However if the mind and reason are reduced to these terms, then this undermines the sovereignty of reason. We can discuss the details of that if you like. — Wayfarer

What do you mean by the "sovereignty of reason"? Reason by itself delivers no knowledge. As I understand it the main principles are the LNC and validity. I think the LNC features in the demand for validity or consistency. That in any example of valid reasoning the conclusion must be entailed by the premises. Obviously premises which contradict one another or the conclusion will not pass muster.

What is the actual argument for why accepting the evolution of reason would undermine those principles?

Sure it can depend on how you define "symbolic language". Via symbolic language as I understand and define it we can explicitly understand ourselves to be whatever it is we take ourselves to be. We can understand ourselves to be possessed of symbolic language on account of being possessed of symbolic language for example. Do you believe there is any evidence that any other animals can do that?

It’s never clear what you’re arguing for but I do know that you enjoy an argument, regardless. ;-) — Wayfarer

You just ignore any point that tells against your position. I've already said that I am arguing against the idea that because everything cannot be explained in terms of physics it follows that physicalism is false.

Address this (The first word there "they" referring to)

abstract reasoning, language, art, scientific invention, moral reflection, symbolic thought, and awareness of mortality — Wayfarer

They are not explained by it (physics), just as history, evolutionary theory itself, sociology, etc, etc are not because they are all different paradigms of inquiry. Physicalism is a metaphysical standpoint and just like the other metaphysical standpoints does not explain the abovementioned. — Janus

I'll also add that although physicalism (like physics itself), does not explain those things evolutionary theory can produce explanations for those things. Theoretical explanations are not provable of course, but it is equally true that they are not provably false. Such explanations may be counted as false if it can be definitively shown that they cannot possibly explain what they purport to. Nothing you have presented has shown that.

All our experience of a world of uncountable physical constraints supports the conclusion that we inhabit a world that is basically energetic in nature. Do you really believe that the Universe would not exist without us or that it is not most basically a field of energetic relations and interactions?

They are not explained by it, just as history, evolutionary theory itself, sociology, etc, etc are not because they are all different paradigms of inquiry. Physicalism is a metaphysical standpoint and just like the other metaphysical standpoints does not explain the abovementioned. So, your "argument" is trying to set fire to an asbestos tiger.

As I've said many times I'm not arguing for physicalism but rather against your simplistic idea that it is self-refuting or that the existence of areas of inquiry where physics is of no use is sufficient to refute physicalism.

I said it opened up horizons of being and cognitive skills that are different in kind to other species, including abstract reasoning, language, art, scientific invention, moral reflection, symbolic thought, and awareness of mortality. — Wayfarer

None of which are incompatible with physicalism and evolutionary theory.

One of the bits of terminology I've picked up from Vervaeke is 'relevance realisation', which operates right from the inception of organic life. — Wayfarer

Otherwise known as reason or meaning.

The properties of particles are not defined until they are measured. That is the central philosophical problem of modern physics. — Wayfarer

Nothing is defined until it is in some sense "measured". It does not follow that the properties of particles do not exist until measured.

And practically every other species apart from h.sapiens has survived, often for hundreds of millions of years (such as crocodiles) with no capacity for logic whatever. And trying to account for reason in terms of evolutionary theory reduces reason to an adaptation serving the purposes of survival. But if that is what it is, why do we place trust in reason? — Wayfarer

How could you possibly know that crocodiles have no capacity for logic? If reason is an evolutionary adaptation we can place trust in it because it has stood the test of time—the ultimate test.

Personally, I don't evangalise faith in God, but as I am critical of the philosophy of secular humanism it sort of puts me in the camp of those who do. — Wayfarer

In other words you don't have a standpoint other than your personal dislike of secular humanism and your constant attempts to marshal, arguments from (imagined) authorities to try to prove that it is self-defeating and/ or to explain it away by psychologizing it.

I wonder when the penny is going to drop for you that everything beyond what is directly observable is a matter of faith with the only arbiter being coherence and plausibility.

BTW, I agree with you here. I feel like there have been knock down arguments against correspondence for millennia at this point, e.g. Plotinus asks how one might step outside one's beliefs and experiences to compare them with the world. Yet it has trucked along nonetheless. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems to me that the problem with some people's understanding of correspondence rules it our while a more sensible understanding makes it central to human life. Even Tarski's 'T-sentence' essentially expresses the logic of correspondence. The sentence "snow is white" is true if an only if snow is white. (As Aristotle would have it "to say of what is so that it is so" (loosely paraphrased).

The reality being corresponded to is not the arcane reality of the "in itself" but the ordinary empirical reality of human experience. Of course we can't check to see if our assertions correspond to the imagined (for us) reality of the in itself, but we can at least in prinicple check whether our assertions correspond to the common human experience and judgement we share and inhabit.

But I like the idea of a non-symbolically mediated understanding it, though I'm taking that as what is called "tacit" knowledge. — Ludwig V

Right. I term it 'implicit knowledge' with its explicitation (usually termed explication) being enabled by symbolic language.

Strictly speaking, instinctive behaviour is a set behaviour pattern that is not learned, but inherited. It is not, therefore, based on any process of learning or reasoning. It is capable of rational justification at the level of evolution as contributing to the ability of the creature to sruvive and reproduce. — Ludwig V

I think it is plausible to think that we and the other animals may have an instinct to copy behavior. So some behaviors may be a combination of instinctive and learned. Learned not in the sense of deliberately taught but in the sense of acquired by mimicry.

But we do have to learn much body language in order to read it and it does not follow from the fact that we can read human body language that we can read the body language of other creatures without learning. But small children do have to be taught to recognize the body language of dogs. — Ludwig V

I think we can instinctively read some body language both human and animal. I agree that the understanding of some body language must be learned. Not learned in the sense of being deliberately taught of course.

As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language.
— Janus

.
.research offers the first evidence that parrots learn their unique signature calls from their parents and shows that vocal signaling in wild parrots is a socially acquired rather than a genetically wired trait. — jkop

Does it follow that the parrot's signaling is symbolic though? I think part of what I would count as the possession of symbolic language consists in the ability to explicitly understand that such and such a sound, gesture or mark conventionally stands for whatever it symbolizes.

The same question as above regarding the dolphins. And not I am not denying that other animals might possess symbolic language. I'm questioning whether we have clear evidence that they do as opposed to having some evidence that they might.

It's just the distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic signs. The former denote whatever they do by convention. As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language. Again though I want to stress that I don't see that fact as a justification for human exceptionalism.

What you have said here does not seem to disagree with what I've said. I think I've said several times in this thread that I believe we can read the body language of not only humans but (at least some) animals as well.

Obviously, then, the way I understand what the goose's hiss means, is by means of symbols, which the goose cannot use. Yet the difference in meaning between the two is hard to discern.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure. — Ludwig V

You could respond instinctively to the gooses hissing which I would say would be a non-symbolically mediated understanding of it. Discursive knowledge would seem to be always in symbolic form I guess.

But it doesn't follow that all abstract objects are classes. — Ludwig V

I agree and I don't think I've said or implied otherwise. I'd say abstract objects are probably all generalizations, but I don't think generalization and class are coterminous. That said I'm not confident that on detailed analysis all abstract objects will trun out to be generalizations.

Well, we can agree on that, though we may find complications if we looked more closely at the detail. — Ludwig V

Yes, that seems likely. Analysis always seems to discover complications since linguistic terms are only more or less definitive or determinate. Ambiguities proliferate under the analytic eye.

The difference between that and a symbol would take some teasing out but set that aside. The lack of a convention does suggest that it is not. — Ludwig V

Right, I think conventionality is the key difference between signs which count as symbols and those which do not.

Then presumably you conclude that paraconsistent logic is not logic proper? And isn’t the liar in ordinary language? — Banno

Right it seems that is what my position entails. The liar is in ordinary language and as I said for me it is implicitly self-contradictory from which it follows that it is inconsistent and invalid and neither true nor false.

Can you think of a propositional sentence in ordinary language which is not self-contradictory that is both true and false or neither true nor false?

I doubt it and thus conclude the LNC holds in all valid logics.

I think of validity and consistency being inseparable. I could say the liar sentence is inconsistent insofar as it asserts that it is both true and false. In other words it inconsistently and contradictorily asserts that it is true that it is false. I don't know whether it is para-consistent (unless) the para in that context means 'beyond' in a similar sense as it does in 'paranormal'. I count it as inconsistent and thus invalid and neither true nor false.

I don't know much about formal logic and perhaps there are formal ways of making invalid consistent and valid inconsistent logical posits work and even do work. I am interested only in what can be parsed in ordinary language.

I guess I have. Apart from the 'liar' sentence and the 'barber' paradox I can't think of any coherent sentences which are demonstrably neither true nor false. When I said the liar is neither true nor false that is only because if it is taken to be true it is false and vice versa. Apart from that I would not claim to be clear on what it could mean for it to be neither true nor false. Perhaps it is incoherent, from which I guess it would follow that it is neither true nor false. I think the difficulty would be to come up with a clearly coherent sentence which is neither true nor false, not to speak of one which is both true and false.

M'kay. Then my example would not convince you of dialetheism, and at this point in the debate I'd ask -- if dialetheism were somehow justified would that then justify logical pluralism? — Moliere

I would only consider dialetheism to be justified if I could think of an example of a sentence which is demonstrably true and false in the same sense and context. That said if it were somehow justified I guess that might justify logical pluralism.

Perhaps. What do you think?

But you can see an object, and clearly think about the idea that you are looking at that object. — Patterner

I don't find that I can be attentively aware of looking at an object and of myself looking at the object in the same instant. The latter comes very quickly after the former and while it being thought occludes it. That is my experience for what its worth.

This is what it all comes down to. Not evidence that it can't. Just no evidence that it can. — Patterner

I see plenty of evidence that it has, which means evidence that it can. Of course it is not, as is the case with any substantive conjectural posit, proven. It comes down to what seems most plausible. I understand that others may have a different take on what seems plausible than I.

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?