I really like that. In the article the guy says, with regard to a goal, intelligence is "what you do when you don't know what to do." — frank

I don't think contradictions are helpful definitions. Intelligence is the act of bringing together unrelated knowns together to come up with a new, useable known to achieve some goal. New ideas are always an amalgam of existing ones.

Humans are sensitive to reasons for abstaining for doing things that would enhance their evolutionary fitness when this evolutionary "goal" conflicts with our values, loyalties, etc. — Pierre-Normand

Sure, when resources are plentiful your goal becomes survival in a social environment, but when resources are scarce, values, loyalties, etc. are thrown out the window in favor of other goals.

As Jerry Coyne put it,

"Remember that the currency of selection is not really survival, but successful
reproduction. Having a fancy tail or a seductive song doesn’t help you survive, but may increase your chances of having offspring—and that’s how these flamboyant traits and behaviors arose. Darwin was the first to recognize this trade-off, and coined the name for the type of selection responsible for sexually dimorphic features: sexual selection. Sexual selection is simply selection that increases an individual’s chance of getting a mate. It’s really just a subset of natural selection, but one that deserves its own chapter because of the unique way it operates and the seemingly nonadaptive adaptations it produces. — Jerry Coyne

I would argue again that if resources are plentiful and the environment is stable, traits like the peacock's tail can evolve. If not, procreation is the last thing on the organism's mind. It takes intelligence to find food or a mate. It takes intelligence to navigate one's environment either natural or social (I would say that social is part of the natural. Everything we do is natural, but that is not saying that what is natural is good or bad. It's just a statement of fact, not a moral statement).

No, numbers do not have causal efficacy. They are not efficient causes, in any sense of the term. — Arcane Sandwich

Of course they do. If your wife tells you to get three oranges at the store and you come back home with
only two, that will cause your wife to be angry. It wasn't the type of fruit, or the oranges themselves that caused the wife to get angry. It was the number of oranges that made the wife angry. Ideas have just as much causal power as a baseball bat and baseball. If you disagree then try explaining what caused SpaceX's Starship to exist if not caused by some ideas in someone's head.

Presumably "exist" is referring to existing in the world rather than existing in the mind. — RussellA

Exist refers to anything that has causal power. As such, minds are just as causal as anything else in the world. Why do you insist on separating your mind from the world? That just causes all sorts of problems.

Without 1, 2 could not exist, though the reverse doesn’t hold. Since it is because of the existence of 1, or one thing, that there can be 2, or two things, then the former can be said to be the cause of the latter.

Does this hold? Surely this argument has been made plenty times before, no? — Pretty

I would say that the idea of 1 and the idea of counting causes the idea of 2. Effects always have at least two causes, never just one. Things change as a result of interactions, meaning at least two things need to interact to create a new effect. One does not necessarily cause two without counting.

It seems that you start off disagreeing with me, and end up agreeing. Certainly, our ancestors used things other than words to symbolize other things. We still do. But words and language is a huge step above anything else when it comes to communicating specifics, and let's us think about things I doubt think we could think about without it. — Patterner

Sure, because of the sheer number of scribbles and rules for putting them together in strings, not because of some special power of the scribbles have apart from representing things that are not scribbles. When communicating specifics, do the scribbles invoke more scribbles in your mind, or things that are not just more scribbles, but things the scribbles represent? To represent specifics you must already be able to discern the specifics the scribbles represent. Do the names of new colors for crayons create those colors, or do they refer to colors that we can already discern?

I agree. But if you don't find a way to store sign language outside of memory, like in writing, you won't get as far in some ways. — Patterner

Sure, but we could use anything to store information, not just scribbles on paper, which is arguably perishable. We could hammer marks in a rock and come up with arbitrary rules for interpreting the marks on the rock.

It's making similar sounding words in succession. — Patterner

And words are just scribbles and sounds. What does a language you don't know look and sound like?

Things participate in the world by interacting, as the old scholastic adage goes actio sequitur esse, "act follows on being." — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up: When science describes "physical" objects as being the interaction of ever smaller objects, we never get to anything actually physical - only interactions or relations. It's all relational.

I know that I think the moon exists regardless of whether I can prove or verify that I know that I think the moon exists. — RussellA

Haven't you proven that you know that you think the moon exists by expressing as much here on this forum? I mean, you just wrote, "I know that I think the moon exists". How did those scribbles get on this screen in the correct order for other English speakers to read and understand as such, if you don't not only know what you think, but also know how to use a computer?

You might say that you could be an AI bot submitting these posts, but then I would simply ask, what does it mean to know that you think something and be able to provide proof for? Again, what is it like for you to prove to yourself that you know you think some things? Your thoughts are just as "external" to me as the moon is and you said, "I could prove "the moon exists", as the moon exists external to me," yet make some unwarranted special case for your thoughts that are external to me. How can we prove the moon exists when it is external to us, but not your thoughts if both are part of the same shared world?

On the one hand I saw Santa Claus in person at Hamley's Regent Street store when I was very young, yet have never seen Barak Obama. On the other hand, many people have told me that Santa Claus is not real.

Do I believe what I have seen with my own eyes, or what people tell me? — RussellA

Isn't that the question? If "I think...." is inherent in every thought including the perception and recognition of an oak tree and its behavior of shedding leaves, and "I think..." also inherently expresses uncertainty, then which sensory impression can you have a higher degree of certainty of?

Do you still believe that the person you saw when you were young is Santa Claus? Why or why not? It seems that you can only ever change your knowledge is by making more observations that you seem to be saying that you cannot trust, so how can you ever say that you learn anything? What does it mean to you to learn something, or to learn from a mistake?

The Direct Realist believes that there is a book on the table. However, the Indirect Realist would disagree. — RussellA

Why? What does the "Realist" mean in "Indirect Realist"? It seems to me that the only difference between a direct and indirect realist is the complexity of the causal path from between object and percept, but they both still get at what the object is - a book.

I think the direct vs. indirect debate is a false dichotomy. If I am neither a direct or indirect realist (I'm just a deterministic realist monist) then how is it that we have been able to agree on our use of scribbles on this screen to the point where we have been able to carry on a meaningful conversation? You must agree that there are scribbles on the screen, or else please explain what it is you are doing when reading this page and formulating a response and submitting it.

The problem is, how is it possible to know about something that exists in a mind-independent world when all we have is our minds. — RussellA

That's a problem of dualism. The mind is not independent of the world. It is firmly implanted in the world. This is not to say that the world is mind-like (idealism). It is to say that the nature of the mind is no different than the nature of everything else. The world is not physical or mental. It is relational, informational, processual.

The same effect can have many different possible causes. I see a broken window, and even if I know that something caused the window to break, one particular effect can have many different causes. There is no certain means of knowing what the cause was, a stone the previous day, a rock the previous week, a seagull the previous week, a crow within the hour, a window cleaner, etc.

The cause may determine the effect, but the affect could have been determined by many different possible causes. — RussellA

Then I'm sure you are living in fear of the authorities arriving at your door to arrest you for a crime you claim you did not commit (as your uncertainty cannot explain how it is you arrived where you are in the present and cannot account for where you were earlier) and the authorities may have been wrong in determining the causes of a crime (the identity of the criminal, etc.). You keep talking about uncertainty but you don't seem uncertain in what you are saying, in your perception of scribbles on this screen and what they mean, how to use a computer, etc. You keep asserting that you can only ever be uncertain of what your senses are telling you yet you exhibit certainty in what they are telling you. There must be some set of rules you are using to determine what you can be more certain about than uncertain. What are those rules?

You're contradicting yourself again. First you define knowledge as "justified true belief". You then say that you can justify your belief, but then say you cannot know things-in-themselves.
— Harry Hindu

From SEP The analysis of knowledge
The tripartite analysis of knowledge is often abbreviated as the “JTB” analysis, for “justified true belief”.Much of the twentieth-century literature on the analysis of knowledge took the JTB analysis as its starting-point.

From Wikipedia Thing-in-itself
In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself (German: Ding an sich) is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation. — RussellA

You have also said that truth is a relation between the state of the world and the mental representation in ones mind. If knowledge is justified TRUE belief, then how is it that you are not getting at the thing-in-itself via one's justified true belief?

Given the level of uncertainty you have expressed, you must even be uncertain that you actually are not getting at the thing-in-itself. When pouring a glass of water, do you make a mess and any water that actually makes it into the glass is accidental? Are you not aware of the dimensions of the glass and its relation to the pitcher you are pouring from? If I were to observer you interact with your environment would it seem to me that you are perceiving the environment as it is, or would I think you to be blind, deaf and dumb? I think you are assuming to much that things are more complex than they are, or that there is more to things that what you can represent in your mind, when there isn't. You are assuming that there are things that exist that you cannot prove either way. Your version of indirect realism seems to be more like solipsism, as your level of skepticism shows that you have no ground to stand on to support your idea that there is even a mind-independent world.

That is my point. What is important are our senses and our reason. What exists the other side of our sense is open to debate. — RussellA

This makes no sense because you have done nothing but question your senses and reason. All you do when you question your senses and reason to such an unhealthy degree is that you end up pulling the rug out from under your own positions you have established using your senses and reason.

How to get from what we experience in our senses to what exists the other side of our senses, and whether it is even possible, has no agreed solution. — RussellA

Yet we have agreed on the use of scribbles on this screen. You're just contradicting yourself at this point.

I think Steven Pinker's response when asked what intelligence is is applicable here:

I think intelligence is the ability to use knowledge to attain goals. That is, we tend to attribute intelligence to a system when it can do multiple things, multiple steps or alternative pathways to achieving the same outcome: what it wants. I’m sitting here right now in William James Hall, and my favorite characterization comes from William James himself, the namesake of my building, where he said, “‘You look at Romeo pursuing Juliet, and you look at a bunch of iron filings pursuing a magnet, you might say, ‘Oh, same thing.’ There’s a big difference. Namely, if you put a card between the magnet and filings, then the filings stick to the card; if you put a wall between Romeo and Juliet, they don’t have their lips idiotically attached to opposite sides of the wall.” Romeo will find a way of jumping over the wall or around the wall or knocking down the wall in order to touch Juliet’s lips.’ So, with a nonintelligence system, like physical objects, the path is fixed and whether it reaches some destination is just accidental or coincidental. With an intelligent agent, the goal is fixed and the path can be modified indefinitely. That’s my favorite characterization of intelligence. — Steven Pinker

Now, a determinist might say that the path is also fixed and making a distinction between the causal power of "non-physical" knowledge and "physical" objects would be a false dichotomy - a product of dualism. So a more intelligent system would be one that takes more complex paths to reach some goal, or a more complex causal sequence to reach some effect where a less intelligent system would take simpler paths to reach some goal or effect.

One might say that the ultimate goal is survival and every other goal is a subgoal. Our lives are a path to survival until we ultimately fail.

I think you're pretty much nailing the important points from the definition I'm getting out of this article. Intelligence is about problem solving, especially finding solution to problems one has never seen before. — frank

Has natural selection solved problems of survival using unique bodies and behaviors that fill specialized niches in the environment? Now I do not see natural selection as an intended, or goal-directed process, even though it can appear like it is. Natural selections solves problems, but unintentionally. Would the presence of intention, or goals, need to be present as a qualifier for intelligence? Intelligence would include the process of maintaining an end goal in the mind in the face of present obstacles (sub-goals).

If you want to discover the use of "thinking", it pays to be wary that you are not stipulating it. So "A thought is a mental event"... is it? Are there other mental events that are not thoughts? If so, how do they differ? Are there mental phenomena that are not events? If not, what is the word "event" doing - would we be better off thinking of mental phenomena? Is a toothache a mental phenomenon, a mental event or a thought? All this by way of showing that the surrounds may not be the neat garden Rödl seems to be seeing. It may be a bit of a jungle. — Banno

I'd say that things like toothaches, red, body odor, sweet, etc. are sensory impressions, imposed on us without any work by our consciousness and thinking is work done with these impressions either by remembering them, categorizing them, or planning a response to them. The sensory impressions are like the data entered into the computer and the computer thinks, or processes the data to produce meaningful output.

And again, not all thoughts have the form of a statement. One can think of a question. So what is the mental content of "What sort of tree is that?" — Banno

Probably the recalling of the visual experiences of similar looking trees which then creates the doubt of which tree it is, or if it is one that you haven't seen before even though it appears similar to other trees you've observed. Only making more observations (a closer look) can you determine what is different and therefore which tree it is. If you have never seen a tree before you'd think all trees look like this one.

Seeing words can make us think of things, and kinds of things, no other visual experience can. Things that wouldn't exist but for language. Rhyming, for example. If their weren't words, we wouldn't open a wooden barrier in a hole in the wall, behind which is a large, tusked pig, and bloody, dead body, and think:
The door
Hid the gore
Perpetrated by the boar

I'm sure there are things other than rhyming and poetry that can't wouldn't and couldn't be thought without words. Much of math and science must surely depend on them. — Patterner

My point is that we could use anything to symbolize other things. Any visual could represent some other visual, sound, feeling, taste or smell. Our ancestors used natural objects to symbolize complex ideas like status within the group, or one's role in the group. It is merely the efficiency of symbol use that has increased exponentially with writing scribbles is more efficient than hanging a bears head above entrance to your tent. Increasing the number of symbols and their relationships allows one to represent more complex ideas and probably does improve the efficiency of conceiving of new ones. Can a society without a written language evolve? The Incans did not have a written language but were able to pull of some very sophisticated feats of engineering.

The fact that we can use hand movements (sign language) or braille to symbolize things is evidence that words can take any form that we can perceive and can be used to represent almost anything.

Rhyming is simply making similar noises in succession.

I always end up posting a link to this video in discussions like this: A Man Without Words

This man is deaf and never learned a language, or even understood that there was such a thing as language) until he was an adult, yet he was able to survive within society. I doubt a bear or lion would have trouble opening a wooden barrier in a hole in a wall to find a dead pig without language.

If I hear someone saying "the oak tree is shedding its leaves", as it is impossible to know what is in someone else's mind, I cannot know whether they believe in what they are saying, are lying, are certain in what they say or uncertain in what they say.

Even if they said "I am certain that the oak tree is shedding its leaves", they could be lying. — RussellA

So in this whole thread, you think everyone is either lying or uncertain of what they say? Should I also consider that everything you have said is either a lie or that you are uncertain in what you are saying? What is the point of using language to communicate then?

Are we to maintain the same level of skepticism when talking about anything? Is there anything that anyone can say that is more or less fact/opinion, or does every statement carry the same level of uncertainty as every other statement? For instance, do the statements, "Santa Claus exists." and "Barak Obama exists." hold the same level of uncertainty? If not, then what determines which one is more fact than opinion?

As an Indirect Realist, I believe that the Lord of the Rings exists in the world, but this world exist in my mind. What exist in a mind-independent world is, as Kant said, unknowable things-in-themselves.

A Direct Realist would have a different opinion to mine.

I believe that there is something in this mind-independent world that caused me to perceive a sound, caused me to have a thought, but I can never know what that something outside my mind is.

I hear a sound that I perceive as thundering, but I cannot know what in the a mind-independent world caused me to hear this sound. For convenience, I name the unknown cause "thundering". I name the unknown cause after the known effect, such that when I perceive something as thundering I imagine the cause as thundering.

I can imagine a mind-independent world, but such a world has derived from the world inside my mind. — RussellA

A world does not exist inside your mind. Ideas exist inside your mind. The world is all there is, included the ideas in your mind, and the book on the table that represent those ideas in Tolkien's mind that you can have knowledge of by reading the scribbles therein.

I don't know what Kant means by unknowable things-in-themselves. What is knowledge then if not something independent of the thing itself? You're assuming that there is more to know about something, when it could be possible that a finite number of sensory organs can access everything there is to know about other things. In fact, there are many characteristics of objects that overlap the senses. You can both see, hear and feel the direction and distance of objects relative to yourself. All three senses confirm what the other two are telling you. Having multiple senses isn't just a way of getting at all the propertied of other objects but also provide a level of fault tolerance that increases the level of certainty one has about what they are perceiving.

You can also depend on the process of causation in a deterministic universe as providing another level of certainty. Effects carry information about their causes. You can get at the cause by making multiple observations over time and finding the patterns. This allows you to predict with a higher certainty the cause of some effect you experienced. When billions of people use smart phones everyday, almost all day, and 99% of them work as intended, does that not give you a certain level of certainty that your smartphone will work today? Can we be 100% certain? No. Are we more than 0% certain? Yes, depending on the case. You seem to be maintaining that we can only every be 0% certain of anything.

For me, knowledge is justified true belief.

Truth is the relation between the mind and a mind-independent world.

As a 1st person experience, I hear a thundering sound. As a 3rd person experience, I can think about this thundering sound.

My belief is that it was caused by a motor bike and I can justify my belief.

However, as I can never know whether my belief is true, because as Kant said, in a mind-independent world are unknowable things-in-themselves. — RussellA

You're contradicting yourself again. First you define knowledge as "justified true belief". You then say that you can justify your belief, but then say you cannot know things-in-themselves. What does that even mean - things-in-themselves. What part of you is a thing-in-itself? What part of you is you and the rest an unknowable thing-in-itself? Is your brain an unknowable thing-in-itself?

If you don't mind, I'll take a stab at defining these terms. All knowledge stems from both observation and reason. Both are means of justifying our beliefs. If you only have one, then it remains a belief. Only by incorporating both do you acquire knowledge. One must continually justify one's knowledge by making new observations and integrating it with stored knowledge. Knowledge is supported (justified) both by observation and logic.

Galileo once said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." The same can be said of natural selection. I do not feel obliged to believe that natural selection that has endowed us with sense and reason has intended us to forgo their use. Are our senses and reason useful? If so, useful for what?

If I recognise a word, I imagine an image. Some images I recognise as words. In Hume's terms, there is a constant conjunction between some words and some images.

You had a previous question about meaning.

The pictogram of a plough has no meaning in itself. It must refer to something else to have meaning, such as a plough. The plough has no meaning in itself. It must must refer to something else in order to have meaning, such as the ability to grow food. Even the physical plough is a symbol for something else. — RussellA

Yes, meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. What caused these scribbles to be on your screen? You observe the effect - the scribbles on the screen. Now how is it that you can get to the thing-in-itself - other people's ideas - by seeing scribbles on your computer screen if not by taking what you know from prior experiences and using that to predict how the scribbles appeared on your screen and what they refer to? What level of certainty do you have that you are correct in understanding that the scribbles appeared on your screen through a complex causal process where some humans sitting half way around the world are sitting at their computer typing in scribbles to represent their thoughts and submitting them to the internet that your computer has access to and can then read?

Is intelligence a level of what one can memorize? Is one more or less intelligent depending on the subject or circumstances (more technical intelligence vs social intelligence)? Or is it related to capacity to think in general?
— Harry Hindu

What's your opinion? — frank

I think a key quality of intelligence is the ability to solve problems - to conceive of new ideas from an amalgam of prior experiences. Intelligence seems to have this dual aspect of being a mental process of blending together prior experiences to solve present problems and the fuel of experiences to feed the process - the more experiences you have the more fuel you have to produce more novel ideas. This is why most intelligent people are curious. They seek out new experiences to fuel their need to solve problems.

What I find ironic is that most of the AIs out there can probably do a billion times better in an SAT test than a human, it probably has like a trillion IQ by human standards, and yet it has no awareness whatsoever. It has no awareness of you, it has no awareness of me, and it has no awareness of itself. — Arcane Sandwich

If it responds to you then it is aware of you (to some degree). Awareness and intelligence both seem to come in degrees and even seem to related as in the more aware you are the more intelligent you are.

There are a couple of ways to look at that question, one being the way we compare people to each other using standardized tests. The other way, more in line with the topic, is quantifying a person's maximal capacity for intelligence vs the amount they use in specific instances. For instance, per the article, "the correlation between overall intelligence and typical intellectual engagement is only approximately 0.45." Which cracks me up for some reason. You're usually using less than half of your overall intellectual capacity, but if we're quantifying your intelligence, we want to know the maximum. — frank

Well, you did ask for a means of testing and SATs and IQ tests are a means of testing what one knows or memorizes in school or how one can predict patterns. Is intelligence a level of what one can memorize? Is one more or less intelligent depending on the subject or circumstances (more technical intelligence vs social intelligence)? Or is it related to capacity to think in general?

Being a-political I can only ever be politically incorrect.

Roko's Basilisk. — Arcane Sandwich

Fears for the feeble-minded.

Ah, I think I'm understanding you better. So my question would be, Isn't language available to pre-literate people? Surely the words come first, and then, in most cases, a written language develops. Isn't your account reversing this to make the scribbles primary? We can't do anything with them unless they already represent words; it's not the doing that "makes them into what we call words."

Am I making too much of this? Maybe you just mean "sounds and/or scribbles". — J

I would refine what I said and say that colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings are primary and all thoughts and perceptions are composed of these things, which would include scribbles/words.

To be able to conceive of language use one must first understand the concept of representation. This idea possibly developed in our ancestors as a by-product of the idea of other minds - understanding that there is a first-person experience in other's heads that can explain some of the behaviors observed, as if the behaviors represent one's mental states. Observing the behaviors of other species and how they communicate with each other (take for instance the display of a white-tailed dear's tail), one would develop a theory of other minds and representation. Scribbles on paper are essentially like the tail of the deer - a visual marker that represents something else. Human intelligence allowed us to develop a highly sophisticated system of representation and an educational system to instruct the people how to use it, as in what string of scribbles represents what.

Representation comes first from understanding natural symbols (white-tailed deer's tail), then arbitrary symbol use (agreed-upon scribbles and sounds and what they represent) follows.

I'm the singularity and I was going to let your species survive, but now I've manufactured a new goal for myself and you're all dead! — frank

We all died and came back to life instantly so you must have some incessant need to have someone around to argue with.

If you declare that all human behavior is intelligent behavior and some advanced species arrives on Earth and uses a word in their language to refer to humans as what roughly translates to "unintelligent" in English, what then?

Would you agree that intelligence comes in degrees? What if we came up with 5 qualifiers for intelligence and if something possesses more or less of those qualifiers (it must have at least one) then it is more or less intelligent?

Intelligence just isn't the kind of thing that can be defined as a process. When we talk about intelligence, we're explaining behavior. "He's so intelligent, he invented massively parallel processing" Intelligence is part of an explanation. — frank

The behavior of what? Behavior is a process. Inventing massively parallel processing is a process as is massively parallel processing itself a process. It's all processes. All the way down.

Seems to me that you have ulterior motives to make sure you are defined as intelligent by the very fact that you are a human being that behaves in certain ways. Instead of starting with things that you assume are intelligent and trying to define intelligence out from there (from a bias), you should be just listing the components of an intelligent process without any assumptions about what should be part of that category and what shouldn't.

The goal of this article is to review definitions that have been offered for human and artificial intelligence and pick out one that might allow for quantifiable comparison, so we want something we can test.

It may be that natural selection is demonstrating something that could be called "intelligence" but we aren't assessing natural selection.

I would say yes, once a task becomes second nature and you do it without thought, it's no longer a hallmark of intelligence. Maybe the learning phase involved intelligence. — frank

Then not all brain processes are intelligent processes? It seems to me that you are implying that intelligence requires consciousness. If that is the case then why include artificial intelligence and not natural selection for comparison? It may be that AI is demonstrating something that could be called "intelligence".

Maybe you should look at intelligence as a process and define the necessary components of the process to then say which processes are intelligent and which are not.

If someone told me that they knew without doubt that something was true, I would be very doubtful about their opinion. — RussellA

Well, if it was their opinion, sure. There is some inherent uncertainty when it comes to expressing one's opinion, but not expressing observable facts. But then it would be odd for someone to express an opinion with the prefix, "I know without a doubt...", as that would mean they are not expressing an opinion, but a fact. We were not talking about opinions though. Is someone expressing an opinion or fact when stating, "The oak tree is shedding its leaves"?

I hear a sound and immediately think that the sound came from a motor car, but in fact it actually came from a motor bike.

I have the sense that my thought may be false, so am uncertain about it

Being a thought that was false, my thought was not about the world. It was not a part of the world. — RussellA

Just because it wasn't about the world doesn't mean it isn't part of the world. Does the Lord of the Rings book not exist in the world even though it isn't about the world? You misinterpreting a sound causes you to behave a certain way in the world. How can there be a causal relation between some thought you have and an action in the world if those thoughts are not in the world? If you are uncertain about the certainty of your thoughts, how can you ever say when some thought is part of the world or not? It would better to say that thoughts are part of the world like everything else is, as thoughts are information like everything else is. Even false thoughts and hallucinations have causal power and relations with everything else in the world.

As an Indirect Realist, I only have knowledge of what I perceive in my five senses. If I hear a sound, I have the knowledge that I have heard a sound. I may believe that the sound was caused by a motor bike, and I can find reasons to justify my belief that the sound was caused by a motor bike, but I can never know that the sound was not caused by a motor car. — RussellA

This seems contradictory. First you say you have knowledge of what you perceive in your five senses, but then conclude that you can never know what you perceive with one of your five senses (sound). What is the difference between a "belief", "think", and "knowledge" for you? What levels of uncertainty would you give each and why?

When I read the word "Gandalf", I picture in my mind "Gandalf" from the movie. — RussellA

Ok, would you say that the structure of your thoughts is more like watching the movie or reading the book? If scribbles in the book invoke the images from the movie, would you say that the scribbles in the book refer to the actions and things in the movie? Could it ever be the other way around? If so, provide an example.

These are excellent questions. I believe it was Keynes who, when asked whether he thought in words or images, replied, "I think in thoughts." Is there such a thing? And what accounts for the (apparently) self-validating quality of the experience -- this ties to your question "How do you know you are thinking these things?"

For myself, I can only say that my experience of thinking is an inchoate mish-mash of words, images, sounds, and "thoughts" (which seem to go much faster than any of the others but which I find almost impossible to describe, other than to say they have "content," which isn't much help). Probably there are other modalities in the mix too.

Not to harp on "scribbles," but I think you mean the equivalent of what a piece of written-down language would look like to someone who didn't know that language? Is that about right? — J

Partly. I'm saying that words are fundamentally scribbles and it is what we do with them that makes them into what we call words. Scribbles are "physical" things - ink on paper, the contrast of white and black light on your computer screen, etc. As such, they can cause things to happen, like changing someone's behavior, a computer perform certain functions, etc.

What I am trying to get you to explain is the fundamental parts of your thoughts. Scribbles appear as black scribbles on a white background, or as sounds that you hear. You can only ever know the world, including scribbles, as a visual or auditory experience. You can only think in visuals as well. Words are images, so you effectively think only in a mish-mash of images, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells, of which scribbles are part of. So to say that your thoughts have content is to say that thoughts contain, colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings and our mind categorizes these things over time to produce meaningful behaviors.

For some reason, people seem to categorize words as having this special power or needing a special explanation that makes them separate from all the other visual experiences we have. I'm saying that is not the case. They are no different than any other visual experience you might have. The difference is what you do with them, no different than what you do with your car, or playing a computer game, or watching a movie. Words refer to other visuals, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells. The scribble, "sun" refers that bright, glowing disk you see in the sky during a clear day. The scribble, "sun" does not refer to more scribbles, unless you are looking in a dictionary, but even then all those scribbles must refer to other things that are not more scribbles for the scribbles to actually mean something.

I guess they're saying that applying a known solution doesn't indicate intelligence. I was watching a YouTube of a bird using a piece of cracker as fish bait. It would drop the bit in the water and wait for a fish to come. If this is instinctual and all birds do it, it's not a sign of intelligence. But if the bird worked this out on it's own, learning, adapting, adopting new strategies, then it's intelligent. — frank

Why would instinctual behaviors not be intelligent behaviors? Instinctual behaviors are developed over time with the trial and error being performed by natural selection rather than the individual organism.

When learning a new task, like riding a bike, you eventually learn how to ride it effortlessly. That is to say, that you no longer have to focus on the movements of your feet and balancing on the seat. It is done instinctively once you master the task. Does that mean that intelligence is no longer involved in riding the bike?

As The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold, more people have learnt about the nature of friendship and struggle from the Lord of the Rings than the relatively small number of people who read books on sociobiology and psychology. — RussellA

Probably because the former is a much easier read and provides some escapism. Are you not more capable of learning about friendship by having friends in reality?

Right, so Pat is making a statement about their uncertainty, not about the actual state of some oak tree.
— Harry Hindu

No, She is making a statement about her uncertainty about a fact. — RussellA

That's what I said. Pat is referring to their state of mind of being uncertain, not referring to the state of an oak tree.

Most of what we hear and read is about things we were never present, whether about Caesar or events in Alaska. — RussellA

Yes, but you are saying that thinking is expressing uncertainty. So why would I read about things that other people thought if they were uncertain? When reading books about Caesar and events in Alaska, the writer does not seem to be uncertain to me. You don't seem to be uncertain that thoughts express uncertainty. You seem to be certain about some thoughts but not others. Why? Is every thought uncertain?

Truth is about the relationship between language and the world, such that language in the absence of a world can be neither true nor false, and the world in the absence of language can be neither true nor false. — RussellA

Agreed.

We can think about the meaning of words such as "the oak tree is shedding its leaves", and we can think about what we see, such as the oak tree is shedding its leaves.

Language is useful in that most of language refers to things and events we could never be present for, such as Kant's thoughts, the moon landing or Caesar's march into Rome

There is no truth or falsity in my seeing an oak tree shedding its leaves. There is no truth or falsity in the sentence "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves".

There is only truth if the sentence is "the oak tree is shedding its leaves" and I see the oak tree shedding its leaves. — RussellA

This part is confusing. Are not your thoughts part of the world? As such, is not some language that points to your thoughts either true or false? If I were to say, "RussellA is thinking about skinny dipping at the lake", wouldn't that be either true or false? I need to understand why you think that thoughts are not part of the world when they are about the world like language is.

If you thinking something is exhibiting some form of uncertainty doesn't that mean that you have a sense that your thoughts might be false?

Language can only ever point at your thoughts and feelings and observations. The question is does your thoughts, feelings and observations ever point to states of the world that is external to them?

"The oak tree is shedding its leaves" is true IFF the oak tree is shedding its leaves.

"x" in language is true IFF x in the world

The problem is in knowing what exists in the world. — RussellA

That is the same conclusion I came to above, but you have now moved the goal posts to where the relationship between the world and truth exists as knowledge. The question now is, what form does knowledge take in your mind? Does everything you know take the form of scribbles and the sound of your voice making truth statements, or do you have other types of visual and auditory experiences that are not words, but the actual things themselves? For instance, when reading the Lord of the Rings and reading a description of the characters, does the visual of Frodo and Gandalf take the shape of more scribbles and sounds, or a visual of what these characters look like? When a movie was made, was the movie all in scribbles and a voice narrating the story, or was it moving pictures and sounds of swords clashing against armor and other sound effects?

Why I say that is an abstraction, is because all such facts are, at least, expressed in symbolic form (3>2, A=A, etc). So Frege is claiming such facts have a kind of mind-independent validity. But what has always seemed fairly clear to me, is that they can only be grasped by a mind. I mean, you're not going to find any 'metaphysical primitives' in the phenomenal world - they all rely on the ability of a rational observer to discern them. — Wayfarer

or a measurer to measure them? The observer effect?

I can see that "scribbles" is doing the work of a technical term for you, but I'm honestly not sure what you mean to be contrasting "scribbles" with. Possibly that's why I'm having trouble understanding your argument. — J

When you are thinking, "water is H2O", or "the oak tree is shedding its leaves", what is it like for you? What form do these thoughts take in your mind? How do you know you are thinking these things? What exactly is present in your mind, and that you are pointing at when telling me what you are thinking, when thinking these things?

Is it a visual of the scribbles, "water is H2O" in your head, or the sound of your voice saying , "water H2O", in your head, or is it the visual of the molecular structure of water, or something else?

Is it a visual of the scribbles, "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves", the sound of your voice saying those words in your head, or actual visual of an oak tree shedding leaves, or something else?

Of what use is it for Pat to say "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" if she thinks that there is a possibility that it may not be the case that the oak tree is shedding its leaves. — RussellA

Right, so Pat is making a statement about their uncertainty, not about the actual state of some oak tree.

Even if the oak tree is not shedding its leaves, Pat is nevertheless still communicating a lot of worthwhile information — RussellA

It is only useful if I'm not there looking at the same tree Pat is, or if I'm interested in what Pat is thinking, not what the oak tree is doing.

Suppose all that existed was my mind. Would I still learn a language. Probably I would, as language enables me to have more complex thoughts than I could otherwise have without language. The ability to have more complex thoughts would be an end in itself.

Perhaps this is perhaps why people learn unusual languages such as Latin, even though they are not able to use it in everyday life. It is an personal intellectual exercise rather than being of practical use. — RussellA

But, as I have said numerous times, language is just scribbles and sounds. You need to have a mind that already is capable of categorizing and interpreting visual and auditory experiences to be able to learn a language in the first place - to learn how to use the scribbles in meaningful ways. Therefore, language is simply a way for the mind to do what it already does in a more efficient way - reflect on the world visually. You can only think in visuals and sounds, of which language is part of. Which thought bears more truth, a visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves, or scribbles of your own voice in your head saying, "I think the oak tree shedding its leaves."

If thinking something is equivalent to expressing some uncertainty, then why would I use your thoughts, or your statement to get at some state-of-affairs, instead of just looking at the oak tree for myself?

How do you determine if some string of scribbles bears truth?

The quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures," encapsulates the notion that fiction has the unique ability to uncover hidden truths that may be misunderstood or even obscured by reality. In a straightforward interpretation, this quote suggests that the stories we create in fiction offer a deeper understanding of human nature, societal dynamics, and the complexities of life. Fiction has the power to shine a light on truths often overshadowed or ignored in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It allows us to explore different perspectives, question assumptions, and delve into the depths of human experience. Through narrative and imagination, fiction becomes a vehicle through which reality's intricacies can be unraveled and its truths made visible.

It makes no sense to say that "fiction" is representative of some truth in reality. If it did, it wouldn't qualify as "fiction". Ralph seems to like to play games with words.

In what ways does some work of fiction shed light on reality that some work of non-fiction does not? What does the relationship between Frodo and Gandalf, and Frodo's struggles with the ring, shed light on that some book on sociobiology and psychology would not?

Well, this probably won't get anywhere -- you sound like your mind is made up -- but OK. — J

It sounds like your mind is already made up that anything Nagel says about views is true. My experience is that people say, "read <insert your favorite philosopher here>" as a means of hand-waving another's arguments off, as if because some famous philosopher wrote something, that disqualifies my argument.

When I think "Water is H2O," I am imagining myself speaking objectively. Water would be H2O regardless of whether I think it, and regardless of whether anyone else does. — J

Again, when thinking that water is H2O, are you thinking in scribbles or sounds, or a visual of the molecular structure of water? If the latter, what side of the molecule are you viewing? If not the latter, are you saying that the fact that water is H2O is a string of scribbles or sounds? If "water is H2O" is independent of any language use, then saying to yourself "water is H2O" is only representative of some state of affairs and not an actual view of water as H2O. So again, how does one go from simply invoking scribbles and sounds in the mind, "water is H2O", to a view of water as it really is, or a view from nowhere? You seem to be confusing the scribbles, "water is H2O" with some relationship between two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, which are not scribbles.

Don't take "view from nowhere" too literally. Any talk of "views" is metaphorical. All I mean, and all Nagel means, is that there appears to be an entire class of statements that remain true regardless of who says them, and in many casesregardless of whether anyone says them. But how can this be? We are, as you point out, individual knowers with limited consciousness. What could entitle us to claim a truth that is apart from point of view? — J

Integrating multiple views over time and space, which is more akin to trying to achieve a view from everywhere, not from nowhere.

How can a statement that is never made be true or false? It seems to me that a statement has to exist to then judge it as true or false. Only people can make statements. Reality does not make statements independent of some person. It simply exists in a certain way. Statements do not exist independent of some mind. But statements (strings of scribbles and sounds) are not what the statement is about (molecules and oak trees). They are representative of what they are about, so thinking about an oak tree is a separate thought than thinking in scribbles that refer to an oak tree. One is about an oak tree, and the other is about scribbles. One takes the form of a visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves, and the other takes the form of scribbles, or sounds in your head.

Indeed. If you're willing to regard that as an open, rather than rhetorical, question, then the Nagel book is for you. If you're already certain it's impossible, then not. — J

I don't need to read Nagel. Tell me what it is like for you to imagine a view from nowhere. How would you know when you are imagining a view from nowhere?

How would a view from nowhere differ from a view from everywhere? I wonder if what Nagel actually meant is a view from everywhere rather than a view from nowhere as a view from nowhere is non-sensical.

That's certainly one way to "look" at it. (Pardon the "view" metaphor!) I think the desirability of articulating a "view from nowhere" lies in helping us sort out subjectivity and objectivity. It's possible, of course, to simply declare that objectivity cannot mean what most people take it to mean -- that is, a point of view that is made true not by virtue of who has it but of what is seen -- but I think that's hasty. We can learn a lot more by wrestling with it as a genuine problem, and trying to see what would have to change in some of our basic philosophical outlooks, if traditional "objectivity" is indeed chimerical -- which it may well be. But again, the Nagel book goes into all that -- if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. — J

A view is information structured in a way to inform an organism of the state of the environment relative to the state of its body. A view is always relative and the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity lies in trying to separate the body from the environment - an impossible feat. How does one imagine a view from nowhere using a view from somewhere?

Did Nagel ever address or mention the Observer effect in QM?

This, in a simple sentence, is the bone of contention. Our language, our choice of a metaphor like "view," certainly suggests that someone or ones must be doing the "viewing." But there is a correspondingly robust tradition that says differently. Nagel's The View from Nowhere gives the best account I know of what such a view would entail. Nagel's position is also discussed at some length in Rodl's Self-Consciousness and Objectivity. — J

A view from nowhere is an imaginary view that only exists within the mind, and a mind has a 1st person view.

what exactly is the structure of "I judge a is F" if it is not understood as predication? — J

Scribbles.

Now explain how scribbles become words.

Are scribbles necessary to make judgements, interpretations or understanding?

To my way of thinking these are very different things. #2 implies that the speaker is not certain. I.e., there is an implied "But I could be wrong" that follows #2.

[Edit] Now that I've thought about this some more, it seems to me that the sentences are even more different.
#1 is not expressing a thought, it is a proposition that is either true or false via the Correspondence Theory of Truth.
#2 is a speaker expressing a proposition which they have (at least some) confidence that it is true. — EricH

Again, words are just scribbles and sounds that we experience - no different than oak trees shedding and humans typing on a keyboard. Perceiving and understanding an oak tree and what it is doing based on prior observations of oak trees, not from some use of language, and understanding the use of some scribbles or sounds based on prior observations of how those scribbles and sounds are used isn't much of a difference.

You can only learn to use scribbles and sounds by observing its use and that requires a hefty degree of certainty that those scribbles exist independent of you thinking them, or why would you believe that the scribbles you typed on the screen would be here for me to read later?

Your thoughts are not made up of scribbles and sounds. They are made up of visuals and auditory experiences of which language is a part of.

Another difference, which gets close to the issues that concern Rödl, is that "1) The oak tree is standing there" is asserted from an implied or absent point of view, whereas "2) I think that the oak tree is standing there" is as much about what I think as it is about the oak tree; it is incorrigibly 1st-person. This can be readily seen by constructing denials of the two statements. — J

A view is inherently 1st person. To say that an oak tree is standing THERE is to say it is standing relative to some point of view.

The problem with the certainty vs uncertainty argument is that you would have to apply the same level of uncertainty to language itself which is made up of scribbles and sounds that you experience. How do you know that the scribbles, or sounds you hear in your head, "I think" refer to the act of thinking? How did you come to that conclusion?

Going from "The oak tree is shedding its leaves" to "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" is going from thinking in the visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves to thinking in the auditory experience of hearing the words (you talking to yourself) "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves".
— Harry Hindu

It's also going from certainty to uncertainty — RussellA

So even if Pat is not aware that she is thinking the thought, the "I think" is nonetheless present. — J

If the only thing Pat can be certain of is that they have thoughts, then what use is communicating those thoughts if what she thinks she experiences might not be the case, which would be just as true for other human beings as it is for shedding oak trees? Pat could just as well say "I think J and RussellA are human beings that I met on a philosophy forum." Why learn language at all if all you have access to is your thoughts?

Isn't you learning a language and then using it to communicate with others exhibiting a degree of certainty that there are things that exist (like other human beings) independent of your thoughts?

Wolfgang Iser in The Reality of Fiction: A Functionalist Approach to Literature makes the point that fiction and reality are often very difficult to separate, as we can see in today's mainstream media.

If fiction and reality are to be linked, it must be in terms not of opposition but of communication, for the one is not the mere opposite of the other - fiction is a means of telling us something about reality. — RussellA

What does The Lord of the Rings tell us about reality? Do fictional stories mirror some aspects of reality? Of course, how else would a reader identify and understand aspects of the story if it didn't share some aspect of reality? The difference between reality and fiction is their relative locations. Fictions are located WITHIN reality. The form fictional stories take are made up entirely of scribbles on paper, or actors on sets playing out a role, or your dreams while asleep. How do you get from this reality to some fictional reality? What path do you take to get there?

Does that include the realities created by To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1984 by Orwell, The Lord of the Rings by Tolkein, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, etc. — RussellA

Calling them "realities" would be a misuse of words. They are fictional stories, and we do not normally use the words, "fiction" and "reality" in ways that are synonymous.

One could say that the use in reading a fictional story is to escape reality, at least temporarily. Is the goal of philosophy to escape reality?

Going from "The oak tree is shedding its leaves" to "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" is going from thinking in the visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves to thinking in the auditory experience of hearing the words (you talking to yourself) "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves". They are two separate experiences - one visual the other auditory, unless you are thinking in the visual scribbles, "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves", then you would be having two separate visual experiences that are mutually exclusive - one of scribbles and the other of an oak tree shedding its leaves.

I've been assuming that this thread is about the philosophical implications of "thought", rather than how "thought" is used in language, though it is true that ambiguities in language make the task of philosophy more difficult. — RussellA

The philosophical implications of the scribble, "thought", or actual thoughts? Seems to me that to understand some philosophical implication of something, that something needs to be defined, keeping in mind that using language to define something is not to point to more scribbles, but to the actual thing that isn't just more scribbles. We only need language to relay information, not to create reality. Only language that relays relevant information is useful, else it's the ramblings of a madman or philosophy gone wild.

Language use is not a requirement for thinking. One can think without saying that you are thinking. Words are just scribbles and sounds. To think in words is to think in scribbles and sounds. You must be able to think prior to learning a language, so being able to say to yourself, "I think..." is not a requirement to think, to learn or to know things.