I'm uh, troubled, to say the least, by the earlier flippant dismissal regarding the philosophical import of evolutionary progression as it pertains to any and all notions of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. .... One's philosophical position regarding though, belief, and/or meaningful experience had better be able to take it into proper account. — creativesoul

I may be wrong to think that you are referring to something that I said. If you were, I am troubled by your impression that I would dismiss the philosophical import of evolutionary progression, let alone dismiss it flippantly. I would have thought that my general insistence that there is always continuity between what animals can do and what humans can do was evidence to the contrary. I must have said something to mislead you and I'm sorry about that.

I'm not sure what that means. — creativesoul

I hope it helps if I write that sentence as "Surely, (thought that involves trees and cats) is involved in the (behaviour that involves trees and cats)" and explain (which I should have done) that when a dog approaches a tree in order to sniffs it, it is because it believes that there will be interesting smells around it, and so on.

Problems with "what it means to say" anything aren't my concern. That's two steps backwards. Perhaps this will help...
Apple pies consist of apples, flour, and so forth. "Apple pies consist of apples" is not a problem, I presume. Meaningful experiences consist of thought and belief. Thought and belief consist of correlations. Thus... meaningful experience consists of correlations.
What's the problem? — creativesoul

My problem is the transition from apple pies to meaningful experiences. (By the way, I was wondering what a meaningless experience would be like; I can see that they would not consist of thought and belief - so what would they consist of?)
You seem to have assumed that because "apple pies consist of apples etc." is unproblematic you can substitue any noun for "apple pies" and give an unproblematic answer. But what do surfaces edges consist of? Does it make sense to say that rainbows consist of light waves or colours? What does the number 4 consist of? A recipe?
I agree that experiences are an important basis for thought and belief, though experiences, I think, are something that happens to me.
There are two slightly different senses of "thought". One makes it like "belief" in that I can believe that p and think that p; the other is an activity, so it is hard to see that experience can consist of thinking.
Belief and (thought that) is more like a state, rather than something that happens or that I do, so again, it doesn't seem plausible to think of it as a constituent of experience.

Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief, but I'm reluctant to say that a sentence/statement/proposition is a constituent of thought or belief (or knowledge), since thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition. This is why some people are so reluctant to admit that there is such a thing as thought/belief/knowledge without language.

Behaviour is not thought. Behaviour is not belief. Behaviour is not meaningful experience. — creativesoul

I agree. But behaviour (including linguistic behaviour, and behaviours like talking to oneself silently) does express one's thought, beliefs and experiences.

What's in dispute here is whether or not all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone. — creativesoul

I would be quite happy to give up any suggestion that experience consists of behaviour, in favour of the idea that experience is express by behaviour. What else, apart from behaviour, could meaningful experience consist of? What else, apart from behaviour could express experience?

Furthermore, I'm positing that all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of correlations between different things drawn by a creature so capable. I'm arguing in favor of that. — creativesoul

Well, in the same way that different kinds of thing have different kinds of constituent, so there are different kinds of correlation. For example, it is common to say that there is a difference between correlation and causation. But it is puzzling to understand 2+2=4 as a correlation.

Thought, belief, and/or knowledge is not a description. Some folk say that dogs are somehow, someway, doing calculus when they catch a ball. I say that that's bad thinking. Conflating mathematical descriptions(calculus) for knowing how to catch a ball. — creativesoul

But thought, belief and knowledge all require a description to explain what is thought, believed of known. Still, I think most people will agree with you about the dog. But most people then find themselves puzzled about how the dog knows where the ball will land. That's the point.

Other creatures capable of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience are utterly incapable of comparing their own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all. Knowing better requires having done so. Hence, they cannot know better. — creativesoul

Surely, when a dog approaches its food bowl, sniffs it and walks away despondently, the dog is comparing its hope that there is food in the bowl with reality and recognizing the difference.

There is no good reason to attribute thinking to creatures that do not have very similar relevant biological structures. — creativesoul

There I agree with you.

Being able to read thoughts and feelings are very different attributes. Humans discern the thoughts of other humans through choice of words, tone of voice, body language, facial expression and the little 'tells' when we're bluffing or lying. — Vera Mont

cultural mannerisms — Vera Mont

read our emotions — Vera Mont

It has nothing to do with theory; — Vera Mont

No, you’re right, “theory of mind” does not have to do with reading sensory clues, or recognizing emotional states, which is what you are describing. The theory is something we create in our minds about the mental state of another, by making inferences about these sensory clues that we pick up. Because we have a theory of mind, we don’t stop at “He’s sad.” Or “He’s mad.” We take it further and form theories in our minds about what the sensory clues mean > “He’s mad about this….” Or “He’s sad about this …” Or “He wants me to do this …” Or “He doesn’t want me to do this …”

You use your theory of mind every time you make an inference about the mental state of another – like reading a mind. Sometimes, these inferences are correct, and sometimes they are not.

Sneaking in the requirement to "fully understand" makes it exclusively human — Vera Mont

You’re right, it was a poor choice of word, unless it is limited to “our personal understanding.”

(Lol, I’m not trying to be sneaky.)

Like human mobs at a lynching or cattle in a stampede? No, that's not very much like empathy. — Vera Mont

It doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Smiles are contagious.

It's one explanation. And gods are one explanation for why humans exist. We're good at making up explanations, either from fact or fantasy; other animals are not. That's another distinction to add to the list. — Vera Mont

Why humans exist? Or the entire universe?

And when we make up an explanation for existence that involves a supernatural being with specific characteristics – whether we imagine he is a loving god, or a vengeful god, or whatever – we are using our theory of mind to infer what is in the mind of that god.

We can read the thoughts and feelings of a fictional character from the speech and manner of an actor, while the actor himself thinks and feels quite differently. — Vera Mont

Interesting observation. Yes, if the signals sent are false, then your inference about what is in the mind of another will most likely also be false.

You use your theory of mind every time you make an inference about the mental state of another – like reading a mind. Sometimes, these inferences are correct, and sometimes they are not. — Questioner

Yes. But how is that empathy?

It doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Smiles are contagious. — Questioner

It doesn't have to be dramatic; people also yawn when they see others doing it; a giggle fit can engulf the entire table. Mirror neurons firing at random. Still not empathy.

Why humans exist? Or the entire universe? — Questioner

Whatever. Gods have been used as stop-gap explanations for lots of things we didn't know, and are still used as a explanation for misfortune, the weather, altruism and the supremacy of man over all of creation. But their main function is to replace the all-powerful father figure from childhood.

And when we make up an explanation for existence that involves a supernatural being with specific characteristics – whether we imagine he is a loving god, or a vengeful god, or whatever – we are using our theory of mind to infer what is in the mind of that god. — Questioner

By projecting there whatever is in the mind of whichever kind of man invented that god.

Yes, if the signals sent are false, then your inference about what is in the mind of another will most likely also be false. — Questioner

And that is why humans can lie so much more elaborately and sustainably (sometimes an entire lifetime, sometimes even to themselves) than any other species, and more convincingly to one another than to any other species.
But false signals, feigning and misdirection are not exclusively human; we inherited the instinct and motivations for preverication from a long line of ancestors.

But how is that empathy? — Vera Mont

I didn't equate theory of mind to empathy. I said empathy is one trait that depends on theory of mind.

It doesn't have to be dramatic; people also yawn when they see others doing it; a giggle fit can engulf the entire table. Mirror neurons firing at random. Still not empathy. — Vera Mont

I never said it was. You are the one conflating emotional contagion for empathy.

Whatever. Gods have been used as stop-gap observations for lots of things we didn't know, and are still used as a explanation for misfortune, the weather, altruism and the supremacy of man over all of creation. — Vera Mont

Yes, our belief instinct is strong.

And that is why humans can lie so much more elaborately and sustainably (sometimes an entire lifetime, sometimes even to themselves) than any other species. But false signals, feigning and play-acting are not exclusively human; we inherited the instinct and motivations to preverication from a long line of ancestors. — Vera Mont

This is unconnected to any discussion about theory of mind.

Let me rephrase. There is a significant difference between our species and every other species.

Bats are the only mammals that can fly. I'm not saying bats are not mammals. — Patterner

Amazing what a difference a word can make. I think we have an agreement.

The scientific name for modern humans is Homo sapiens.
Explanation: "Homo" refers to the genus "human" and "sapiens" means "wise" in Latin, so "Homo sapiens" translates to "wise man"

Homo (from Latin homō 'human') is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus Australopithecus and encompasses only a single extant species, Homo sapiens (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called archaic humans) classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans; these include Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. The oldest member of the genus is Homo habilis, with records of just over 2 million years ago.[a] Homo, together with the genus Paranthropus, is probably most closely related to the species Australopithecus africanus within Australopithecus.[4] The closest living relatives of Homo are of the genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos), with the ancestors of Pan and Homo estimated to have diverged around 5.7-11 million years ago during the Late Miocene.[5]

I don't think that explanation comes up in any creation stories.

I said empathy is one trait that depends on theory of mind. — Questioner

And I say it doesn't. I say empathy predates theory of mind by many millennia.

"Homo sapiens" translates to "wise man"

We're also very big on wishful thinking.

I like the acknowledgement of evolutionary progression. However, thinking is something that we do. Thinking is existentially dependent upon certain biological structures that we have. We know that because we have observed and recorded the affects/effects that damaging those structures has on the mind and/or cognitive abilities of the injured. There is no good reason to attribute thinking to creatures that do not have very similar relevant biological structures. — creativesoul

This is from Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, by Antonio Damasio:

Sensing is not perceiving, and it is not constructing a “pattern” based on something else to create a “representation” of that something else and produce an “image” in mind. On the other hand, sensing is the most elementary variety of cognition. — Damasio

This is from Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam:

A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.

Accordingly, every mind requires a minimum of two thinking elements:
•​A sensor that responds to its environment
•​A doer that acts upon its environment

Some familiar examples of sensors that are part of your own mind include the photon-sensing rods and cones in your retina, the vibration-sensing hair cells in your ears, and the sourness-sensing taste buds on your tongue. A sensor interacts with a doer, which does something. A doer performs some action that impinges upon the world and thereby influences the body’s health and well-being. Common examples of doers include the twitchy muscle cells in your finger, the sweat-producing apocrine cells in your sweat glands, and the liquid-leaking serous cells in your tear ducts. — Ogas and Gaddam

Ogas and Gaddam soon talk about the roundworm. In addition to sensors and doers, the roundworm has two thinking elements. One neuron connects the sensors and the forward-moving doers, and activates the movers when the sensors say there is food ahead. Another neuron connects the sensors to the backward-moving doers, and activates the movers when the sensors say there is poison ahead. The stronger the signal a neuron gets from the sensor, the stronger the signal it sends to its mover.

Also, the two neurons inhibit each other. The stronger the signal a neuron receives from the sensor, the stronger it inhibits the other neuron.


The authors of these two books are calling it 'thinking' from the beginning. The roundworm is a step up. It is judging conflicting inputs, and choosing. It might be stretching the definitions of 'judging' and 'choosing'. And maybe it's stretching the definition to say "This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking." But all of this is, surely, the first stage of thinking. The sensors could evolve into eyes, or nose, or whatever. The movers could evolve into a tail, or legs, or whatever. But what connected them in the first ancient life evolved into our thinking. And, even if in only the most primitive sense, they are performing the same functions.

I don't think that explanation comes up in any creation stories. — Athena

Were you still speaking to me when you said this?

An important way in which humans differ from all other animals is our highly evolved "theory of mind" - a mental capacity that allows us to make inferences about the mental states of others. — Questioner

How do you know that non-human animals don't have a theory of mind? How do you know that other people have a theory of mind?
Since the theory of mind is posited as an essential prerequisite of empathy, it seems to follow that if somone (human) can interact appropriately with other people, they have a theory of mind. I suppose.
So, if some non-human animals can interact appropriately with various other animals, including human animals, does it not follow that they have a theory of mind?
I do agree, however, that generalization about the extent to which all animals can do that would be very dangerous. I don't think that a fly has any real grasp of humans as people; nor do fish - most of them, anyway.

Rather than empathy, what a dog is experiencing when he responds to your grief is emotional contagion, which is a response to emotions without fully understanding what the other individual is feeling. — Questioner

I thought that emotional contagion was sharing the emotions of others, as opposed to responding to their emotions. It's like the difference between treating a disease and catching it.

After I posted this, I came across a separate entry in Wikipedia - Wikipedia - Theory of mind in animals

The existence of theory of mind in non-human animals is controversial. On the one hand, one hypothesis proposes that some non-human animals have complex cognitive processes which allow them to attribute mental states to other individuals, sometimes called "mind-reading" while another proposes that non-human animals lack these skills and depend on more simple learning processes such as associative learning; or in other words, they are simply behaviour-reading.

In practice, these supposed different alternatives come down to the same process. There is no way to read a mind except by reading behaviour.

"This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking." But all of this is, surely, the first stage of thinking. — Patterner

Thank you for this. I agree that it is important in that it puts the relationship between knowing and doing at the heart of both. Philosophy has created endless fake problems for itself by focusing on the first and treating the second as an optional add-on. Suggesting that it is the "first stage" instead of insisting that it is either thinking or not is also an excellent nuance and very helpful. I shall remember about the roundworm (and, hopefully, where I learnt about it) for a long time.

I don't think that explanation comes up in any creation stories. — Athena

No, it doesn't. it is a new creation story, and the creation story of our time. It differs from all the others in that it lays itself open to evalutaion as true or false. Which seems to be a great improvement on the traditional varieties.

It is the kinds or complexity of language less thought that needs attention.
— creativesoul
It's getting plenty of attention from animal behaviorists. We're getting more and more studies of problem solving in both nature and laboratory conditions. — Vera Mont

Indeed, we are. I've watched a number of different 'documentaries' about animal minds and problem solving. What seems to be of philosophical importance, from my vantage point anyway, is how the narrators and/or authors report on the minds of the subjects. There is always a notion of "mind" at work.



[quote="Vera Mont;950478"Many rational thoughts we have are incapable of being formed, had, and/or held by language less creatures.
— creativesoul
And a great many irrational ones, as well...[/quote]

Agreed. The difficulty is in discriminating between which sorts of thoughts are existentially dependent upon language use and which ones are not. Those that are, cannot be formed, had, or held by language less creatures.