philosophers think that linguistic behaviour is, in some way that escapes me, something different from behaviour. I can't think why. — Ludwig V

Might have something to do with the fact that not all behaviour involves using language. All linguistic behaviour does.

I meant to directly address this, but didn't. Didn't pay close enough attention, I suppose. So, again, sorry for the delay...

However, looking more closely at your example does give me pause:-

A growl in a familiar life scenario has all the context necessary for creatures to draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible things... fear, say. ..... The creatures learn how to react/respond/behave/survive. Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours? Sure. No metacognition necessary. No thinking about themselves and others as subject matters in their own right necessary. Does this constitute shared meaning in close to the same sense as described above?
— creativesoul
I'm very mistrustful of your language in "draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible thing .... fear, say". But the scenario is undoubtedly a relevant case and one could say that we learn the correlation between the growl and danger and fighting - hence also fear.

But "correlation" does not distinguish between a Pavlovian response and an action - something that the dog does. When the bell rings and the dog salivates, that's an automatic response - salivating is not under conscious control. It is part of an automatic system which governs digestion. — Ludwig V

Yes. I would agree that the dog salivates upon hearing the bell, after the bell has become meaningful to the dog. The bell becomes meaningful to the dog when the dog draws correlations between it and eating. Hence, both are autonomous. The correlations drawn between the bell and food as well as the involuntary salivation.

 

Growling is under conscious control - even a form of communication, counting as a warning. I'm not saying that the distinction is crystal clear, but rather the difference is a question of which mode of interpretation we apply to the phenomena.

What difference is a question of how we interpret the events? The events are already meaningful. Hence, it is possible to misinterpret them.

I'm not convinced that growling is under conscious control, as if used intentionally to communicate/convey the growling dogs' thought/belief. I'm more likely to deny that that's what's going on. The growl is meaningful for both the growling dog and the submissive others. I'm not convinced that the growl is a canine speech act so to speak.

The Pavlovian response is causal; growling functions in a scoial context. (Even that needs further explanation). But the fact that it has a social function suggests that some awareness of the awareness of the difference self and others is necessary.

There's a sleight of hand here. Functioning in a social context does not lend itself to being a social function in the sense that the community members have some awareness of the awareness. That sort of 'higher order' thinking requires thinking about awareness as a separate subject matter in its own right(metacognition). Metacognition is existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.

The growl has efficacy, no doubt. It is meaningful to both the growling dogs and the others. I would even agree that it could be rudimentary language use, but it's nothing even close to adequate evidence for concluding that growls function in a social context in the same way that our expressions of thought and belief do.

I'm not sure I'm okay with calling it a warning, to be frank. That presupposes knowledge of the growling dog's worldview(intention) that I am not privy to.

Are you claiming that all language less (creatures') thought, belief, and/or experience consists entirely of behaviour and behaviour alone? I would not agree with that, at all. Thinking about trees and cats includes trees and cats. Neither trees nor cats are behaviour. They are elements in such thought.
— creativesoul
Surely, thought that involves trees and cats is involved in the behaviour that involves trees and cats. I don't see what you are getting at. — Ludwig V

Are you claiming that language less thought, belief, and/or experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone?

I'm not keen on conflating mathematical descriptions(which are existentially dependent upon language users) with language less knowledge, thought, and/or belief. Dogs are incapable of doing math. Doing math requires naming quantities. Dogs cannot do that. They can catch a ball nonetheless, and we can describe those events(or at least the trajectory of the ball) with calculus.

:smile:

There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of?
— creativesoul
If we don't know what it could possibly consist of, how do we know it exists? — Patterner

First, we can(and do, I would argue) know what all meaningful experience consists of - at the basic irreducible core. It consists of correlations drawn between different things by a creature so capable. That question was asked to Ludwig, for he admits language less thought and belief. I presume he would admit experience as a result. However, his approach is woefully inequipped to answer the question. That was the point of asking it.

It's 'the things' that matter most here. Those are the differences between language less thought, belief, and meaningful experiences, and those of language users. Our knowledge acquisition of those things, if the right sort of approach is used and maintained, very clearly set out the difference(s) between the thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences of language less creatures and language users.

I'm not sure why that difference seems so puzzling to some. Language less creatures do not - cannot - draw correlations between language use and other things. It's as simple as that. Their meaningful experience, thought, and/or belief does not consist of language use. They do not draw correlations between language use and other things.

The difficult and interesting aspects of this endeavor come with explaining the gradual increase in complexity that happens once language use has begun in earnest.



Second, we know language less creatures are capable of meaningful experience, because we can watch them do all sorts of stuff that it makes no sense to deny it. In addition to our ever increasing knowledge base regarding the biological machinery involved in our own experiences, our own working notions/terminological use of "thought", "belief", and "meaning" come to the fore here.

If language less creatures are capable of having meaningful experience(s), and all experience is meaningful to the creature having it, then it is clear that meaning exists prior to language creation on the evolutionary timeline. All meaningful experience consists - in very large part - of thought and belief about the universe. If a language less creature can form, have and/or hold belief about the world, and some of their belief about the world can be true, then either true belief exists without truth, or truth is prior to language.

If it is the case that meaningful experience predate language users, then one's notion of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaning" better be able to dovetail with those facts. Current convention fails to draw and maintain the actual distinctions between thinking and thinking about one's own thinking(thought/belief). That's been the bane of philosophy from Aristotle through Kant, Descartes, etc. I know of not a single philosopher who has drawn and maintained that distinction. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't one, but, I've been asking many people for over 20 years, and I've yet to have been given an affirmative answer/author/philosopher so...

 This scope of this subject matter is as broad as it can be. If we've gotten our own thought and belief wrong, and I'm convinced we have, then we've also gotten something wrong about anything and everything ever thought, believed, spoken, stated, uttered, and/or otherwise expressed.

If we know it exists, doesn't whatever is proof of its existence give us clues about what it consists of?

Indeed, it does.

Okay. Again, sorry for the delay.

Is it the presupposition that fear is a directly perceptible thing? If the being full of fear does not count as directly perceiving fear then nothing will. It's part of the internal aspect of all meaningful thought, belief and/or experience. There are internal elements as well as external ones.
— creativesoul
Yes, I see. I wasn't clear whether you were talking first-person view or third. I agree that creatures who do not have human language do experience fear (and pain). Obviously there may be complications and disagreements about other emotions and feelings. But what I'm not clear about is whether you regard fear as a stimulus or a response? — Ludwig V

When it comes to what counts as thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience(s) of language less creatures, we must be talking about what's meaningful to the creature. I'm hesitant to talk in terms of first or third person though. I see no point in unnecessarily adding complexity where none is warranted.

Pertaining whether or not I regard fear as a stimulus or a response...

I do not find it helpful to use that framework. It could be either, depending upon the framework/conceptual scheme being employed and point of view. Fear is the result of autonomous biological machinery doing its job. It is part of fearful experience. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Fearful experiences are meaningful to the creature full of fear, whether that includes an alpha male's growl accompanied by submissive members' behaviour, or the fear from/of falling(which I understand to be innate). Fear is always an internal element within a more complex experience involving both internal and external elements.

They're competing viewpoints about the same thing. They both consist of meaningful correlations being drawn by a creature so capable(the agents' themselves in this scenario). I'm unsure of why these were invoked.
— creativesoul
Because I want to suggest that there is more than one pattern of correlation in play, and that mimicry might be described as a correlation, but it is different from either. — Ludwig V

Sure. Mimicry, for the sake of mimicking, involves the mimic drawing correlations between an other's behaviour and their own. Again, biological machinery plays an autonomous role here. However, I do think that neuroscience has established, as you've alluded to perhaps with the infant's smile, that there is not always a mimic who's mimicking for the sake of mimicking. Mirror neurons also play a role in empathy as well as recognizing/attributing other minds. At least, that's what I believe to be the case... very generally/roughly speaking. Smiles are contagious after-all. And then there's also the fact that young children learn how to act in this or that situation by virtue of mimicking others' behaviours, in a "children learn what they live" sort of thing.

I'm not sure what you're saying or referring to with "pattern of correlation".

A difference between Pavlov and Skinner has no relevance when we're talking about the elemental constituency of that which existed in its entirety prior to language use.
— creativesoul
You seem to be positing some kind of atomic or basic elements here, and I'm not sure that such things can be identified in knowledge or behaviour. — Ludwig V

That is exactly what I'm arguing for. The basic elemental constituency of all thought... rational thought notwithstanding. The success or failure of identifying those is completely determined by the methodological approach. Current convention fails.

...that which existed in its entirety prior to being talked about is precisely what needs set out first here, for any notion of thought and belief that is claimed to apply to language less creatures must satisfy that criterion.
— creativesoul
OK. So how do we identify that which existed in its entirety prior to be talked about? — Ludwig V

Well, we can use what we do know about our own thought and belief as a means for beginning to set out what must be the case if language less thought exists(if it is possible for language less creatures to think), or if language less creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought or belief, or if language less creatures are capable of having meaningful experiences. I've touched on all this earlier in the thread. I'd be pleased to dig in. It's time.

Such metacognitive endeavors shift the focus away from behaviour and onto our own thought, belief, and meaningful experiences. That is the only place to start. It is not the only place to finish.

My charge has always been that convention has gotten human thought and belief horribly wrong. The fact that language less thought and belief cannot be admitted due to pains of coherency alone shows that there is a problem with convention. There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of? I'm aware of your avoidance of talking in terms of elemental constituency, but from where I sit it makes the most sense of the most things. It also flips many an ancient archaic dichotomy on its head.
— creativesoul
Oh, we agree there. I think that answer to what the thought, belief and meaningful experience of language-less creatures consists of is fairly straightforward. Behaviour. — Ludwig V

I'm confused.

Are you claiming that all language less (creatures') thought, belief, and/or experience consists entirely of behaviour and behaviour alone? I would not agree with that, at all. Thinking about trees and cats includes trees and cats. Neither trees nor cats are behaviour. They are elements in such thought.

I think I can see what you mean. But it needs clarification because there are philosophers who will saying that knowing anything is existentially dependent on being talked about - because drawing distinctions in the way that we do depends on language. — Ludwig V

I'm happy to clarify. I'm unsure what you're after though. The fact that some philosophers cannot or do not have any idea how distinctions can be drawn without language doesn't bear on my argument as far as I can tell. Seems to me like a problem with their conceptual/linguistic framework(s). My charge has always been that convention has gotten human thought and belief horribly wrong. The fact that language less thought and belief cannot be admitted due to pains of coherency alone shows that there is a problem with convention. There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of? I'm aware of your avoidance of talking in terms of elemental constituency, but from where I sit it makes the most sense of the most things. It also flips many an ancient archaic dichotomy on its head.

Okay. Sorry for the delay...

A growl in a familiar life scenario has all the context necessary for creatures to draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible things... fear, say. ..... The creatures learn how to react/respond/behave/survive. Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours? Sure. No metacognition necessary. No thinking about themselves and others as subject matters in their own right necessary. Does this constitute shared meaning in close to the same sense as described above?
— creativesoul
I'm very mistrustful of your language in "draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible thing .... fear, say". — Ludwig V

Is it the presupposition that fear is a directly perceptible thing? If the being full of fear does not count as directly perceiving fear then nothing will. It's part of the internal aspect of all meaningful thought, belief and/or experience. There are internal elements as well as external ones.

I'm setting out the basic outline/parameters of an autonomous biological process that amounts to a basic outline of all thought, from the simplest through the most complex.
— creativesoul
There's a lot to be said for that. Stimulus/response and association of ideas do seem to be very important to learning. However, there's an important differentiation between Pavlov's model and Skinner's. — Ludwig V

They're competing viewpoints about the same thing. They both consist of meaningful correlations being drawn by a creature so capable(the agents' themselves in this scenario). I'm unsure of why these were invoked.

A difference between Pavlov and Skinner has no relevance when we're talking about the elemental constituency of that which existed in its entirety prior to language use. Pavlov and Skinner differ in their respective explanations. What they're taking account of(attempting to explain) existed in its entirety prior to their account. <----------that which existed in its entirety prior to being talked about is precisely what needs set out first here, for any notion of thought and belief that is claimed to apply to language less creatures must satisfy that criterion.

I'm very mistrustful of your language in "draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible thing .... fear, say". But the scenario is undoubtedly a relevant case and one could say that we learn the correlation between the growl and danger and fighting - hence also fear.

But "correlation" does not distinguish between a Pavlovian response and an action - something that the dog does. When the bell rings and the dog salivates, that's an automatic response - salivating is not under conscious control. It is part of an automatic system which governs digestion. Growling is under conscious control - even a form of communication, counting as a warning. I'm not saying that the distinction is crystal clear, but rather the difference is a question of which mode of interpretation we apply to the phenomena. The Pavlovian response is causal; growling functions in a scoial context. (Even that needs further explanation). But the fact that it has a social function suggests that some awareness of the awareness of the difference self and others is necessary.

I look forward to your reply. — Ludwig V

It is my next focus here. My apologies for not being prompt yesterday. Late dinner invitation. Nice company. Be nice to have another someplace other than a famous steakhouse chain with far too many people in far too little volume of space. And the noise! Argh... brought out the spectrum in me.

:wink:

...which animal other than a human thinks about a god or mates with someone because of ideas of love? — Athena

None that I can tell. Pondering one's own existence requires having already situated oneself in what isn't. Commit solipsism to the flames...

Thinking about X requires X. <------I'm okay with that.
— creativesoul

How does a god exist? — Athena

As an explanation.

Do any animals other than human beings worship a god? — Athena

Well, as best I can tell, they're probably incapable of wondering why this or that happens. So, I suspect the answer is "no". I'm okay not knowing.

I am thinking about the existence of the things we talk about and also the difference between humans and animals.

How about love. What is it? What does it consist of? Will the lion ever learn to "love" its neighbor? — Athena

Good questions. Apt. Germane. Yet, seemingly so distant to the current conversation. They're not though! Not at all. It's extremely nuanced. I'm still working things out, but I'll say this much because it seems you're asking about the ontological basis I'm working from.

That which exists has an effect/affect.

I read more of what Creativesoul had to say about existential thinking and thought of deleting my post, but maybe there is some benefit to simplifying a debate about what exists because it has substance and what does not. Does anyone remember the Greek argument of what exists and what does not?

I'm thinking there's more than one. I'm unfamiliar with all.

Nice. I take it you read through some of my meanderings here?

Consider the sheer complexity of thought required in order to understand Gettier's obliteration of the J part of JTB... as held/articulated by three defenders thereof at the time.
— creativesoul
This is a side-issue, but who are the three defenders you are thinking of? — Ludwig V

I'm not confident I remember the authors of the three JTB formulations Gettier set out in the beginning of his paper. Maybe... Ayer, Chisholm, and ??? Lol... It bugged me enough to go check... Scratch the third. :wink: It was just Ayer and Chisholm. I wanted to say Collinwood, for some reason. The 'third' formulation was a generic one from Gettier himself. Something tells me you already know this. :wink:

Not all things(X's) exist in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some thought and belief existed in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some did not. Some cannot. It could be put a bit differently. Some thought and belief are existentially dependent upon being talked about. Some are not.
— creativesoul
I may have misinterpreted "prior". I was treating it as meaning "presupposed" and thinking of the variety of preconditions that have to be satisfied to make thought and belief meaningful. — Ludwig V

That's okay. Sometimes it takes a little work to understand each other. They're very close in meaning, and often used interchangeably. I don't.

For my part, "presupposed" is about the thinking creature. "Prior to" is about the order of emergence/existence. The latter is spatiotemporal/existential. The former is psychological.

Even new introductions have to be based on existing ideas if they are to be explained at all. — Ludwig V

Is this referring to the position I'm working out/from? I mean, sure, as language users anything we come up with will be based - loosely at least - on something we've already been exposed to. All explanation is language use. As it pertains to philosophy, there will be all sorts of prior influences. Yet, I'm confident that thought, belief, and meaningful experience is prior to the complex sort of language we employ. I'm also confident that there are precursors to our language that do some of the same thing(s) that our language does, despite those animals not having the ability to take account/record with meaningful marks, and naming and descriptive practices. We can look at what language less animals are doing with language too. <---- Here, of course, by "language-less" I mean complex spoken and written language such as our own, capable of metacognition. I really need to start being better about that qualification though, because I'm confident we're not the only language users.

This takes me back to:-
All thought, belief and statements thereof consist of correlations drawn between different things. We and all other capable creatures think solely by virtue of drawing correlations between different things.
— creativesoul
Here, you seem to be suggesting a single pattern of thought that explains all thought. But is that consistent with the variety of thoughts you specify? If some thought and beliefs are existentially dependent on being talked about, I don't see how the model of correlations drawn between different things applies. — Ludwig V

I'm not suggesting a pattern of thought. I'm setting out the basic outline/parameters of an autonomous biological process that amounts to a basic outline of all thought, from the simplest through the most complex. If there's inconsistency, self-contradiction, and/or incoherence I'm unaware. The differences in thoughts are the content of the correlations. That's key to all the different 'kinds' of thought, in a nutshell.

Knowing which train is the five o'clock train is existentially dependent upon being talked about. I mean, one cannot acquire knowledge of which train counts as the five o'clock train without drawing correlations between those standards and some train or another. That is chock full of correlations, some of which are between the language use itself, which amounts to talking about the time standards and trains.

That is the sort of thought/belief that is existentially dependent on a creature capable of metacognition.

It is this crucially important aspect that remains sorely neglected by conventional standards/notions of thought/belief, "rational thought" notwithstanding.
— creativesoul
I agree with that. That's why I've taken such an interest in this topic. There's very little discussion anywhere, and yet, in my view, it's not only important for understanding animals, but also for understanding humans. — Ludwig V

I see it much the same way. The current political environment shows how correlations work. It's how some get convinced to be mad at all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.

Bernie's attitude and behaviour is admirable. He's Good with a capital g. He's not the only one. Add to that that Bernie was right at the time - when no one else was or very few others were - on several very important impactful issues throughout recent history.

If only the world could be ran by people like him. Shame he's nearly censored across the board. That's no accident. Shame that there are so many people with strong unfounded opinions and feelings... all waiting to erupt at the sound of the word "socialist".

Sad world.

I'm very lucky.

Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about.
— creativesoul

...fundamentally this seems to me to apply to all thought. — Ludwig V

Thinking about X requires X. <------I'm okay with that.

Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about.
— creativesoul

...fundamentally this seems to me to apply to all thought. — Ludwig V

emphasis mine

I'm not okay with that.

Not all things(X's) exist in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some thought and belief existed in their entirety prior to being talked about. Some did not. Some cannot. It could be put a bit differently. Some thought and belief are existentially dependent upon being talked about. Some are not.

To be even more precise, some thought and belief require having already been articulated by the creature under consideration in order for them to even be formed, had, and/or held by that candidate. In such cases, the articulation is itself an integral part of the formation process and thus the formation thereof consists, in part at least, of the articulation process.

Consider the sheer complexity of thought required in order to understand Gettier's obliteration of the J part of JTB... as held/articulated by three defenders thereof at the time. That sort of thought/understanding cannot be formed, held, and/or had without very complex articulation. Understanding Moore's concerns about belief attribution practices fits nicely here as well. Those belief are formed by articulation alone.

I should have made this clearer earlier.

The earlier claims that "thinking about thought and belief requires something to think about" and "that something existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it" were referring to the underlying necessary conditions/preconditions required in order for it to happen. This helps to fill in some blanks on the evolutionary timeline.

Some elaboration on "How do we think...?" seems to be desirable.

Agreed.

All thought, belief and statements thereof consist of correlations drawn between different things. We and all other capable creatures think solely by virtue of drawing correlations between different things.

BTW, I'm not clear how far you are committed to the idea of a single general model for all our linguistic practices, because you do talk about them in the plural. However that may be, I see our problem as specifically about certain practices, not all of them. — Ludwig V

Yes. There are many more than one linguistic practice. There are more than just naming and descriptive practices. However, none can possibly be practiced without picking things out of this world to the exclusion of all else, regardless of how that's done. It's always done.

Different practices of ours have different problems. I have yet to have been exposed to a single conventional practice of belief attribution that has, as it's basis, notions of "belief" and "thought" that can properly account for the evolutionary progression of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. That historical account includes what language less animals can form, have, and/or hold such that it counts as thought or belief. It is this crucially important aspect that remains sorely neglected by conventional standards/notions of thought/belief, "rational thought" notwithstanding.

What counts as rational thought presupposes some notion of "thought" or another. That's the driving force, the ground, for all subsequent attributions of "rational" or "not rational" to the thought under consideration.

...it is about how far we can sensibly apply our practice in explaining human action to creatures that are like us but not human, and specifically do not have human languages. It seems inevitable that our practice needs to be modified. The question is what modifications are needed. — Ludwig V

Yes. This seems to be a promising avenue.

A modification of our standards is needed. What counts as sufficient justificatory ground to attribute this belief, that thought, or these emotions to this or that non human creature? That is the underlying unresolved problematic question pervading this thread.

Upon what justificatory ground do we(I) claim that dogs have absolutely no idea which train is the five o'clock train? Knowing which train is the five o'clock train is knowledge of which one counts as such. Which train counts as the five o'clock train is determined solely by human standards borne of language use(amongst many other things). It is only when and if one knows how to properly apply the standard that one can know which one counts as the five o'clock train.

Dogs do not make the cut. Even ones to whom five o'clock trains become meaningful, they do so not because it counts as the five o'clock train, but rather because the five o'clock train is/was/has been an integral part - a basic elemental constituent - of the dog's meaningful experience(thought and/or belief). The dog has drawn correlations between the train and all sorts of other things, none of which are our time standards.

However, looking more closely at your example does give me pause:- — Ludwig V

Tomorrow.

:smile:

the culmination of the last half-century of bipartisn Neoliberal de-industrialization – 'It's the structurally exploitative-systematically discriminatory Plutonomy, stupid!' – aided and abetted by corporatist Reality TV, WWE & Social Media which has groomed (radicalized) the precariat for reactionary populism???

Fuck me. — 180 Proof

Yup...

:gasp:

You've overestimated my upsettedness... :wink: I was just trying to nip personal attacks in the bud. That was also weeks back. Anyway, take your time, as it may be the case that I take longer between replies as well. If you choose to refrain, that's no problem either. Thanks for your participation either way. We may make more headway between the two of us. Often focus is blurred by attempting to attend to too many different approaches at once.

The approach, I think, is imperative.

Did anyone anytime ever clearly set out what counts as thought, let alone rational thought? I saw many employing implicit notions but do not recall anyone actually clearly defining their terms.

The problem with the Dems was what we saw these past few election cycles: the Dems never listen to their base. They could've let the voters decide who should best represent them — Mr Bee

Bernie. From the establishment's silencing of the right candidate for working class Americans came Trump's possibility to do what he's done.

Very interesting early exit polls showing what's most important to voters...

Thinking about one's own belief is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon common language/shared meaning.
— creativesoul
Well, if it is dependent on shared meaning (as opposed to common language), then animals could know themselves. — Ludwig V

Only if all shared meaning enables and/or facilitates thinking about our own thought and belief(metacognition). Not all does.

Good catch! :wink:

While there is difference between shared meaning and common language, it is not inevitably one of oppositional nature. I find it's more one of existential dependency. It's one of shared elemental constituency; an evolutional history, that of which existed in its entirety prior to being picked out of this world by me.

Some meaningful experience existed in its entirety prior to common language emergence. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Language less creatures predate language users. Thus, some meaning is prior to common language. <-----that's very important on my view, particularly when talking about meaningful experiences of non human creatures.




A bit on shared meaning, because there is more than one way to understand that notion.

We can draw correlations between the same sorts of things. <----------- That's shared meaning in the sense of common to us both. Add language use and other things(as the content of correlations) and that's the sort of shared meaning required for successful communication.

A growl in a familiar life scenario has all the context necessary for creatures to draw correlations between the growl and other directly perceptible things... fear, say. Hunger. That happens while their eating. The creatures learn how to react/respond/behave/survive. Could this be the simple basic building blocks of societal constructs such as language like ours? Sure. No metacognition necessary. No thinking about themselves and others as subject matters in their own right necessary. Does this constitute shared meaning in close to the same sense as described above? I think so, although it is not something that we can verify with certainty.

I'm claiming that there is another sort of shared meaning, which I find to be irrevocable for the emergence of the sort described heretofore...

Two creatures that have never encountered one another can both want water and know exactly where to go in order to acquire it(how to get water). That's commonly held belief formed, held, and/or had by virtue of different creatures drawing correlations between the same things. Thirst. A place to drink. No language necessary there. Antelopes and elephants both know where to get water. Where's there's belief, there's always meaning. That's shared meaning.


As it pertains to metacognitive endeavors and the sort of thought that that facilitates...

Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires something to be thought about. That something existed in its entirety prior to being talked about. We use the terms "thought", "belief", "meaningful experience", "mind", etc. How do we think about our own thoughts, beliefs, dreams, meaningful experiences? With naming and descriptive practices. There's no evidence to the contrary, and there's plenty to support that. I think we agree on that much, so perhaps we can set that aside and attempt to move forward?

Assuming that there is such a thing as non human thought or human thought prior to when language acquisition begins in earnest. In seeking to make sense of this, we're isolating/delineating/targeting/defining thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience that existed in its entirety prior to being talked about(prior to naming and descriptive practices).

Oh, and I'm sorry for the seemingly unconnected dots. I'm sometimes prone for doing that.

Thought consists of much more than what goes on in the head. We can know some stuff about what's going inside the head of all thinking creatures by knowing about how thought and belief emerge and/or work.

We can know that a language less creature cannot have all the exact same thoughts as a language user. For example, some creatures cannot think about their own worldview. Those missing such capabilities cannot think about other worldviews either. Such thoughts and beliefs require articulation<-------None of those are capable of being formed, held, and/or had by language less creatures.

All thought is the target. Articulated thought misses the mark. Propositional attitudes miss the mark. Belief statements miss the mark.

Meaningful experience does not. All meaningful experiences consist - in very large part - of thought and belief about the world and/or oneself(where possible). Internal and external elements. Spatiotemporal locations of thought/mind are a chimera. "In the head" presupposes such...

Meaningful experience preceded accounts of it. If any notion of "meaningful experience" contradicts that, then they are flat out wrong.

Prelinguistic meaningful experience(s) happened prior to being talked about.

Some smart animals can learn how to operate certain latches such that they can let themselves out, whenever they want, whenever they should so desire or if the need should ever arise.

Latches, wants, memories, desires, needs... a creature capable of drawing correlations between these things such that the endeavor connects the creature to the world.

We're in dire need of a criterion; a standard; a metric to be reached.

What counts as rational thought of another creature if that thought is not somehow meaningful to the creature? This entire thread topic rests upon actively working notions of meaningful thought.

Meaningful thought emerged long before naming and describing practices.

We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways if and when we're testing hypothesis. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more.
— creativesoul
Quite so.

How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads?
— creativesoul
More than that, we also rely on observation of behaviour to know what's going on in each other's heads, as you suggest.
I'm afraid that there's a certain ambiguity going on here, and it's my fault. — Ludwig V

Do we or do we not have a way to know what's going on inside of the head of another thinking creature?

I think we do, and you've responded in kind. My issue with the phrase "what's going on in the heads" is that it presupposes a false equivalence. We can know plenty about what's going on inside the heads of ourselves and all other thinking creatures. It takes a little work to fill out.



 

We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways if and when we're testing hypothesis. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more.
— creativesoul
Quite so. — Ludwig V

Testing hypothesis via observing behaviour is comparative assessment and as such presupposes testability.

There are some things at work here, beneath all our discourse/conversation about what counts as rational thought/minds. We're looking to further discriminate between different, sometimes and often conflicting conceptions, notions, sensible uses of "thought", "belief", "mind", etc. We're looking to set out all meaningful experience. In doing so, we go a long way towards acquiring knowledge of all minds to whom such experience is meaningful.

Watching many different things fall through space leads one to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.
— creativesoul
Careful! Things only fall through space at the same speed in a vacuum. Most people have never watched anything fall through space in a vacuum. Galileo certainly never did. His "proof" was a thought-experiment - or at least I understand that is the case.

Tacit and articulate reasoning overlap one another.
— creativesoul
Yes. They interact as well. Our knowledge of language is mostly tacit, but we can articulate rules in various ways.
I'm not sure how the notions of "tacit" and "articulate" are adequate tools for acquiring knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge of it.
— creativesoul
Quite so. There are only two (maybe three) ways that I'm aware of. One is the idea that tacit knowledge is exactly the same as articulate reasoning, but very fast. That's the traditional philosophical approach and has mostly fallen into disfavour. (Who says philosophy never makes progress?) Then there's the idea of "unconscious" reasoning and belief. There are very ancient roots of this idea, but the modern concept was developed in the 19th century. It was very like conscious reasoning and belief but was, by definition, not available to "introspection". The last one is the modern model of the information processing machine. This seems to ignore the question of tacit vs articulate reasoning and belief.
I don't think that the fact that the phenomenon existed long before we knew of it is necessarily a bar to our acquiring knowledge of it. After all, the same applies to most physics and chemistry. The real problem is that we have no way, at least at present, of getting empirical access to it. — Ludwig V

I'm working on a reply to this and what followed. Shows a bit of promise from where I sit, so to speak. Thanks.

I don't see why one must accept this:

All lines of circumference encircle space.
— creativesoul — Leontiskos

Point well-made and taken. That should have been further qualified as all spherical lines of circumference. That's what I meant. That's what I was thinking. Evidently a few synapses misfired.

But what is the point here? — Leontiskos

Just wondering if I've understood something.

Nevertheless, if the great circle is a torus—a three-dimensional object—then it is not a (Euclidean) circle. If it is not a torus then it may well be a circle. — Leontiskos

My interest was piqued by the claim that a line of circumference around a sphere was a circle. The shame of this all is that the term "circle" can mean whatever we decide. Then we can equivocate. Sorry for the interruption. Have at it.

There is an interesting question about the great circle, but the method which outright denies that the great circle is a circle can outright deny anything it likes. It is the floodgate to infinite skepticism. I think we need to be a bit more careful about the skeptical tools we are using. They backfire much more easily than one is led to suppose. — Leontiskos

Whether or not a sphere's line of circumference looks like a circle on an actual sphere presupposes a vantage point of origin. Sometimes it can and does. Other times, not. One can gradually change their own position relative to an actual sphere that has a visible line of circumference around it in such a way that the line of circumference only seems to change it's shape. It doesn't. That change is one of perspective(the way the line of circumference looks to the observer).

If all circles are located on 'perfectly flat' planes, that occupy no space at all, then the line of circumference around a sphere is not a circle. All lines of circumference encircle space. So, either something that does not occupy space can encircle space or the line of circumference is not equivalent to a circle...

...despite the fact that that line of circumference can look like a circle to an observer.

Is that wrong somehow?

...our epistemic situation regarding other minds. — Janus

What's the situation such that it warrants such a lack of certainty?

We can know that a language less creature is incapable of metacognition. If doing Y requires metacognition, and creature 1 has no language, then we can know that creature 1 cannot do Y. If doing Y is required for achieving a goal, then creature 1 has no ability to achieve that goal.

Yada, yada, yada...

...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads apart from observing their behavior and body language... — Janus

This is mistaken in more than one way. It is false.

We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways . Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more. If one theory proves beyond a reasonable doubt that X is the case, and another theory depends upon the opposite, well...

I haven't disagreed that we can make generalized conjectures about how human and animal minds work. — Janus

Changing the subject is unhelpful.

...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads... — Janus

That's false. It's also incomplete enough to be troublesome.

The point is we have no way of testing such conjectures and nothing to rely on but the imprecise subjective criterion of plausibility in our judgements of their soundness.

And yet, we are discussing what you claim we have no way of knowing about.

You have offered nothing that I didnt already know and nothing that would provide grounds for me to revise my understanding of our epistemic situation regarding other minds.

You are having a conversation about whether or not other animals can think rationally. How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads?

Behavior alone is utterly inadequate. We are seeking knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it. Meaningful experience prior to language.

We can know that language less thought and belief cannot include any language that is meaningful to the creature under consideration. Language is not meaningful to a language less creature. If doing X requires using language, the language less creatures cannot do X.

Thinking about one's own belief is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon common language/shared meaning.

Body language assessment suffers the issues of which you complain. Reading another's body language is to attribute meaning to the behavior.

Claiming to know how animals feel is unacceptable when accompanied by having no way of knowing what's in their mind.

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. — Janus

As if a universal criterion is a bad thing? We can know that a cat believes that there is a mouse under the cabinet. We can know that the cat's belief is meaningful to the cat. We can know that all meaningful experience is meaningful to the creature having it. There are all sorts of things we can know about animal minds Janus.

We can know that our own meaningful experience began long before we talked about it.

In order to know one is projecting human thought onto creatures incapable of forming, having, and/or holding such thought, one must know what the differences are between them such that they can know that the one is incapable of forming, having, and/or holding the others' thought, belief, meaningful experience.

Straight lines on spheres? That's interesting too.

:yum:

Hence fdrake's pointing out the inadequacy of @Leontiskos' definition.

A great circle is the longest possible straight line on a sphere. No midpoint and diameter in that definition. — Banno

Ah. Understood. I need to read more carefully. Thanks. I appreciatcha!

You won't know what goes in mine except I tell you truthfully — Janus

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.

It's a matter of precision you're after, I suspect. In that case, I still disagree. I've been involved in conversation with someone embroiled in unsettled emotional turmoil who really believed that they were not.

The 'great circle' looks elliptical to me. "Circle" is being used in the same argument in two different senses.

Some people say that they think in images. That would be independent of language.
— Ludwig V
I very much wish I knew one of these people, so I could talk with them and ask many questions. — Patterner

Ask away!

:wink:

...we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads apart from observing their behavior and body language... — Janus

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.

Yes, rationality includes more than differentiating between accurate/inaccurate information. I was making that case.
— creativesoul
Yes. But it does include differentiating between accurate and inaccurate information, doesn't it? — Ludwig V

I'm not fond of "information". It smuggles meaning.

There are all sorts of language less creatures(creatures devoid of naming and description practices) capable of differentiating between distal objects. Again, I'm not fond of invoking some notion of "information". That's adding complexity. I'd rather excise the unnecessary and unhelpful approaches to the topic.

Not all differentiation between accurate and inaccurate information requires articulated reason/thought.

Yes. I was just expanding the scope of what counts as being rational to include more than just the ability to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information.
— creativesoul
Yes, I would agree there's more to it than that. It is not rational to drop many different pairs of different objects from many different heights, and come out of it thinking heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. That would be an inability to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information.. — Patterner

Whether or not it is rational to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones depends upon the individual's preexisting worldview.

Feathers. Bowling balls. Snowflakes. Leaves. Limbs. Trees. We can watch many different things fall through space. Watching many different things fall through space leads one to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Watching heavier objects traverse the same distance in less time than lighter ones is something that can be fully experienced by any creature capable of judging the travel speed(fall rate) variety of external objects relative to each other, a fixed object, from the creature's own vantage point.

One can only formulate beliefs about beliefs (recursion or meta-beliefs) in language. Though I would distinguish between formulating beliefs about one's own beliefs and formulating beliefs about other people's beliefs. The former seems to me problematic, because the recursion seems infinite and, in the end, empty, whereas the latter seems an everyday occurrence. (There's research in psychology about how and when small children become aware of other people's state of mind - empathy).
— Ludwig V

There's a big difference between formulating beliefs about beliefs and thinking about beliefs. Small children do not formulate beliefs about beliefs. — creativesoul

I agree with both sentences. — Ludwig V

Formulating beliefs requires language. Acquiring them does not always. I do not find the invocation and use of the term "formulating" helpful. "Forming" snuggles the world. Formulating and articulating one's own thought and belief presupposes language use. Prior to formulation and articulation comes what both of those concepts presuppose. Something to formulate. Something to articulate.

Pre-existing meaningful experience consisting of thought and belief about the world and oneself.

Human thought, belief, and experience existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it.



One can believe that touching fire hurts long before ever being able to articulate that. We're looking for some basic set of common denominators/elements shared between all cases of language less thought and/or belief. That basic foundation must also be shared by ourselves. Tacit reasoning spans the bridge between language less thought and belief and linguistically informed and/or articulated thought and belief. That's an interesting avenue.

Tacit and articulate reasoning overlap one another. Articulate reasoning consists - in very large part - of language use. Language less creatures have none. Language less creatures cannot form, have, and/or hold articulate reasoning. Yet they can learn that touching fire hurts by recognizing/attributing causality. They can learn to use a stick to eat ants/termites. They can watch and learn how lifting the handle opens the gate. They can learn to greet by partaking in such practices(by doing it). One greeting another often and regularly enough amounts to ritual. Clearly, there is no language necessary for basic notions of rational thinking. Or... learning how to open a gate by observation and practice does not count as rational thinking.

That sort of understanding becomes tacit to us. We do not express our wanting to use the gate hardly ever after learning how to use it. I'm not sure how the notions of "tacit" and "articulate" are adequate tools for acquiring knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge of it.

We are in dire need of a criterion.

The great circle is the circle I've highlighted on the surface of the sphere. Since the circle is confined to the surface of the sphere, and the surface of the sphere is not a plane, it is not a plane figure. — fdrake

If all circles are plane figures, then the great circle is not a circle.

Hueston, we have a problem.