What is the minimum criterion for being meaningful?
— creativesoul

For something to have 'cognitive significance,' it should describe some state of affairs such that the one to whom it's meaningful can somehow tell the difference between that state of affairs obtaining or not obtaining. — Snakes Alive

I do not find that the 'cognitive significance' mention is helpful at all here. It could be easily refuted. I'll leave it be though, for the answer to the question followed that part...

Are you saying that all meaningful things are descriptions?

There seems to be a thread, so to speak, pervading your part of our discourse here, and as I understand it, your discourse elsewhere on this forum as well. I'd like to first check to see if what I'm saying is true, or at least true enough, if you prefer. Then, I'd suggest a read that is relevant.

You've been captured by this notion of thrown-ness into the world. You've also repeatedly mentioned or remarked upon the necessity of using the language 'forced' upon us as a means to talk about it, or words to that affect/effect.

Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian, is chock full of good suggestions for how to go about questioning the worldview that one adopts... which subsumes the thrown-ness, and much of the other Heiddy notions you've grown fond of. Anyway, it does not matter whether or not you are/were a Christian. Russell's suggestions are universally applicable methods for figuring out what one believes and how/why. Well worth a read. It's a short book as well.

So, I'm curious...

What is the minimum criterion for being meaningful?

If we tell a kid to go get a screwdriver and he brings the screwdriver back, does that work? — path

Clearly the language use worked. It would not have had the kid not drawn the right correlations to the language use.

What about when a dog pees where other dogs have peed? We can say that they are indicating their presence, maybe other things. But all we see is that the dog pees where other dogs have peed.

Or we can say that bee dancing points other bees to food, but all we see is the dance and that the bees go to where the first bee was.

Would you accept this as enacted correlation? — path

I'm not entirely sure about either of those cases regarding the content of correlations, or if there is such a thing regarding those behaviours.

Is there someone you can refer me to that's closer to your approach? Just to see it in another vocabulary? Or are you working on something fresh? — path

As far as I know, there is no other advocate of what I'm advocating. My world-view has been influenced by far more people than I can possibly know, and there are similarities and shared positions on specific points with many.

Do you mean that one thing represents another, or points to it in some sense? — path

I wouldn't say that a name represents it's referent. It refers to it. It picks it out of this world to the exclusion of all else.

In cases of successful reference, a plurality of people draw a correlation between the name and the referent; between "trees" and trees, for instance.

Sorry, that answer was too quickly given. Language does much more than just reference. Habits die hard.

:joke:

...I guess I don't see a clean break where language begins. — path

Language use begins when a plurality of creatures draw the same correlations between different things. Reference is only one use. We also get others to do stuff with language use. We greet others, etc.

...

I'm not a Rorty fan, by the way... He mistakenly holds that truth is dependent upon language, which is prima facie evidence that he has no coherent conception of non linguistic thought or belief.

I'm tempted to think of organisms reacting to stimuli. — path

There is a plurality of different things, but it is a far stretch to claim that there is a creature capable of drawing correlations between them. Not something I'd defend.

We are just trained in to talking this way. We can only talk against this training by simultaneously employing it. — path

Of course. We must - at the very least - mention it's use. That's remarkably different than continuing it.

I've been bringing up consciousness and mentalistic language in order to avoid it and take some distance from it. But it's hard to strip it entirely from our meta-language. We are just trained in to talking this way. We can only talk against this training by simultaneously employing it. — path

This might be a point worth unpacking.

We're involved in a metacognitive endeavor. That is, we are talking about our own thought and belief. We use language to do so. Language is required for thinking about our own thought and belief. I used to - mistakenly - assert that written language was required. However, it was brought to my attention that oral tradition is more than adequate for rudimentary versions. That said...

Prior to thinking/talking about something, there must be something to think/talk about. That is the target.

We clearly have thought and belief - of some rudimentary basic and/or simple variety prior to language; that is prior to any and all notions, definitions, and/or conceptions of "thought", "belief", "imagination", "mind"... prior to language creation/acquisition itself.

How do we account for such a thing, given we have to use language as a means for doing so? Perhaps that is a question that is of interest to you?

I posit that all thought and belief must be meaningful to the thinking/believing creature, and it must also somehow presuppose it's own correspondence to what's happened and/or is happening.

What does non linguistic and/or prelinguistic thought and belief consist of such that it can - over enough time and given the 'right' circumstances - evolve without hitch into the rich linguistically informed thought and belief that humans have today, as well as be meaningful and presuppose it's own correspondence?

Correlations.

My cat is capable of seeing a snowman. Snowmen are directly perceptible things, after-all. In fact, that snowman is capable of becoming a part of that cat's belief, by virtue of the cat drawing a correlation between it and something else.

However, that cat does not - cannot - see the snowman as a snowman, for that is to know what the snowman's name is.

Yes, I hear you. This touches on intentionality. What interest me is that this is one more beetle in the box.. — path

I've been bringing up consciousness and mentalistic language in order to avoid it... — path

Good job on that.

Wow, we are misunderstanding each other. I've been contorting myself to get away from 'consciousness' and 'the unnecessary multiplication of entities.' — path

Ever heard of a performative contradiction?

I'm beginning to believe that you're either deliberately misrepresenting your own thought and belief, or you are enacting what's often called a performative contradiction. It's akin to eating a banana while claiming that one tries to avoid eating bananas.

Ya feel me?

Earlier you spoke of seeing a plie of snowballs either as a snowman, or as something else... They key there is what is required for seeing a snowman 'as a snowman'. That's the trick to untangling the knots that come as a result of talking like that.

I really was just trying to get clear on what you meant.

I think I may have it. — path

Judging by what followed the above, I'm afraid there is still some remarkable and/or significant misunderstanding at work.

You agree that beliefs require no consciousness or language. — path

Not exactly.

There are two different ideas in the above report/account of my thought and/or belief(the position I'm advocating for, and/or argue from). They are:"Beliefs require no consciousness", and "beliefs require no language". Neither is one that I would advocate, without further qualification. The former is a claim that I would not make. "Consciousness" is a notion borne of gross misunderstanding of thought and belief. It's a chimera. All consciousness involves a thinking and/or believing creature.

There are no notions of consciousness that I am aware of that pick out that which existed in it's entirety prior to our naming and descriptive practices. If the notion is going to do any real work, it needs to be able to properly account for such. In short, I reject talk of consciousness because it all too often results in saying shit that cannot be true. It's a money ticket item though... that's for sure!

That said...

What is the term "consciousness" doing here? I mean what is it accomplishing? What's it adding aside from an unnecessary multiplication of entities? There's no need to invoke it.

Going back to the second suggestion...

Some belief requires no language. <------------------That's 'where' both Witt and Heiddy fail.

Expectation is simply an enacted belief about the future.

That's more amenable.

What are you trying to do here?

I've a ton of sympathy and appreciation for Heiddy... regarding his focus on language.

I was just trying to figure out how you were using 'expectation,' I guess. — path

My guess is that that is not true, and you know it!

Earlier... not so long ago actually... I stated the following...

Expectation is belief about what will take place.

Weren’t you just agreeing the other day that class-focused amelioration of poverty regardless of race is fine, since race correlates with class and so helping poor people in general automatically helps black people disproportionately more than whites, since blacks are disproportionately poor? — Pfhorrest

We're both Bernie supporters. However, not all racial issues are corrected by class focus, since racism is not about class.

Heiddy had a clue that language effected/affected a speaker. His notions of Dasein and Being proved that much, but... his account was horrendous and clunky. Changing the everyday meaning of some of the most common words did not help his cause.

If expectation is referring to the cat's consciousness... — path

Why posit this?

I've explicitly said otherwise.

I don't have some finished theory and doubt I ever will. — path

Do you agree that language less creatures form, have, and/or hold belief?

Expectation is belief about what will take place, or in this case belief about what is about to happen. Her thinking about the sound is nothing more than drawing correlations between the same things... the sound and receiving treats.

Animals show belief by displaying expectation.

Pavlov's dog involuntarily slobbering after hearing the bell shows us, along with his path towards the food bowl, that he thinks, believes, and/or expects to be fed. All as a result of drawing correlations between the sound of the bell and eating food. We can change the sound of the bell, to any sound we arbitrarily choose so long as it is audible to the dog. The same results will happen because the same thing is happening... correlations are being drawn. — creativesoul

The so-called expectation just is the behavior. It is not implied or demonstrated by the behavior. Or rather it's not clear what talk of this implication adds. — path

I suggest stopping such talk. I've certainly not talked in terms of implication. What sense does it make for you to ask me that question? Perhaps you ought ask yourself what such talk has added...

When a cat stands in front of it's treat bowl immediately after hearing the sound of the plastic treat bag being opened, looks up and meows at the caretaker, you're claiming that that cat's behaviour is not putting it's own expectation/belief on display?

Really?

:brow:

If we all stop using words like "black" "white" etc and teach our children that those are bad words then racism will end in a few generations. — dazed

This seems patently wrong-minded, despite my fondness for Morgan Freeman. Racism is not fueld by the names we choose to use as a means to describe people we devalue based upon the color of their skin.

One will devalue black people, if they are so inclined, regardless of the language used to do so.

It's the devaluation that's the problem, not the means for doing so. Language use is the means.

So the discussion between Moore and the skeptic, and the one here to which you have not much responded are in a sense, fake. One cannot have a discussion about whether or not one is having a discussion. Having the discussion at all is showing the certain belief, which one is then purporting to prove or doubt. — unenlightened

I'm dumbfounded that this was not remarked upon...

(5) Dasein is mature; there's little discussion of learning and socialisation.

Seeing a human being as "a Dasein" misses out a lot which is relevant... — fdrake

That sums up my thoughts rather nicely as well...

The last century has almost reversed this, and the minimalist is the new cultural hero. — unenlightened

Others had no choice but to be minimalists. Made fun of for being poor, as if it was all up to them...

What we're seeing in this regard is a revisitation of personal, familial, and finally... cultural values.

Hopefully one day soon...

Quality will be of utmost importance in the minds of more people... Surely there are enough people that have been taken advantage of with business malpractices resulting in shoddy unreliable products made from inferior materials and all at a huge cost to the consumers' own pocketbooks in more ways than that!

I think it's simply the way the upper class takes pains to distinguish itself from the hoi-poloi. The peasants are consuming, therefore we will diet. Thus fashion; darling the folk always wear last year's thing, haven't you noticed? — unenlightened

The sheer number of fashion shows exemplify this shallowness... while simultaneously devaluing another based upon something other than their character. American culture has glorified such for so long. It is of no real surprise that the likes of Trump attained the presidency. He's a symptom.

↪unenlightened This was very good. The more people hear and understand the impact of redlining, the better:

"The Federal Housing Administration institutionalized the system of discriminatory lending in government-backed mortgages, reflecting local race-based criteria in their underwriting practices and reinforcing residential segregation in American cities. The discriminatory practices captured by the HOLC maps continued until 1968, when the Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in housing.

But 50 years after that law passed, the lingering effects of redlining are clear, with the pattern of economic and racial residential segregation still evident in many U.S. cities — from Montgomery, Ala., to Flint, Mich., to Denver. Nationally, nearly two-thirds of neighborhoods deemed “hazardous” are inhabited by mostly minority residents, typically black and Latino, researchers found. Cities with more such neighborhoods have significantly greater economic inequality. On the flip side, 91 percent of areas classified as “best” in the 1930s remain middle-to-upper-income today, and 85 percent of them are still predominantly white".

It's possibly the biggest injustice in modern American history that almost goes totally unremarked upon. Not that it's all down to redlining of course. But gosh was it terrible (in fact it still exists). Unsurprisingly, it's roots are economic. — StreetlightX

Indeed.

And based upon the idea that a property owner(or the group rather) ought get to choose who all is allowed in the community... Liberty and freedom and 'right' to choose one's neighbors by virtue of being a landowner.

Gather a group of racists and Viola! systemic racism.

The sound of the plastic is meaningful to her as a result of her connecting it to getting treats. When she hears the plastic, she expects treats. She thinks about the sound and it is significant to her as a result of a pattern of past events.
— creativesoul

OK, but how does 'expect' and 'think' add to what is already happening? Don't get me wrong. It's plausible and intuitive. But how is it explanatory? Maybe it is in some way, but this detour to hidden consciousness is curious. — path

I've not used the terms "hidden consciousness", nor would I.

Expectation is belief about what will take place, or in this case belief about what is about to happen. Her thinking about the sound is nothing more than drawing correlations between the same things... the sound and receiving treats.

Animals show belief by displaying expectation.

Pavlov's dog involuntarily slobbering after hearing the bell shows us, along with his path towards the food bowl, that he thinks, believes, and/or expects to be fed. All as a result of drawing correlations between the sound of the bell and eating food. We can change the sound of the bell, to any sound we arbitrarily choose so long as it is audible to the dog. The same results will happen because the same thing is happening... correlations are being drawn.

How is it explanatory, regarding basic rudimentary bedrock belief?

What's it missing?

We're actually in the process of demonstrating exactly what I've been advocating. We're each drawing correlations between different things in an attempt to build a bridge of mutual understanding... shared meaning.

So, I'm curious...

How do you account for the belief of language less creatures?

...I suggest that even worrying about thought at all might muddy the water here. — path

That's an odd suggestion given that bedrock belief is the topic.

Well in everyday terms I do think that my cat thinks. Some of this is just empathy. Conceptually it seems to be an extension of the usual hypothetical entities, thoughts which can never be measured or touched. In some sense attributing thoughts might be a fancy way of describing tangible behaviors. — path

There are many things that can never be measured or touched. The odd thing however is that I have painstakingly given you the tools to 'measure' all thought or belief. The increments are not mathematical. They are elemental. They consist of correlations between things. In the language less creatures' case, the correlations are always drawn between directly perceptible things.

Fire and pain. The sound of the bell and food. The sound of rustling plastic and treats. The cheep and a cat.

We can set it up and watch it happen - from the outside. No need to get in their head or our own. Behaviour is not thought. Behaviour is a result thereof. Roughly, of course.

You're right though, attributing thought is one way that folk explain/describe certain behaviours.

My issue is whether 'thinking' has some deep meaning beyond patterns in behavior. What does it add? That's the beetle, as I see it. At the same time, we obviously know how to use words like 'think' with the usual blind skill. So there's no doing away with that. We can only question the mentalistic paradigm from within that paradigm. Does it lead us down dead ends philosophically? — path

"Thinking" - in quotes - refers to terminological use of that term. Not all use of "thinking" is on equal footing. That's been a problem throughout the history of philosophy. You pointed towards some of those issues earlier regarding humans using the idea to draw a clear distinct line between dumb animals and humans... purportedly. Animals do not think, reason, etc.

However, you then claim that there is no doing away with common usage of "think", and I assume the use of "believe" and "belief" as well. While you're correct in that there may be no doing away with it, we can show where it fails.

Are you asking if thinking is distinct from behavioural patterns?

Become correlated/related is becoming part of a correlation. To be related is to be in relationship. — path

There is a causal relationship between touching fire and the sudden onset of pain. That relationship need not be thought about. When a creature draws a correlation between the behaviour(touching fire) and the subsequent pain it has attributed meaning to both. It has recognized and/or attributed causality. Causality is a relationship. Drawing a correlation between touching fire and the onset of pain is not... that is belief formation about(the content of which is) the fire and the pain.

I agree. There is no ground, in some sense, for saying that the creature thinks at all. — path

I would not agree.

Everyday events count as more than adequate ground. We just have to know what to look for.

A sign is related or correlated to a response — path

I did not say that though.

A sign becomes such as a result of being part of the correlation. — creativesoul

I don't understand the difference.. — path

It's the difference in becoming meaningful and being meaningful. All signs are already meaningful. The clouds were clouds prior to becoming a sign of impending rain. They were part of a causal relationship. They were not meaningful.