What evidence is there that we model the world? Or better, what sort of thing is that model taken to be? It's apparent that there are philosophers of sorts that think all we have access to is our model of the world. That's not what psychology thinks, is it?

Can you commend any decent tertiary texts on this? — Banno

At the risk of sounding pedantic, the answer to your first question really does depend on what you mean by 'we' and what you mean by 'the world'. I think the varied use of these terms is what causes a lot of confusion around these issues. Though perhaps not exhaustive I think the main options are - there's 'we' as in our entire being - when I say, "I'm on the train", I mean arms and legs too, and then there's 'we' as in that which experiences thoughts. There's 'the world' as in that which we talk about, predict, integrate - and then there's 'the world' as in that which causes those things (not that I'm saying they're necessarily different at this stage, only that it is possible for them to be).

The topic is obviously huge an I had written quite some length here before realising it was completely off topic and so deleted it. Instead I'll give the short answer presuming by 'we' you mean our experiencing selves, and by 'the world' you mean that which is causally responsible for the states our experiencing selves find ourselves in.

What evidence is there that we model the world? - Tons. I'd even go as far as to say that now it would be very difficult even to theorise a physiological mechanism in the brain by which we could actually directly interact with the world without mediation by modelling in cortices not involved in the thoughts constituting a sense of 'we'. I know of not a single psychologist who doesn't work on this assumption.

What sort of thing is that model taken to be? - A tendency for particular cortical responses to be induced by particular cortical inputs despite it being physiologicaly possible for there to be other responses from those same inputs.

Can you commend any decent tertiary texts on this? - I'd recommend Karl Friston on mental models his publications are mostly online https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/. This one is quite a light introduction.

If you want any more info feel free to PM me.

That all makes sense now, thanks for clearing that up.

No donkey in this world will ever let itself die of hunger because it is faced with two equally attractive bags of barley. It would just go straight to whatever bag. Trust me on this. — Olivier5

Quality argument. I'll bear the technique in mind for next time.

1. Restate assertion.
2. Add "Trust me on this".

He only refers to 'one' as a shorthand indicating the person qua physical or mental state at some point of time — SophistiCat

Yes, which is where the similarity to Stove's Gem lies. If his 'self', his 'one', just is some mental state, then to say it cannot be responsible for one's mental state is definitional. This is why Stove's Gem is the 'worst argument in the world' because it tells us nothing. If it were not even possible for 'one', the 'self', to be responsible for one's mental state (because one is one's mental state) then we have not learned anything at all surprising in discovering we're not, there was never any option whereby we were.

I'm not saying we are responsible for our mental state, only that arguing we're not by re-defining 'we' isn't answering the question in the terms it was asked, which I think is what Stove was getting at.

's an old thought experiment. What would happen to a donkey (Buridan's ass) asked to chose between two equally desirable options, such as two equal bags of barley? If your theory is correct, it should be unable to chose and die of hunger — Olivier5

No. If my theory is correct it would be impossible to set up. It would be impossible to create two bags of barley so equal in every way that there would not exist even the most miniscule preference for one over the other (not to mention the donkey so astonishingly attuned that it could correctly judge that the two bags were miraculously equal in every way, rather than mistakenly judge one to have some advantage over the other).

What if the person has no preference? How can she possibly chose then? — Olivier5

Well then we would indeed need to add some other mechanism of choice to our model. I just just don't see that we need to, or even ought to. Is the evidence that such circumstances exist really that compelling? Literally no preference at all.

For most of its existence, as sentient life has not had language, meaning cannot have come from semantics, but from the psychological state of mind. — RussellA

It's this that I'm not getting. Without words, what is it that you're referring to the meaning of?

It was the explanatory need I was trying to establish. It would not be at all difficult (let alone necessarily impossible), to model the choice between red and green switches as mediated by minor preferences.

Is there any reason to believe that these influences fully explain our behaviour? — Michael

None. But neither is there (yet) any reason not to. Hence my comment about the inadequacy of the model.

But what I was actually interested in was how you squared the idea of not being responsible for your dislikes (phobia if spiders in this case) with the idea that likes and dislikes were synonymous with our 'will'. If you're not responsible for your likes and dislikes, then you're not responsible for your will, which makes it sound like you have no freedom there.

I'm guessing, from the above response, that your answer would be that likes/dislikes are only part of our will, but not all of it.

But if so, it seems like an odd space to leave. I'm struggling to think of a behaviour to which no likes/dislikes could be attached, and so can't see the explanatory need for this additional factor other than that you'd prefer it to be there.

I'm not responsible for having the phobia, but I am responsible for the things I do because of it, e.g. setting fire to my house to kill the spider inside. — Michael

OK, but the theory goes that if the phobia makes you want to behave a certain way (and you consider yourself not responsible for it), then we have a model of factors outside of your responsibility influencing behaviour. Presumably there's no a priori reason why there should only be one such influence? So it seems, not only a valid default, but even a likely one, that the final behaviour is the net result of all the influences pulling in one direction or another...influences you've just determined are outside of your control. Afterall, the only factors we have in our model so far are such influences.

To avoid this, you'd have to introduce a new factor into the model other than a like/dislike influence.

This seems to me to be the weak spot in such an approach. This factor - free-will - seems introduced, not on the basis on an independent phenomenon, but purely to 'balance the books' of an inadequate model.

You would need to argue that our likes and dislikes (as well as other things like knowledge, experience, etc.) are separate to our wills. — Michael

Seems in opposition to

I'm not responsible for being allergic to peanuts, or having a phobia of spiders — Michael

Haven't you just asserted the exact thing you said was yet to be demonstrated? Your phobia of spiders is a 'dislike', which you claim not to be responsible for - hence you're already seeing your dislikes as something other than the 'you' which may or may not be responsible for them?

One pertinent question is whether semantic meaning grew out of psychological meaning, or is semantic meaning of a different kind to psychological meaning. — RussellA

Just catching up on reading through this thread (haven't time to actually analyse the paper itself, much as I'd like to, so just a bystander here), but I can't make any sense of this notion you've introduced of psychological meaning which seems in opposition to semantic meaning, can you elaborate briefly?

The main issue with Strawson's argument is that he separates 'how one is mentally' from 'one'. Such that there is this 'self' which is other than 'how one is mentally' which could, in theory, be responsible for choices. His coup de grace is that in reality the self is not able to choose actions freely because actions result from 'how one is mentally' and the self has no choice about that.

The massive problem (which is where I see commonalities with Stove's Gem) is that 'the self' is part of 'how one is mentally' - it's not a separate element.

in descriptions of the self in the psychology I have read and in cognitive science, the will, while it might sometimes feature, does not dominate in the way that would be expected if Schopie and the moustachioed one were right. — Banno

Absolutey right, and for good reason. People can suffer loss of volition in various forms, and woe betide the clinician who then announces that they no longer properly exist!

Just to tack something OP-related to the post, I don't think the concept of free-will even makes sense (other than as literally 'no other person made me do so', or 'neither choice was excessively onerous'). That said, I think @Luke's right about Strawson's argument being an example of Stove's Gem, notwithstanding my dislike of that which he opposes, he didn't do so well.

For some reason that I can't fathom the philosophy of will (at least that I've read) cannot avoid little homunculi dealing, like a miniature post-master, with all the desires, senses and thoughts which arrive, unbidden, on his desk.

Although at its most mundane, a gotcha is often just an overly self-important pedant pointing out an error or omission in an otherwise perfectly salient proposition. You missed that one...gotcha!

Well, "three people" are three points and the only shape possible with three points is a triangle. — TheMadFool

First, a straight line is possible. Second, why must I even imagine a shape at all? The expression seems to get its job done without my needing to.

I'm only showing you what a love-triangle is. Since a triangle is a geometric concept, it's best to do it with pictures and that I've done. — TheMadFool

I didn't ask what it is, I asked where the sides are in my use of the term. I imagine three people, co-involved, one of whom is the subject of my expression "She's involved in a love-triangle". My interlocutor, on hearing this also imagines three people, co-involved one of whom is the subject of the expression he just heard. He may now proceed to ask relevant questions about the nature of this co-involvement, treat each actor (should he meet them) in a manner consistent with them being co-involved, etc... In other words, I've successfully achieved what I wanted to achieve by using the word 'love triangle' without any sides or geometric shapes being involved in the process at all.

Have I misused the word? Has my success been mere accident? If the 'meaning' of the word is 'a geometric shape with three sides', then what's just happened in my successful use of it absent of any of those features?

I would say that the first moral assumption of a free society is that every person has the right to decide freely and rationally about his actions as long as he does not inflict on others a greater evil than he is trying to avoid for himself. — David Mo

Except children, apparently.

I'm not sure what you're trying to show here. I'm in no doubt that it is possible to draw three imaginary line between the actors. I'm asking about the necessity of doing so. If two people communicate effectively using the term 'love-triangle' simply on the grounds that there are three people involved, then how is it they've communicated. Are you suggesting that the 'meaning' of a word is some reified thing divorced from that which might be understood during it's use?

I only have to answer where they could be, right? — TheMadFool

If I say to someone "She's involved in a love-triangle" and do not bring to mind your 'each person represents a point. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line' mental image, but rather just imagine the three people co-involved, then I've used the word 'triangle' to communicate perfectly effectively absent of any 'sides' or 'geometric figures'. The fact that I could draw imaginary sides between the actors is irrelevant. If I do not choose to do so and yet still communicate effectively, then the triangle I'm referring to has no sides. Likewise my interlocutor might not imagine any sides either and yet perfectly well understand what I'm saying. How is this possible if the meaning of 'triangle' involves sides? I just used the word, was perfectly well understood, and yet no sides ever entered into the process. Did we communicate effectively by accident?

I don't understand you. You asked where's the triangle and I obliged. — TheMadFool

You answered where the sides could be, I asked where they were.

Each person represents a point. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. You have your triangle. — TheMadFool

They could do. What necessitates that I imagine this when I use the term to communicate?

Triangle = A three-sided geometric figure — TheMadFool

At the risk of getting into another "trite" side-track...where are the sides in a love-triangle?

Without commenting directly on this debate - which is largely trite — StreetlightX

Yeah. To be fair I was expecting an initial response like "Fair enough, what I meant to say was..." followed by a more coherent definition, such that I could return to just reading the thread. I wasn't expecting such an heterodox defence. I don't think there's anything more useful to be said on the matter.

Why then would you think that you can replace the word 'pain' by another symbol meaning the class of all possible meanings? — Olivier5

Since you said...

Anything you can think of, perceive, feel, plan and do, remember, or imagine. — Olivier5

... were examples of 'meanings' and since in all other cases we can succesfully replace specific examples with general cases in any sentence.

You are replacing a word by the class of meanings. — Olivier5

As I wrote previously, if I was referring to the word 'pain' I would have quoted it or otherwise indicated by context. I wasn't replacing the word 'pain' qua word, I was replacing pain, the object of the sentence. Thus, as @Banno just said...

« Cup » and « tea » are part of the class of words. Therefore, you want a {word} of {word}? That would be the right way to substitute an instance by a set it belongs to. Words are not meaning. They are just signs, tokens for meaning. — Olivier5

Only when quoted. A cup is a type of drinking vessel and Tea is a drink made from dried leaves. 'Cup' is a word and 'tea' is a word. They were not thus quoted in the sentence I used, the grammar tells us whether I'm referring to the word 'cup' or the thing - a cup. So if I was to substitute the genus {words} for each specific case 'cup' and 'tea', it would make perfect sense in sentence referring to those cases as words (ie quoted or otherwise signified), rather than as objects.

It remains the case that for specific cases which are members of a class we can substitute the genera for the specifics and retain the comprehensibility of the sentence.

"'Tea' is an English word derived from the Mandarin" = "Some specific {word} is an English word derived from the Mandarin"

"I would like a cup of tea" = "I would like some specific {drink}"

"I have a pain in my knee" <> "I have some specific {meaning} in my knee"

As such pain cannot be a type of meaning.

The idea of ‘thoughts’ has been added. — Olivier5

So... "A meaning is whatever thoughts are conveyed by a text.".

You want to claim (contra Davidson, Wittgenstein etc..) that "Language conveys meaning". That when we talk, the purpose (and so the preserved value in translation) is some property of the utterance - it's 'meaning' - which is conveyed from one speaker to another.

I asked you what kind of category a 'meaning' was -what types of thing belong to it. 'Mental structures and events' doesn't seem right because we cannot substitute specific cases of such things for there general class and still be understood.

Now you're suggesting it is the thought which is conveyed, that 'meaning' is a type of thought (those which are conveyed by text). I'm not sure I can quite see that either, without some mental gymnastics. If yell "Get out of the way!", it's not my thought I'm trying to convey (someone is in the way, I'd better get them to move) - that would be useless, it would just lead to the target of my utterance also thinking that someone was in the way and they'd better move them. We could say that the general thought of being in the way is what I'm trying to communicate, but I'm not. I'm not even trying to communicate any thought at all. I want him to get out of the way, even if that's by shock alone, I don't care if he has an appropriate thought associated with it or merely a Pavlovian response.

A meaning is whatever thoughts are conveyed by a text. — Olivier5

Which is the tautology we started with. "All language conveys meaning" is tautological if 'meaning' is just 'that which is conveyed by language.

You’re confusing a general category (meaning in general) with its individual instances (a specific meaning). — Olivier5

I asked what the membership criteria was for the category {meaning}. You answered that it was any mental structure or event. Generic names can indeed generally be substituted for a specific member in most cases. "I'm enjoying a cup of {some type of drink}" makes just as much sense as "I'm enjoying a cup of tea", even "I'm enjoying a cup of {word with three letters beginning with T}" makes some kind of sense.

"I have {a type of meaning} in my knee" makes no sense at all, so I can't see how the class {meaings} can possibly be circumscribed by 'mental events' like pains.

Mental events and structures: Anything you can think of, perceive, feel, plan and do, remember, or imagine. And any thought about that thought, and endless combinations thereof. — Olivier5

This is not a use of 'meaning' I've ever heard. I think if, on hurting my leg, I said "I have a meaning in my knee" I should not be very well understood. Or reassuring people in a tricky situation that I have a plan by saying "It's OK, I have a meaning".

So I don't think simply being a mental event can be sufficient to identity something as a 'meaning'.

Language conveys meaning. — Olivier5

Only if 'meaning' is understood as 'that which language conveys', and so the proposition is tautological. Otherwise what determines members of the class {meanings}?

What they agree or disagree to is irrelevant. — Banno

What they agree or disagree to is the entirety of human belief, it's the most relevant, and arguably, the only, subject matter in philosophy. As I said, the invariate truth of a physical reality is a subject for physics and rarely coincides with the beliefs we discuss as matters of philosophy - morality, conceptual schemes, meaning, ontological commitments...

You may well baulk at a conflation of truth and belief (notwithstanding that your caricature is, obviously, oversimplified), but the point I'm making here is that your notion of 'truth' as being that which is invariate between observers is disingenuous relative to your actual use of the word (which invariably means 'that we really strongly seems to me to be the case').

Have what is 'true' mean 'that which is invariate between observers' if you like, I'm cosmopolitan about language, just accept that you can then cannot make use of it in virtually all the cases you'd normally do so.

"Is it true that the length of this rod is five metres?"

"No, it's only true that it appears to me at my momentum to be five metres but to a different observer it would appear a different length"

Good luck with that.

Yep. And A wold be wrong. — Banno

Your assertion was that they wouldn't disagree as to the facts, not that neither of them would be wrong. A would indeed be wrong, but only by virtue of accepting that something seeming to them to be the case (no matter how strongly so) is no indicator that it actually is the case. The whole project of relativism in philosophy in a nutshell.

Observer A will see a rod of length l. Observer B will see a rod of length l'. But observer A will also see that observer B will see a rod of length l'; and observer B will see that observer A will see a rod of length l. They do not disagree as to the facts. — Banno

Only if they've been previously apprised of relativity theory. Otherwise A is more likely to consider B to be lying, mistaken, defective and vice versa.

Well said.

Philosophical versions of invariate truth are inevitably introduced as "There is an invariate truth", and equally inevitably appended later with "...and whatever seems to me to be the case is what it is".

That there exists an invariate state of affairs is a matter of interest almost solely to physics and this is entirely because theories like general relativity show that whatever such invariate truth actually is, our intuitive beliefs are almost certainly not it.

It's just not what word means, like we know what the word table means and when and where it is applicable. — ChatteringMonkey

My dictionary has 'privilege' meaning

an advantage that only one person or group of people has, usually because of their position or because they are rich: — Cambridge

a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor — Merriam-Webster

I'm struggling to see how it is so obvious that its use in 'white privilege' is "just not what word means". Its meaning seems quite congruent to me, it's saying that freedom from certain types of oppression and restriction, the opening of certain opportunities is an advantage which white people have.

Being able to go about one's daily business with a lower chance of being arrested or shot by your own police force in certain parts of America is an advantage afforded to white people simply because they're white is it not?

That's right there in the dictionary definition. I'm not sure what your objection on semantic grounds is.

What about sexism is that also based on oppression? Or specism, classism, ageism, or really any of the isms which refer to discrimination based on identity? — Judaka

In this context, yes. Are you really only just getting this?

Also, when you say most common, where is it the most common? Do all dictionaries define it as you do? What authority defines it only as you do that makes it a question of ignorance for me to not share yours? — Judaka

I didn't say it was a question of ignorance for you to not share mine. I said it was a question of ignorance to not be aware of it and the impact your use of the term would therefore have. Are we not literally talking about that exact issue with the term 'privilege'?

I think it is appropriate to point out that your definition of racism, which necessitates oppression is not one that I agree with and I have never used the word with that definition in mind. — Judaka

There exists a definition of racism which is a) the most common definition, and b) extremely offensive if one is accused of it. You're either ignorant of this (in which case you need to educate yourself before posting about such a subject), or you know this but used the term anyway. Either a cheap political stunt to promote your idiosyncratic use, or a ploy to deliver the offense one meaning carries whilst only suffering the burden of proof the other does. Reprehensible either way.

the quote says that posters here who formulated perfectly coherent criticism of the white privilege framing are just white middle class cis hetro males who beg that the word "privilege" not be used because it upsets them. — Judaka

Yep. So no racism there even by your own definition.

If I can demonstrate racism towards "privileged" racial groups, would you counter that they are privileged? — Judaka

Yes, of course. As I thought I'd made clear in my previous post, no one cares about trivial attribution errors. Racism is about the oppression of people by attributing racial generalisations. It is not just attributing racial generalisations.

Besides which, no such thing has even taken place here. At no point in time did banno or streetlight say anything which even attributed views or characteristics to people based on their race. The comment you quoted says nothing more than that there are white middle class cis hetro males who beg that the word "privilege" not be used because it upsets them. There's not even a hint of an accusation that they do so because they're white middle class cis hetro males (and that's what all such people do).

Besides the whole oppressor/victim narrative, what differences are there between the way you discriminate against people based on their whiteness and how others may discriminate against others based on their blackness? — Judaka

Why on earth would you premiss judgement of any act of discrimination with "besides the whole oppressor/victim narrative"? The oppression is literally the whole point. No-one is politically concerned about the technical accuracy of the statistical inferences. No-one is politically concerned with the occasional ignoring of outliers for rhetorical ease. We're not equally offended about classing all blacks as criminals as we would be about classing all ginger people as freckly, because you'd have to be some kind of heartless robot to see those two errors in homogeneity bias as equally problematic.

We frequently use group identifiers to summarise a range of disparate opinion and even in doing so ignore outliers and minority dissonance. Whether we do so to oppress (or maintain oppression) or not is entirely the point.