Yes, I'm concerned with mental ongoings as well. The position I'm taking is that we need to distinguish what type of mental ongings constitute belief, from those which are something other than belief. — Metaphysician Undercover
It seems that it is the human ability to think symbolically that allows for "holding beliefs"; where holding a belief is conceived of as being in an unchanging state of assent towards an absolutely fixed content. — Janus
That's why I said earlier that I think holding a belief could only consist in reciting one's belief as a stable formula while maintaining an unchanging attitude of of assent to it, or something along those lines. It seems that even in the human case the idea of holding a belief is an abstract idealization.
If people are conceived of as being able to hold beliefs in this kind of static sense, it would seem that they routinely do it without 'thinking about thinking', though, and that is why I said it has nothing to do, necessarily, with metacognition. Holding a belief, if the idea is sensible at all, would seem to be possible simply by virtue of the ability to think symbolically, but not otherwise.
Which is where Banno and Sam go astray in trying to treat the truth-makers as some uninterpreted ground of experience. — apokrisis
Banno is imagining that if he got out a ruler - a measurement in terms of some transcendent co-ordinate system - he could tell you how high a mountain "really was". Well he can tell you the results of a measurement act in terms of some world transcending viewpoint. But already he is imagining a measurement act in an ideal Platonia where mountains aren't eroding or still growing, or where he never makes an error as he lays his ruler end over end several thousand times, while trying to keep count. — apokrisis
The animal mind is embedded in the flow of the moment. It is responding directly to the here and now in terms of some adaptive system of conception and exploration. There is just no mechanism to transcend that flow. So an animal doesn't "hold beliefs" in that it could objectify a thought and wonder whether it is actually true or not. It just expresses a belief in interpreting the world a certain way. And the "truth" is then discovered in terms of the pragmatic consequences. The animal prospers or suffers. — apokrisis
So the measurables - the truthmakers - are not grounded in "the world", or even "our direct experience of the world". The truthmakers are grounded in our conception of how the world should look in terms of some set of signs, some set of measurements, that usefully converts a running temporal reality into the kind of timeless representation of reality that our theories of the world can deal with. — apokrisis
So... how do we know what Jack believes?
I mean, that's what it boils down to... — creativesoul
So... We think about our own thought and belief. That requires language. Thinking about thought and belief first requires that we form and/or hold thought and belief. Thus, we form and hold thought and belief prior to language. — creativesoul
If Jack cannot tell you what he believes, then what would lead you to think that Jack believes anything? — Metaphysician Undercover
Wouldn't it be much wiser to establish what all mental ongoings are existentially dependent upon? Wouldn't it serve our interests here more if we were to 'look' at every example imaginable, from imagining to dreaming to doubting to...
All of them. What do they all have in common in terms of their elemental constituency? — creativesoul
It's like saying that we can't know real truth, because as soon as anything happens it's in the past, and we can't be absolutety certain about what we've sensed, and our memories, so let's just define truth in terms of pragmatic consequences. — Metaphysician Undercover
So... We think about our own thought and belief. That requires language. Thinking about thought and belief first requires that we form and/or hold thought and belief. Thus, we form and hold thought and belief prior to language.
— creativesoul
So to think doesn’t require language, but to think about thinking does require language?
Doesn’t really work, does it. If thinking is thinking, it either does or doesn’t require language. So the usual equivocation at work here. — apokrisis
In closing, I'd only suggest that the reader steer clear of the likes of Charles Sanders Peirce. It seems that being able to understand and follow his line of thinking requires that which cannot be understood after doing so. — creativesoul
Which is where Banno and Sam go astray in trying to treat the truth-makers as some uninterpreted ground of experience. — apokrisis
Likewise Sam is imagining that the brain has "states". At some instant in time, you can take that instantaneous snapshot view which gives you a timeless representation of how the brain was, in a way that will forever after be recorded as such. — apokrisis
In particular, does it follow from the use of this shorthand that there must be a brain state that corresponds to Banno's belief that tomatoes are good; and further that this brain sate is distinct from and yet somehow responsible for all of those behaviours?
Or does that belief amount to nothing more than the collection of tomato-related behaviours? Including that internal soliloquy that just came up with this post... — Banno
Wouldn't it be much wiser to establish what all mental ongoings are existentially dependent upon? Wouldn't it serve our interests here more if we were to 'look' at every example imaginable, from imagining to dreaming to doubting to...
All of them. What do they all have in common in terms of their elemental constituency? — creativesoul
It's simply a term that refers to mental activity that precedes our actions, and I don't think that when philosophers and others use the term, that they had in mind some one-to-one correspondence between one's belief and a particular brain state. — Sam26
So if we think of brain states as generalized brain activity that precedes one's actions, and by extension one's beliefs, then we get a picture that these actions/beliefs don't arise in a vacuum. I think you would agree with this. So when you say, "...there must be a brain state that corresponds [with] Banno's belief that tomatoes are good;" I say, yes and no, which means, it depends on what you mean by corresponds with. If you mean some one-to-one correspondence, then no, I don't think that. If you mean that there is brain activity happening prior to your actions/beliefs then yes, but there is no brain state X that one can point to that says, ahhh, Banno believes Y. — Sam26
I never meant for the term brain states to be defined in a very precise manner (not that you're necessarily doing this). It's simply a term that refers to mental activity that precedes our actions, and I don't think that when philosophers and others use the term, that they had in mind some one-to-one correspondence between one's belief and a particular brain state. — Sam26
Sorry but I’m more familiar with the language games of neuroscientists than your private language. — apokrisis
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