Though I'm wondering if I've just lost you at this point? — Moliere

Not lost. For me the liar sentence is neither true nor false, not both true and false.

A dialetheia is a sentence, A, such that both it and its negation, ¬A, are true. If falsity is assumed to be the truth of negation, a dialetheia is a sentence which is both true and false.

Can you think of any examples of a sentence wherein both A and not-A are true in the same sense or context? For example I could be said to be both old or tall and not old or tall but not in the same senses or contexts.

I'm a defender of dialetheism, thus far.

Which rules out the LNC. — Moliere

Can you explain how dialetheism rules out the LNC? My point was that within any valid logical argument of whatever stripe there must be consistency between the premises and the conclusion. If a premise contradicts another premise or the conclusion then the argument cannot be valid. That sort of thing.

I havent been following this thread closely as it seems to me to be mostly boring. However I do remember someone asking whether there were any logical laws that applied to all forms of logic. How about validity and consistency? Or which is basically the same as far as I can tell—the law of non-contradiction?

What happens when you try? Is it a flickering back and forth between looking at it, and thinking about having looked at it? Or are you unable to think about looking at it at all until it is no longer in your line of sight? Something else? — Patterner

I am not able to simultaneously focus on what I am looking at and the idea that I am looking at it. Could just be me but I doubt it.

At another site (for a series of fantasy books), a guy and I posted for several pages, me trying to convince him that consciousness must be physical, because everything is made of particles. Well, he ended up convincing me of the opposite. Lol — Patterner

It doesn't make conceptual sense to me to say that consciousness is made of particles. 'Consciousness' is a word that demotes being aware. Our bodies are apparently made of particles and very perception and every thought and every sensation and every emotion is a process involving the interactions of particles. I don't believe there is any consciousness that is not in the material sense a physical process. Our subjective experience and our sense of self are most plausibly physical processes, and it is the self-reflective possibilities of language that make it seem not to be so. What is the alternative?

But if consciousness can't arise solely from the physical, which I don't think it can, then maybe there are things in our reality that are not physical. — Patterner

What possible evidence could we have that consciousness cannot arise from the physical? That seems like a mere prejudice to me. All the evidence seems to point to the opposite consclusion.

I'm sure many people believe it for that reason. I'm not among them. I'm 60. I'm not unhappy, looking forward to death, or anything. But the thought of myself going on forever is veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery unappetizing. — Patterner

Personally I love the idea of living forever. But only in a healthy body with all normal faculties and capacities intact. I'm 71.

Physicalism in relation to methodological naturalism seems to me like an empty suitcase taken on a plane. The scientific method (the plane) gets you somewhere but the metaphysical baggage of physicalism appears to be an unnecessary and unhelpful accoutrement.

I suppose physicalism draws much of its respectability from its ostensible position as the most central philosophical framework for scientific inquiry, and I’m not denying it is. But I think that can be problematised by pointing out that while physicalism does provide a background context that is inviting towards scientific inquiry, none of the successes of science required physicalism– the scientific method and its accompanying tools being enough to do the job. — Baden

Interesting OP!

As I see it methodological naturalism is the counterpart to the phenomenological epoché. It is simply a methodologically driven bracketing of what is irrelevant to or not within the ambit of enquiry.

Physicalism as a metaphysical standpoint consists in the idea that all that is real is the physical. What is the physical? That which can be observed and/ or whose effects can be observed. That which can be measured and modeled and/or whose effects can be measured and modeled.

Success in science does not require scientists to be metaphysical naturalists but it is arguable that the latter is the most plausible metaphysic. Is there even a coherent alternative?

Another question this enquiry seems to raise is as to what could possibly be at stake in the argument between physicalism and idealism. It seems that for at least some folk what is at stake is that they take physicalism to preclude the possibility that this life is for each of us not all that there is. However implausible we might consider the idea of an afterlife to be I don't see that physicalism necessarily precludes the possibility.

Can you think of anything else that could be at stake?

I suspect you are making a point that I haven't yet caught on to. I don't know why you say this. I just looked at my blue shirt. As I was looking at it, I said, "I'm looking at my blue shirt. And I am aware that I am looking at my blue shirt." And I was aware that I was looking at my blue shirt as I was looking at it. You can't think I only became aware that I had been looking at it after I looked away from it, can you? You are saying something else? — Patterner

I don't believe it is possible for you to look at your blue shirt and be reflectively aware of yourself doing so in the same instant. Observing my own experience leads me to think that I can't do it at least. You might be more skillful than I. I can't rule that out so I speak only for myself.

'Purportedly self-evident'? Do you doubt that you subjectively experience? — Patterner

I don't doubt that we experience. What I do doubt is that our experience is non-physical. I mean our experience is not a physical object to be sure but I think our intuition that our experience is non-physical is the product of a kind of illusion created by language. An illusion created by reflective thought. The alternative as I see it has to be mind/ body dualism.

I also think that much of the attachment to the idea that experience is non-physical has to do with the wish for immortality which can make us averse to the idea that this life is all there is.

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. — Vera Mont

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" — 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.

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. — 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.

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. — 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.

I am aware of seeing something red as I am seeing it. — Patterner

I would still say you cannot see something and be reflectively aware of seeing it in the same moment. Self-awareness seems to me to be always post hoc.

That subjective experience seems somehow radically different is not a guarantee that it is not. — Patterner

That's true. We just don't know. Maybe we cannot ever know the answer to that question. Perhaps subjective experience is nothing more than an idea—a perennially after the fact idea.

If that were so then consciousness, as Dennett argues, would not be what we think it is.I don't have a firm opinion on this either way. But I do argue against those who claim that the (purportedly self-evident) reality of subjective experience proves that physicalism is necessarily false.

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. — Ludwig V

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). — 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.

I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger.
— Janus
Sorry, I don't understand what that difference is. — 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.

I did see something red. And I don't need post hoc reflection on such an experience. I can look at something red right now, and reflect on the experience as I'm having it. — Patterner

I don't see how any reflection on any experience is not after the fact.

The different nature of subjective experience, on the other hand, suggests something different is involved. — Patterner

That subjective experience seems somehow radically different is not a guarantee that it is so.

Well said Janus. — Philosophim

Cheers

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.

We believe machines don't understand themselves to be consciously experiencing anything. We do understand ourselves to be consciously aware on account of language. How would the thought "I am consciously aware" be possible without language? We reflect on experience and say things like "i saw something red". Perhaps it is that post hoc reflection that makes us think we are sometimes consciously aware. It is only the moments we recall that could make us believe that. Those moments are in the tiny minority. At least for me.

Physical processes don't suggest conscious awareness, unless you mean behavior. The physical processes that don't suggest awareness don't suggest the absence of conscious awareness either. Nor do they suggest that awareness could not arise from physical processes.

You ask why subjective awareness at all. Presuming it is a real thing then why not? We have a subjective prejudice that physical stuff could not have subjective experience. Exactly what would be the argument supporting that conclusion? We have nothing to compare our situation with so it remains just an assumption based on intuitive feelings I think.

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? — Vera Mont

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.

Our eyes have photoreceptors called rods and cones. Rods detect shades of grey and cones detect different colours. Presumably a machine that can respond to different wavelengths would have some kind of photoreceptors.

When you talk about how we perceive are you talking about our conscious awareness of our colour perceptions or simply our unconscious responses which arguably go on most of the time? Of course I won't argue that non-biological machines can be consciously aware of their detections of colour differences.

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.

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.

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. — creativesoul

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.

Where do interest rates or exchange rates exist? Not in banks, or financial institutions. — Wayfarer

They consist in what the banks or financial institutions do. They consist in concrete actions. Failing their actualization they exist merely as ideas in peoples minds.

If we totally leave the world behind we'd have an infinite number of systems and no way to judge between them vis-á-vis which are deserving of study. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You mean if we leave the world behind after discovering the systems? :wink:

How is danger a linguistically generated concept? — Vera Mont

I didn't say it is I said 'danger' is a linguistically generated concept. Its a generalization and I doubt animals have a generalized conceptual notion we could refer as 'danger'. That said, how could we know either way? So we are merely working with what seems most plausible, and plausibility is in the final analysis in the eye of the beholder.



I don't find much to disagree with here so I'll just respond to those bits where I do diverge.

So generalizations and statements about abstract objects have different logical forms and hence different meanings. — Ludwig V

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'.

They do not refer to specific individual things, so they do not name anything. — Ludwig V

Here I disagree again. 'Tree' does not name a particular thing but a particular category or class of things. 'Two' does not name a particular pair of things but names a particular quantity of things.

I don't see that what is going on in the llamas' heads is particularly important. It is this behaviour pattern in the context of their overall lives that we are trying to explain. — Ludwig V

Insofar as we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads apart from observing their behavior and body language I agree. On the other hand we via reflection on our own experience can notice the affects (such as fear for example) that our emotive words refer to and since there seems to be a commonality of body language across at least some species we can speculate about other animals experience.

:up: :cool:

I would agree with ucarr that the basic sense of self is plausibly thought to be the same across species. Obviously this is not an empirically checkable assertion. It seems that almost nothing in philosophy is.
— Janus

I wouldn't say its plausible that the sense of self is the same across species. Even among humans, its known that people have different sense of selves. Did you know that some people cannot mentally visualize? When they close their eyes, all that's there is darkness. That would clearly be a different sense of self then someone who visualizes. Now compare that to a dog, a lizard, and a house fly who have different dna and brain compositions. I'm not saying they don't have a sense of self, but I don't think its plausible that they are the same.

I would argue as well that poor philosophy is that which cannot be verified, or has no pathways to verify it. Good philosophy does, and eventually becomes part of science or is incorporated into culture. — Philosophim

Of course the human sense of self is elaborate. I was referring to the basic sense of self which consists in the sense of being distinct from everything else. It is arguable that this sense comes with being embodied —with the interoceptive and proprioceptive senses that both animals and humans presumably enjoy.

What is generally considered good philosophy I think would be that which seems most plausible to the most people in light of the whole more or less coherent picture of the world and our place in it which reigns at any historical period. It seems likely there will never be complete consensus but there may be majority consensus.

As I see it is not a matter of empirical confirmation that distinguishes good from bad philosophy, but rather what is considered to be good philosophy is that which seems to cohere best with the interpretive picture we have built up from those things which can be empirically confirmed.

Why do I see red, rather than just perceive different frequencies, the way a robot with an electric eye might? — Patterner

How would those different frequencies be "perceived" if not in the form of different colours?

How is danger a linguistically generated concept? Dangers have been around as long as living organisms have been around, but human language is only about 200,000 years old. We ran from predators and went around swamps millions of years before we were human. If danger were not a real thing in the world, why would we have made a word (actually, many words) for it. Where would we ever have got the linguistic idea in the first place? You can do something sensible without talking about it. — Vera Mont

As I said animals can feel threatened. My point was simply that they don't think in terms of the word 'danger'. Of course I don't deny that there is a prelinguistic sense or affect that such words as 'danger' or 'threat' refer to. How would we know what the words mean if we had no experience of such affects?

I assert there is no impenetrable membrane called what-it’s-like-to-be-an-individualized-self. It’s this mistaken belief that creates the hard problem. It's this mistaken belief that falsely divides subjective from objective. Clearly, the selfhood of the self is the object of that selfsame self's consciousness.

I assert there is a reasonably accurate one-size-fits-all-what-it’s-like-to-be-selfhood, accessible to many if not all sentients, that supports the sympathy and morals essential to the peaceable animal kingdom and civilization.
— ucarr

This is a nice thought, but can we demonstrate this to be something known, or will it only remain a belief? — Philosophim

I would agree with ucarr that the basic sense of self is plausibly thought to be the same across species. Obviously this is not an empirically checkable assertion. It seems that almost nothing in philosophy is.

what really is 'physical'? Is the brain physical?
— Wayfarer

Yes, the term really only makes sense at the macro-level. In the quantum sphere, the physical is as spooky as idealism sounds to materialists. — Baden

This seems like a misunderstanding. Quantum phenomena have discernible, even measurable effects. That is what qualifies them as 'physical'. The seeming spookiness arises when we seek to apply macro physical concepts to micro phenomena.

What is the form of Bach's first symphony? — Philosophim

As far as I know Bach composed no symphonies. Concertos yes.

You do understand that all you're arguing for - in fact, pretty well all you ever argue for - is what is called 'physicalist reductionism', don't you?
— Wayfarer

It doesn't matter what its called. I just care about the logic. And we're not really talking about my viewpoints, but yours — Philosophim

When arguments fail tendentious categorization sets in. :roll:

It occurs to me that it might be helpful to say that a generalization is a quantification over a domain, while an abstraction can be referred to hence hence be a member of a domain. (My understanding of logic is limited, so my language may not be accurate.) I'm thinking of "to be is to be the value of a variable". Another way of putting it might be to say that it makes (some) sense to say that abstractions exist, whereas generalizations do not necessarily assert the existence of anything. — Ludwig V

My understanding of formal logic is probably more limited than yours. When you say that a generalization is a quantification over a domain I'm not sure exactly what that means. Would it be the same as saying that a generalization is a name of a category?

If so would generalizations not exist as names (or quantifications)? And do they not assert the existence of similarities that constrain the ways we categorize?

This is puzzling. "Animal avoid what might injure them, just as we do" is applying/projecting our concepts to/onto them. When we describe anything, we apply our concepts to it. That is the same as projecting our concepts on to it, except that "project" implies disapproval. — Ludwig V

I think we can observe animals avoiding danger—things they presumably feel to be threatening. I am not suggesting that animals think precisely in terms of 'avoidance' or 'threat' or 'danger' as those are linguistically generated concepts.

:up:

For instance, the concept of 'wings'—a structure for flight—has emerged independently across insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals. The form of a wing is determined by the function of flight. This form, understood as an abstract principle, pre-exists physical wings. It represents the necessary conditions that must be realized for flight, rather than being derived from physical matter. — Wayfarer

This seems like nonsense to me. It is the physical conditions for example the density of the air and the intensity of gravity that determine what forms will work as wings.

It is not "the concept of 'wings'" that has emerged independently across species. It is the different viable forms of wing that have emerged independently constrained by actual physical conditions.

Logically it can't exist by definition, but neither can a single point that's a wave and here we are. — Cheshire

I think the problem there is that we are trying to understand micro quantum phenomena using macro concepts. So is a quantum particle anything like a particle of sand, or a quantum wave anything like macro wave phenomena? It seems to be not a true paradox and in part at least a terminological issue.

:up: Sounds about right.

Yes but is it real in the sense that it seems to be. Is its non-physicality real in other words?

I've never heard of a "primordial" sense of "generalization". Could you explain, please? I'm particularly interested in understanding the difference between pattern recognition and generalization.

You seem to think that "threat", "bad" and "evil" are all on the same scale, rather like "good", "better", "best". It's more complicated than that. I do think that any threat to me or people that I approve of is a bad thing. Don't you? The difference is that there are other things that are bad, but no threat can be a good thing, when it is a threat to bad person. Evil is a superlative for bad, with moral and perhaps religious overtones. — Ludwig V

By "primordial" I mean generalization in the non-linguistic, non-abstractive sense. Think of painting as an analogy. A representational paining is not abstract because it is an image which shares the patterns of its subject such that they are recognizable. A representational paining is however a kind of generalization on account of its resemblance to its subject. An abstract painting is non-representational in the sense that it doesn't represent anything and if it evokes anything then it is a generalization in a symbolic sense.

So, I would say words are abstract in this sense because they do not resemble the generalities they stand for. Ditto for numbers.

I haven't said or implied that "threat" and "bad" and "evil" are "on the same scale" (whatever that might mean). Animals avoid what might injure them, just as we do. I don't imagine that they think in terms of "threat" or "bad" or "evil". I think to think they do would be us projecting our own abstractive concepts
onto them.

I'm not sure about that. If I am calculating 23 x 254, I am thinking about specific numbers, not generalizing about them. — Ludwig V

For me the numbers themselves are abstractions as I outlined above.

Seems agreeable. :up: I would go further to say that their non-physicality is not real but is merely a seeming.

So you are saying that non-physicals are only real insofar as they are physically instantiated?

Granted it seems intuitively accurate, but what logic prevents it? You could cut a square out on the back of a circle. And argue which side defines the object. — Cheshire

A circle is a drawing or something imagined. it doesnt have a "back" since it is a representation of a two dimensional object. So it's not clear what you are proposing.

It seems to me that abstract thought, thought about generalities may be impossible without language.
— Janus
Well, Pavlov's dogs were capable of generalizing from the bell ringing yesterday before food to the bell is ringing to-day, so there will be food. "Abstract thought", to me, means something different. Mathematics is abstract thought, because it is about abstract objects. — Ludwig V

I missed this one. I wasn't suggesting that abstract thought and generalities are in every sense the same. All our abstract thoughts are about generalities but generalizing in the primordial sense I would say consists in recognition of concrete pattern recurrence and animals can certainly do that.

Something that appears perfectly round could not appear to have four corners.

living organisms generally display attributes and characteristics that can't be extracted from the laws of physics or chemistry alone. — Wayfarer

Obviously we cannot physically model what we think of as "subjective experience" or "being conscious" or any other conceptual generality or abstraction. It doesn't follow that such things are in any meaningful sense non-physical, that is not dependent in any way on any physical process, or that they are just what they intuitively seem to be.

As for the brain, it can be considered as a physical object, but in its context embodied a living organism it is certainly much more than that. — Wayfarer

All you seem to be saying here is that the brain is not merely an (inert) object. There are many things which are not mere objects in that sense.

That the

whole model of particle physics is grounded in mathematical abstractions or more accurately is a mathematical abstraction — Wayfarer

doesn't entail that what is being modeled are mathematical abstractions.

Right, and it is very important that we keep our eyes peeled for square circles. They are probably lurking just around the corner. — Leontiskos

I was looking for a 'it can't happen because it's illogical.'

Care to step up to the plate? — frank

Frank, how would a square circle look? That is how would you know something was a square circle?

Human history does not indicate - at least to this observer - that all that science and culture have contributed significantly to our collective ability to make rational decisions. — Vera Mont

I agree. Collectively we are by and large fucking hopeless.

Could be. Is it possible that human language couldn't exist if we were not capable of abstract thought? — Patterner

Chicken or egg? I think pattern recognition accounts for being able to see things in general terms rather as bare unrelated particulars. I have no doubt animals can do this too, but I would see their understanding as concrete, visceral rather than abstract. To my way of thinking abstraction requires symbolic thought. I acknowledge that it comes down to how one defines 'abstract'.

What sort of generalities? Like : "All wolves are evil." or "If the angles of one triangle add up to 360 degrees, the angles of all triangles must also."? Because lamas do believe the former and crows know that a stick skinny enough to go into a one hole in a tree will go into the hole in another tree. Or do you mean something more like : "Events in the universe are sequential, so there must have been a prime mover to get it started."? I don't think other animals think like that. — Vera Mont

See my answer to Patterner above. I don't think lamas think of wolves as "evil". They would see them as a threat to be sure.

Well, I certainly agree that there is no need for a distinct phenomenological experience as a basis for telling ourselves that we are aware of a distinction as opposed to simply reporting or noting it. "Illusion" suggests that I am not aware of the distinction I am aware of, so it seems the wrong classification to me. — Ludwig V

The word "illusion" was referring to the notion that we have direct awareness of awareness as opposed to what it seems to me we do have which is post hoc awareness or 'after the fact' noticing that we have been aware. We can do the latter when we can remember events. I don't doubt that (some) animals can remember events in terms of 'images' variously visual, olfactory (including taste), auditory and motor. But I doubt they think anything along the lines of "Oh, I was aware of being aware" or " I am capable of self-consciousness". It seems to me we can think such thoughts only on account of possessing symbolic language.

Yes. The bit about "post hoc" is important. That underlies many (possibly all) our explanations of what language-less creatures do and even of a lot of what we do. "Rational post hoc construction" is a good description. We model those on the pattern of the conscious reasoning that we sometimes engage in before and sometimes during executing an action. — Ludwig V

Yep. Nice explication!