Are you saying that a primate community that uses specific vocalizations as a means to signal the presence of specific predators is not language use, albeit in basic, rudimentary, and/or simplistic form?

Such a denial requires some sort of justification for the denial. If that does not count as one of the simplest sorts of language use emerging into the universe, then what does? Where do you draw the line at a bare minimum over there on the left side of your spectrum?

You cannot avoid anthropomorphism because "linguistically mediated thought" is a prima facie example of anthropomorphism. All this and then some has been more than adequately argued for without subsequent due attention.
— creativesoul

Is this a joke? Explain how ""linguistically mediated thought" is a prima facie example of anthropomorphism" — Janus

Mediation is not performed by language. Language is incapable of mediating. We mediate. Mediation is performed by us. We are creatures with agency. Language is the tool we use to do so. It serves as the medium. Mediating is what's being performed/enacted/done by a mediator. Mediators use language as a medium for successful mediation.

Language does not mediate. Language is not a mediator. Mediators mediate.

Keep in mind my two definitions of anthropomorphism, — Janus

Open admission of an equivocation of terms fallacy?

No agency required?

Language does those things?

Where's the Collingwood fan at? There is an absolute presupposition amidst us.

I have never imputed agency to language. — Janus

Does language mediate human thought?

In case you need a little help on where you need to be looking...

The alarm screech symbolizes danger. The creatures using the screech connect the two and become language users as a result. The screech becomes meaningful with use.

All 'linguistically mediated thought' involves language use. Some non human animals have language. Thought they have that involve language use are 'linguistically mediated thought'. The sounding of the alarm is a 'linguistically mediated thought' because it is a thought consisting of correlations drawn between the vocalization and danger. Becoming aware of danger by virtue of knowing what an alarm sound means is linguistically mediated thought.

We cannot draw and maintain the distinction between the sorts of thoughts that we have and the sorts of thought that other language using animals have with the notion of 'linguistically mediated thought'. — creativesoul

The proof for that is demonstrated by the way you attribute agency to language. Again that's been proven. You've yet to have squared those circles despite repeated attempts at redefinition.

You cannot avoid anthropomorphism because "linguistically mediated thought" is a prima facie example of anthropomorphism. All this and then some has been more than adequately argued for without subsequent due attention.

The alarm screech symbolizes danger.
— creativesoul

I don't think that's right; I think the alarm screech signals danger. Symbolization is more abstract, and this is just where our use of language distinguishes us from the other animals. — Janus

Okay. Replace "symbolizes" with "signals" and the argument that that bit was excised from still stands strong. You need to address it along with all the earlier arguments that have went sorely neglected since being made.

Either it's irony or deliberate deception. Neither is acceptable.

Yes, what I am calling linguistically mediated thought is neither the only or the simplest kind of thought, on the contrary it is the most complex: in that it is rich in symbols which allow us the think counterfactually, reflexively and self-referentially... — Janus

So, any and all attribution of such thought to non humans is anthropomorphism at work. I agree there. Not all language use involves using meaningful marks.

The alarm screech symbolizes danger. The creatures using the screech connect the two and become language users as a result. The screech becomes meaningful with use.

All 'linguistically mediated thought' involves language use. Some non human animals have language. Thought they have that involve language use are 'linguistically mediated thought'. The sounding of the alarm is a 'linguistically mediated thought' because it is a thought consisting of correlations drawn between the vocalization and danger. Becoming aware of danger by virtue of knowing what an alarm sound means is linguistically mediated thought.

We cannot draw and maintain the distinction between the sorts of thoughts that we have and the sorts of thought that other language using animals have with the notion of 'linguistically mediated thought'.

There is no point making bare assertions such as "unhelpful nonsense" without explaining why you think so. That is truly unhelpful.Same with the accusation of anthropomorphism; quote what I have said and explain why you think it is anthropomorphic if want an actual discussion. — Janus

I suggest you reread the post. What you ask for was already given.

We don't really know what animal understandings are like, as to that we can only surmise in our human ways. — Janus

That's not true.

I know when my cat wants treats. She behaves in certain ways. She will even lead me to the food bowl. She will sometimes sit in silence for ten minutes or more right beside the treat dispenser on the floor waiting for the moment I make eye contact with her. Then she meows and rubs her side around and across my leg and often purrs while I dispense the kibbles into the bowl. The sound of kibbles hitting the sides of her bowl is important to her too. The quantity of kibbles, not so much. Most times, she will not eat until after I gently stroke her from head to tail. Her tail almost always does this little shimmy thing at the end as she steps out of the stroke and into her feeding position.

Well, some species of primates use specific vocalizations as alarms for specific predators sighted in the immediate vicinity. It's also my understanding that not all communities of some species do this, or have the same vocalizations for the same predators.

That certainly seems like a case of naturally emerging language use to me.
— creativesoul

I can't see the relevance of what you are saying here. — Janus

You asked about other animals using language. I offered an example. I do not believe that you do not see the relevance.

It's certainly not the only one. As others have mentioned, dogs will ask for food. My ducks do the same. There are specific behaviours to support all this. Reasoning to boot. Logical argument to bolster.

Are you denying that these are examples of language use?

There are many examples and kinds of animal signalling.

I take it that you're saying that the primates mentioned heretofore are not language users, but merely signaling, and that signaling does not count as language use.

This presupposes a criterion for what counts as language use.

I'd like to see the one you're putting to use.

Only humans, as far as is known, are capable of symbolic language and linguistically mediated thought.

Unhelpful nonsense. Speaking of anthropomorphism.

Language does not have agency. All things that are capable of mediation do. Mediation is done for the sake of mediating. Language does not mediate. There are no linguistically mediated human thought.

Language creation and subsequent use influences and enable the richness and depth of human thought.

We are not the only language users living on the face of the earth.

Whatever you are calling "linguistically mediated thought" is neither the only nor the simplest kind of thought humans have. Likely it is one of the most complex.

Logical possibility alone does not warrant belief. It is a measure of coherence/consistent terminological use/lack of self contradiction... nothing else. That which does not warrant belief cannot warrant being called "truth".

Modal logics define necessary and possible as a pair of operators that apply to propositions; either can be taken as primitive and the other defined in terms of that one, or you can just allow that you're defining the pair together; the interaction of the operators maps naturally to a number of ways of talking about modality (alethic, epistemic, physical, temporal, etc.), but can be defined purely syntactically without specifying a particular interpretation of the operators; a particular modal logic will usually by defined by axioms intended to capture the particular sort of modality desired, and those axioms will vary.

In particular, if we take the necessary operator ▢ ("box") as primitive, then the possible operator ◇ ("diamond") is defined as ~▢~, that is, not necessarily not. Similarly, the necessary operator is defined as ~◇~, that is, not possibly not. This pairing has been very fruitful in clarifying modal issues, and is at this point in the history of logic no more controversial than the standard quantifiers ∀ and ∃. (And in fact, it turns out that one very useful way to think of ▢ and ◇ is as a kind of restricted quantifier over possible worlds, which ought to be obvious because ∀ is ~∃~ and ∃ is ~∀~.) — Srap Tasmaner

If A is existentially dependent upon B, then B is necessary for the existence/emergence of A.

Possible world semantics is fraught.

we should find that it is impossible to be dishonest with oneself.
— Mww — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree.

Do you agree with all of the following?



1.)Anthropomorphism is when we attribute uniquely human kinds of thought and belief(those that are exclusively human) to things that are not.
2.)Some human thought and/or belief are exclusive to humans.
3.)Some human thought and/or belief are shared by other language using creatures.
4.)Some human thought and/or belief are shared by other language using creatures and language less ones alike.
— creativesoul

Nothing there is controversial except "other language using creatures"; I already asked you to identify which other animals you think use language. — Janus

Well, some species of primates use specific vocalizations as alarms for specific predators sighted in the immediate vicinity. It's also my understanding that not all communities of some species do this, or have the same vocalizations for the same predators.

That certainly seems like a case of naturally emerging language use to me.

The thought and belief shared between them and humans would be the sounding of the alarm and believing a predator was nearby upon hearing it. Humans also sound alarms in the face of danger. Humans do it more deliberately, for the sake of sounding the alarm. That's the difference. Language less creatures have no ability to sound an alarm, so sounding an alarm is not the sort of thought and belief that can be shared by language less creatures.

I agree that - in the overall bigger evolutionary picture - anthropomorphism was inescapable. I disagree that it remains so to this day.
— creativesoul

Again I both agree and disagree depending on your definition of 'anthropomorphism'. — Janus

It's defined above. You agreed at that point.

That our understandings are human-shaped is inescapable, but egregious uncritical projection of human attributes onto the non-human is avoidable.

This looks far too abstract, poetic, and flowery to be of much use for analysis. Human understanding has no shape at all. I cannot wrap my head around what you're trying to say by using such terms. I ignored it earlier, but it seems pivotal to your position, and given I'm attempting to understand your position, could you rephrase the following...

...understandings are human-shaped...

Belief about the future goes from prediction to knowledge when it becomes true, and from prediction to falsehood when it becomes false.
— creativesoul

No. Very, very no. — Srap Tasmaner

Well at least we agree that belief about the future cannot be true...

:nerd:

We need scientifically astute philosophers and philosophically astute scientists in order to arrive at a philosophically and scientifically respectable position on human experience/consciousness/thought/belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms...

...the past is the paradigmatic realm of truth, eternal and unchanging, while there is no truth about the future and for that reason no knowledge but only belief. — Srap Tasmaner

Strangely enough, I'm in complete agreement with you here. Belief about the future goes from prediction to knowledge when it becomes true, and from prediction to falsehood when it becomes false.

Anthropomorphism is, like many other human characteristics, on a spectrum from the inescapable to the egregious. — Janus

I agree that - in the overall bigger evolutionary picture - anthropomorphism was inescapable. I disagree that it remains so to this day.

It's in line with Dennett's view.

...If you believed that you had come to some understanding which you believed was completely free from any anthropomorphism whatever, how would you demonstrate that to be so? — Janus

Infallibility is unnecessary.

The belief you've attributed to me directly above is something I do not believe. Red herring. The belief you've attributed to me above does not follow from anything I've said. Non sequitur. The belief you've attributed to me above represents your misinterpretation of what I've written thus far. You'll just have to trust me when I say that somewhere along the line you've misattributed meaning to my parts of this exchange. I'm under no burden to demonstrate something I've not claimed.

It's worth mentioning to say that we need not be mistake free in order to know that anthropomorphism is a mistake. In fact, we had to have already been engaging in the personification of things that are not persons(anthropomorphism) in order to even become aware of the fact that we were.

Would there be a fact of the matter, or does it just come down to definitions or personal opinion?

Well... none of the above are adequate and all of the above are necessary in order for us to acquire knowledge of how thought and belief first emerges into the universe and later evolves into the rich and complex variety that we like to say that humans have. The evolutionary origen of thought and/or belief is not inaccessible to us. We need not know everything in order to know some things about that.

It's not as if knowledge of the differences between human thought and belief, non-human language users' thought and belief, and language-less creatures' thought and belief is something that it is impossible for us to understand. We have the tools, the knowledge base, and the potential to acquire such knowledge. I have seen no valid argument to the contrary.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to take a deep breath and go about figuring out exactly what it would take in order for humans to think in the ways that we do. We have to understand our own thought and belief in terms of its evolutionary progression prior to being able successfully discern between our own and other animals'.

Do you agree with all of the following?



1.)Anthropomorphism is when we attribute uniquely human kinds of thought and belief(those that are exclusively human) to things that are not.
2.)Some human thought and/or belief are exclusive to humans.
3.)Some human thought and/or belief are shared by other language using creatures.
4.)Some human thought and/or belief are shared by other language using creatures and language less ones alike.

Three key bits of advice here.

First note you need to differentiate between the neurobiological awareness of animals and the language and culture expanded conciousness of humans. Awareness is biological. Self awareness is socially constructed. Knowing that should deflate a large part of the problem as it is the neurobiology that is the complicated bit.

Second, it will help to realise that awareness is not about a passive neural display - a representation of the world - that then requires some further mysterious witness. This is the dualistic Cartesian mistake. Awareness is a pragmatic and embodied modelling relation with the world. The brain exists to predict how the world could be in the light of actions that might be taken. It is an active engagement rather than a passive contemplation.

A third thing that could be added when it comes to getting started on the neurobiology is that neuroscientists prefer to talk about awareness in terms of its two critical levels of process - habit and attention. As part of the whole prediction-based design of the brain, it is set up to learn to process the world as automatically and “unconsciously” as possible. Attention only kicks in if the world doesn’t fit the predictions and the brain has to pause to generate some new predictive state that better explains the available evidence. — apokrisis

Very well put.

Not interested. Was curious to get your take on that quick down and dirty summary, but evidently you're not interested.

So be it. Be well.

Did you read the rest of that post? I generally do not align with Meta.

All our understandings are, strictly speaking, anthropomorphic, or human-shaped, because we are human; so, leaving aside any imputation of what should be understood to be exclusively human qualities and capacities to animals, I think the question of anthropomorphism is beside the point. Do you have anything substantive to add to that or disagreement to express? — Janus

I do not share your pessimism. It's not fait accompli, regardless of whether or not you poison the well. It does not follow from the fact that we are human that all our understandings are anthropomorphic. I sense a bit of chippiness from you. I added quite a bit of substantive examples to discuss earlier. You quoted the first statement of the post and ignored the rest. We can agree to disagree, but it would be far better for us to at least come to clear understanding of what the disagreement is about, and/or where it lies.

Animals without linguistic capabilities obviously do not think in linguistic terms, so presumably they think in sensorimotor ways; whereas we think in both sensorimotor and linguistic ways... — Janus

Well, that's a fine place to start. I agree. Although, the "think in sensorimotor ways" would be best fleshed out.

Some other animals - beside humans - do have language though, so drawing the line at language is not going to serve the purpose of drawing and maintaining the distinctions between thought and belief that is exclusively human in kind, thought and belief that could be had by other animals with language, and thought and belief that can be had by language less creatures.

Gettier is hard. It seems clear there is no general way to block Gettier cases, because whatever you come up with will generate a revenge case purpose built to block your solution. — Srap Tasmaner

Is it hard? Seems straight forward to me.

Gettier is attempting to take account of another's belief(granted, the other is a fiction borne of Gettier's own imagination, but nevertheless). Gettier invokes the rules of entailment in order for Smith to go from "I have ten coins in my pocket, and I will get the job" to "the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job".

The point is that Gettier is talking about Smith's belief, not a naked proposition. With that in mind, because it is Smith's belief, "the man with ten coins in his pocket" refers to Smith and Smith alone. So, when someone else gets the job regardless of how many coins they have in their pocket, Smith's belief is false, because he did not get the job. Smith does not believe anyone other than himself will get the job.

The second case neglects the fact that Smith's belief is a complex one, and again fails to take that complexity into consideration due to treating the disjunction as a naked one. Smith only believes that either Jones own a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona, because he believes Jones owns a Ford. The disjunction is true because Brown is in Barcelona. Smith believes it's true because Jones owns a Ford. Smith's belief is false.

We need only to take notice that there is an accounting malpractice going on.

We proceed on the assumption that we can analyze "naked" propositions with no speaker; — Srap Tasmaner

As did Gettier when invoking entailment to go from "I have ten coins in my pocket" to "the man with ten coins in his pocket".

Pretty sure that release was prior to the Mar-a-lago search. I just wondered if there was any conncection between Trump's penchant for stealing classified materials and that reporting.

Thanks. That's sounds like what I remember seeing only once mentioned, then forgotten.

No.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. — Janus

I suppose I could make the broader point now. Perhaps the reason you do not share my optimism regarding avoiding anthropomorphism is because you have difficulty yourself in understanding what sorts of thought and belief are exclusive to humans and what sorts are not. The notions of 'language capable beings' and 'linguistically mediated thought' only discriminate between language users and language less creatures, so, they are unhelpful for avoiding misattributing some of our thought and belief to other language using creatures. We see this often in nature shows.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. — Janus

Earlier I asked how you/we avoided anthropomorphism. You basically questioned whether or not we could. I claimed that we can in both principle and practice. You then said you did not share my optimism. Then...

I expressed that we understand the difference between thought and belief that is exclusive to humans and thought and belief that is not.

You then acted as if you had not disagreed with that, but you had, evidently unbeknownst to yourself, because you disagreed that we could avoid anthropomorphism. The problem(for you) is that if we can understand that much, then we can avoid anthropomorphism, for that is the key for doing so. That's how. If you agree with that then it ought be easy enough for you to realize that we can avoid anthropomorphism in both principle and practice. That's one of the things I am getting at.

Secondly, you invoked the notions of 'language capable beings' and 'linguistically mediated thoughts' in order to make a claim that you later judged as trivial/uninformative. You were arguing with yourself, because I never invoked those notions. In fact, neither can draw and maintain the distinction necessary to avoid anthropomorphism because some animals have language.

I've no idea.

There have been an extremely unusually high number of American agents murdered or missing since Trump left office.

Trump illegally took the kind of highly classified documents that deal with agent information like those agents to Mar-a-lago.

Is that a coincidence?

Not if those stolen documents directly pertain to those missing or murdered agents. Not if the classified information pertaining to those agents is missing.

Seems to me that we're perfectly capable of understanding what sorts of thoughts are exclusive to humans and what sorts are not.
— creativesoul

You seem to think I have disagreed with this
— Janus

That's how to avoid anthropomorphism. — creativesoul

Do you not understand that understanding what sorts of thoughts are exclusive to humans and what sorts are not is how to avoid anthropomorphism?

The question you ask presupposes that I meant something other than what I wrote. I did not. What I wrote is plainly understood exactly as it is written. Do you not understand it as it's written?

Yes, of course we can say that only language capable beings can have linguistically mediated thoughts. It's analytically and trivially (insofar as it doesn't really tell us anything) true. — Janus

Which ought tell you something. That's not something I would or have said, nor does it follow from anything I would or have said.

The sheer number of agents who were working with American government and have come up either missing or murdered since Trump left office hasn't been openly considered in the public domain. I wonder if there are any connected dots between those abnormalities and Mar-a-lago?