difficult moments rethinking their strategy. So Descartes has his big truth-seeking exercise: purges his mind of all beliefs, everything he's ever been taught, delves way down in there for one incontrovertible fact and comes up with "I exist" OK... "But wait, here's another incontrovertible truth: God. Didn't learn about God; it wasn't a belief: I just happened to find Him in here at the bottom of my completely empty mind. And now, I shall proceed to unfold my theory of a mechanistic universe, only God's winding all the clockwork animals. Oh, and people are a mechanistic body with a completely independent, immaterial soul.
Are you convinced of his sincerity?
Oddly enough, I am convinced of Descartes' sincerity. It is Galileo who gets himself into a morally complicated situation. (I mean that he could be accused of hypocrisy, but I think he was (rationally and morally) justified in what he did.)
Galileo, as you say, recanted. The inquisitors forbade him from teaching or even discussing his heretical theory. However, the story goes that, as he left the Vatican, he paused on the steps and said (to himself) "Even so, it moves". If he had said that in the hearing of the inquisitors, he would thereby have recanted his recantation. But he kept that remark to himself, thus leading the inquisitors to believe that he had rejected the theory that he actually believed - the essence of hypocrisy. But I agree with you about the need to survive as best we can, so I have no criticism of him.
Descartes' position is also complicated, but much less black-and-white than Galileo's. Of course, I don't question the repressive regime that all these guys lived under, and his position is not entirely clear; I don't deny that he may have been influenced by it. But the key point is that his scepticism is a thought-experiment. He presents his story in the Meditations as if he is really believing the sceptical conclusions. But his introduction makes it clear that he doesn't, and the reader knows perfectly well that he is going to go on and rescue the situation. The genius of the Meditations is that it is a story with a plot exactly like every adventure (thriller) story - disaster looms and seems inevitable, but our hero risks everything in order to dash in and rescue the situation. There are arguments, to be sure, but the suspense of the plot does the real work of persuasion. True, the world will seem different, but we are safe and that's the important thing. T.S. Eliot says it well - after all our wanderings we will come back home "and know the place for the first time"; there may even be toast and honey for tea. It is very odd that Descartes and Hume are both classified as sceptical philosophers, when actually, they are nothing of the kind.
The difference between the two is that Galileo pretended to accept that his theory was an erroneous hypothesis when he believed that it was a true account and while Descartes never pretended that his scepticism was more than a possibility; he was exploring it n order to refute it.
You can't be moral when you're dead - so you compromise to stay alive. That's rational. The same person who made that compromise might still be honest with his friends, faithful to his wife, accurate in his court testimony, prompt in the payment of his debts and play a clean game of billiards.
Why insist that anyone be pure in both thinking and probity? That's just not human. The insides of our heads are never swept clean like Descartes imagined that one time.
Yes, I agree with you. There's a kind of morality that makes black-and-white judgements and refuses to acknowledge complexity and ambiguity. Everyone has to duck and cover in order to get along. But without that society could not function. Keeping the peace and the show on the road are practically and morally important goals both for individuals and for the collective.
The difference between the two is that Galileo pretended to accept that his theory was an erroneous hypothesis when he believed that it was a true account and while Descartes never pretended that his scepticism was more than a possibility; he was exploring it n order to refute it.
Of course, Galileo was both right and wrong. He endorsed the Copernican system (Copernicus himself was rational enough not to publish in his lifetime) and rejected the far more accurate Keplerian system.
Descartes God was a creative invention, just like his clockwork world. It's easy to play back-and-dorth with fiction; take no principles at all.
Strictly speaking, instinctive behaviour is a set behaviour pattern that is not learned, but inherited. It is not, therefore, based on any process of learning or reasoning. It is capable of rational justification at the level of evolution as contributing to the ability of the creature to sruvive and reproduce.
I think it is plausible to think that we and the other animals may have an instinct to copy behavior. So some behaviors may be a combination of instinctive and learned. Learned not in the sense of deliberately taught but in the sense of acquired by mimicry.
But we do have to learn much body language in order to read it and it does not follow from the fact that we can read human body language that we can read the body language of other creatures without learning. But small children do have to be taught to recognize the body language of dogs.
I think we can instinctively read some body language both human and animal. I agree that the understanding of some body language must be learned. Not learned in the sense of being deliberately taught of course.
As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language.
— Janus
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.research offers the first evidence that parrots learn their unique signature calls from their parents and shows that vocal signaling in wild parrots is a socially acquired rather than a genetically wired trait.
Does it follow that the parrot's signaling is symbolic though? I think part of what I would count as the possession of symbolic language consists in the ability to explicitly understand that such and such a sound, gesture or mark conventionally stands for whatever it symbolizes.
Reply to mcdoodle The same question as above regarding the dolphins. And not I am not denying that other animals might possess symbolic language. I'm questioning whether we have clear evidence that they do as opposed to having some evidence that they might.
Does it follow that the parrot's signaling is symbolic though? I think part of what I would count as the possession of symbolic language consists in the ability to explicitly understand that such and such a sound, gesture or mark conventionally stands for whatever it symbolizes.
?mcdoodle The same question as above regarding the dolphins. And not I am not denying that other animals might possess symbolic language. I'm questioning whether we have clear evidence that they do as opposed to having some evidence that they might.
The true test for whether other animals have symbolic language is not empirical but depends on what is meant by 'language'. Other animals don't seem to have anything that resembles our verbal language, but they may have other kinds of languages, and so do humans.
All animals use signals or symbols in the basic sense that a symbol is something that stands for something else. For example, an insect identifies a scent or sound or gesture, which symbolizes the presence of nutrients, mates, predators etc. Animals who live in groups benefit from shared symbolic labor, hence the evolution of genetically wired and socially acquired symbol systems.
There are many different kinds of symbol systems, also among humans. Human language is a verbal symbol system which has some syntactic and semantic properties that distinguishes it from non-verbal systems such as pictorial or musical or gestural that we also use.
So we might agree that other animals don't have a symbolic language in the sense that the language has the kind of syntactic and semantic properties that human verbal language has. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that they have other symbolic languages. I find it uncontroversial that I'm using symbolic language based on gestures and sounds when I talk to my cat.
Descartes God was a creative invention, just like his clockwork world. It's easy to play back-and-dorth with fiction; take no principles at all.
H'm. You seem to really have it in for Descartes. He is iconic and takes a lot of stick. But he wasn't the one who invented God, or even the argument he used to argue for the reality of that God. True, he contributed massively to the clockwork world, there were many others involved as well. But still, you're not wrong.
I think it is plausible to think that we and the other animals may have an instinct to copy behavior. So some behaviors may be a combination of instinctive and learned. Learned not in the sense of deliberately taught but in the sense of acquired by mimicry.
That's perfectly true and I think that mimicry is more important to our learning that is generally recognized. People seem to prefer to emphasis association. I don't know why. Aristotle knew better, of course, and I think he may be alone amongst the canonical philosophers in that.
I think part of what I would count as the possession of symbolic language consists in the ability to explicitly understand that such and such a sound, gesture or mark conventionally stands for whatever it symbolizes.
There's a bit of a problem with that. Articulating our understanding of how to use words and construct sentences is much more difficult than it seems. For the most part, mostly our use of language is underpinned by skills that we do not, and often cannot, articulate.
So we might agree that other animals don't have a symbolic language in the sense that the language has the kind of syntactic and semantic properties that human verbal language has.
I see our language capability as a hyper-development of abilities that (all? most?) animals have to a greater or less extent. Other species have hyper-developed other abilities, such as the hyper-development of echo-location in bats and dolphins or vision in hawks and other predator birds.
You seem to really have it in for Descartes. He is iconic and takes a lot of stick.
In for? You mean judge him as I would any mortal making his way in the real world? Okay, I do hate what he and his cohort did to our relationship with nature and other species, the two hundred years of suffering they inflicted on helpless animals. He's not responsible for that; he's just a participant who was clever enough to make himself an icon. My insignificant opinion won't deter any of his fans.
But we were not talking about that. I was referring to his very sensible use of God to avoid confrontation with the Inquisition. Spending time in the more tolerant Netherlands was a smart move, too. Icons are for the faithful. I have no faiths. But I would have pretended whatever was required if the inquisitors had their eye on me; I certainly don't fault anyone for doing it, and if they're clever enough, turning it to their own advantage.
But he wasn't the one who invented God, or even the argument he used to argue for the reality of that God.
He just pretended to rediscover it after ridding himself of all learned beliefs. It was merely an example of rational thinking not subjugated to truth.
I do hate what he and his cohort did to our relationship with nature and other species, the two hundred years of suffering they inflicted on helpless animals
That's fair enough. I actually agree about the suffering. It's just that I doubt that he and his colleagues made much practical difference. It's not as if animal welfare has ever been a moral issue before our time.
I was referring to his very sensible use of God to avoid confrontation with the Inquisition.
That's a question of his motivation. There's a passage in the Discourse on Method where he says that while he is subjecting his beliefs to methodical doubt, he sticks to conventional views. That can certainly be read as pragmatic rather than sincere.
He just pretended to rediscover it after ridding himself of all learned beliefs
It would prefer "after supposedly ridding himself of all learned beliefs". It is hard to believe he hadn't read Aquinas' Five Ways and it wouldn't be surprising if he did a bit of cherry-picking through the rubbish.
I actually agree about the suffering. It's just that I doubt that he and his colleagues made much practical difference. It's not as if animal welfare has ever been a moral issue before our time.
It was a moral issue in Descartes' time.
The response to Descartes I want to look at here though, is not modern. It belongs to a now little-known philosopher called Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688), a younger contemporary of Descartes. Cudworth was an Anglican theologian, a keen Classicist, and for most of his career, Cambridge University’s Professor of Hebrew. Along with the aforementioned Henry More, he was a leading member of a group of philosophers known as the Cambridge Platonists, who promoted the relevance of Platonic philosophy to contemporary life and thought. Although he agreed with Descartes on many things, Cudworth thought (as did More) that Descartes’ view of animals as mindless machines was implausible.
He defended his entrenched mechanistic position in many arguments. His main theme was: They have no souls; therefore they feel neither pleasure nor pain. But admitted that they can exhibit "passions".... The guy had a dog in his house. Was he unable to see the dog's responses as being like his own, or he did he choose to ignore the similarity because it wasn't convenient? Remember, this is not a stupid man; he's defending a theory - at least in public.Quoting Ludwig V
It would prefer "after supposedly ridding himself of all learned beliefs".
I was skeptical, too. But it's what he claimed as the object of the exercise: get to the truth by doubting everything he'd ever been taught or believed. (Except that.)
Why are you going on out on a plausibility limb to defend a hypocrisy that can't be sanctioned or punished at this late date? It served his purpose, so that was the rational path.
Reply to jkop Sure it can depend on how you define "symbolic language". Via symbolic language as I understand and define it we can explicitly understand ourselves to be whatever it is we take ourselves to be. We can understand ourselves to be possessed of symbolic language on account of being possessed of symbolic language for example. Do you believe there is any evidence that any other animals can do that?
There's a bit of a problem with that. Articulating our understanding of how to use words and construct sentences is much more difficult than it seems. For the most part, mostly our use of language is underpinned by skills that we do not, and often cannot, articulate.
I was referring to a more modest capacity—the ability to articulate that we can use words and construct sentences. I wasn't claiming that we can articulate in any comprehensive sense how it is that we are able to do that.
Via symbolic language as I understand and define it we can explicitly understand ourselves to be whatever it is we take ourselves to be. We can understand ourselves to be possessed of symbolic language on account of being possessed of symbolic language for example. Do you believe there is any evidence that any other animals can do that?
Yes, because the ability to understand things in the environment remotely via symbols (natural or socially constructed) is a function of any animal's interest.
Bees, for instance, are interested in flowers, and benefit from having a specific symbol system (waggles) for sharing the direction and distance to flowers. Bees can identify their own and each other's functions and symbolic behaviours.
However, to understand oneself or one's possession of symbolic language is either necessary nor sufficient for possessing symbolic language.
Why are you going on out on a plausibility limb to defend a hypocrisy that can't be sanctioned or punished at this late date? It served his purpose, so that was the rational path.
Well, if you said that Galileo was a hypocrite, I would agree on the basis that it was, technically, but justified on the basis that being tortured or burnt at the stake was an unreasonable price to pay for following a purely academic line of research and so lying was a rational way to get out of his situation, even though, if you are a Kantian, lying is always wrong. Why? Because he explicitly contradicted himself. Descartes' case is much less clear. I'm just calling it as I see it.
I was skeptical, too. But it's what he claimed as the object of the exercise: get to the truth by doubting everything he'd ever been taught or believed. (Except that.)
There's a genuine argument against radical scepticism, that no-one can seriously doubt that he is now sitting beside a stove, which will burn one if one isn't careful. Descartes isn't quite in that bracket because he frames his doubt as "merely" theoretical.
Cudworth thought (as did More) that Descartes’ view of animals as mindless machines was implausible.
I had heard of Cudworth. But I didn't know he crossed swords with Descartes. However, his critique is milder than yours, in my book.
I would expect, however that Cudworth did not think that animals had souls and did think that because they did not, they were of less or no moral value and consequently eating them was perfectly OK.
I was referring to a more modest capacity—the ability to articulate that we can use words and construct sentences. I wasn't claiming that we can articulate in any comprehensive sense how it is that we are able to do that.
Well, yes. Animals cannot articulate anything in that way. But that takes us back to the question what the significance is of the various species-unique abilities we can learn - given that every species is unique in some way.
Well, if you said that Galileo was a hypocrite, I would agree on the basis that it was, technically, but justified on the basis that being tortured or burnt at the stake was an unreasonable price to pay for following a purely academic line of research and so lying was a rational way to get out of his situation,
Of course it was. Wouldn't you? Joan of Arc was crazy; Giordano Bruno was an ideologue. Most of us normal people practice some degree of hypocrisy, simply to get by, and more to get along. Quoting Ludwig V
even though, if you are a Kantian, lying is always wrong.
I'm not, and that's a ridiculous, unrealistic position. Also, in many case, immoral. Quoting Ludwig V
Descartes' case is much less clear.
He learned a lesson from other men's examples. He was smarter than most of his contemporaries - smarter than Galileo who seems to have considered himself the smartest man alive. Quoting Ludwig V
Descartes isn't quite in that bracket because he frames his doubt as "merely" theoretical.
That doesn't persuade me of his sincerity. If it persuades you, all's well. Quoting Ludwig V
However, his critique is milder than yours, in my book.
Yes. He was encumbered by the 'soul' issue; I'm not. Quoting Ludwig V
I would expect, however that Cudworth did not think that animals had souls
But Cudworth didn’t think that the similarity between man and beast was purely biologically based, as most of us would argue today. Instead, Cudworth argued that animals, like humans, have souls.
Descartes also preferred to replace "vivisection/torture" with "killing and eating" in the moral argument. It's way more acceptable to defend throwing chunks of beef in a pot than dislocating a dog's shoulders and hips, then nailing his paws to a plank and slitting his belly open, all the while he's screaming in agony. Most people who object to torture (then and now) do not object to killing enemies in war, or eating humanely-killed flesh. Most people in the argument do not draw the moral line at possession of a soul or human language (though some philosophers still do) but at deliberate infliction of pain on a sentient being, for whatever reason. Let's shift those posts back to the real issue.
Of which vivisection was an offshoot. It does demonstrate hypocrisy: he could maintain - paraphrased by the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche - that animals “eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it; they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.” and yet take Monsieur Grat for a walk, fully expecting that the dog would not shit on his rug, expecting him to obey commands and and appreciate treats.
But it's the God argument I originally mentioned.
Had he been entirely honest in that meditation, he would have questioned all beliefs, rather than making the church's case. Theoretically. Funny, how it all works out, innit?
I never blamed him for that hypocrisy: it was the rational choice.
That God/soul problem persisted in all philosophical arguments as long as the HRC held Europe in its grip. After the Reformation, thinking became a little more free and diverse, even though most Protestant sects were also intolerant of agnostic ideas - but at least they didn't have an Inquisition to cow their own congregants into silence. A couple of them still persecuted witches and expelled heretics, but they were less dangerous than the unchecked (and profoundly corrupt) Catholic church. Quoting Ludwig V
There's not way of knowing, and consequently no evidence that it was just a matter of convenience.
Convenience was my guess. You have other choices: absolute conviction in the teeth of all evidence, willful self-delusion, subconscious delusion, fear of prosecution, sadistic monster.... More if you can find them. But I still don't understand why you want to, when it's independent of the serendipitous discovery of God (....the majority of whose creatures are nothing but noisy machines. Pretty damn disrespectful of the Creator for a devout Christian - but that, too, is beside the point.) All humans compartmentalize their beliefs and attitudes. There are no sane, intelligent, totally honest humans.
Well, yes. Animals cannot articulate anything in that way. But that takes us back to the question what the significance is of the various species-unique abilities we can learn - given that every species is unique in some way.
Yes, I agree that every species is unique in some way. For us it just happened to be symbolic language (unless there is at least one other species that unbeknownst to us also possesses it).
However, to understand oneself or one's possession of symbolic language is either necessary nor sufficient for possessing symbolic language.
I guess it all depends on how you define "symbolic language". As I see it the abstractive ability that enables explicit self-reflective awareness would be the defining feature.
Yes, because the ability to understand things in the environment remotely via symbols (natural or socially constructed) is a function of any animal's interest.
For non-symbolically linguistic animals I would say instead "the ability to understand things in the environment via signs".
That's just how he did justify the moral position held by a minority of thinkers at the time that it's wrong to torture animals.
So I've learnt something to-day. Thank you for the link. I have looked through it, but not read it carefully yet.
I'm losing my grip on what our disagreement is about. Perhaps you'll forgive my not following the convention of linking my comments to quotations from what you say. Instead, I'ld like to offer an analysis of where we are at.
We seem to be using "hypocrisy" in slightly different ways. I think I can best explain through a different case. Many people seem to use the word "lying" to mean simply saying what is false. Whether they attach a moral judgement to the word is not clear to me, but my understanding of it is that saying what is false, knowing it to be false and with intent to deceive is morally reprehensible.
So, for me, saying what one sincerely believes to be true, even if it turns out to be false, is not lying. There's an exception, that one might sincerely believe something because of wishful thinking, or carelessness; but saying that it is true is a different moral failing, for which we don't have a name (I think). In the same way, you seem to call behaving in ways that are inconsistent "hypocrisy" but you seem to exempt some hypocrisy from moral criticism, if it has a rational justification.
But then, there is a difficulty about the intersection of rationality with morality. We like to think that they don't conflict. But when you say that Descartes was hypocritical but rational, I conclude that you are saying that the rationality of his hypocrisy justifies it, or at least exempts is from moral censure. I find that very confusing.
I believe it is the case that Descartes never indulged in the vicious torture of nailing animals to planks, but that some students who followed Descartes did. Furthermore, it seem that he also kept a companion dog in his house, which seems incompatible with believing that the animal was just a machine. Here's my opinion. The students were guilty of consistency, illustrating how rigid adherence to a ideology can lead one into really vicious moral errors. Descartes, on the other hand, was technically inconsistent with his theoretical beliefs, but exhibited good sense in not following through from his theory to his practice.
But then, there is a difficulty about the intersection of rationality with morality.
I do believe - sincerely - that they do not conflict. Any more than a pencil and brush in an artist's satchel, or a hammer and pliers in a carpenter's toolbox. Our mental equipment includes a great many tools that are separate one from another. When I say something is rational, I mean that it is based on observed or assumed fact and is aimed at solving a problem or achieving a goal. There is no value judgment here of the worthiness of the goal or the cause of the problem. Whether it's aimed at a better cancer treatment or a more effective weapon of mass destruction, the thought process is rational.
I believe it is the case that Descartes never indulged in the vicious torture of nailing animals to planks, but that some students who followed Descartes did.
I don't know whether he did it or only defended the prevailing practice. It doesn't matter now. It mattered when the prevailing practice was questioned, opposed, justified on philosophical grounds and therefore continued. In this, he was greatly influential.
The rational component of that justification is the aim of gaining more knowledge of physiology*. The moral component - if there is one in your world-view - is wilful disregard of the pain caused.
*If a person truly believes that the mechanical dog and feeling man are of different kinds, why would he consider the physiology of dogs useful in understanding how humans work? Does it matter that the vast majority of humans do not philosophize and some cannot speak? In fact, the doctors dissected executed people in the same lecture hall as the vivisection lessons. They were not legally permitted to study live humans, so they went to the next best thing. Can you possibly imagine none of these intelligent men knew what the screaming signified?
I never understood why you introduced the moral component. Quoting Ludwig V
So, for me, saying what one sincerely believes to be true, even if it turns out to be false, is not lying. There's an exception, that one might sincerely believe something because of wishful thinking, or carelessness; but saying that it is true is a different moral failing, for which we don't have a name
There is no need to conflate those ideas. Obviously, stating one's belief is not lying. It only becomes so if one is exposed to the truth and rejects it. Making oneself believe what isn't true is lying to oneself, whether it's said to anyone else or not. Nobody believes falsehoods through simple carelessness, though they may repeat what they've heard because they don't care enough to reflect. That may be trivial or criminal, depending on the falsehood and its effect on the world.
But why is lying a immoral? There are many reasons to lie, some of them laudable, some despicable. There are also many styles and standards morality; what one culture or individual applauds, another may despise. I don't believe there has ever been a sane adult in the world who is or was morally pure, or entirely truthful or altogether devoid of hypocrisy. None of our heroes and role models are so much more perfect than we are.
Why is that a problem?
Yes, I agree that every species is unique in some way. For us it just happened to be symbolic language (unless there is at least one other species that unbeknownst to us also possesses it).
Some people think that there are number of factors working together. That seems a very likely possibility. Our bipedalism allowed our front feet to develop into hands which enabled us to handle objects in a much more precise way. Our large (for our body size) brain allowed us to develop our kind of language. Not to mention the critical importance of our being a social animal, without which our technologies could not have developed.
Like you said: hundreds of years for this, decades for that.... Have you noticed what's happening in the US election? We simply ran out of time. What's the point of 'making better choices' when everyone left on the planet is fighting over the last habitable acre?
Societies swing. Some things get worse and worse until people unite to change what is causing things to get worse. This is the fun of life. We have problems to resolve.
I want to invite everyone to a symposium where I will serve tea and coffee, cookies, and donuts and share some old grade school test books. I have pulled out my old math text books because I am helping a child with math. The old textbooks relate math to everyday living so a child can relate to what is being taught. As important as math is, it is not the only thing the books teach. The second-grade book especially teaches consideration and good manners.
People made a terrible mistake when they thought we only taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. The old books were very much about transmitting a culture, good citizenship, and family values. In 1958 teaching decisions were turned over to those most interested in war, and we stopped transmitting the culture we were transmitting in favor of education for technology. We stopped teaching social values and independent thinking because we did not know what values a high-tech society would need and leaving moral training the church, meant a faster shift into a high-tech society with unknown values.
That was the education Germany had before Hitler took control. Without lessons for consideration and good manners, we have selfishness, and self-centered decision-making, and tend to be reactionary instead of thoughtful and rational human beings. The Christian mythology is very much a part of this problem and leaving moral training to the Church is a terrible mistake.
That is the bottom line of this thread. The differences between animals and humans, and why we are not as civilized as educated people used to be.
We seem to be using "hypocrisy" in slightly different ways. I think I can best explain through a different case. Many people seem to use the word "lying" to mean simply saying what is false. Whether they attach a moral judgement to the word is not clear to me, but my understanding of it is that saying what is false, knowing it to be false and with intent to deceive is morally reprehensible.
So, for me, saying what one sincerely believes to be true, even if it turns out to be false, is not lying. There's an exception, that one might sincerely believe something because of wishful thinking, or carelessness; but saying that it is true is a different moral failing, for which we don't have a name (I think). In the same way, you seem to call behaving in ways that are inconsistent "hypocrisy" but you seem to exempt some hypocrisy from moral criticism, if it has a rational justification.
This thread is wondering and that is a good thing because from the beginning the importance of the subject is how we treat each other and teach our children.
I woke up this morning listening to a lecture about human rights. It troubles me greatly that Aristotle thought some people are born to be slaves and slavery is an important part of family order, and that the Church used Aristotle for the education called Scholasticism. Martin Luther believed we are preordained by God to be masters or slaves and he thought the witch hunts were necessary.
Obviously, false beliefs have been part of our civilizations. AND this is what makes a discussion of thinking like an animal versus the language-based rational thinking of educated humans, important. How do we know truth? What does knowing truth have to do with democracy, rule by reason?
Societies swing. Some things get worse and worse until people unite to change what is causing things to get worse. This is the fun of life. We have problems to resolve.
The dying planet won't wait for us to swing around like a leaking oil tanker. Quoting Athena
That is the bottom line of this thread. The differences between animals and humans, and why we are not as civilized as educated people used to be.
Have you looked at any newspaper headlines lately?
Which animals are less civilized and rational than humans?
It is very curious that industry can be relied on to adopt the narrowest point of view. It's not as if the industry doesn't end up footing the bill for their starvation wages. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they might have to pay smaller taxes if only they paid a decent wage and make bigger profits because they would have a larger market for their goods.
That argument has troubled my thinking for many years. Who is going to buy the stuff that makes corporations rich, if the people can not afford it? When Adam Smith wrote of economics he also wrote of morality and explained the importance of good morality to economic success.
Okay if good morality is essential to a good economy, why isn't this an important part of education? In case you haven't read what I said about an old math book for second-grade children, the book is very much about morals. If we understand the relationship between morals and a healthy economy/civilization is a matter of cause and effect, then we are strongly motivated to be moral, and this distinguishes humans from other animals. When we don't teach morals along with math, we get self-centered, reactionary humans, no better than animals.
Okay, gang, Thrift Books has a few books written by Adam Smith for very little money. From what I gather about politics in the US is the number 1 concern is economics. I have ordered a couple of books and it would be great to have a thread addressing morals and economics. That would be a discussion no other animal is going to have. The impact of global warming is making our present path of self-destruction insane! Animals can destroy other species, but not the whole planet.
There is no value judgment here of the worthiness of the goal or the cause of the problem. Whether it's aimed at a better cancer treatment or a more effective weapon of mass destruction, the thought process is rational.
That's fair enough. There's a nasty gap, however, in how one assesses the worthiness of the goal or what's a problem, rather than a feature. But let's leave that alone, for now.
It mattered when the prevailing practice was questioned, opposed, justified on philosophical grounds and therefore continued. In this, he was greatly influential.
It would take an angel to be on the right side of every debate at the same time. But then, you have high standards, it would seem.
He was indeed influential. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he approved of everything his followers did. I don't think anyone knows (unless you've got a source) what he thought of his followers in Amsterdam. For all we know, he would have disowned them.
Can you possibly imagine none of these intelligent men knew what the screaming signified?
Yes and no. In the '50's, there was (in the UK) a big scandal about a toxicological test that involved dropping chemicals in the eyes of rabbits to find out what dose was required to kill 50% of the subjects. It was known as the L(ethal) D(ose) 50 test. The goal was, no doubt, desirable, but involved a great deal of pain for the rabbits. So they didn't report that the rabbits screamed in pain, but that they "vocalized". The defence, no doubt, was that it was important to preserve scientific objectivity. So they reported only the facts, without any subjective interpretation. Another example of how indoctrination with an ideology is at least as dangerous, and arguably more vicious, as old-fashioned vices like greed and sadism.
Unfortunately, our language is not neatly divided between facts and values. Some concepts incorporate an evaluative judgement as well as a factual component. Murder is not simply killing, but wrongful killing. Pain is not simply a sensation but a sensation that we seek to avoid and that, if we have any humanity, we will help others to avoid. And so on.
Actually, you are right - not all lying is wrong; we even have an expression (at least in my possibly rather archaic version of English) for lies that are OK - white lies. Nonetheless, deliberately leading someone to believe something that you know to be false is generally disapproved of. Ditto for hypocrisy.
So I thought you introduced the moral element and I was responding to that.
Obviously, stating one's belief is not lying. It only becomes so if one is exposed to the truth and rejects it. Making oneself believe what isn't true is lying to oneself, whether it's said to anyone else or not. Nobody believes falsehoods through simple carelessness, though they may repeat what they've heard because they don't care enough to reflect. That may be trivial or criminal, depending on the falsehood and its effect on the world.
That sounds rather hard on people. Surely, if I'm exposed to some evidence for an idea, but there's not enough evidence to justify believing it, I am right to reject it, even if it turns out later to be true. In any case, there isn't enough time to live a life and think carefully about everything we need to know.
I don't believe there has ever been a sane adult in the world who is or was morally pure, or entirely truthful or altogether devoid of hypocrisy. None of our heroes and role models are so much more perfect than we are. Why is that a problem?
I don't think it is. The best we can do is to try to avoid the biggest failures. So forgiveness becomes important, to prevent pursuit of the good turning into the tyranny of perfection.
It troubles me greatly that Aristotle thought some people are born to be slaves and slavery is an important part of family order,
The conventional defence is that nobody in the world at that time had any doubt about slavery. It's asking a lot of someone to come up with a revolutionary idea like that - indeed, it took centuries for human beings to develop the ideas that we take for granted.
What troubles me more than his ideas about slavery is that there appear to be some people around who are trying to promote his argument as a justification of slavery today.
If you look at the details, though, you'll find that his version of slavery strips out a great deal of what makes it so objectionable. It can be read as a promotion of decent treatment for slaves, including the opportunity to learn how to be free and a ban on enslaving free people.
Who is going to buy the stuff that makes corporations rich, if the people can not afford it?
Good question. I keep wondering who will buy all the products when production and distribution are completely handed over to robots and AI. I suppose the machines could sell things to each other, but they can only pay if they are paid for their labour.
When Adam Smith wrote of economics he also wrote of morality and explained the importance of good morality to economic success.
Yes. The problem is that it is in the interest of everyone to work out a free ride on everyone else's virtue, and it is against the interest of everyone to behave well and get ripped off. Race to the bottom.
Which animals are less civilized and rational than humans?
2 minutes ago
All animals are less civilized and rational. You may look at them and see rational decisions, but it is your human brain doing the rationalizing, not the animals. The difference between our brains and other animals is biological. No matter how smart our dogs are, we are not going to give them voting rights.
I will say bears are less civilized than humans. Mother bears must protect their children from their fathers who kill them. Lions in a pride have a degree of civility, however, if the males get old and can not defend the rest of the pride, invading males kill not only the males but also their children. Israel is proving how cruel humans can be to other humans. That is a civilization failure. Israel's failure to make peace when it holds most of the power is a human and civilization failure based on myth, not rational. It is much easier for humans to act as animals than it is for animals to behave as humans.
It would take an angel to be on the right side of every debate at the same time. But then, you have high standards, it would seem.
And that's a bad thing? It didn't take any angels to establish animal protection laws - just a lot of determined ordinary people, with ordinary IQ's and no individual influence. I didn't ask him to be on the right side of every debate; I do blame him for endorsing one particularly horrific practice. Quoting Ludwig V
But that doesn't necessarily mean that he approved of everything his followers did
In the face of the vigorous philosophical arguments he made supporting the clockwork idea, approval would seem the least of his complicity. Probably, most of the inquisitors didn't personally heat the pincers, but they understood the use of hot pincers and published theological justification for their use.
Why?
[Surely, if I'm exposed to some evidence for an idea, but there's not enough evidence to justify believing it, I am right to reject it, Without consideration, or further inquiry? Well, I just hope you're not an antivaxer. I've encountered a few intelligent posters who keep insisting that we go back to original research, because there's just not enough evidence to support the theory of evolution. I do think that's willful ignorance. It's their loss; I don't punish them for it. I probably do the same regarding subjects I don't care about. Quoting Ludwig V
In any case, there isn't enough time to live a life and think carefully about everything we need to know.
Ignoring what you need to know will cause errors, maybe serious ones, in your life. We all make some bad judgments because we didn't think things through. But, sure, you choose to learn what matters to you. And then you lie about some things you know when lying serves a purpose that matters to you. That's all rational thinking. Quoting Ludwig V
Nonetheless, deliberately leading someone to believe something that you know to be false is generally disapproved of.
Not by all the parents who tell their children about Santa Claus! I think their story is silly, too readily exploitable, not thoroughly considered - but their motives are benign. Nor all the spy agencies in the world, convinced that they are defending their country and its values.
It depends on why you're doing it: to protect potential victims, or to benefit from the deception - from laudable to trivial to reprehensible. Quoting Ludwig V
So forgiveness becomes important, to prevent pursuit of the good turning into the tyranny of perfection.
Sure. But let's try to be accurate in our observations and honest in our assessment.
It's for their God, not me, to absolve them for their motives or toss them into The Pit for their crimes.
The conventional defence is that nobody in the world at that time had any doubt about slavery. It's asking a lot of someone to come up with a revolutionary idea like that - indeed, it took centuries for human beings to develop the ideas that we take for granted.
What troubles me more than his ideas about slavery is that there appear to be some people around who are trying to promote his argument as a justification of slavery today.
If you look at the details, though, you'll find that his version of slavery strips out a great deal of what makes it so objectionable. It can be read as a promotion of decent treatment for slaves, including the opportunity to learn how to be free and a ban on enslaving free people.
Thank you for the additional information about Aristotle's acceptance of slavery based on his sense of human decency that went with it. In the argument "what is justice" Socrates argued when people are exploited, sooner or later they become a problem to the whole of society. In the USA South, southerners have dealt with this reality, and wherever discrimination suppressed another race the exploited people, they have become a problem. Allowing this to happen is just bad logic!
Knowledge and learned higher-order thinking skills are essential to good decision-making. Ignorance and false beliefs are very harmful. Unfortunately, we do not understand the pursuit of happiness Jefferson wrote of in the US Declaration of Independence is the pursuit of knowledge, not eating a 3-scope ice cream cone or other tawdry pleasures.
Turning our liberty over to AI is to totally miss the value of the human experience is our ability to learn, communicate, and change the world. That separates us from other animals.
Good question. I keep wondering who will buy all the products when production and distribution are completely handed over to robots and AI. I suppose the machines could sell things to each other, but they can only pay if they are paid for their labour.
That is a conundrum. I have read the Aztecs had an economy based on human energy, not gold or GNP. The value of a woven basket being the skill and time spent making it. If hard work got good pay, those who work in the fields would get very good pay. I think we need to rethink our distribution of resources. That is something animals don't need to worry about. :lol: Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. The problem is that it is in the interest of everyone to work out a free ride on everyone else's virtue, and it is against the interest of everyone to behave well and get ripped off. Race to the bottom.
Thrift Books has a few books written by Adam Smith for very little money.
— Athena
I'm sure it would be quite an eye-opener to see what he actually said.
an hour ago
So here is the deal if a strong economy depends on morals, it is self-destructive to be immoral. It is simple logic, cause and effect. Today the problem is ignorance. We do not share essential knowledge for good moral decisions. :groan: Leaving moral training to the Church was the worst thing we could have done.
I have ordered Adam Smith's book about economic morality because I think this might be the most important knowledge for the world today, and only if those of us who care, act on that caring, is there hope for the future. We must get religion out of our moral thinking and put reason back in it! I think understanding this goes with understanding the human difference, instead of believing biblical myth. We are 90% animal and 10% human. We need to drop the myth that prevents us from holding knowledge of reality.
All animals are less civilized and rational.
— Athena
I respectfully disagree.
No matter how smart our dogs are, we are not going to give them voting rights.
— Athena
Or exemption from the gas chamber if there are more of them than we like. I know. But then we don't treat our fellow humans any better.
Some of us are horrified by animal and human brutality and others are not. Why do you think we perceive things so differently?
Probably, most of the inquisitors didn't personally heat the pincers, but they understood the use of hot pincers and published theological justification for their use.
Now I'm confused. Are discussing the wickedness of Descartes or of the Inquisition? Perhaps you just mean that they are a parallel case. In which case, where does Descartes publish a justification for the use of nails and planks on animals?
I've encountered a few intelligent posters who keep insisting that we go back to original research, because there's just not enough evidence to support the theory of evolution. I do think that's wilful ignorance. It's their loss; I don't punish them for it. I probably do the same regarding subjects I don't care about.
It is indeed wilful ignorance, although they are something of a public nuisance. On the other hand, we all have to pay the price of the anti-vaxers' wilful ignorance.
Sure. But let's try to be accurate in our observations and honest in our assessment.
It's for their God, not me, to absolve them for their motives or toss them into The Pit for their crimes.
Accurate and honest, certainly. Are we including fair and balanced as well? I hope so.
If it's for God to absolve them, isn't it also for their God to judge them?
Oh, dear - again? Didn't I link the correspondence. You can read the fifth meditation, if you like. It's exceeding tedious in describing the heart and circulation, but does explicitly recommend the reader to witness it in 'any large animal'. There's a lot of guff about the soul and reason and why animals don't have those things: because they don't speak French. Quoting Ludwig V
Are we including fair and balanced as well?
You mean like Trump(except we have to sanewash him)=Harris(except we set the bar higher)? I don't think so.
Reply to Vera Mont
You are right that our discussioin has become unproductive and annoying. We aren't making progress. That's a shame but it's probably best if we leave it where it is. Thank you for your time and patience.
Thinking about one's own belief is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon common language/shared meaning.
— creativesoul
Well, if it is dependent on shared meaning (as opposed to common language), then animals could know themselves.
Only if all shared meaning enables and/or facilitates thinking about our own thought and belief(metacognition). Not all does.
Good catch! :wink:
While there is difference between shared meaning and common language, it is not inevitably one of oppositional nature. I find it's more one of existential dependency. It's one of shared elemental constituency; an evolutional history, that of which existed in its entirety prior to being picked out of this world by me.
Some meaningful experience existed in its entirety prior to common language emergence. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Language less creatures predate language users. Thus, some meaning is prior to common language. <-----that's very important on my view, particularly when talking about meaningful experiences of non human creatures.
A bit on shared meaning, because there is more than one way to understand that notion.
We can draw correlations between the same sorts of things. <----------- That's shared meaning in the sense of common to us both. Add language use and other things(as the content of correlations) and that's the sort of shared meaning required for successful communication.
A growl in a familiar life scenario has all the context necessary for creatures to draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible things... fear, say. Hunger. That happens while their eating. The creatures learn how to react/respond/behave/survive. Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours? Sure. No metacognition necessary. No thinking about themselves and others as subject matters in their own right necessary. Does this constitute shared meaning in close to the same sense as described above? I think so, although it is not something that we can verify with certainty.
I'm claiming that there is another sort of shared meaning, which I find to be irrevocable for the emergence of the sort described heretofore...
Two creatures that have never encountered one another can both want water and know exactly where to go in order to acquire it(how to get water). That's commonly held belief formed, held, and/or had by virtue of different creatures drawing correlations between the same things. Thirst. A place to drink. No language necessary there. Antelopes and elephants both know where to get water. Where's there's belief, there's always meaning. That's shared meaning.
As it pertains to metacognitive endeavors and the sort of thought that that facilitates...
Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about. We use the terms "thought", "belief", "meaningful experience", "mind", etc. How do we think about our own thoughts, beliefs, dreams, meaningful experiences? With naming and descriptive practices. There's no evidence to the contrary, and there's plenty to support that. I think we agree on that much, so perhaps we can set that aside and attempt to move forward?
Assuming that there is such a thing as non human thought or human thought prior to when language acquisition begins in earnest. In seeking to make sense of this, we're isolating/delineating/targeting/defining thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience that existed in its entirety prior to being talked about(prior to naming and descriptive practices).
Oh, and I'm sorry for the seemingly unconnected dots. I'm sometimes prone for doing that.
Thanks. However, I'm a bit hesitant about taking this up again. I didn't intend to upset you before, so I'm concerned that I might do so again. I shall try to keep everything that I say impersonal, in the hope that will suffice.
I'm sorry I have taken to so long to reply. I have had some distractions over the last few days. Nothing problematic, but things that needed to be attended to. But I'll put something together tomorrow.
You've overestimated my upsettedness... :wink: I was just trying to nip personal attacks in the bud. That was also weeks back. Anyway, take your time, as it may be the case that I take longer between replies as well. If you choose to refrain, that's no problem either. Thanks for your participation either way. We may make more headway between the two of us. Often focus is blurred by attempting to attend to too many different approaches at once.
The approach, I think, is imperative.
Did anyone anytime ever clearly set out what counts as thought, let alone rational thought? I saw many employing implicit notions but do not recall anyone actually clearly defining their terms.
Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about. We use the terms "thought", "belief", "meaningful experience", "mind", etc. How do we think about our own thoughts, beliefs, dreams, meaningful experiences? With naming and descriptive practices. There's no evidence to the contrary, and there's plenty to support that. I think we agree on that much, so perhaps we can set that aside and attempt to move forward?
There are various points that I would qualify or put differently, but fundamentally this seems to me to apply to all thought. Some elaboration on "How do we think...?" seems to be desirable. There's an implied analogy with "How does one start a car?" or "How do you get to Rome?" or "How do we calculate the orbit of Mars" which could easily becomes misleading. But that is a starting point for a general discussion of thinking and language. However, I hope we don't need to get too far into the general issues.
Assuming that there is such a thing as non human thought or human thought prior to when language acquisition begins in earnest. In seeking to make sense of this, we're isolating/delineating/targeting/defining thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience that existed in its entirety prior to being talked about(prior to naming and descriptive practices).
I realize that you are aiming to define a context for our specific problem. Nothing wrong with that. But I wouldn't set about it in this way. We need to be more specific, because the idea that there is a single general model of our naming and descriptive practices shepherds us into thinking about specific cases in inappropriate ways.
BTW, I'm not clear how far you are committed to the idea of a single general model for all our linguistic practices, because you do talk about them in the plural. However that may be, I see our problem as specifically about certain practices, not all of them.
More specifically, it is about how far we can sensible apply our practice in explaining human action to creatures that are like us but not human, and specifically do not have human languages. It seems inevitable that our practice needs to be modified. The question is what modifications are needed.
I think we agree on that much, so perhaps we can set that aside and attempt to move forward?
It would be annoying to try and thrash out all the issues before proceeding, so can you proceed with your argument on the basis of a provisional agreement? Then we can just sort out the differences that matter to our discussion. That itself would be an achievement.
_________________________
However, looking more closely at your example does give me pause:-
A growl in a familiar life scenario has all the context necessary for creatures to draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible things... fear, say. ..... The creatures learn how to react/respond/behave/survive. Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours? Sure. No metacognition necessary. No thinking about themselves and others as subject matters in their own right necessary. Does this constitute shared meaning in close to the same sense as described above?
I'm very mistrustful of your language in "draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible thing .... fear, say". But the scenario is undoubtedly a relevant case and one could say that we learn the correlation between the growl and danger and fighting - hence also fear.
But "correlation" does not distinguish between a Pavlovian response and an action - something that the dog does. When the bell rings and the dog salivates, that's an automatic response - salivating is not under conscious control. It is part of an automatic system which governs digestion. Growling is under conscious control - even a form of communication, counting as a warning. I'm not saying that the distinction is crystal clear, but rather the difference is a question of which mode of interpretation we apply to the phenomena. The Pavlovian response is causal; growling functions in a scoial context. (Even that needs further explanation). But the fact that it has a social function suggests that some awareness of the awareness of the difference self and others is necessary.
Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about.
— creativesoul
...fundamentally this seems to me to apply to all thought.
Thinking about X requires X. <------I'm okay with that.
Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about.
— creativesoul
...fundamentally this seems to me to apply to all thought.
emphasis mine
I'm not okay with that.
Not all things(X's) exist in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some thought and belief existed in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some did not. Some cannot. It could be put a bit differently. Some thought and belief are existentially dependent upon being talked about. Some are not.
To be even more precise, some thought and belief require having already been articulated by the creature under consideration in order for them to even be formed, had, and/or held by that candidate. In such cases, the articulation is itself an integral part of the formation process and thus the formation thereof consists, in part at least, of the articulation process.
Consider the sheer complexity of thought required in order to understand Gettier's obliteration of the J part of JTB... as held/articulated by three defenders thereof at the time. That sort of thought/understanding cannot be formed, held, and/or had without very complex articulation. Understanding Moore's concerns about belief attribution practices fits nicely here as well. Those belief are formed by articulation alone.
I should have made this clearer earlier.
The earlier claims that "thinking about thought and belief requires something to think about" and "that something existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it" were referring to the underlying necessary conditions/preconditions required in order for it to happen. This helps to fill in some blanks on the evolutionary timeline.
Some elaboration on "How do we think...?" seems to be desirable.
Agreed.
All thought, belief and statements thereof consist of correlations drawn between different things. We and all other capable creatures think solely by virtue of drawing correlations between different things.
BTW, I'm not clear how far you are committed to the idea of a single general model for all our linguistic practices, because you do talk about them in the plural. However that may be, I see our problem as specifically about certain practices, not all of them.
Yes. There are many more than one linguistic practice. There are more than just naming and descriptive practices. However, none can possibly be practiced without picking things out of this world to the exclusion of all else, regardless of how that's done. It's always done.
Different practices of ours have different problems. I have yet to have been exposed to a single conventional practice of belief attribution that has, as it's basis, notions of "belief" and "thought" that can properly account for the evolutionary progression of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. That historical account includes what language less animals can form, have, and/or hold such that it counts as thought or belief. It is this crucially important aspect that remains sorely neglected by conventional standards/notions of thought/belief, "rational thought" notwithstanding.
What counts as rational thought presupposes some notion of "thought" or another. That's the driving force, the ground, for all subsequent attributions of "rational" or "not rational" to the thought under consideration.
...it is about how far we can sensibly apply our practice in explaining human action to creatures that are like us but not human, and specifically do not have human languages. It seems inevitable that our practice needs to be modified. The question is what modifications are needed.
Yes. This seems to be a promising avenue.
A modification of our standards is needed. What counts as sufficient justificatory ground to attribute this belief, that thought, or these emotions to this or that non human creature? That is the underlying unresolved problematic question pervading this thread.
Upon what justificatory ground do we(I) claim that dogs have absolutely no idea which train is the five o'clock train? Knowing which train is the five o'clock train is knowledge of which one counts as such. Which train counts as the five o'clock train is determined solely by human standards borne of language use(amongst many other things). It is only when and if one knows how to properly apply the standard that one can know which one counts as the five o'clock train.
Dogs do not make the cut. Even ones to whom five o'clock trains become meaningful, they do so not because it counts as the five o'clock train, but rather because the five o'clock train is/was/has been an integral part - a basic elemental constituent - of the dog's meaningful experience(thought and/or belief). The dog has drawn correlations between the train and all sorts of other things, none of which are our time standards.
Consider the sheer complexity of thought required in order to understand Gettier's obliteration of the J part of JTB... as held/articulated by three defenders thereof at the time.
This is a side-issue, but who are the three defenders you are thinking of?
Not all things(X's) exist in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some thought and belief existed in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some did not. Some cannot. It could be put a bit differently. Some thought and belief are existentially dependent upon being talked about. Some are not.
I may have misinterpreted "prior". I was treating it as meaning "presupposed" and thinking of the variety of preconditions that have to be satisfied to make thought and belief meaningful. Even new introductions have to be based on existing ideas if they are to be explained at all.
This takes me back to:- Quoting creativesoul
All thought, belief and statements thereof consist of correlations drawn between different things. We and all other capable creatures think solely by virtue of drawing correlations between different things.
Here, you seem to be suggesting a single pattern of thought that explains all thought. But is that consistent with the variety of thoughts you specify? If some thought and beliefs are existentially dependent on being talked about, I don't see how the model of correlations drawn between different things applies.
It is this crucially important aspect that remains sorely neglected by conventional standards/notions of thought/belief, "rational thought" notwithstanding.
I agree with that. That's why I've taken such an interest in this topic. There's very little discussion anywhere, and yet, in my view, it's not only important for understanding animals, but also for understanding humans.
I have yet to have been exposed to a single conventional practice of belief attribution that has, as it's basis, notions of "belief" and "thought" that can properly account for the evolutionary progression of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences.
That's because philosophers seem to be totally hypnotized with thought and belief as articulated in language. They seem to assume that model can be applied, without change, to animals and tacit thinking and knowledge.
Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about.
— creativesoul
...fundamentally this seems to me to apply to all thought.
— Ludwig V
Thinking about X requires X. <------I'm okay with that.
How does a god exist? Do any animals other than human beings worship a god? I am thinking about the existence of the things we talk about and also the difference between humans and animals.
How about love. What is it? What does it consist of? Will the lion ever learn to "love" its neighbor?
I read more of what Creativesoul had to say about existential thinking and thought of deleting my post, but maybe there is some benefit to simplifying a debate about what exists because it has substance and what does not. Does anyone remember the Greek argument of what exists and what does not?
Here is what Cicero had to say about the existence of the gods....
In this inquiry, to give an instance of the diversity of opinion, the greater number of authorities have affirmed the existence of the gods; it is the most likely conclusion, and one to which we are all led by the guidance of nature; but Protagoras said that he was doubtful, and Diagoras the Melian and Theodorus of Cyrene thought that there were no such beings at all. Those, further, who have asserted their existence present so much diversity and disagreement that it would be tedious to enumerate their ideas separately. For a great deal is said about the forms of the gods, and about their locality, dwelling-places, and mode of life, and these points are disputed with the utmost difference of opinion among philosophers.
While upon the question in which our subject of discussion is mainly comprised, the question whether the gods do nothing, project nothing, and are free from all charge and administration of affairs, or whether, on the other hand, all things were from the beginning formed and established by them, and are throughout infinity ruled and directed by them, on this question, especially, there are great differences of opinion, and it is inevitable, unless these are decided, that mankind should be involved in the greatest uncertainty, and in ignorance of things which are of supreme importance.
https://gbsadler.blogspot.com/2013/02/classic-arguments-about-gods-existence.html#:~:text=In%20this%20inquiry%2C%20to%20give,which%20are%20of%20supreme%20importance.
Not so different from today's debates about the existence of a god. I think we have to puzzle what was the original awareness of a god. We can experience a tree or a lion, the gods are not experienced in that way, so where does the idea of god come from? And I want to mention animals, which animal other than a human thinks about a god or mates with someone because of ideas of love?
Consider the sheer complexity of thought required in order to understand Gettier's obliteration of the J part of JTB... as held/articulated by three defenders thereof at the time.
— creativesoul
This is a side-issue, but who are the three defenders you are thinking of?
I'm not confident I remember the authors of the three JTB formulations Gettier set out in the beginning of his paper. Maybe... Ayer, Chisholm, and ??? Lol... It bugged me enough to go check... Scratch the third. :wink: It was just Ayer and Chisholm. I wanted to say Collinwood, for some reason. The 'third' formulation was a generic one from Gettier himself. Something tells me you already know this. :wink:
Not all things(X's) exist in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some thought and belief existed in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some did not. Some cannot. It could be put a bit differently. Some thought and belief are existentially dependent upon being talked about. Some are not.
— creativesoul
I may have misinterpreted "prior". I was treating it as meaning "presupposed" and thinking of the variety of preconditions that have to be satisfied to make thought and belief meaningful.
That's okay. Sometimes it takes a little work to understand each other. They're very close in meaning, and often used interchangeably. I don't.
For my part, "presupposed" is about the thinking creature. "Prior to" is about the order of emergence/existence. The latter is spatiotemporal/existential. The former is psychological.
Even new introductions have to be based on existing ideas if they are to be explained at all.
Is this referring to the position I'm working out/from? I mean, sure, as language users anything we come up with will be based - loosely at least - on something we've already been exposed to. All explanation is language use. As it pertains to philosophy, there will be all sorts of prior influences. Yet, I'm confident that thought, belief, and meaningful experience is prior to the complex sort of language we employ. I'm also confident that there are precursors to our language that do some of the same thing(s) that our language does, despite those animals not having the ability to take account/record with meaningful marks, and naming and descriptive practices. We can look at what language less animals are doing with language too. <---- Here, of course, by "language-less" I mean complex spoken and written language such as our own, capable of metacognition. I really need to start being better about that qualification though, because I'm confident we're not the only language users.
This takes me back to:-
All thought, belief and statements thereof consist of correlations drawn between different things. We and all other capable creatures think solely by virtue of drawing correlations between different things.
— creativesoul
Here, you seem to be suggesting a single pattern of thought that explains all thought. But is that consistent with the variety of thoughts you specify? If some thought and beliefs are existentially dependent on being talked about, I don't see how the model of correlations drawn between different things applies.
I'm not suggesting a pattern of thought. I'm setting out the basic outline/parameters of an autonomous biological process that amounts to a basic outline of all thought, from the simplest through the most complex. If there's inconsistency, self-contradiction, and/or incoherence I'm unaware. The differences in thoughts are the content of the correlations. That's key to all the different 'kinds' of thought, in a nutshell.
Knowing which train is the five o'clock train is existentially dependent upon being talked about. I mean, one cannot acquire knowledge of which train counts as the five o'clock train without drawing correlations between those standards and some train or another. That is chock full of correlations, some of which are between the language use itself, which amounts to talking about the time standards and trains.
That is the sort of thought/belief that is existentially dependent on a creature capable of metacognition.
It is this crucially important aspect that remains sorely neglected by conventional standards/notions of thought/belief, "rational thought" notwithstanding.
— creativesoul
I agree with that. That's why I've taken such an interest in this topic. There's very little discussion anywhere, and yet, in my view, it's not only important for understanding animals, but also for understanding humans.
I see it much the same way. The current political environment shows how correlations work. It's how some get convinced to be mad at all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.
I am thinking about the existence of the things we talk about and also the difference between humans and animals.
How about love. What is it? What does it consist of? Will the lion ever learn to "love" its neighbor?
Good questions. Apt. Germane. Yet, seemingly so distant to the current conversation. They're not though! Not at all. It's extremely nuanced. I'm still working things out, but I'll say this much because it seems you're asking about the ontological basis I'm working from.
That which exists has an effect/affect.
I read more of what Creativesoul had to say about existential thinking and thought of deleting my post, but maybe there is some benefit to simplifying a debate about what exists because it has substance and what does not. Does anyone remember the Greek argument of what exists and what does not?
I'm thinking there's more than one. I'm unfamiliar with all.
Nice. I take it you read through some of my meanderings here?
I'm very mistrustful of your language in "draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible thing .... fear, say". But the scenario is undoubtedly a relevant case and one could say that we learn the correlation between the growl and danger and fighting - hence also fear.
But "correlation" does not distinguish between a Pavlovian response and an action - something that the dog does. When the bell rings and the dog salivates, that's an automatic response - salivating is not under conscious control. It is part of an automatic system which governs digestion. Growling is under conscious control - even a form of communication, counting as a warning. I'm not saying that the distinction is crystal clear, but rather the difference is a question of which mode of interpretation we apply to the phenomena. The Pavlovian response is causal; growling functions in a scoial context. (Even that needs further explanation). But the fact that it has a social function suggests that some awareness of the awareness of the difference self and others is necessary.
I look forward to your reply.
It is my next focus here. My apologies for not being prompt yesterday. Late dinner invitation. Nice company. Be nice to have another someplace other than a famous steakhouse chain with far too many people in far too little volume of space. And the noise! Argh... brought out the spectrum in me.
I'm not confident I remember the authors of the three JTB formulations Gettier set out in the beginning of his paper. Maybe... Ayer, Chisholm, and ??? Lol... It bugged me enough to go check... Scratch the third. :wink: It was just Ayer and Chisholm. I wanted to say Collinwood, for some reason. The 'third' formulation was a generic one from Gettier himself. Something tells me you already know this. :wink:
I did and I didn't. That is, I was expecting references to some of the critiques of Gettier's article, rather than Gettier's selection from existing formulations.
It is my next focus here. My apologies for not being prompt yesterday. Late dinner invitation. Nice company. Be nice to have another someplace other than a famous steakhouse chain with far too many people in far too little volume of space. And the noise! Argh... brought out the spectrum in me.
No hurry. I've never been happy in large, noisy, crowded (and drunken) parties and it's only got worse with age. People behave differently in crowds. There's a lot of research about that - largely with a public order agenda. The Greeks regarded it as a madness and explained it by reference to Bacchus and/or Pan.
For my part, "presupposed" is about the thinking creature. "Prior to" is about the order of emergence/existence. The latter is spatiotemporal/existential. The former is psychological.
I'm setting out the basic outline/parameters of an autonomous biological process that amounts to a basic outline of all thought, from the simplest through the most complex.
There's a lot to be said for that. Stimulus/response and association of ideas do seem to be very important to learning. However, there's an important differentiation between Pavlov's model and Skinner's. (It's not necessarily a question of one or the other. Both may well play their part.) Pavlov presupposes a passive organism - one that learns in response to a stimulus. Skinner posits what he calls "operant conditioning" which is a process that starts with the organism acting on or in the environment and noticing the results of those actions - here the organism stimulates the environment which responds in its turn. There's another interesting source of learning - mimicry. I've gathered that very new infants are able to smile back at a smiling face - there's even a section of the brain that produces this mirroring effect. It is still observable in adults. Just food for thought.
Knowing which train is the five o'clock train is existentially dependent upon being talked about.
I think I can see what you mean. But it needs clarification because there are philosophers who will saying that knowing anything is existentially dependent on being talked about - because drawing distinctions in the way that we do depends on language.
Suppose we stipulate that knowing that it is 5 o'clock requires an understanding of a conceptual scheme that is not available without language. My dogs have always tended to get restless and congregate near the kitchen at around the time that they are fed. I think they know that it is time for dinner. If they were people, we would have no hesitation in saying that they know it is 7 o'clock (say). How do I know that people understand the background scheme? I know if they can tell the time at any time, for example - which does not necessarily require human language, but normally that is how it works. If a small child (who has not yet learnt to tell the time) appears in the kitchen at 7 o'clock, we will look for other clues to explain why they show up.
A growl in a familiar life scenario has all the context necessary for creatures to draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible things... fear, say. ..... The creatures learn how to react/respond/behave/survive. Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours? Sure. No metacognition necessary. No thinking about themselves and others as subject matters in their own right necessary. Does this constitute shared meaning in close to the same sense as described above?
— creativesoul
I'm very mistrustful of your language in "draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible thing .... fear, say".
Is it the presupposition that fear is a directly perceptible thing? If the being full of fear does not count as directly perceiving fear then nothing will. It's part of the internal aspect of all meaningful thought, belief and/or experience. There are internal elements as well as external ones.
I'm setting out the basic outline/parameters of an autonomous biological process that amounts to a basic outline of all thought, from the simplest through the most complex.
— creativesoul
There's a lot to be said for that. Stimulus/response and association of ideas do seem to be very important to learning. However, there's an important differentiation between Pavlov's model and Skinner's.
They're competing viewpoints about the same thing. They both consist of meaningful correlations being drawn by a creature so capable(the agents' themselves in this scenario). I'm unsure of why these were invoked.
A difference between Pavlov and Skinner has no relevance when we're talking about the elemental constituency of that which existed in its entirety prior to language use. Pavlov and Skinner differ in their respective explanations. What they're taking account of(attempting to explain) existed in its entirety prior to their account. <----------that which existed in its entirety prior to being talked about is precisely what needs set out first here, for any notion of thought and belief that is claimed to apply to language less creatures must satisfy that criterion.
I think I can see what you mean. But it needs clarification because there are philosophers who will saying that knowing anything is existentially dependent on being talked about - because drawing distinctions in the way that we do depends on language.
I'm happy to clarify. I'm unsure what you're after though. The fact that some philosophers cannot or do not have any idea how distinctions can be drawn without language doesn't bear on my argument as far as I can tell. Seems to me like a problem with their conceptual/linguistic framework(s). My charge has always been that convention has gotten human thought and belief horribly wrong. The fact that language less thought and belief cannot be admitted due to pains of coherency alone shows that there is a problem with convention. There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of? I'm aware of your avoidance of talking in terms of elemental constituency, but from where I sit it makes the most sense of the most things. It also flips many an ancient archaic dichotomy on its head.
Is it the presupposition that fear is a directly perceptible thing? If the being full of fear does not count as directly perceiving fear then nothing will. It's part of the internal aspect of all meaningful thought, belief and/or experience. There are internal elements as well as external ones.
Yes, I see. I wasn't clear whether you were talking first-person view or third. I agree that creatures who do not have human language do experience fear (and pain). Obviously there may be complications and disagreements about other emotions and feelings. But what I'm not clear about is whether you regard fear as a stimulus or a response?
They're competing viewpoints about the same thing. They both consist of meaningful correlations being drawn by a creature so capable(the agents' themselves in this scenario). I'm unsure of why these were invoked.
Because I want to suggest that there is more than one pattern of correlation in play, and that mimicry might be described as a correlation, but it is different from either.
A difference between Pavlov and Skinner has no relevance when we're talking about the elemental constituency of that which existed in its entirety prior to language use.
You seem to be positing some kind of atomic or basic elements here, and I'm not sure that such things can be identified in knowledge or behaviour.
that which existed in its entirety prior to being talked about is precisely what needs set out first here, for any notion of thought and belief that is claimed to apply to language less creatures must satisfy that criterion.
OK. So how do we identify that which existed in its entirety prior to be talked about?
My charge has always been that convention has gotten human thought and belief horribly wrong. The fact that language less thought and belief cannot be admitted due to pains of coherency alone shows that there is a problem with convention. There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of? I'm aware of your avoidance of talking in terms of elemental constituency, but from where I sit it makes the most sense of the most things. It also flips many an ancient archaic dichotomy on its head.
Oh, we agree there. I think that answer to what the thought, belief and meaningful experience of language-less creatures consists of is fairly straightforward. Behaviour.
There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of?
If we don't know what it could possibly consist of, how do we know it exists? If we know it exists, doesn't whatever is proof of its existence give us clues about what it consists of?
A majority of the survey respondents ascribed emotions to "most" or "all or nearly all" non-human primates (98%), other mammals (89%), birds (78%), octopus, squids and cuttlefish (72%) and fish (53%). And most of the respondents ascribed emotions to at least some members of each taxonomic group of animals considered, including insects (67%) and other invertebrates (71%).
The survey also included questions about the risks in animal behavioral research of anthromorphism (inaccurately projecting human experience onto animals) and anthropodenial (willful blindness to any human characteristics of animals).
"It's surprising that 89% of the respondents thought that anthropodenial was problematic in animal behavioral research, compared to only 49% who thought anthromorphism poses a risk," Benítez says. "That seems like a big shift."
If we don't know what it could possibly consist of, how do we know it exists? If we know it exists, doesn't whatever is proof of its existence give us clues about what it consists of?
Thought etc. in creatures lacking human language is expressed and available to us in their behaviour. The same is true in human beings, but, of course, philosophers think that linguistic behaviour is, in some way that escapes me, something different from behaviour. I can't think why.
Reply to wonderer1
That's interesting. Are we talking about the responses of scientists who study animal behaviour? If so, it confirms my expectation that the closer people look at animal behaviour, the more they find in it.
The journal Royal Society Open Science published a survey of 100 researchers of animal behavior, providing a unique view of current scientific thought on animal emotions and consciousness.
philosophers think that linguistic behaviour is, in some way that escapes me, something different from behaviour.
I don't know what anyone has in mind. The first thing that zones to mind for new is that it's a different [I]type[/I] of behavior. For example, day someone punched me. I might:
1. Punch them in return.
2. Cry.
3. Ask them why they punched me; why they think punching is a good solution to any problem; or whatever.
All behaviors, but different kinds, with different possible consequences, and possibly different intentions (although we don't always think/intend before any type of behavior).
All behaviors, but different kinds, with different possible consequences, and possibly different intentions (although we don't always think/intend before any type of behavior).
Quite so. And the behaviours that do not involve language demonstrate/express/manifest my belief just as effectively as the linguistic behaviours. The difference is that expressing beliefs in language is more detailed, more specific, that non-linguistic behaviours.
Is it the presupposition that fear is a directly perceptible thing? If the being full of fear does not count as directly perceiving fear then nothing will. It's part of the internal aspect of all meaningful thought, belief and/or experience. There are internal elements as well as external ones.
— creativesoul
Yes, I see. I wasn't clear whether you were talking first-person view or third. I agree that creatures who do not have human language do experience fear (and pain). Obviously there may be complications and disagreements about other emotions and feelings. But what I'm not clear about is whether you regard fear as a stimulus or a response?
When it comes to what counts as thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience(s) of language less creatures, we must be talking about what's meaningful to the creature. I'm hesitant to talk in terms of first or third person though. I see no point in unnecessarily adding complexity where none is warranted.
Pertaining whether or not I regard fear as a stimulus or a response...
I do not find it helpful to use that framework. It could be either, depending upon the framework/conceptual scheme being employed and point of view. Fear is the result of autonomous biological machinery doing its job. It is part of fearful experience. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Fearful experiences are meaningful to the creature full of fear, whether that includes an alpha male's growl accompanied by submissive members' behaviour, or the fear from/of falling(which I understand to be innate). Fear is always an internal element within a more complex experience involving both internal and external elements.
They're competing viewpoints about the same thing. They both consist of meaningful correlations being drawn by a creature so capable(the agents' themselves in this scenario). I'm unsure of why these were invoked.
— creativesoul
Because I want to suggest that there is more than one pattern of correlation in play, and that mimicry might be described as a correlation, but it is different from either.
Sure. Mimicry, for the sake of mimicking, involves the mimic drawing correlations between an other's behaviour and their own. Again, biological machinery plays an autonomous role here. However, I do think that neuroscience has established, as you've alluded to perhaps with the infant's smile, that there is not always a mimic who's mimicking for the sake of mimicking. Mirror neurons also play a role in empathy as well as recognizing/attributing other minds. At least, that's what I believe to be the case... very generally/roughly speaking. Smiles are contagious after-all. And then there's also the fact that young children learn how to act in this or that situation by virtue of mimicking others' behaviours, in a "children learn what they live" sort of thing.
I'm not sure what you're saying or referring to with "pattern of correlation".
A difference between Pavlov and Skinner has no relevance when we're talking about the elemental constituency of that which existed in its entirety prior to language use.
— creativesoul
You seem to be positing some kind of atomic or basic elements here, and I'm not sure that such things can be identified in knowledge or behaviour.
That is exactly what I'm arguing for. The basic elemental constituency of all thought... rational thought notwithstanding. The success or failure of identifying those is completely determined by the methodological approach. Current convention fails.
...that which existed in its entirety prior to being talked about is precisely what needs set out first here, for any notion of thought and belief that is claimed to apply to language less creatures must satisfy that criterion.
— creativesoul
OK. So how do we identify that which existed in its entirety prior to be talked about?
Well, we can use what we do know about our own thought and belief as a means for beginning to set out what must be the case if language less thought exists(if it is possible for language less creatures to think), or if language less creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought or belief, or if language less creatures are capable of having meaningful experiences. I've touched on all this earlier in the thread. I'd be pleased to dig in. It's time.
Such metacognitive endeavors shift the focus away from behaviour and onto our own thought, belief, and meaningful experiences. That is the only place to start. It is not the only place to finish.
My charge has always been that convention has gotten human thought and belief horribly wrong. The fact that language less thought and belief cannot be admitted due to pains of coherency alone shows that there is a problem with convention. There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of? I'm aware of your avoidance of talking in terms of elemental constituency, but from where I sit it makes the most sense of the most things. It also flips many an ancient archaic dichotomy on its head.
— creativesoul
Oh, we agree there. I think that answer to what the thought, belief and meaningful experience of language-less creatures consists of is fairly straightforward. Behaviour.
I'm confused.
Are you claiming that all language less (creatures') thought, belief, and/or experience consists entirely of behaviour and behaviour alone? I would not agree with that, at all. Thinking about trees and cats includes trees and cats. Neither trees nor cats are behaviour. They are elements in such thought.
All behaviors, but different kinds, with different possible consequences, and possibly different intentions (although we don't always think/intend before any type of behavior).
— Patterner
Quite so. And the behaviours that do not involve language demonstrate/express/manifest my belief just as effectively as the linguistic behaviours. The difference is that expressing beliefs in language is more detailed, more detailed, more specific, that non-linguistic behaviours.
Do you not think there are things languages can express that behaviours that do not involve language cannot express?
When it comes to what counts as thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience(s) of language less creatures, we must be talking about what's meaningful to the creature. I'm hesitant to talk in terms of first or third person though. I see no point in unnecessarily adding complexity where none is warranted.
You may remember that earlier in this thread there was some discussion of Timothy Pennings' claim that his corgi could do calculus. See Excerpts from "Do dogs know calculus"
The path followed by light refracted through two different mediums is calculated in this way, but no-one worries about what meaningful experiences are involved. So if Pennings' Corgi follows the same path, I don't see that the experience of the corgi is relevant. The calculation applies. So Pennings' title forces us to face the issue whether what matters is the dog's experiences or the mathematics. Or, preferably, what the relationship is between the two points of view.
Or consider the theory of kin selection as an explanation of altruism in social creatures. The idea that preserving one's kin is as good a way (perhaps better than preserving oneself) to preserve one's DNA and that is what, in the end, matters. Empirically, that could well explain the phenomena. But no-one thinks that bees can identify the DNA of another bee. So we need to explain how the bees select who to sacrifice themselves for and clarify what the relationship is between the two points of view. For example, it may be that bees with the same DNA as our subject bee produce similar pheromones, which we know bees can identify and respond to. So that would be a candidate.
Catching a thrown ball is a quite complex mathematical problem. We have to learn how to do it and we improve with experience. But I'm quite sure that I am incapable of solving that mathematical problem. How do I do it? Well, I can also accurately identify where a sound is coming from. We know that we do that by calculation from the difference between the time the sound arrives at one ear and the time it arrives at the other, which is why stereo headphones work in the weird way that they do. Even if I could do the calculation, I could not do it in the time it takes me to identify where the sound comes from. (We can also accurately assess how far away the things we see are, at least at close range, by the extend we have to focus the two eyes in order to see one image - just like a range-finder. We don't normally experience that.)
Are you claiming that all language less (creatures') thought, belief, and/or experience consists entirely of behaviour and behaviour alone? I would not agree with that, at all. Thinking about trees and cats includes trees and cats. Neither trees nor cats are behaviour. They are elements in such thought.
Surely, thought that involves trees and cats is involved in the behaviour that involves trees and cats. I don't see what you are getting at.
Reply to Ludwig V
I would be hard pressed to express any of the thoughts in this post, to say nothing of the thoughts expressed in the 39 pages of the thread, as well as the other however many threads at TPF, without language. I would be interested in hearing how all of these thoughts might possibly come to exist without language. But even without an explanation of that, now that they do exist, What language-less behavior can express them?
I would be hard pressed to express any of the thoughts in this post, to say nothing of the thoughts expressed in the 39 pages of the thread, as well as the other however many threads at TPF, without language. I would be interested in hearing how all of these thoughts might possibly come to exist without language. But even without an explanation of that, now that they do exist, What language-less behavior can express them?
Of course one cannot philosophize without language. One of the big puzzles in Berekeley's writing is that he is very clear that his immatierialism does not imply any change whatever to his everyday behaviour, and there's a good case for saying that the heliocentric view of the solar system does not result in any change to ordinary behaviour.
But one can express philosophical views in actions rather than words. There's a story that some of Descartes' followers in Amsterdam expressed their belief in Cartesian dualism by nailing a dog to a wooden plank. Devout Christians may express their beliefs in many ways other than asserting them - refraining from certain behaviours and pursuing others. One of the arguments against radical scepticism is precisely that the sceptic does not behave as if scepticism were true.
However, I never intended to claim that there are always non-linguistic ways to express any belief expressed in language. Perhaps I should have been clearer.
However, I never intended to claim that there are always non-linguistic ways to express any belief expressed in language. Perhaps I should have been clearer.
I can't say if I disagree, or don't really understand.
Descartes' followers may have been expressing their belief in Cartesian dualism in a very strict sense. (I'm not sure "strict" is the right word, but it's the best I can do at the moment.) But they would not have come to that belief without language. Language was necessary for the belief to exist before the belief could be expressed with non-linguistic behavior.
And nobody observing their behavior would have known the belief they were expressing if someone had not used language to explain it to them.
Descartes' followers may have been expressing their belief in Cartesian dualism in a very strict sense. (I'm not sure "strict" is the right word, but it's the best I can do at the moment.) But they would not have come to that belief without language. Language was necessary for the belief to exist before the belief could be expressed with non-linguistic behavior.
I don't contest the point that there are beliefs that we could not develop without language. All I'm suggesting is that linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour, in our world, are connected. Yet I don't rule out the possibility that there are some beliefs that cannot be expressed without language. These are not separate domains, but intertwined. This is why Pennings' Corgi is such a puzzle.
I can't say if I disagree, or don't really understand.
For what it's worth, I'm not clear about this stuff either. It would be tidy if we could draw a clear line between what can be done with and without language. But I just don't see it.
Maybe we can't develop all beliefs without language. But, once developed, they can be expressed without language.
Yes. You seem to have it about right. The only issue now is what concepts we can attribute when explaining what animals that do not have human languages.
There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of?
— creativesoul
If we don't know what it could possibly consist of, how do we know it exists?
First, we can(and do, I would argue) know what all meaningful experience consists of - at the basic irreducible core. It consists of correlations drawn between different things by a creature so capable. That question was asked to Ludwig, for he admits language less thought and belief. I presume he would admit experience as a result. However, his approach is woefully inequipped to answer the question. That was the point of asking it.
It's 'the things' that matter most here. Those are the differences between language less thought, belief, and meaningful experiences, and those of language users. Our knowledge acquisition of those things, if the right sort of approach is used and maintained, very clearly set out the difference(s) between the thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences of language less creatures and language users.
I'm not sure why that difference seems so puzzling to some. Language less creatures do not - cannot - draw correlations between language use and other things. It's as simple as that. Their meaningful experience, thought, and/or belief does not consist of language use. They do not draw correlations between language use and other things.
The difficult and interesting aspects of this endeavor come with explaining the gradual increase in complexity that happens once language use has begun in earnest.
Second, we know language less creatures are capable of meaningful experience, because we can watch them do all sorts of stuff that it makes no sense to deny it. In addition to our ever increasing knowledge base regarding the biological machinery involved in our own experiences, our own working notions/terminological use of "thought", "belief", and "meaning" come to the fore here.
If language less creatures are capable of having meaningful experience(s), and all experience is meaningful to the creature having it, then it is clear that meaning exists prior to language creation on the evolutionary timeline. All meaningful experience consists - in very large part - of thought and belief about the universe. If a language less creature can form, have and/or hold belief about the world, and some of their belief about the world can be true, then either true belief exists without truth, or truth is prior to language.
If it is the case that meaningful experience predate language users, then one's notion of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaning" better be able to dovetail with those facts. Current convention fails to draw and maintain the actual distinctions between thinking and thinking about one's own thinking(thought/belief). That's been the bane of philosophy from Aristotle through Kant, Descartes, etc. I know of not a single philosopher who has drawn and maintained that distinction. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't one, but, I've been asking many people for over 20 years, and I've yet to have been given an affirmative answer/author/philosopher so...
This scope of this subject matter is as broad as it can be. If we've gotten our own thought and belief wrong, and I'm convinced we have, then we've also gotten something wrong about anything and everything ever thought, believed, spoken, stated, uttered, and/or otherwise expressed.
If we know it exists, doesn't whatever is proof of its existence give us clues about what it consists of?
I'm not keen on conflating mathematical descriptions(which are existentially dependent upon language users) with language less knowledge, thought, and/or belief. Dogs are incapable of doing math. Doing math requires naming quantities. Dogs cannot do that. They can catch a ball nonetheless, and we can describe those events(or at least the trajectory of the ball) with calculus.
Are you claiming that all language less (creatures') thought, belief, and/or experience consists entirely of behaviour and behaviour alone? I would not agree with that, at all. Thinking about trees and cats includes trees and cats. Neither trees nor cats are behaviour. They are elements in such thought.
— creativesoul
Surely, thought that involves trees and cats is involved in the behaviour that involves trees and cats. I don't see what you are getting at.
Are you claiming that language less thought, belief, and/or experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone?
However, looking more closely at your example does give me pause:-
A growl in a familiar life scenario has all the context necessary for creatures to draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible things... fear, say. ..... The creatures learn how to react/respond/behave/survive. Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours? Sure. No metacognition necessary. No thinking about themselves and others as subject matters in their own right necessary. Does this constitute shared meaning in close to the same sense as described above?
— creativesoul
I'm very mistrustful of your language in "draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible thing .... fear, say". But the scenario is undoubtedly a relevant case and one could say that we learn the correlation between the growl and danger and fighting - hence also fear.
But "correlation" does not distinguish between a Pavlovian response and an action - something that the dog does. When the bell rings and the dog salivates, that's an automatic response - salivating is not under conscious control. It is part of an automatic system which governs digestion.
Yes. I would agree that the dog salivates upon hearing the bell, after the bell has become meaningful to the dog. The bell becomes meaningful to the dog when the dog draws correlations between it and eating. Hence, both are autonomous. The correlations drawn between the bell and food as well as the involuntary salivation.
Growling is under conscious control - even a form of communication, counting as a warning. I'm not saying that the distinction is crystal clear, but rather the difference is a question of which mode of interpretation we apply to the phenomena.
What difference is a question of how we interpret the events? The events are already meaningful. Hence, it is possible to misinterpret them.
I'm not convinced that growling is under conscious control, as if used intentionally to communicate/convey the growling dogs' thought/belief. I'm more likely to deny that that's what's going on. The growl is meaningful for both the growling dog and the submissive others. I'm not convinced that the growl is a canine speech act so to speak.
The Pavlovian response is causal; growling functions in a scoial context. (Even that needs further explanation). But the fact that it has a social function suggests that some awareness of the awareness of the difference self and others is necessary.
There's a sleight of hand here. Functioning in a social context does not lend itself to being a social function in the sense that the community members have some awareness of the awareness. That sort of 'higher order' thinking requires thinking about awareness as a separate subject matter in its own right(metacognition). Metacognition is existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.
The growl has efficacy, no doubt. It is meaningful to both the growling dogs and the others. I would even agree that it could be rudimentary language use, but it's nothing even close to adequate evidence for concluding that growls function in a social context in the same way that our expressions of thought and belief do.
I'm not sure I'm okay with calling it a warning, to be frank. That presupposes knowledge of the growling dog's worldview(intention) that I am not privy to.
Yes. The question of the significance of the difference(s) is likely the trickiest one of all.
— Ludwig V
How would that be judged?
Good question. One way is to assess the ethical implications of the differences we find. Another would be to examine and explore why people get so strongly committed. It would be at least helpful to know why people think it matters. But the difficult bit is that how one sees animals is very much a function of the relationships one has with them, so there isn't a purely objective basis for the judgement. There isn't a matter of fact that makes the difference - it's a question of how one chooses to interact with them.
we can(and do, I would argue) know what all meaningful experience consists of - at the basic irreducible core. It consists of correlations drawn between different things by a creature so capable. That question was asked to Ludwig, for he admits language less thought and belief. I presume he would admit experience as a result. However, his approach is woefully inequipped to answer the question. That was the point of asking it.
OK. I'll bite. I thought you were asking the question because I couldn't answer it; actually I have answered; it's just that you don't like the answer. I haven't worked out exactly how to argue the point, so I'm holding my peace until I've worked that out.
Preliminary problems include what it means to say that any meaningful experience consists of anything never mind what it means to say that meaningful experience consists of correlations.
Their meaningful experience, thought, and/or belief does not consist of language use.
Language users express their beliefs etc. by talking (and in their other behaviour). Clearly, creatures without human language cannot express their beliefs by talking. But they can and do express their beliefs by their behaviour. Both language users and creatures without language have meaningful experiences, which, presumably, "consist of" correlations. (I'm setting aside my doubts about "consist of" and correlations.)
They do not draw correlations between language use and other things.
Insofar as they do not have human language, that seems obvious. But then, when I call out "dinner", my dog appears. Isn't that correlating language with something else? When I call out "sit", she sits and looks at me expectantly. Apparently dogs are capable of responding appropriately to something like 200 words, which is about the language learning level of a two year old human.
I'm not keen on conflating mathematical descriptions(which are existentially dependent upon language users) with language less knowledge, thought, and/or belief. Dogs are incapable of doing math. Doing math requires naming quantities. Dogs cannot do that. They can catch a ball nonetheless, and we can describe those events(or at least the trajectory of the ball) with calculus.
I wasn't conflating those two descriptions. I was pointing out that the mathematical description of the trajectory of the ball does apply to the ball and that the dog (or indeed, human) is not applying that description. What beliefs and/or experiences can we discern in ourselves to explain how the ball is caught? Can we attribute those same beliefs to the dog or not? I think that skills like these are attributed to "judgement", which means either that the human "just sees" where the ball is coming and the same can be attributed to the dog. Both express their belief about where the ball is coming by positioning themselves to catch it.
We can legitimately expect that there will be some neurological activity which we are not conscious of and which that enables this to happen. This will be similar to the neurological activity that must underlie our ability to discern where a sound is coming from. We can also expect the same or similar activity to be going on in the dog.
I'm not convinced that growling is under conscious control, as if used intentionally to communicate/convey the growling dogs' thought/belief. I'm more likely to deny that that's what's going on. The growl is meaningful for both the growling dog and the submissive others. I'm not convinced that the growl is a canine speech act so to speak.
I wasn't going so far as claiming that it is a canine speech act. However, my speech acts are meaningful to myself and others (including my dog), so there may well be something to the comparison.
As to conscious control, I cannot train my dog to salivate or not on my command (any more than I can train myself to salivate or not as I wish). But I can train my dog to stop growling on command. That suggests the growl is under the dog's control.
Functioning in a social context does not lend itself to being a social function in the sense that the community members have some awareness of the awareness.
Sorry, I'm confused. If the growl warns others not to be aggressive, I would have thought that they were aware of the dog's belief that they are being regarded as a possible threat. Is that what you meant by awareness of the awareness? I would also have thought that the dog was aware of it's own awareness that the others present a possible threat. Perhaps that's what you mean?
The growl has efficacy, no doubt. It is meaningful to both the growling dogs and the others. I would even agree that it could be rudimentary language use, but it's nothing even close to adequate evidence for concluding that growls function in a social context in the same way that our expressions of thought and belief do.
So we agree at least to some extent. I wasn't making any claim about equivalence of that function to our expressions of thought and belief. Though it does occur to me that when I feel threatened by someone, I will make placatory and/or self-confident signals, whether by body language or in speech in order to warn them off. That seems to me to be performing the same function as the growl. The difference, I would say, is the difference between the simplicity of the growl and the complexity of the messages we can convey through the complexity of language. There is similarity and difference.
Yes. The question of the significance of the difference(s) is likely the trickiest one of all.
— Ludwig V
How would that be judged?
— Patterner
Good question. One way is to assess the ethical implications of the differences we find. Another would be to examine and explore why people get so strongly committed. It would be at least helpful to know why people think it matters. But the difficult bit is that how one sees animals is very much a function of the relationships one has with them, so there isn't a purely objective basis for the judgement. There isn't a matter of fact that makes the difference - it's a question of how one chooses to interact with them.
I think we're having different conversations. I'm talking about whether or not we have abilities that language-less species do not have, and, if so, whether or not language is responsibile for those abilities.
I think you are talking about how we use those abilities.
I think we're having different conversations. I'm talking about whether or not we have abilities that language-less species do not have, and, if so, whether or not language is responsibile for those abilities.
I think you are talking about how we use those abilities.
That's odd. I thought you were asking how we might determine the significance of the difference between animals and humans.
It's just that we can argue endlessly about the differences between animals and humans. But, in the end, each species is different from the others in some respects and similar in others. So it seems to me that it is an empty debate (whether the glass is half full or half empty). Yet we we think the question is really important? Why? What is at stake?
It seems likely that language is important in enabling the human way(s) of life. Probably our opposable thumb is also important, not to mention our large brain. None of those differences means that we are not animals or that we are justified in pretending otherwise.
Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours?
I will say "no." Sound is not the only way animals communicate. They also communicate with smells and behaviors. The reaction is as automatic as jumping when one hears a loud crashing sound. We would not have survived if we didn't react automatically to threats when a fast reaction is essential. However, unlike the dog, we are not going to continue barking and growling when we realize the mailman is not a threat. However, some humans do react by grabbing a gun and pulling the trigger and expect to be exonerated no matter who they shoot. The point is like animals we react without thinking and that is not equal to having language.
We slip into language when we start making pictures and then start telling stories with pictures. This is the development of conceptual thinking. True, there are some animals that paint pictures when given paint brushes and paint, but these pictures are splashes of color, not portraits of other animals and objects.
Animals may learn human language but it is not instinctive. However, I suspect if a group of bonobos learn a language and teach their children language, over many generations the ability to use language will either end or become part of their inborn abilities. Abilities can be passed on through parents and genes. We are on the same evolutionary branch as Chimpanzees and Bonobo and not all humans are like modern man but were more a transition from ape to human.
However, my speech acts are meaningful to myself and others (including my dog), so there may well be something to the comparison.
I believe we share much in common with other animals because we are evolved animals. Aboriginal people around the world learned about life by studying animals. Life lessons came from the crow and the wolves. etc..
Wolves mean a lot to the Native American community and it is a dominant role in the Ojibwe tribe. In the Ojibwe tribe creation story, wolves are often described as family members to the tribe. Wolves were referred to as a brother or sister along with a perception that if whatever happens to the wolves, it will happen to one of the Ojibwe tribe, they also traveled the world together and spoke the same language.[4] They have a strong relationship tied with the wolves because wolves are a symbol of their culture and tradition. https://wildwisconsinwolves.omeka.net/natives#:~:text=In%20the%20Ojibwe%20tribe%20creation,and%20spoke%20the%20same%20language.
philosophers think that linguistic behaviour is, in some way that escapes me, something different from behaviour. I can't think why.
— Ludwig V
Might have something to do with the fact that not all behaviour involves using language. All linguistic behaviour does.
Thank you both of you. As I was working on my previous reply I started to wonder why I think language and thinking are so important. Humans can be incredibly destructive and that is far from being intelligent. Our creation story making us to be not animals but as angels made separate from the animals. ? What is that? Might that creation story be harmful?
I think we need to understand we are evolved as are the rest of the animals. Equally important is our heart. If our hearts are not in tune with nature might be an evil force on earth?
None of those differences means that we are not animals or that we are justified in pretending otherwise
I haven't read all of the thread. I know this was being discussed early on. But I don't know who actually said they held that position, and had no idea anyone in still saying it. I know with absolute certainty I never said it.
I'm just saying there is a significant difference between humans and animals. I think this is evidenced by many of the things we do and manufacture. I also think we think about things no other species thinks about. Of course, I can't prove my cat isn't pondering the nature of consciousness, trying to find an easier way to locate prime numbers, or amusing himself with the thought of the cat who shaves all the cats who do not shave themselves. But, if someone invented a machine that allows us to listen in on his thoughts, I would be willing to bet anything that he isn't.
I'm just saying there is a significant difference between humans and animals. I think this is evidenced by many of the things we do and manufacture. I also think we think about things no other species thinks about. Of course, I can't prove my cat isn't pondering the nature of consciousness, trying to find an easier way to locate prime numbers, or amusing himself with the thought of the cat who shaves all the cats who do not shave themselves.
A fetus becomes conscious before being born and early self-conscious emotions appear during at age 15-24 months. Yet ask yourself, if nobody had talked about consciousness to you, you wouldn't have read about it or been taught about it, would you have come to think about the nature of consciousness?
If you answer yes or even perhaps, then how would you talk about it? What level do you think your ideas would be about it if you wouldn't have any reference to science or philosophy about the issue or the basic biological understanding we have now. Just look at this thread and notice how much people refer to biology, science and philosophy. The previous discourse about the issue.
Not only do you need a very complex language to talk about the nature of consciousness, you need a lot of information to talk about it.
Now your cat might not think about Russell's paradox, but it quite likely can count. It could be argued that it has some primitive feline mathematical system, because counting is very important for situational awareness. Logic is also quite important in situational awareness.
Hence the huge difference isn't a biological difference, but a social and informational difference.
Hence the huge difference isn't a biological difference, but a social and informational difference.
Yes. But why don't they have the social and informational systems we have? They haven't developed these things, despite being in our homes, seeing and hearing us do everything we do, and being spoken to extensively, for a very long time. Countless generations. Many people have even tried to teach them. Is the reason for the social and informational differences not a biological difference? Their brains cannot do the same things ours can.
Reply to Patterner You might ask yourself first why the closest relatives to us are the chimpanzees. The simple answer is: we ourselves.
There's no Neandethals, Denisovans, Homo erectus, Homo rhodiensis, Homo naledi, Homo luzonensis, homo floriensis walking around anymore, even if there were 300 000 years ago. And all because of us, not because of climate change etc. Those that could have children with us, they now are part of our genealogical roots. It's telling when Alexander the Great made his genocidal journey of conquer to the outskirts of India, the Greeks had a brief "battle" with strange little humans that fled to the trees, until someone told them these were actually animals called monkeys and they wouldn't be a threat to them or a population to be subjugated.
Animals do use tools and for example the Neanderthal could make a fire, so the question is that would these other hominids of our tree be able to invent or copy agriculture, have the written word? Very likely, but they are no more.
Hence to your question, why wouldn't any other animal have the social and informational systems than we have, is because if they would, they would have posed a threat to us and we would have exterminated them.
Never underestimate the viciousness and utter cruelty of this species we call Homo Sapiens, mankind. Just look how cruel we can be for our own fellow man, even today. We aren't peaceful Kapybaras, you know.
Reply to ssu
I quite agree. However, while that may explain why there is no species with which we don't have such a social and informational difference, it doesn't explain the social and informational difference. The reason no other species does what we do socially and informationally is that their brains aren't capable of it. When other species have been in close contact with us for millennia, watching and hearing the things we do and how we do them, us attempting to teach them, what other explanation could there be?
I'm just saying there is a significant difference between humans and animals.
Most mammals don't fly but bats do fly. Would that difference mean a bat is not an animal? It appears you are saying humans are not animals. We have a larger cortex than other apes and vocal cords that apes do not have. We are different but how does that difference equal humans are not animals?
When other species have been in close contact with us for millennia, watching and hearing the things we do and how we do them, us attempting to teach them, what other explanation could there be?
Baboons do not learn from chimpanzees. The baboon can see the chimpanzee stick a twig in a rotting log and get termits but it never attempts to do so. Interestingly, the female chimp learns a lot from her mother but male chimps are less likely to pay attention to what their mother is doing until they get older.
How about love. What is it? What does it consist of? Will the lion ever learn to "love" its neighbor?
Love is older and more deeply rooted in sentient beings than rational thought. Love is a complex of emotions that connect one individual to another. In its most primitive form, the mother's tender concern for her young, closely followed by the bond between mated pairs. In the more evolved species, close friendship are formed between individuals - and not only of their own species. Many lions love their tiger, canine or human friends. Most humans are also picky about whom they love, and it's rarely their neighbour.
By inhabiting the human - exclusively human - imagination. Gods come into being through human projection and/or wishful thinking and are then sustained by application of rational narrative and social infrastructure to an irrational central idea.
Animals don't do that. If they're in awe of something, it's because that thing has got real power, not because they've they've conjured it up from their own murky subconscious.
And bats cannot communicate with iguanas and condors have little in common with zebras. Species within the same family are more like one another than they are like members of another family; human are more different from chipmunks than they are from gorillas. Gorillas are also very different from octopi, even though both are capable of rational problem-solving, neither can do algebra, but I expect both can be taught to play the piano. There are similarities and differences between species throughout the animal kingdom and its evolution.
But humans are super-duper-special; utterly different from other species in so many ways that are hugely important to humans.
Thank you both of you. As I was working on my previous reply I started to wonder why I think language and thinking are so important. Humans can be incredibly destructive and that is far from being intelligent. Our creation story making us to be not animals but as angels made separate from the animals. ? What is that? Might that creation story be harmful?
Sadly, intelligence is not restricted by ethics. It enables us to do wonderful things, and also to do terrible things.
Well, our creation story doesn’t mention angels. But God does decide to prevent Adam & Eve from eating the apple of the knowledge of good and evil for fear that “they might become as one of us”. Food for thought. I think the harmful bit in our creation story is the idea that God gave us “dominion” over everything. If only they had said “stewardship”…!
Plato thought that we are a combination of animal and god.
I think we need to understand we are evolved as are the rest of the animals. Equally important is our heart. If our hearts are not in tune with nature might be an evil force on earth?
Yes, heart is important – arguably more important than intelligence. I understand the feeling that being out of tune with nature is a bad thing. But the natural is not always a good thing. Nature, in itself, is neither good nor bad but just what it is – or perhaps sometimes good and sometimes bad.
I haven't read all of the thread. I know this was being discussed early on. But I don't know who actually said they held that position, and had no idea anyone in still saying it. I know with absolute certainty I never said it.
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have referred to the earlier discussion without identifying exactly where it is. I never wanted to accuse you of saying it. The earlier discussion centred on the consequences of Cartesion dualism for our treatment of animals.
I'm just saying there is a significant difference between humans and animals. I think this is evidenced by many of the things we do and manufacture. I also think we think about things no other species thinks about. Of course, I can't prove my cat isn't pondering the nature of consciousness, trying to find an easier way to locate prime numbers, or amusing himself with the thought of the cat who shaves all the cats who do not shave themselves. But, if someone invented a machine that allows us to listen in on his thoughts, I would be willing to bet anything that he isn't.
There are differences between human and animals. There are also similarities. So the interesting part is what “significant” means.
Actually, I think the significant differences are the ethical ones. We have moral obligations to animals – essentially, not to treat the cruelly. But they have not corresponding moral obligations to us; in fact they can’t be judged by our ordinary moral standards – though one could argue that they do have something like the beginnings of a moral sense.
A fetus becomes conscious before being born and early self-conscious emotions appear during at age 15-24 months. Yet ask yourself, if nobody had talked about consciousness to you, you wouldn't have read about it or been taught about it, would you have come to think about the nature of consciousness?
Yes. Most of the abilities that seem to differentiate us from animals depend on our being brought up in human society. The “feral” children who turn up from time to time have great difficulty in making good what they missed.
Now your cat might not think about Russell's paradox, but it quite likely can count. It could be argued that it has some primitive feline mathematical system, because counting is very important for situational awareness. Logic is also quite important in situational awareness.
Hence the huge difference isn't a biological difference, but a social and informational difference.
Your point about the cat is well made. It’s the usual thing – every time something is identified as different and specifically human, it turns out that animals (some animals) have the beginnings or foundations of them. It’s just that we have supernormal development of them.
The point about mathematics and logic also seems to be right. But it does seem that our capacity to learn all those human skills and practices has a biological basis – over-developed cortex, opposable thumb, bipedalism.
The point about mathematics and logic also seems to be right. But it does seem that our capacity to learn all those human skills and practices has a biological basis – over-developed cortex, opposable thumb, bipedalism.
The point that @Patterner also made of our brains being different might be the real difference, but even that might be smaller than we think. Bipedalism and our hands are reason why we can use so extensively tools. Also it has been studied that Homo Sapiens could have more children that lived up to adulthood than our hominid brothers. Yet the real question is hypothetical, could for example the Neanderthal been capable of creating a civilization? They could speak, at least a bit and could make fire, which obviously shows their sophistication. To dismiss the possibility outright based on biological differences we cannot do as it's now purely a hypothetical question.
And let's face the fact that if humans would have remained as hunter gatherers, there simply couldn't be so many of us and we would have molded the Earth as we have now. Without agriculture there wouldn't excess food production and hence there couldn't be division of labor, job specialization. Agriculture and trade and writing are simply crucial for our development to what we are now, especially if it has anything to do with our society or our scientific thought.
Agriculture got started just somewhere around 11000 BC and writing is even a more frequent invention, so what has made us different from the hunter gatherers (whom many of our extinct fellow hominids were too) has happened only a while ago.
But humans are super-duper-special; utterly different from other species in so many ways that are hugely important to humans.
Can I take that as suggesting that the things that make humans so special are not necessarily important to other creatures or, necessarily, to the planet? The planet, at least, seems poised to wreck our civilizations and we seem incapable of doing anything much about it.
The thing is, it seems to me that since, for better or worse, we are animals in so many ways, it doesn't really make sense to say that we are "utterly" different from other species.
There are differences between human and animals. There are also similarities. So the interesting part is what “significant” means. Actually, I think the significant differences are the ethical ones.
Nothing matters more. What makes humans different from other species? What is there answer to the Hard Problem of Consciousness? How did life begin? Did anything exist before the Big Bang? All fascinating topics. And we are driven to explore the unknown, and try to answer questions. But if we do not treat others, human and others, well, then we're filthy creatures pretending to be better than we are.
We have moral obligations to animals – essentially, not to treat the cruelly. But they have not corresponding moral obligations to us; in fact they can’t be judged by our ordinary moral standards – though one could argue that they do have something like the beginnings of a moral sense.
Some do. But it doesn't matter. No animal other than us can be judged for cruelty. They aren't thinking cruel thoughts when they do anything. They aren't choosing to be cruel. Only we have that capacity.
Can I take that as suggesting that the things that make humans so special are not necessarily important to other creatures or, necessarily, to the planet?
Of course not. Why should they be? Every individual member of every species is primarily concerned with its own survival, secondly with the survival of its family, flock or colony, thirdly with making their life less difficult. Only those with an unusual amount of physical security and leisure time have the luxury of reflection, self-assessment and thinking about how to think about their own thinking. Only a diminishing minority of humans are lucky enough to have that. Some felines and canines under human protection have the leisure, but they use it differently. Quoting Ludwig V
The planet, at least, seems poised to wreck our civilizations and we seem incapable of doing anything much about it.
That's only because our civilizations wrecked the planet, and when we became aware of this fact, refused to do anything about it. Quoting Ludwig V
The thing is, it seems to me that since, for better or worse, we are animals in so many ways, it doesn't really make sense to say that we are "utterly" different from other species.
I've never thought so. Even rabbits are capable of destroying their habitat.
But humans are super-duper-special; utterly different from other species in so many ways that are hugely important to humans.
To deny that humans are leaps and bounds above any other species in significant ways is willful ignorance.
Proportionally, we are not the fastest, strongest, or most durable. We can't fly, we can't burrow, we can't swim underwater for more than a few minutes. Yet, because of our intelligence, we surpass every other species in all of these ways, and more. And we can do things no other species can do to the least degree, or is even trying. Such as travel to other celestial bodies, store information outside of our bodies, communicate instantly with the other side of the world, create intelligent entities that are not our biological offspring, and make a good go at destroying life on the planet. There is no ELE like us. It might be a good idea to better understand the things that make us different, rather than deny that we are.
The thing is, it seems to me that since, for better or worse, we are animals in so many ways, it doesn't really make sense to say that we are "utterly" different from other species.
We still die from diseases, just as other species do. We die if we fall from great heights, which many other species do not. We take in energy the way most other animal species do. Locomotion, respiration, vision, on and on, as much like the other species as they are all like each other.
To deny that humans are leaps and bounds above any other species in significant ways is willful ignorance.
Who's denying it? I'm well aware of all the things humans have accomplished and are capable of that no other species - indeed, not all the other species put together - could have done or can do.
Surely, having all those superior attainments, possessions and complexity of intellect are distinction enough. Our power to destroy them all should be power enough. I don't see a reason to deny them basic attributes like affection, communication and rational thought.
No animal other than us can be judged for cruelty. They aren't thinking cruel thoughts when they do anything. They aren't choosing to be cruel. Only we have that capacity.
Animals can be jerks. Yet I think the issue is that we have come up with smart the idea of ethics, which we relate only to us.
Reply to ssu .
Yeah, they can be jerks. Which makes for great videos on fb. :rofl:
Why do you suppose we relate our ethical principles only to use? Why don't we hold them accountable for there pain and death they cause each other? Why do we often kill dogs that break their chain and attack people?
Why don't we hold them accountable for there pain and death they cause each other?
In what circumstances, according to what law, by what standards? The pain and death other animals cause one another are generally inflicted in the course of feeding to survive - the means and method of which they have much less control than we do, and we don't outlaw human mean and methods of obtaining food, regardless of the pain the captivity and death of that food entail. Quoting Patterner
Why do we often kill dogs that break their chain and attack people?
Because in a human-controlled world, people are sacred - unless they've been convicted of a capital crime or inducted into an army - and dogs are not.
Nothing matters more. What makes humans different from other species? What is there answer to the Hard Problem of Consciousness? How did life begin? Did anything exist before the Big Bang? All fascinating topics. And we are driven to explore the unknown, and try to answer questions.
Well, those questions are indeed important because they disorient us and conclusive answers are hard to come by. But I also think that the everyday concerns of food and shelter and sociality are more important. Certainly, If those things are not available, it would be irrational not to give them a higher priority.
No animal other than us can be judged for cruelty. They aren't thinking cruel thoughts when they do anything. They aren't choosing to be cruel
That's certainly what I was saying earlier. But I'm bedevllied by a tendency to think of counter-examples after I've said something. I have heard that if a fox gets into a hen coop, it will kill every single one of them even though it cannot eat them all and cannot store them for the future. Farmers, I've heard, have a particular down on foxes for that reason. Would that count as choosing to be cruel? At least the fox doesn't torture them. Cats, on the other hand, I've heard, tend to corner a mouse and play with it, allowing it to escape and then catching it back at the last moment. (I've never seen that for myself). Would that count?
We still die from diseases, just as other species do. We die if we fall from great heights, which many other species do not. We take in energy the way most other animal species do. Locomotion, respiration, vision, on and on, as much like the other species as they are all like each other.
Our power to destroy them all should be power enough. I don't see a reason to deny them basic attributes like affection, communication and rational thought.
Can I take that as suggesting that the things that make humans so special are not necessarily important to other creatures or, necessarily, to the planet?
— Ludwig V
Of course not. Why should they be?
Quite so. What I'm getting at, though, is that our power over them and lack of awareness or at best understanding of it ought to impose a moral obligation not to mistreat them. It seems to me that a primary function of morality is to restrain the unlimited power over each other. But if our moral perceptions are restricted to our own species, it's hard to see how that works. We need a concept of a pan-species morality. But then, that morality would not necessarily restrain other creatures. I'm confused about this.
The thing is, it seems to me that since, for better or worse, we are animals in so many ways, it doesn't really make sense to say that we are "utterly" different from other species.
No two species on earth are 'utterly' different. That's impossible. I couldn't guess what the full list is, but, at the very least, all species have DNA and use glucose for energy. The explanation for this is that all earth species - indeed, all living individuals on earth (assuming no extraterrestrials) - are descended from one common ancestor that had these characteristics. That common ancestor is called LUCA, which stands for Last Universal Common Ancestor.
The closer we and another species are to our MRCA (Most Recent Common Success) on the tree of life, the more characteristics we share.
-We share more characteristics with other primates than we do with mammals that are not primates.
-We share more characteristics with other mammals than we do with vertebrates that are not mammals.
Etc.
There is no ELE like us. It might be a good idea to better understand the things that make us different, rather than deny that we are.
— Patterner
I'm sorry, I don't understand what "ELE" means. But it's a fair point.
What would that accomplish? It could not be arrived-at through discussion and consensus; it could only be imposed by humans. Which is already the case in our folklore. Nor, even if we could make him understand the reason, could the lion lie down with the lamb unless we offered him satisfying veggie-burgers instead. And it would not be convincing, even so, unless all the humans - who do have dietary alternatives - all refrained from eating, torturing, trapping and hunting other species. Or even their own... Condemning a cat for playing with something that moves, something she does not recognize as being like herself, is just as human and irrational as applauding a human when, after some fancy play, he kills a terrified captive bull.
If we were able to agree among our species on a coherent moral system applied to our own species, we would achieve an immensely remarkable feat. Meanwhile: Try not to do to anyone or anything else what you would not like done to yourself.
Even rabbits are capable of destroying their habitat.
So even our awesome power to wreck the entire planet has forerunners. The rabbits' power is not different power; rather, the humans have a "super" of a power that animals also have. I think perhaps that's a better way to think of at least some of the features that we have been talking about.
The closer we and another species are to our MRCA (Most Recent Common Success) on the tree of life, the more characteristics we share.
-We share more characteristics with other primates than we do with mammals that are not primates.
-We share more characteristics with other mammals than we do with vertebrates that are not mammals.
etc.
Yes, of course - though the link to evolution is not, strictly speaking philosophical business. The tricky bit is distinguishing between the characteristics that we can unhesitatingly assign - anatomy and physiology etc. - and those that require interpretation.
The Cartesian suggestion that animals are simply machines seem absurd when applied to cats, dogs and mammals in general, but much less so when applied to bacteria, viruses and protozoa. The difficulty comes to a head when we start ascribing perceptions, motives, emotions and reasons to their behaviour. I think this comes from the fact that those judgments are heavily dependent on context and background.
Condemning a cat for playing with something that moves, something she does not recognize as being like herself, is just as human and irrational as applauding a human when, after some fancy play, he kills a terrified captive bull.
Yes. I didn't mean to suggest that the cat was to be blamed in any way. No more than the foxes are.
So even our awesome power to wreck the entire planet has forerunners.
In a way. A number of species are capable of overpopulating, overgrazing or overhunting their territory, given the right conditions. However, when that happens, nature quickly resets the balance by killing off the excess, though famine, disease or both. This was also true of pre-technological man.
It's only since humans declared war on nature and started winning that the the TEE (total extinction event) became all but inevitable, because man never reverses a bad decision; he generally exacerbates it with an even more technological 'solution'.
I didn't mean to suggest that the cat was to be blamed in any way. No more than the foxes are.
Yet many, if not most, humans do blame animals for being animals; do judge other species, as well as other humans by human standards - but themselves. Little brains are quite capable of dishonesty, but only the Big Brain is capable of unlimited hypocrisy.
So even our awesome power to wreck the entire planet has forerunners. The rabbits' power is not different power; rather, the humans have a "super" of a power that animals also have. I think perhaps that's a better way to think of at least some of the features that we have been talking about.
Sure. Just as, at one time, there was only one species of animal on the planet that had the ability to fly, even though other species were able to move in other ways. We can even see how the ability to fly evolved from how other species were moving. Still, it was a new ability.
At another time, only one species of animal had the ability to breath air, even though other species were able to get oxygen in other ways. We can even see how the ability to breath air evolved from how other species were getting oxygen. Still, it was a new ability.
At the moment, only one species has the ability to think in certain ways/about various types of things, even though other species are able to think. We can even see how the ability to think in new ways evolved from how other species are able to think. Still, it is a new ability.
However, when that happens, nature quickly resets the balance by killing off the excess, though famine, disease or both.
Isn't that exactly what is about to happen to humanity? Perhaps it would be best to scrap the present system and start again. No-one will mind except human beings.
Yet many, if not most, humans do blame animals for being animals; do judge other species, as well as other humans by human standards - but themselves. Little brains are quite capable of dishonesty, but only the Big Brain is capable of unlimited hypocrisy.
I'm not sure about the Big Brain, but yes, humans find it hard not to see the world entirely in their own interests. On the bright side, it is not completely impossible for us, so there is ground for hope.
At the moment, only one species has the ability to think in certain ways/about various types of things, even though other species are able to think. We can even see how the ability to think in new ways evolved from how other species are able to think. Still, it is a new ability.
I get the point about the first two cases. But it's all about the cases and it's not hard to think of cases that are hard to classify.
No doubt there was a time when only one species was capable of walking. That required the evolution of legs. So that was a new ability. At some point, a species evolved that was capable of walking on just two legs. Was that a new ability or just a variant of an old one?
Our ability to see developed from creatures that just had light-sensitive patches in their skins. Gradually, the rest of the eye developed - you can look up the stages if you want. The first creatures were merely sensitive to light and dark, which was a new ability. Is our ability to see a new ability or just a development of the old one? At what point in that process did creatures develop that were not merely light-sensitive but capable of seeing?
I must confess I don't know enough about how language-less animals think to know what is old and what is new in our intellectual and cognitive abilities. Of course, I understand that humans have developed some of their abilities beyond what other animals are capable of. Whether they are new or just highly developed seems a secondary question to me.
Isn't that exactly what is about to happen to humanity?
Yes, but we've already wrecked most of the infrastructure that would reset the balance. When the rabbits die off, the grass grows back and little tree seedlings; the birds and squirrels move into that habitat. When a wolf-pack overhunts its territory, some die of malnutrition, but the survivors move on, leaving space for their prey to re-establish a healthy population. What we do is demolish entire ecosystems and poison the water and soil so that it cannot be revived. Quoting Ludwig V
Perhaps it would be best to scrap the present system and start again.
We should have done that 2000 years ago. Even now, it might not be too late, if there fewer of us and we had the collective will to make a fundamental change. As things stand, this freight train has no brakes. Quoting Ludwig V
I'm not sure about the Big Brain,
I'm just saying we take every kind of thinking to a new, unequaled level, including the ability to prevericate in more elaborate and creative ways.
I must confess I don't know enough about how language-less animals think to know what is old and what is new in our intellectual and cognitive abilities.
I have no idea, myself. I don't know anything about how certain appendages went from forelegs to wings. I don't know what the intermediate steps were, or when any of them happened. But I think people who study that stuff have a pretty good amount of detail.
Thinking began in single-celled species. Nothing more than sensing light and moving in response to it is more complicated than dominoes knocking each other down. I can't imagine what the steps are between that and what we can do.
-Sensing multiple input, weighing them, and choosing one.
-Storing patterns of input, and referring to it when similar input is perceived.
-Thinking different things because the body develops different abilities.
we can(and do, I would argue) know what all meaningful experience consists of - at the basic irreducible core. It consists of correlations drawn between different things by a creature so capable. That question was asked to Ludwig, for he admits language less thought and belief. I presume he would admit experience as a result. However, his approach is woefully inequipped to answer the question. That was the point of asking it.
— creativesoul
OK. I'll bite. I thought you were asking the question because I couldn't answer it; actually I have answered; it's just that you don't like the answer.
It's not about my preferences. It's about thought, belief, and/or experience that exists and existed in its entirety prior to language use on the evolutionary timeline. You claimed that thought, belief, and meaningful experience consists of behaviour. I asked twice already, and now I'll ask again...
Are you claiming that some, all, and/or any thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience(s) consist(s) of behaviour and behaviour alone?
Preliminary problems include what it means to say that any meaningful experience consists of anything never mind what it means to say that meaningful experience consists of correlations.
Problems with "what it means to say" anything aren't my concern. That's two steps backwards. Perhaps this will help...
Apple pies consist of apples, flour, and so forth. "Apple pies consist of apples" is not a problem, I presume. Meaningful experiences consist of thought and belief. Thought and belief consist of correlations. Thus... meaningful experience consists of correlations.
We can look at what language less animals are doing with language too. <---- Here, of course, by "language-less" I mean complex spoken and written language such as our own, capable of metacognition. I really need to start being better about that qualification though, because I'm confident we're not the only language users
All meaningful experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Meaningful experience begins the moment one draws correlations between different things. Like sands and piles of sand. No clear lines here where thought and belief magically poof into existence. Evolution is very slow. Language less experience ends the moment one begins to draw correlations between language use and other things. All language use consists of correlations. Not all correlations consist of language use. All correlations are meaningful to the creature drawing them.
Language use - in the beginning - is a plurality of creatures drawing correlations between the same things as a means to communicate their own thought, belief, desire, wants, etc. It is by virtue of drawing correlations between the same things that shared meaning emerges. If the growl is to be considered language, then it must mean the same thing to both. I cannot say I know if that's the case. I know it must be if it is to count as language at that stage. The growl is one element within the experiences of a plurality of dogs. All draw correlations between the growl and something else. The growl is meaningful to both as a result of that and that alone. The growl may or may not mean the same thing to all creatures that witness the occurrence. It's the something else that may differ here and the growl itself cannot tell us what else is included in the dogs' correlational content.
Meaningful experience is prior to language. All meaningful experience is meaningful to the creature/candidate under consideration. All meaningful things become so by virtue of becoming part of that creature's correlational content. Language less experience ends the moment one begins to draw correlations between language use and other things.
Hence, regarding your dog and other domesticated non-human animals that obey and/or understand basic commands and/or other language use...
These are no longer language less creatures having language less experience. Each and every correlation drawn between language use and something else counts not as language less experience. So, as I've said before, the difference between language less creatures' experiences and language users' experiences are clear. The former does not - cannot - include correlations including language use, and the latter does.
I'm uh, troubled, to say the least, by the earlier flippant dismissal regarding the philosophical import of evolutionary progression as it pertains to any and all notions of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. It would be all too convenient for many a philosopher if philosophical positions/notions of thought and belief did not require being amenable to an evolutionary timeline. Denying the evolutionary history of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience does not make it go away. One's philosophical position regarding though, belief, and/or meaningful experience had better be able to take it into proper account.
I'm not keen on conflating mathematical descriptions(which are existentially dependent upon language users) with language less knowledge, thought, and/or belief. Dogs are incapable of doing math. Doing math requires naming quantities. Dogs cannot do that. They can catch a ball nonetheless, and we can describe those events(or at least the trajectory of the ball) with calculus.
— creativesoul
I wasn't conflating those two descriptions.
Thought, belief, and/or knowledge is not a description. Some folk say that dogs are somehow, someway, doing calculus when they catch a ball. I say that that's bad thinking. Conflating mathematical descriptions(calculus) for knowing how to catch a ball.
Functioning in a social context does not lend itself to being a social function in the sense that the community members have some awareness of the awareness.
— creativesoul
Sorry, I'm confused. If the growl warns others not to be aggressive, I would have thought that they were aware of the dog's belief that they are being regarded as a possible threat. Is that what you meant by awareness of the awareness? I would also have thought that the dog was aware of it's own awareness that the others present a possible threat. Perhaps that's what you mean?
I've an issue with attributing awareness of awareness to any creature incapable of thinking about thought and belief as a subject matter in its own right. That requires naming and descriptive practices.
What difference is a question of how we interpret the events? The events are already meaningful. Hence, it is possible to misinterpret them.
— creativesoul
The difference between the autonomous salivation and the growl which is under the dog's control.
It does not follow from the fact that your dog can learn to stop growling on your command that all dogs have conscious control of their growling in the sense of "conscious control" that matters here. Voluntarily choosing to growl and/or not growl in some particular scenario/situation or another.
How do you know that the behaviour of language less creatures is not being misinterpreted? By what standard do you judge whether or not an interpretation is correct?
Why don't we hold them accountable for there pain and death they cause each other?
Accountability applies only to those who know they've done wrong(those who know better).
Other creatures capable of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience are utterly incapable of comparing their own thought, belief, and/or behaviourto anything else at all. Knowing better requires having done so. Hence, they cannot know better.
In order to choose better, one must know of better. That's one thing some humans do that no other animal can. So, in this sense, they(language less animals and experience) are utterly different. They cannot form, have, and/or hold any sort of thought and/or belief that requires comparing one's own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all, societal ethical standards, moral codes(morality); rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour notwithstanding.
Humans have a lot of beliefs that no other species has, and we wouldn't without language. That seems like a significant difference to me.
— Patterner
Yes. The question of the significance of the difference(s) is likely the trickiest one of all.
Here is where it went off the rails.
The difference between thought, belief, and/or experiences that humans and only humans can have that no other animal can.
This presupposes a difference between other capable creatures' beliefs and our own, with a particular emphasis upon those beliefs that language use has facilitated.
Are you claiming that all language less (creatures') thought, belief, and/or experience consists entirely of behaviour and behaviour alone? I would not agree with that, at all. Thinking about trees and cats includes trees and cats. Neither trees nor cats are behaviour. They are elements in such thought.
— creativesoul Surely, thought that involves trees and cats is involved in the behaviour that involves trees and cats.
I'm not sure what that means.
Behaviour is not thought. Behaviour is not belief. Behaviour is not meaningful experience.
What's in dispute here is whether or not all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone.
I'm arguing in the negative.
Furthermore, I'm positing that all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of correlations between different things drawn by a creature so capable. I'm arguing in favor of that.
Why don't we hold them accountable for there pain and death they cause each other?
— Patterner
Accountability applies only to those who know they've done wrong(those who know better).
Other creatures capable of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience are utterly incapable of comparing their own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all. Knowing better requires having done so. Hence, they cannot know better.
In order to choose better, one must know of better. That's one thing some humans do that no other animal can. So, in this sense, they(language less animals and experience) are utterly different. They cannot form, have, and/or hold any sort of thought and/or belief that requires comparing one's own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all, societal ethical standards, moral codes(morality); rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour notwithstanding.
Thinking began in single-celled species. Nothing more than sensing light and moving in response to it is more complicated than dominoes knocking each other down. I can't imagine what the steps are between that and what we can do.
I like the acknowledgement of evolutionary progression. However, thinking is something that we do. Thinking is existentially dependent upon certain biological structures that we have. We know that because we have observed and recorded the affects/effects that damaging those structures has on the mind and/or cognitive abilities of the injured. There is no good reason to attribute thinking to creatures that do not have very similar relevant biological structures.
Why don't we hold them accountable for there pain and death they cause each other?
— Patterner
Accountability applies only to those who know they've done wrong(those who know better).
Other creatures capable of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience are utterly incapable of comparing their own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all. Knowing better requires having done so. Hence, they cannot know better.
In order to choose better, one must know of better. That's one thing some humans do that no other animal can. So, in this sense, they(language less animals and experience) are utterly different. They cannot form, have, and/or hold any sort of thought and/or belief that requires comparing one's own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all, societal ethical standards, moral codes(morality); rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour notwithstanding.
— creativesoul
Exactly my point.
Yup. The difference between language less thought and belief and language users' thought and belief are pivotal here in this discussion. How else do we avoid mistakenly attributing belief where none can be?
To deny that humans are leaps and bounds above any other species in significant ways is willful ignorance.
— Patterner
Who's denying it? I'm well aware of all the things humans have accomplished and are capable of that no other species - indeed, not all the other species put together - could have done or can do.
Surely, having all those superior attainments, possessions and complexity of intellect are distinction enough. Our power to destroy them all should be power enough. I don't see a reason to deny them basic attributes like affection, communication and rational thought.
Yes. It is the kinds or complexity of language less thought that needs attention. Many rational thoughts we have are incapable of being formed, had, and/or held by language less creatures.
I also think we think about things no other species thinks about. Of course, I can't prove my cat isn't pondering the nature of consciousness, trying to find an easier way to locate prime numbers, or amusing himself with the thought of the cat who shaves all the cats who do not shave themselves.
It is the kinds or complexity of language less thought that needs attention.
It's getting plenty of attention from animal behaviorists. We're getting more and more studies of problem solving in both nature and laboratory conditions.
we are animals in so many ways, it doesn't really make sense to say that we are "utterly" different from other species.
An important way in which humans differ from all other animals is our highly evolved "theory of mind" - a mental capacity that allows us to make inferences about the mental states of others.
We, each of us, have a "theory of mind" about others - We can understand the beliefs, emotions, intentions and thoughts of others. Such a capacity is vital for complex social interactions.
For example, empathy could not exist without a theory of mind.
It has been proposed that religion is a by-product of this mental capacity we call theory of mind, as we evolved to make inferences about what is in the mind of God.
For example, empathy could not exist without a theory of mind.
Clearly, you have never had a dog console you in grief or ask you anxiously why you are on the ground with your head in the kitchen cabinet. Quoting Questioner
It has been proposed that religion is a by-product of this mental capacity we call theory of mind, as we evolved to make inferences about what is in the mind of God.
Much has been proposed about "God", usually without reference to all the various conceptions of deity in all the various cultures that invariably project some aspect of their own version of human onto their gods.
Clearly, you have never had a dog console you in grief or ask you anxiously why you are on the ground with your head in the kitchen cabinet.
Thank you for the opportunity to expand on my answer.
First – I have had dogs comfort me! I always looked on my dogs as my babies.
But the “theory of mind” (and the empathy related to it) I described allows a human to understand what another is thinking or feeling. Rather than empathy, what a dog is experiencing when he responds to your grief is emotional contagion, which is a response to emotions without fully understanding what the other individual is feeling.
Emotional contagion lacks the process of individuation required for empathy – the emotions mirrored are not seen as distinct from the other.
Much has been proposed about "God", usually without reference to all the various conceptions of deity in all the various cultures that invariably project some aspect of their own version of human onto their gods.
Theory of Mind is not a set of proposals to explain the characteristics specific to any one religion, but rather an explanation for why religion exists at all.
But the “theory of mind” (and the empathy related to it) I described allows a human to understand what another is thinking and feeling
Being able to read thoughts and feelings are very different attributes. Humans discern the thoughts of other humans through choice of words, tone of voice, body language, facial expression and the little 'tells' when we're bluffing or lying. This is relatively easy to do between persons from the same culture and social background, much more difficult between people of different ethnicity or nationality or class or even sex in most cases. We can read the thoughts and feelings of a fictional character from the speech and manner of an actor, while the actor himself thinks and feels quite differently.
What people are feeling, otoh, is more nearly universal; much less affected by cultural mannerisms. It's more remarkable that other species can read our emotions more readily than we can read theirs, almost certainly because their noses are more sensitive and we sweat hormones. It has nothing to do with theory; it's about experience and the recognition of our same emotions in another. Quoting Questioner
Rather than empathy, what a dog is experiencing when he responds to your grief is emotional contagion, which is a response to emotions without fully understanding what the other individual is feeling.
Sneaking in the requirement to "fully understand" makes it exclusively human.... As if humans all fully understood their own emotions, let alone one another's. Quoting Questioner
Emotional contagion
Like human mobs at a lynching or cattle in a stampede? No, that's not very much like empathy.
How does a dog react when her human behaves in an uncharacteristic way? Try lying very still on the floor. Does your dog get contaminated and play dead? No, he paws and nuzzles at you, puffing little breaths through his nose, maybe whimpering or uttering short sharp yips, concerned for your welfare. (Which is why they train service dogs.)
Theory of Mind is not a set of proposals to explain the characteristics specific to any one religion, but rather an explanation for why religion exists at all.
It's one explanation. And gods are one explanation for why humans exist. We're good at making up explanations, either from fact or fantasy; other animals are not. That's another distinction to add to the list.
I'm uh, troubled, to say the least, by the earlier flippant dismissal regarding the philosophical import of evolutionary progression as it pertains to any and all notions of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. .... One's philosophical position regarding though, belief, and/or meaningful experience had better be able to take it into proper account.
I may be wrong to think that you are referring to something that I said. If you were, I am troubled by your impression that I would dismiss the philosophical import of evolutionary progression, let alone dismiss it flippantly. I would have thought that my general insistence that there is always continuity between what animals can do and what humans can do was evidence to the contrary. I must have said something to mislead you and I'm sorry about that.
I hope it helps if I write that sentence as "Surely, (thought that involves trees and cats) is involved in the (behaviour that involves trees and cats)" and explain (which I should have done) that when a dog approaches a tree in order to sniffs it, it is because it believes that there will be interesting smells around it, and so on.
Problems with "what it means to say" anything aren't my concern. That's two steps backwards. Perhaps this will help...
Apple pies consist of apples, flour, and so forth. "Apple pies consist of apples" is not a problem, I presume. Meaningful experiences consist of thought and belief. Thought and belief consist of correlations. Thus... meaningful experience consists of correlations.
What's the problem?
My problem is the transition from apple pies to meaningful experiences. (By the way, I was wondering what a meaningless experience would be like; I can see that they would not consist of thought and belief - so what would they consist of?)
You seem to have assumed that because "apple pies consist of apples etc." is unproblematic you can substitue any noun for "apple pies" and give an unproblematic answer. But what do surfaces edges consist of? Does it make sense to say that rainbows consist of light waves or colours? What does the number 4 consist of? A recipe?
I agree that experiences are an important basis for thought and belief, though experiences, I think, are something that happens to me.
There are two slightly different senses of "thought". One makes it like "belief" in that I can believe that p and think that p; the other is an activity, so it is hard to see that experience can consist of thinking.
Belief and (thought that) is more like a state, rather than something that happens or that I do, so again, it doesn't seem plausible to think of it as a constituent of experience.
Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief, but I'm reluctant to say that a sentence/statement/proposition is a constituent of thought or belief (or knowledge), since thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition. This is why some people are so reluctant to admit that there is such a thing as thought/belief/knowledge without language.
Behaviour is not thought. Behaviour is not belief. Behaviour is not meaningful experience.
I agree. But behaviour (including linguistic behaviour, and behaviours like talking to oneself silently) does express one's thought, beliefs and experiences.
What's in dispute here is whether or not all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone.
I would be quite happy to give up any suggestion that experience consists of behaviour, in favour of the idea that experience is express by behaviour. What else, apart from behaviour, could meaningful experience consist of? What else, apart from behaviour could express experience?
Furthermore, I'm positing that all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of correlations between different things drawn by a creature so capable. I'm arguing in favor of that.
Well, in the same way that different kinds of thing have different kinds of constituent, so there are different kinds of correlation. For example, it is common to say that there is a difference between correlation and causation. But it is puzzling to understand 2+2=4 as a correlation.
Thought, belief, and/or knowledge is not a description. Some folk say that dogs are somehow, someway, doing calculus when they catch a ball. I say that that's bad thinking. Conflating mathematical descriptions(calculus) for knowing how to catch a ball.
But thought, belief and knowledge all require a description to explain what is thought, believed of known. Still, I think most people will agree with you about the dog. But most people then find themselves puzzled about how the dog knows where the ball will land. That's the point.
Other creatures capable of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience are utterly incapable of comparing their own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all. Knowing better requires having done so. Hence, they cannot know better.
Surely, when a dog approaches its food bowl, sniffs it and walks away despondently, the dog is comparing its hope that there is food in the bowl with reality and recognizing the difference.
Being able to read thoughts and feelings are very different attributes. Humans discern the thoughts of other humans through choice of words, tone of voice, body language, facial expression and the little 'tells' when we're bluffing or lying.
No, you’re right, “theory of mind” does not have to do with reading sensory clues, or recognizing emotional states, which is what you are describing. The theory is something we create in our minds about the mental state of another, by making inferences about these sensory clues that we pick up. Because we have a theory of mind, we don’t stop at “He’s sad.” Or “He’s mad.” We take it further and form theories in our minds about what the sensory clues mean > “He’s mad about this….” Or “He’s sad about this …” Or “He wants me to do this …” Or “He doesn’t want me to do this …”
You use your theory of mind every time you make an inference about the mental state of another – like reading a mind. Sometimes, these inferences are correct, and sometimes they are not.
It's one explanation. And gods are one explanation for why humans exist. We're good at making up explanations, either from fact or fantasy; other animals are not. That's another distinction to add to the list.
Why humans exist? Or the entire universe?
And when we make up an explanation for existence that involves a supernatural being with specific characteristics – whether we imagine he is a loving god, or a vengeful god, or whatever – we are using our theory of mind to infer what is in the mind of that god.
We can read the thoughts and feelings of a fictional character from the speech and manner of an actor, while the actor himself thinks and feels quite differently.
Interesting observation. Yes, if the signals sent are false, then your inference about what is in the mind of another will most likely also be false.
You use your theory of mind every time you make an inference about the mental state of another – like reading a mind. Sometimes, these inferences are correct, and sometimes they are not.
It doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Smiles are contagious.
It doesn't have to be dramatic; people also yawn when they see others doing it; a giggle fit can engulf the entire table. Mirror neurons firing at random. Still not empathy. Quoting Questioner
Why humans exist? Or the entire universe?
Whatever. Gods have been used as stop-gap explanations for lots of things we didn't know, and are still used as a explanation for misfortune, the weather, altruism and the supremacy of man over all of creation. But their main function is to replace the all-powerful father figure from childhood. Quoting Questioner
And when we make up an explanation for existence that involves a supernatural being with specific characteristics – whether we imagine he is a loving god, or a vengeful god, or whatever – we are using our theory of mind to infer what is in the mind of that god.
By projecting there whatever is in the mind of whichever kind of man invented that god. Quoting Questioner
Yes, if the signals sent are false, then your inference about what is in the mind of another will most likely also be false.
And that is why humans can lie so much more elaborately and sustainably (sometimes an entire lifetime, sometimes even to themselves) than any other species, and more convincingly to one another than to any other species.
But false signals, feigning and misdirection are not exclusively human; we inherited the instinct and motivations for preverication from a long line of ancestors.
It doesn't have to be dramatic; people also yawn when they see others doing it; a giggle fit can engulf the entire table. Mirror neurons firing at random. Still not empathy.
I never said it was. You are the one conflating emotional contagion for empathy.
Whatever. Gods have been used as stop-gap observations for lots of things we didn't know, and are still used as a explanation for misfortune, the weather, altruism and the supremacy of man over all of creation.
And that is why humans can lie so much more elaborately and sustainably (sometimes an entire lifetime, sometimes even to themselves) than any other species. But false signals, feigning and play-acting are not exclusively human; we inherited the instinct and motivations to preverication from a long line of ancestors.
This is unconnected to any discussion about theory of mind.
Let me rephrase. There is a significant difference between our species and every other species.
Bats are the only mammals that can fly. I'm not saying bats are not mammals.
Amazing what a difference a word can make. I think we have an agreement.
The scientific name for modern humans is Homo sapiens.
Explanation: "Homo" refers to the genus "human" and "sapiens" means "wise" in Latin, so "Homo sapiens" translates to "wise man"
Homo (from Latin hom? 'human') is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus Australopithecus and encompasses only a single extant species, Homo sapiens (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called archaic humans) classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans; these include Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. The oldest member of the genus is Homo habilis, with records of just over 2 million years ago.[a] Homo, together with the genus Paranthropus, is probably most closely related to the species Australopithecus africanus within Australopithecus.[4] The closest living relatives of Homo are of the genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos), with the ancestors of Pan and Homo estimated to have diverged around 5.7-11 million years ago during the Late Miocene.[5]
I don't think that explanation comes up in any creation stories.
I like the acknowledgement of evolutionary progression. However, thinking is something that we do. Thinking is existentially dependent upon certain biological structures that we have. We know that because we have observed and recorded the affects/effects that damaging those structures has on the mind and/or cognitive abilities of the injured. There is no good reason to attribute thinking to creatures that do not have very similar relevant biological structures.
This is from [I]Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious[/I], by Antonio Damasio:
Damasio:Sensing is not perceiving, and it is not constructing a “pattern” based on something else to create a “representation” of that something else and produce an “image” in mind. On the other hand, sensing is the most elementary variety of cognition.
This is from [I]Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos[/I], by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam:
Ogas and Gaddam:A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.
Accordingly, every mind requires a minimum of two thinking elements:
•?A sensor that responds to its environment
•?A doer that acts upon its environment
Some familiar examples of sensors that are part of your own mind include the photon-sensing rods and cones in your retina, the vibration-sensing hair cells in your ears, and the sourness-sensing taste buds on your tongue. A sensor interacts with a doer, which does something. A doer performs some action that impinges upon the world and thereby influences the body’s health and well-being. Common examples of doers include the twitchy muscle cells in your finger, the sweat-producing apocrine cells in your sweat glands, and the liquid-leaking serous cells in your tear ducts.
Ogas and Gaddam soon talk about the roundworm. In addition to sensors and doers, the roundworm has two thinking elements. One neuron connects the sensors and the forward-moving doers, and activates the movers when the sensors say there is food ahead. Another neuron connects the sensors to the backward-moving doers, and activates the movers when the sensors say there is poison ahead. The stronger the signal a neuron gets from the sensor, the stronger the signal it sends to its mover.
Also, the two neurons inhibit each other. The stronger the signal a neuron receives from the sensor, the stronger it inhibits the other neuron.
The authors of these two books are calling it 'thinking' from the beginning. The roundworm is a step up. It is judging conflicting inputs, and choosing. It might be stretching the definitions of 'judging' and 'choosing'. And maybe it's stretching the definition to say "This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking." But all of this is, surely, the first stage of thinking. The sensors could evolve into eyes, or nose, or whatever. The movers could evolve into a tail, or legs, or whatever. But what connected them in the first ancient life evolved into our thinking. And, even if in only the most primitive sense, they are performing the same functions.
An important way in which humans differ from all other animals is our highly evolved "theory of mind" - a mental capacity that allows us to make inferences about the mental states of others.
How do you know that non-human animals don't have a theory of mind? How do you know that other people have a theory of mind?
Since the theory of mind is posited as an essential prerequisite of empathy, it seems to follow that if somone (human) can interact appropriately with other people, they have a theory of mind. I suppose.
So, if some non-human animals can interact appropriately with various other animals, including human animals, does it not follow that they have a theory of mind?
I do agree, however, that generalization about the extent to which all animals can do that would be very dangerous. I don't think that a fly has any real grasp of humans as people; nor do fish - most of them, anyway.
Rather than empathy, what a dog is experiencing when he responds to your grief is emotional contagion, which is a response to emotions without fully understanding what the other individual is feeling.
I thought that emotional contagion was sharing the emotions of others, as opposed to responding to their emotions. It's like the difference between treating a disease and catching it.
The existence of theory of mind in non-human animals is controversial. On the one hand, one hypothesis proposes that some non-human animals have complex cognitive processes which allow them to attribute mental states to other individuals, sometimes called "mind-reading" while another proposes that non-human animals lack these skills and depend on more simple learning processes such as associative learning; or in other words, they are simply behaviour-reading.
In practice, these supposed different alternatives come down to the same process. There is no way to read a mind except by reading behaviour.
"This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking." But all of this is, surely, the first stage of thinking.
Thank you for this. I agree that it is important in that it puts the relationship between knowing and doing at the heart of both. Philosophy has created endless fake problems for itself by focusing on the first and treating the second as an optional add-on. Suggesting that it is the "first stage" instead of insisting that it is either thinking or not is also an excellent nuance and very helpful. I shall remember about the roundworm (and, hopefully, where I learnt about it) for a long time.
I don't think that explanation comes up in any creation stories.
No, it doesn't. it is a new creation story, and the creation story of our time. It differs from all the others in that it lays itself open to evalutaion as true or false. Which seems to be a great improvement on the traditional varieties.
It is the kinds or complexity of language less thought that needs attention.
— creativesoul
It's getting plenty of attention from animal behaviorists. We're getting more and more studies of problem solving in both nature and laboratory conditions.
Indeed, we are. I've watched a number of different 'documentaries' about animal minds and problem solving. What seems to be of philosophical importance, from my vantage point anyway, is how the narrators and/or authors report on the minds of the subjects. There is always a notion of "mind" at work.
Many rational thoughts we have are incapable of being formed, had, and/or held by language less creatures.
— creativesoul
And a great many irrational ones, as well...
Agreed. The difficulty is in discriminating between which sorts of thoughts are existentially dependent upon language use and which ones are not. Those that are, cannot be formed, had, or held by language less creatures.
Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion, but it's false... if you care enough about whether or not your beliefs about my experience are true.
I suspect that there are behaviours that dogs display after doing something forbidden, or after being approached by the humans afterwards, that you claim shows us that they know better?
I'm wondering if you looked at the argument for the claim at the top of that post, or just at the conclusion.
Other creatures capable of thought…..
— creativesoul
IN-capable?
Hey Mww.
You and I both know that "thought" to you means something very different than "thought" to me. On your view, and correct me if I'm wrong, there is no distinction between thought and thinking about thought. We would agree that other creatures are incapable of some kinds of thought(namely those existentially dependent upon metacognitive endeavors) if there were such a distinction/discrimination on your view.
I'm not sure what that means.
— creativesoul
I hope it helps if I write that sentence as "Surely, (thought that involves trees and cats) is involved in the (behaviour that involves trees and cats)" and explain (which I should have done) that when a dog approaches a tree in order to sniffs it, it is because it believes that there will be interesting smells around it, and so on.
What language less creatures are capable of believing and thinking is precisely what's in question here. That sort of consideration relies upon notions of "thought" and "belief". Even the approach that you seem most fond of presupposes notions of "thought" and "belief". The idea that behaviour "expresses" belief has very little, if any, restrictions around it. There is no clear standard by which to judge whether or not the belief we are attributing to the language less creature is something that the creature is capable of forming, having, and/or holding. There are other problems as well, as I'm sure you're aware.
Regarding this example, I see no reason, ground, or justification to claim what the dog will believe is or isn't interesting.
What is the standard and/or criterion you're using to decide/determine/judge what sorts of beliefs
language less animals can and/or cannot have?
I'm uh, troubled, to say the least, by the earlier flippant dismissal regarding the philosophical import of evolutionary progression as it pertains to any and all notions of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. .... One's philosophical position regarding though, belief, and/or meaningful experience had better be able to take it into proper account.
— creativesoul
I may be wrong to think that you are referring to something that I said. If you were, I am troubled by your impression that I would dismiss the philosophical import of evolutionary progression, let alone dismiss it flippantly. I would have thought that my general insistence that there is always continuity between what animals can do and what humans can do was evidence to the contrary. I must have said something to mislead you and I'm sorry about that.
I went back to check on what it was that was said. No worries. I must have misinterpreted what you wrote. My apology seems more fitting than yours. That is... it seems that it is I who owes you an apology, not the other way around.
You are hardly one to be imprecise. That being given, it just seemed to me, in-capable would have lent more consistency to the overall point being made in that particular entry.
Problems with "what it means to say" anything aren't my concern. That's two steps backwards. Perhaps this will help...
Apple pies consist of apples, flour, and so forth. "Apple pies consist of apples" is not a problem, I presume. Meaningful experiences consist of thought and belief. Thought and belief consist of correlations. Thus... meaningful experience consists of correlations.
What's the problem?
— creativesoul
My problem is the transition from apple pies to meaningful experiences.
Yes, and understandably so, for they are very different kinds of things.
Apple pies are material, whereas thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences are neither material nor immaterial. Rather, they consist of material/physical and immaterial/non physical elements. In addition, apple pies could be classified as objects, whereas thought, belief, and meaningful experiences are not objects at all. Nor are they subjects. They are ongoing processes. I touched on this diversion from convention a few times earlier in the thread and mentioned to you more recently that my position turns many a historical dichotomy on its head.
There are two slightly different senses of "thought". One makes it like "belief" in that I can believe that p and think that p; the other is an activity, so it is hard to see that experience can consist of thinking.
Yes. There are times when the two terms "thought" and "belief" are not interchangeable. This is irrelevant however to the position I'm arguing for/from.
Riding a unicycle is an activity. Some experiences consist of riding a unicycle. That is the case for one who is watching another ride or riding themselves.
Perhaps a large part of the problem that makes it "hard to see" how experiences can consist of thought and belief is that the conventional approaches are ill-equipped for doing so.
Belief that approaches are all about epistemological claims, in that they attempt to show how truth is presupposed in all belief statements and/or knowledge claims. As useful as they are in helping us to think about such things, they are useless in determining and/or acquiring knowledge of what language less thought and belief consists of. They also tend to equate belief with propositions and/or belief with attitudes towards that proposition, which is a huge mistake, despite the fact that we express much of our own beliefs via language use/propositions.
On my view, it is clear that language less creatures' beliefs cannot be understood using that method. Not all belief is propositional in content. Propositions are meaningless to language less creatures. Hence, they can have no attitude towards them.
Belief and (thought that) is more like a state, rather than something that happens or that I do, so again, it doesn't seem plausible to think of it as a constituent of experience.
This seems to be alluding to belief as propositional attitude without saying so.
Our discussion is an experience, partly shared - at least - by all who've participated and/or have been following along. It would be very hard to make any sense of denying that each and every participant having the experience were thinking about what they were reading. They do so by virtue of drawing correlations between language use and other things. All of those correlations are part of the experiences. They are experiences that only we can have. Those correlations(that process of thinking) are(is an) elemental constituent(s). If we were to remove all those correlations being drawn between the language use and other things, if we were to remove all of the thoughtful consideration between the claims and what the claims are describing, what would be left of each individual experience such that it could still count as the experience of the reader/participant? It would be akin to removing the apples from the pie and still claiming it was an apple pie.
Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief, but I'm reluctant to say that a sentence/statement/proposition is a constituent of thought or belief (or knowledge), since thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition. This is why some people are so reluctant to admit that there is such a thing as thought/belief/knowledge without language.
On pains of coherency alone. The problem is the notion/use of "thought".
The first claim is false as is what immediately follows "since".
This is from Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, by Antonio Damasio:
Sensing is not perceiving, and it is not constructing a “pattern” based on something else to create a “representation” of that something else and produce an “image” in mind. On the other hand, sensing is the most elementary variety of cognition.
— Damasio
This looks like a comparison between rudimentary sensory perception and Cartesian notion of perception, or perhaps a phenomenological account of perception. I agree with the rejection of both "representation" and "image". I'm also in complete agreement that physiological sensory perception is at the root, the basis, of thinking. However, sensory perception is not equivalent to thinking. That conflation blurs the entire timeline of evolutionary progression between moving towards light and our thinking about how they do that. I think the latter is existentially dependent upon the former, but not the other way around.
This is from Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam:
A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.
Accordingly, every mind requires a minimum of two thinking elements:
•?A sensor that responds to its environment
•?A doer that acts upon its environment
Some familiar examples of sensors that are part of your own mind include the photon-sensing rods and cones in your retina, the vibration-sensing hair cells in your ears, and the sourness-sensing taste buds on your tongue. A sensor interacts with a doer, which does something. A doer performs some action that impinges upon the world and thereby influences the body’s health and well-being. Common examples of doers include the twitchy muscle cells in your finger, the sweat-producing apocrine cells in your sweat glands, and the liquid-leaking serous cells in your tear ducts.
— Ogas and Gaddam
Ogas and Gaddam soon talk about the roundworm. In addition to sensors and doers, the roundworm has two thinking elements. One neuron connects the sensors and the forward-moving doers, and activates the movers when the sensors say there is food ahead. Another neuron connects the sensors to the backward-moving doers, and activates the movers when the sensors say there is poison ahead. The stronger the signal a neuron gets from the sensor, the stronger the signal it sends to its mover.
Also, the two neurons inhibit each other. The stronger the signal a neuron receives from the sensor, the stronger it inhibits the other neuron.
The authors of these two books are calling it 'thinking' from the beginning. The roundworm is a step up. It is judging conflicting inputs, and choosing. It might be stretching the definitions of 'judging' and 'choosing'. And maybe it's stretching the definition to say "This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking." But all of this is, surely, the first stage of thinking. The sensors could evolve into eyes, or nose, or whatever. The movers could evolve into a tail, or legs, or whatever. But what connected them in the first ancient life evolved into our thinking. And, even if in only the most primitive sense, they are performing the same functions.
I agree in large part. I think they're on the right track. The notions of "mind" and "thinking" seem far too diluted for my tastes, and I suspect the account falls victim to reductio.
Other creatures capable of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience are utterly incapable of comparing their own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all. Knowing better requires having done so. Hence, they cannot know better.
I was just thinking out loud and reacting to what others have said, including someone in a completely different forum and a TV show about a Native American creation story. I may have an overactive mind.
My Thanksgiving blew up into an emotional drama and I feel very fragile this morning. I don't think animals come even close to the insanity of humans except maybe when a dog has rabbis. I think today I am holding a completely different perspective of humans. We have been arguing about humans being rational but they can also be completely irrational and destructive making the notion of being possessed by a demon seem plausible.
Behaviour is not thought. Behaviour is not belief. Behaviour is not meaningful experience.
— creativesoul
I agree. But behaviour (including linguistic behaviour, and behaviours like talking to oneself silently) does express one's thought, beliefs and experiences.
Indeed, but language less creatures cannot do that.
What's in dispute here is whether or not all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone.
— creativesoul
What else, apart from behaviour, could meaningful experience consist of?
A process.
Something(s) to become meaningful, a creature for that something or those things to become meaningful to, and a means for things to become meaningful to that creature.
No kidding! What's the point of a brain, if it's not to generate a mind? But if the word troubles you, turn off the sound and watch the action. Quoting creativesoul
The difficulty is in discriminating between which sorts of thoughts are existentially dependent upon language use and which ones are not.
Why is that so important to you, and by what method - other than philosophizing - do you propose to discriminate? Aside from the fact that you arbitrarily consign all communication, among any species, that doesn't have human grammar and vocabulary as language-less. Makes pre-verbal babies sound mindless, and completely dismisses the human vocabulary a great many human-associated animals are capable of learning. (Some humans are also capable of learning some non-human vocabulary.) Quoting creativesoul
What language less creatures are capable of believing and thinking is precisely what's in question here.
I thought the question was whether other species are capable of rational thought. The language boondoggle was introduced later.
Reply to Athena
Ok. Just wasn't sure if you thought I was saying anything about creation stories, or anything at all in any religious vein.
Sorry about your Thanksgiving. Indeed, a lot of negative possibilities come along with our mental capacity. And the negative crap is, like Yoda said about the Dark Side, quicker, easier, more seductive.
There is always a notion of "mind" at work.
— creativesoul
No kidding! What's the point of a brain, if it's not to generate a mind? But if the word troubles you, turn off the sound and watch the action.
It's not that the word troubles me. It's that the report of the language less creatures' thought(s) is based largely - if not exclusively - on the reporter's notion of mind. If that notion/concept of mind is incapable of discriminating between thoughts that only humans are capable of having and those that non human animals can have, then the report of those experiments, including what is purported to be the thoughts and/or thinking of the subject matter will inevitable conflate the two. That is, the reports will include false claims.
The difficulty is in discriminating between which sorts of thoughts are existentially dependent upon language use and which ones are not.
— creativesoul
Why is that so important to you, and by what method - other than philosophizing - do you propose to discriminate?
There is no other method to discriminate between what language less creatures are capable of thinking and what we are. We can then check and see how well our notion explains the experiment. It matters because getting it right matters.
It's not that the word troubles me. It's that the report of the language less creatures' thought(s) is based largely - if not exclusively - on the reporter's notion of mind.
There is no other method to discriminate between what language less creatures are capable of thinking and what we are.
There is no method to discriminate between what human language less creatures are capable of thinking and what we are. Quite apart from the fact that one species - undisputedly - having more fanciful and abstruse thoughts than others doesn't negate rationality in others. And the secondary fact that the majority of humans also don't give very much of their day to contemplating metaphisics, the nature of thought about thinking, or 'the hard question of consciousness'.
My Thanksgiving blew up into an emotional drama and I feel very fragile this morning...
Yeah, that sucks. That's never a good thing. Some people are incapable of calmly expressing themselves. The current state of American culture/politics is making things far worse. Complete and total disrespect for others is not only glorified, its financially rewarded.
You seem like a nice person. Hopefully your days improve.
I have elaborated on the philosophical enquiry/method I've used to discriminate between language less thought and thoughts that are existentially dependent on language and/or each other - as many of our own thoughts are.
There are some things that are verifiable, others that are not.
What language less creatures are capable of believing and thinking is precisely what's in question here.
— creativesoul
I thought the question was whether other species are capable of rational thought. The language boondoggle was introduced later.
Of course the question is whether or not other species are capable of rational thought. You and I agree that they are.
Our differences seem to be about which sorts of thoughts other species are capable of and which ones they are not. Although, there is some agreement there as well.
I use the method I've been employing to discriminate between those that only we can form, have, and/or hold and those that other species can as well. One glaringly obvious distinction is that other species are incapable of having thoughts that are existentially dependent upon using language(naming and descriptive practices).
How do you know that non-human animals don't have a theory of mind?
The scientific research into nonhuman animals’ theory of mind (ToM) goes back decades and there is no consensus. But do I think a dog can interpret and make inferences about human thought? No.
Since the theory of mind is posited as an essential prerequisite of empathy, it seems to follow that if somone (human) can interact appropriately with other people, they have a theory of mind.
Every time you form a conclusion about what is in the mind of another (whether it is correct or not) you are using your ToM capacity.
So, if some non-human animals can interact appropriately with various other animals, including human animals, does it not follow that they have a theory of mind?
Not necessarily. Interacting is not the same as interpreting mental states.
The origins of both theory of mind and empathy go back about 5-6 million years ago.
Theory of mind originated with gorillas? Without language? OK - I did not know that 'theory' could be applied to an inarticulate process like watching and interpreting the physical actions of another sentient being. Though I do suspect emotional empathy is older and less dependent on the socialization of young. Quoting Questioner
Interacting is not the same as interpreting mental states.
I don't see how two individuals - other than predator and prey - can interact without interpreting states of mind - or at least states of emotion and health.
I have elaborated on the philosophical enquiry/method I've used to discriminate between language less thought and thoughts that are existentially dependent on language and/or each other - as many of our own thoughts are.
Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm also aware of how much reliable factual information philosophy has contributed to human knowledge over the last two millennia.
The distinction of human language-using vs human language-less is entirely anthropocentric. I do understand why that distinction may seem vital to establishing human superiority, but I don't see why it matters to the question of whether a thought is rational.
Our differences seem to be about which sorts of thoughts other species are capable of and which ones they are not. Although, there is some agreement there as well.
How did sorts of thought become the central issue? A logical solution to even one single problem, such as getting a grub out of a hollow tree or escaping from a fenced yard demonstrates rational thought. Adding layers of complexity, all the way up to wondering why the universe exists, doesn't change the fundamental nature of reason itself; it merely obfuscates the issue by shifting focus from the process to the subject matter.
A very small minority of humans set themselves the task of mulling over questions with no available answers (just how many angels can dance on a pin); a large minority grapple with the invention and application of technology or administrative affairs; the vast majority think about getting food, securing their physical well being, having sex, raising their young, pursuing pleasure when they get the chance - much like all the other animals. They go about these activities through both rational and irrational decisions - much like all the other animals.
The distinction of human language-using vs human language-less is entirely anthropocentric. I do understand why that distinction may seem vital to establishing human superiority, but I don't see why it matters to the question of whether a thought is rational.
How did sorts of thought become the central issue?
Not all rational thought is the same. Some rational thought can only be formed by virtue of naming and descriptive practices. That is one crucial difference between our language and non human animals' languages. It is the difference between being able to think about one's own thought and not. Only humans can do this. Hence, any and all thought that is existentially dependent upon metacognition is of the sort that non human creatures cannot form, have, and/or hold.
There's much more nuance within my position than you've recognized.
A logical solution to even one single problem, such as getting a grub out of a hollow tree or escaping from a fenced yard demonstrates rational thought.
I'm guessing this refers to the earlier examples of tool use and learning how to open gates. I agree that those are cases of rational thinking in non human animals. None of them require a creature capable of metacognition.
On the contrary...
Claiming that a male bird of paradise clears out an area and dances because he's trying to impress a female is a bit of a stretch.
I did not know that 'theory' could be applied to an inarticulate process like watching and interpreting the physical actions of another sentient being.
Theory of mind does not refer to the process, but the end result – the inferences you make is the theory - formed in your mind – it’s a theory about what is in the mind of another mind.
I don't see how two individuals - other than predator and prey - can interact without interpreting states of mind - or at least states of emotion and health.
We can make conclusions about emotion and health just by observing outward signs. This is not what forming a theory of mind is about. If you form a theory about what is in another mind, you form conclusions about the mental state of another with a view to making predictions.
We humans … have evolved to be “natural psychologists.” The most promising but also the most dangerous elements in our environment are other members of our own species. Success for our human ancestors must have depended on being able to get inside the minds of those they lived with, to second-guess them, anticipate where they were going, help them if they needed it, challenge them, manipulate them. To do this they had to develop brains that would deliver a story about what it’s like to be another person from the inside.
From psychologists David Premark and Guy Woodruff (defining theory of mind in 1978):
A system of inferences of this kind may be properly viewed as a theory because such (mental) states are not directly observable, and the system can be used to make predictions about the behavior of others.
Reply to creativesoul Dogs want to please and they understand when you are displeased and are even able to anticipate that. I once had a Jack Russell terrier called Jimi and I decided to get some hens. He killed a hen and I scolded him. Some time after that my partner called me at work and told me Jimi had killed another and that the dead bird was on the floor near the front door. She asked me what she should do with the dead chook and I said she should leave it. When I opened the front door Jimi was sitting next to the dead bird shaking. He knew he had done the wrong thing. He never bothered another hen.
So what? A thought is rational or irrational. And action the result of thought or of emotion. Quoting creativesoul
Some rational thought can only be formed by virtue of naming and descriptive practices. That is one crucial difference between our language and non human animals' languages. It is the difference between being able to think about one's own thought and not. Only humans can do this.
Yes, yes, several people have already established human specialness about two dozen times in this thread alone, and I have not disputed it once. I just don't see how it could invalidate the capability of other species for rational thought. Quoting creativesoul
There's much more nuance within my position than you've recognized.
Oh I appreciate the distinction you keep making. Sounds much like Descartes': They don't speak [in human words] and they don't philosophize. Granted on both counts. I just don't consider it relevant to the topic. Quoting creativesoul
you have invalidated observations made on scientific principles for the choice of words not being objective enough. — Vera Mont
That's not true.
What seems to be of philosophical importance, from my vantage point anyway, is how the narrators and/or authors report on the minds of the subjects. There is always a notion of "mind" at work.
That's our theory of mind at work. Why is it a problem, if you're not fussy about objectivity. Quoting creativesoul
None of them require a creature capable of metacognition.
Neither does the Ford assembly line. The point is still to find areas of human specialness. You already have that. Why belabour it?
what was the purpose of
What seems to be of philosophical importance, from my vantage point anyway, is how the narrators and/or authors report on the minds of the subjects. There is always a notion of "mind" at work.
— creativesoul
That's our theory of mind at work. Why is it a problem,
It's that the report of the language less creatures' thought(s) is based largely - if not exclusively - on the reporter's notion of mind. If that notion/concept of mind is incapable of discriminating between thoughts that only humans are capable of having and those that non human animals can have, then the report of those experiments, including what is purported to be the thoughts and/or thinking of the subject matter will inevitably conflate the two. That is, the reports will include false claims.
Would you agree that Jimi drew a correlation between his behaviour(killing) and your behaviour towards him afterwards?
Sure, I guess the association must be in play. I think it's the same with children learning what is expected of them and to anticipate some kind of punishment if they don't comply.
There is no clear standard by which to judge whether or not the belief we are attributing to the language less creature is something that the creature is capable of forming, having, and/or holding.
That's true.
We might get some clues from thinking about how we decide what a human being believes or can believe and then thinking about what a creature like a dog does believe.
For example, you believe that a dog cannot form beliefs about beliefs. (Forgive me if that's not accurate, but I think it is enough for what I want to say). In my book, that needs to be considered in the light of what the dog does. Meaning is not some abstract entity floating about in the ether. It governs behaviour. So, for example, there are many beliefs that I cannot form because I have never learnt the relevant behaviours; I never learnt to write computer code or do more than elementary mathematics. While I can formulate some beliefs about those matters as they impinge on my life, but the detail is bayond me.
If a dog could read a clock and use the information in relevant ways, I would say it may know when it is 5 p.m. Does that mean it cannot have a concept of time? No, because it can show up for meals or walks at the right time. But it cannot have a concept of time like the human concept and there are other behaviours that can high-light that.
The difficulty is in discriminating between which sorts of thoughts are existentially dependent upon language use and which ones are not.
I have some intuition about that distinction, but I have trouble applying it. Is my belief that there is some beer in the fridge existentially dependent on language? I can only express it in language. Could a dog believe that there is beer in the fridge? Well, it can certainly believe that its dinner is in the fridge.
On pains of coherency alone. The problem is the notion/use of "thought".
The first claim is false as is what immediately follows "since".
I suppose you are disagreeing with "Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief..." and "thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition"
As to the first, I may have been unclear. As to the first, it is true that one can hold beliefs that are not formulated in language. But I cannot talk about them without a formulation in language. To distinguish between what people believe and don't believe, I must complete the formula "S believes that..."
As to the second, "S knows that p" means that p is true. "S believes that p" means that S believes/thinks that p is true, but it may not actually be true. "Thinks" is more complicated than either, but is at least compatible with S merely entertaining the possibility that p is true.
A process.
Something(s) to become meaningful, a creature for that something or those things to become meaningful to, and a means for things to become meaningful to that creature.
We agree, then, that experience is a process. I am hoping that you also agree with me that what is meaningful to a creature affects how that creature behaves.
It's that the report of the language less creatures' thought(s) is based largely - if not exclusively - on the reporter's notion of mind. If that notion/concept of mind is incapable of discriminating between thoughts that only humans are capable of having and those that non human animals can have, then the report of those experiments, including what is purported to be the thoughts and/or thinking of the subject matter will inevitably conflate the two. That is, the reports will include false claims.
To be sure, the presuppositions with which one approaches describing animal behaviour are always important. If they are wrong, the reports will be wrong. You seem very confident that your presuppositions are correct. It is sensible to evaluate one's presuppositions in tne light of observations and to revise or refine them before making further observations. It seems to me very dangerous to think that observations of a particular incident can be conclusively settled without an extensive background of observations of a range of behaviour of the animal.
Claiming that a male bird of paradise clears out an area and dances because he's trying to impress a female is a bit of a stretch.
I wonder how one might explain that behaviour. The idea that he is doing it for fun is not impossible, but is a bit of a stretch. If females did it too, it would be plausible. But, as I understand it, they don't. Suppose that female behaviour indicates that they are attracted by what the male does. Perhaps that Is just an coincidence, but that's a bit of a stretch too.
Humans have a lot of beliefs that no other species has, and we wouldn't without language. That seems like a significant difference to me.
— Patterner
This is the direction this discussion needs to take.
Since this thread is intended to discuss common ground between the thoughts of humans and other species, perhaps a new thread, discussing differences, in order to better understand human thought?
Sorry about your Thanksgiving. Indeed, a lot of negative possibilities come along with our mental capacity. And the negative crap is, like Yoda said about the Dark Side, quicker, easier, more seductive.
Thanks but the bad thing turned into a good thing. :grin: It seemed like an end-of-the-world event but now I see it as the beginning of wonderful new opportunities.
I was wondering how animals handle such events and decided their relationships change and their position in the troop can change, especially when they transition to adulthood.
Yeah, that sucks. That's never a good thing. Some people are incapable of calmly expressing themselves. The current state of American culture/politics is making things far worse. Complete and total disrespect for others is not only glorified, its financially rewarded.
You seem like a nice person. Hopefully your days improve.
Thanks as I said above, what I thought was almost too terrible to bear has turned into a good thing. However, I am still pondering what you have said about the spirit of our times and what is happening in families. I might want to transfer this to a thread about the fall of civilizations.
Look at what I found because the posts in this thread pushed me to understand more...
But perhaps most importantly, I want to show you how they make up afterwards. Chimp societies wouldn’t hold together very long if the individuals within them didn’t have the capacity to reconcile, and that is the saving grace for both the chimpanzees themselves and our own ability to care for them. Because no matter how bad things get, they usually find a way to move forward together.
Thank you, thank you everyone! Sometimes I worry that this thread is getting too far from topic but then I see a possible connection and I am blown away by the expansion of my mind. This is why I come here.
It's that the report of the language less creatures' thought(s) is based largely - if not exclusively - on the reporter's notion of mind. If that notion/concept of mind is incapable of discriminating between thoughts that only humans are capable of having and those that non human animals can have, then the report of those experiments, including what is purported to be the thoughts and/or thinking of the subject matter will inevitably conflate the two. That is, the reports will include false claims.
If the ToM being fleshed out by myself were incapable of drawing and maintaining those distinctions, then it too would inevitably result in conflating between non human thought and belief and human thought and belief. Hence, the importance of the endeavor.
I/we do not have all the answers, nor do I think it's possible to acquire them. We do, however, have some and those help avoid some anthropomorphism. They also allow one to recognize some mistakes 'in the wild'.
By what standard/criterion do you judge which sorts of human thinking(rational or otherwise) non humans are capable of?
— creativesoul
I don't discriminate between 'sorts' of thinking.
Which inevitably results in personification(anthropomorphism). That's unacceptable by my standards.
Would you agree that Jimi drew a correlation between his behaviour(killing) and your behaviour towards him afterwards?
— creativesoul
Sure, I guess the association must be in play. I think it's the same with children learning what is expected of them and to anticipate some kind of punishment if they don't comply.
I think that Jimi's having already drawn that correlation is more than enough to explain the fear and trembling displayed by him upon your return. I mean, the dead chook was right there. The fear and trembling showed his expectation(belief about what you were about to do). He suddenly remembered. I'm assuming he wasn't trembling until you arrived. Whatever you did the first time, Jimi expected that to happen again. That belief/expectation resulted from the earlier correlation he drew between his behaviour involving killing chooks and yours immediately afterwards. I see no ground whatsoever to say he believed, knew, or anticipated that he was being punished for not following the rules. I see every reason to say that he was drawing much the same correlations the second time around that he did the first.
There is similarity. I just think you're overstating it. Some(arguably most) children can and do draw correlations between their own behaviour and others' behaviour towards them afterwards. So, to that extent, it's the same. That's an early step in learning the rules. It's not enough though. It is enough to help increase the chances of one's own survival when living in a violent/aggressive social hierarchy. Canines have a very long history of that.
It's the difference that you're neglecting and/or glossing over.
The presupposition that dogs are capable of knowing whether or not their behaviour complies with the rules is suspect. That is precisely what needs argued for. That sort of knowledge is existentially dependent upon the capability to compare one's own behaviour with the rules. The only way it is possible is for one to acquire knowledge of both by virtue of learning how talk about both.
I do not see how it makes sense to say that dogs are capable of comparing their own behaviour with the rules. I know there's all sorts of variables, but I'm certain that the same is true of very young children as well. It takes quite some time and the right sorts of attention paid to us prior to our ability to know that our behaviour is or is not against the rules. We must know at least that much prior to being able to know that we've done something that we should not have done.
I think that Jimi's having already drawn that correlation is more than enough to explain the fear and trembling displayed by him upon your return. I mean, the dead chook was right there. The fear and trembling showed his expectation(belief about what you were about to do).
Right, so he knew he had done something he shouldn't have, which was my original point. Do you think it is any different with humans? Do you think that if children were never taught that they would know what is expected of them?
To be sure humans learn what is acceptable and what is not through both behavior and language whereas dogs do so primarily through behavior. That said they do learn what kinds of behavior of theirs relates respectively to and invokes "good dog" and "bad dog" and other simple utterances; so language is involved to some degree.
There is no clear standard by which to judge whether or not the belief we are attributing to the language less creature is something that the creature is capable of forming, having, and/or holding.
— creativesoul
That's true.
We might get some clues from thinking about how we decide what a human being believes or can believe and then thinking about what a creature like a dog does believe.
For example, you believe that a dog cannot form beliefs about beliefs. (Forgive me if that's not accurate, but I think it is enough for what I want to say). In my book, that needs to be considered in the light of what the dog does.
"There is no clear standard by which to judge" was referring to the idea/claim that "behaviour expresses belief" and/or that approach.
The last suggestion/claim above has the methodological approach the wrong way around.
It is our behaviour that clearly shows us - beyond all reasonable doubt - what thinking about one's own thought and belief(metacognition) requires: Naming and descriptive practices; picking one's own thought and belief out of this world to the exclusion of all else. That is the only means. That crucial bit of knowledge is part of the standard used to assess/judge any and all belief attribution by any and all authors/speakers to any and all creatures, human to human attribution notwithstanding. It's not the only one, but it's the one in consideration at the moment, and some others are irrelevant to the topic at hand. I digress...
So, it seems clear to me that what the dog does, and the subsequent attribution(s) of thought and/or belief to the dog because of what the dog does, all need to be considered in light of what metacognition requires(what metacognition is existentially dependent upon). The dog cannot consider its own thought and belief as a subject matter in and of itself. Thus, any and all sorts of thinking that require a creature capable of doing so are sorts that dogs cannot form, have, and/or hold. It's that simple. Easy to say. Much more difficult to clearly set out, but I am getting a bit better at it, I think...
Meaning is not some abstract entity floating about in the ether. It governs behaviour. So, for example, there are many beliefs that I cannot form because I have never learnt the relevant behaviours; I never learnt to write computer code or do more than elementary mathematics. While I can formulate some beliefs about those matters as they impinge on my life, but the detail is bayond me.
I'm unsure about the relevance of the opening statement above. I've certainly never made such a claim. Nor would I. Actually, I agree with that claim, as it is written. However, the second claim seems too vague to be of much use. I also cannot see how the rest counts as support for the idea that meaning governs behaviour. I would agree that meaning governs behaviour, but I suspect that our viewpoints, notions, and/or approaches towards meaning are very different. Hence, I suspect that our explanations of how meaning governs behaviour are quite different as a result.
To the example...
Sure, there are certain thoughts and beliefs one cannot possibly form, have, and/or hold if they have not learned, articulated, understood, and/or used the right sorts of language. Substituting that reason(ing) with "they have not learnt the relevant behaviours" is stretching behaviour beyond sensible use. I mean, sure learning maths and coding and programming are all behaviors. However, that completely misses what underwrites the topic at hand: thought and belief. Behaviour is not thought and belief. Behaviour alone is... ...there's a technical term/bit of jargon that applies here, but I cannot recall... ..."indeterminate" maybe?
There's quite a bit more that is of interest, but it'll have to wait. Until then, be well...
Meaning is not some abstract entity floating about in the ether. It governs behaviour. So, for example, there are many beliefs that I cannot form because I have never learnt the relevant behaviours; I never learnt to write computer code or do more than elementary mathematics. While I can formulate some beliefs about those matters as they impinge on my life, but the detail is bayond me.
I'm having problems understanding how "meaning governs behaviour" fits into the rest of that.
I want to ask...
Would you say that the unknown details of higher maths, programming, coding, etc. are pretty much meaningless to you?
If a dog could read a clock and use the information in relevant ways, I would say it may know when it is 5 p.m. Does that mean it cannot have a concept of time? No, because it can show up for meals or walks at the right time. But it cannot have a concept of time like the human concept and there are other behaviours that can high-light that.
Yes, clearly our standard measurements of time are meaningless to the dog.
Does it follow from the fact that the dog shows up at mealtime that it has a concept of time? I don't see how. That does not seem to be enough evidence/reason to warrant the conclusion. Does waking up at the same time count as having a concept of time? I suppose I wonder what the difference between any and all regularly occurring behaviours is regarding this matter? I mean, does all routine and/or habitual behaviour equally count as adequate evidence for drawing that same conclusion? If not what's the difference such that we're not special pleading? All sorts of creatures have regular schedules. Routine. Habit. They do all sorts of things around the same time of day and/or night. Many migrate, mate, bear young, and all sorts of other things during the same seasons(time of year).
Having a "concept of time" needs a bit more, does it not?
Here's what I'd ask: Can or do dogs think about time? Can or do they form, have, and/or hold any beliefs about time? Is time meaningful to dogs? By my lights, the answer is "no". I'm open to being convinced otherwise though. So, if anyone here thinks the answer to any of the three questions is "yes", then I would only ask how?
The difficulty is in discriminating between which sorts of thoughts are existentially dependent upon language use and which ones are not.
— creativesoul
I have some intuition about that distinction, but I have trouble applying it.
Understandable. It's unconventional, and as such it goes against some long standing practices, or at least it seems to. It is commensurate with many, dovetails nicely with some, but certainly turns a number of practices on their head. I've been fleshing the application out and working through the problems for over a decade. Not alone, mind you. I'm very grateful to this site and many regulars here, for it has allowed me to do some things that cannot be done any other way that I'm aware of.
Is my belief that there is some beer in the fridge existentially dependent on language?
Excellent question. Could not have imagined a better one at this juncture. Thank you for asking.
Banno and I have had any number of conversations in past talking about just such things. That tells me there's a bit of W underlying this avenue. It is only as a result of those discussions and others that I've been able to identify certain issues with saying certain things in certain ways. I know that that's vague, so I'll just say that I've adjusted and tweaked my position after being made aware of issues. This question allows me to put some of those to good use. There are several members here on this site who've helped me tremendously along the way, knowingly or unknowingly. Banno is one, but not the only one. Okay, enough blather. Back to the question...
Beer is existentially dependent upon language. Fridges are as well. Where there has never been beer, there could never have been belief about beer. The same is true of the fridge. So, the content of the belief(things correlations are being drawn between) is existentially dependent upon language. Therefore, so too is the belief.
Here we must tread carefully however, for it would be easy to apply unhelpful labels to this belief. Calling it a "linguistic" belief would be misleading and/or a bit confusing, because any and all candidates capable of drawing correlations(spatial reasoning/relationships in this case) between the beer and the fridge are most certainly capable of believing that there is beer in the fridge. This includes candidates who do not know that one is called "beer" and the other a "fridge". It does not make much sense to say that creatures without naming and descriptive practices could form, have, and/or hold linguistic beliefs. That would be a consequence of such labeling practices.
There's more to this than it seems at first blush...
Imagine a recently abandoned house with open beers in the fridge. Say that some teenagers were rummaging around in the house and left the fridge door wide open. They did not want the warm stale beer. They leave soon enough, and later on one of the mice living in the house comes out searching for food. It finds the beer in the fridge. Some mice really like beer! That mouse believed that beer was in that fridge. It shows(as compared/contrasted to 'expresses') that belief by virtue of climbing into that fridge and getting at that beer.
Belief as propositional attitude fails here. The mouse's belief does not consist of propositions. There is no propositional content within the mouse's belief. The mouse's belief consists of correlations drawn between the beer, the fridge, its own hunger/thirst, etc.. Such belief is existentially dependent upon language(because beers and fridges are), but not existentially dependent upon the ability of the believing creature to be capable of either naming and descriptive practices or metacognition. This reminds me of past experience...
At my own house, long ago, we were all at the dining table eating breakfast after a long birthday celebration the night before when a strange unfamiliar sound was heard by us all. It was written all over our faces. We looked at each other using each other as a means to double check our own ears. Someone spoke up and expressed what our faces had already... Did you hear that? Then we heard it again... a continuous faint but distinct scratching sound captured our attention. We were all like... what on earth is that??? It stopped. It started. Stopped again. Started. It did not take us too long to find the drunken culprit in the trash; a drunken mouse had unwittingly trapped itself at the bottom of an extra tall beer can deep inside a trash bag lining the can. Here, I'll give a nod to some things you mentioned earlier regarding our ability to locate the source of a sound.
What is the standard and/or criterion you're using to decide/determine/judge what sorts of beliefs language less animals can and/or cannot have?
— creativesoul
Roughly, the same ones that I use to decide what believes human beings have when I cannot ask them.
I suppose you are disagreeing with "Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief..." and "thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition"
As to the first, I may have been unclear. As to the first, it is true that one can hold beliefs that are not formulated in language. But I cannot talk about them without a formulation in language. To distinguish between what people believe and don't believe, I must complete the formula "S believes that..."
As to the second, "S knows that p" means that p is true. "S believes that p" means that S believes/thinks that p is true, but it may not actually be true. "Thinks" is more complicated than either, but is at least compatible with S merely entertaining the possibility that p is true.
The abandoned house mouse places all this in question. Although, it seems you admit that not all thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of that belief.
It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use. The latter is existentially dependent upon language use as well, as set out earlier in this post(beers and fridges). However, the latter does not require being talked about in order for it to exist in its entirety. This peculiar set of facts results from the overlap(shared world) between creatures without naming and descriptive practices and things that are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.
It renders the qualifications of "linguistic" and "non linguistic" when applied to beliefs suspect, at best. I used to use such language.
We agree, then, that experience is a process. I am hoping that you also agree with me that what is meaningful to a creature affects how that creature behaves.
We're in agreement with the following caveat; not all things that affect how creatures behave are meaningful to the creature.
To be sure, the presuppositions with which one approaches describing animal behaviour are always important. If they are wrong, the reports will be wrong. You seem very confident that your presuppositions are correct.
Indeed. I am. I could be confidently wrong. :wink:
It seems to me very dangerous to think that observations of a particular incident can be conclusively settled without an extensive background of observations of a range of behaviour of the animal.
Sure, but it depends upon the situation and/or the specific thought and/or belief attribution(in this discussion). If having a concept of time requires thinking about it and thinking about it requires using naming and descriptive practices, then any and all creatures incapable of using naming and descriptive practices are incapable of having a concept of time. That's pretty cut and dry to me. Substitute "thinking about it" with "time be meaningful to the candidate" as well as "forming, having, and/or holding belief about time", and the same holds good...
Claiming that a male bird of paradise clears out an area and dances because he's trying to impress a female is a bit of a stretch.
— creativesoul
I wonder how one might explain that behaviour.
The behaviour increased the likelihood of reproduction and mating.
I personally wonder if a male isolated from 'birth' would display the same behaviour as an adult, if it were placed in an aviary with a female for the first time in its life. That would tell us something about whether or not it is innate or learned.
"Trying to impress" another presupposes a candidate with a concept of mind(belief about what will impress another). That's a bit of a stretch. Although, I've been quite impressed by any number of different bird documentaries, in addition to my own personal experiences with both domesticated and 'wild' birds.
Humans have a lot of beliefs that no other species has, and we wouldn't without language. That seems like a significant difference to me.
— Patterner
This is the direction this discussion needs to take.
— creativesoul
Since this thread is intended to discuss common ground between the thoughts of humans and other species, perhaps a new thread, discussing differences, in order to better understand human thought?
They are not different subject matters. The endeavor is comparison/contrast between the two. What's different is not the same. What's the same is not different. It takes discussing both the similarities and the differences to make much sense of either.
I think that Jimi's having already drawn that correlation is more than enough to explain the fear and trembling displayed by him upon your return. I mean, the dead chook was right there. The fear and trembling showed his expectation(belief about what you were about to do).
— creativesoul
Right, so he knew he had done something he shouldn't have, which was my original point...
There is similarity. I just think you're overstating it. Some (arguably most) children can and do draw correlations between their own behaviour and others' behaviour towards them afterwards. So, to that extent, it's the same. That's an early step in learning the rules. It's not enough though. It is enough to help increase the chances of one's own survival when living in a violent/aggressive social hierarchy. Canines have a very long history of that.
Forgive me, I thought that you believed that all belief is a matter of correlations. So what more do you want before accepting that Jimi believed he had done something wrong?
I see no ground whatsoever to say he believed, knew, or anticipated that he was being punished for not following the rules.
Ah, well, there are important differences between bad consequences and punishment. They are very different concepts. Jimi might well believe that he had done something wrong (bad consequences) and not see it as punishment. Further observations of his behaviour might reveal the difference.
However, if morality is essential for social life, then the fact that dogs have a social life - and especially have a social life that includes humans - then it would be reasonable to suppose that they have some moral (or at least proto-moral) concepts.
They are not different subject matters. The endeavor is comparison/contrast between the two. What's different is not the same. What's the same is not different. It takes discussing both the similarities and the differences to make much sense of either.
That's quite right. It is also reasonable not to put too much emphasis on universal differences, but to assess each case as it comes. Quoting Questioner
We, each of us, have a "theory of mind" about others - We can understand the beliefs, emotions, intentions and thoughts of others. Such a capacity is vital for complex social interactions.
Well, yes, we do indeed develop a concept of mind. I would expect that there is a substantial common core to all our concepts, for two reasons. First, because we learn our concepts from each other as part of learning to speak and secon because if there wasn't at least a common core, we couldn't communicate about minds - our own or others'.
We do not just perceive – we perceive and interpret the mental states of others.
I totally agree with you that it is a matter of interpretation. Our inability to agree then has an explanation. But whose is the better interpretation?
"There is no clear standard by which to judge" was referring to the idea/claim that "behaviour expresses belief" and/or that approach.
I suppose you contrast the idea of metacognition, which might be considered to be clearer. However, the answers that it returns seems to me to be, let us say, odd.
When I recall my dog, I call her name. Supposing that she has no understanding of self and others, when she hears me call, how does she know which dog I want to respond? Or, if you prefer, why does she respond if she cannot distinguish herself from other dogs?
Or, when another dog approaches her, and goes through their greeting ceremonies, how does she know that she needs to respond?
Or, when she is dashing across the park, how does she avoid running into other dogs, distinguishing between what she can do from what the other dogs who are also dashing about the place are doing?
I had two dogs for a long time. They never failed to distinguish their own food bowl from the other one's food bowl. (Nor did they ever fail to check that the other one's bowl was empty when the other one had finished and walked away.)
The last suggestion/claim above has the methodological approach the wrong way around.
Yes, it makes sense to sort one's methodology out before trying to answer the question - when one understands the question. The catch is that if one does not understand the question, the methodology may not be appropriate. Methodology and understanding both need to be sorted out before answers can be achieved. Otherwise, one may be trying use a hammer when what is required is a spanner.
If you are dealing with a fridge, the manufacturer can provide you with instructions how to deal with the various things that may go wrong with it. If you are dealing with an unknown disease, you need to find out what methods for dealing with it work.
All sorts of creatures have regular schedules. Routine. Habit. They do all sorts of things around the same time of day and/or night. Many migrate, mate, bear young, and all sorts of other things during the same seasons(time of year).
Having a "concept of time" needs a bit more, does it not?
I don't remotely understand the concept of time involved in relativity theory in physics. Does that mean I have no concept of time? No, it does not. Similarly, the dogs have a concept of time that suits their lives. That concept is different from human concepts, but overlaps with it. Similarities and differences. Would you say that a philosopher who thinks that time is continuous and a philosopher who thinks that time is discontinuous have the same concept of time or different ones - or, perhaps, overlapping ones?
Archaeologists discovered an unknown script amongst the remains of Mycene. They weren't even entirely sure that it was writing. Attempts to decipher it failed for many years until Michael Ventris hypothesized that the writing was Greek. That worked. There are many similar examples. Methodology and practice develop hand in hand.
It renders the qualifications of "linguistic" and "non linguistic" when applied to beliefs suspect, at best. I used to use such language.
That I agree with. But I would have thought that impinges on the distinction between what requires being talked about and what "exists in its entirety" without being talked about.
It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use. The latter is existentially dependent upon language use as well, as set out earlier in this post(beers and fridges). However, the latter does not require being talked about in order for it to exist in its entirety. This peculiar set of facts results from the overlap(shared world) between creatures without naming and descriptive practices and things that are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.
I agree with most of that, especially the distinction between our report of a belief and the believer's formulation of it. I see this as the differences between "I believe that..." and "He/she believes that..." One of my unconventional views is that this distinction applies to all beliefs. So "..that p" is not a purely intensional context, nor a simply extensional context. It is perfectly true that conventional philosophy ignores this. (I know you won't freak out at an unconventional view!)
I would be happy to accept that the mouse does not think of the fridge as a fridge, but merely as a cool place. It doesn't understand the expansion of gases or electricity/gas. It would also be reasonable to recognize that it doesn't understand beer as we do, because it doesn't understand what alcohol is. But we can suppose that it understands beer insofar as it tastes good and has pleasurable effects - and presumably understands hangovers, though not necessarily the connection with drinking beer. (BTW It is not unknown for dogs to become extremely fond of beer. I read somewhere that even bees can get drunk when they happen upon nectar that has fermented.) Nonetheless it is perfectly reasonable to report that the mouse liked the beer in the fridge. The difference is not a question of truth or falsity, but of what pragmatically works in the context. The mouse doesn't have to understand how I report its belief to other human beings.
PS I have edited the above to put right an error in the formatting and restore the distinction between what I was quoting and what I was saying. My mistake. Sorry.
I'm having problems understanding how "meaning governs behaviour" fits into the rest of that
It's only a gesture at the complicated relationship between experience, beliefs and behaviour. When we close the fridge door, we act out (perhaps that's better than "express") what the fridge means to us. That's all.
Well, yes, we do indeed develop a concept of mind. I would expect that there is a substantial common core to all our concepts, for two reasons. First, because we learn our concepts from each other as part of learning to speak and secon because if there wasn't at least a common core, we couldn't communicate about minds - our own or others'.
You have changed the terms, and with that have changed the definition. We are not talking about an understood “concept” but rather a “theory.” And the “theory of mind” is not an idea about what a mind is or does, expressed in generalities, but rather a theory you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind.
I have a theory of mind for my mother, and one for my brother, and one for my friend….
Well, my concept of mind enables me to interpret the thought of dogs and some other animals.
That doesn’t mean the dog can form theories about what is in your mind. You are human – yes, you have the capacity to form theories about what is in other minds. We can even form theories about what is in the minds of supernatural beings that do not even exist. The fact that we are storytellers supports this. “Theory of mind” allows us to inhabit the minds of the story’s characters, analyzing their thoughts, feelings, motivations, intentions and perspectives.
I totally agree with you that it is a matter of interpretation. Our inability to agree then has an explanation. But whose is the better interpretation?
Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking.
What is a matter of interpretation?
What is the explanation for our inability to agree?
And the “theory of mind” is not an idea about what a mind is or does, expressed in generalities, but rather a theory you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind.
Oh, I see. I misunderstood. But now "a theory you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind" seems just like a belief, so what I'm hearing is "a belief you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind"
I totally agree with you that it is a matter of interpretation. Our inability to agree then has an explanation. But whose is the better interpretation?
— Ludwig V
Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking.
What is a matter of interpretation?
What is the explanation for our inability to agree?
Whose is the better interpretation of what?
I'm afraid I have misunderstood you again. You said:-. Quoting Questioner
We do not just perceive – we perceive and interpret. the mental states of others.
He suddenly remembered. I'm assuming he wasn't trembling until you arrived.
— creativesoul
So if he was trembling before Janus arrived, would you conclude that he did understand that he had
done something wrong?
"There is no clear standard by which to judge" was referring to the idea/claim that "behaviour expresses belief" and/or that approach.
— creativesoul
I suppose you contrast the idea of metacognition,
Metacognition is not an idea. It's talking about our own thoughts.
He suddenly remembered. I'm assuming he wasn't trembling until you arrived.
— creativesoul
So if he was trembling before Janus arrived, would you conclude that he did understand that he had
done something wrong?
Irrelevant. The point was that Jimi trembled as a result of drawing correlations between his behaviour and Janus'. That's all it takes.
I suppose you contrast the idea of metacognition, which might be considered to be clearer. However, the answers that it returns seems to me to be, let us say, odd.
Metacognition returns answers to you? Does it understand requests all by itself?
When I recall my dog, I call her name. Supposing that she has no understanding of self and others, when she hears me call, how does she know which dog I want to respond?
I see no ground for presupposing she is comparing your wants to anything.
...why does she respond if she cannot distinguish herself from other dogs?
Who said she couldn't?
Successfully navigating the world requires successfully distinguishing oneself from the rest of the world. Slime molds do this. Bacteria. All forms of life avoid danger and gather resources and thus... successfully navigate the world while they survive.
Would you agree that Jimi drew a correlation between his behaviour(killing) and your behaviour towards him afterwards?
— creativesoul
Sure, I guess the association must be in play. I think it's the same with children learning what is expected of them and to anticipate some kind of punishment if they don't comply.
— Janus
I think that Jimi's having already drawn that correlation is more than enough to explain the fear and trembling displayed by him upon your return. I mean, the dead chook was right there. The fear and trembling showed his expectation(belief about what you were about to do). He suddenly remembered. I'm assuming he wasn't trembling until you arrived. Whatever you did the first time, Jimi expected that to happen again. That belief/expectation resulted from the earlier correlation he drew between his behaviour involving killing chooks and yours immediately afterwards. I see no ground whatsoever to say he believed, knew, or anticipated that he was being punished for not following the rules. I see every reason to say that he was drawing much the same correlations the second time around that he did the first.
The presupposition that dogs are capable of knowing whether or not their behaviour complies with the rules is suspect. That is precisely what needs argued for. That sort of knowledge is existentially dependent upon the capability to compare one's own behaviour with the rules. The only way it is possible is for one to acquire knowledge of both by virtue of learning how talk about both.
I do not see how it makes sense to say that dogs are capable of comparing their own behaviour with the rules. I know there's all sorts of variables, but I'm certain that the same is true of very young children as well. It takes quite some time and the right sorts of attention paid to us prior to our ability to know that our behaviour is or is not against the rules. We must know at least that much prior to being able to know that we've done something that we should not have done.
So if he was trembling before Janus arrived, would you conclude that he did understand that he had done something wrong?
Why imagine an impossibility? Jimi cannot compare his own behaviour to the rules in order for him to know that his own behaviour did not comply. Jimi did not suddenly realize that he had broken the rules upon Janus' return. He was suddenly reminded(drew the same correlations once again) when it all came together again. He trembled as a result. Involuntarily.
Belief that approaches are all about epistemological claims, in that they attempt to show how truth is presupposed in all belief statements and/or knowledge claims. As useful as they are in helping us to think about such things, they are useless in determining and/or acquiring knowledge of what language less thought and belief consists of.
Upon a rereading, I'm less happy with this now than I was then, and I remember not liking it then.
But now "a theory you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind" seems just like a belief, so what I'm hearing is "a belief you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind"
Well, some “beliefs’ are more supported than others. “Theory of mind’ is what the psychologists call it. But, it’s true, you cannot have a belief in a supernatural being without having a theory about what is in their mind.
You can read about the connection between belief and theory of mind in Jesse Bering's book The Belief instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life
I totally agree with you that it is a matter of interpretation. Our inability to agree then has an explanation. But whose is the better interpretation?
— Ludwig V
Sorry, let me try this again. Yes, forming a theory of mind for another depends on making inferences. Yes, inferences may be wrong. Yes, two different people might have a very different theory of mind about the same person. Whose is better? The one that gets the closest to the truth?
Yeah, that would require we verify the thoughts of 8 billion people. Maybe in some weird sci-fi movie…
I think that’s why I had some trouble with the original question, which seemed to be calling for a prioritization of all human thought, an obviously unreasonable task.
I guess the most we can say is – was an understanding or a misunderstanding made? The reaction/response/behavior flowing from an understanding will be more aligned with reality, and the reaction/response/behavior flowing from a misunderstanding will be less aligned.
The one that gets the closest to the truth? — Questioner
How is that determined?
Ask the person whose thought they were guessing. He may tell the truth about what he was thinking at that moment, or he may lie, or he may refuse to answer. Refusal to answer leads you to draw a new inference about his present state of mind, as well as about the thought that was in question. You may even draw inference, from context, about his reasons. If he does answer, you'll have to decide whether to believe him or not. That decision will depend on what you know of his character from previous experience, as well as his demeanour in the moment.
Each of these inferences and decisions, along with some other operations, is part of an overall theory of mind: a general ability to 'read' the body language, expression and tone, in the context of previous knowledge, of another's communication.
Anyhow, theory of mind is rather misleading and vague nomenclature, IMO.
a general ability to 'read' the body language, expression and tone, in the context of previous knowledge, of another's communication.
I feel that you have ignored all that I have said about theory of mind and remain close-minded to understanding it. I repeat - it's not about reading outward signs - it is about forming theories about what is in anther mind.
Reading inward signs is telepathy. To form a guess, conjecture, theory or belief about what's in another mind, we first need to learn about something about the species and individual with whom who are faced. Infants respond to physical stimuli, but have no notions of the existence of minds or thoughts - and won't until they've interacted with others and learned to recognize patterns in their behaviour, from which they can deduce stimulus and response, cause and effect, similarity to their own feelings, etc. It's a long process of learning and associations before anything like a theory can form. Quoting Questioner
Right now, I have a theory of what is in your mind.
From what? Words I typed are unequivocal outward signs.
Never mind. You have a theory I'm unable to validate.
...there are important differences between bad consequences and punishment. They are very different concepts. Jimi might well believe that he had done something wrong (bad consequences) and not see it as punishment. Further observations of his behaviour might reveal the difference.
Might he? Exactly what would that take? What must also be the case in order for Jimi to believe he had done something wrong, but not see it as punishment?
I've set out what is required for all three possibilities(knowing he had done something wrong, seeing Janus's treatment of him as punishment and not). Jimi does not have what it takes. That explanation has been sorely neglected.
They are not different subject matters. The endeavor is comparison/contrast between the two. What's different is not the same. What's the same is not different. It takes discussing both the similarities and the differences to make much sense of either.
— creativesoul
That's quite right. It is also reasonable not to put too much emphasis on universal differences, but to assess each case as it comes.
The first part turns on what counts as "too much emphasis on universal differences". I'm unsure of what that phrase is referring to. It does not seem to address anything I've claimed, as best I can tell. I'll say this to the rest: We assess each case as it comes by using/practicing standards. What standard(s) do you practice while assessing whether or not this or that creature is capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought and/or belief?
All sorts of creatures have regular schedules. Routine. Habit. They do all sorts of things around the same time of day and/or night. Many migrate, mate, bear young, and all sorts of other things during the same seasons(time of year).
Having a "concept of time" needs a bit more, does it not?
— creativesoul
I don't remotely understand the concept of time involved in relativity theory in physics. Does that mean I have no concept of time? No, it does not. Similarly, the dogs have a concept of time that suits their lives. That concept is different from human concepts, but overlaps with it.
Different users/practitioners of naming and descriptive practices can have different notions/concepts/thought and/or belief about time. There are multiple sensible uses of "time". Not knowing some does not preclude one from the rest. Showing that this is the case does not shoulder the burden.
The contentious matter is whether or not it is even possible for a thinking/believing creature to have a notion/concept(thought and/or belief about time) without naming and descriptive practices. The move from comparing different sensible uses of "time" to "similarly, the dogs have a concept of time" is suspect.
Archaeologists discovered an unknown script amongst the remains of Mycene. They weren't even entirely sure that it was writing. Attempts to decipher it failed for many years until Michael Ventris hypothesized that the writing was Greek. That worked. There are many similar examples. Methodology and practice develop hand in hand.
It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use. The latter is existentially dependent upon language use as well, as set out earlier in this post(beers and fridges). However, the latter does not require being talked about in order for it to exist in its entirety. This peculiar set of facts results from the overlap(shared world) between creatures without naming and descriptive practices and things that are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.
It renders the qualifications of "linguistic" and "non linguistic" when applied to beliefs suspect, at best. I used to use such language.
— creativesoul
That I agree with. But I would have thought that impinges on the distinction between what requires being talked about and what "exists in its entirety" without being talked about.
Here, you've used some of the same words in different ways than I do. I'll try to further clarify...
...I set out how a creature without naming and descriptive practices can form, have, and/or hold belief about distal objects that are themselves existentially dependent upon language users. Those objects are part of the content of the correlations being drawn(the content of the candidate's belief).
The mouse can draw correlations including the beer(between the beer and other things). Beer is existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. Therefore, the mouse(a creature without naming and descriptive practices) can indeed form, have, and/or hold belief about [b]some of that which is existentially dependent upon language use. Not all. That is the case regardless of whether or not anyone ever talked about it.
This is segue into similarity I think you and others may find interesting. I do.
Belief that approaches are all about epistemological claims, in that they attempt to show how truth is presupposed in all belief statements and/or knowledge claims. As useful as they are in helping us to think about such things, they are useless in determining and/or acquiring knowledge of what language less thought and belief consists of.
— creativesoul
Upon a rereading, I'm less happy with this now than I was then, and I remember not liking it then.
"Theory of mind" is a well-established and supported piece of psychological information that has been the subject of scientific research going back nearly 50 years. I invite you to google using the search words "theory of mind."
To deny that humans make conclusions about what is in other minds is blind indeed.
I never denied that humans, as well as other species draw conclusions, or at least surmise, what another sentient being is thinking. I reject the idea that they can do so without first having encountered other sentient beings, learned something about them, and how to read the outward signs.
Successfully navigating the world requires successfully distinguishing oneself from the rest of the world. Slime molds do this. Bacteria. All forms of life avoid danger and gather resources and thus... successfully navigate the world while they survive.
Yes, I'm aware that the idea of autonomy can be applied to any living creature, including bacteria and moulds. (There are complicated cases, like lichens.) I didn't include those in what I said, because they are neither sentient nor rational. In fact, I think of them as indistinguishable from autonomous machines, apart from their ability to reproduce. There no question of wondering what they think or of language-less behaviour.
What is the standard and/or criterion you're using to decide/determine/judge what sorts of beliefs language less animals can and/or cannot have?
— creativesoul
Roughly, the same ones that I use to decide what believes human beings have when I cannot ask them.
— Ludwig V
Care to elaborate?
I can try. My thought is roughly this. I fear that if I talk about "words" here, you'll think I'm talking about words in a narrow sense and miss the point. Fortunately, concepts relate to specific words or terms in language and there are rules about how they are to be used. But in many cases - I expect there are exceptions - some of the rules are about how we should apply them in our non-verbal behaviour. A bus stop is where one congregates to catch a bus; a door bell is there to be rung to announce our arrival; etc. We often use this feature to attribute beliefs to humans when we cannot cross-question them. I don't see any reason to suppose that this feature enables us to attribute our concepts to dogs. The concept of food is not just about it can be idenitified and analysed, but how it is to be treated - cooking and eating. Hence, although dogs cannot cook food or analyse in the ways that we do, it can certainly identify it and eat it. This fits perfectly with the idea that our ideas and language about people can be stretched and adapted to (sentient and/or rational) animals.
Metacognition is not an idea. It's talking about our own thoughts.
Well, animals are not capable of talking, so that's not hard. The question is, then, is whether they are capable of knowing what others and themselves are thinking; if that means they are capable of thinking about their own and others thoughts, then so be it.
The point was that Jimi trembled as a result of drawing correlations between his behaviour and Janus'. That's all it takes.
I grant you that Jimi's fear might be triggered by Janus' return. But let's think this through. It might well be that he only started trembling when Janus came through the door. The trigger, then, would be the chicken plus Janus. That would explain why he killed the chicken. But it doesn't explain why he was still sitting beside it. Surely, an innocent, oblivious dog, would either start eating it or would wander off in search of something more amusing. I think the dead chicken reminded him of the previous occasion; Janus' arrival was the crisis, so he may well have got more anxious as he came in.
Jimi cannot compare his own behaviour to the rules in order for him to know that his own behaviour did not comply. Jimi did not suddenly realize that he had broken the rules upon Janus' return. He was suddenly reminded(drew the same correlations once again) when it all came together again.
I'm trying to think what dog behaviour might distinguish complying with the rules from knowing that s/he is complying with the rules. Nothing comes to mind, so I'll give you that one. However, I'm reasonably sure that if they are complying with the rules, they know what the rules are. Jimi's killing of the chicken suggests that he had forgotten what the rule was. There's no doubt that he remembered at some point after the event. The question is, what triggered his memory and hence fear?
But the really significant point about the story is that he never bothered another chicken. That was the lesson he was supposed to learn. What correlation do you suppose that is based on?
...I set out how a creature without naming and descriptive practices can form, have, and/or hold belief about distal objects that are themselves existentially dependent upon language users.
Therefore, the mouse(a creature without naming and descriptive practices) can indeed form, have, and/or hold belief about some of that which is existentially dependent upon language use. Not all.
OK. So we agree. I suppose we might disagree about which bits they can hold beliefs about which they cannot, but perhaps we don't need to tease that out now.
Belief that approaches are all about epistemological claims, in that they attempt to show how truth is presupposed in all belief statements and/or knowledge claims. As useful as they are in helping us to think about such things, they are useless in determining and/or acquiring knowledge of what language less thought and belief consists of.
You've said twice that on reflection you are not happy with this. I don't see what's wrong with it. Could you explain?
I feel that you have ignored all that I have said about theory of mind and remain close-minded to understanding it. I repeat - it's not about reading outward signs - it is about forming theories about what is in anther mind.
Discussions of theory of mind have their roots in philosophical debate from the time of René Descartes' Second Meditation, which set the foundations for considering the science of the mind.
Quite so. Psychology seems to have more difficulty than any other science about escaping from its philosophical roots.
In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them.
That seems to be clear. We do know that we understand other people. I'm not sure whether "by ascribing mental states to them" is a harmless paraphrase of "understanding other people" or something more substantial, philosophically speaking, and more controversial. But the question how our understanding works seems a sound starting-point for scientific research.
The "theory of mind" is described as a theory, because the behavior of the other person, such as their statements and expressions, is the only thing being directly observed; no one has direct access to the mind of another, and the existence and nature of the mind must be inferred. It is typically assumed others have minds analogous to one's own;
Philosophically speaking, this is indeed a theory. I read it as a philosophical theory of the mind. But that's not what is meant by "theory of mind" in this context, because each of us has our own theory. That's why I find the name for research in this area so confusing.
I'm not sure that it is wise to treat these propositions more or less as axioms when they are the focus of much philosophical debate. Perhaps it doesn't make any difference whether philosophical dualism or one of its variants is true, but if that's so, it makes a big difference to philosophy.
Claiming that a male bird of paradise clears out an area and dances because he's trying to impress a female is a bit of a stretch.
— creativesoul
I wonder how one might explain that behaviour. The idea that he is doing it for fun is not impossible, but is a bit of a stretch. If females did it too, it would be plausible. But, as I understand it, they don't. Suppose that female behaviour indicates that they are attracted by what the male does. Perhaps that Is just an coincidence, but that's a bit of a stretch too.
On reflection, I'm very unhappy with this comment. Setting it right, or at least righter, high-lights a complication in our question which has not gone unrecognized, but which, it seems to me, has not been fully recognized.
I don't think anyone seriously wants to reject the idea that the male bird of paradise builds his bower in order to attract a female. But @creativesoul is also right to observe that that purpose is not necessarily the bird's motivation. We ought to know this, since the same issue can be observed in human beings. Display behaviour can be observed in both males and female human beings, but it does not follow that they are motivated by the desire to make babies (though they may be, sometimes). Human beings can tell us what their motivation is, but the birds cannot. It seems to me, in fact, most likely that the birds just feel like building a bower, finding it a satisfactory and worth-while thing to do - just as so much display behaviour in human beings is done only because they feel that it is a worth-while thing to do.
But there is no doubt that such behaviour serves an evolutionary purpose. What's more, it explains the behaviour as rational; "feeling like it" doesn't explain anything.
I'm not sure whether "by ascribing mental states to them" is a harmless paraphrase of "understanding other people" or something more substantial, philosophically speaking, and more controversial.
Something more substantial. What controversy do you see?
I'm not sure that it is wise to treat these propositions more or less as axioms when they are the focus of much philosophical debate.
Some psychologists criticize theory of mind because it can be wrong – that sometimes we make wrong conclusions - but I think that misses the point. That we can make inferences and interpretations of what is in another mind at all is the point. It says nothing about their accuracy.
I can play basketball and not sink the ball in the basket every time, but I’m still playing basketball.
Perhaps it doesn't make any difference whether philosophical dualism or one of its variants is true, but if that's so, it makes a big difference to philosophy.
I understand philosophical dualism to mean that the physical body and the mental mind are different things, that the mind is not made of physical matter. This tends to agree with a scientific description. In biology, every part of an organism is described in terms of its structure and its correlating function (and structure complements function).
So, the physical brain is the structure and in undergoing its electro-chemical processes it produces its function - the mind. The mind can in this context be considered an emergent property of the brain – the intangible flow of information through the nervous system.
I reject the idea that they can do so without first having encountered other sentient beings, learned something about them, and how to read the outward signs.
I'm sure that this can be part of the process, but it is not required.
Every person of faith has formed a theory of mind about what is in the mind of their God.
Successfully navigating the world requires successfully distinguishing oneself from the rest of the world. Slime molds do this. Bacteria. All forms of life avoid danger and gather resources and thus... successfully navigate the world while they survive.
— creativesoul
Yes, I'm aware that the idea of autonomy can be applied to any living creature, including bacteria and moulds. (There are complicated cases, like lichens.) I didn't include those in what I said, because they are neither sentient nor rational. In fact, I think of them as indistinguishable from autonomous machines, apart from their ability to reproduce.
Indeed, and this skirts around the very heart of the matter, but I'll nitpick first.
Autonomy is not an idea. Calling things "ideas" is quite unhelpful. Earlier you did the same with "the idea of metacognition".
Metacognition is not an idea. It's talking about our own thoughts.
— creativesoul
Well, animals are not capable of talking, so that's not hard. The question is, then, is whether they are capable of knowing what others and themselves are thinking; if that means they are capable of thinking about their own and others thoughts, then so be it.
Talking about our own belief and others' is how we begin to think about them. Thinking about thought and belief is one thing that is required for knowing what others are thinking. Getting it right is another. Is talking about thought and belief required for thinking about it? I certainly think talking about it is required for getting it right. However, not all notions of "thought" and "belief" get it right.
The question is - and always has been - what does it take in order for some creature or another to be capable of thinking about its own thought and/or belief?
We do so by virtue of naming and descriptive practices. That is how we do it. That's what talking about our own thought and belief involves. Thinking about one's own thoughts and beliefs requires isolating them as subject matters in their own right. We do that with naming and descriptive practices. We use "minds", "thought", "belief", "imagination", etc. Are there any other ways of(processes for) thinking about thought and belief, if not as subject matters in their own right? How else would/could a creature capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and/or belief also be capable of thinking about its own thoughts?
So, you've now invoked sentience which carries ethical considerations along with it. I'm not at all opposed to drawing and maintaining the distinction between sentient and non-sentient creatures; however, I do not see how we've established the basis to include such considerations in this discussion... yet. Sentient beings are capable of forming, having, and/r holding thought and belief about the world, but so too are all thinking/believing creatures. Do all creatures capable of thought count as sentient? That's yet another assessment that does not yet have a basis from which to draw a clear conclusion. The point was to show that simple differentiation between oneself and the rest of the world is something that is successfully done by creatures that are clearly incapable of knowing what your wants are. Hence, the fact that your dog distinguishes between herself and other dogs does not lend support that she knows what your wants are. <----that was the presupposition I was rejecting.
Successfully navigating the world requires successfully distinguishing oneself from the rest of the world. Slime molds do this. Bacteria. All forms of life avoid danger and gather resources and thus... successfully navigate the world while they survive.
When I recall my dog, I call her name. Supposing that she has no understanding of self and others, when she hears me call, how does she know which dog I want to respond?
— Ludwig V
I see no ground for presupposing she is comparing your wants to anything.
I'm not at all clear what you mean about comparing wants to things. It was usually pretty obvious when she wanted something and when she had got it.
Your original claim above was not about you knowing her wants. It presupposed that she knew yours. How does she know which dog you want to respond without comparing your wants to your calling her name? I'm placing the presupposition/assumption that she knows which dog you want to respond when you call her name in question. That's precisely what needs argued for.
Her coming to you after you call her name is inadequate evidence for concluding that she knows which dog you want to respond. I'm certain that that sequence of events is ritualistic. Her drawing correlations between her name being called, her own behaviour(s), and yours afterwards more than suffices. I would bet that your tone plays a role as well, in that certain tones do not mean the same things to her that others do, despite all of them being cases of calling her name. She can draw correlations between your tone. She cannot draw correlations between your wants. They are not the sorts of things that are directly perceptible. Nor is time. Nor are the rules governing here behaviour.
We began by discussing which sorts of thought and belief other species can and/or cannot have with one specific sort of thought/belief in mind at the start, rational thought/belief. The conversation seems to have been everywhere but has gotten little to nowhere. It is my considered opinion that the methodological approach being used by many if not most participants was/is not up to the task at hand. I've mentioned on multiple occasions that the conversation was in dire need of a clear criterion and/or standards by which we can judge/assess whether or not a candidate is or is not capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought or another.
That endeavor(establishing a criterion/standard from which to judge/assess our own and others' thought and belief) involves doing quite a bit of philosophy.
We must begin by examining and/or assessing ourselves. It is imperative that we get some rather important things right(that we correctly identify what thought and belief is; what it consists of; and/or how it emerges onto the world stage; how it persists; etc). Current convention is chock full of practices that clearly show we have not gotten some rather important bits of this right. That is clearly shown by the inability for many a position to admit that other creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and belief. Those positions/linguistic frameworks work from inadequate conceptions/notions of "thought" and "belief" that are incapable of taking account of other creatures' thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. The results range from outright denial to anthropomorphism.
What is the standard and/or criterion you're using to decide/determine/judge what sorts of beliefs language less animals can and/or cannot have?
— creativesoul
Roughly, the same ones that I use to decide what believes human beings have when I cannot ask them.
— Ludwig V
Care to elaborate?
— creativesoul
I can try. My thought is roughly this. I fear that if I talk about "words" here, you'll think I'm talking about words in a narrow sense and miss the point. Fortunately, concepts relate to specific words or terms in language and there are rules about how they are to be used. But in many cases - I expect there are exceptions - some of the rules are about how we should apply them in our non-verbal behaviour. A bus stop is where one congregates to catch a bus; a door bell is there to be rung to announce our arrival; etc. We often use this feature to attribute beliefs to humans when we cannot cross-question them. I don't see any reason to suppose that this feature enables us to attribute our concepts to dogs. The concept of food is not just about it can be idenitified and analysed, but how it is to be treated - cooking and eating. Hence, although dogs cannot cook food or analyse in the ways that we do, it can certainly identify it and eat it. This fits perfectly with the idea that our ideas and language about people can be stretched and adapted to (sentient and/or rational) animals.
I think the use of "concept" is problematic. What does it clarify? Nothing as best I can tell.
What is a concept of a tree if not thought and belief about trees(if not correlations drawn between trees and other things)? What is a concept of food if not thought and belief about food(if not correlations drawn between food and other things)? I do not see how the notion helps us to understand our own minds let alone other species'. It seems to me that it unnecessarily adds complexity where none is needed, and hence only adds confusion.
The point was that Jimi trembled as a result of drawing correlations between his behaviour and Janus'. That's all it takes.
— creativesoul
I grant you that Jimi's fear might be triggered by Janus' return. But let's think this through. It might well be that he only started trembling when Janus came through the door. The trigger, then, would be the chicken plus Janus. That would explain why he killed the chicken. But it doesn't explain why he was still sitting beside it. Surely, an innocent, oblivious dog, would either start eating it or would wander off in search of something more amusing. I think the dead chicken reminded him of the previous occasion; Janus' arrival was the crisis, so he may well have got more anxious as he came in.
Jimi cannot compare his own behaviour to the rules in order for him to know that his own behaviour did not comply. Jimi did not suddenly realize that he had broken the rules upon Janus' return. He was suddenly reminded(drew the same correlations once again) when it all came together again.
— creativesoul
I'm trying to think what dog behaviour might distinguish complying with the rules from knowing that s/he is complying with the rules. Nothing comes to mind, so I'll give you that one. However, I'm reasonably sure that if they are complying with the rules, they know what the rules are. Jimi's killing of the chicken suggests that he had forgotten what the rule was. There's no doubt that he remembered at some point after the event. The question is, what triggered his memory and hence fear?
Correlations drawn by Jimi between his killing the chook and Janus's behaviour afterwards is more than enough. The correlation drawn is one of causality. Jimi attributes causality(draws a causal connection between what he did and what Janus did afterwards). Granting Janus' story is true, it took more than one occasion for him to alter his own behaviour accordingly(to stop killing hens).
Jimi's behaviour afterwards, complies with what Janus wants of Jimi's behaviour, but not as a result of Jimi's knowing what the rules are. Rather, it 'complies' because it fits into Janus' wants regarding Jimi's behaviour. Jimi stopped killing chooks because he did not want Janus to do whatever Janus did the first time. Jimi believed his behaviour caused Janus'.
I reject the idea that they can do so without first having encountered other sentient beings, learned something about them, and how to read the outward signs. — Vera Mont
I'm sure that this can be part of the process, but it is not required.
Every person of faith has formed a theory of mind about what is in the mind of their God.
No they have not. No person of faith living today has conceived of a god independently. They've been told by their priest, and read in the book thrust upon them by priests, and they accept that as gospel.... selectively.
The stimulation of and the processing by the following brain structures involved in theory of mind functioning:
Functional neuroimaging and structural connectivity studies have identified dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) as the core regions of the neural substrate for ToM, extending to regions that include the precuneus (PCu), anterior temporal cortex, anterior cingulate and posterior cingulate (PostCing), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and amygdala, to constitute an extended ToM neural network
Also copied from the same webpage:
The theory of the mind (ToM), also known as mentalizing, is defined as the ability to attribute mental states to others (Premack and Woodruff, 1978; Frith and Frith, 2006) and to obtain knowledge about others' perspectives at a given moment or in a particular situation, including intentions, hopes, expectations, fantasies, desires, or beliefs. This ability is essential for successful navigation in social life (Leslie, 2000; Krawczyk, 2018). These mental states can be divided into two components, an affective one, which involves the understanding of emotions, feelings or affective states and a cognitive component that implies beliefs, thoughts or intentions (Henry et al., 2015).
No they have not. No person of faith living today has conceived of a god independently. They've been told by their priest, and read in the book thrust upon them by priests, and they accept that as gospel.... selectively.
A theory of mind does not “pop” into the head independently. We learn by what we see, hear, experience, do, and read, and then our brains, with its hypersocial focus and filters, ascribe mental states to that which is not us – and believe in them.
From the beginning, the Book of Genesis tells us God both deliberately and mindfully created all of Creation.
It is only a pastor’s highly evolved theory of mind that allows that pastor to preach about the contents of God’s mind (for example, what God expects from us), and our highly evolved theory of mind to believe that message. It is only a highly evolved theory of mind that allows the religious to believe they have a “personal relationship” with Jesus. When people pray, who are they praying to?
Consider -
In the movie Castaway, Tom Hanks' character befriends a volleyball that he calls “Wilson” – his only friend and companion during the years that he is on the island. The character ascribed mental states to the volleyball.
Or any fiction novel ever written with well-developed characters and we get right inside their heads. These characters are fictional, but they become real to us. We know what they are thinking and how they are feeling, and even anticipate their moves. This could not be possible without a well-developed theory of mind.
We learn by what we see, hear, experience, do, and read, and then our brains, with its hypersocial focus and filters, ascribe mental states to that which is not us – and believe in them.
Which is exactly what I've been saying. You can stimulate a fetal brain anywhere you wants, and it still won't know what 'another' is, let alone guess what that other is thinking or imagine a great big Other in the sky.
The question is - and always has been - what does it take in order for some creature or another to be capable of thinking about its own thought and/or belief?
It would help if we could clarify whether we are talking about a creature being capable of thinking about its own thought and belief or about a creature that is capable of thinking about the thought and belief of other creatures. Or both. (The cases are somewhat different.)
Her coming to you after you call her name is inadequate evidence for concluding that she knows which dog you want to respond. I'm certain that that sequence of events is ritualistic. Her drawing correlations between her name being called, her own behaviour(s), and yours afterwards more than suffices.
The sequence of events - call, coming, praise - could does have a similarity to a ritual. Those correlations do indeed suffice. After all, the training consists of establishing associations between her name being called, her behaviour and the subsequent reward, and teaches he what her name is, i.e. which dog the name refers to. This training also enables her to know (after a little more training) what to do when she hears "Judy, sit" as opposed to what she should do when she hears "Eddy, sit". (At times, I have had more than one dog.)
I've mentioned on multiple occasions that the conversation was in dire need of a clear criterion and/or standards by which we can judge/assess whether or not a candidate is or is not capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought or another.
How do we assess whether a proposed criterion or standard is clear and correct? By submitting cases to it. (Examples and counter-examples).
Current convention is chock full of practices that clearly show we have not gotten some rather important bits of this right. That is clearly shown by the inability for many a position to admit that other creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and belief.
How do you know that current convention is wrong in not being able to admit that creatures are capable of those things? Many people accept the conclusion that they are not. So before you can demonstrate they are wrong, you must already have a clear and correct criterion.
What is a concept of a tree if not thought and belief about trees(if not correlations drawn between trees and other things)? What is a concept of food if not thought and belief about food(if not correlations drawn between food and other things)? I do not see how the notion helps us to understand our own minds let alone other species'.
It looks to me as if you have a reasonably clear concept of what a concept is. So there's no problem with that idea.
Correlations drawn by Jimi between his killing the chook and Janus's behaviour afterwards is more than enough. The correlation drawn is one of causality. Jimi attributes causality(draws a causal connection between what he did and what Janus did afterwards). Granting Janus' story is true, it took more than one occasion for him to alter his own behaviour accordingly(to stop killing hens).
Jimi's behaviour afterwards, complies with what Janus wants of Jimi's behaviour, but not as a result of Jimi's knowing what the rules are. Rather, it 'complies' because it fits into Janus' wants regarding Jimi's behaviour. Jimi stopped killing chooks because he did not want Janus to do whatever Janus did the first time. Jimi believed his behaviour caused Janus'.
The thing is, there's more than one correlation in play. He might have correlated the dead chicken, or the dead chicken and Janus' presence - or both together- with the displeasure. But neither of those is the correlation that he is supposed to make; he got it wrong. (That's why a causal account is unhelpful, because it cannot recognize that.) It seems that Jimi did learn to leave the chickens alone - even when Janus was not there - from the experience. So his future behaviour does not correlate with either a dead chicken or with Janus' presence - much less on the presence of both.
You could correlate what Janus wants with Jimi's behaviour. But that's just another rule. (BTW That's not a causal correlation, because it is possible that Jimi might not comply.)
The question is - and always has been - what does it take in order for some creature or another to be capable of thinking about its own thought and/or belief?
— creativesoul
It would help if we could clarify whether we are talking about a creature being capable of thinking about its own thought and belief or about a creature that is capable of thinking about the thought and belief of other creatures. Or both. (The cases are somewhat different.)
That's fair and certainly worthy of explanation.
While I agree that the cases are different, they differ in their respective targets[hide="Reveal"](whose thought is being considered)[/hide]. They differ regarding what the creatures[hide="Reveal"](arguably only humans, but it is certainly possible that some other creatures ]may use/employ naming and descriptive practices)[/hide] focus upon. The target is different individuals' thought and belief. That's three different ways to say much the same thing. The similarity takes precedence here. They both are metacognitive endeavors. Thus, I do not see the relevance of that particular distinction when it comes to drawing and maintaining the distinction(s) between thought, belief, and experience that consists of correlations drawn between language use(and other things) and thought, belief, and experience that does not. Nor does it seem relevant to the distinction between thought and belief that is existentially dependent upon language use, and thought and belief that is not. <------that's the earlier peculiarity mentioned a few posts back. I could further set that out if need be. I've just recently come to acceptable terms with it myself.
Her coming to you after you call her name is inadequate evidence for concluding that she knows which dog you want to respond. I'm certain that that sequence of events is ritualistic. Her drawing correlations between her name being called, her own behaviour(s), and yours afterwards more than suffices.
— creativesoul
The sequence of events - call, coming, praise - could does have a similarity to a ritual. Those correlations do indeed suffice. After all, the training consists of establishing associations between her name being called, her behaviour and the subsequent reward, and teaches he what her name is, i.e. which dog the name refers to. This training also enables her to know (after a little more training) what to do when she hears "Judy, sit" as opposed to what she should do when she hears "Eddy, sit". (At times, I have had more than one dog.)
Still seems too unsupported for my tastes.
It may strike some as odd, but I'm not convinced any dogs know their own name in the exact same way that we do. I would deny that altogether. Some know how to act when they hear their name being called in certain familiar scenarios. Some are still learning how to behave when they find themselves in such circumstances. Some live nameless lives.
We learn our names by virtue of how many times it is being used during a short duration of time spent. Dogs do as well. Some dogs, if rewarded well, can learn to do all sort of things. I'm okay with saying she has learned to behave in some ways sometimes. She has learned how to behave/thrive/survive in many different situations. Name calling events being one of many.
I've mentioned on multiple occasions that the conversation was in dire need of a clear criterion and/or standards by which we can judge/assess whether or not a candidate is or is not capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought or another.
— creativesoul
How do we assess whether a proposed criterion or standard is clear and correct? By submitting cases to it. (Examples and counter-examples).
Sure, but only after it's already in front of us.
When it comes to being capable of correctly attributing thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences to ourselves and other capable species, we must first have knowledge of the processes involved. It's not just a matter of what they believe, it's also a matter of how.
I've explained as best I can, and I'm fairly happy with my part. There's promise/potential. I'm content.
Methodological approach needs attention.
As early on as possible I suggest examining the justificatory ground(or lack thereof), the scope of rightful application, the explanatory power, the coherence and/or terminological consistency of the standard under scrutiny. There are some things that are perfectly clear. We're looking for knowledge of thought and belief that predated humans. Such thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge thereof. That is only to say that prior to knowledge that there were thinking and believing creatures roaming the earth prior to ourselves, there were thinking and believing creatures roaming the world. A correct standard/notion of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" will be amenable with/to those prehistoric facts.
We can prioritize working from the fewest possible dubious assumptions. We can demand that our position posit the fewest possible entities necessary. We can insist that spatiotemporal flexibility be shown/proven by virtue of being capable of spanning the evolutionary timeline. Our standards/notion of "thought and belief" must be amenable to evolutionary progression such that it is clear how creatures begin attributing meaning to sights, sounds, and such. That's what thinking about the world does.
This sets out some of the standards I'm working from. Methodological approach. I think I have a very strong methodological naturalist bent.
What do all thinking and believing creatures have in common such that it this set of common elemental constituents that makes them what they are? They are all capable of drawing correlations between different things. Biological machinery finds a timely home at this point in the discussion.
Thought and belief are always meaningful to the creature drawing the correlations(forming, having, and/or holding thought and/or belief). Some thinking creatures inhabited the earth long before we did. Any and all acceptable notions of "mind", "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" must take proper account of this.
We find ourselves becoming strikingly aware that some meaning is prior to any and all notions of "meaning". The same is true of thought and "thought" as well as belief and "belief".
What is a concept of a tree if not thought and belief about trees(if not correlations drawn between trees and other things)? What is a concept of food if not thought and belief about food(if not correlations drawn between food and other things)? I do not see how the notion helps us to understand our own minds let alone other species'.
— creativesoul
It looks to me as if you have a reasonably clear concept of what a concept is. So there's no problem with that idea.
"Thought and belief" exhaust "concept", but not the other way around.
The thing is, there's more than one correlation in play. He might have correlated the dead chicken, or the dead chicken and Janus' presence - or both together- with the displeasure.
There is more than one correlation being drawn. Some are efficacious too. Some have been drawn and continue to influence subsequent behaviours afterwards.
That's not a problem.
Claims beginning with Jimi "might have" presuppose a world in which Jimi could have. It's that logically possible world that needs set out. What else must also be the case in order for it to be possible for Jimi to draw correlations between the dead chicken, Janus' presence, and Janus' displeasure?
How does the dog drive a wedge between Janus' displeasure [hide="Reveal"](which consists almost entirely of Janus' thought and belief at the time)[/hide] and Janus' presence?
In order to connect three things, they must first be somehow disconnected.
How does Jimi disconnect Janus's presence from Janus' outward unhappy behaviour?
The chicken is in its own place. Jimi is as well. So too, is Janus. Janus' presence and Janus' displeasure do not share such clearly different spatiotemporal locations. Jimi does not think about Janus' displeasure in contrast/comparison or as a separate thing to/from Janus' presence. One must do so prior to connecting them(drawing a correlation between them).
It seems that Jimi did learn to leave the chickens alone - even when Janus was not there - from the experience. So his future behaviour does not correlate with either a dead chicken or with Janus' presence - much less on the presence of both.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to be aimed at. Looks to be made of straw.
Sure. Jimi's learned from his experience. Such experience was meaningful to Jimi by virtue of his having drawn correlations between his own behaviour[hide="Reveal"](killing the chicken)[/hide] and Janus's behaviour afterwards. Chickens became a bit more significant to Jimi as a result. Jimi learned that killing chickens has unwanted consequences. He can learn much the same lesson after touching fire.
Jimi most definitely is capable of recognizing and/or attributing causality. That's um... sometimes as far back as we need to go. I'm puzzled at the response though. Are you averse to the idea that dogs are capable of recognizing causality?
Current convention is chock full of practices that clearly show we have not gotten some rather important bits of this right. That is clearly shown by the inability for many a position to admit that other creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and belief.
— creativesoul
How do you know that current convention is wrong in not being able to admit that creatures are capable of those things?
Creatures are capable of those things. If logical/valid conclusions contradict that, then the presuppositions/unspoken assumptions underwriting that train of thought are somehow mistaken.
Many people accept the conclusion that they are not.
Indeed they do. Some folk must if they are to remain free from self-contradiction.
So before you can demonstrate they are wrong, you must already have a clear and correct criterion.
I'm not even sure what you're claiming here. I'll add this...
If it is the case that creatures capable of having meaningful experiences roamed the earth long before the first language users like us(those employing naming and descriptive practices) did, then any and all acceptable notions/conceptions/uses of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" must be able to take this into proper account. Lest they be found sorely lacking.
It is the case. Some positions cannot admit this. Thus, those positions must be rejected.
Creatures are capable of those things. If logical/valid conclusions contradict that, then the presuppositions/unspoken assumptions underwriting that train of thought are somehow mistaken.
Some people might call that begging the question. One needs to explain the criteria for assertng it. But that's not a simple matter of evidence, because thinking of a dog as a sentient, rational creature is not a simple matter of fact but of thinking of a dog as, in many ways, (like) a person.
Jimi most definitely is capable of recognizing and/or attributing causality. That's um... sometimes as far back as we need to go. I'm puzzled at the response though. Are you averse to the idea that dogs are capable of recognizing causality?
That's very helpful. It clarifies what you meant when you said that all belief and thought consists of correlations. Thanks.
So Jimi's experience when he killed the first chicken might be expected to lead him to refrain from killing any more chickens on the principle that the burnt child fears the fire. But Jimi didn't fear the fire. He killed another chicken. (I'm not sure that dogs have a concept of causality as such. Simple correlations might be enough. But that's another issue.) What went wrong?
Maybe he forgot. But that suggests that he did not realize the significance (meaning) of his experience - i.e. he failed to generalize from it, in the way that the burnt child does. Then he was reminded of the first experience when he saw the chicken dead, or perhaps when Janus returned. That's the moment when he generalized from the first experience and realized that he was in trouble.
But it's not enough for him to generalize and understand that (1) whenever he kills a chicken, he will be in trouble. He also needs to understand that (2) if he does not kill chickens, Janus wll not be displeased with him.
There's more to Jimi than just recognizing causal correlations.
Are there any other ways of(processes for) thinking about thought and belief, if not as subject matters in their own right? How else would/could a creature capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and/or belief also be capable of thinking about its own thoughts?
So when a creature recognizes that some belief it holds is false, it isn't thinking about its own thoughts? When a creature recognizes that some other creature is about to attack it, it isn't thinking about the other creature's thoughts?
I don't know what the question "how" means in this context. But one can think without language.
I don't think anyone seriously wants to reject the idea that the male bird of paradise builds his bower in order to attract a female. But creativesoul is also right to observe that that purpose is not necessarily the bird's motivation. We ought to know this, since the same issue can be observed in human beings. Display behaviour can be observed in both males and female human beings, but it does not follow that they are motivated by the desire to make babies (though they may be, sometimes). Human beings can tell us what their motivation is, but the birds cannot. It seems to me, in fact, most likely that the birds just feel like building a bower, finding it a satisfactory and worth-while thing to do - just as so much display behaviour in human beings is done only because they feel that it is a worth-while thing to do.
But there is no doubt that such behaviour serves an evolutionary purpose. What's more, it explains the behaviour as rational; "feeling like it" doesn't explain anything.
I love the work everyone has put into posting and this one is very interesting.
When nature changes the hormones the behavior will change.
I strongly think many female humans are unaware of wanting a baby when they start putting on lipstick, and possibly dressing and otherwise using body language, to attract the opposite sex. They might even be really against getting pregnant.
What they want is to be attractive and human females can be as competitive about this as different species of males strut their feathers, or another species will beat their chests. :grin:
Perhaps we have not stressed hormones enough?
The sexual response cycle refers to the sequence of physical and emotional changes that occur as a person becomes sexually aroused and participates in sexually stimulating activities, including intercourse and masturbation. Knowing how your body responds during each phase of the cycle can enhance your relationship and help you pinpoint the cause of any sexual problems.
https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/sexual-health-your-guide-to-sexual-response-cycle
Sexual behaviors occur when the animal has enough of the hormone that causes the animal to be sexual. Bonobos and Humans are the most sexual and are not as controlled as most animals that have very short periods of being sexually receptive.
If you are a farmer wanting to breed your animals you need to know estrus.
or “heat” is a period during the
reproductive cycle when female animals
become sexually receptive, signaling they
are ready for mating. In most cases, this
can also be referred to as “standing heat”
because the female will stand to be mated
by the male (Figure 1).
Estrus is caused by estrogen being
produced within developing follicles on
the ovary, and ovulation usually occurs
after the initial signs of estrus are detected. Duration of estrus and the time
of ovulation in relationship to the onset
of estrus vary with the species (Table 1).
If behavioral or physical signs are not
obvious, estrus may even pass unnoticed.
Successful recognition of the signs of
estrus for mating, just prior to the time of
ovulation, can result in increased conception rates for the herd or flock.
https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/as/as-559-w.pdf
My point is we need to stop thinking animals decide to things for a reason and thinking about how unreasonable humans are. :lol:
What messes with our thinking is that social rules add another dimension to sexual behaviors. :chin: We can question what rules are playing, the social or hormonal ones? To what degree is the animal controlled the social rules or the hormonal ones what what part of this is thinking?
Herewith my last post on the opening question
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=are+crows+smarter+than+your+seven-year-old
That was fascinating!
I want to refer back to a book about math that I am reading because it really made me think about thinking math. What is thinking math?
Thinking 1, 2, 3, and 35 is a language skill. Looking at a plate of cookies and determining which one has the most cookies is not a language skill. A person can count all the cookies on all the plates and use math to determine which plate has the most cookies, but we can also judge which plate has the most volume of cookies. Animals can do that without having the language for math.
Now when I multiply simple numbers like 2x2 or 7x8 I am thinking how I think. 2x2 is so easy but 7x8 is not. Why is it so much harder to figure 7x8? I am learning our ability to do math includes knowing the relationship of numbers. Animals don't have the language of math so they can not think through the relationships of numbers. Does anyone know what I am talking about or am I being too weird?
Please help. I am trying to understand animal thinking that is done without language, by being aware of my own thinking. besides thinking of math, I am also thinking I am depressed because the cold weather makes going outside so unpleasant and that can become isolating and how do I think through this problem instead of playing a computer game all-day to avoid life. :lol: I can think I really need to knock on a neighbor's door and be neighborly, but my body screams, no I don't want to go outside. Where is the rational thinking? My body does not want to go outside but my head knows better.
He also needs to understand that (2) if he does not kill chickens, Janus wll not be displeased with him.
That is such a wonderful thought! A woman in Canada developed a method for teaching virtues that can be used in schools or by families. She is very clear that it is not enough to punish a child for doing wrong. The child must learn what is the right way to do things. I feel so much pain for all the children who are punished again and again and don't just magically realize how to avoid punishment. I have seen parents and schools fail to teach what is right.
Creatures are capable of those things. If logical/valid conclusions contradict that, then the presuppositions/unspoken assumptions underwriting that train of thought are somehow mistaken.
Those last two quotes go together but I am a bit overwhelmed by all the thinking that has gone on while I was gone. What are the correlations? Is the argument that animals without language are rational thinkers? Hum, :chin: I am thinking what would motivate me to go out in the old? I am thinking I would like myself a whole lot better if acted on the notion I should check on a neighbor and telling you about this increases my motivation to do the right thing. Are those thoughts the correlations?
I strongly think many female humans are unaware of wanting a baby when they start putting on lipstick, and possibly dressing and otherwise using body language, to attract the opposite sex. They might even be really against getting pregnant.
As I understand it, the paradise bird's behaviour is specific to mating and breeding. Human (and, presumably, bonobo) sexual behaviour is not strongly linked to fertility. I'm told that, at least in the case of bonobos, that sexual behaviour has additional functions in their social lives. That is certainly true in the case of humans.
Dressing up may be a sometimes a preliminary to actual courtship and mating, but it has other functions as well. It would be seriously reductionist not to recognize that. It claims membership of a social group and helps give one self-confidence. In relation to others it can deter aggression and form the basis of alliances. Other animals are not all the same in this respect. One needs to look at their lives holistically to understand what is going on.
My point is we need to stop thinking animals decide to things for a reason and thinking about how unreasonable humans are. :lol:
Yes, they are and we often equate irrationality with instinctive behaviour. But it's more complicated than that. Our instincts are mediated through the social and practical rules that we have learnt, so our actual behaviour is based on instincts, which are given. It doesn't follow that they are irrational, although they might be non-rational; I mean that they are best thought of a like axioms - starting-points for rationality, which adjusts instinctive impulses to the outside world. In addition, we can explain the instincts as rational, not from the point of view of the animal, but from the point of view of the evolutionary pressure to survive and reproduce.
I am thinking what would motivate me to go out in the old?
One of the functions of rationality, it seems to me, is to balance competing desires. But there are situations when it doesn't work very well, as in your case. I deeply sympathize with your desire not to hide from life whether in a machine or something else. It is not easy. The best I can offer is baby steps, building up slowly. If going outside to check on a neighbour is too much, try to think of a smaller steps that you can actually do. Going outside for one minute. (If you see her indoors wave at her throught the window.) Ringing your neighbour. (I suggest asking if you can borrow a cup of sugar, rather than just asking if they are OK.) That's how I try to handle those feelings. Mind you, I'm not very good at it.
I feel so much pain for all the children who are punished again and again and don't just magically realize how to avoid punishment.
No-one seems to recognize that punishment only works if the person being punished takes it the right way. But there's nothing to prevent people getting the wrong end of the stick. Like the fraudster who is caught and punished and responds by getting better at doing the fraud without getting caught.
There is a whole school of dog training which emphasizes reward-based training and frowns on the traditional punishments or even stick-and-carrot training.
It's important to emphasize that there is a form of punishment involved, but it is only withholding reward. In the context of no punishment, that works to deter unwanted behaviour. So if I were training Jimi, I would make a point of being around when Jimi is around chickens and keeping him distracted - ideally by playing his best game with him, or getting him to sit with me by offering intermittent treats. Once he's got that idea, you can gradually phase out the treats.
If it is the case that creatures capable of having meaningful experiences roamed the earth long before the first language users like us(those employing naming and descriptive practices) did, then any and all acceptable notions/conceptions/uses of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" must be able to take this into proper account. Lest they be found sorely lacking.
Yes. That seems to be our starting-point. Out differences lie in what a proper account is.
It may strike some as odd, but I'm not convinced any dogs know their own name in the exact same way that we do. I would deny that altogether. Some know how to act when they hear their name being called in certain familiar scenarios. Some are still learning how to behave when they find themselves in such circumstances. Some live nameless lives.
No, I don't suppose that a dog that knows its own name "in the exact same way" as we do. For example, it can't tell anyone what its name is. But it can do many of the things that we can do when we know our own name. In my opinion, the overlap is sufficient.
You are right, of course, that animals that don't undergo training in human ways, won't have to opportunity to learn their name. We probably ought to think of them as using pronouns only, though our reports might use names for people.
It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use.
Yes, and that's important. For example, when a dog checks out a bowl, because it expects there to be food in it, and is disappointed, I don't suppose it says to itself "Oh, my belief that there was food there is wrong" or anything similar. It simply walks away. But that action counts as a recognition that its belief was false.
Creatures are capable of those things. If logical/valid conclusions contradict that, then the presuppositions/unspoken assumptions underwriting that train of thought are somehow mistaken.
— creativesoul
Some people might call that begging the question...
That's their problem. I call it making sure a position is commensurate with the facts; what's happened or is happening; everyday events; etc. Many animals other than humans are clearly capable of problem solving. We can watch it happen. That's been proven over and over. So, either problem solving is something that can be done by a thoughtless creature(which amounts to saying that problem solving does not require thinking) or some non human creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought.
Since it is the case that some other animals problem solve, and problem solving is thinking, then it is not the case that only human are capable of thinking.
The conventional problems underwriting this matter stem from i) an abysmal failure to draw and maintain the actual distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief, and ii) parsing truth as nothing more than a property of true sentences.
It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use.
— creativesoul
Yes, and that's important. For example, when a dog checks out a bowl, because it expects there to be food in it, and is disappointed, I don't suppose it says to itself "Oh, my belief that there was food there is wrong" or anything similar. It simply walks away. But that action counts as a recognition that its belief was false.
I find it curious that you agree and then immediately misattribute meaning to the dog, based upon the dog's behaviour. Your dog's walking away from an empty food bowl may count as a recognition that it's
belief was false according to your criterion for what counts as such belief, but not mine.
The dog knows there's no food in bowl. The dog may have believed that there was prior to going to check. He checked. There was no food in the bowl. The bowl did not have food in it. That's what he believed. In order for him to recognize that his belief was false, he would have to first be capable of thinking about his own belief. As I've painstakingly set out heretofore many times over, thinking about one's own thought is a practice that is itself existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices replete with some proxy for the dog's own thought/belief. Dogs do not have what it takes.
Do you have any argument whatsoever for any of the claims you've been making? Do you have a valid objection to my own? Do you have a bare minimum criterion for what counts as thought or belief such that all thought and belief satisfy it?
How does a dog(or any other animal without naming and descriptive practices) pick its own belief out of this world to the exclusion of all else in order to compare it to the world?
No-one seems to recognize that punishment only works if the person being punished takes it the right way.
Perhaps even thinking punishment is a teaching skill is a mistake. Our culture is based on having a jealous, revengeful, and punishing god. Imagine beginning with having a creator who loves us. I know Christians have come around to Jesus loving us, but that has not changed the effect of believing in a punishing god. May I say here, that animals just do not make up stories and revolve around what those stories tell them of life.
Our instincts are mediated through the social and practical rules that we have learnt,
You are absolutely right and while animals fight for territory we fight for an imaginary god who favors us. That is rational thinking that might be improved with an understanding facts and how we determine if a fact is true or false. And this why this forum is essential. We do more thinking than other animals. My argument hangs on language being essential to rational thinking.
e can explain the instincts as rational, not from the point of view of the animal, but from the point of view of the evolutionary pressure to survive and reproduce.
This is my favorite explanation of what you said...
That is probably the biggest difficulty. I have some ideas about how to respond to it, but will have to try to articulate them later.
Thank you so much for your good social and thinking skills. In a completely different forum things do not go so well as people (mostly males) compete to prove they are right and those who don't agree are idiots. Their approach prevents thinking because they put people on the defensive. Again and again I have experienced it is futile to have enjoyable discussions with poorly informed people. They think they are being rational, but because they don't know enough, how do I say? The discussion just can not past what they do not know and will consider.
Oh my goodness, I see sunlight and blue sky. :grin: It has been so long since we have had sunlight and a blue sky I am giddy. I want to run outside and enjoy this before the clouds cover it up again.
I find it curious that you agree and then immediately misattribute meaning to the dog, based upon the dog's behaviour. Your dog's walking away from an empty food bowl may count as a recognition that it's
belief was false according to your criterion for what counts as such belief, but not mine.
I think @Ludwig V is right because the dog remembers the bowl is where it found food, but that memory is not equal to believing food magically appears in the bowl. We are discussing the difference between living with language and without language. It seems impossible for me to think like an animal because every thought in my head is words, words, words. I make myself crazy with constant words, a lot of mind chatter that prevents me from directly experiencing life.
I think Ludwig V is right because the dog remembers the bowl is where it found food
Knowing where to get food is not the same as knowing that one's own belief is false.
The claim was that walking away from an empty food bowl counts as recognition that the prior belief(that the bowl had food in it) was false.
What is involved in the process of recognizing that one's own belief about whether or not there is food in the bowl is false? It requires drawing a distinction between one's own belief and what the belief is about. This process, at a bare minimum, requires thinking about one's own belief as a subject matter in and of itself, which in turn requires a way to do so. We do that with words, which stand in as proxy, for the belief. How can an animal without naming and descriptive practices invent/create a meaningful utterance which stands in place of its own belief? That must be done prior to comparing that belief to the world. It is only via such a comparison that one can recognize that their own belief is either true or false.
We are discussing the difference between living with language and without language.
Yes. That's part of it. There's also the transition between. There are also different kinds of languages consisting of different kinds of meaningful behaviours, marks, utterances, etc.
Indeed, what counts as language matters in more than one way.
For example, when a dog checks out a bowl, because it expects there to be food in it, and is disappointed, I don't suppose it says to itself "Oh, my belief that there was food there is wrong" or anything similar. It simply walks away. But that action counts as a recognition that its belief was false.
Recognizing that the bowl is empty is not the same as recognizing that one's own belief about food being in the bowl is false. The former is about the food and the bowl. The latter is about one's own thought/belief. The dog can directly perceive the food, the bowl, and its own hunger. Thought and belief are not directly perceptible things. Nor are truth/falsity. Nor is meaning. Nor are social/institutional facts. Nor are any number of abstractions.
I cannot find good ground for claiming that any creature incapable of naming and descriptive practices is capable of abstraction. Recognizing that one's own belief is false requires comparison/contrast between the belief and what the belief is about. That seems to require a skillset unobtainable to dogs.
But it's not enough for him to generalize and understand that (1) whenever he kills a chicken, he will be in trouble. He also needs to understand that (2) if he does not kill chickens, Janus wll not be displeased with him.
There's more to Jimi than just recognizing causal correlations.
Of course there is more to any thinking creature than just the recognition/attribution of causality, but it seems to me that that process, regardless of the creature, is more than adequate for being a case of thinking(thought/belief).
I'm not convinced that Jimi knows he's in trouble, so I question the account above on its presuppositional ground.
It is more than enough that Jimi inferred that his own behaviour caused Janus'. Here, all Jimi needs to avoid killing chickens is to believe that if he does Janus will do whatever Janus did the first time. He does not need to understand that if he does not kill chickens Janus will not be displeased. He just needs to believe that if he does, Janus will do what he did the first time. His belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' comes replete with the further inference/belief/expectation that if he does not, Janus will not do that either. That's how the recognition/attribution of causality works.
I'm not sure that dogs have a concept of causality as such.
I agree but...
Where does the need for having a concept of causality come from? Again, I do not find the notion of concept to be of help. Generally speaking, it seems to be a step backward instead of forward. One can recognize/attribute causal relationships, which is what is meant by "recognize/attribute causality" without having a concept of causality(thinking about causality as a subject matter in and of itself). A creature can believe that X causes Y without having a concept of causality. Recognizing/attributing causality requires only inferring that.
The claim was that walking away from an empty food bowl counts as recognition that the prior belief(that the bowl had food in it) was false.
That's right. I should have been clearer that that sentence was my report of the dog's behaviour. I thought it was obvious that the dog could not have made that report.
We do that with words, which stand in as proxy, for the belief.
Oh, dear, now we are in deep trouble. It is reasonable to describe some words as standing in as proxy for something. But not all. That's a big, even central, issue about language. For example, there is some sense in saying that if my dog's name is Eddy, "Eddy" stands in as proxy for the dog. But I don't think it helps to insist that "1" stands in as proxy for the number 1 or "Pegasus" as proxy for Pegasus. The philosophical issue of nominlaism vs realism as an account of universals (abstractions) is precisely about this.
Of course there is more to any thinking creature than just the recognition/attribution of causality, but it seems to me that that process, regardless of the creature, is more than adequate for being a case of thinking(thought/belief).
Of course. I only wanted to suggest that there are other kinds of belief.
However, Jimi's belief that Janus was displeased with him because he killed the chicken does not distinguish between causation as simply correlation and causation as something more than just correlation. I think Jimi is capable of the first, but not the second - at least, I can't think of non-verbal behaviour that would enable me to distinguish the two. I could be wrong.
His belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' comes replete with the further inference/belief/expectation that if he does not, Janus will not do that either.
H'm. "Replete with" is not altogether clear to me. I notice that you do accept that that Jimi's belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' displeasure is distinct from the belief that if he does not behave in that way, Janus will not be displeased. So it is possible that he might believe the first and not the second. This fits well with the fact that killing the chicken is a sufficient, but not necessary, consequence of Janus' displeasure, getting from one to the other requires an inferential step, which Jimi has failed to make after the first kill, but does (apparently) make after the second.
Knowing where to get food is not the same as knowing that one's own belief is false.
The claim was that walking away from an empty food bowl counts as recognition that the prior belief(that the bowl had food in it) was false.
What is involved in the process of recognizing that one's own belief about whether or not there is food in the bowl is false? It requires drawing a distinction between one's own belief and what the belief is about. This process, at a bare minimum, requires thinking about one's own belief as a subject matter in and of itself, which in turn requires a way to do so. We do that with words, which stand in as proxy, for the belief. How can an animal without naming and descriptive practices invent/create a meaningful utterance which stands in place of its own belief? That must be done prior to comparing that belief to the world. It is only via such a comparison that one can recognize that their own belief is either true or false.
I do not understand why you made that argument. An expectation is not the same as a belief. An expectation is thinking with the gut (feeling) not the brain (language).
Yes. That's part of it. There's also the transition between. There are also different kinds of languages consisting of different kinds of meaningful behaviours, marks, utterances, etc.
Indeed, what counts as language matters in more than one way.
How about smells? That is one of the major elements of communication. I think I smell a god. Well, maybe that doesn't work. However, we can believe someone will be a good mate because of how that person smells.
The theory is that individuals are subconsciously attracted to the body odors of potential partners with dissimilar MHC genes. This preference is believed to be detected through scent, which serves as a cue for genetic compatibility.
https://myotape.com/blogs/articles/the-intriguing-science-behind-smell-and-partner-choice#:~:text=The%20theory%20is%20that%20individuals,related%20odors%20influence%20mate%20choice.
Perhaps what is going on in our subconscious also counts and is closer to animal thinking with messages that mean something but have no language for rational thinking. Just a smell and a reaction.
Or a movement and shooting in fear without thinking, thereby killing one's son. The book Emotional Intelligence uses a story of a man killing his son, as an example of our reaction system that does not involve thinking.
That's a big, even central, issue about language. For example, there is some sense in saying that if my dog's name is Eddy, "Eddy" stands in as proxy for the dog. But I don't think it helps to insist that "1" stands in as proxy for the number 1 or "Pegasus" as proxy for Pegasus. The philosophical issue of nominlaism vs realism as an account of universals (abstractions) is precisely about this.
Wow, you used a word I never came across before and did not know the meaning. Without the knowledge I could not understand what you said so I looked it up...
nominlaism- the doctrine that universals or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality, and that only particular objects exist; properties, numbers, and sets are thought of as merely features of the way of considering the things that exist. Important in medieval scholastic thought, nominalism is associated particularly with William of Occam. Oxford Languages
That is the perfect word for what I think is important to this thread. Humans behave as though their thoughts are accurate, concrete information when the thought is not reality. Making humans the most irrational animals.
How can an animal without naming and descriptive practices invent/create a meaningful utterance which stands in place of its own belief? That must be done prior to comparing that belief to the world. It is only via such a comparison that one can recognize that their own belief is either true or false.
The standard expectation is that when someone asserts that p, they are asserting that it is true. We can infer, without further evidence, that they believe that p. The dog cannot assert that there is food in the bowl, so we cannot infer that the dog believes that there is food in the bowl. Conventional discussions about belief do not give us any basis for inferring that any dog or other animal that does not have human language believes anything. But those discussions do not pay attention to the fact that non-verbal behaviour in humans is also evidence of what they believe. Similar non-verbal behaviour can be observed in animals that don't have human language and that provides evidence for what they believe.
The dog walks up to the bowl and sniffs it; that is evidence that the dog believes that there is food in the bowl. If there is food in the bowl, we expect the dog to eat it, and that action confirms our inference. If there is not food in the bowl and the dog walks away, that action is evidence that the dog recognizes that there is no food in the bowl.
I do not understand why you made that argument. An expectation is not the same as a belief. An expectation is thinking with the gut (feeling) not the brain (language).
I do agree that there is a difference between beliefs based on feeling (I would say, intuition) and beliefs based on a rational process (language). But surely, if I expect the children to get home from school at 4.00, I believe that they will. That may be based on feeling or on a rational process, but it's the same belief/expectation.
How about smells? That is one of the major elements of communication. I think I smell a god. Well, maybe that doesn't work. However, we can believe someone will be a good mate because of how that person smells.
Yes, there is evidence that smell plays a bigger part in our social lives that we mostly choose to recognize. (It would be good to know how often our expectations based on smell turn out to be true.) But I wouldn't call it a language. When eggs go bad, the smell puts us off eating them, but the smell is a sign that we read, not a communication sent by the egg. The smells that we (and other animals) give off play their part in negotiating our social lives, but it's not the same part as language does.
Perhaps what is going on in our subconscious also counts and is closer to animal thinking with messages that mean something but have no language for rational thinking.
Yes, that's a tempting thought. The trouble is that there doesn't seem to be any way of knowing what is going on in our sub-conscious other than supposing that it must be like what goes on in our consciousness. Which is a big assumption and should be treated with some scepticism.
Wow, you used a word I never came across before and did not know the meaning. Without the knowledge I could not understand what you said so I looked it up...
I'm sorry. I dropped a bit of philosophical jargon without explaining it. I'm glad you could work it out. The internet is sometimes very helpful.
That is the perfect word for what I think is important to this thread. Humans behave as though their thoughts are accurate, concrete information when the thought is not reality. Making humans the most irrational animals.
I think that's a bit harsh. I would say that humans are a mixture of rationality and irrationality, just like other animals. But their capacity to harm the world around them is greater than animals, so their irrationality is more damaging than the irrationality of other animals.
I think that's a bit harsh. I would say that humans are a mixture of rationality and irrationality, just like other animals. But their capacity to harm the world around them is greater than animals, so their irrationality is more damaging than the irrationality of other animals.
Trump has announced he would use military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
This is not any worse than the Neo-Cons and invading Iraq and Afghanistan. However, Christians got this man into office and it is Christian mythology that a god favors the US and that is irrational thinking based on a false belief. No animal could sin more than the human one. Our belief in the Biblical god is a curse.
Trump has announced he would use military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.This is not any worse than the Neo-Cons and invading Iraq and Afghanistan.
I must admit, I have trouble seeing how Trump's adventures would make America great again, any more than the NeoCons' expeditions did.
However, Christians got this man into office and it is Christian mythology that a god favors the US and that is irrational thinking based on a false belief.
Yes. It is hard to understand how Christians could bring themselves to support him. It seems that the prospect of power can make strange allies. It also encourages wishful thinking and so distorts people's capacity for rational calculation.
Reply to Ludwig V I appreciate everything you said. I am reading a book about the Christian mythology of being God's chosen people and what this has to do with the westward movement and assuming China would improve as Christian missionaries spread Christianity through China. The explanation of our entrance into China and how we screwed that up is interesting, and the screwup was due to the Christian delusion that is also the Trump delusion of power.
Reply to Athena
I take your point. It does seem to me that ideological convictions are uniquely human and by far the most dangerous power we have. A dose of philosophical scepticism is a good medicine for those delusions. But, sadly, those who need it most are also the most resistant. Whether such convictions are ever rational, or even reasonable, is an interesting question. I can't imagine that animals are ever gripped by them.
There's a famous quote about this:-
Oliver Cromwell - Letter to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland. 1650:“I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken.”
Good advice. The irony is, of course, that Oliver Cromwell was driven by ideological convictions about which he never seems to have wavered.
I appreciate everything you said. I am reading a book about the Christian mythology of being God's chosen people and what this has to do with the westward movement and assuming China would improve as Christian missionaries spread Christianity through China.
Somewhat related - there's actually a fascinating story of how an ancient, heretical Christian sect reached China after having to escape persecution in what is now Persia. They were the Nestorian Christians, and they were given refuge in the Middle Kingdom, where they settled, and distributed copies of the Gospel story, replicated in Chinese on silk scrolls, with all of the names Asianised (Jesus being 'Issa' and the scriptures being called the 'Issa Sutras'). THis happened very early, in 600 A.D. or so. You can find the wikipedia entry here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_East_in_China and there are various documentaries, and this book.
Reply to Wayfarer At the moment, I have moved on to the Mayan belief system and need to start a thread for that. Then write myself a note so I don't forget I started a thread.
The Mayan rationale is soooo different from our Greek/Roman rationale. If human beings can have very different rational systems, we have to question what rational thinking is.
Christians moving their rationale into China is perhaps more disruptive than a causal judgment might understand. We take our calendar and mode of thinking for granted. But this is a different subject from comparing how our minds work with how animals' brains work.
Comments (1366)
I'm not fond of "information". It smuggles meaning.
There are all sorts of language less creatures(creatures devoid of naming and description practices) capable of differentiating between distal objects. Again, I'm not fond of invoking some notion of "information". That's adding complexity. I'd rather excise the unnecessary and unhelpful approaches to the topic.
Not all differentiation between accurate and inaccurate information requires articulated reason/thought.
That's not true. We can know quite a bit about how biological minds work. It dovetails with knowledge about how all things become meaningful. How statements become true/false. How we can preserve truth with timestamping, etc. I wouldn't talk about thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience in terms of "what goes on in the head". It works from emaciated notions of all three.
Ask away!
:wink:
You might know what goes on in your head via introspection. You won't know what goes in mine except I tell you truthfully and presuming I know myself. We can get a fairly good idea about what animals feel from their behavior and body language, or at least so it seems. We have no access to the inner workings of their minds. It's even questionable how much access we have to our own.
That's not at all true either Janus. I know beyond all doubt that you're drawing correlations between the words we use and all sorts of other things, including how the activity itself[hide="Reveal"](the fact that we're discussing whether or not we can know something about animal minds aside from our own)[/hide] is affecting you.
It's a matter of precision you're after, I suspect. In that case, I still disagree. I've been involved in conversation with someone embroiled in unsettled emotional turmoil who really believed that they were not.
That is nothing more than a generalized notion of how minds work. It gives you no specific knowledge of what is going on in the minds of other humans, much less animals.
As if a universal criterion is a bad thing? We can know that a cat believes that there is a mouse under the cabinet. We can know that the cat's belief is meaningful to the cat. We can know that all meaningful experience is meaningful to the creature having it. There are all sorts of things we can know about animal minds Janus.
We can know that our own meaningful experience began long before we talked about it.
In order to know one is projecting human thought onto creatures incapable of forming, having, and/or holding such thought, one must know what the differences are between them such that they can know that the one is incapable of forming, having, and/or holding the others' thought, belief, meaningful experience.
The point is we have no way of testing such conjectures and nothing to rely on but the imprecise subjective criterion of plausibility in our judgements of their soundness.
You have offered nothing that I didnt already know and nothing that would provide grounds for me to revise my understanding of our epistemic situation regarding other minds.
Then what do the sentries outside meerkat burrows, groundhog colonies, wild goose nesting grounds and rookeries shout when a hawk or kestrel or coyote or fox or cheetah or snapping turtle is spotted? Quoting Janus
As in all learning, yes, until a more complete answer, one that fits more criteria, becomes available.
I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. I have acknowledged that I believe animals sense danger. I'm not sure what you think we are disagreeing about.
Your first three questions are empirical, not philosophical. My understanding is that there is empirical evidence that there are "windows" when the brain learns certain things particularly fast. If that window is missed for any reason, it will be difficult to impossible to learn it later. Examples are ducklings learning who is mum. They will fasten on the first large moving object they see and follow it faithfully until they are grown. Konrad Lorenz famously got one brood to imprint on him. That can't be changed, I believe. Another example is language learning in humans. If a baby doesn't get sufficient human interaction between specific ages, it till be very difficult to learn language later in life.
As to irrational people, We are all a mixture. More than that, rationality can't get going without some pre-rational starting-point. In any case, it seems to me that it is not really appropriate to call a new-born baby rational or irrational. Rationality develops quite slowly and I wouldn't say there was a threshold point between the two. Sadly, it also declines ln old age, but also slowly.
Quoting Vera Mont
OK. You are indeed perfectly right. Dortmunder :lol:
Quoting Vera Mont
"Our" concept of danger includes appropriate reaction to it. When animals exhibit similar behaviour in similar circumstances there's no good reason to withhold applying the concept to it. Apart from anything else, it enables us to understand what's going on - and that is the point of the exercise. But it is fair enough to say that any application need to be considered in the context of the overall patterns of behaviour that they exhibit. One case doesn't give us much insight, but each case contributes to our insight.
Quoting Corvus
I see. The only knowledge is scientific knowledge, which excludes second-hand knowledge. But science is only possible because research starts on the basis of the results of previous research, and no-one is expected to repeat all that work for themselves. Newton standing on the shoulders of giants. Moreover, in order to do experiments, read texts, discuss ideas and results, they have to rely on common sense and common knowledge.
I have caught the 7:00 train every working day for the last 5 years. Standing on the platform at 6:55, I notice the signal changing. I have noticed that same event every time I have caught the train in the past. I expect the train to arrive shortly. I think that's inductive reasoning.
Shorlty after the signal changes, I hear a loudspeaker announcement that the train will arrive shortly. The same thing has happened every time in the past. I therefore believe the announcement. I think that's also inductive reasoning.
Yes, I do have blind faith in inductive reasoning, as Hume noticed. One has to start somewhere. One also has to risk being wrong in order to be right.
Quoting creativesoul
Careful! Things only fall through space at the same speed in a vacuum. Most people have never watched anything fall through space in a vacuum. Galileo certainly never did. His "proof" was a thought-experiment - or at least I understand that is the case.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes. They interact as well. Our knowledge of language is mostly tacit, but we can articulate rules in various ways.
Quoting creativesoul
Quite so. There are only two (maybe three) ways that I'm aware of. One is the idea that tacit knowledge is exactly the same as articulate reasoning, but very fast. That's the traditional philosophical approach and has mostly fallen into disfavour. (Who says philosophy never makes progress?) Then there's the idea of "unconscious" reasoning and belief. There are very ancient roots of this idea, but the modern concept was developed in the 19th century. It was very like conscious reasoning and belief but was, by definition, not available to "introspection". The last one is the modern model of the information processing machine. This seems to ignore the question of tacit vs articulate reasoning and belief.
I don't think that the fact that the phenomenon existed long before we knew of it is necessarily a bar to our acquiring knowledge of it. After all, the same applies to most physics and chemistry. The real problem is that we have no way, at least at present, of getting empirical access to it.
Quoting Janus
I do agree that there is a commonality of body language, and you are right to say "across at least some species". But describing our experience is no different from a gesture, a grimace or a smile or a wagging tail in terms of knowing what is going on in someone's head. If we can know what human beings are experience or thinking from their non-linguistic behaviour, why is it speculation to interpret that (ex hypothesi) animal behaviour in the same way. I can see no rational difference.
Quoting Janus
For me, a generalization is a statement or proposition of the logical form I described. So you are missing the point. I am indeed "treating" abstract objects as particulars. So are you when you describe them as abstract objects.
Quoting Janus
That's why I think it is a mistake to think that explaining animal actions has much to do with divining the inner workings of their minds. Mind you, I don't think that it is a determining factor in explaining human actions, either. It's more like interpreting a picture. Yes, sometimes we set out to divine the intentions of the artist, but not always. Sometimes it is just a question of seeing what is in the picture. (Puzzle pictures).
Quoting Janus
Sorry, I don't understand what that difference is.
You seem to consider symbols important. I don't think it makes any difference to the concept whether there is a call, a word or a pictogram signifying 'danger', so long as the message is transmitted and received - i.e. the concept is shared within a species or a tribe: everybody ducks for cover to escape the danger, or flies up in dive-bombing formation to combat it.
Yes, it is an inductive reasoning. You have your knowledge based on your past observations on the events.
Quoting Ludwig V
Hume said that inductive reasoning can be irrational. Therefore your reasoning on the train arrival time could be irrational.
This is mistaken in more than one way. It is false.
We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways [hide="Reveal"]if and when we're testing hypothesis[/hide]. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more. If one theory proves beyond a reasonable doubt that X is the case, and another theory depends upon the opposite, well...
Quoting Janus
Changing the subject is unhelpful.
Quoting Janus
That's false. It's also incomplete enough to be troublesome.
And yet, we are discussing what you claim we have no way of knowing about.
You are having a conversation about whether or not other animals can think rationally. How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads?
Behavior alone is utterly inadequate. We are seeking knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it. Meaningful experience prior to language.
We can know that language less thought and belief cannot include any language that is meaningful to the creature under consideration. Language is not meaningful to a language less creature. If doing X requires using language, the language less creatures cannot do X.
Thinking about one's own belief is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon common language/shared meaning.
Body language assessment suffers the issues of which you complain. Reading another's body language is to attribute meaning to the behavior.
Claiming to know how animals feel is unacceptable when accompanied by having no way of knowing what's in their mind.
Yada, yada, yada...
What's the situation such that it warrants such a lack of certainty?
If Newton had been observing the apples falling from the trees to the ground without the scientific discovery, then it would have been just described as daily perception of an ordinary bloke. But he discovered the scientific principle from the observation, which made into the history.
The same could apply to your case. If you had discovered some ground breaking new scientific principle such as a possibility of time travel or something like that, from your observation of the train arriving at 7:00 everyday to your station platform, then it would have been a case of inductive reasoning. However, only thing you have observed in that exercise was that train arrives at 7:00 every day to your platform, which is just a trivial part of daily life of an ordinary bloke. Would anyone class the case as a rational thinking based on the inductive reasoning? I doubt it.
Inductive reasoning is a scientific method of applying our reasoning in forming the principles and theories from the observations, not daily ordinary habitual perceptions of general public.
I would go further than that. Let's distinguish the word "danger" and the concept of danger. Creatures that don't speak human-style languages don't have access to the word. But the concept is wider than speech. It involves the possibility of harm to oneself (and others) and appropriate reactions (fight or flight) to that possibility. None of that requires any understanding of human-style languages. What's more, the behavioural reactions are more important in the concept that the ability to articulate what we would understand as a sentence.
Quoting Corvus
Well, he didn't say exactly that. But the point that is usually made is that inductive reasoning can be wrong - which doesn't necessarily mean that it is irrational. Hume made two points in the light of his argument. The first was that we are going to go on using it even though it may be wrong and the second was that it was as much of a proof as you will ever get of how the world works, and even ends up (in the section on miracles) calling it a "proof, whole and entire".
Quoting creativesoul
Quite so.
Quoting creativesoul
More than that, we also rely on observation of behaviour to know what's going on in each other's heads, as you suggest.
I'm afraid that there's a certain ambiguity going on here, and it's my fault. There's an ambiguity between the sense of "what's going on in X's head" in which observation of behaviour is a normal and reliable way of discovery and the "experiential" or phenomenological sense of what's going on in X's head." In that sense, we have no access at all to what's going on in anyone's head, because the only person who has access to it is X. (As in Mary's room or bats.) I don't think discovering the rationality of animals or humans is particularly closely connected to latter. Nagel thinks (unless I'm mistaken) that it is not possible.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, if it is dependent on shared meaning (as opposed to common language), then animals could know themselves.
Quoting Corvus
The story of Newton's apple is a bit more complicated than the popular summary. But apart from that, it seems pretty clear to me that Newton would not have made any inductive inference from one case. If he did, it would not be rational.
So John Doe and his friends and relations are not rational - ever? You set a high bar.
There is another problem. When Newton wanders in from his apple tree for afternoon tea and a gossip, does he cease being rational because he's behaving in an everyday way?
Perhaps we are all sometimes rational and sometimes not.
I'm working on a reply to this and what followed. Shows a bit of promise from where I sit, so to speak. Thanks.
I'll look forward to your reply.
You got it wrong again. Hume was not concerned on the fact that inductive reasoning can be wrong. What he was saying was that, "there can be no demonstrative arguments to prove, that those instances, of which we have had no experience, resemble those, of which we have had experience." (A Treatise, Hume).
You have been seeing the train arriving at the train station at 7:00 every morning for last x number of years. That does not logically warrants you to expect the train will arrive at 7:00 next morning. There is "no demonstrative arguments to prove."
It is not about right or wrong on the inductive reasoning, but isn't it about lack of logical or rational ground in the reasoning Hume was pointing out?
Oh, so now we are classifying as rational only what is proof against philosophical scepticism.
As to Hume, I suggest that the implication of there being no demonstrative argument is that one might be wrong - that's why everybody prefers demonstrative arguments. (Though it is possible to be wrong about even those.You are right, however, to interpret "demonstrative" as meaning conclusive and hence logical, in the strict sense. This is usually taken to mean sound by the standards of formal logic. Which makes almost the whole of humanity irrational.
But the devil is in the detail:-
Later on, in his "Enquiry" he says:-
Quoting Corvus
I don't think I ever suggested that I had logically conclusive evidence.
Scientific principles and theories require justification and proofs backed by demonstrative argument. I am not sure what you mean by the standards of formal logic, which makes the whole humanity irrational. Why would formal logic make the whole humanity irrational? Formal logic is another area of academic subjects which enables human reasoning more rational.
It is not desirable to be 100% formal logic because what is so may not be so tomorrow and our thinking needs to be flexible. We need to be creative. We need to think about what is and what can be. Humans have taken creative thinking and created their own reality. This is beyond what animals do.
People around the world live as they did at the beginning of humanity. They can use nature to meet their needs, as animals do, but they did not advance as people in the modern world did. Why? Why don't all humans advance?
Maybe we don't all have the same definition of 'advance'. Maybe some territories were too remote and poor for conquest, and therefore the inhabitants of those undesirable lands didn't have their traditional lifestyle ripped away and destroyed, as so many others did. By the same token, having territory with scant resources means there is not much leisure time for contemplation or extra material for development.
But if you mean, what caused civilization where it did happen, that's a more complex answer. It probably doesn't belong here, but I can point you to a source for the basics. Fundamental difference: enough surplus (of food, natural resources and labour) to support specialized unproductive classes of people, such as administration, priesthood, judiciary and law enforcement, military and clerical, thus stratifying the society and perpetuating a power structure. The influential classes can then patronize artisans and inventors and allocate resources to their own comfort, enrichment, armaments/fortification and glorification through ritual, spectacles, monuments and elaborate burials.
Also if you've been reading what I've been writing you should know that I agree with you that human exceptionalism is a mistake.
So you think I am missing the point when I describe abstract objects as abstract objects? :roll:
I don't think I am missing any point. Abstract objects may be treated as generalizations or particulars and I have not said nor implied anything that contradicts that.
Quoting Ludwig V
It seems to me that you have missing the point of what I've been saying and not the other way around since I have said that whatever we know about animal minds is derived from observing their behavior and body language and I have not been concerned at all with explaining their behavior by purportedly
somehow knowing what is going on in their minds. The same goes for humans except that they can also explain themselves linguistically. Of course the verity of those explanations relies on the one doing the explaining being both correct and honest.
Quoting Ludwig V
A symbol is a kind of sign but not all signs are symbols. Smoke is a sign of fire, but smoke does not symbolize fire. An animal cry may be a sign of whatever but it does not symbolize whatever it might be a sign of.
When you don't have access to the other entity's mind, I'm not sure you're justified in assuming they have no symbolic communication. You're probably correct in that symbolic language is a uniquely human achievement. What I don't see in practice or agree with in theory is that symbolic language is a prerequisite of rational thought.
That's not quite what I said. I'm sorry if I was not clear. I left out the conditional "if formal logic is your standard of rationality" and qualified "the whole of humanity" to "almost the whole of humanity". As you say, formal logic is something that helps us to be more rational, which means that almost all of us have some level of rationality. Since very few of us know any formal logic, it follows that the rationality of most of us does not lie in our ability to do formal logic. That seems about right.
Quoting Corvus
Hume's criticism was aimed at the scholastic concept of some power, hidden from our experience, was what enable to first billiard ball to make the second billiard ball move. Many people have believed that the conclusion is simply that induction is invalid. However, Hume was not saying that we should or could just give up on it, in the way that one would simply give up on an invalid form of argument. There's room for debate about exactly what he was saying, but it was not that.
Induction is not deduction. It is better thought of as a trial and error process, which can never get us to deductive truth, but can get us nearer to it. Popper's version of this was conjecture and refutation, now often described as hypothesis and falsification. Neither of those formulations is really satisfactory. recognizes that hypotheses/conjectures that have been tested but not falsified are what we rely on pragmatically. Asking what rational ground we have for that is asking for a rational ground for relying on rational grounds.
Compare what happens when you ask for a rational ground for relying on sound deductive arguments. I refer you to C.L. Dodgson's article about the dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise after their race.
Quoting Corvus
You said this earlier. It is another example of a situation in which asking for a rational ground (for believing that I saw what I saw, is not a question that has a rational answer. Yet believing that I saw what I saw is not irrational. For it can serve as a premiss in a sound deductive argument.
Quoting Athena
"Creative" is a troublesome idea. There seems to be no clear boundary between creative and non-creative thinking. For example, I would say that the crow that we saw earlier in this thread was thinking creatively, when It realizes that a stick can serve as a way of getting the goodies.
I agree with everything you say.
People often regard improvements in technology and in their own prosperity as advances, when they are usually double-edged swords.
[I]for example, a red octagon is a common symbol for "STOP"[/I]
Quoting Janus
H'm. That's a large and tempting rabbit-hole, but I'm thinking that diving down it would be a distraction.
Quoting Janus
I'm not at all sure that's a helpful way to think of them, but we would have to dive down the rabbit-hole to clarify that.
Quoting Janus
That's all fine by me.
I think this is a much more interesting issue to explore.
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
This is a much more pertinent, and illuminating, issue.
I think you are thinking of a distinction that was drawn quite a long time ago now to resolve a particular problem. "Clouds mean rain" and "'Cloud" means a mass of particles or droplets, as of dust, smoke, or steam, suspended in the atmosphere or existing in outer space". In other words, it was an attempt to distinguish what meaning means in the context of linguistic meaning and what it means in the context of drawing inferences from evidence. (I'm sorry I can't remember, and google doesn't find, any helpful reference)
I guess that if I must choose between the two, I would have to choose "sign", because the alternative "symbol" means attributing human-style language to the dog. But the catch with this is that if we say that a goose hissing is a sign of anger hostility or danger in your sense of sign, we are positing a purely causal relationship, which would be incompatible with attributing rationality, or even sentience, to the goose.
This means that we need to draw some more distinctions. Sign vs symbol is more complicated than ti seems. I don't have a neat account of the difference, just a few remarks towards a map. The same applies to the concept of action.
Quoting Patterner
This is a bit complicated. The question to ask what the difference is between a sign and a symbol in this context. For example, when the police or road workers cordon off a section of road - even close it - with a tape across the road, is that equivalent to the stop sign? I would say that it symbolizes a blockage - like a heap of rubble. Is a red light a sign or a symbol?
Quoting Patterner
Mini-pictures have become a very popular way of conveying information, partly because they are supposed to be language-independent. They may be helpful, but in my view, they constitute another language; they are not always intuitive, but need to be learnt. I think the technical term for these is "icon", but it is obviously different from the sense that some rock bands are said to be "iconic". (I'm not suggesting that icons are not useful). (There are echoes here of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I don't know whether that book influenced their popularity now. It seems possible, but unlikely).
Quoting Patterner
"Sign" and "Symbol" don't seem to have a well-defined, technical, definition. The terms are applied differently in different contexts. One peculiarity of this specific example is that a stop sign is not merely reporting a situation, like the or a sign-post. It is giving an instruction.
So at a police road-block, when the officer holds up a hand, palm open and facing towards you (I think this is more or less universal), the officer is ordering you to stop in a non-verbal fashion. Is that gesture a sign or a symbol? Is it linguistic?
In the realm of actions, we have been mainly talking about actions that have a purpose, because that is where the question of rationality or not is clearest. But there are different kinds of action. Reflexes, habits, expressions (Ouch! I'm in pain!), are just the beginnings of a list.
Its not an assumption but rather a conclusion based on what I think is most plausible given the evidence (or lack of evidence). I'm the first to admit that plausibility is more or less like beauty— somewhat in the eye of the beholder. In other words not a highly determinable or definitive criterion for justifying any assertion.
Quoting Patterner
The word 'stop' in that context symbolizes the act of stopping but does not resemble anything to do with stopping. Ikons resemble what they signify. Some early written languages used pictographs—characters which resembled what they represented. As far as I know Chinese characters evolved from these early pictographic characters. The difference with a pure symbol is that it doesn't resemble what it signifies. Think of the numeral '5'. It doesn't resemble five of anything. 'IIIII' would be a pictographic representation or ikon of the quantity of five.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm sure there are nuances that could make it a much larger enquiry but all I have in mind is that an abstract object is abstract on account of the fact that it refers to no particular thing but ranges over a whole class of particulars thus qualifying it as a generalization.
So the word 'tree' is both a particular word and a symbol that represents the abstract generalization that is the class of objects we call trees.
I don't know what you have in mind with wondering about the "helpfulness" of looking at things this way. Its just one of the possible ways of thinking about it. I see the distinction between abstract objects as particulars and generalizations as a valid one. It makes perfect sense to me at least.
Quoting Ludwig V
I think we can attribute rationality and meaning to animals in the sense of feeling. The hissing of the goose is an expression and in that sense a sign of "anger hostility or danger". But it has not been converted by a linguistic culture into a symbol that stands by convention as signifying anger hostility or danger.
I admit I have only given a basic adumbration and that more subtleties and nuances in the relationship between the concepts of 'sign' and 'symbol' could be induced by a detailed investigation of usage and association.
Formal logic deals with the propositions for their validities. Suggesting formal logic as your standard of rationality sounded very odd even as a conditional comment.
Didn't he say, it is the constant conjunction of the one event followed by the other, which gives us the idea of cause effect?
Quoting Ludwig V
Really? Could you come up with an example? Much of the math, science and logic are based on formulating proofs from the valid premises based on the rational ground, and we do accept them when it makes sense.
No one was suggesting to be 100% formal logic, Formal logic is a subject which studies propositional validities, which can aid human thoughts and scientific theories to be more rational.
That would mean children born deaf can think well enough to function, communicate and learn sign language. In fact, they begin to invent their own signals between 8 and 12 month, and can be taught the rudiments of ASL at that time, just as hearing babies begin to learn spoken language. They all do need sensory and intellectual stimulation. For non-verbal feral children the requirements of survival would provide plenty of stimulation, as it also does for fox kits and fledgling geese.
That is a good explanation. Now how about the Glory of Islam, 8th to 13th century, and the decline? How about China that was more advanced than all of Europe and its decline?
What has caused advancing civilizations to decline and in some cases to totally distruct?
Your link requires a subscription so I look for another. It is a fascinating subject and I am so glad you brought it up. Hellen Keller was deaf and blind and she did not have language until she was taught language. Young children are dependent on caregivers and function without language. And here is the link I found. Thank you for making us aware of such information.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven.
Nations grow rich, then powerful and their rulers grow ambitious. They have the wealth to raise large, well-equipped armies, and the constant anxiety of being overlooked by envious neighbours and hostile rivals. So they go forth to conquer and build empires. The sons and grandsons of these war leaders may not be equal to the task of consolidating and maintaining their forebears' empires; they become complacent and self-indulgent. Factions form among the aristocracy, each group plotting to take over the reins if/when the legitimate ruler falters. The military is overstretched; too expensive to supply efficiently, unable to deliver enough booty from the colonies; the troops are fed up with occupation duties and replacements are harder to recruit, the farther from home they're expected to serve. There are too many subject peoples chafing under foreign domination, looking for a chance to revolt. Meanwhile, those hostile rivals haven't disappeared; they've been growing stronger and richer, forming alliances, perhaps amalgamating: a young, energetic empire is emerging to challenge the superpower of the day.
This historical pattern has nothing to do with human 'advancement', but during the period when each empire is near the top of its cycle, a great many cultural, scientific and technological innovations flourish, because the empire has access to untapped natural and human resources, is motivated to develop those resources and has the material wherewithal to support them.
Quoting Athena
Shortage of funds, overreach, mismanagement, corruption, unsustainable disparity, internal unrest and ideological schism, external aggression, and sometimes climate change.
Testing hypothesis via observing behaviour is comparative assessment and as such presupposes testability.
There are some things at work here, beneath all our discourse/conversation about what counts as rational thought/minds. We're looking to further discriminate between different, sometimes and often conflicting conceptions, notions, sensible uses of "thought", "belief", "mind", etc. We're looking to set out all meaningful experience. In doing so, we go a long way towards acquiring knowledge of all minds to whom such experience is meaningful.
Do we or do we not have a way to know what's going on inside of the head of another thinking creature?
I think we do, and you've responded in kind. My issue with the phrase "what's going on in the heads" is that it presupposes a false equivalence. We can know plenty about what's going on inside the heads of ourselves and all other thinking creatures. It takes a little work to fill out.
What counts as rational thought of another creature if that thought is not somehow meaningful to the creature? This entire thread topic rests upon actively working notions of meaningful thought.
Meaningful thought emerged long before naming and describing practices.
Prelinguistic meaningful experience(s) happened prior to being talked about.
Some smart animals can learn how to operate certain latches such that they can let themselves out, whenever they want, whenever they should so desire or if the need should ever arise.
Latches, wants, memories, desires, needs... a creature capable of drawing correlations between these things such that the endeavor connects the creature to the world.
We can know that a language less creature cannot have all the exact same thoughts as a language user. For example, some creatures cannot think about their own worldview. Those missing such capabilities cannot think about other worldviews either. Such thoughts and beliefs require articulation<-------None of those are capable of being formed, held, and/or had by language less creatures.
All thought is the target. Articulated thought misses the mark. Propositional attitudes miss the mark. Belief statements miss the mark.
Meaningful experience does not. All meaningful experiences consist - in very large part - of thought and belief about the world and/or oneself(where possible). Internal and external elements. Spatiotemporal locations of thought/mind are a chimera. "In the head" presupposes such...
You are quite right that that classes are abstract objects and that they range over particulars. But it doesn't follow that all abstract objects are classes.
Quoting Janus
Well, we can agree on that, though we may find complications if we looked more closely at the detail.
Quoting Janus
You are quite right, particularly about the hissing being an expression. The difference between that and a symbol would take some teasing out but set that aside. The lack of a convention does suggest that it is not. When we say that the goose is expressing anger and hostility, we are recognizing (and telling others) that one should expect a defensive reaction if you behave in certain ways. Recognizing that pattern of behaviour is recognising the meaning of the hiss. Our interpretation of, and talk about, the hiss is our application of our description.
Quoting Corvus
You surprise me. I thought that was what you were suggesting. It's good to know that I was wrong.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quite so.
There's a lot packed in to your comments of the last few days. Thanks. I've had to be selective in what I reply to. I hope I've identified the best places to focus.
Quoting creativesoul
Do you mean false equivalence between human thinking and animal thinking? I was using the phrase to refer to what is often described as the phenomenology of thinking. Perhaps most helpful would be to talk about what people will report as their thinking.
Quoting creativesoul
Quite so. But I don't think there's any reason to suppose that meaningful thought without name or describing has been banished from human life. The complication is that we often want to talk about, or at least express such thoughts or experiences, and then we often find ourselves struck dumb or confused.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes, indeed. If we could identify what they are, we might make a leap forward in our understanding of what's going onin philosophical discussion of that topic. The question about animals is particularly useful because it is a specific application of those concepts in a particular context where we find it difficult to be sure how to apply them. Our paradigm of rational thinking is articulate thinking independent of action. But that depends on our language, and animals do not have that kind of language. So we disagree about how to apply them.
One of my difficulties here is that there is an almost irresistible temptation to think that what is at stake is a process that is independent of the action - a process that is referred to by "thinking" or "reasoning". I happen to have recently read Lee Braver's "Groundless Grounds". In that book, he articulates an idea of rational reconstruction as a way of coming to understand what is happening when we attribute the application of reason where there does not appear to be any such process involved. He doesn't mention animals, but I think that it is also a good way to understand what is going on when we attribute reason to animals.
One way of explaining this is by means of an analogy. Aristotle developed the concept of the practical syllogism. He doesn't claim that When I eat my breakfast, I must have said to myself "This is food. Food is good for me. I should eat this." (Partly because he recognizes that that process doesn't necessarily result in action.) What he is doing here is exactly parallel to what he does when he formulates the idea of the theoretical syllogism - "All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human. Socrates is mortal." It is a formulation that helps us analyze and understand the actual ways that humans think. Theoretical and practical syllogisms are rational reconstructions of thinking, not empirical descriptions.
I agree and I don't think I've said or implied otherwise. I'd say abstract objects are probably all generalizations, but I don't think generalization and class are coterminous. That said I'm not confident that on detailed analysis all abstract objects will trun out to be generalizations.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, that seems likely. Analysis always seems to discover complications since linguistic terms are only more or less definitive or determinate. Ambiguities proliferate under the analytic eye.
Quoting Ludwig V
Right, I think conventionality is the key difference between signs which count as symbols and those which do not.
Asking for grounds or justification for your belief, knowledge, actions and perception is not Formal Logic. It is just a rational thinking process for finding out if your beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational.
So when the goose hisses at me that is a sign (expression) of anger or hostility, which means that I do well to behave cautiously, yet I can only articulate what the sign means by using symbols. Obviously, then, the way I understand what the goose's hiss means, is by means of symbols, which the goose cannot use. Yet the difference in meaning between the two is hard to discern.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure.
Quoting Corvus
Why does it matter whether our beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational? Is it because that is how we know that they are true - or, in the case of actions, justified?
So it seems that even if I believe my perceptions without any grounds, I can justify them - that is, provide reasons (grounds) for believing them - after I come to believe them.
"Why does it matter"? :razz: What a delicious question. We can fall back on ancient beliefs to answer that question. Because, if we don't get things right and do the wrong things, the gods/nature will punish us. Coming from Athens the goal is to get things right. Meaning, understanding the universal laws and basing our decisions on knowledge of those laws, not our personal whims. However, to understand this, the masses must be educated to understand that reasoning and that is not how we have educated our young. Only the few who go to liberal colleges will understand that reasoning. If we wait until the young enter college before giving them a liberal education, the ignorant masses will outnumber the wise.
One serious problem is capitalism without wisdom or morals. If a person is going to work for low wages because the economy requires people who work for no pay or low wages, what is that person's reward for putting the health of the national economy first? Should we close these people out of society's benefits because they can not pay for those benefits, or do we need planning, cooperation, utilities and a big "thank you" as opposed to a snide "oh, that is welfare"? What is the rational way to educate and order a civilization?
I am not sure but I think animals tend to be limited by a might makes right mentality and because of our success and huge populations, our failure to base our decisions on knowledge of the bigger picture is disastrous.
What you said defines a problem with our notion of being "rational". 600 years ago it might have been rational to believe the Bible is the word of God, there was an Eden, an angry God could and would punish people, but given what we know today, is that belief rational? Arguing the Bible is the word of God may be a rational thing to do if we have no standard for "rational" meaning a fact that can be validated. And if we believe rational means facts that can be validated then the belief that the Bible is the word of God, is not rational thinking. A definition of "rational" that treats fantasy as equal to thought based on valid facts is problematic, isn't it?
I think this matters because I think a democracy needs to be clear about the difference between fact and fiction. A democracy must have education for rational thinking based on facts and understand what this has to do with morality. If we believe a God made us closer to angels than animals, or if we believe we have evolved along with the rest of the animals, it really matters. That is the center of our understanding of reality and decisions that must be based on reality.
It's not just my explanation https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10529410/
Why should "we" prevent history? Which empire would you like to keep in play? It's probably not the same one a Chinese businessman would choose, or a supporter of Modi. Should there be any empires at all? I don't think so, but that's what happens when a nation outgrows is own territory and is powerful enough to annex other territories and exploit their resources. What is it we'd be preserving? The same economic and political arrangement that caused the rapid decline.
We don't have time for the usual process to unfold. Much of the world is either under or threatened by imminent totalitarian rule. The economic disparity is huge and growing in all developed and developing countries alike. The weather isn't just causing local problems anymore: increasingly violent and frequent climate events are rendering large areas of the whole world uninhabitable. There are more people than have ever been, and huge populations are being displaced by famine, environment and war - everywhere. They have no place to go except the populated places that don't want them.
This isn't a discrete, identifiable civilization: this economy is global. When it implodes, there is literally nowhere to hide.
Here is a good article - of course, not everyone agrees.
Are we clear that this is a complete derail from the original subject? Saving or toppling the current civilization has no more to do with rational thinking than the life-cycles of previous civilizations did. Within the life of a tribe, nation or empire, many rational thinkers make decisions relating to whatever their role in that civilization is. But the social and natural and external forces that converge on it determine the path that civilization takes. That's more like an evolutionary process than a rational one.
OMG, your question excites me so much I can't wait to read what you have to say next without reacting to your question. My first thought is Athens. Athens made some bad mistakes as the beautiful explanation of the fall of civilizations you gave us made clear. But Athen's gift to the world is logic, a concept of logos, and a burning need to get things right. My second thought is the remains of ancient civilizations and thinking I do not know enough of them to judge which one was best. In good times and with a good pharaoh, I think I would be very happy worshipping the pharaoh and being a laborer who helped build the Great Pyramid. Those are two extremes of authority over the people, or holding the citizens responsible for government and the future.
Hellenism coming from Athens survived the fall of Athens and I believe it is the only hope humans have. There are two ways to have social control; authority over the people or culture (liberty, justice, and wisdom). A culture devoted to truth and morals may have the best chance of surviving.
Wow, I sure wish we could have lunch together and talk about the link you posted. The final paragraph is why I say I think democracy and an understanding of logos and morals (understanding cause and effect) is our only hope.
.
While reading that link I thought of Youngquist's book "GeoDestinies". He was a geologist and wrote two books. The first one was "Mineral Resources and the Destiny of Nations". We are about to face the exhaustion of vital resources and this will impact our food supply, economy, and standard of living. Rome fell in part because it exhausted its supply of gold when its civilization was in the last stages of excess wealth and high expectations. But today when I make people aware that our coins had value because of the minerals in them, and we have taken the minerals out of coins, no one sees the problem.:scream:
. Our history has pretty much paralleled the history of Athens.
If there is a Resurrection we may be in it now. The archeologist, geologist, and related sciences are resurrecting our past and it is our job to rethink everything and get past all our prejudices and notions of winners and losers and a God who has favorite people. Moving on to logos and universal thinking to save as much of our planet as we can save.
You're a bit late on that one! I meant - in response to Quoting Athena That would make it a choice among those that exist today.
Couple of problems with that. Without having read The Long Descent (I did read Gibbon on Rome)I suspect that he's not taken into account the relative speed at which the American Empire achieved global dominance or the way the industrial revolution and electronic technology have increased the speed of decline-inducing events: the depletion of natural resources world-wide, the stratification of societies, the environmental degradation, population growth and the spread of disease.
Where Athens was a self-contained city-state that could divorce itself from satellites if they became troublesome; while Rome could gradually abandon occupied territories if they became too burdensome, the US cannot even disengage from local wars of its own making; nor can it shed its international financial interests.
Quoting Athena
Show me the Messiah(s) who will be followed to this new life.
Tell me when the movement reaches world-changing momentum.
Quoting Athena
If that had happened in 1975, we'd have stood a chance. Carter made some effort.... Reagan killed it. The way many Americans remember them is : Reagan, one of the best presidents, ever; Carter, one of the worst. Nearly half of them want an incompetent, incontinent, addled fascist for the next four crucial years. Logos is huddled in a corner, nursing his bruises and sniffling.
You could respond instinctively to the gooses hissing which I would say would be a non-symbolically mediated understanding of it. Discursive knowledge would seem to be always in symbolic form I guess.
Would that be an appropriate response? You might instinctively take it as a friendly greeting, or as just something geese do with no meaning.
In fact, it's a simple enough communication, usually accompanied by threatening stance and body language. Why do you need symbols as an intermediary? Why not regard what's in front of you, recognize the gestures as similar to those of other animals - including your own species - in similar circumstances, and reasonably assume that the goose does not welcome your presence in her personal space or nesting ground, and make a rational decision to retreat?
Any reasonable person would want his / her beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions to be rational than irrational. No one wants to have beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions which are irrational by human nature. That is why it does matter for your beliefs, actions, knowledge or perceptions to be rational.
Religious beliefs always have been from the blind faith rather than anything to do with being rational or irrational. And at the time, when the religious authorities were ruling the society, it was more of the ruthless mad social system, which enforced people with the barbaric punishments rather than being rational or irrational. People had no options but abide by the system out of fear, rather than being rational.
You should be very careful not to be deceived by the word democracy. It could mean, that you must do anything irrational to justify the word. It would be wiser to stay critical and analytical on these fancy words which can be hollow inside, but can force people to irrational actions and thoughts.
All true. So why the symbol question? I've seen it bandied about and argued over, but I can't figure out the significance of it.
Well, I would say that an economy that requires people to work for wages that cannot sustain a decent life is broken. But that requirement is so common that I suspect I'm just being idealistic. Still, it seems inhumane and immoral not to see those jobs as problematic.
If only we could get away from the idea that welfare is charity! In a broken economy, it may be true. But it just reinforces exploitation. Welfare is not charity. It is insurance - pooling risks that would be catastrophic for individuals so that they can be dealt with or at least ameliorated. Life insurance is not charity, but common sense. Of course, some people prefer to stick to the short-term and drive their cars. That's why car insurance is a legal requirement. But, rationally speaking, insurance makes sense and is not charity. More than that, rationally speaking again, there are some risks that are so large that only the state can take them on.
But the reason for the introduction of the very first state welfare system (in Prussia in the late 19th century) was neither charitable nor an insurance policy. It was a question of riot control by a rigidly conservative and aristocratic chancellor - Bismarck. There are articles about it in, for example, Wikipedia.
Welfare is enlightened and rational self-interest, not charity.
Well, given the definition that we have of what a symbol is, any knowledge that is discursive would be in human-style language, so it follows that it would be in symbolic form.
But I like the idea of a non-symbolically mediated understanding it, though I'm taking that as what is called "tacit" knowledge. But then, we have to acknowledge that human beings are also capable of that same form of understanding.
"Instinctively" is a bit of a trap. Strictly speaking, instinctive behaviour is a set behaviour pattern that is not learned, but inherited. It is not, therefore, based on any process of learning or reasoning. It is capable of rational justification at the level of evolution as contributing to the ability of the creature to sruvive and reproduce. Most, if not all, behaviour, of sentient creatures is a combination of instinct, learning and response to the relevant context. Spiders do not learn to weave webs, but they weave them in a context and adapt the pattern to suit. Newly-born foals struggle to their feet and look for milk responding to and managin in the actual context they are in.
Thinking about this, there's no doubt that there are instinctive elements in our reading of body language - very small babies respond to smiling faces. But they can recognize mother at a very early stage, which must be learnt. Again, the behaviour of lobsters in cages when they are frightened is not difficult to recognize. But we do have to learn much body language in order to read it and it does not follow from the fact that we can read human body language that we can read the body language of other creatures without learning. But small children do have to be taught to recognize the body language of dogs.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes. It is possible, of course, that the unlearned response of the goose to a threat is recognizable by analogy with the threatening behaviour of other creatures and is recognized on that basis. No doubt those unlearned responses have evolved to work across species. A threat that was only recognized by other geese would be much less useful that one that can be recognized by other species.
Quoting Vera Mont
The idea is that use of symbols is a distinctively human capacity - and the basis of our kind of language. If you look into what philosophers have said about it, there's a great deal of confusion about it. Peirce, for example, treats both what we call signs as distinct from symbols in the same class and calls that class "symbols". Cassirer doesn't seem to discuss what we are calling signs at all, though he does distinguish between symbolic meaning and "expressive meaning". This is not territory that I'm familiar with. I'm just illustrating how messy the philosophy of this topic is.
(Signs are here used to mean "Smoke means (is a sign of) fire" or "Clouds mean (are a sign of) rain" - causal connections. Not everyone draws the same distinction.)
Quoting Janus
I agree. Discursive knowledge needs to be seen as a species-specific capacity alongside the species-specific capacity of bats and dolphins to find their way by echo-location, not as a radical distinction between humans and other species.
You could, but if it is irrational, then others will not agree with your justification. Being rational means also it has to be objective. Your problem seem to be confusion between intelligence and knowledge with reasoning and being rational. They are not the same.
.Quoting P. Bennetch, Cornell Chronicle
Dolphins are known to use signature whistles, and to be able to mimic other dolphins' signature whistles. It seems likely that the more intelligent animals employ a limited range of symbolic vocalisations.
Dolphin whistles
Yes, that's a good way to answer the question. "Any reasonable person..." By definition, nobody could be reasonable unless they preferred being rational to being irrational. Which means that, as a definition, what you say is circular. But that's perfectly OK in this case.
The usual answer is that rationality is our way to truth (or justification in the case of actions). That's circular as well, since truth is what rationality delivers.
Rationality is what delivers the truth, so there can be no question whether rationality delivers truth. It would be like trying to measure the standard metre in Paris in order to find out whether it is a metre long.
What you end up with is that rationality provides the justification for everything else and therefore has no rational justification.
Quoting Corvus
H'm that's a bit quick. What about people like Aquinas or Descartes who believed that they had rational arguments for belief in God? That's quite different from belief from blind faith. True, most people (but not all) believe their arguments were not valid. But they certainly weren't blind faith.
There are theologians who take as their starting-point the "presupposition" that the Bible is the word of God. It has something of the status of an axiom. Something posited as true, but not capable of being proved or disproved. Their theology follows by rational process. Sometimes rational thinking has irrational elements.
Quoting Corvus
My problem is that I've never been able to grasp a clear meaning for the term "intelligence". So I mostly ignore it, especially in philosophy.
And whales learn songs both from their own and from other pods.
Learning is common to all species that operate in a complex environment (i.e. not underground of stuck to a cave wall) Some learning is solitary experimentation, the way an octopus does. But the social species of mammals and birds teach their young a considerable amount of knowledge and skills.
We were not talking about truth here. We were talking about whether your knowledge or beliefs were rational or irrational. For that, you need to verify your knowledge or beliefs if they are not from deductive reasoning.
Quoting Ludwig V
Aquinas and Descartes were the people who used rational thinking to prove the existence of God. They were not the religious authorities who punished the general public based on the faiths and religious social codes.
Quoting Ludwig V
Intelligence means knowing something, or being able to do something in coherent way. It is not same as reflecting, analyzing, criticizing and proving something, which are what rational thinking does.
Doesn't "verify" mean something like to demonstrate the truth or accuracy of something, as by the presentation of evidence? In that case, we must be talking about truth. Though you are right that it is possible to believe something on rational grounds and be wrong.
Quoting Corvus
I thought it was something like the ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge. That would make it something different from knowledge but more about how to acquire knowledge.
Yes, it is an inherent mental capability - although, like all inborn, or *hold nose* hard-wired traits, it can be dulled or enhanced by environmental factors. Intelligent beings learn to navigate the world by gathering information through their senses and formulating experimental approaches to the problems they encounter.
The information on which they must base decisions comes from the environment. In the case of humans, that ambient information matrix is linguistic and cultural, as well as physical and sensory. If a religious concept, or gender prejudice or architectural style or economic organization is embedded in the culture, those things become, from infancy, part of the 'knowledge' an individual gathers. Those verities form part of the world in which he operates as a problem-solving entity.
At some stage of intellectual development, some of the sharper individuals may question the verities of their culture, the assumptions with which they were raised. In human cultures, such questions can be hazardous; it is often safer not to voice them. Whether a thinker believes in God or not, the example of Galileo fresh in his mind, he [Descartes] may deem it more rational to justify the existence of God than to cast doubt upon it. Or, understanding the dynamics of his society, a career priest [Augustine] might propound Christian/Platonic values as a rational way to support the status quo. Rational thought is less often used in the service of Truth than in achieving goals.
Truth emerges when your belief or knowledge is examined and verified by reason. Reason itself cannot deliver truth as you claim.
You should trace back what you said in this thread. You said that your belief and knowledge are rational because you believe and know something. I said, no it cannot be rational or irrational until they are verified. Then you deviated from the point, claiming that rationality delivers truth. I am not sure what that means. You need to give more elaboration on that point what it means.
We were not talking about truth, and truth as a property of belief or knowledge has nothing to do with rational thinking. Your knowledge on something can be rational, but still be wrong.
Quoting Ludwig V
You have modified the content of my post with your own writing. That is not what I wrote in my post on what intelligence means. It would help clarifying the points if you could go over what intelligence means, and what reasoning means in general terms, and think about the difference between the two.
It is true that one can believe something on rational grounds, and be wrong. But if you are wrong, you didn't know it. Knowledge cannot be wrong. If someone believes that it will rain on Tuesday, and it doesn't, they didn't know that it will rain on Tuesday.
Quoting Corvus
You seem to be misunderstanding me. I didn't modify your post at all. I simply presented to you my own definition of intelligence, which is different from yours.
Quoting Corvus
If reason cannot deliver truth, then it cannot verity my belief or knowledge.
Quoting Corvus
Clearly, we have different concepts of rationality. If rationality has nothing to do with truth, what is the point of it? How does it differ from reading tea leaves of consulting an astrologer?
There is certainly a problem about rational justification if one allows that someone can be justified in believing something and be wrong; it becomes even more confusing if you allow that someone can know something and be wrong. But the answer is to find a solution.
Yes, that's the idea that the psychologists are pursuing. But the evidence for the existence of such a mental capacity is thin, to say the least.
IQ tests were supposed to be such that one could not benefit from practising. But it turns out that you can, although it is also true that there is a limit to how much one can improve. It also turns out that IQ questions are culturally biased and it is very difficult to construct questions that are not biased in that way.
Everything that we learn to do is the result of our genes and our environment working together; one simply cannot disentangle one from the other.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, that's true. But I don't think we should be too hard on people who go along with the conventional views in society. It's perfectly possible to accept orthodoxy, not because it is easier, but because it seems to you to be true or even because you can't conceive of an alternative. It took thousands of years for us to develop the idea that there is something wrong with slavery and racism, and it seems absurd to think that all those people were morally deficient in some way.
I'm motivated by the reflection that much of what we believe and take for granted is likely to turn out to be false, or at least to be replaced by some other orthodoxy by our children or children's children. So I think I'm living in a glass house and don't want to start throwing stones.
They're also administered way too late. You have to be literate and numerate to take one; at least 10 years old. By then, whatever experiences you've had since birth formed most of your thinking. There are tests for development - generally aimed at detecting problems - but I'm not sure they're as reliable as the ones given to dogs and crows. Anecdotally, I can tell you that bright parents tend to have bright kids and stupid parents usually have dumb kids, and I could pick the most intelligent toddlers out of a day-care by watching them pay for twenty minutes. But that's not scientific evidence.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm not! Quite the reverse: I'm saying that those who didn't stick their necks out for what we consider "the truth" today were acting rationally. So are those who go along to get along now. (Maybe not Bezos, hedging his political bets...)
Quoting Ludwig V
Some of them always knew. Very possibly, most of them did, whether they could conceive of an alternative or not. For damn sure, the gladiators in Rome did, and the abducted Africans in American cotton fields. The captives felt it was wrong to be captured, but when they had the chance, they would do the same to an enemy. Nobody wants to be first to stop: it's a sign of weakness. The Quakers knew, and early Mormons and the Cathari long before them. But... The Economy!!!! There is no bloody way a man doesn't know that it's wrong to batter his wife, or a woman doesn't know it's wrong to cripple her little granddaughter's feet, but one has license to unleash his temper and the other has cultural norms to uphold. It's convenient to go along, as well as safer and easier. But there have always been rebels who spoke out against the wrongs in their society - they mostly got killed in unpleasant ways - so we know those wrongs were perceived, even back then when everyone was supposed to be blind.
Checking out you knew or not, that is the work of reason. Reason itself is not truth.
Quoting Ludwig V
It is a very peculiar way of putting down your own definition on someone else's writing, making out as if it was written by someone else.
Quoting Ludwig V
Does reason deliver truth? It sounds not making sense. The sentence "Reason delivers truth." sounds not correct. Reason brings truth to you at your door step? Like a Amazon delivery van delivers what you have ordered from Amazon? I am not sure if that was what you meant. Hope not. You find out truth or falsity on something using reason.
Quoting Ludwig V
Rationality is a method to finding truth, but rationality itself is not truth. We do have different ideas not just on rationality, but also truth. All the best.
I'm sorry I misunderstood you.
Quoting Vera Mont
I understood that as saying that Augustine might propound Christian/Platonic values in order to support the status quo - which is true. But then he would be guilty of hypocrisy. I wanted to point out that it is also possible that he might propound those values because he believed in Christianity and Platonism, whether or not they supported the status quo.
There are many cases when it is very hard to assess people. Heidegger (support for Nazism) and Hegel (support for the Prussian monarchy) are particularly difficult cases. Descartes has also been suspected, maybe because of his explicit policy of accepting orthodox morality while he is applying his methodology of doubt. I'm just saying that I don't think we should rush to judgement. But I see now that you were not rushing to judgement and I was. So I apologize.
Quoting Vera Mont
I'm not quite sure what you are saying here. Practical reason is inherently morally ambiguous; a bad actor can be entirely rational. It is only theoretical reason that is in the service of truth.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quite so. But there it can be very hard to tell which of them has really put their finger on an actual wrong, as opposed to a perceived wrong.
Quoting Vera Mont
That's certainly an acid test.
Quoting Patterner
You are right about slavery and genocide. The (rather few) days when we could all be confident in the eventual triumph of western liberal values are long gone. It's all been a big let down.
But one cannot aspire to moral standards unless they can be articulated in the world that one lives in and I don't think it is appropriate to apply the standards of other societies to lives lived in that way. For example, the first traces in history of human rights did not appear until the fifth century BCE - in Persia. It took a long time before the idea was articulated in the late Roman Empire and even longer before Thomas Paine was able to articulate them with some clarity in the 18th century CE.
All that can be expected or required of us is to get along as well as we can in the world that we know, with all its many imperfections. That's the only standard that it is reasonable to apply. The virtues of saints and heroes are supererogatory - beyond what is required or expected. Certainly, they are to be admired, but it is not necessary to imitate them in order to live a good life.
I don't know about that, which is why I said 'might'. I do know Descartes was. I was only interested in the rationality of their thought, whatever the rationale - not in whether they actually believed in the product.
I'm not assessing people or judging their morals or psychoanalyzing them: I'm only concerned with whether the thought process being exhibited is rational or irrational. Without accusing anyone specific of lying, it is very often the most rational approach to a situation; a lunatic can shout out what he really thinks and feels, if he's heedless of the consequences. Quoting Ludwig V
Again, I'm not concerned with anyone's morality. I'm concerned with judging whether a thought process is rational or irrational. If it achieves a discernible goal, opens a gate, invents a helicopter, evades a predator, earns you a promotion, liberates the cookies from the box, it's rational thought, whatever motivated the goal, whatever tactics were employed.
Both require facts which are true. If one's goal is to discover some particular truth, like who broke into the Watergate, or whether Christine has been unfaithful, or how magnetism and electricity interact, or how many marbles will raise the water level so you can reach the treat, it's still goal-oriented thought. I don't believe there such a thing as a great big all-encompassing Truth to which you can apply rational thought. You can think quite a lot about how to talk about Truth, but you can't comprehend it with reason; the Truth is too abstract to capture with anything but faith. (Not saying definitively that It isn't 'out there'; only that I can't believe in it.)
Quoting Ludwig V
Of course. My point was only that social injustices were always perceived by some people, even against an overwhelming cultural norm.
You can only judge according to your own values. If you assume that enslaving people is wrong and somebody in 400BCE spoke up against it, you're likely to think he perceived correctly. If you think people should be equal under the law, you'll probably disagree with the perception of legislators who blocked women's and Chinese immigrants' voting rights. Whether you think they were/are right or wrong, these actions are rational. The perceived/actual grievances of Maga cultists would be very difficult to sort out, but we could each do it, given a comprehensive list to compare with our own convictions. (but I can't drink hard liquor anymore)
Let's use rational thinking. The Messiah is based on a myth. Information collected from science and history is based on valid facts.
It took doctors at least a hundred years to believe sanitation was important after the first curious people began looking at bacteria in microscopes. Today knowledge spreads much faster. People in biblical times could not know of a distant war, as we know of our wars today, as they are happening in live color and full sound. That does not mean climate change, disease, famine, and lack of resources will not bring civilizations down, but it does mean we have a chance of making better decisions and this might just happen if we had a functioning democracy. A functioning democracy depends on education for that purpose. We had such an education in the past but not since the 1958 National Defense Education BUT some teachers and schools are better than others and a few people are making a difference.
This discussion goes far beyond what animals talk about, and this is why we should understand the difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Squacking a warning and responding to the roar of a bear or lion is communication, but it is not the language of humans. It is language and rational thinking that separates some of us from animals. Believing a mythology about a god making humans and then cursing them and punishing them or rewarding them is not rational thinking based on facts.
In the 1920s a small article in a newspaper warned, "Given our known supply of oil and rate of consumption, we are headed for economic disaster and possibly war". Soon after that all industrial economies crashed and the world went to war. Following the war, we maintained the social and economic behavior that brought us to war. That is not rational. We are behaving like animals incapable of rational thinking because we evolved from animals. Our ability to be rational is blocked by religion and ignorance. That is something we can change. We may not do so before destroying our planet and making our present civilizations impossible, but I do believe we can make better decisions.
"All gods have anger issues. Athena was just as petty and vengeful as the others." Wikipedia
:rage: Obviously you are ignorant of the ideology of democracy. That is a widespread problem. It would be wiser for you to question what you believe and what I believe, instead of making assumptions and attacking something you may not understand. It matters because it is the difference of having hope for the future or complete hopelessness. That hope is based on human intelligence and potential and only by being rational is that hope founded. So explain what think democracy is and why you object to it. This is the difference between reacting like an animal or reacting like a rational human.
You should be very careful about offending Athena.
I agree with everything you said. When Britain had to prepare for the war, it realized most of its military-age men were unfit to serve in the army and it was a matter of national survival to improve the health of the labor force. Industry was asked to pay higher wages to improve the condition of those living in poverty and Industry said it could not pay higher wages because that make everything cost more and they would lose their competitive advantage on the global market. That is around the world workers are being used as cheap labor so their nations can compete for world markets. Welfare subsidizes Industry by providing the assistance low wagers need. Only we have very little understanding of this so we are not managing our reality well.
Remember the saying cheap as dirt? It meant we had land and resources than people, and housing was very cheap. That is no longer true.
Like you said: hundreds of years for this, decades for that.... Have you noticed what's happening in the US election? We simply ran out of time. What's the point of 'making better choices' when everyone left on the planet is fighting over the last habitable acre?
Oh, I agree with you entirely about Truth. But I do think there are truths. (After that, it all gets complicated.)
Quoting Vera Mont
That's true. But I would only make judgement taking into account the situation or context of the action - especially when it is very different from my own. BTW, I've heard people commenting on Descartes' personal moral stance before, but I've never quite understood what the problem is.
Quoting Athena
Yes. Somehow, that important truth has got lost in public discussion in these days .
Quoting Athena
It is very curious that industry can be relied on to adopt the narrowest point of view. It's not as if industry doesn't end up footing the bill for their starvation wages. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they might have to pay smaller taxes if only they paid a decent wage and make bigger profits because they would have a larger market for their goods.
Quoting Corvus
No, not like that at all. Your way of putting it is better.
Quoting Corvus
Quoting Corvus
But then, I just don't understand what you mean by these comments. Reason and truth are not the same thing. But they are connected. You seem to recognize that, but then deny it. I must be missing something.
No problem. After Galileo had his little confrontation with the good fathers - and quite rationally stood down from his heretical belief in the Earth moving around the sun - every thinker in Europe had some difficult moments rethinking their strategy. So Descartes has his big truth-seeking exercise: purges his mind of all beliefs, everything he's ever been taught, delves way down in there for one incontrovertible fact and comes up with "I exist" OK... "But wait, here's another incontrovertible truth: God. Didn't learn about God; it wasn't a belief: I just happened to find Him in here at the bottom of my completely empty mind. And now, I shall proceed to unfold my theory of a mechanistic universe, only God's winding all the clockwork animals. Oh, and people are a mechanistic body with a completely independent, immaterial soul.
Are you convinced of his sincerity?
You can't be moral when you're dead - so you compromise to stay alive. That's rational. The same person who made that compromise might still be honest with his friends, faithful to his wife, accurate in his court testimony, prompt in the payment of his debts and play a clean game of billiards.
Why insist that anyone be pure in both thinking and probity? That's just not human. The insides of our heads are never swept clean like Descartes imagined that one time.
I think I have tried to clarify the points enough from my side. There is nothing much more for me to add here. You seem to keep going around circle of deviation. I will leave you to it.
I am bowing out from this thread. All the best.
I agree. I don't even understand what you mean by a circle of deviation. I was indeed deviating in the sense that I was trying to break out of your circle of repetition. Best wishes to you as well.
Oddly enough, I am convinced of Descartes' sincerity. It is Galileo who gets himself into a morally complicated situation. (I mean that he could be accused of hypocrisy, but I think he was (rationally and morally) justified in what he did.)
Galileo, as you say, recanted. The inquisitors forbade him from teaching or even discussing his heretical theory. However, the story goes that, as he left the Vatican, he paused on the steps and said (to himself) "Even so, it moves". If he had said that in the hearing of the inquisitors, he would thereby have recanted his recantation. But he kept that remark to himself, thus leading the inquisitors to believe that he had rejected the theory that he actually believed - the essence of hypocrisy. But I agree with you about the need to survive as best we can, so I have no criticism of him.
Descartes' position is also complicated, but much less black-and-white than Galileo's. Of course, I don't question the repressive regime that all these guys lived under, and his position is not entirely clear; I don't deny that he may have been influenced by it. But the key point is that his scepticism is a thought-experiment. He presents his story in the Meditations as if he is really believing the sceptical conclusions. But his introduction makes it clear that he doesn't, and the reader knows perfectly well that he is going to go on and rescue the situation. The genius of the Meditations is that it is a story with a plot exactly like every adventure (thriller) story - disaster looms and seems inevitable, but our hero risks everything in order to dash in and rescue the situation. There are arguments, to be sure, but the suspense of the plot does the real work of persuasion. True, the world will seem different, but we are safe and that's the important thing. T.S. Eliot says it well - after all our wanderings we will come back home "and know the place for the first time"; there may even be toast and honey for tea. It is very odd that Descartes and Hume are both classified as sceptical philosophers, when actually, they are nothing of the kind.
The difference between the two is that Galileo pretended to accept that his theory was an erroneous hypothesis when he believed that it was a true account and while Descartes never pretended that his scepticism was more than a possibility; he was exploring it n order to refute it.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, I agree with you. There's a kind of morality that makes black-and-white judgements and refuses to acknowledge complexity and ambiguity. Everyone has to duck and cover in order to get along. But without that society could not function. Keeping the peace and the show on the road are practically and morally important goals both for individuals and for the collective.
Of course, Galileo was both right and wrong. He endorsed the Copernican system (Copernicus himself was rational enough not to publish in his lifetime) and rejected the far more accurate Keplerian system.
Descartes God was a creative invention, just like his clockwork world. It's easy to play back-and-dorth with fiction; take no principles at all.
Right. I term it 'implicit knowledge' with its explicitation (usually termed explication) being enabled by symbolic language.
Quoting Ludwig V
I think it is plausible to think that we and the other animals may have an instinct to copy behavior. So some behaviors may be a combination of instinctive and learned. Learned not in the sense of deliberately taught but in the sense of acquired by mimicry.
Quoting Ludwig V
I think we can instinctively read some body language both human and animal. I agree that the understanding of some body language must be learned. Not learned in the sense of being deliberately taught of course.
Quoting jkop
Does it follow that the parrot's signaling is symbolic though? I think part of what I would count as the possession of symbolic language consists in the ability to explicitly understand that such and such a sound, gesture or mark conventionally stands for whatever it symbolizes.
The same question as above regarding the dolphins. And not I am not denying that other animals might possess symbolic language. I'm questioning whether we have clear evidence that they do as opposed to having some evidence that they might.
The true test for whether other animals have symbolic language is not empirical but depends on what is meant by 'language'. Other animals don't seem to have anything that resembles our verbal language, but they may have other kinds of languages, and so do humans.
All animals use signals or symbols in the basic sense that a symbol is something that stands for something else. For example, an insect identifies a scent or sound or gesture, which symbolizes the presence of nutrients, mates, predators etc. Animals who live in groups benefit from shared symbolic labor, hence the evolution of genetically wired and socially acquired symbol systems.
There are many different kinds of symbol systems, also among humans. Human language is a verbal symbol system which has some syntactic and semantic properties that distinguishes it from non-verbal systems such as pictorial or musical or gestural that we also use.
So we might agree that other animals don't have a symbolic language in the sense that the language has the kind of syntactic and semantic properties that human verbal language has. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that they have other symbolic languages. I find it uncontroversial that I'm using symbolic language based on gestures and sounds when I talk to my cat.
H'm. You seem to really have it in for Descartes. He is iconic and takes a lot of stick. But he wasn't the one who invented God, or even the argument he used to argue for the reality of that God. True, he contributed massively to the clockwork world, there were many others involved as well. But still, you're not wrong.
Quoting Janus
That's perfectly true and I think that mimicry is more important to our learning that is generally recognized. People seem to prefer to emphasis association. I don't know why. Aristotle knew better, of course, and I think he may be alone amongst the canonical philosophers in that.
Quoting Janus
There's a bit of a problem with that. Articulating our understanding of how to use words and construct sentences is much more difficult than it seems. For the most part, mostly our use of language is underpinned by skills that we do not, and often cannot, articulate.
I see our language capability as a hyper-development of abilities that (all? most?) animals have to a greater or less extent. Other species have hyper-developed other abilities, such as the hyper-development of echo-location in bats and dolphins or vision in hawks and other predator birds.
In for? You mean judge him as I would any mortal making his way in the real world? Okay, I do hate what he and his cohort did to our relationship with nature and other species, the two hundred years of suffering they inflicted on helpless animals. He's not responsible for that; he's just a participant who was clever enough to make himself an icon. My insignificant opinion won't deter any of his fans.
But we were not talking about that. I was referring to his very sensible use of God to avoid confrontation with the Inquisition. Spending time in the more tolerant Netherlands was a smart move, too. Icons are for the faithful. I have no faiths. But I would have pretended whatever was required if the inquisitors had their eye on me; I certainly don't fault anyone for doing it, and if they're clever enough, turning it to their own advantage.
Quoting Ludwig V
He just pretended to rediscover it after ridding himself of all learned beliefs. It was merely an example of rational thinking not subjugated to truth.
That's fair enough. I actually agree about the suffering. It's just that I doubt that he and his colleagues made much practical difference. It's not as if animal welfare has ever been a moral issue before our time.
Quoting Vera Mont
That's a question of his motivation. There's a passage in the Discourse on Method where he says that while he is subjecting his beliefs to methodical doubt, he sticks to conventional views. That can certainly be read as pragmatic rather than sincere.
Quoting Vera Mont
It would prefer "after supposedly ridding himself of all learned beliefs". It is hard to believe he hadn't read Aquinas' Five Ways and it wouldn't be surprising if he did a bit of cherry-picking through the rubbish.
It was a moral issue in Descartes' time. He defended his entrenched mechanistic position in many arguments. His main theme was: They have no souls; therefore they feel neither pleasure nor pain. But admitted that they can exhibit "passions".... The guy had a dog in his house. Was he unable to see the dog's responses as being like his own, or he did he choose to ignore the similarity because it wasn't convenient? Remember, this is not a stupid man; he's defending a theory - at least in public.Quoting Ludwig V
I was skeptical, too. But it's what he claimed as the object of the exercise: get to the truth by doubting everything he'd ever been taught or believed. (Except that.)
Why are you going on out on a plausibility limb to defend a hypocrisy that can't be sanctioned or punished at this late date? It served his purpose, so that was the rational path.
I was referring to a more modest capacity—the ability to articulate that we can use words and construct sentences. I wasn't claiming that we can articulate in any comprehensive sense how it is that we are able to do that.
Yes, because the ability to understand things in the environment remotely via symbols (natural or socially constructed) is a function of any animal's interest.
Bees, for instance, are interested in flowers, and benefit from having a specific symbol system (waggles) for sharing the direction and distance to flowers. Bees can identify their own and each other's functions and symbolic behaviours.
However, to understand oneself or one's possession of symbolic language is either necessary nor sufficient for possessing symbolic language.
Well, if you said that Galileo was a hypocrite, I would agree on the basis that it was, technically, but justified on the basis that being tortured or burnt at the stake was an unreasonable price to pay for following a purely academic line of research and so lying was a rational way to get out of his situation, even though, if you are a Kantian, lying is always wrong. Why? Because he explicitly contradicted himself. Descartes' case is much less clear. I'm just calling it as I see it.
Quoting Vera Mont
There's a genuine argument against radical scepticism, that no-one can seriously doubt that he is now sitting beside a stove, which will burn one if one isn't careful. Descartes isn't quite in that bracket because he frames his doubt as "merely" theoretical.
Quoting Vera Mont
There's not way of knowing, and consequently no evidence that it was just a matter of convenience.
Quoting Vera Mont
I had heard of Cudworth. But I didn't know he crossed swords with Descartes. However, his critique is milder than yours, in my book.
I would expect, however that Cudworth did not think that animals had souls and did think that because they did not, they were of less or no moral value and consequently eating them was perfectly OK.
Quoting Janus
Well, yes. Animals cannot articulate anything in that way. But that takes us back to the question what the significance is of the various species-unique abilities we can learn - given that every species is unique in some way.
Of course it was. Wouldn't you? Joan of Arc was crazy; Giordano Bruno was an ideologue. Most of us normal people practice some degree of hypocrisy, simply to get by, and more to get along.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm not, and that's a ridiculous, unrealistic position. Also, in many case, immoral.
Quoting Ludwig V
He learned a lesson from other men's examples. He was smarter than most of his contemporaries - smarter than Galileo who seems to have considered himself the smartest man alive.
Quoting Ludwig V
That doesn't persuade me of his sincerity. If it persuades you, all's well.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. He was encumbered by the 'soul' issue; I'm not.
Quoting Ludwig V
That's just how he did justify the moral position held by a minority of thinkers at the time that it's wrong to torture animals.
Descartes also preferred to replace "vivisection/torture" with "killing and eating" in the moral argument. It's way more acceptable to defend throwing chunks of beef in a pot than dislocating a dog's shoulders and hips, then nailing his paws to a plank and slitting his belly open, all the while he's screaming in agony. Most people who object to torture (then and now) do not object to killing enemies in war, or eating humanely-killed flesh. Most people in the argument do not draw the moral line at possession of a soul or human language (though some philosophers still do) but at deliberate infliction of pain on a sentient being, for whatever reason. Let's shift those posts back to the real issue.
Of which vivisection was an offshoot. It does demonstrate hypocrisy: he could maintain - paraphrased by the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche - that animals “eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it; they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.” and yet take Monsieur Grat for a walk, fully expecting that the dog would not shit on his rug, expecting him to obey commands and and appreciate treats.
But it's the God argument I originally mentioned.
Had he been entirely honest in that meditation, he would have questioned all beliefs, rather than making the church's case. Theoretically. Funny, how it all works out, innit?
I never blamed him for that hypocrisy: it was the rational choice.
That God/soul problem persisted in all philosophical arguments as long as the HRC held Europe in its grip. After the Reformation, thinking became a little more free and diverse, even though most Protestant sects were also intolerant of agnostic ideas - but at least they didn't have an Inquisition to cow their own congregants into silence. A couple of them still persecuted witches and expelled heretics, but they were less dangerous than the unchecked (and profoundly corrupt) Catholic church.
Quoting Ludwig V
Convenience was my guess. You have other choices: absolute conviction in the teeth of all evidence, willful self-delusion, subconscious delusion, fear of prosecution, sadistic monster.... More if you can find them. But I still don't understand why you want to, when it's independent of the serendipitous discovery of God (....the majority of whose creatures are nothing but noisy machines. Pretty damn disrespectful of the Creator for a devout Christian - but that, too, is beside the point.) All humans compartmentalize their beliefs and attitudes. There are no sane, intelligent, totally honest humans.
Yes, I agree that every species is unique in some way. For us it just happened to be symbolic language (unless there is at least one other species that unbeknownst to us also possesses it).
Quoting jkop
I guess it all depends on how you define "symbolic language". As I see it the abstractive ability that enables explicit self-reflective awareness would be the defining feature.
Quoting jkop
For non-symbolically linguistic animals I would say instead "the ability to understand things in the environment via signs".
So I've learnt something to-day. Thank you for the link. I have looked through it, but not read it carefully yet.
I'm losing my grip on what our disagreement is about. Perhaps you'll forgive my not following the convention of linking my comments to quotations from what you say. Instead, I'ld like to offer an analysis of where we are at.
We seem to be using "hypocrisy" in slightly different ways. I think I can best explain through a different case. Many people seem to use the word "lying" to mean simply saying what is false. Whether they attach a moral judgement to the word is not clear to me, but my understanding of it is that saying what is false, knowing it to be false and with intent to deceive is morally reprehensible.
So, for me, saying what one sincerely believes to be true, even if it turns out to be false, is not lying. There's an exception, that one might sincerely believe something because of wishful thinking, or carelessness; but saying that it is true is a different moral failing, for which we don't have a name (I think). In the same way, you seem to call behaving in ways that are inconsistent "hypocrisy" but you seem to exempt some hypocrisy from moral criticism, if it has a rational justification.
But then, there is a difficulty about the intersection of rationality with morality. We like to think that they don't conflict. But when you say that Descartes was hypocritical but rational, I conclude that you are saying that the rationality of his hypocrisy justifies it, or at least exempts is from moral censure. I find that very confusing.
I believe it is the case that Descartes never indulged in the vicious torture of nailing animals to planks, but that some students who followed Descartes did. Furthermore, it seem that he also kept a companion dog in his house, which seems incompatible with believing that the animal was just a machine. Here's my opinion. The students were guilty of consistency, illustrating how rigid adherence to a ideology can lead one into really vicious moral errors. Descartes, on the other hand, was technically inconsistent with his theoretical beliefs, but exhibited good sense in not following through from his theory to his practice.
I hope at least some of this makes sense.
I do believe - sincerely - that they do not conflict. Any more than a pencil and brush in an artist's satchel, or a hammer and pliers in a carpenter's toolbox. Our mental equipment includes a great many tools that are separate one from another. When I say something is rational, I mean that it is based on observed or assumed fact and is aimed at solving a problem or achieving a goal. There is no value judgment here of the worthiness of the goal or the cause of the problem. Whether it's aimed at a better cancer treatment or a more effective weapon of mass destruction, the thought process is rational.
Quoting Ludwig V
I don't know whether he did it or only defended the prevailing practice. It doesn't matter now. It mattered when the prevailing practice was questioned, opposed, justified on philosophical grounds and therefore continued. In this, he was greatly influential.
The rational component of that justification is the aim of gaining more knowledge of physiology*. The moral component - if there is one in your world-view - is wilful disregard of the pain caused.
*If a person truly believes that the mechanical dog and feeling man are of different kinds, why would he consider the physiology of dogs useful in understanding how humans work? Does it matter that the vast majority of humans do not philosophize and some cannot speak? In fact, the doctors dissected executed people in the same lecture hall as the vivisection lessons. They were not legally permitted to study live humans, so they went to the next best thing. Can you possibly imagine none of these intelligent men knew what the screaming signified?
I never understood why you introduced the moral component.
Quoting Ludwig V
There is no need to conflate those ideas. Obviously, stating one's belief is not lying. It only becomes so if one is exposed to the truth and rejects it. Making oneself believe what isn't true is lying to oneself, whether it's said to anyone else or not. Nobody believes falsehoods through simple carelessness, though they may repeat what they've heard because they don't care enough to reflect. That may be trivial or criminal, depending on the falsehood and its effect on the world.
But why is lying a immoral? There are many reasons to lie, some of them laudable, some despicable. There are also many styles and standards morality; what one culture or individual applauds, another may despise. I don't believe there has ever been a sane adult in the world who is or was morally pure, or entirely truthful or altogether devoid of hypocrisy. None of our heroes and role models are so much more perfect than we are.
Why is that a problem?
Some people think that there are number of factors working together. That seems a very likely possibility. Our bipedalism allowed our front feet to develop into hands which enabled us to handle objects in a much more precise way. Our large (for our body size) brain allowed us to develop our kind of language. Not to mention the critical importance of our being a social animal, without which our technologies could not have developed.
Societies swing. Some things get worse and worse until people unite to change what is causing things to get worse. This is the fun of life. We have problems to resolve.
I want to invite everyone to a symposium where I will serve tea and coffee, cookies, and donuts and share some old grade school test books. I have pulled out my old math text books because I am helping a child with math. The old textbooks relate math to everyday living so a child can relate to what is being taught. As important as math is, it is not the only thing the books teach. The second-grade book especially teaches consideration and good manners.
People made a terrible mistake when they thought we only taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. The old books were very much about transmitting a culture, good citizenship, and family values. In 1958 teaching decisions were turned over to those most interested in war, and we stopped transmitting the culture we were transmitting in favor of education for technology. We stopped teaching social values and independent thinking because we did not know what values a high-tech society would need and leaving moral training the church, meant a faster shift into a high-tech society with unknown values.
That was the education Germany had before Hitler took control. Without lessons for consideration and good manners, we have selfishness, and self-centered decision-making, and tend to be reactionary instead of thoughtful and rational human beings. The Christian mythology is very much a part of this problem and leaving moral training to the Church is a terrible mistake.
That is the bottom line of this thread. The differences between animals and humans, and why we are not as civilized as educated people used to be.
This thread is wondering and that is a good thing because from the beginning the importance of the subject is how we treat each other and teach our children.
I woke up this morning listening to a lecture about human rights. It troubles me greatly that Aristotle thought some people are born to be slaves and slavery is an important part of family order, and that the Church used Aristotle for the education called Scholasticism. Martin Luther believed we are preordained by God to be masters or slaves and he thought the witch hunts were necessary.
Obviously, false beliefs have been part of our civilizations. AND this is what makes a discussion of thinking like an animal versus the language-based rational thinking of educated humans, important. How do we know truth? What does knowing truth have to do with democracy, rule by reason?
The dying planet won't wait for us to swing around like a leaking oil tanker.
Quoting Athena
Have you looked at any newspaper headlines lately?
Which animals are less civilized and rational than humans?
That argument has troubled my thinking for many years. Who is going to buy the stuff that makes corporations rich, if the people can not afford it? When Adam Smith wrote of economics he also wrote of morality and explained the importance of good morality to economic success.
Okay if good morality is essential to a good economy, why isn't this an important part of education? In case you haven't read what I said about an old math book for second-grade children, the book is very much about morals. If we understand the relationship between morals and a healthy economy/civilization is a matter of cause and effect, then we are strongly motivated to be moral, and this distinguishes humans from other animals. When we don't teach morals along with math, we get self-centered, reactionary humans, no better than animals.
Okay, gang, Thrift Books has a few books written by Adam Smith for very little money. From what I gather about politics in the US is the number 1 concern is economics. I have ordered a couple of books and it would be great to have a thread addressing morals and economics. That would be a discussion no other animal is going to have. The impact of global warming is making our present path of self-destruction insane! Animals can destroy other species, but not the whole planet.
That's fair enough. There's a nasty gap, however, in how one assesses the worthiness of the goal or what's a problem, rather than a feature. But let's leave that alone, for now.
Quoting Vera Mont
It would take an angel to be on the right side of every debate at the same time. But then, you have high standards, it would seem.
He was indeed influential. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he approved of everything his followers did. I don't think anyone knows (unless you've got a source) what he thought of his followers in Amsterdam. For all we know, he would have disowned them.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes and no. In the '50's, there was (in the UK) a big scandal about a toxicological test that involved dropping chemicals in the eyes of rabbits to find out what dose was required to kill 50% of the subjects. It was known as the L(ethal) D(ose) 50 test. The goal was, no doubt, desirable, but involved a great deal of pain for the rabbits. So they didn't report that the rabbits screamed in pain, but that they "vocalized". The defence, no doubt, was that it was important to preserve scientific objectivity. So they reported only the facts, without any subjective interpretation. Another example of how indoctrination with an ideology is at least as dangerous, and arguably more vicious, as old-fashioned vices like greed and sadism.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Vera Mont
Unfortunately, our language is not neatly divided between facts and values. Some concepts incorporate an evaluative judgement as well as a factual component. Murder is not simply killing, but wrongful killing. Pain is not simply a sensation but a sensation that we seek to avoid and that, if we have any humanity, we will help others to avoid. And so on.
Actually, you are right - not all lying is wrong; we even have an expression (at least in my possibly rather archaic version of English) for lies that are OK - white lies. Nonetheless, deliberately leading someone to believe something that you know to be false is generally disapproved of. Ditto for hypocrisy.
So I thought you introduced the moral element and I was responding to that.
Quoting Vera Mont
That sounds rather hard on people. Surely, if I'm exposed to some evidence for an idea, but there's not enough evidence to justify believing it, I am right to reject it, even if it turns out later to be true. In any case, there isn't enough time to live a life and think carefully about everything we need to know.
Quoting Vera Mont
I don't think it is. The best we can do is to try to avoid the biggest failures. So forgiveness becomes important, to prevent pursuit of the good turning into the tyranny of perfection.
Quoting Athena
The conventional defence is that nobody in the world at that time had any doubt about slavery. It's asking a lot of someone to come up with a revolutionary idea like that - indeed, it took centuries for human beings to develop the ideas that we take for granted.
What troubles me more than his ideas about slavery is that there appear to be some people around who are trying to promote his argument as a justification of slavery today.
If you look at the details, though, you'll find that his version of slavery strips out a great deal of what makes it so objectionable. It can be read as a promotion of decent treatment for slaves, including the opportunity to learn how to be free and a ban on enslaving free people.
Quoting Athena
Good question. I keep wondering who will buy all the products when production and distribution are completely handed over to robots and AI. I suppose the machines could sell things to each other, but they can only pay if they are paid for their labour.
Quoting Athena
Yes. The problem is that it is in the interest of everyone to work out a free ride on everyone else's virtue, and it is against the interest of everyone to behave well and get ripped off. Race to the bottom.
Quoting Athena
I'm sure it would be quite an eye-opener to see what he actually said.
All animals are less civilized and rational. You may look at them and see rational decisions, but it is your human brain doing the rationalizing, not the animals. The difference between our brains and other animals is biological. No matter how smart our dogs are, we are not going to give them voting rights.
I will say bears are less civilized than humans. Mother bears must protect their children from their fathers who kill them. Lions in a pride have a degree of civility, however, if the males get old and can not defend the rest of the pride, invading males kill not only the males but also their children. Israel is proving how cruel humans can be to other humans. That is a civilization failure. Israel's failure to make peace when it holds most of the power is a human and civilization failure based on myth, not rational. It is much easier for humans to act as animals than it is for animals to behave as humans.
And that's a bad thing? It didn't take any angels to establish animal protection laws - just a lot of determined ordinary people, with ordinary IQ's and no individual influence. I didn't ask him to be on the right side of every debate; I do blame him for endorsing one particularly horrific practice.
Quoting Ludwig V
In the face of the vigorous philosophical arguments he made supporting the clockwork idea, approval would seem the least of his complicity. Probably, most of the inquisitors didn't personally heat the pincers, but they understood the use of hot pincers and published theological justification for their use.
Quoting Ludwig V
Why?
[Surely, if I'm exposed to some evidence for an idea, but there's not enough evidence to justify believing it, I am right to reject it, Without consideration, or further inquiry? Well, I just hope you're not an antivaxer. I've encountered a few intelligent posters who keep insisting that we go back to original research, because there's just not enough evidence to support the theory of evolution. I do think that's willful ignorance. It's their loss; I don't punish them for it. I probably do the same regarding subjects I don't care about.
Quoting Ludwig V
Ignoring what you need to know will cause errors, maybe serious ones, in your life. We all make some bad judgments because we didn't think things through. But, sure, you choose to learn what matters to you. And then you lie about some things you know when lying serves a purpose that matters to you. That's all rational thinking.
Quoting Ludwig V
Not by all the parents who tell their children about Santa Claus! I think their story is silly, too readily exploitable, not thoroughly considered - but their motives are benign. Nor all the spy agencies in the world, convinced that they are defending their country and its values.
It depends on why you're doing it: to protect potential victims, or to benefit from the deception - from laudable to trivial to reprehensible.
Quoting Ludwig V
Sure. But let's try to be accurate in our observations and honest in our assessment.
It's for their God, not me, to absolve them for their motives or toss them into The Pit for their crimes.
Thank you for the additional information about Aristotle's acceptance of slavery based on his sense of human decency that went with it. In the argument "what is justice" Socrates argued when people are exploited, sooner or later they become a problem to the whole of society. In the USA South, southerners have dealt with this reality, and wherever discrimination suppressed another race the exploited people, they have become a problem. Allowing this to happen is just bad logic!
Knowledge and learned higher-order thinking skills are essential to good decision-making. Ignorance and false beliefs are very harmful. Unfortunately, we do not understand the pursuit of happiness Jefferson wrote of in the US Declaration of Independence is the pursuit of knowledge, not eating a 3-scope ice cream cone or other tawdry pleasures.
Turning our liberty over to AI is to totally miss the value of the human experience is our ability to learn, communicate, and change the world. That separates us from other animals.
Quoting Ludwig V
That is a conundrum. I have read the Aztecs had an economy based on human energy, not gold or GNP. The value of a woven basket being the skill and time spent making it. If hard work got good pay, those who work in the fields would get very good pay. I think we need to rethink our distribution of resources. That is something animals don't need to worry about. :lol: Quoting Ludwig V
So here is the deal if a strong economy depends on morals, it is self-destructive to be immoral. It is simple logic, cause and effect. Today the problem is ignorance. We do not share essential knowledge for good moral decisions. :groan: Leaving moral training to the Church was the worst thing we could have done.
I have ordered Adam Smith's book about economic morality because I think this might be the most important knowledge for the world today, and only if those of us who care, act on that caring, is there hope for the future. We must get religion out of our moral thinking and put reason back in it! I think understanding this goes with understanding the human difference, instead of believing biblical myth. We are 90% animal and 10% human. We need to drop the myth that prevents us from holding knowledge of reality.
I respectfully disagree. Quoting Athena
Or exemption from the gas chamber if there are more of them than we like. I know. But then we don't treat our fellow humans any better.
Some of us are horrified by animal and human brutality and others are not. Why do you think we perceive things so differently?
Where does he say that?
Quoting Vera Mont
Now I'm confused. Are discussing the wickedness of Descartes or of the Inquisition? Perhaps you just mean that they are a parallel case. In which case, where does Descartes publish a justification for the use of nails and planks on animals?
Quoting Vera Mont
It is indeed wilful ignorance, although they are something of a public nuisance. On the other hand, we all have to pay the price of the anti-vaxers' wilful ignorance.
Quoting Vera Mont
Sorry, I thought the need for further inquiry and consideration was a given - subject to the priority that you give to the issue.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes. I still think that disapproval is the default position. But that's just a detail.
Quoting Vera Mont
Accurate and honest, certainly. Are we including fair and balanced as well? I hope so.
If it's for God to absolve them, isn't it also for their God to judge them?
Many reasons. Temperament, upbringing, self-interest, culture.
Quoting Athena
And some order it and always find many to carry it out.
You just don't see that in prairie dog society.
Oh, dear - again? Didn't I link the correspondence. You can read the fifth meditation, if you like. It's exceeding tedious in describing the heart and circulation, but does explicitly recommend the reader to witness it in 'any large animal'. There's a lot of guff about the soul and reason and why animals don't have those things: because they don't speak French.
Quoting Ludwig V
You mean like Trump(except we have to sanewash him)=Harris(except we set the bar higher)? I don't think so.
You are right that our discussioin has become unproductive and annoying. We aren't making progress. That's a shame but it's probably best if we leave it where it is. Thank you for your time and patience.
I had forgotten that. Sorry.
Thanks. We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when....
That would be good.
Only if all shared meaning enables and/or facilitates thinking about our own thought and belief(metacognition). Not all does.
Good catch! :wink:
While there is difference between shared meaning and common language, it is not inevitably one of oppositional nature. I find it's more one of existential dependency. It's one of shared elemental constituency; an evolutional history, that of which existed in its entirety prior to being picked out of this world by me.
Some meaningful experience existed in its entirety prior to common language emergence. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Language less creatures predate language users. Thus, some meaning is prior to common language. <-----that's very important on my view, particularly when talking about meaningful experiences of non human creatures.
A bit on shared meaning, because there is more than one way to understand that notion.
We can draw correlations between the same sorts of things. <----------- That's shared meaning in the sense of common to us both. Add language use and other things(as the content of correlations) and that's the sort of shared meaning required for successful communication.
A growl in a familiar life scenario has all the context necessary for creatures to draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible things... fear, say. Hunger. That happens while their eating. The creatures learn how to react/respond/behave/survive. Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours? Sure. No metacognition necessary. No thinking about themselves and others as subject matters in their own right necessary. Does this constitute shared meaning in close to the same sense as described above? I think so, although it is not something that we can verify with certainty.
I'm claiming that there is another sort of shared meaning, which I find to be irrevocable for the emergence of the sort described heretofore...
Two creatures that have never encountered one another can both want water and know exactly where to go in order to acquire it(how to get water). That's commonly held belief formed, held, and/or had by virtue of different creatures drawing correlations between the same things. Thirst. A place to drink. No language necessary there. Antelopes and elephants both know where to get water. Where's there's belief, there's always meaning. That's shared meaning.
As it pertains to metacognitive endeavors and the sort of thought that that facilitates...
Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about. We use the terms "thought", "belief", "meaningful experience", "mind", etc. How do we think about our own thoughts, beliefs, dreams, meaningful experiences? With naming and descriptive practices. There's no evidence to the contrary, and there's plenty to support that. I think we agree on that much, so perhaps we can set that aside and attempt to move forward?
Assuming that there is such a thing as non human thought or human thought prior to when language acquisition begins in earnest. In seeking to make sense of this, we're isolating/delineating/targeting/defining thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience that existed in its entirety prior to being talked about(prior to naming and descriptive practices).
Oh, and I'm sorry for the seemingly unconnected dots. I'm sometimes prone for doing that.
Thanks. However, I'm a bit hesitant about taking this up again. I didn't intend to upset you before, so I'm concerned that I might do so again. I shall try to keep everything that I say impersonal, in the hope that will suffice.
I'm sorry I have taken to so long to reply. I have had some distractions over the last few days. Nothing problematic, but things that needed to be attended to. But I'll put something together tomorrow.
You've overestimated my upsettedness... :wink: I was just trying to nip personal attacks in the bud. That was also weeks back. Anyway, take your time, as it may be the case that I take longer between replies as well. If you choose to refrain, that's no problem either. Thanks for your participation either way. We may make more headway between the two of us. Often focus is blurred by attempting to attend to too many different approaches at once.
The approach, I think, is imperative.
Did anyone anytime ever clearly set out what counts as thought, let alone rational thought? I saw many employing implicit notions but do not recall anyone actually clearly defining their terms.
OK. So it's over. :smile:
Quoting creativesoul
There are various points that I would qualify or put differently, but fundamentally this seems to me to apply to all thought. Some elaboration on "How do we think...?" seems to be desirable. There's an implied analogy with "How does one start a car?" or "How do you get to Rome?" or "How do we calculate the orbit of Mars" which could easily becomes misleading. But that is a starting point for a general discussion of thinking and language. However, I hope we don't need to get too far into the general issues.
Quoting creativesoul
I realize that you are aiming to define a context for our specific problem. Nothing wrong with that. But I wouldn't set about it in this way. We need to be more specific, because the idea that there is a single general model of our naming and descriptive practices shepherds us into thinking about specific cases in inappropriate ways.
BTW, I'm not clear how far you are committed to the idea of a single general model for all our linguistic practices, because you do talk about them in the plural. However that may be, I see our problem as specifically about certain practices, not all of them.
More specifically, it is about how far we can sensible apply our practice in explaining human action to creatures that are like us but not human, and specifically do not have human languages. It seems inevitable that our practice needs to be modified. The question is what modifications are needed.
Quoting creativesoul
It would be annoying to try and thrash out all the issues before proceeding, so can you proceed with your argument on the basis of a provisional agreement? Then we can just sort out the differences that matter to our discussion. That itself would be an achievement.
_________________________
However, looking more closely at your example does give me pause:-
Quoting creativesoul
I'm very mistrustful of your language in "draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible thing .... fear, say". But the scenario is undoubtedly a relevant case and one could say that we learn the correlation between the growl and danger and fighting - hence also fear.
But "correlation" does not distinguish between a Pavlovian response and an action - something that the dog does. When the bell rings and the dog salivates, that's an automatic response - salivating is not under conscious control. It is part of an automatic system which governs digestion. Growling is under conscious control - even a form of communication, counting as a warning. I'm not saying that the distinction is crystal clear, but rather the difference is a question of which mode of interpretation we apply to the phenomena. The Pavlovian response is causal; growling functions in a scoial context. (Even that needs further explanation). But the fact that it has a social function suggests that some awareness of the awareness of the difference self and others is necessary.
I look forward to your reply.
Thinking about X requires X. <------I'm okay with that.
Quoting Ludwig V emphasis mine
I'm not okay with that.
Not all things(X's) exist in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some thought and belief existed in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some did not. Some cannot. It could be put a bit differently. Some thought and belief are existentially dependent upon being talked about. Some are not.
To be even more precise, some thought and belief require having already been articulated by the creature under consideration in order for them to even be formed, had, and/or held by that candidate. In such cases, the articulation is itself an integral part of the formation process and thus the formation thereof consists, in part at least, of the articulation process.
Consider the sheer complexity of thought required in order to understand Gettier's obliteration of the J part of JTB... as held/articulated by three defenders thereof at the time. That sort of thought/understanding cannot be formed, held, and/or had without very complex articulation. Understanding Moore's concerns about belief attribution practices fits nicely here as well. Those belief are formed by articulation alone.
I should have made this clearer earlier.
The earlier claims that "thinking about thought and belief requires something to think about" and "that something existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it" were referring to the underlying necessary conditions/preconditions required in order for it to happen. This helps to fill in some blanks on the evolutionary timeline.
Agreed.
All thought, belief and statements thereof consist of correlations drawn between different things. We and all other capable creatures think solely by virtue of drawing correlations between different things.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. There are many more than one linguistic practice. There are more than just naming and descriptive practices. However, none can possibly be practiced without picking things out of this world to the exclusion of all else, regardless of how that's done. It's always done.
Different practices of ours have different problems. I have yet to have been exposed to a single conventional practice of belief attribution that has, as it's basis, notions of "belief" and "thought" that can properly account for the evolutionary progression of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. That historical account includes what language less animals can form, have, and/or hold such that it counts as thought or belief. It is this crucially important aspect that remains sorely neglected by conventional standards/notions of thought/belief, "rational thought" notwithstanding.
What counts as rational thought presupposes some notion of "thought" or another. That's the driving force, the ground, for all subsequent attributions of "rational" or "not rational" to the thought under consideration.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. This seems to be a promising avenue.
A modification of our standards is needed. What counts as sufficient justificatory ground to attribute this belief, that thought, or these emotions to this or that non human creature? That is the underlying unresolved problematic question pervading this thread.
Upon what justificatory ground do we(I) claim that dogs have absolutely no idea which train is the five o'clock train? Knowing which train is the five o'clock train is knowledge of which one counts as such. Which train counts as the five o'clock train is determined solely by human standards borne of language use(amongst many other things). It is only when and if one knows how to properly apply the standard that one can know which one counts as the five o'clock train.
Dogs do not make the cut. Even ones to whom five o'clock trains become meaningful, they do so not because it counts as the five o'clock train, but rather because the five o'clock train is/was/has been an integral part - a basic elemental constituent - of the dog's meaningful experience(thought and/or belief). The dog has drawn correlations between the train and all sorts of other things, none of which are our time standards.
Quoting Ludwig V
Tomorrow.
:smile:
This is a side-issue, but who are the three defenders you are thinking of?
Quoting creativesoul
I may have misinterpreted "prior". I was treating it as meaning "presupposed" and thinking of the variety of preconditions that have to be satisfied to make thought and belief meaningful. Even new introductions have to be based on existing ideas if they are to be explained at all.
This takes me back to:-
Quoting creativesoul
Here, you seem to be suggesting a single pattern of thought that explains all thought. But is that consistent with the variety of thoughts you specify? If some thought and beliefs are existentially dependent on being talked about, I don't see how the model of correlations drawn between different things applies.
Quoting creativesoul
I agree with that. That's why I've taken such an interest in this topic. There's very little discussion anywhere, and yet, in my view, it's not only important for understanding animals, but also for understanding humans.
Quoting creativesoul
That's because philosophers seem to be totally hypnotized with thought and belief as articulated in language. They seem to assume that model can be applied, without change, to animals and tacit thinking and knowledge.
How does a god exist? Do any animals other than human beings worship a god? I am thinking about the existence of the things we talk about and also the difference between humans and animals.
How about love. What is it? What does it consist of? Will the lion ever learn to "love" its neighbor?
I read more of what Creativesoul had to say about existential thinking and thought of deleting my post, but maybe there is some benefit to simplifying a debate about what exists because it has substance and what does not. Does anyone remember the Greek argument of what exists and what does not?
Not so different from today's debates about the existence of a god. I think we have to puzzle what was the original awareness of a god. We can experience a tree or a lion, the gods are not experienced in that way, so where does the idea of god come from? And I want to mention animals, which animal other than a human thinks about a god or mates with someone because of ideas of love?
I'm not confident I remember the authors of the three JTB formulations Gettier set out in the beginning of his paper. Maybe... Ayer, Chisholm, and ??? Lol... It bugged me enough to go check... Scratch the third. :wink: It was just Ayer and Chisholm. I wanted to say Collinwood, for some reason. The 'third' formulation was a generic one from Gettier himself. Something tells me you already know this. :wink:
Quoting Ludwig V
That's okay. Sometimes it takes a little work to understand each other. They're very close in meaning, and often used interchangeably. I don't.
For my part, "presupposed" is about the thinking creature. "Prior to" is about the order of emergence/existence. The latter is spatiotemporal/existential. The former is psychological.
Quoting Ludwig V
Is this referring to the position I'm working out/from? I mean, sure, as language users anything we come up with will be based - loosely at least - on something we've already been exposed to. All explanation is language use. As it pertains to philosophy, there will be all sorts of prior influences. Yet, I'm confident that thought, belief, and meaningful experience is prior to the complex sort of language we employ. I'm also confident that there are precursors to our language that do some of the same thing(s) that our language does, despite those animals not having the ability to take account/record with meaningful marks, and naming and descriptive practices. We can look at what language less animals are doing with language too. <---- Here, of course, by "language-less" I mean complex spoken and written language such as our own, capable of metacognition. I really need to start being better about that qualification though, because I'm confident we're not the only language users.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm not suggesting a pattern of thought. I'm setting out the basic outline/parameters of an autonomous biological process that amounts to a basic outline of all thought, from the simplest through the most complex. If there's inconsistency, self-contradiction, and/or incoherence I'm unaware. The differences in thoughts are the content of the correlations. That's key to all the different 'kinds' of thought, in a nutshell.
Knowing which train is the five o'clock train is existentially dependent upon being talked about. I mean, one cannot acquire knowledge of which train counts as the five o'clock train without drawing correlations between those standards and some train or another. That is chock full of correlations, some of which are between the language use itself, which amounts to talking about the time standards and trains.
That is the sort of thought/belief that is existentially dependent on a creature capable of metacognition.
Quoting Ludwig V
I see it much the same way. The current political environment shows how correlations work. It's how some get convinced to be mad at all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.
As an explanation.
Quoting Athena
Well, as best I can tell, they're probably incapable of wondering why this or that happens. So, I suspect the answer is "no". I'm okay not knowing.
Quoting Athena
Good questions. Apt. Germane. Yet, seemingly so distant to the current conversation. They're not though! Not at all. It's extremely nuanced. I'm still working things out, but I'll say this much because it seems you're asking about the ontological basis I'm working from.
That which exists has an effect/affect.
I'm thinking there's more than one. I'm unfamiliar with all.
Nice. I take it you read through some of my meanderings here?
None that I can tell. Pondering one's own existence requires having already situated oneself in what isn't. Commit solipsism to the flames...
It is my next focus here. My apologies for not being prompt yesterday. Late dinner invitation. Nice company. Be nice to have another someplace other than a famous steakhouse chain with far too many people in far too little volume of space. And the noise! Argh... brought out the spectrum in me.
:wink:
I did and I didn't. That is, I was expecting references to some of the critiques of Gettier's article, rather than Gettier's selection from existing formulations.
Quoting creativesoul
No hurry. I've never been happy in large, noisy, crowded (and drunken) parties and it's only got worse with age. People behave differently in crowds. There's a lot of research about that - largely with a public order agenda. The Greeks regarded it as a madness and explained it by reference to Bacchus and/or Pan.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes. I see that.
Quoting creativesoul
There's a lot to be said for that. Stimulus/response and association of ideas do seem to be very important to learning. However, there's an important differentiation between Pavlov's model and Skinner's. (It's not necessarily a question of one or the other. Both may well play their part.) Pavlov presupposes a passive organism - one that learns in response to a stimulus. Skinner posits what he calls "operant conditioning" which is a process that starts with the organism acting on or in the environment and noticing the results of those actions - here the organism stimulates the environment which responds in its turn. There's another interesting source of learning - mimicry. I've gathered that very new infants are able to smile back at a smiling face - there's even a section of the brain that produces this mirroring effect. It is still observable in adults. Just food for thought.
Quoting creativesoul
I think I can see what you mean. But it needs clarification because there are philosophers who will saying that knowing anything is existentially dependent on being talked about - because drawing distinctions in the way that we do depends on language.
Suppose we stipulate that knowing that it is 5 o'clock requires an understanding of a conceptual scheme that is not available without language. My dogs have always tended to get restless and congregate near the kitchen at around the time that they are fed. I think they know that it is time for dinner. If they were people, we would have no hesitation in saying that they know it is 7 o'clock (say). How do I know that people understand the background scheme? I know if they can tell the time at any time, for example - which does not necessarily require human language, but normally that is how it works. If a small child (who has not yet learnt to tell the time) appears in the kitchen at 7 o'clock, we will look for other clues to explain why they show up.
Quoting Ludwig V
Is it the presupposition that fear is a directly perceptible thing? If the being full of fear does not count as directly perceiving fear then nothing will. It's part of the internal aspect of all meaningful thought, belief and/or experience. There are internal elements as well as external ones.
Quoting Ludwig V
They're competing viewpoints about the same thing. They both consist of meaningful correlations being drawn by a creature so capable(the agents' themselves in this scenario). I'm unsure of why these were invoked.
A difference between Pavlov and Skinner has no relevance when we're talking about the elemental constituency of that which existed in its entirety prior to language use. Pavlov and Skinner differ in their respective explanations. What they're taking account of(attempting to explain) existed in its entirety prior to their account. <----------that which existed in its entirety prior to being talked about is precisely what needs set out first here, for any notion of thought and belief that is claimed to apply to language less creatures must satisfy that criterion.
I'm happy to clarify. I'm unsure what you're after though. The fact that some philosophers cannot or do not have any idea how distinctions can be drawn without language doesn't bear on my argument as far as I can tell. Seems to me like a problem with their conceptual/linguistic framework(s). My charge has always been that convention has gotten human thought and belief horribly wrong. The fact that language less thought and belief cannot be admitted due to pains of coherency alone shows that there is a problem with convention. There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of? I'm aware of your avoidance of talking in terms of elemental constituency, but from where I sit it makes the most sense of the most things. It also flips many an ancient archaic dichotomy on its head.
Yes, I see. I wasn't clear whether you were talking first-person view or third. I agree that creatures who do not have human language do experience fear (and pain). Obviously there may be complications and disagreements about other emotions and feelings. But what I'm not clear about is whether you regard fear as a stimulus or a response?
Quoting creativesoul
Because I want to suggest that there is more than one pattern of correlation in play, and that mimicry might be described as a correlation, but it is different from either.
Quoting creativesoul
You seem to be positing some kind of atomic or basic elements here, and I'm not sure that such things can be identified in knowledge or behaviour.
Quoting creativesoul
OK. So how do we identify that which existed in its entirety prior to be talked about?
Quoting creativesoul
Oh, we agree there. I think that answer to what the thought, belief and meaningful experience of language-less creatures consists of is fairly straightforward. Behaviour.
Scientific thought on emotions in animals
Thought etc. in creatures lacking human language is expressed and available to us in their behaviour. The same is true in human beings, but, of course, philosophers think that linguistic behaviour is, in some way that escapes me, something different from behaviour. I can't think why.
That's interesting. Are we talking about the responses of scientists who study animal behaviour? If so, it confirms my expectation that the closer people look at animal behaviour, the more they find in it.
Yes.
The first paragraph of the linked article:
1. Punch them in return.
2. Cry.
3. Ask them why they punched me; why they think punching is a good solution to any problem; or whatever.
All behaviors, but different kinds, with different possible consequences, and possibly different intentions (although we don't always think/intend before any type of behavior).
It's quite a change from the old (Cartesian) scientific opinion. Perhaps there's some hope for the world.
Quoting Patterner
Quite so. And the behaviours that do not involve language demonstrate/express/manifest my belief just as effectively as the linguistic behaviours. The difference is that expressing beliefs in language is more detailed, more specific, that non-linguistic behaviours.
Quoting Ludwig V
When it comes to what counts as thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience(s) of language less creatures, we must be talking about what's meaningful to the creature. I'm hesitant to talk in terms of first or third person though. I see no point in unnecessarily adding complexity where none is warranted.
Pertaining whether or not I regard fear as a stimulus or a response...
I do not find it helpful to use that framework. It could be either, depending upon the framework/conceptual scheme being employed and point of view. Fear is the result of autonomous biological machinery doing its job. It is part of fearful experience. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Fearful experiences are meaningful to the creature full of fear, whether that includes an alpha male's growl accompanied by submissive members' behaviour, or the fear from/of falling(which I understand to be innate). Fear is always an internal element within a more complex experience involving both internal and external elements.
Quoting Ludwig V
Sure. Mimicry, for the sake of mimicking, involves the mimic drawing correlations between an other's behaviour and their own. Again, biological machinery plays an autonomous role here. However, I do think that neuroscience has established, as you've alluded to perhaps with the infant's smile, that there is not always a mimic who's mimicking for the sake of mimicking. Mirror neurons also play a role in empathy as well as recognizing/attributing other minds. At least, that's what I believe to be the case... very generally/roughly speaking. Smiles are contagious after-all. And then there's also the fact that young children learn how to act in this or that situation by virtue of mimicking others' behaviours, in a "children learn what they live" sort of thing.
I'm not sure what you're saying or referring to with "pattern of correlation".
Quoting Ludwig V
That is exactly what I'm arguing for. The basic elemental constituency of all thought... rational thought notwithstanding. The success or failure of identifying those is completely determined by the methodological approach. Current convention fails.
Quoting Ludwig V
Well, we can use what we do know about our own thought and belief as a means for beginning to set out what must be the case if language less thought exists(if it is possible for language less creatures to think), or if language less creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought or belief, or if language less creatures are capable of having meaningful experiences. I've touched on all this earlier in the thread. I'd be pleased to dig in. It's time.
Such metacognitive endeavors shift the focus away from behaviour and onto our own thought, belief, and meaningful experiences. That is the only place to start. It is not the only place to finish.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm confused.
Are you claiming that all language less (creatures') thought, belief, and/or experience consists entirely of behaviour and behaviour alone? I would not agree with that, at all. Thinking about trees and cats includes trees and cats. Neither trees nor cats are behaviour. They are elements in such thought.
You may remember that earlier in this thread there was some discussion of Timothy Pennings' claim that his corgi could do calculus. See Excerpts from "Do dogs know calculus"
The path followed by light refracted through two different mediums is calculated in this way, but no-one worries about what meaningful experiences are involved. So if Pennings' Corgi follows the same path, I don't see that the experience of the corgi is relevant. The calculation applies. So Pennings' title forces us to face the issue whether what matters is the dog's experiences or the mathematics. Or, preferably, what the relationship is between the two points of view.
Or consider the theory of kin selection as an explanation of altruism in social creatures. The idea that preserving one's kin is as good a way (perhaps better than preserving oneself) to preserve one's DNA and that is what, in the end, matters. Empirically, that could well explain the phenomena. But no-one thinks that bees can identify the DNA of another bee. So we need to explain how the bees select who to sacrifice themselves for and clarify what the relationship is between the two points of view. For example, it may be that bees with the same DNA as our subject bee produce similar pheromones, which we know bees can identify and respond to. So that would be a candidate.
Catching a thrown ball is a quite complex mathematical problem. We have to learn how to do it and we improve with experience. But I'm quite sure that I am incapable of solving that mathematical problem. How do I do it? Well, I can also accurately identify where a sound is coming from. We know that we do that by calculation from the difference between the time the sound arrives at one ear and the time it arrives at the other, which is why stereo headphones work in the weird way that they do. Even if I could do the calculation, I could not do it in the time it takes me to identify where the sound comes from. (We can also accurately assess how far away the things we see are, at least at close range, by the extend we have to focus the two eyes in order to see one image - just like a range-finder. We don't normally experience that.)
Surely, thought that involves trees and cats is involved in the behaviour that involves trees and cats. I don't see what you are getting at.
Quoting Patterner
I'm inclined to answer yes. But I would much prefer to work from examples, so that I understand what the distinction amounts to.
I would be hard pressed to express any of the thoughts in this post, to say nothing of the thoughts expressed in the 39 pages of the thread, as well as the other however many threads at TPF, without language. I would be interested in hearing how all of these thoughts might possibly come to exist without language. But even without an explanation of that, now that they do exist, What language-less behavior can express them?
Of course one cannot philosophize without language. One of the big puzzles in Berekeley's writing is that he is very clear that his immatierialism does not imply any change whatever to his everyday behaviour, and there's a good case for saying that the heliocentric view of the solar system does not result in any change to ordinary behaviour.
But one can express philosophical views in actions rather than words. There's a story that some of Descartes' followers in Amsterdam expressed their belief in Cartesian dualism by nailing a dog to a wooden plank. Devout Christians may express their beliefs in many ways other than asserting them - refraining from certain behaviours and pursuing others. One of the arguments against radical scepticism is precisely that the sceptic does not behave as if scepticism were true.
However, I never intended to claim that there are always non-linguistic ways to express any belief expressed in language. Perhaps I should have been clearer.
Descartes' followers may have been expressing their belief in Cartesian dualism in a very strict sense. (I'm not sure "strict" is the right word, but it's the best I can do at the moment.) But they would not have come to that belief without language. Language was necessary for the belief to exist before the belief could be expressed with non-linguistic behavior.
And nobody observing their behavior would have known the belief they were expressing if someone had not used language to explain it to them.
I don't contest the point that there are beliefs that we could not develop without language. All I'm suggesting is that linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour, in our world, are connected. Yet I don't rule out the possibility that there are some beliefs that cannot be expressed without language. These are not separate domains, but intertwined. This is why Pennings' Corgi is such a puzzle.
Quoting Patterner
Yes, of course, But context is always essential to understand behaviour in creatures capable of rational thought.
Quoting Patterner
For what it's worth, I'm not clear about this stuff either. It would be tidy if we could draw a clear line between what can be done with and without language. But I just don't see it.
Quoting Ludwig VMaybe we can't develop all beliefs without language. But, once developed, they can be expressed without language.
However, I think the fact that we can't develop all beliefs without language addresses this:Quoting Ludwig VHumans have a lot of beliefs that no other species has, and we wouldn't without language. That seems like a significant difference to me.
Yes. You seem to have it about right. The only issue now is what concepts we can attribute when explaining what animals that do not have human languages.
Quoting Patterner
Yes. The question of the significance of the difference(s) is likely the trickiest one of all.
Quoting Patterner
First, we can(and do, I would argue) know what all meaningful experience consists of - at the basic irreducible core. It consists of correlations drawn between different things by a creature so capable. That question was asked to Ludwig, for he admits language less thought and belief. I presume he would admit experience as a result. However, his approach is woefully inequipped to answer the question. That was the point of asking it.
It's 'the things' that matter most here. Those are the differences between language less thought, belief, and meaningful experiences, and those of language users. Our knowledge acquisition of those things, if the right sort of approach is used and maintained, very clearly set out the difference(s) between the thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences of language less creatures and language users.
I'm not sure why that difference seems so puzzling to some. Language less creatures do not - cannot - draw correlations between language use and other things. It's as simple as that. Their meaningful experience, thought, and/or belief does not consist of language use. They do not draw correlations between language use and other things.
The difficult and interesting aspects of this endeavor come with explaining the gradual increase in complexity that happens once language use has begun in earnest.
Second, we know language less creatures are capable of meaningful experience, because we can watch them do all sorts of stuff that it makes no sense to deny it. In addition to our ever increasing knowledge base regarding the biological machinery involved in our own experiences, our own working notions/terminological use of "thought", "belief", and "meaning" come to the fore here.
If language less creatures are capable of having meaningful experience(s), and all experience is meaningful to the creature having it, then it is clear that meaning exists prior to language creation on the evolutionary timeline. All meaningful experience consists - in very large part - of thought and belief about the universe. If a language less creature can form, have and/or hold belief about the world, and some of their belief about the world can be true, then either true belief exists without truth, or truth is prior to language.
If it is the case that meaningful experience predate language users, then one's notion of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaning" better be able to dovetail with those facts. Current convention fails to draw and maintain the actual distinctions between thinking and thinking about one's own thinking(thought/belief). That's been the bane of philosophy from Aristotle through Kant, Descartes, etc. I know of not a single philosopher who has drawn and maintained that distinction. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't one, but, I've been asking many people for over 20 years, and I've yet to have been given an affirmative answer/author/philosopher so...
This scope of this subject matter is as broad as it can be. If we've gotten our own thought and belief wrong, and I'm convinced we have, then we've also gotten something wrong about anything and everything ever thought, believed, spoken, stated, uttered, and/or otherwise expressed.
Indeed, it does.
I'm not keen on conflating mathematical descriptions(which are existentially dependent upon language users) with language less knowledge, thought, and/or belief. Dogs are incapable of doing math. Doing math requires naming quantities. Dogs cannot do that. They can catch a ball nonetheless, and we can describe those events(or at least the trajectory of the ball) with calculus.
Are you claiming that language less thought, belief, and/or experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone?
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. I would agree that the dog salivates upon hearing the bell, after the bell has become meaningful to the dog. The bell becomes meaningful to the dog when the dog draws correlations between it and eating. Hence, both are autonomous. The correlations drawn between the bell and food as well as the involuntary salivation.
What difference is a question of how we interpret the events? The events are already meaningful. Hence, it is possible to misinterpret them.
I'm not convinced that growling is under conscious control, as if used intentionally to communicate/convey the growling dogs' thought/belief. I'm more likely to deny that that's what's going on. The growl is meaningful for both the growling dog and the submissive others. I'm not convinced that the growl is a canine speech act so to speak.
There's a sleight of hand here. Functioning in a social context does not lend itself to being a social function in the sense that the community members have some awareness of the awareness. That sort of 'higher order' thinking requires thinking about awareness as a separate subject matter in its own right(metacognition). Metacognition is existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.
The growl has efficacy, no doubt. It is meaningful to both the growling dogs and the others. I would even agree that it could be rudimentary language use, but it's nothing even close to adequate evidence for concluding that growls function in a social context in the same way that our expressions of thought and belief do.
I'm not sure I'm okay with calling it a warning, to be frank. That presupposes knowledge of the growling dog's worldview(intention) that I am not privy to.
Might have something to do with the fact that not all behaviour involves using language. All linguistic behaviour does.
Good question. One way is to assess the ethical implications of the differences we find. Another would be to examine and explore why people get so strongly committed. It would be at least helpful to know why people think it matters. But the difficult bit is that how one sees animals is very much a function of the relationships one has with them, so there isn't a purely objective basis for the judgement. There isn't a matter of fact that makes the difference - it's a question of how one chooses to interact with them.
Quoting creativesoul
OK. I'll bite. I thought you were asking the question because I couldn't answer it; actually I have answered; it's just that you don't like the answer. I haven't worked out exactly how to argue the point, so I'm holding my peace until I've worked that out.
Preliminary problems include what it means to say that any meaningful experience consists of anything never mind what it means to say that meaningful experience consists of correlations.
Quoting creativesoul
Language users express their beliefs etc. by talking (and in their other behaviour). Clearly, creatures without human language cannot express their beliefs by talking. But they can and do express their beliefs by their behaviour. Both language users and creatures without language have meaningful experiences, which, presumably, "consist of" correlations. (I'm setting aside my doubts about "consist of" and correlations.)
Quoting creativesoul
Insofar as they do not have human language, that seems obvious. But then, when I call out "dinner", my dog appears. Isn't that correlating language with something else? When I call out "sit", she sits and looks at me expectantly. Apparently dogs are capable of responding appropriately to something like 200 words, which is about the language learning level of a two year old human.
I wasn't conflating those two descriptions. I was pointing out that the mathematical description of the trajectory of the ball does apply to the ball and that the dog (or indeed, human) is not applying that description. What beliefs and/or experiences can we discern in ourselves to explain how the ball is caught? Can we attribute those same beliefs to the dog or not? I think that skills like these are attributed to "judgement", which means either that the human "just sees" where the ball is coming and the same can be attributed to the dog. Both express their belief about where the ball is coming by positioning themselves to catch it.
We can legitimately expect that there will be some neurological activity which we are not conscious of and which that enables this to happen. This will be similar to the neurological activity that must underlie our ability to discern where a sound is coming from. We can also expect the same or similar activity to be going on in the dog.
Quoting creativesoul
The difference between the autonomous salivation and the growl which is under the dog's control.
Quoting creativesoul
I wasn't going so far as claiming that it is a canine speech act. However, my speech acts are meaningful to myself and others (including my dog), so there may well be something to the comparison.
As to conscious control, I cannot train my dog to salivate or not on my command (any more than I can train myself to salivate or not as I wish). But I can train my dog to stop growling on command. That suggests the growl is under the dog's control.
Quoting creativesoul
Sorry, I'm confused. If the growl warns others not to be aggressive, I would have thought that they were aware of the dog's belief that they are being regarded as a possible threat. Is that what you meant by awareness of the awareness? I would also have thought that the dog was aware of it's own awareness that the others present a possible threat. Perhaps that's what you mean?
Quoting creativesoul
So we agree at least to some extent. I wasn't making any claim about equivalence of that function to our expressions of thought and belief. Though it does occur to me that when I feel threatened by someone, I will make placatory and/or self-confident signals, whether by body language or in speech in order to warn them off. That seems to me to be performing the same function as the growl. The difference, I would say, is the difference between the simplicity of the growl and the complexity of the messages we can convey through the complexity of language. There is similarity and difference.
I think you are talking about how we use those abilities.
That's odd. I thought you were asking how we might determine the significance of the difference between animals and humans.
It's just that we can argue endlessly about the differences between animals and humans. But, in the end, each species is different from the others in some respects and similar in others. So it seems to me that it is an empty debate (whether the glass is half full or half empty). Yet we we think the question is really important? Why? What is at stake?
It seems likely that language is important in enabling the human way(s) of life. Probably our opposable thumb is also important, not to mention our large brain. None of those differences means that we are not animals or that we are justified in pretending otherwise.
I will say "no." Sound is not the only way animals communicate. They also communicate with smells and behaviors. The reaction is as automatic as jumping when one hears a loud crashing sound. We would not have survived if we didn't react automatically to threats when a fast reaction is essential. However, unlike the dog, we are not going to continue barking and growling when we realize the mailman is not a threat. However, some humans do react by grabbing a gun and pulling the trigger and expect to be exonerated no matter who they shoot. The point is like animals we react without thinking and that is not equal to having language.
We slip into language when we start making pictures and then start telling stories with pictures. This is the development of conceptual thinking. True, there are some animals that paint pictures when given paint brushes and paint, but these pictures are splashes of color, not portraits of other animals and objects.
Animals may learn human language but it is not instinctive. However, I suspect if a group of bonobos learn a language and teach their children language, over many generations the ability to use language will either end or become part of their inborn abilities. Abilities can be passed on through parents and genes. We are on the same evolutionary branch as Chimpanzees and Bonobo and not all humans are like modern man but were more a transition from ape to human.
I believe we share much in common with other animals because we are evolved animals. Aboriginal people around the world learned about life by studying animals. Life lessons came from the crow and the wolves. etc..
Thank you both of you. As I was working on my previous reply I started to wonder why I think language and thinking are so important. Humans can be incredibly destructive and that is far from being intelligent. Our creation story making us to be not animals but as angels made separate from the animals. ? What is that? Might that creation story be harmful?
I think we need to understand we are evolved as are the rest of the animals. Equally important is our heart. If our hearts are not in tune with nature might be an evil force on earth?
I'm just saying there is a significant difference between humans and animals. I think this is evidenced by many of the things we do and manufacture. I also think we think about things no other species thinks about. Of course, I can't prove my cat isn't pondering the nature of consciousness, trying to find an easier way to locate prime numbers, or amusing himself with the thought of the cat who shaves all the cats who do not shave themselves. But, if someone invented a machine that allows us to listen in on his thoughts, I would be willing to bet anything that he isn't.
A fetus becomes conscious before being born and early self-conscious emotions appear during at age 15-24 months. Yet ask yourself, if nobody had talked about consciousness to you, you wouldn't have read about it or been taught about it, would you have come to think about the nature of consciousness?
If you answer yes or even perhaps, then how would you talk about it? What level do you think your ideas would be about it if you wouldn't have any reference to science or philosophy about the issue or the basic biological understanding we have now. Just look at this thread and notice how much people refer to biology, science and philosophy. The previous discourse about the issue.
Not only do you need a very complex language to talk about the nature of consciousness, you need a lot of information to talk about it.
Now your cat might not think about Russell's paradox, but it quite likely can count. It could be argued that it has some primitive feline mathematical system, because counting is very important for situational awareness. Logic is also quite important in situational awareness.
Hence the huge difference isn't a biological difference, but a social and informational difference.
There's no Neandethals, Denisovans, Homo erectus, Homo rhodiensis, Homo naledi, Homo luzonensis, homo floriensis walking around anymore, even if there were 300 000 years ago. And all because of us, not because of climate change etc. Those that could have children with us, they now are part of our genealogical roots. It's telling when Alexander the Great made his genocidal journey of conquer to the outskirts of India, the Greeks had a brief "battle" with strange little humans that fled to the trees, until someone told them these were actually animals called monkeys and they wouldn't be a threat to them or a population to be subjugated.
Animals do use tools and for example the Neanderthal could make a fire, so the question is that would these other hominids of our tree be able to invent or copy agriculture, have the written word? Very likely, but they are no more.
Hence to your question, why wouldn't any other animal have the social and informational systems than we have, is because if they would, they would have posed a threat to us and we would have exterminated them.
Never underestimate the viciousness and utter cruelty of this species we call Homo Sapiens, mankind. Just look how cruel we can be for our own fellow man, even today. We aren't peaceful Kapybaras, you know.
I quite agree. However, while that may explain why there is no species with which we don't have such a social and informational difference, it doesn't explain the social and informational difference. The reason no other species does what we do socially and informationally is that their brains aren't capable of it. When other species have been in close contact with us for millennia, watching and hearing the things we do and how we do them, us attempting to teach them, what other explanation could there be?
Most mammals don't fly but bats do fly. Would that difference mean a bat is not an animal? It appears you are saying humans are not animals. We have a larger cortex than other apes and vocal cords that apes do not have. We are different but how does that difference equal humans are not animals?
Baboons do not learn from chimpanzees. The baboon can see the chimpanzee stick a twig in a rotting log and get termits but it never attempts to do so. Interestingly, the female chimp learns a lot from her mother but male chimps are less likely to pay attention to what their mother is doing until they get older.
Here is a lecture on animals and social learning.
Bats are the only mammals that can fly. I'm not saying bats are not mammals.
Love is older and more deeply rooted in sentient beings than rational thought. Love is a complex of emotions that connect one individual to another. In its most primitive form, the mother's tender concern for her young, closely followed by the bond between mated pairs. In the more evolved species, close friendship are formed between individuals - and not only of their own species. Many lions love their tiger, canine or human friends. Most humans are also picky about whom they love, and it's rarely their neighbour.
Quoting Athena
By inhabiting the human - exclusively human - imagination. Gods come into being through human projection and/or wishful thinking and are then sustained by application of rational narrative and social infrastructure to an irrational central idea.
Animals don't do that. If they're in awe of something, it's because that thing has got real power, not because they've they've conjured it up from their own murky subconscious.
And bats cannot communicate with iguanas and condors have little in common with zebras. Species within the same family are more like one another than they are like members of another family; human are more different from chipmunks than they are from gorillas. Gorillas are also very different from octopi, even though both are capable of rational problem-solving, neither can do algebra, but I expect both can be taught to play the piano. There are similarities and differences between species throughout the animal kingdom and its evolution.
But humans are super-duper-special; utterly different from other species in so many ways that are hugely important to humans.
Sadly, intelligence is not restricted by ethics. It enables us to do wonderful things, and also to do terrible things.
Well, our creation story doesn’t mention angels. But God does decide to prevent Adam & Eve from eating the apple of the knowledge of good and evil for fear that “they might become as one of us”. Food for thought. I think the harmful bit in our creation story is the idea that God gave us “dominion” over everything. If only they had said “stewardship”…!
Plato thought that we are a combination of animal and god.
Quoting Athena
Yes, heart is important – arguably more important than intelligence. I understand the feeling that being out of tune with nature is a bad thing. But the natural is not always a good thing. Nature, in itself, is neither good nor bad but just what it is – or perhaps sometimes good and sometimes bad.
Quoting Patterner
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have referred to the earlier discussion without identifying exactly where it is. I never wanted to accuse you of saying it. The earlier discussion centred on the consequences of Cartesion dualism for our treatment of animals.
Quoting Patterner
There are differences between human and animals. There are also similarities. So the interesting part is what “significant” means.
Actually, I think the significant differences are the ethical ones. We have moral obligations to animals – essentially, not to treat the cruelly. But they have not corresponding moral obligations to us; in fact they can’t be judged by our ordinary moral standards – though one could argue that they do have something like the beginnings of a moral sense.
Quoting ssu
Yes. Most of the abilities that seem to differentiate us from animals depend on our being brought up in human society. The “feral” children who turn up from time to time have great difficulty in making good what they missed.
Quoting ssu
Your point about the cat is well made. It’s the usual thing – every time something is identified as different and specifically human, it turns out that animals (some animals) have the beginnings or foundations of them. It’s just that we have supernormal development of them.
The point about mathematics and logic also seems to be right. But it does seem that our capacity to learn all those human skills and practices has a biological basis – over-developed cortex, opposable thumb, bipedalism.
The point that @Patterner also made of our brains being different might be the real difference, but even that might be smaller than we think. Bipedalism and our hands are reason why we can use so extensively tools. Also it has been studied that Homo Sapiens could have more children that lived up to adulthood than our hominid brothers. Yet the real question is hypothetical, could for example the Neanderthal been capable of creating a civilization? They could speak, at least a bit and could make fire, which obviously shows their sophistication. To dismiss the possibility outright based on biological differences we cannot do as it's now purely a hypothetical question.
And let's face the fact that if humans would have remained as hunter gatherers, there simply couldn't be so many of us and we would have molded the Earth as we have now. Without agriculture there wouldn't excess food production and hence there couldn't be division of labor, job specialization. Agriculture and trade and writing are simply crucial for our development to what we are now, especially if it has anything to do with our society or our scientific thought.
Agriculture got started just somewhere around 11000 BC and writing is even a more frequent invention, so what has made us different from the hunter gatherers (whom many of our extinct fellow hominids were too) has happened only a while ago.
Can I take that as suggesting that the things that make humans so special are not necessarily important to other creatures or, necessarily, to the planet? The planet, at least, seems poised to wreck our civilizations and we seem incapable of doing anything much about it.
The thing is, it seems to me that since, for better or worse, we are animals in so many ways, it doesn't really make sense to say that we are "utterly" different from other species.
Quoting Ludwig VWhich is all nonsense. People who want to be cruel will spin whatever they can to justify their cruelty.
Quoting Ludwig VNothing matters more. What makes humans different from other species? What is there answer to the Hard Problem of Consciousness? How did life begin? Did anything exist before the Big Bang? All fascinating topics. And we are driven to explore the unknown, and try to answer questions. But if we do not treat others, human and others, well, then we're filthy creatures pretending to be better than we are.
Quoting Ludwig VSome do. But it doesn't matter. No animal other than us can be judged for cruelty. They aren't thinking cruel thoughts when they do anything. They aren't choosing to be cruel. Only we have that capacity.
Of course not. Why should they be? Every individual member of every species is primarily concerned with its own survival, secondly with the survival of its family, flock or colony, thirdly with making their life less difficult. Only those with an unusual amount of physical security and leisure time have the luxury of reflection, self-assessment and thinking about how to think about their own thinking. Only a diminishing minority of humans are lucky enough to have that. Some felines and canines under human protection have the leisure, but they use it differently.
Quoting Ludwig V
That's only because our civilizations wrecked the planet, and when we became aware of this fact, refused to do anything about it.
Quoting Ludwig V
I've never thought so. Even rabbits are capable of destroying their habitat.
Proportionally, we are not the fastest, strongest, or most durable. We can't fly, we can't burrow, we can't swim underwater for more than a few minutes. Yet, because of our intelligence, we surpass every other species in all of these ways, and more. And we can do things no other species can do to the least degree, or is even trying. Such as travel to other celestial bodies, store information outside of our bodies, communicate instantly with the other side of the world, create intelligent entities that are not our biological offspring, and make a good go at destroying life on the planet. There is no ELE like us. It might be a good idea to better understand the things that make us different, rather than deny that we are.
Who's denying it? I'm well aware of all the things humans have accomplished and are capable of that no other species - indeed, not all the other species put together - could have done or can do.
Surely, having all those superior attainments, possessions and complexity of intellect are distinction enough. Our power to destroy them all should be power enough. I don't see a reason to deny them basic attributes like affection, communication and rational thought.
Animals can be jerks. Yet I think the issue is that we have come up with smart the idea of ethics, which we relate only to us.
Yeah, they can be jerks. Which makes for great videos on fb. :rofl:
Why do you suppose we relate our ethical principles only to use? Why don't we hold them accountable for there pain and death they cause each other? Why do we often kill dogs that break their chain and attack people?
In what circumstances, according to what law, by what standards? The pain and death other animals cause one another are generally inflicted in the course of feeding to survive - the means and method of which they have much less control than we do, and we don't outlaw human mean and methods of obtaining food, regardless of the pain the captivity and death of that food entail.
Quoting Patterner
Because in a human-controlled world, people are sacred - unless they've been convicted of a capital crime or inducted into an army - and dogs are not.
Well, those questions are indeed important because they disorient us and conclusive answers are hard to come by. But I also think that the everyday concerns of food and shelter and sociality are more important. Certainly, If those things are not available, it would be irrational not to give them a higher priority.
Quoting Patterner
I agree with that.
Quoting Patterner
That's certainly what I was saying earlier. But I'm bedevllied by a tendency to think of counter-examples after I've said something. I have heard that if a fox gets into a hen coop, it will kill every single one of them even though it cannot eat them all and cannot store them for the future. Farmers, I've heard, have a particular down on foxes for that reason. Would that count as choosing to be cruel? At least the fox doesn't torture them. Cats, on the other hand, I've heard, tend to corner a mouse and play with it, allowing it to escape and then catching it back at the last moment. (I've never seen that for myself). Would that count?
Quoting Patterner
Does that mean you agree with me?
Quoting Patterner
I'm sorry, I don't understand what "ELE" means. But it's a fair point.
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree with that.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quite so. What I'm getting at, though, is that our power over them and lack of awareness or at best understanding of it ought to impose a moral obligation not to mistreat them. It seems to me that a primary function of morality is to restrain the unlimited power over each other. But if our moral perceptions are restricted to our own species, it's hard to see how that works. We need a concept of a pan-species morality. But then, that morality would not necessarily restrain other creatures. I'm confused about this.
The closer we and another species are to our MRCA (Most Recent Common Success) on the tree of life, the more characteristics we share.
-We share more characteristics with other primates than we do with mammals that are not primates.
-We share more characteristics with other mammals than we do with vertebrates that are not mammals.
Etc.
What would that accomplish? It could not be arrived-at through discussion and consensus; it could only be imposed by humans. Which is already the case in our folklore. Nor, even if we could make him understand the reason, could the lion lie down with the lamb unless we offered him satisfying veggie-burgers instead. And it would not be convincing, even so, unless all the humans - who do have dietary alternatives - all refrained from eating, torturing, trapping and hunting other species. Or even their own... Condemning a cat for playing with something that moves, something she does not recognize as being like herself, is just as human and irrational as applauding a human when, after some fancy play, he kills a terrified captive bull.
If we were able to agree among our species on a coherent moral system applied to our own species, we would achieve an immensely remarkable feat. Meanwhile: Try not to do to anyone or anything else what you would not like done to yourself.
Thanks.
Quoting Vera Mont
So even our awesome power to wreck the entire planet has forerunners. The rabbits' power is not different power; rather, the humans have a "super" of a power that animals also have. I think perhaps that's a better way to think of at least some of the features that we have been talking about.
Quoting Patterner
Yes, of course - though the link to evolution is not, strictly speaking philosophical business. The tricky bit is distinguishing between the characteristics that we can unhesitatingly assign - anatomy and physiology etc. - and those that require interpretation.
The Cartesian suggestion that animals are simply machines seem absurd when applied to cats, dogs and mammals in general, but much less so when applied to bacteria, viruses and protozoa. The difficulty comes to a head when we start ascribing perceptions, motives, emotions and reasons to their behaviour. I think this comes from the fact that those judgments are heavily dependent on context and background.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes. I didn't mean to suggest that the cat was to be blamed in any way. No more than the foxes are.
In a way. A number of species are capable of overpopulating, overgrazing or overhunting their territory, given the right conditions. However, when that happens, nature quickly resets the balance by killing off the excess, though famine, disease or both. This was also true of pre-technological man.
It's only since humans declared war on nature and started winning that the the TEE (total extinction event) became all but inevitable, because man never reverses a bad decision; he generally exacerbates it with an even more technological 'solution'.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yet many, if not most, humans do blame animals for being animals; do judge other species, as well as other humans by human standards - but themselves. Little brains are quite capable of dishonesty, but only the Big Brain is capable of unlimited hypocrisy.
At another time, only one species of animal had the ability to breath air, even though other species were able to get oxygen in other ways. We can even see how the ability to breath air evolved from how other species were getting oxygen. Still, it was a new ability.
At the moment, only one species has the ability to think in certain ways/about various types of things, even though other species are able to think. We can even see how the ability to think in new ways evolved from how other species are able to think. Still, it is a new ability.
Isn't that exactly what is about to happen to humanity? Perhaps it would be best to scrap the present system and start again. No-one will mind except human beings.
Quoting Vera Mont
I'm not sure about the Big Brain, but yes, humans find it hard not to see the world entirely in their own interests. On the bright side, it is not completely impossible for us, so there is ground for hope.
Quoting Patterner
I get the point about the first two cases. But it's all about the cases and it's not hard to think of cases that are hard to classify.
No doubt there was a time when only one species was capable of walking. That required the evolution of legs. So that was a new ability. At some point, a species evolved that was capable of walking on just two legs. Was that a new ability or just a variant of an old one?
Our ability to see developed from creatures that just had light-sensitive patches in their skins. Gradually, the rest of the eye developed - you can look up the stages if you want. The first creatures were merely sensitive to light and dark, which was a new ability. Is our ability to see a new ability or just a development of the old one? At what point in that process did creatures develop that were not merely light-sensitive but capable of seeing?
I must confess I don't know enough about how language-less animals think to know what is old and what is new in our intellectual and cognitive abilities. Of course, I understand that humans have developed some of their abilities beyond what other animals are capable of. Whether they are new or just highly developed seems a secondary question to me.
Yes, but we've already wrecked most of the infrastructure that would reset the balance. When the rabbits die off, the grass grows back and little tree seedlings; the birds and squirrels move into that habitat. When a wolf-pack overhunts its territory, some die of malnutrition, but the survivors move on, leaving space for their prey to re-establish a healthy population. What we do is demolish entire ecosystems and poison the water and soil so that it cannot be revived.
Quoting Ludwig V
We should have done that 2000 years ago. Even now, it might not be too late, if there fewer of us and we had the collective will to make a fundamental change. As things stand, this freight train has no brakes.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm just saying we take every kind of thinking to a new, unequaled level, including the ability to prevericate in more elaborate and creative ways.
Thinking began in single-celled species. Nothing more than sensing light and moving in response to it is more complicated than dominoes knocking each other down. I can't imagine what the steps are between that and what we can do.
-Sensing multiple input, weighing them, and choosing one.
-Storing patterns of input, and referring to it when similar input is perceived.
-Thinking different things because the body develops different abilities.
It's all dizzying.
Yes, indeed.
It's not about my preferences. It's about thought, belief, and/or experience that exists and existed in its entirety prior to language use on the evolutionary timeline. You claimed that thought, belief, and meaningful experience consists of behaviour. I asked twice already, and now I'll ask again...
Are you claiming that some, all, and/or any thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience(s) consist(s) of behaviour and behaviour alone?
Problems with "what it means to say" anything aren't my concern. That's two steps backwards. Perhaps this will help...
Apple pies consist of apples, flour, and so forth. "Apple pies consist of apples" is not a problem, I presume. Meaningful experiences consist of thought and belief. Thought and belief consist of correlations. Thus... meaningful experience consists of correlations.
What's the problem?
Quoting creativesoul
All meaningful experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Meaningful experience begins the moment one draws correlations between different things. Like sands and piles of sand. No clear lines here where thought and belief magically poof into existence. Evolution is very slow. Language less experience ends the moment one begins to draw correlations between language use and other things. All language use consists of correlations. Not all correlations consist of language use. All correlations are meaningful to the creature drawing them.
Language use - in the beginning - is a plurality of creatures drawing correlations between the same things as a means to communicate their own thought, belief, desire, wants, etc. It is by virtue of drawing correlations between the same things that shared meaning emerges. If the growl is to be considered language, then it must mean the same thing to both. I cannot say I know if that's the case. I know it must be if it is to count as language at that stage. The growl is one element within the experiences of a plurality of dogs. All draw correlations between the growl and something else. The growl is meaningful to both as a result of that and that alone. The growl may or may not mean the same thing to all creatures that witness the occurrence. It's the something else that may differ here and the growl itself cannot tell us what else is included in the dogs' correlational content.
Meaningful experience is prior to language. All meaningful experience is meaningful to the creature/candidate under consideration. All meaningful things become so by virtue of becoming part of
that creature's correlational content. Language less experience ends the moment one begins to draw correlations between language use and other things.
Hence, regarding your dog and other domesticated non-human animals that obey and/or understand basic commands and/or other language use...
These are no longer language less creatures having language less experience. Each and every correlation drawn between language use and something else counts not as language less experience. So, as I've said before, the difference between language less creatures' experiences and language users' experiences are clear. The former does not - cannot - include correlations including language use, and the latter does.
I'm uh, troubled, to say the least, by the earlier flippant dismissal regarding the philosophical import of evolutionary progression as it pertains to any and all notions of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. It would be all too convenient for many a philosopher if philosophical positions/notions of thought and belief did not require being amenable to an evolutionary timeline. Denying the evolutionary history of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience does not make it go away. One's philosophical position regarding though, belief, and/or meaningful experience had better be able to take it into proper account.
Thought, belief, and/or knowledge is not a description. Some folk say that dogs are somehow, someway, doing calculus when they catch a ball. I say that that's bad thinking. Conflating mathematical descriptions(calculus) for knowing how to catch a ball.
I've an issue with attributing awareness of awareness to any creature incapable of thinking about thought and belief as a subject matter in its own right. That requires naming and descriptive practices.
Quoting Ludwig V
It does not follow from the fact that your dog can learn to stop growling on your command that all dogs have conscious control of their growling in the sense of "conscious control" that matters here. Voluntarily choosing to growl and/or not growl in some particular scenario/situation or another.
How do you know that the behaviour of language less creatures is not being misinterpreted? By what standard do you judge whether or not an interpretation is correct?
Accountability applies only to those who know they've done wrong(those who know better).
Other creatures capable of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience are utterly incapable of comparing their own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all. Knowing better requires having done so. Hence, they cannot know better.
In order to choose better, one must know of better. That's one thing some humans do that no other animal can. So, in this sense, they(language less animals and experience) are utterly different. They cannot form, have, and/or hold any sort of thought and/or belief that requires comparing one's own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all, societal ethical standards, moral codes(morality); rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour notwithstanding.
Here is where it went off the rails.
The difference between thought, belief, and/or experiences that humans and only humans can have that no other animal can.
This presupposes a difference between other capable creatures' beliefs and our own, with a particular emphasis upon those beliefs that language use has facilitated.
I'm not sure what that means.
Behaviour is not thought. Behaviour is not belief. Behaviour is not meaningful experience.
What's in dispute here is whether or not all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone.
I'm arguing in the negative.
Furthermore, I'm positing that all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of correlations between different things drawn by a creature so capable. I'm arguing in favor of that.
I like the acknowledgement of evolutionary progression. However, thinking is something that we do. Thinking is existentially dependent upon certain biological structures that we have. We know that because we have observed and recorded the affects/effects that damaging those structures has on the mind and/or cognitive abilities of the injured. There is no good reason to attribute thinking to creatures that do not have very similar relevant biological structures.
Yup. The difference between language less thought and belief and language users' thought and belief are pivotal here in this discussion. How else do we avoid mistakenly attributing belief where none can be?
Morality is a human thing.
Yes. It is the kinds or complexity of language less thought that needs attention. Many rational thoughts we have are incapable of being formed, had, and/or held by language less creatures.
It's knowing language's role that matters.
That all depends upon what counts as proof.
It's getting plenty of attention from animal behaviorists. We're getting more and more studies of problem solving in both nature and laboratory conditions.
Quoting creativesoul
And a great many irrational ones, as well.The human mind has a great breadth and variety of function and malfunction.
It seems you don't have much experience of dogs.
IN-capable?
An important way in which humans differ from all other animals is our highly evolved "theory of mind" - a mental capacity that allows us to make inferences about the mental states of others.
We, each of us, have a "theory of mind" about others - We can understand the beliefs, emotions, intentions and thoughts of others. Such a capacity is vital for complex social interactions.
For example, empathy could not exist without a theory of mind.
It has been proposed that religion is a by-product of this mental capacity we call theory of mind, as we evolved to make inferences about what is in the mind of God.
Clearly, you have never had a dog console you in grief or ask you anxiously why you are on the ground with your head in the kitchen cabinet.
Quoting Questioner
Much has been proposed about "God", usually without reference to all the various conceptions of deity in all the various cultures that invariably project some aspect of their own version of human onto their gods.
Thank you for the opportunity to expand on my answer.
First – I have had dogs comfort me! I always looked on my dogs as my babies.
But the “theory of mind” (and the empathy related to it) I described allows a human to understand what another is thinking or feeling. Rather than empathy, what a dog is experiencing when he responds to your grief is emotional contagion, which is a response to emotions without fully understanding what the other individual is feeling.
Emotional contagion lacks the process of individuation required for empathy – the emotions mirrored are not seen as distinct from the other.
Quoting Vera Mont
Theory of Mind is not a set of proposals to explain the characteristics specific to any one religion, but rather an explanation for why religion exists at all.
Being able to read thoughts and feelings are very different attributes. Humans discern the thoughts of other humans through choice of words, tone of voice, body language, facial expression and the little 'tells' when we're bluffing or lying. This is relatively easy to do between persons from the same culture and social background, much more difficult between people of different ethnicity or nationality or class or even sex in most cases. We can read the thoughts and feelings of a fictional character from the speech and manner of an actor, while the actor himself thinks and feels quite differently.
What people are feeling, otoh, is more nearly universal; much less affected by cultural mannerisms. It's more remarkable that other species can read our emotions more readily than we can read theirs, almost certainly because their noses are more sensitive and we sweat hormones. It has nothing to do with theory; it's about experience and the recognition of our same emotions in another. Quoting Questioner
Sneaking in the requirement to "fully understand" makes it exclusively human.... As if humans all fully understood their own emotions, let alone one another's.
Quoting Questioner
Like human mobs at a lynching or cattle in a stampede? No, that's not very much like empathy.
How does a dog react when her human behaves in an uncharacteristic way? Try lying very still on the floor. Does your dog get contaminated and play dead? No, he paws and nuzzles at you, puffing little breaths through his nose, maybe whimpering or uttering short sharp yips, concerned for your welfare. (Which is why they train service dogs.)
Quoting Questioner
It's one explanation. And gods are one explanation for why humans exist. We're good at making up explanations, either from fact or fantasy; other animals are not. That's another distinction to add to the list.
I may be wrong to think that you are referring to something that I said. If you were, I am troubled by your impression that I would dismiss the philosophical import of evolutionary progression, let alone dismiss it flippantly. I would have thought that my general insistence that there is always continuity between what animals can do and what humans can do was evidence to the contrary. I must have said something to mislead you and I'm sorry about that.
Quoting creativesoul
I hope it helps if I write that sentence as "Surely, (thought that involves trees and cats) is involved in the (behaviour that involves trees and cats)" and explain (which I should have done) that when a dog approaches a tree in order to sniffs it, it is because it believes that there will be interesting smells around it, and so on.
Quoting creativesoul
My problem is the transition from apple pies to meaningful experiences. (By the way, I was wondering what a meaningless experience would be like; I can see that they would not consist of thought and belief - so what would they consist of?)
You seem to have assumed that because "apple pies consist of apples etc." is unproblematic you can substitue any noun for "apple pies" and give an unproblematic answer. But what do surfaces edges consist of? Does it make sense to say that rainbows consist of light waves or colours? What does the number 4 consist of? A recipe?
I agree that experiences are an important basis for thought and belief, though experiences, I think, are something that happens to me.
There are two slightly different senses of "thought". One makes it like "belief" in that I can believe that p and think that p; the other is an activity, so it is hard to see that experience can consist of thinking.
Belief and (thought that) is more like a state, rather than something that happens or that I do, so again, it doesn't seem plausible to think of it as a constituent of experience.
Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief, but I'm reluctant to say that a sentence/statement/proposition is a constituent of thought or belief (or knowledge), since thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition. This is why some people are so reluctant to admit that there is such a thing as thought/belief/knowledge without language.
Quoting creativesoul
I agree. But behaviour (including linguistic behaviour, and behaviours like talking to oneself silently) does express one's thought, beliefs and experiences.
Quoting creativesoul
I would be quite happy to give up any suggestion that experience consists of behaviour, in favour of the idea that experience is express by behaviour. What else, apart from behaviour, could meaningful experience consist of? What else, apart from behaviour could express experience?
Quoting creativesoul
Well, in the same way that different kinds of thing have different kinds of constituent, so there are different kinds of correlation. For example, it is common to say that there is a difference between correlation and causation. But it is puzzling to understand 2+2=4 as a correlation.
Quoting creativesoul
But thought, belief and knowledge all require a description to explain what is thought, believed of known. Still, I think most people will agree with you about the dog. But most people then find themselves puzzled about how the dog knows where the ball will land. That's the point.
Quoting creativesoul
Surely, when a dog approaches its food bowl, sniffs it and walks away despondently, the dog is comparing its hope that there is food in the bowl with reality and recognizing the difference.
Quoting creativesoul
There I agree with you.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Vera Mont
No, you’re right, “theory of mind” does not have to do with reading sensory clues, or recognizing emotional states, which is what you are describing. The theory is something we create in our minds about the mental state of another, by making inferences about these sensory clues that we pick up. Because we have a theory of mind, we don’t stop at “He’s sad.” Or “He’s mad.” We take it further and form theories in our minds about what the sensory clues mean > “He’s mad about this….” Or “He’s sad about this …” Or “He wants me to do this …” Or “He doesn’t want me to do this …”
You use your theory of mind every time you make an inference about the mental state of another – like reading a mind. Sometimes, these inferences are correct, and sometimes they are not.
Quoting Vera Mont
You’re right, it was a poor choice of word, unless it is limited to “our personal understanding.”
(Lol, I’m not trying to be sneaky.)
Quoting Vera Mont
It doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Smiles are contagious.
Quoting Vera Mont
Why humans exist? Or the entire universe?
And when we make up an explanation for existence that involves a supernatural being with specific characteristics – whether we imagine he is a loving god, or a vengeful god, or whatever – we are using our theory of mind to infer what is in the mind of that god.
Quoting Vera Mont
Interesting observation. Yes, if the signals sent are false, then your inference about what is in the mind of another will most likely also be false.
Yes. But how is that empathy? Quoting Questioner
It doesn't have to be dramatic; people also yawn when they see others doing it; a giggle fit can engulf the entire table. Mirror neurons firing at random. Still not empathy.
Quoting Questioner
Whatever. Gods have been used as stop-gap explanations for lots of things we didn't know, and are still used as a explanation for misfortune, the weather, altruism and the supremacy of man over all of creation. But their main function is to replace the all-powerful father figure from childhood.
Quoting Questioner
By projecting there whatever is in the mind of whichever kind of man invented that god.
Quoting Questioner
And that is why humans can lie so much more elaborately and sustainably (sometimes an entire lifetime, sometimes even to themselves) than any other species, and more convincingly to one another than to any other species.
But false signals, feigning and misdirection are not exclusively human; we inherited the instinct and motivations for preverication from a long line of ancestors.
I didn't equate theory of mind to empathy. I said empathy is one trait that depends on theory of mind.
Quoting Vera Mont
I never said it was. You are the one conflating emotional contagion for empathy.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, our belief instinct is strong.
Quoting Vera Mont
This is unconnected to any discussion about theory of mind.
Amazing what a difference a word can make. I think we have an agreement.
I don't think that explanation comes up in any creation stories.
And I say it doesn't. I say empathy predates theory of mind by many millennia.
We're also very big on wishful thinking.
This is from [I]Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious[/I], by Antonio Damasio:
This is from [I]Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos[/I], by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam:
Ogas and Gaddam soon talk about the roundworm. In addition to sensors and doers, the roundworm has two thinking elements. One neuron connects the sensors and the forward-moving doers, and activates the movers when the sensors say there is food ahead. Another neuron connects the sensors to the backward-moving doers, and activates the movers when the sensors say there is poison ahead. The stronger the signal a neuron gets from the sensor, the stronger the signal it sends to its mover.
Also, the two neurons inhibit each other. The stronger the signal a neuron receives from the sensor, the stronger it inhibits the other neuron.
The authors of these two books are calling it 'thinking' from the beginning. The roundworm is a step up. It is judging conflicting inputs, and choosing. It might be stretching the definitions of 'judging' and 'choosing'. And maybe it's stretching the definition to say "This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking." But all of this is, surely, the first stage of thinking. The sensors could evolve into eyes, or nose, or whatever. The movers could evolve into a tail, or legs, or whatever. But what connected them in the first ancient life evolved into our thinking. And, even if in only the most primitive sense, they are performing the same functions.
How do you know that non-human animals don't have a theory of mind? How do you know that other people have a theory of mind?
Since the theory of mind is posited as an essential prerequisite of empathy, it seems to follow that if somone (human) can interact appropriately with other people, they have a theory of mind. I suppose.
So, if some non-human animals can interact appropriately with various other animals, including human animals, does it not follow that they have a theory of mind?
I do agree, however, that generalization about the extent to which all animals can do that would be very dangerous. I don't think that a fly has any real grasp of humans as people; nor do fish - most of them, anyway.
Quoting Questioner
I thought that emotional contagion was sharing the emotions of others, as opposed to responding to their emotions. It's like the difference between treating a disease and catching it.
After I posted this, I came across a separate entry in Wikipedia - Wikipedia - Theory of mind in animals
In practice, these supposed different alternatives come down to the same process. There is no way to read a mind except by reading behaviour.
Thank you for this. I agree that it is important in that it puts the relationship between knowing and doing at the heart of both. Philosophy has created endless fake problems for itself by focusing on the first and treating the second as an optional add-on. Suggesting that it is the "first stage" instead of insisting that it is either thinking or not is also an excellent nuance and very helpful. I shall remember about the roundworm (and, hopefully, where I learnt about it) for a long time.
Quoting Athena
No, it doesn't. it is a new creation story, and the creation story of our time. It differs from all the others in that it lays itself open to evalutaion as true or false. Which seems to be a great improvement on the traditional varieties.
Indeed, we are. I've watched a number of different 'documentaries' about animal minds and problem solving. What seems to be of philosophical importance, from my vantage point anyway, is how the narrators and/or authors report on the minds of the subjects. There is always a notion of "mind" at work.
Quoting Vera Mont
Agreed. The difficulty is in discriminating between which sorts of thoughts are existentially dependent upon language use and which ones are not. Those that are, cannot be formed, had, or held by language less creatures.
Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion, but it's false... if you care enough about whether or not your beliefs about my experience are true.
I suspect that there are behaviours that dogs display after doing something forbidden, or after being approached by the humans afterwards, that you claim shows us that they know better?
I'm wondering if you looked at the argument for the claim at the top of that post, or just at the conclusion.
Hey Mww.
You and I both know that "thought" to you means something very different than "thought" to me. On your view, and correct me if I'm wrong, there is no distinction between thought and thinking about thought. We would agree that other creatures are incapable of some kinds of thought(namely those existentially dependent upon metacognitive endeavors) if there were such a distinction/discrimination on your view.
What language less creatures are capable of believing and thinking is precisely what's in question here. That sort of consideration relies upon notions of "thought" and "belief". Even the approach that you seem most fond of presupposes notions of "thought" and "belief". The idea that behaviour "expresses" belief has very little, if any, restrictions around it. There is no clear standard by which to judge whether or not the belief we are attributing to the language less creature is something that the creature is capable of forming, having, and/or holding. There are other problems as well, as I'm sure you're aware.
Regarding this example, I see no reason, ground, or justification to claim what the dog will believe is or isn't interesting.
What is the standard and/or criterion you're using to decide/determine/judge what sorts of beliefs
language less animals can and/or cannot have?
Quoting Ludwig V
I went back to check on what it was that was said. No worries. I must have misinterpreted what you wrote. My apology seems more fitting than yours. That is... it seems that it is I who owes you an apology, not the other way around.
:yikes:
My apologies.
You are hardly one to be imprecise. That being given, it just seemed to me, in-capable would have lent more consistency to the overall point being made in that particular entry.
If I’m mistaken, that’s on me.
Yes, and understandably so, for they are very different kinds of things.
Apple pies are material, whereas thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences are neither material nor immaterial. Rather, they consist of material/physical and immaterial/non physical elements. In addition, apple pies could be classified as objects, whereas thought, belief, and meaningful experiences are not objects at all. Nor are they subjects. They are ongoing processes. I touched on this diversion from convention a few times earlier in the thread and mentioned to you more recently that my position turns many a historical dichotomy on its head.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. There are times when the two terms "thought" and "belief" are not interchangeable. This is irrelevant however to the position I'm arguing for/from.
Riding a unicycle is an activity. Some experiences consist of riding a unicycle. That is the case for one who is watching another ride or riding themselves.
Perhaps a large part of the problem that makes it "hard to see" how experiences can consist of thought and belief is that the conventional approaches are ill-equipped for doing so.
Belief that approaches are all about epistemological claims, in that they attempt to show how truth is presupposed in all belief statements and/or knowledge claims. As useful as they are in helping us to think about such things, they are useless in determining and/or acquiring knowledge of what language less thought and belief consists of. They also tend to equate belief with propositions and/or belief with attitudes towards that proposition, which is a huge mistake, despite the fact that we express much of our own beliefs via language use/propositions.
On my view, it is clear that language less creatures' beliefs cannot be understood using that method. Not all belief is propositional in content. Propositions are meaningless to language less creatures. Hence, they can have no attitude towards them.
Quoting Ludwig V
This seems to be alluding to belief as propositional attitude without saying so.
Our discussion is an experience, partly shared - at least - by all who've participated and/or have been following along. It would be very hard to make any sense of denying that each and every participant having the experience were thinking about what they were reading. They do so by virtue of drawing correlations between language use and other things. All of those correlations are part of the experiences. They are experiences that only we can have. Those correlations(that process of thinking) are(is an) elemental constituent(s). If we were to remove all those correlations being drawn between the language use and other things, if we were to remove all of the thoughtful consideration between the claims and what the claims are describing, what would be left of each individual experience such that it could still count as the experience of the reader/participant? It would be akin to removing the apples from the pie and still claiming it was an apple pie.
Quoting Ludwig V
On pains of coherency alone. The problem is the notion/use of "thought".
The first claim is false as is what immediately follows "since".
This looks like a comparison between rudimentary sensory perception and Cartesian notion of perception, or perhaps a phenomenological account of perception. I agree with the rejection of both "representation" and "image". I'm also in complete agreement that physiological sensory perception is at the root, the basis, of thinking. However, sensory perception is not equivalent to thinking. That conflation blurs the entire timeline of evolutionary progression between moving towards light and our thinking about how they do that. I think the latter is existentially dependent upon the former, but not the other way around.
I agree in large part. I think they're on the right track. The notions of "mind" and "thinking" seem far too diluted for my tastes, and I suspect the account falls victim to reductio.
Quoting Mww
:wink:
I mentioned what they were incapable of. It's not all thought, or all belief, or all experience. Just some.
I was just thinking out loud and reacting to what others have said, including someone in a completely different forum and a TV show about a Native American creation story. I may have an overactive mind.
My Thanksgiving blew up into an emotional drama and I feel very fragile this morning. I don't think animals come even close to the insanity of humans except maybe when a dog has rabbis. I think today I am holding a completely different perspective of humans. We have been arguing about humans being rational but they can also be completely irrational and destructive making the notion of being possessed by a demon seem plausible.
Indeed, but language less creatures cannot do that.
A process.
Something(s) to become meaningful, a creature for that something or those things to become meaningful to, and a means for things to become meaningful to that creature.
No kidding! What's the point of a brain, if it's not to generate a mind? But if the word troubles you, turn off the sound and watch the action. Quoting creativesoul
Why is that so important to you, and by what method - other than philosophizing - do you propose to discriminate? Aside from the fact that you arbitrarily consign all communication, among any species, that doesn't have human grammar and vocabulary as language-less. Makes pre-verbal babies sound mindless, and completely dismisses the human vocabulary a great many human-associated animals are capable of learning. (Some humans are also capable of learning some non-human vocabulary.)
Quoting creativesoul
I thought the question was whether other species are capable of rational thought. The language boondoggle was introduced later.
Ok. Just wasn't sure if you thought I was saying anything about creation stories, or anything at all in any religious vein.
Sorry about your Thanksgiving. Indeed, a lot of negative possibilities come along with our mental capacity. And the negative crap is, like Yoda said about the Dark Side, quicker, easier, more seductive.
It's not that the word troubles me. It's that the report of the language less creatures' thought(s) is based largely - if not exclusively - on the reporter's notion of mind. If that notion/concept of mind is incapable of discriminating between thoughts that only humans are capable of having and those that non human animals can have, then the report of those experiments, including what is purported to be the thoughts and/or thinking of the subject matter will inevitable conflate the two. That is, the reports will include false claims.
Quoting Vera Mont
There is no other method to discriminate between what language less creatures are capable of thinking and what we are. We can then check and see how well our notion explains the experiment. It matters because getting it right matters.
Whose narrative isn't based on their own notion of mind?
Quoting creativesoul
There is no method to discriminate between what human language less creatures are capable of thinking and what we are. Quite apart from the fact that one species - undisputedly - having more fanciful and abstruse thoughts than others doesn't negate rationality in others. And the secondary fact that the majority of humans also don't give very much of their day to contemplating metaphisics, the nature of thought about thinking, or 'the hard question of consciousness'.
Yeah, that sucks. That's never a good thing. Some people are incapable of calmly expressing themselves. The current state of American culture/politics is making things far worse. Complete and total disrespect for others is not only glorified, its financially rewarded.
You seem like a nice person. Hopefully your days improve.
That's not true.
And yet, you have not elaborated the scientific method whereby it can be objectively measured and verified.
Nor have I claimed that.
:yikes:
I have elaborated on the philosophical enquiry/method I've used to discriminate between language less thought and thoughts that are existentially dependent on language and/or each other - as many of our own thoughts are.
There are some things that are verifiable, others that are not.
Of course the question is whether or not other species are capable of rational thought. You and I agree that they are.
Our differences seem to be about which sorts of thoughts other species are capable of and which ones they are not. Although, there is some agreement there as well.
I use the method I've been employing to discriminate between those that only we can form, have, and/or hold and those that other species can as well. One glaringly obvious distinction is that other species are incapable of having thoughts that are existentially dependent upon using language(naming and descriptive practices).
By what standard do you discriminate?
I see my mistake. A creature IN-capable of thought (…) doesn’t have any, making his incapacity for comparing them with anything, moot.
The origins of both theory of mind and empathy go back about 5-6 million years ago.
The species Homo sapiens dates back about 200,000 years ago.
Quoting Vera Mont
That's true.
The scientific research into nonhuman animals’ theory of mind (ToM) goes back decades and there is no consensus. But do I think a dog can interpret and make inferences about human thought? No.
Quoting Ludwig V
I am human and I can make inferences into what is in another mind. The key word is inference.
We do not just perceive – we perceive and interpret. the mental states of others.
Besides empathy, things like collaboration, education, and figuring out our social standing, rely on our theory of mind.
Quoting Ludwig V
Every time you form a conclusion about what is in the mind of another (whether it is correct or not) you are using your ToM capacity.
Quoting Ludwig V
Not necessarily. Interacting is not the same as interpreting mental states.
Quoting Ludwig V
But not all reading of behavior involves ToM.
When you read a book, is the end goal to see the symbols on the page, or to make meaning out of them?
Theory of mind originated with gorillas? Without language? OK - I did not know that 'theory' could be applied to an inarticulate process like watching and interpreting the physical actions of another sentient being. Though I do suspect emotional empathy is older and less dependent on the socialization of young.
Quoting Questioner
I don't see how two individuals - other than predator and prey - can interact without interpreting states of mind - or at least states of emotion and health.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting creativesoul
But you have invalidated observations made on scientific principles for the choice of words not being objective enough.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm also aware of how much reliable factual information philosophy has contributed to human knowledge over the last two millennia.
The distinction of human language-using vs human language-less is entirely anthropocentric. I do understand why that distinction may seem vital to establishing human superiority, but I don't see why it matters to the question of whether a thought is rational.
Quoting creativesoul
How did sorts of thought become the central issue? A logical solution to even one single problem, such as getting a grub out of a hollow tree or escaping from a fenced yard demonstrates rational thought. Adding layers of complexity, all the way up to wondering why the universe exists, doesn't change the fundamental nature of reason itself; it merely obfuscates the issue by shifting focus from the process to the subject matter.
A very small minority of humans set themselves the task of mulling over questions with no available answers (just how many angels can dance on a pin); a large minority grapple with the invention and application of technology or administrative affairs; the vast majority think about getting food, securing their physical well being, having sex, raising their young, pursuing pleasure when they get the chance - much like all the other animals. They go about these activities through both rational and irrational decisions - much like all the other animals.
Quoting Vera Mont
Not all rational thought is the same. Some rational thought can only be formed by virtue of naming and descriptive practices. That is one crucial difference between our language and non human animals' languages. It is the difference between being able to think about one's own thought and not. Only humans can do this. Hence, any and all thought that is existentially dependent upon metacognition is of the sort that non human creatures cannot form, have, and/or hold.
There's much more nuance within my position than you've recognized.
That's not true.
I'm guessing this refers to the earlier examples of tool use and learning how to open gates. I agree that those are cases of rational thinking in non human animals. None of them require a creature capable of metacognition.
On the contrary...
Claiming that a male bird of paradise clears out an area and dances because he's trying to impress a female is a bit of a stretch.
Can dogs compare their own behaviour with a set of rules governing that behaviour? Can they thik about the rules placed on their behaviour?
If not, then how can they know what you claim they can know?
More likely in the most recent common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, which lived about 6-8 million years ago.
Quoting Vera Mont
Theory of mind does not refer to the process, but the end result – the inferences you make is the theory - formed in your mind – it’s a theory about what is in the mind of another mind.
Quoting Vera Mont
We can make conclusions about emotion and health just by observing outward signs. This is not what forming a theory of mind is about. If you form a theory about what is in another mind, you form conclusions about the mental state of another with a view to making predictions.
A good book with a detailed explanation of theory of mind is Jesse Bering’s The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life.
Here are two quotes from it -
From psychologist Nicholas Humphrey (pre-1978):
We humans … have evolved to be “natural psychologists.” The most promising but also the most dangerous elements in our environment are other members of our own species. Success for our human ancestors must have depended on being able to get inside the minds of those they lived with, to second-guess them, anticipate where they were going, help them if they needed it, challenge them, manipulate them. To do this they had to develop brains that would deliver a story about what it’s like to be another person from the inside.
From psychologists David Premark and Guy Woodruff (defining theory of mind in 1978):
A system of inferences of this kind may be properly viewed as a theory because such (mental) states are not directly observable, and the system can be used to make predictions about the behavior of others.
Would you agree that Jimi drew a correlation between his behaviour(killing) and your behaviour towards him afterwards?
This is the direction this discussion needs to take.
Of course. How else do we draw conclusions about anything? We don't get inward signs of other individuals.
Quoting creativesoul
So what? A thought is rational or irrational. And action the result of thought or of emotion. Quoting creativesoul
Yes, yes, several people have already established human specialness about two dozen times in this thread alone, and I have not disputed it once. I just don't see how it could invalidate the capability of other species for rational thought.
Quoting creativesoul
Oh I appreciate the distinction you keep making. Sounds much like Descartes': They don't speak [in human words] and they don't philosophize. Granted on both counts. I just don't consider it relevant to the topic.
Quoting creativesoul
Than what was the purpose of
Quoting creativesoul
That's our theory of mind at work. Why is it a problem, if you're not fussy about objectivity.
Quoting creativesoul
Neither does the Ford assembly line. The point is still to find areas of human specialness. You already have that. Why belabour it?
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
It's been taken in that direction ten times over. By all means, pursue it again.
By what standard/criterion do you judge which sorts of human thinking(rational or otherwise) non humans are capable of?
We imagine them.
Quoting creativesoul
That's why.
I don't discriminate between 'sorts' of thinking.
Reason is reason, whether it's applied to practical or fanciful subjects.
Quoting Questioner
That's been known to produce variably reliable results.
Quoting creativesoul
That's equally true of your theories.
Sure, I guess the association must be in play. I think it's the same with children learning what is expected of them and to anticipate some kind of punishment if they don't comply.
That's true.
We might get some clues from thinking about how we decide what a human being believes or can believe and then thinking about what a creature like a dog does believe.
For example, you believe that a dog cannot form beliefs about beliefs. (Forgive me if that's not accurate, but I think it is enough for what I want to say). In my book, that needs to be considered in the light of what the dog does. Meaning is not some abstract entity floating about in the ether. It governs behaviour. So, for example, there are many beliefs that I cannot form because I have never learnt the relevant behaviours; I never learnt to write computer code or do more than elementary mathematics. While I can formulate some beliefs about those matters as they impinge on my life, but the detail is bayond me.
If a dog could read a clock and use the information in relevant ways, I would say it may know when it is 5 p.m. Does that mean it cannot have a concept of time? No, because it can show up for meals or walks at the right time. But it cannot have a concept of time like the human concept and there are other behaviours that can high-light that.
Quoting creativesoul
I have some intuition about that distinction, but I have trouble applying it. Is my belief that there is some beer in the fridge existentially dependent on language? I can only express it in language. Could a dog believe that there is beer in the fridge? Well, it can certainly believe that its dinner is in the fridge.
Quoting creativesoul
Roughly, the same ones that I use to decide what believes human beings have when I cannot ask them.
Quoting creativesoul
I suppose you are disagreeing with "Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief..." and "thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition"
As to the first, I may have been unclear. As to the first, it is true that one can hold beliefs that are not formulated in language. But I cannot talk about them without a formulation in language. To distinguish between what people believe and don't believe, I must complete the formula "S believes that..."
As to the second, "S knows that p" means that p is true. "S believes that p" means that S believes/thinks that p is true, but it may not actually be true. "Thinks" is more complicated than either, but is at least compatible with S merely entertaining the possibility that p is true.
Quoting creativesoul
We agree, then, that experience is a process. I am hoping that you also agree with me that what is meaningful to a creature affects how that creature behaves.
Quoting creativesoul
To be sure, the presuppositions with which one approaches describing animal behaviour are always important. If they are wrong, the reports will be wrong. You seem very confident that your presuppositions are correct. It is sensible to evaluate one's presuppositions in tne light of observations and to revise or refine them before making further observations. It seems to me very dangerous to think that observations of a particular incident can be conclusively settled without an extensive background of observations of a range of behaviour of the animal.
Quoting creativesoul
I wonder how one might explain that behaviour. The idea that he is doing it for fun is not impossible, but is a bit of a stretch. If females did it too, it would be plausible. But, as I understand it, they don't. Suppose that female behaviour indicates that they are attracted by what the male does. Perhaps that Is just an coincidence, but that's a bit of a stretch too.
For sure. Assumptions, misperceptions, misconceptions, misunderstandings, delusions and fallacies all happen.
Thanks but the bad thing turned into a good thing. :grin: It seemed like an end-of-the-world event but now I see it as the beginning of wonderful new opportunities.
I was wondering how animals handle such events and decided their relationships change and their position in the troop can change, especially when they transition to adulthood.
Thanks as I said above, what I thought was almost too terrible to bear has turned into a good thing. However, I am still pondering what you have said about the spirit of our times and what is happening in families. I might want to transfer this to a thread about the fall of civilizations.
Look at what I found because the posts in this thread pushed me to understand more...
Thank you, thank you everyone! Sometimes I worry that this thread is getting too far from topic but then I see a possible connection and I am blown away by the expansion of my mind. This is why I come here.
Quoting Vera Mont
Sure. It's true of any ToM.
If the ToM being fleshed out by myself were incapable of drawing and maintaining those distinctions, then it too would inevitably result in conflating between non human thought and belief and human thought and belief. Hence, the importance of the endeavor.
I/we do not have all the answers, nor do I think it's possible to acquire them. We do, however, have some and those help avoid some anthropomorphism. They also allow one to recognize some mistakes 'in the wild'.
Quoting Vera Mont
Which inevitably results in personification(anthropomorphism). That's unacceptable by my standards.
And this is important to you. Why?
Quoting creativesoul
What does this mean? Malevolution? Man shooting the wrong species?
Quoting creativesoul
Yes, I can see that. I can also substitute 'prejudices' for 'standards'.
I think that Jimi's having already drawn that correlation is more than enough to explain the fear and trembling displayed by him upon your return. I mean, the dead chook was right there. The fear and trembling showed his expectation(belief about what you were about to do). He suddenly remembered. I'm assuming he wasn't trembling until you arrived. Whatever you did the first time, Jimi expected that to happen again. That belief/expectation resulted from the earlier correlation he drew between his behaviour involving killing chooks and yours immediately afterwards. I see no ground whatsoever to say he believed, knew, or anticipated that he was being punished for not following the rules. I see every reason to say that he was drawing much the same correlations the second time around that he did the first.
There is similarity. I just think you're overstating it. Some(arguably most) children can and do draw correlations between their own behaviour and others' behaviour towards them afterwards. So, to that extent, it's the same. That's an early step in learning the rules. It's not enough though. It is enough to help increase the chances of one's own survival when living in a violent/aggressive social hierarchy. Canines have a very long history of that.
It's the difference that you're neglecting and/or glossing over.
The presupposition that dogs are capable of knowing whether or not their behaviour complies with the rules is suspect. That is precisely what needs argued for. That sort of knowledge is existentially dependent upon the capability to compare one's own behaviour with the rules. The only way it is possible is for one to acquire knowledge of both by virtue of learning how talk about both.
I do not see how it makes sense to say that dogs are capable of comparing their own behaviour with the rules. I know there's all sorts of variables, but I'm certain that the same is true of very young children as well. It takes quite some time and the right sorts of attention paid to us prior to our ability to know that our behaviour is or is not against the rules. We must know at least that much prior to being able to know that we've done something that we should not have done.
Quoting Janus
As set out above, I would say that they cannot even know they have done something they should not have done, let alone 'just like humans can'.
Do you have an argument/justification/reasons for claiming that, aside from Jimi's behaviour?
Right, so he knew he had done something he shouldn't have, which was my original point. Do you think it is any different with humans? Do you think that if children were never taught that they would know what is expected of them?
To be sure humans learn what is acceptable and what is not through both behavior and language whereas dogs do so primarily through behavior. That said they do learn what kinds of behavior of theirs relates respectively to and invokes "good dog" and "bad dog" and other simple utterances; so language is involved to some degree.
"There is no clear standard by which to judge" was referring to the idea/claim that "behaviour expresses belief" and/or that approach.
The last suggestion/claim above has the methodological approach the wrong way around.
It is our behaviour that clearly shows us - beyond all reasonable doubt - what thinking about one's own thought and belief(metacognition) requires: Naming and descriptive practices; picking one's own thought and belief out of this world to the exclusion of all else. That is the only means. That crucial bit of knowledge is part of the standard used to assess/judge any and all belief attribution by any and all authors/speakers to any and all creatures, human to human attribution notwithstanding. It's not the only one, but it's the one in consideration at the moment, and some others are irrelevant to the topic at hand. I digress...
So, it seems clear to me that what the dog does, and the subsequent attribution(s) of thought and/or belief to the dog because of what the dog does, all need to be considered in light of what metacognition requires(what metacognition is existentially dependent upon). The dog cannot consider its own thought and belief as a subject matter in and of itself. Thus, any and all sorts of thinking that require a creature capable of doing so are sorts that dogs cannot form, have, and/or hold. It's that simple. Easy to say. Much more difficult to clearly set out, but I am getting a bit better at it, I think...
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm unsure about the relevance of the opening statement above. I've certainly never made such a claim. Nor would I. Actually, I agree with that claim, as it is written. However, the second claim seems too vague to be of much use. I also cannot see how the rest counts as support for the idea that meaning governs behaviour. I would agree that meaning governs behaviour, but I suspect that our viewpoints, notions, and/or approaches towards meaning are very different. Hence, I suspect that our explanations of how meaning governs behaviour are quite different as a result.
To the example...
Sure, there are certain thoughts and beliefs one cannot possibly form, have, and/or hold if they have not learned, articulated, understood, and/or used the right sorts of language. Substituting that reason(ing) with "they have not learnt the relevant behaviours" is stretching behaviour beyond sensible use. I mean, sure learning maths and coding and programming are all behaviors. However, that completely misses what underwrites the topic at hand: thought and belief. Behaviour is not thought and belief. Behaviour alone is... ...there's a technical term/bit of jargon that applies here, but I cannot recall... ..."indeterminate" maybe?
There's quite a bit more that is of interest, but it'll have to wait. Until then, be well...
Glad things are going better. :smile:
I'm having problems understanding how "meaning governs behaviour" fits into the rest of that.
I want to ask...
Would you say that the unknown details of higher maths, programming, coding, etc. are pretty much meaningless to you?
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, clearly our standard measurements of time are meaningless to the dog.
Does it follow from the fact that the dog shows up at mealtime that it has a concept of time? I don't see how. That does not seem to be enough evidence/reason to warrant the conclusion. Does waking up at the same time count as having a concept of time? I suppose I wonder what the difference between any and all regularly occurring behaviours is regarding this matter? I mean, does all routine and/or habitual behaviour equally count as adequate evidence for drawing that same conclusion? If not what's the difference such that we're not special pleading? All sorts of creatures have regular schedules. Routine. Habit. They do all sorts of things around the same time of day and/or night. Many migrate, mate, bear young, and all sorts of other things during the same seasons(time of year).
Having a "concept of time" needs a bit more, does it not?
Here's what I'd ask: Can or do dogs think about time? Can or do they form, have, and/or hold any beliefs about time? Is time meaningful to dogs? By my lights, the answer is "no". I'm open to being convinced otherwise though. So, if anyone here thinks the answer to any of the three questions is "yes", then I would only ask how?
Quoting Ludwig V
Understandable. It's unconventional, and as such it goes against some long standing practices, or at least it seems to. It is commensurate with many, dovetails nicely with some, but certainly turns a number of practices on their head. I've been fleshing the application out and working through the problems for over a decade. Not alone, mind you. I'm very grateful to this site and many regulars here, for it has allowed me to do some things that cannot be done any other way that I'm aware of.
Excellent question. Could not have imagined a better one at this juncture. Thank you for asking.
Banno and I have had any number of conversations in past talking about just such things. That tells me there's a bit of W underlying this avenue. It is only as a result of those discussions and others that I've been able to identify certain issues with saying certain things in certain ways. I know that that's vague, so I'll just say that I've adjusted and tweaked my position after being made aware of issues. This question allows me to put some of those to good use. There are several members here on this site who've helped me tremendously along the way, knowingly or unknowingly. Banno is one, but not the only one. Okay, enough blather. Back to the question...
Beer is existentially dependent upon language. Fridges are as well. Where there has never been beer, there could never have been belief about beer. The same is true of the fridge. So, the content of the belief(things correlations are being drawn between) is existentially dependent upon language. Therefore, so too is the belief.
Here we must tread carefully however, for it would be easy to apply unhelpful labels to this belief. Calling it a "linguistic" belief would be misleading and/or a bit confusing, because any and all candidates capable of drawing correlations(spatial reasoning/relationships in this case) between the beer and the fridge are most certainly capable of believing that there is beer in the fridge. This includes candidates who do not know that one is called "beer" and the other a "fridge". It does not make much sense to say that creatures without naming and descriptive practices could form, have, and/or hold linguistic beliefs. That would be a consequence of such labeling practices.
There's more to this than it seems at first blush...
Imagine a recently abandoned house with open beers in the fridge. Say that some teenagers were rummaging around in the house and left the fridge door wide open. They did not want the warm stale beer. They leave soon enough, and later on one of the mice living in the house comes out searching for food. It finds the beer in the fridge. Some mice really like beer! That mouse believed that beer was in that fridge. It shows(as compared/contrasted to 'expresses') that belief by virtue of climbing into that fridge and getting at that beer.
Belief as propositional attitude fails here. The mouse's belief does not consist of propositions. There is no propositional content within the mouse's belief. The mouse's belief consists of correlations drawn between the beer, the fridge, its own hunger/thirst, etc.. Such belief is existentially dependent upon language(because beers and fridges are), but not existentially dependent upon the ability of the believing creature to be capable of either naming and descriptive practices or metacognition. This reminds me of past experience...
At my own house, long ago, we were all at the dining table eating breakfast after a long birthday celebration the night before when a strange unfamiliar sound was heard by us all. It was written all over our faces. We looked at each other using each other as a means to double check our own ears. Someone spoke up and expressed what our faces had already... Did you hear that? Then we heard it again... a continuous faint but distinct scratching sound captured our attention. We were all like... what on earth is that??? It stopped. It started. Stopped again. Started. It did not take us too long to find the drunken culprit in the trash; a drunken mouse had unwittingly trapped itself at the bottom of an extra tall beer can deep inside a trash bag lining the can. Here, I'll give a nod to some things you mentioned earlier regarding our ability to locate the source of a sound.
Hilarious. Drunken mice. Of all things.
Quoting Ludwig V
Care to elaborate?
Quoting Ludwig V
The abandoned house mouse places all this in question. Although, it seems you admit that not all thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of that belief.
It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use. The latter is existentially dependent upon language use as well, as set out earlier in this post(beers and fridges). However, the latter does not require being talked about in order for it to exist in its entirety. This peculiar set of facts results from the overlap(shared world) between creatures without naming and descriptive practices and things that are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.
It renders the qualifications of "linguistic" and "non linguistic" when applied to beliefs suspect, at best. I used to use such language.
We're in agreement with the following caveat; not all things that affect how creatures behave are meaningful to the creature.
Gravity. So... just to be clear.
Quoting Ludwig V
Indeed. I am. I could be confidently wrong. :wink:
Quoting Ludwig V
Sure, but it depends upon the situation and/or the specific thought and/or belief attribution(in this discussion). If having a concept of time requires thinking about it and thinking about it requires using naming and descriptive practices, then any and all creatures incapable of using naming and descriptive practices are incapable of having a concept of time. That's pretty cut and dry to me. Substitute "thinking about it" with "time be meaningful to the candidate" as well as "forming, having, and/or holding belief about time", and the same holds good...
The behaviour increased the likelihood of reproduction and mating.
I personally wonder if a male isolated from 'birth' would display the same behaviour as an adult, if it were placed in an aviary with a female for the first time in its life. That would tell us something about whether or not it is innate or learned.
"Trying to impress" another presupposes a candidate with a concept of mind(belief about what will impress another). That's a bit of a stretch. Although, I've been quite impressed by any number of different bird documentaries, in addition to my own personal experiences with both domesticated and 'wild' birds.
Wonderfully interesting animals.
They are not different subject matters. The endeavor is comparison/contrast between the two. What's different is not the same. What's the same is not different. It takes discussing both the similarities and the differences to make much sense of either.
Yes, this is a great place to come. Your words made me smile. :flower:
That does not follow...
May I suggest you reread that post?
So if he was trembling before Janus arrived, would you conclude that he did understand that he had
done something wrong?
Quoting creativesoul
Forgive me, I thought that you believed that all belief is a matter of correlations. So what more do you want before accepting that Jimi believed he had done something wrong?
Quoting creativesoul
Ah, well, there are important differences between bad consequences and punishment. They are very different concepts. Jimi might well believe that he had done something wrong (bad consequences) and not see it as punishment. Further observations of his behaviour might reveal the difference.
However, if morality is essential for social life, then the fact that dogs have a social life - and especially have a social life that includes humans - then it would be reasonable to suppose that they have some moral (or at least proto-moral) concepts.
Quoting creativesoul
That's quite right. It is also reasonable not to put too much emphasis on universal differences, but to assess each case as it comes.
Quoting Questioner
Well, yes, we do indeed develop a concept of mind. I would expect that there is a substantial common core to all our concepts, for two reasons. First, because we learn our concepts from each other as part of learning to speak and secon because if there wasn't at least a common core, we couldn't communicate about minds - our own or others'.
Quoting Questioner
Well, my concept of mind enables me to interpret the thought of dogs and some other animals.
Quoting Questioner
I totally agree with you that it is a matter of interpretation. Our inability to agree then has an explanation. But whose is the better interpretation?
I suppose you contrast the idea of metacognition, which might be considered to be clearer. However, the answers that it returns seems to me to be, let us say, odd.
When I recall my dog, I call her name. Supposing that she has no understanding of self and others, when she hears me call, how does she know which dog I want to respond? Or, if you prefer, why does she respond if she cannot distinguish herself from other dogs?
Or, when another dog approaches her, and goes through their greeting ceremonies, how does she know that she needs to respond?
Or, when she is dashing across the park, how does she avoid running into other dogs, distinguishing between what she can do from what the other dogs who are also dashing about the place are doing?
I had two dogs for a long time. They never failed to distinguish their own food bowl from the other one's food bowl. (Nor did they ever fail to check that the other one's bowl was empty when the other one had finished and walked away.)
Quoting creativesoul
Yes, it makes sense to sort one's methodology out before trying to answer the question - when one understands the question. The catch is that if one does not understand the question, the methodology may not be appropriate. Methodology and understanding both need to be sorted out before answers can be achieved. Otherwise, one may be trying use a hammer when what is required is a spanner.
If you are dealing with a fridge, the manufacturer can provide you with instructions how to deal with the various things that may go wrong with it. If you are dealing with an unknown disease, you need to find out what methods for dealing with it work.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes. Not completely meaningless, but pretty much.
Quoting creativesoul
I don't remotely understand the concept of time involved in relativity theory in physics. Does that mean I have no concept of time? No, it does not. Similarly, the dogs have a concept of time that suits their lives. That concept is different from human concepts, but overlaps with it. Similarities and differences. Would you say that a philosopher who thinks that time is continuous and a philosopher who thinks that time is discontinuous have the same concept of time or different ones - or, perhaps, overlapping ones?
Archaeologists discovered an unknown script amongst the remains of Mycene. They weren't even entirely sure that it was writing. Attempts to decipher it failed for many years until Michael Ventris hypothesized that the writing was Greek. That worked. There are many similar examples. Methodology and practice develop hand in hand.
Quoting creativesoul
That I agree with. But I would have thought that impinges on the distinction between what requires being talked about and what "exists in its entirety" without being talked about.
Quoting creativesoul
I agree with most of that, especially the distinction between our report of a belief and the believer's formulation of it. I see this as the differences between "I believe that..." and "He/she believes that..." One of my unconventional views is that this distinction applies to all beliefs. So "..that p" is not a purely intensional context, nor a simply extensional context. It is perfectly true that conventional philosophy ignores this. (I know you won't freak out at an unconventional view!)
I would be happy to accept that the mouse does not think of the fridge as a fridge, but merely as a cool place. It doesn't understand the expansion of gases or electricity/gas. It would also be reasonable to recognize that it doesn't understand beer as we do, because it doesn't understand what alcohol is. But we can suppose that it understands beer insofar as it tastes good and has pleasurable effects - and presumably understands hangovers, though not necessarily the connection with drinking beer. (BTW It is not unknown for dogs to become extremely fond of beer. I read somewhere that even bees can get drunk when they happen upon nectar that has fermented.) Nonetheless it is perfectly reasonable to report that the mouse liked the beer in the fridge. The difference is not a question of truth or falsity, but of what pragmatically works in the context. The mouse doesn't have to understand how I report its belief to other human beings.
PS I have edited the above to put right an error in the formatting and restore the distinction between what I was quoting and what I was saying. My mistake. Sorry.
Quoting creativesoul
It's only a gesture at the complicated relationship between experience, beliefs and behaviour. When we close the fridge door, we act out (perhaps that's better than "express") what the fridge means to us. That's all.
You have changed the terms, and with that have changed the definition. We are not talking about an understood “concept” but rather a “theory.” And the “theory of mind” is not an idea about what a mind is or does, expressed in generalities, but rather a theory you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind.
I have a theory of mind for my mother, and one for my brother, and one for my friend….
Quoting Ludwig V
That doesn’t mean the dog can form theories about what is in your mind. You are human – yes, you have the capacity to form theories about what is in other minds. We can even form theories about what is in the minds of supernatural beings that do not even exist. The fact that we are storytellers supports this. “Theory of mind” allows us to inhabit the minds of the story’s characters, analyzing their thoughts, feelings, motivations, intentions and perspectives.
Quoting Ludwig V
Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking.
What is a matter of interpretation?
What is the explanation for our inability to agree?
Whose is the better interpretation of what?
Oh, I see. I misunderstood. But now "a theory you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind" seems just like a belief, so what I'm hearing is "a belief you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind"
I totally agree with you that it is a matter of interpretation. Our inability to agree then has an explanation. But whose is the better interpretation?
— Ludwig V
Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking.
What is a matter of interpretation?
What is the explanation for our inability to agree?
Whose is the better interpretation of what?
I'm afraid I have misunderstood you again. You said:-.
Quoting Questioner
My questions followed from that.
Quoting Ludwig V
Metacognition is not an idea. It's talking about our own thoughts.
Quoting Ludwig V
Irrelevant. The point was that Jimi trembled as a result of drawing correlations between his behaviour and Janus'. That's all it takes.
Ockham's razor applies.
Metacognition returns answers to you? Does it understand requests all by itself?
I'm confused.
I see no ground for presupposing she is comparing your wants to anything.
Who said she couldn't?
Successfully navigating the world requires successfully distinguishing oneself from the rest of the world. Slime molds do this. Bacteria. All forms of life avoid danger and gather resources and thus... successfully navigate the world while they survive.
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting Ludwig V
Why imagine an impossibility? Jimi cannot compare his own behaviour to the rules in order for him to know that his own behaviour did not comply. Jimi did not suddenly realize that he had broken the rules upon Janus' return. He was suddenly reminded(drew the same correlations once again) when it all came together again. He trembled as a result. Involuntarily.
Ockham's razor applies.
Upon a rereading, I'm less happy with this now than I was then, and I remember not liking it then.
Well, some “beliefs’ are more supported than others. “Theory of mind’ is what the psychologists call it. But, it’s true, you cannot have a belief in a supernatural being without having a theory about what is in their mind.
You can read about the connection between belief and theory of mind in Jesse Bering's book The Belief instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life
Quoting Ludwig V
Sorry, let me try this again. Yes, forming a theory of mind for another depends on making inferences. Yes, inferences may be wrong. Yes, two different people might have a very different theory of mind about the same person. Whose is better? The one that gets the closest to the truth?
Yeah, that would require we verify the thoughts of 8 billion people. Maybe in some weird sci-fi movie…
I think that’s why I had some trouble with the original question, which seemed to be calling for a prioritization of all human thought, an obviously unreasonable task.
I guess the most we can say is – was an understanding or a misunderstanding made? The reaction/response/behavior flowing from an understanding will be more aligned with reality, and the reaction/response/behavior flowing from a misunderstanding will be less aligned.
Ask the person whose thought they were guessing. He may tell the truth about what he was thinking at that moment, or he may lie, or he may refuse to answer. Refusal to answer leads you to draw a new inference about his present state of mind, as well as about the thought that was in question. You may even draw inference, from context, about his reasons. If he does answer, you'll have to decide whether to believe him or not. That decision will depend on what you know of his character from previous experience, as well as his demeanour in the moment.
Each of these inferences and decisions, along with some other operations, is part of an overall theory of mind: a general ability to 'read' the body language, expression and tone, in the context of previous knowledge, of another's communication.
Anyhow, theory of mind is rather misleading and vague nomenclature, IMO.
I feel that you have ignored all that I have said about theory of mind and remain close-minded to understanding it. I repeat - it's not about reading outward signs - it is about forming theories about what is in anther mind.
Quoting Vera Mont
That is because you don't understand it.
On what basis? You're right: I don't understand how telepathy comes out of a theory based on no experience and no sensory input.
It's not telepathy. it's your brain working.
Quoting Vera Mont
Who said it does not require experience and sensory input? Re-read my posts.
Right now, I have a theory of what is in your mind.
I could have sworn you did.
Quoting Questioner
Reading inward signs is telepathy. To form a guess, conjecture, theory or belief about what's in another mind, we first need to learn about something about the species and individual with whom who are faced. Infants respond to physical stimuli, but have no notions of the existence of minds or thoughts - and won't until they've interacted with others and learned to recognize patterns in their behaviour, from which they can deduce stimulus and response, cause and effect, similarity to their own feelings, etc. It's a long process of learning and associations before anything like a theory can form.
Quoting Questioner
From what? Words I typed are unequivocal outward signs.
Never mind. You have a theory I'm unable to validate.
Might he? Exactly what would that take? What must also be the case in order for Jimi to believe he had done something wrong, but not see it as punishment?
I've set out what is required for all three possibilities(knowing he had done something wrong, seeing Janus's treatment of him as punishment and not). Jimi does not have what it takes. That explanation has been sorely neglected.
Quoting Ludwig V
The first part turns on what counts as "too much emphasis on universal differences". I'm unsure of what that phrase is referring to. It does not seem to address anything I've claimed, as best I can tell. I'll say this to the rest: We assess each case as it comes by using/practicing standards. What standard(s) do you practice while assessing whether or not this or that creature is capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought and/or belief?
Quoting Ludwig V
Different users/practitioners of naming and descriptive practices can have different notions/concepts/thought and/or belief about time. There are multiple sensible uses of "time". Not knowing some does not preclude one from the rest. Showing that this is the case does not shoulder the burden.
The contentious matter is whether or not it is even possible for a thinking/believing creature to have a notion/concept(thought and/or belief about time) without naming and descriptive practices. The move from comparing different sensible uses of "time" to "similarly, the dogs have a concept of time" is suspect.
Quoting Ludwig V
Sure.
Here, you've used some of the same words in different ways than I do. I'll try to further clarify...
...I set out how a creature without naming and descriptive practices can form, have, and/or hold belief about distal objects that are themselves existentially dependent upon language users. Those objects are part of the content of the correlations being drawn(the content of the candidate's belief).
The mouse can draw correlations including the beer(between the beer and other things). Beer is existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. Therefore, the mouse(a creature without naming and descriptive practices) can indeed form, have, and/or hold belief about [b]some of that which is existentially dependent upon language use. Not all. That is the case regardless of whether or not anyone ever talked about it.
This is segue into similarity I think you and others may find interesting. I do.
Even less now.
It's more than that.
Quoting Vera Mont
"Theory of mind" is a well-established and supported piece of psychological information that has been the subject of scientific research going back nearly 50 years. I invite you to google using the search words "theory of mind."
Quoting Vera Mont
To deny that humans make conclusions about what is in other minds is blind indeed.
I never denied that humans, as well as other species draw conclusions, or at least surmise, what another sentient being is thinking. I reject the idea that they can do so without first having encountered other sentient beings, learned something about them, and how to read the outward signs.
Yes, I'm aware that the idea of autonomy can be applied to any living creature, including bacteria and moulds. (There are complicated cases, like lichens.) I didn't include those in what I said, because they are neither sentient nor rational. In fact, I think of them as indistinguishable from autonomous machines, apart from their ability to reproduce. There no question of wondering what they think or of language-less behaviour.
Quoting creativesoul
I can try. My thought is roughly this. I fear that if I talk about "words" here, you'll think I'm talking about words in a narrow sense and miss the point. Fortunately, concepts relate to specific words or terms in language and there are rules about how they are to be used. But in many cases - I expect there are exceptions - some of the rules are about how we should apply them in our non-verbal behaviour. A bus stop is where one congregates to catch a bus; a door bell is there to be rung to announce our arrival; etc. We often use this feature to attribute beliefs to humans when we cannot cross-question them. I don't see any reason to suppose that this feature enables us to attribute our concepts to dogs. The concept of food is not just about it can be idenitified and analysed, but how it is to be treated - cooking and eating. Hence, although dogs cannot cook food or analyse in the ways that we do, it can certainly identify it and eat it. This fits perfectly with the idea that our ideas and language about people can be stretched and adapted to (sentient and/or rational) animals.
Quoting creativesoul
I'm not at all clear what you mean about comparing wants to things. It was usually pretty obvious when she wanted something and when she had got it.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, animals are not capable of talking, so that's not hard. The question is, then, is whether they are capable of knowing what others and themselves are thinking; if that means they are capable of thinking about their own and others thoughts, then so be it.
Quoting creativesoul
I grant you that Jimi's fear might be triggered by Janus' return. But let's think this through. It might well be that he only started trembling when Janus came through the door. The trigger, then, would be the chicken plus Janus. That would explain why he killed the chicken. But it doesn't explain why he was still sitting beside it. Surely, an innocent, oblivious dog, would either start eating it or would wander off in search of something more amusing. I think the dead chicken reminded him of the previous occasion; Janus' arrival was the crisis, so he may well have got more anxious as he came in.
Quoting creativesoul
I'm trying to think what dog behaviour might distinguish complying with the rules from knowing that s/he is complying with the rules. Nothing comes to mind, so I'll give you that one. However, I'm reasonably sure that if they are complying with the rules, they know what the rules are. Jimi's killing of the chicken suggests that he had forgotten what the rule was. There's no doubt that he remembered at some point after the event. The question is, what triggered his memory and hence fear?
But the really significant point about the story is that he never bothered another chicken. That was the lesson he was supposed to learn. What correlation do you suppose that is based on?
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
OK. So we agree. I suppose we might disagree about which bits they can hold beliefs about which they cannot, but perhaps we don't need to tease that out now.
Quoting creativesoul
You've said twice that on reflection you are not happy with this. I don't see what's wrong with it. Could you explain?
Quoting Questioner
I read both of the Wikipedia articles - which does not make me an expert.
Wikipedia - Theory of Mind[/url and [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind_in_animals]Wikipedia - Theory of mind in animals
There's a lot of interesting empirical work here. Not much, I have to say, in the way of consensus agreements. The actual psychology under this heading seems very worth while. But the heading is very confusing.
Quite so. Psychology seems to have more difficulty than any other science about escaping from its philosophical roots.
That seems to be clear. We do know that we understand other people. I'm not sure whether "by ascribing mental states to them" is a harmless paraphrase of "understanding other people" or something more substantial, philosophically speaking, and more controversial. But the question how our understanding works seems a sound starting-point for scientific research.
Philosophically speaking, this is indeed a theory. I read it as a philosophical theory of the mind. But that's not what is meant by "theory of mind" in this context, because each of us has our own theory. That's why I find the name for research in this area so confusing.
I'm not sure that it is wise to treat these propositions more or less as axioms when they are the focus of much philosophical debate. Perhaps it doesn't make any difference whether philosophical dualism or one of its variants is true, but if that's so, it makes a big difference to philosophy.
On reflection, I'm very unhappy with this comment. Setting it right, or at least righter, high-lights a complication in our question which has not gone unrecognized, but which, it seems to me, has not been fully recognized.
I don't think anyone seriously wants to reject the idea that the male bird of paradise builds his bower in order to attract a female. But @creativesoul is also right to observe that that purpose is not necessarily the bird's motivation. We ought to know this, since the same issue can be observed in human beings. Display behaviour can be observed in both males and female human beings, but it does not follow that they are motivated by the desire to make babies (though they may be, sometimes). Human beings can tell us what their motivation is, but the birds cannot. It seems to me, in fact, most likely that the birds just feel like building a bower, finding it a satisfactory and worth-while thing to do - just as so much display behaviour in human beings is done only because they feel that it is a worth-while thing to do.
But there is no doubt that such behaviour serves an evolutionary purpose. What's more, it explains the behaviour as rational; "feeling like it" doesn't explain anything.
But it relies more and more on neuroscience – understanding the structure and function of the brain – using techniques like brain imaging.
Quoting Ludwig V
Something more substantial. What controversy do you see?
Quoting Ludwig V
Some psychologists criticize theory of mind because it can be wrong – that sometimes we make wrong conclusions - but I think that misses the point. That we can make inferences and interpretations of what is in another mind at all is the point. It says nothing about their accuracy.
I can play basketball and not sink the ball in the basket every time, but I’m still playing basketball.
Quoting Ludwig V
I understand philosophical dualism to mean that the physical body and the mental mind are different things, that the mind is not made of physical matter. This tends to agree with a scientific description. In biology, every part of an organism is described in terms of its structure and its correlating function (and structure complements function).
So, the physical brain is the structure and in undergoing its electro-chemical processes it produces its function - the mind. The mind can in this context be considered an emergent property of the brain – the intangible flow of information through the nervous system.
I'm sure that this can be part of the process, but it is not required.
Every person of faith has formed a theory of mind about what is in the mind of their God.
Indeed, and this skirts around the very heart of the matter, but I'll nitpick first.
Autonomy is not an idea. Calling things "ideas" is quite unhelpful. Earlier you did the same with "the idea of metacognition".
Quoting Ludwig V
Talking about our own belief and others' is how we begin to think about them. Thinking about thought and belief is one thing that is required for knowing what others are thinking. Getting it right is another. Is talking about thought and belief required for thinking about it? I certainly think talking about it is required for getting it right. However, not all notions of "thought" and "belief" get it right.
The question is - and always has been - what does it take in order for some creature or another to be capable of thinking about its own thought and/or belief?
We do so by virtue of naming and descriptive practices. That is how we do it. That's what talking about our own thought and belief involves. Thinking about one's own thoughts and beliefs requires isolating them as subject matters in their own right. We do that with naming and descriptive practices. We use "minds", "thought", "belief", "imagination", etc. Are there any other ways of(processes for) thinking about thought and belief, if not as subject matters in their own right? How else would/could a creature capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and/or belief also be capable of thinking about its own thoughts?
So, you've now invoked sentience which carries ethical considerations along with it. I'm not at all opposed to drawing and maintaining the distinction between sentient and non-sentient creatures; however, I do not see how we've established the basis to include such considerations in this discussion... yet. Sentient beings are capable of forming, having, and/r holding thought and belief about the world, but so too are all thinking/believing creatures. Do all creatures capable of thought count as sentient? That's yet another assessment that does not yet have a basis from which to draw a clear conclusion. The point was to show that simple differentiation between oneself and the rest of the world is something that is successfully done by creatures that are clearly incapable of knowing what your wants are. Hence, the fact that your dog distinguishes between herself and other dogs does not lend support that she knows what your wants are. <----that was the presupposition I was rejecting.
Quoting Ludwig V
Quoting Ludwig V
Your original claim above was not about you knowing her wants. It presupposed that she knew yours. How does she know which dog you want to respond without comparing your wants to your calling her name? I'm placing the presupposition/assumption that she knows which dog you want to respond when you call her name in question. That's precisely what needs argued for.
Her coming to you after you call her name is inadequate evidence for concluding that she knows which dog you want to respond. I'm certain that that sequence of events is ritualistic. Her drawing correlations between her name being called, her own behaviour(s), and yours afterwards more than suffices. I would bet that your tone plays a role as well, in that certain tones do not mean the same things to her that others do, despite all of them being cases of calling her name. She can draw correlations between your tone. She cannot draw correlations between your wants. They are not the sorts of things that are directly perceptible. Nor is time. Nor are the rules governing here behaviour.
We began by discussing which sorts of thought and belief other species can and/or cannot have with one specific sort of thought/belief in mind at the start, rational thought/belief. The conversation seems to have been everywhere but has gotten little to nowhere. It is my considered opinion that the methodological approach being used by many if not most participants was/is not up to the task at hand. I've mentioned on multiple occasions that the conversation was in dire need of a clear criterion and/or standards by which we can judge/assess whether or not a candidate is or is not capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought or another.
That endeavor(establishing a criterion/standard from which to judge/assess our own and others' thought and belief) involves doing quite a bit of philosophy.
We must begin by examining and/or assessing ourselves. It is imperative that we get some rather important things right(that we correctly identify what thought and belief is; what it consists of; and/or how it emerges onto the world stage; how it persists; etc). Current convention is chock full of practices that clearly show we have not gotten some rather important bits of this right. That is clearly shown by the inability for many a position to admit that other creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and belief. Those positions/linguistic frameworks work from inadequate conceptions/notions of "thought" and "belief" that are incapable of taking account of other creatures' thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. The results range from outright denial to anthropomorphism.
I think the use of "concept" is problematic. What does it clarify? Nothing as best I can tell.
What is a concept of a tree if not thought and belief about trees(if not correlations drawn between trees and other things)? What is a concept of food if not thought and belief about food(if not correlations drawn between food and other things)? I do not see how the notion helps us to understand our own minds let alone other species'. It seems to me that it unnecessarily adds complexity where none is needed, and hence only adds confusion.
Correlations drawn by Jimi between his killing the chook and Janus's behaviour afterwards is more than enough. The correlation drawn is one of causality. Jimi attributes causality(draws a causal connection between what he did and what Janus did afterwards). Granting Janus' story is true, it took more than one occasion for him to alter his own behaviour accordingly(to stop killing hens).
Jimi's behaviour afterwards, complies with what Janus wants of Jimi's behaviour, but not as a result of Jimi's knowing what the rules are. Rather, it 'complies' because it fits into Janus' wants regarding Jimi's behaviour. Jimi stopped killing chooks because he did not want Janus to do whatever Janus did the first time. Jimi believed his behaviour caused Janus'.
What, then, is the requirement?
Quoting Questioner
No they have not. No person of faith living today has conceived of a god independently. They've been told by their priest, and read in the book thrust upon them by priests, and they accept that as gospel.... selectively.
The stimulation of and the processing by the following brain structures involved in theory of mind functioning:
Functional neuroimaging and structural connectivity studies have identified dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) as the core regions of the neural substrate for ToM, extending to regions that include the precuneus (PCu), anterior temporal cortex, anterior cingulate and posterior cingulate (PostCing), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and amygdala, to constitute an extended ToM neural network
Also copied from the same webpage:
The theory of the mind (ToM), also known as mentalizing, is defined as the ability to attribute mental states to others (Premack and Woodruff, 1978; Frith and Frith, 2006) and to obtain knowledge about others' perspectives at a given moment or in a particular situation, including intentions, hopes, expectations, fantasies, desires, or beliefs. This ability is essential for successful navigation in social life (Leslie, 2000; Krawczyk, 2018). These mental states can be divided into two components, an affective one, which involves the understanding of emotions, feelings or affective states and a cognitive component that implies beliefs, thoughts or intentions (Henry et al., 2015).
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.618630/full
Quoting Vera Mont
A theory of mind does not “pop” into the head independently. We learn by what we see, hear, experience, do, and read, and then our brains, with its hypersocial focus and filters, ascribe mental states to that which is not us – and believe in them.
From the beginning, the Book of Genesis tells us God both deliberately and mindfully created all of Creation.
It is only a pastor’s highly evolved theory of mind that allows that pastor to preach about the contents of God’s mind (for example, what God expects from us), and our highly evolved theory of mind to believe that message. It is only a highly evolved theory of mind that allows the religious to believe they have a “personal relationship” with Jesus. When people pray, who are they praying to?
Consider -
In the movie Castaway, Tom Hanks' character befriends a volleyball that he calls “Wilson” – his only friend and companion during the years that he is on the island. The character ascribed mental states to the volleyball.
Or any fiction novel ever written with well-developed characters and we get right inside their heads. These characters are fictional, but they become real to us. We know what they are thinking and how they are feeling, and even anticipate their moves. This could not be possible without a well-developed theory of mind.
Which is exactly what I've been saying. You can stimulate a fetal brain anywhere you wants, and it still won't know what 'another' is, let alone guess what that other is thinking or imagine a great big Other in the sky.
It would help if we could clarify whether we are talking about a creature being capable of thinking about its own thought and belief or about a creature that is capable of thinking about the thought and belief of other creatures. Or both. (The cases are somewhat different.)
(Quoting creativesoul
The sequence of events - call, coming, praise - could does have a similarity to a ritual. Those correlations do indeed suffice. After all, the training consists of establishing associations between her name being called, her behaviour and the subsequent reward, and teaches he what her name is, i.e. which dog the name refers to. This training also enables her to know (after a little more training) what to do when she hears "Judy, sit" as opposed to what she should do when she hears "Eddy, sit". (At times, I have had more than one dog.)
Quoting creativesoul
How do we assess whether a proposed criterion or standard is clear and correct? By submitting cases to it. (Examples and counter-examples).
Quoting creativesoul
How do you know that current convention is wrong in not being able to admit that creatures are capable of those things? Many people accept the conclusion that they are not. So before you can demonstrate they are wrong, you must already have a clear and correct criterion.
Quoting creativesoul
It looks to me as if you have a reasonably clear concept of what a concept is. So there's no problem with that idea.
Quoting creativesoul
The thing is, there's more than one correlation in play. He might have correlated the dead chicken, or the dead chicken and Janus' presence - or both together- with the displeasure. But neither of those is the correlation that he is supposed to make; he got it wrong. (That's why a causal account is unhelpful, because it cannot recognize that.) It seems that Jimi did learn to leave the chickens alone - even when Janus was not there - from the experience. So his future behaviour does not correlate with either a dead chicken or with Janus' presence - much less on the presence of both.
You could correlate what Janus wants with Jimi's behaviour. But that's just another rule. (BTW That's not a causal correlation, because it is possible that Jimi might not comply.)
That's fair and certainly worthy of explanation.
While I agree that the cases are different, they differ in their respective targets[hide="Reveal"](whose thought is being considered)[/hide]. They differ regarding what the creatures[hide="Reveal"](arguably only humans, but it is certainly possible that some other creatures ]may use/employ naming and descriptive practices)[/hide] focus upon. The target is different individuals' thought and belief. That's three different ways to say much the same thing. The similarity takes precedence here. They both are metacognitive endeavors. Thus, I do not see the relevance of that particular distinction when it comes to drawing and maintaining the distinction(s) between thought, belief, and experience that consists of correlations drawn between language use(and other things) and thought, belief, and experience that does not. Nor does it seem relevant to the distinction between thought and belief that is existentially dependent upon language use, and thought and belief that is not. <------that's the earlier peculiarity mentioned a few posts back. I could further set that out if need be. I've just recently come to acceptable terms with it myself.
Still seems too unsupported for my tastes.
It may strike some as odd, but I'm not convinced any dogs know their own name in the exact same way that we do. I would deny that altogether. Some know how to act when they hear their name being called in certain familiar scenarios. Some are still learning how to behave when they find themselves in such circumstances. Some live nameless lives.
We learn our names by virtue of how many times it is being used during a short duration of time spent. Dogs do as well. Some dogs, if rewarded well, can learn to do all sort of things. I'm okay with saying she has learned to behave in some ways sometimes. She has learned how to behave/thrive/survive in many different situations. Name calling events being one of many.
Sure, but only after it's already in front of us.
When it comes to being capable of correctly attributing thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences to ourselves and other capable species, we must first have knowledge of the processes involved. It's not just a matter of what they believe, it's also a matter of how.
I've explained as best I can, and I'm fairly happy with my part. There's promise/potential. I'm content.
Methodological approach needs attention.
As early on as possible I suggest examining the justificatory ground(or lack thereof), the scope of rightful application, the explanatory power, the coherence and/or terminological consistency of the standard under scrutiny. There are some things that are perfectly clear. We're looking for knowledge of thought and belief that predated humans. Such thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge thereof. That is only to say that prior to knowledge that there were thinking and believing creatures roaming the earth prior to ourselves, there were thinking and believing creatures roaming the world. A correct standard/notion of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" will be amenable with/to those prehistoric facts.
We can prioritize working from the fewest possible dubious assumptions. We can demand that our position posit the fewest possible entities necessary. We can insist that spatiotemporal flexibility be shown/proven by virtue of being capable of spanning the evolutionary timeline. Our standards/notion of "thought and belief" must be amenable to evolutionary progression such that it is clear how creatures begin attributing meaning to sights, sounds, and such. That's what thinking about the world does.
This sets out some of the standards I'm working from. Methodological approach. I think I have a very strong methodological naturalist bent.
What do all thinking and believing creatures have in common such that it this set of common elemental constituents that makes them what they are? They are all capable of drawing correlations between different things. Biological machinery finds a timely home at this point in the discussion.
Thought and belief are always meaningful to the creature drawing the correlations(forming, having, and/or holding thought and/or belief). Some thinking creatures inhabited the earth long before we did. Any and all acceptable notions of "mind", "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" must take proper account of this.
We find ourselves becoming strikingly aware that some meaning is prior to any and all notions of "meaning". The same is true of thought and "thought" as well as belief and "belief".
"Thought and belief" exhaust "concept", but not the other way around.
There is more than one correlation being drawn. Some are efficacious too. Some have been drawn and continue to influence subsequent behaviours afterwards.
That's not a problem.
Claims beginning with Jimi "might have" presuppose a world in which Jimi could have. It's that logically possible world that needs set out. What else must also be the case in order for it to be possible for Jimi to draw correlations between the dead chicken, Janus' presence, and Janus' displeasure?
How does the dog drive a wedge between Janus' displeasure [hide="Reveal"](which consists almost entirely of Janus' thought and belief at the time)[/hide] and Janus' presence?
In order to connect three things, they must first be somehow disconnected.
How does Jimi disconnect Janus's presence from Janus' outward unhappy behaviour?
The chicken is in its own place. Jimi is as well. So too, is Janus. Janus' presence and Janus' displeasure do not share such clearly different spatiotemporal locations. Jimi does not think about Janus' displeasure in contrast/comparison or as a separate thing to/from Janus' presence. One must do so prior to connecting them(drawing a correlation between them).
I'm not sure what this is supposed to be aimed at. Looks to be made of straw.
Sure. Jimi's learned from his experience. Such experience was meaningful to Jimi by virtue of his having drawn correlations between his own behaviour[hide="Reveal"](killing the chicken)[/hide] and Janus's behaviour afterwards. Chickens became a bit more significant to Jimi as a result. Jimi learned that killing chickens has unwanted consequences. He can learn much the same lesson after touching fire.
Jimi most definitely is capable of recognizing and/or attributing causality. That's um... sometimes as far back as we need to go. I'm puzzled at the response though. Are you averse to the idea that dogs are capable of recognizing causality?
Creatures are capable of those things. If logical/valid conclusions contradict that, then the presuppositions/unspoken assumptions underwriting that train of thought are somehow mistaken.
Indeed they do. Some folk must if they are to remain free from self-contradiction.
I'm not even sure what you're claiming here. I'll add this...
If it is the case that creatures capable of having meaningful experiences roamed the earth long before the first language users like us(those employing naming and descriptive practices) did, then any and all acceptable notions/conceptions/uses of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" must be able to take this into proper account. Lest they be found sorely lacking.
It is the case. Some positions cannot admit this. Thus, those positions must be rejected.
Some people might call that begging the question. One needs to explain the criteria for assertng it. But that's not a simple matter of evidence, because thinking of a dog as a sentient, rational creature is not a simple matter of fact but of thinking of a dog as, in many ways, (like) a person.
Quoting creativesoul
Sometimes Janus is present and not outwardly unhappy, sometimes he is present and outwardly unhappy.
Quoting creativesoul
That's very helpful. It clarifies what you meant when you said that all belief and thought consists of correlations. Thanks.
So Jimi's experience when he killed the first chicken might be expected to lead him to refrain from killing any more chickens on the principle that the burnt child fears the fire. But Jimi didn't fear the fire. He killed another chicken. (I'm not sure that dogs have a concept of causality as such. Simple correlations might be enough. But that's another issue.) What went wrong?
Maybe he forgot. But that suggests that he did not realize the significance (meaning) of his experience - i.e. he failed to generalize from it, in the way that the burnt child does. Then he was reminded of the first experience when he saw the chicken dead, or perhaps when Janus returned. That's the moment when he generalized from the first experience and realized that he was in trouble.
But it's not enough for him to generalize and understand that (1) whenever he kills a chicken, he will be in trouble. He also needs to understand that (2) if he does not kill chickens, Janus wll not be displeased with him.
There's more to Jimi than just recognizing causal correlations.
Quoting creativesoul
So when a creature recognizes that some belief it holds is false, it isn't thinking about its own thoughts? When a creature recognizes that some other creature is about to attack it, it isn't thinking about the other creature's thoughts?
I don't know what the question "how" means in this context. But one can think without language.
I love the work everyone has put into posting and this one is very interesting.
When nature changes the hormones the behavior will change.
I strongly think many female humans are unaware of wanting a baby when they start putting on lipstick, and possibly dressing and otherwise using body language, to attract the opposite sex. They might even be really against getting pregnant.
What they want is to be attractive and human females can be as competitive about this as different species of males strut their feathers, or another species will beat their chests. :grin:
Perhaps we have not stressed hormones enough?
Sexual behaviors occur when the animal has enough of the hormone that causes the animal to be sexual. Bonobos and Humans are the most sexual and are not as controlled as most animals that have very short periods of being sexually receptive.
If you are a farmer wanting to breed your animals you need to know estrus.
or “heat” is a period during the
reproductive cycle when female animals
become sexually receptive, signaling they
are ready for mating. In most cases, this
can also be referred to as “standing heat”
because the female will stand to be mated
by the male (Figure 1).
Estrus is caused by estrogen being
produced within developing follicles on
the ovary, and ovulation usually occurs
after the initial signs of estrus are detected. Duration of estrus and the time
of ovulation in relationship to the onset
of estrus vary with the species (Table 1).
If behavioral or physical signs are not
obvious, estrus may even pass unnoticed.
Successful recognition of the signs of
estrus for mating, just prior to the time of
ovulation, can result in increased conception rates for the herd or flock.
https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/as/as-559-w.pdf
My point is we need to stop thinking animals decide to things for a reason and thinking about how unreasonable humans are. :lol:
What messes with our thinking is that social rules add another dimension to sexual behaviors. :chin: We can question what rules are playing, the social or hormonal ones? To what degree is the animal controlled the social rules or the hormonal ones what what part of this is thinking?
That was fascinating!
I want to refer back to a book about math that I am reading because it really made me think about thinking math. What is thinking math?
Thinking 1, 2, 3, and 35 is a language skill. Looking at a plate of cookies and determining which one has the most cookies is not a language skill. A person can count all the cookies on all the plates and use math to determine which plate has the most cookies, but we can also judge which plate has the most volume of cookies. Animals can do that without having the language for math.
Now when I multiply simple numbers like 2x2 or 7x8 I am thinking how I think. 2x2 is so easy but 7x8 is not. Why is it so much harder to figure 7x8? I am learning our ability to do math includes knowing the relationship of numbers. Animals don't have the language of math so they can not think through the relationships of numbers. Does anyone know what I am talking about or am I being too weird?
Please help. I am trying to understand animal thinking that is done without language, by being aware of my own thinking. besides thinking of math, I am also thinking I am depressed because the cold weather makes going outside so unpleasant and that can become isolating and how do I think through this problem instead of playing a computer game all-day to avoid life. :lol: I can think I really need to knock on a neighbor's door and be neighborly, but my body screams, no I don't want to go outside. Where is the rational thinking? My body does not want to go outside but my head knows better.
That is such a wonderful thought! A woman in Canada developed a method for teaching virtues that can be used in schools or by families. She is very clear that it is not enough to punish a child for doing wrong. The child must learn what is the right way to do things. I feel so much pain for all the children who are punished again and again and don't just magically realize how to avoid punishment. I have seen parents and schools fail to teach what is right.
Quoting Ludwig V
Quoting creativesoul
Those last two quotes go together but I am a bit overwhelmed by all the thinking that has gone on while I was gone. What are the correlations? Is the argument that animals without language are rational thinkers? Hum, :chin: I am thinking what would motivate me to go out in the old? I am thinking I would like myself a whole lot better if acted on the notion I should check on a neighbor and telling you about this increases my motivation to do the right thing. Are those thoughts the correlations?
As I understand it, the paradise bird's behaviour is specific to mating and breeding. Human (and, presumably, bonobo) sexual behaviour is not strongly linked to fertility. I'm told that, at least in the case of bonobos, that sexual behaviour has additional functions in their social lives. That is certainly true in the case of humans.
Dressing up may be a sometimes a preliminary to actual courtship and mating, but it has other functions as well. It would be seriously reductionist not to recognize that. It claims membership of a social group and helps give one self-confidence. In relation to others it can deter aggression and form the basis of alliances. Other animals are not all the same in this respect. One needs to look at their lives holistically to understand what is going on.
Quoting Athena
Yes, they are and we often equate irrationality with instinctive behaviour. But it's more complicated than that. Our instincts are mediated through the social and practical rules that we have learnt, so our actual behaviour is based on instincts, which are given. It doesn't follow that they are irrational, although they might be non-rational; I mean that they are best thought of a like axioms - starting-points for rationality, which adjusts instinctive impulses to the outside world. In addition, we can explain the instincts as rational, not from the point of view of the animal, but from the point of view of the evolutionary pressure to survive and reproduce.
Quoting Athena
One of the functions of rationality, it seems to me, is to balance competing desires. But there are situations when it doesn't work very well, as in your case. I deeply sympathize with your desire not to hide from life whether in a machine or something else. It is not easy. The best I can offer is baby steps, building up slowly. If going outside to check on a neighbour is too much, try to think of a smaller steps that you can actually do. Going outside for one minute. (If you see her indoors wave at her throught the window.) Ringing your neighbour. (I suggest asking if you can borrow a cup of sugar, rather than just asking if they are OK.) That's how I try to handle those feelings. Mind you, I'm not very good at it.
Quoting Athena
No-one seems to recognize that punishment only works if the person being punished takes it the right way. But there's nothing to prevent people getting the wrong end of the stick. Like the fraudster who is caught and punished and responds by getting better at doing the fraud without getting caught.
There is a whole school of dog training which emphasizes reward-based training and frowns on the traditional punishments or even stick-and-carrot training.
It's important to emphasize that there is a form of punishment involved, but it is only withholding reward. In the context of no punishment, that works to deter unwanted behaviour. So if I were training Jimi, I would make a point of being around when Jimi is around chickens and keeping him distracted - ideally by playing his best game with him, or getting him to sit with me by offering intermittent treats. Once he's got that idea, you can gradually phase out the treats.
Yes. That seems to be our starting-point. Out differences lie in what a proper account is.
Quoting creativesoul
No, I don't suppose that a dog that knows its own name "in the exact same way" as we do. For example, it can't tell anyone what its name is. But it can do many of the things that we can do when we know our own name. In my opinion, the overlap is sufficient.
You are right, of course, that animals that don't undergo training in human ways, won't have to opportunity to learn their name. We probably ought to think of them as using pronouns only, though our reports might use names for people.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes, and that's important. For example, when a dog checks out a bowl, because it expects there to be food in it, and is disappointed, I don't suppose it says to itself "Oh, my belief that there was food there is wrong" or anything similar. It simply walks away. But that action counts as a recognition that its belief was false.
Quoting Athena
That is probably the biggest difficulty. I have some ideas about how to respond to it, but will have to try to articulate them later.
That's their problem. I call it making sure a position is commensurate with the facts; what's happened or is happening; everyday events; etc. Many animals other than humans are clearly capable of problem solving. We can watch it happen. That's been proven over and over. So, either problem solving is something that can be done by a thoughtless creature(which amounts to saying that problem solving does not require thinking) or some non human creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought.
Since it is the case that some other animals problem solve, and problem solving is thinking, then it is not the case that only human are capable of thinking.
The conventional problems underwriting this matter stem from i) an abysmal failure to draw and maintain the actual distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief, and ii) parsing truth as nothing more than a property of true sentences.
Quoting Ludwig V
I find it curious that you agree and then immediately misattribute meaning to the dog, based upon the dog's behaviour. Your dog's walking away from an empty food bowl may count as a recognition that it's
belief was false according to your criterion for what counts as such belief, but not mine.
The dog knows there's no food in bowl. The dog may have believed that there was prior to going to check. He checked. There was no food in the bowl. The bowl did not have food in it. That's what he believed. In order for him to recognize that his belief was false, he would have to first be capable of thinking about his own belief. As I've painstakingly set out heretofore many times over, thinking about one's own thought is a practice that is itself existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices replete with some proxy for the dog's own thought/belief. Dogs do not have what it takes.
Do you have any argument whatsoever for any of the claims you've been making? Do you have a valid objection to my own? Do you have a bare minimum criterion for what counts as thought or belief such that all thought and belief satisfy it?
How does a dog(or any other animal without naming and descriptive practices) pick its own belief out of this world to the exclusion of all else in order to compare it to the world?
Perhaps even thinking punishment is a teaching skill is a mistake. Our culture is based on having a jealous, revengeful, and punishing god. Imagine beginning with having a creator who loves us. I know Christians have come around to Jesus loving us, but that has not changed the effect of believing in a punishing god. May I say here, that animals just do not make up stories and revolve around what those stories tell them of life.
Quoting Ludwig V
You are absolutely right and while animals fight for territory we fight for an imaginary god who favors us. That is rational thinking that might be improved with an understanding facts and how we determine if a fact is true or false. And this why this forum is essential. We do more thinking than other animals. My argument hangs on language being essential to rational thinking.
Quoting Ludwig V
This is my favorite explanation of what you said...
Quoting Ludwig V
Thank you so much for your good social and thinking skills. In a completely different forum things do not go so well as people (mostly males) compete to prove they are right and those who don't agree are idiots. Their approach prevents thinking because they put people on the defensive. Again and again I have experienced it is futile to have enjoyable discussions with poorly informed people. They think they are being rational, but because they don't know enough, how do I say? The discussion just can not past what they do not know and will consider.
Oh my goodness, I see sunlight and blue sky. :grin: It has been so long since we have had sunlight and a blue sky I am giddy. I want to run outside and enjoy this before the clouds cover it up again.
I think @Ludwig V is right because the dog remembers the bowl is where it found food, but that memory is not equal to believing food magically appears in the bowl. We are discussing the difference between living with language and without language. It seems impossible for me to think like an animal because every thought in my head is words, words, words. I make myself crazy with constant words, a lot of mind chatter that prevents me from directly experiencing life.
Knowing where to get food is not the same as knowing that one's own belief is false.
The claim was that walking away from an empty food bowl counts as recognition that the prior belief(that the bowl had food in it) was false.
What is involved in the process of recognizing that one's own belief about whether or not there is food in the bowl is false? It requires drawing a distinction between one's own belief and what the belief is about. This process, at a bare minimum, requires thinking about one's own belief as a subject matter in and of itself, which in turn requires a way to do so. We do that with words, which stand in as proxy, for the belief. How can an animal without naming and descriptive practices invent/create a meaningful utterance which stands in place of its own belief? That must be done prior to comparing that belief to the world. It is only via such a comparison that one can recognize that their own belief is either true or false.
Yes. That's part of it. There's also the transition between. There are also different kinds of languages consisting of different kinds of meaningful behaviours, marks, utterances, etc.
Indeed, what counts as language matters in more than one way.
Recognizing that the bowl is empty is not the same as recognizing that one's own belief about food being in the bowl is false. The former is about the food and the bowl. The latter is about one's own thought/belief. The dog can directly perceive the food, the bowl, and its own hunger. Thought and belief are not directly perceptible things. Nor are truth/falsity. Nor is meaning. Nor are social/institutional facts. Nor are any number of abstractions.
I cannot find good ground for claiming that any creature incapable of naming and descriptive practices is capable of abstraction. Recognizing that one's own belief is false requires comparison/contrast between the belief and what the belief is about. That seems to require a skillset unobtainable to dogs.
Of course there is more to any thinking creature than just the recognition/attribution of causality, but it seems to me that that process, regardless of the creature, is more than adequate for being a case of thinking(thought/belief).
I'm not convinced that Jimi knows he's in trouble, so I question the account above on its presuppositional ground.
It is more than enough that Jimi inferred that his own behaviour caused Janus'. Here, all Jimi needs to avoid killing chickens is to believe that if he does Janus will do whatever Janus did the first time. He does not need to understand that if he does not kill chickens Janus will not be displeased. He just needs to believe that if he does, Janus will do what he did the first time. His belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' comes replete with the further inference/belief/expectation that if he does not, Janus will not do that either. That's how the recognition/attribution of causality works.
I agree but...
Where does the need for having a concept of causality come from? Again, I do not find the notion of concept to be of help. Generally speaking, it seems to be a step backward instead of forward. One can recognize/attribute causal relationships, which is what is meant by "recognize/attribute causality" without having a concept of causality(thinking about causality as a subject matter in and of itself). A creature can believe that X causes Y without having a concept of causality. Recognizing/attributing causality requires only inferring that.
That's right. I should have been clearer that that sentence was my report of the dog's behaviour. I thought it was obvious that the dog could not have made that report.
Quoting creativesoul
Oh, dear, now we are in deep trouble. It is reasonable to describe some words as standing in as proxy for something. But not all. That's a big, even central, issue about language. For example, there is some sense in saying that if my dog's name is Eddy, "Eddy" stands in as proxy for the dog. But I don't think it helps to insist that "1" stands in as proxy for the number 1 or "Pegasus" as proxy for Pegasus. The philosophical issue of nominlaism vs realism as an account of universals (abstractions) is precisely about this.
Quoting creativesoul
Of course. I only wanted to suggest that there are other kinds of belief.
However, Jimi's belief that Janus was displeased with him because he killed the chicken does not distinguish between causation as simply correlation and causation as something more than just correlation. I think Jimi is capable of the first, but not the second - at least, I can't think of non-verbal behaviour that would enable me to distinguish the two. I could be wrong.
Quoting creativesoul
H'm. "Replete with" is not altogether clear to me. I notice that you do accept that that Jimi's belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' displeasure is distinct from the belief that if he does not behave in that way, Janus will not be displeased. So it is possible that he might believe the first and not the second. This fits well with the fact that killing the chicken is a sufficient, but not necessary, consequence of Janus' displeasure, getting from one to the other requires an inferential step, which Jimi has failed to make after the first kill, but does (apparently) make after the second.
I do not understand why you made that argument. An expectation is not the same as a belief. An expectation is thinking with the gut (feeling) not the brain (language).
How about smells? That is one of the major elements of communication. I think I smell a god. Well, maybe that doesn't work. However, we can believe someone will be a good mate because of how that person smells.
Perhaps what is going on in our subconscious also counts and is closer to animal thinking with messages that mean something but have no language for rational thinking. Just a smell and a reaction.
Or a movement and shooting in fear without thinking, thereby killing one's son. The book Emotional Intelligence uses a story of a man killing his son, as an example of our reaction system that does not involve thinking.
Wow, you used a word I never came across before and did not know the meaning. Without the knowledge I could not understand what you said so I looked it up...
That is the perfect word for what I think is important to this thread. Humans behave as though their thoughts are accurate, concrete information when the thought is not reality. Making humans the most irrational animals.
Gene expression in the human brain: cell types become more specialized, not just more numerous
The standard expectation is that when someone asserts that p, they are asserting that it is true. We can infer, without further evidence, that they believe that p. The dog cannot assert that there is food in the bowl, so we cannot infer that the dog believes that there is food in the bowl. Conventional discussions about belief do not give us any basis for inferring that any dog or other animal that does not have human language believes anything. But those discussions do not pay attention to the fact that non-verbal behaviour in humans is also evidence of what they believe. Similar non-verbal behaviour can be observed in animals that don't have human language and that provides evidence for what they believe.
The dog walks up to the bowl and sniffs it; that is evidence that the dog believes that there is food in the bowl. If there is food in the bowl, we expect the dog to eat it, and that action confirms our inference. If there is not food in the bowl and the dog walks away, that action is evidence that the dog recognizes that there is no food in the bowl.
Quoting Athena
I do agree that there is a difference between beliefs based on feeling (I would say, intuition) and beliefs based on a rational process (language). But surely, if I expect the children to get home from school at 4.00, I believe that they will. That may be based on feeling or on a rational process, but it's the same belief/expectation.
Quoting Athena
Yes, there is evidence that smell plays a bigger part in our social lives that we mostly choose to recognize. (It would be good to know how often our expectations based on smell turn out to be true.) But I wouldn't call it a language. When eggs go bad, the smell puts us off eating them, but the smell is a sign that we read, not a communication sent by the egg. The smells that we (and other animals) give off play their part in negotiating our social lives, but it's not the same part as language does.
Quoting Athena
Yes, that's a tempting thought. The trouble is that there doesn't seem to be any way of knowing what is going on in our sub-conscious other than supposing that it must be like what goes on in our consciousness. Which is a big assumption and should be treated with some scepticism.
Quoting Athena
I'm sorry. I dropped a bit of philosophical jargon without explaining it. I'm glad you could work it out. The internet is sometimes very helpful.
Quoting Athena
I think that's a bit harsh. I would say that humans are a mixture of rationality and irrationality, just like other animals. But their capacity to harm the world around them is greater than animals, so their irrationality is more damaging than the irrationality of other animals.
Quoting wonderer1
Interesting. But I don't see any clear philosophical implications. Do you?
Trump has announced he would use military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
This is not any worse than the Neo-Cons and invading Iraq and Afghanistan. However, Christians got this man into office and it is Christian mythology that a god favors the US and that is irrational thinking based on a false belief. No animal could sin more than the human one. Our belief in the Biblical god is a curse.
I must admit, I have trouble seeing how Trump's adventures would make America great again, any more than the NeoCons' expeditions did.
Quoting Athena
Yes. It is hard to understand how Christians could bring themselves to support him. It seems that the prospect of power can make strange allies. It also encourages wishful thinking and so distorts people's capacity for rational calculation.
Quoting Athena
l wouldn't say that a non-human animal can sin at all. They aren't subject to human morality. That's something that is uniquely human.
Quoting Athena
People do seem to give up on rational thought in the context of religious belief.
I take your point. It does seem to me that ideological convictions are uniquely human and by far the most dangerous power we have. A dose of philosophical scepticism is a good medicine for those delusions. But, sadly, those who need it most are also the most resistant. Whether such convictions are ever rational, or even reasonable, is an interesting question. I can't imagine that animals are ever gripped by them.
There's a famous quote about this:-
Good advice. The irony is, of course, that Oliver Cromwell was driven by ideological convictions about which he never seems to have wavered.
Somewhat related - there's actually a fascinating story of how an ancient, heretical Christian sect reached China after having to escape persecution in what is now Persia. They were the Nestorian Christians, and they were given refuge in the Middle Kingdom, where they settled, and distributed copies of the Gospel story, replicated in Chinese on silk scrolls, with all of the names Asianised (Jesus being 'Issa' and the scriptures being called the 'Issa Sutras'). THis happened very early, in 600 A.D. or so. You can find the wikipedia entry here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_East_in_China and there are various documentaries, and this book.
The Mayan rationale is soooo different from our Greek/Roman rationale. If human beings can have very different rational systems, we have to question what rational thinking is.
Christians moving their rationale into China is perhaps more disruptive than a causal judgment might understand. We take our calendar and mode of thinking for granted. But this is a different subject from comparing how our minds work with how animals' brains work.