Would you be conformable with saying that this synthetic (bottom-up obtained) and analytic (in cog.sci . terms: top-down attained, i.e. (genotypically) predetermined toward learned) conflux of meaning can be inherited in all things that can perceive?
For my part, I’m accustomed to using other terms to express such behavioral inheritance of meaning. But I’m curious to know how one would address this same form of inheritance of meaning(s) in lesser animals via formal epistemological philosophy—this such as via the synthetic / analytic distinction. — javra
You changed the example to be that I could know that two people were standing side by side but not know they were husband and wife — Hanover
He said that one could distinguish between two colors but not know that one was red. I still don't know what that means.
the Himba fail to see the full array of colors you do is because they live in a color deficient environment, and since they can't see those colors, they never created words for them. — Hanover
So sometimes language precedes knowledge, sometimes not. — Hanover
It dawned on me that there is a distinction between observing the world and performing logic on the world, but the two are always intertwined. I cannot just look at an object without imposing my sense of reason on it. That's what knowledge is. — Hanover
Recently, behavioural intelligence of the plasmodia of the true slime mold has been demonstrated1. It was shown that a large amoeba-like cell Physarum polycephalum subject to a pattern of periodic environmental changes learns and changes its behaviour in anticipation of the next stimulus to come.
Perhaps you could distinguish red from other colours before you learned the word. More likely you learned the word and the colour at the same time as you were encouraged to pick up the red block. — Banno
I did already take your position as you have clarified here, which is that you're not just claiming that I might know how to fix broken pipe without language, but that I can't even tell a pipe from a wrench without language.Is that just "knowing that..." against "knowing how..."? If so, my point is that this does not go far enough. "Knowing that..." is a form of "knowing how..."; knowing that the cup is red is just knowing how to distinguish that cup from other cups. Knowing that something is the case is just knowing how to use words correctly. — Banno
Would you say they know what a wrench is? — Banno
What might "a metaphysical reality" be? And "a separate energy source"? :oIf these experiences do reflect a metaphysical reality, as I believe they do, then it seems that consciousness itself doesn't reside in the body at all, but resides and is dependent upon a separate energy source. — Sam26
The extra stuff isn't quite the same as mind, as best I can tell. I tend to use mind as an umbrella-term, covering the likes of experiences, qualia, thinking, ideation, love/feelings, headaches, self-awareness, consciousness, all that.But why address this as “extra-stuff”. It is no more extra than is the mind-stuff causally tied into the brain-stuff. Question then is, can the normal stuff of mind yet be when separated from the normal stuff of body to which it is normally causally tied into. — javra
The sensation of the headache is mind stuff (and phenomenological, part of you); the scan is not mind (more empirical if you will, not part of you). Does that differentiation work? If yes, then what of that extra stuff?Suppose you’ve gotten yourself a headache. No aspirin at hand. Instead you go scan yourself, fMRI or whatever the latest may be, doesn’t really matter. You now have two different angles, the experience of the ache, and a visual overview of your gray matter (need not be visual alone). If only the angles differ, in an ontological sense, then what makes them different? Understanding the scan, in this context, would converge on understanding the headache; a straight identity is not readily available, or deducible. The headache itself is part of your self-experience, or, put simpler, just part of yourself — bound by (ontological) self-identity, regardless of any scans or whatever else. Others cannot have your headaches (identity), but others can check out the scans (non-identity). Hopefully the scan will not reveal a tumor or the likes, which would otherwise explain the headache.
The extra stuff isn't quite the same as mind, as best I can tell. I tend to use mind as an umbrella-term, covering the likes of experiences, qualia, thinking, love/feelings, headaches, self-awareness, consciousness, all that. [...] Does that differentiation work? If yes, then what of that extra stuff? — jorndoe
(The latter refers to some language, not necessarily the language in which the question is asked, but maybe specifying it matters more than I think.) — Srap Tasmaner
I am not getting your point. — Srap Tasmaner
Hanover seems to think that an ape that uses a wrench to fix a leaking pipe knows what a wrench is. — Banno
Either we say that unless you know everything about wrenches then you now nothing about wrenches, or we say if you know something about wrenches, then you know, in part, what wrenches are. — Hanover
Does this mean that knowledge of the wrench is dependent on language? — Hanover
Show that one can use a spanner and an adjustable wrench and a pipe wrench does not tell us how each of these is related in such a way that the one word can be applied to all. That requires language. — Banno
What sort of thing is a concept, apart from what shows in behaviour? — Banno
This is very interesting. In my experience we often tend to assume in the intellectual landscape that Westerners are the Cartesians, and Indians (Buddhists, Hindus, etc.) are the monists who espouse unity of body-mind. That's why in Chan Buddhism there is the namarupa - mind-body. Is this understanding a Westernized version of Asian culture you would say?Of course nowadays it is simply assumed by most folks that mind is an attribute or quality of body, rather than vice versa, but in my view that is very much a cultural construct. My Indian Studies lecturer used to point out that Westerners say of someone who died, that he 'gave up the ghost' whereas Indians tend to say he 'gave up the body'. — Wayfarer
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