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.

The standard objection to JTB — AmadeusD

Uses the exact same mistaken notion of belief as JTB. I reject both for using that notion of belief.

:wink:

Another topic. I'll say nothing more here.

Yes, rationality includes more than differentiating between accurate/inaccurate information. I was making that case.

I get worried about how to establish that a candidate is insincere. If one thinks about it from the perspective that you don't know whether a candidate is sincere or not, my remark
If they were the benchmark (the standard), first person reports of beliefs would be irrefutable and irreplaceable. But they are neither, though they are relevant and important.
— Ludwig V
may seem less absurd, though it still seems bad-tempered and unhelpful. — Ludwig V

I would not say that. You would know your own temper better than I.

You're quite right to point out the difficulty of establishing whether or not a candidate is sincere.

There would be no sense of importance.
— creativesoul
That is puzzling. Animals have wants and desires, and I would have thought that implies a sense of importance. — Ludwig V

I meant, and I thought the notion was of self-importance.

Removing metacognition belief content to directly perceptible things.
— creativesoul
While a creature that lacked language but has perception can know and believe various things, it cannot know or believe anything about things that cannot be directly perceived, so cannot formulate beliefs about abstract objects, such as beliefs.
That seems reasonable.

We would lose all aspects of our sense of Self that emerge via language use.
— creativesoul
Yes, of course. But I don't see why that conclusion requires the premiss about metacognition. — Ludwig V

I'm sorry. That post was not reviewed prior to posting. There were half edits going on. As it stood, on my view it was nonsense. :blush: From my own poorly attended post nonetheless.

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.

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.

One must be able to differentiate between inaccurate and accurate information then? Basically, rationality boils down to that capability? — creativesoul

I don't know what else it could mean. — Patterner

Going to a train station at a certain time every day for ten years, expecting to see a certain man get off the train, even though that man has not gotten off the train once in the 3,650 days you were there in the last ten years, is not rational. — Patterner

For a dog that begins going to the train station at 5 o'clock on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for all sorts of reasons, including meeting a human, it would be rational for that dog to occasionally hold such expectation. They very well could have passing memories of the human after death.

The train station is part of a lifelong routine. The train station is connected to the human by the dog. That's what makes them both meaningful to the dog. The train station can also be connected to feeling good.

All meaningful experience begins with connections being drawn between different things. The world becomes more meaningful as a direct result. That's early rational thought.

That's what else it means.

You said they could have been rational all along, but not if knowing the difference between accurate and inaccurate information is the only measure of rationality.

Words don't play games.
— creativesoul
Not sure what you are getting at here. If you think I'm just playing games here, better tell me. — Ludwig V

That was a reference to "chess", "checkers, "draughts" language. Words don't play games. You made remarks about playing games. You were not talking about the words. You were talking about me, personally.

That's all I was getting at.

↪creativesoul
Can you think of a scenario with a rational thinker who doesn't know about gravity? — Patterner

I cannot, however, I'm not sure that being able to differentiate between accurate information and inaccurate information is the measure for rationality. Isn't that much the same as being able to tell the difference between what's true and what's not?

I don't know what else it could mean. Walking off a cliff because you don't think gravity will affect you isn't rational. — Patterner

What if you don't know about gravity and have no idea of the life threatening situation?

I don't know what else it could mean. Walking off a cliff because you don't think gravity will affect you isn't rational. Going to a train station at a certain time every day for ten years, expecting to see a certain man get off the train, even though that man has not gotten off the train once in the 3,650 days you were there in the last ten years, is not rational. — Patterner

I'm not sure that I disagree.

What if we did not have a system for numbering things and a system for telling time? What if our experience of life were the same as other animals without our thinking systems? How would that affect our sense of reality and our sense of importance in the scheme of things? — Athena

Our experience is the same on a basic level. All experience consists of correlations drawn between different things. All thought follows that same process/system. The exact things matter, as does the ability/inability to perceive them prior to/while drawing correlations.

Removing naming and descriptive practices would remove metacognition. Removing metacognition belief content to directly perceptible things. We would lose all aspects of our sense of Self that emerge via language use. There would be no sense of importance. There would be no schemes.

One must be able to differentiate between inaccurate and accurate information then? Basically, rationality boils down to that capability?

A creature that can't test things might still be able to notice things. Like a dog can notice X happens every single day at a certain time, and base its actions on that fact. But if it doesn't notice that X no longer happens every day at thatvcertain time, and has not happened once in several times as long as it originally happened, then I don't see evidence of rational thinking. — Patterner

At that time then, right?

I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Rather, I'm just trying to understand the sense of "rational" you're practicing.

Let's say that we're reporting upon our neighbor's belief to our significant other. Let us also say that we're aiming at accuracy. We want our report to match their belief. Assuming sincerity and typical neurological function of the neighbor, the actual words that the believer would use to describe their own belief are not only relevant. They are the benchmark. They are the standard. — creativesoul

If they were the benchmark (the standard), first person reports of beliefs would be irrefutable and irreplaceable. But they are neither, though they are relevant and important. — Ludwig V

:yikes:

A sincere typical neurologically functioning person who tells you what they believe cannot be wrong about what they believe. Their words are the standard. Now, when talking about an insincere candidate, it's another matter altogether. Luckily, there is no such thing as an insincere language less creature. I do not see the relevance/benefit of invoking first, second, and third-person accounting practices