Are you suggesting that animals might imagine alternative scenarios? — Janus

No. I would agree they need linguistic structure to flesh out alternatives to that degree - scenarios in which they themselves feature as actors.

My point is that I wouldn't die in a ditch trying to defend some overly specific defintion of "belief". It is a generic kind of word.

So if an animal shows clear signs of being surprised, confused, taken aback, having to think again, then that is good enough for me to show that there was prior to that some reasonable inductive expectation in place in their mind.

And from the point of psychological theory, that way of processing the world is of fundamental importance. Animal neurobiology is set up just like the scientific method. By forming habits of anticipation, we can then ignore the world as much as possible and so insert "ourselves" into the equation as actors with freedoms.

This flips the usual Kantian representational view, or correspondence theories of truth, on their head. So it is important to emphasise this aspect of belief in animal cognition as it then confirms a Peircean continuity of nature when it comes to basic epistemic method. Brains already reason like scientists are meant to.

Cheryl Misak summed it up nicely in Truth and the End of Inquiry...

"It is important to remember that the constraint on belief imposed by experience is a negative one. The world affects our beliefs not by our finding out positive things about it, but rather, by providing recalcitrant or surprising things which upset an expectation produced by a belief. The role which the world plays is not one of providing something for our beliefs to correspond to, but rather, one of letting us know when we have a belief that conflicts with it."

It is symbolic language which enables abstraction — Janus

Yep, @Pseudonym is only talking about indexical or iconic semiosis here in regard to animal communication. Symbols are a whole different thing. Syntactical mechanism - an epistemic cut - displaces the meanings from the world being referenced.

Abstraction speaks to this step from the physically embodied situation - the emotional hoot and holler, or the friendly wag of the tail - to a second-order story where there is now a "self" in control of the "information".

If a dog could feign a happy tail wag in order to fool another dog so as to achieve some other purpose, then we would have the start of a symbolic or abstract level of semiosis.

But just wagging a tail out of engrained biological habit is merely an indexical level of sign. It indicates a mood that other dogs can reliably interpret. The dog does not have the self-hood that might mean this tail-wagging could conceal a further counterfactual surprise.

My point is that I wouldn't die in a ditch trying to defend some overly specific defintion of "belief". It is a generic kind of word. — apokrisis

I agree with everything else you say in this post; I am really just arguing for the usefulness of distinctions between different kinds of believing in pre-linguistic and linguistic contexts. Perhpas it would be better to say that animals (and pre-linguistic humans) associate and expect than to say they believe, and to reserve the term 'believe' for linguistic contexts.

I agree with everything else you say in this post; I am just arguing for the usefulness of distinctions between different kinds of believing. — Janus

Actually, I think it would be more productive to differentiate these so-called "different kinds of believing" as something other than believing. This forces us to describe them and determine the differences, and why they are other than "believing", instead of just asserting that these different types of mental conditions are really all the same, as forms of "believing".

I am really just arguing for the usefulness of distinctions between different kinds of believing in pre-linguistic and linguistic contexts. — Janus

A distinction would be useful. But making a sharp distinction is also really difficult as the linguistically structured human mind never actually abandons its non-linguistic animal roots. It just builds new floors on the old foundations.

So I sympathise with the project. It is one that I share. But you are coming up against the problem that animals are just animals, then humans are linguistically-structured - yet still, linguistically-structured animals.

It is like asking if animals have memories. Sure they do. But they have recognition memories and not recollective or autobiographical memories. They have memories that are ecologically embedded in the here and now - and so support recognition - rather than memories which are displaced in time and place via a socially-constructed notion of "being a self with a personal narrative."

So belief is more usefully the generic term - an umbrella term like memory. Then we would want to make a distinction that gets at a reliable experimental difference. I focus on recognition vs recollection as cogsci experiments reveal the vastly different "capacities" involved. We can recognise a truly vast variety of once seen slides. But we can only recall a dozen at best - and usually the first and last of a sequence of some thousands.

I haven't really thought about "belief" in that cogsci light. But there ought to be some similarly striking way to get at the difference between the "pure animal" form of the capacity and its "linguistically-structured human extra".

Anyway, my point is that most people just speak past the critical animal vs human mental difference. So we do need a distinction that picks out the difference. But then that distinction has to arise out of a scientific model of the situation. And that is the approach I try to follow.

Yes, in fact I was in the process of editing that post to add that maybe it would be better not to say that animals and pre-linguistic humans believe but that they associate and expect. Unfortunately we had a power outage here and I lost the edit.

Ha ha, hope you don't mind if I laugh about that.

We can see that belief is a mental thing, and there are other mental things like thinking, remembering, and anticipating. I would associate belief with remembering. I think the same type of conviction whereby we remember things, is the type of conviction which is fundamental to belief. Thinking itself, being an activity of change, and considering various options, doesn't seem to be consistent with "belief", which is to hold an unchanging thought. And anticipation seems to have doubt inherent within it, so it doesn't seem to be consistent with belief either. Perhaps belief is a special type of remembering.

And anticipation seems to have doubt inherent within it, so it doesn't seem to be consistent with belief either. — Metaphysician Undercover

So beliefs can't be weak and strong? Beliefs aren't by nature probabilistic and so held with various degrees of conviction? There is some "degree of doubt" that is inherent for good reason. It helps to know that we don't know as well as to be sure that we do know.

it would be better not to say that animals and pre-linguistic humans believe but that they associate and expect. — Janus

I agree that homing in on expectation makes the right distinction in that it then stresses the future-facing nature of a habit of belief.

So the animal mind is embodied in its ecological setting - carried along in an ever-unfolding present. And that means it is always in a state of expectation about what might happen next. Surprises reveal that its belief system needs updating.

And then symbolically displaced or abstracted human thought can lift itself out of this relentless flow of the present. We can form expectations that transcend their ties to the immediacy of our actual time and place. They can become propositional beliefs in that they are disconnected from our material state of being - the here and now of what we have to do to navigate our immediate physical circumstance - and now exist in the realm of the purely imaginary.

They are statements that can be shared with other selves, other minds. And statements that can relate even to ourselves in "other circumstances" - alternative realities.

Ha ha, hope you don't mind if I laugh about that. — Metaphysician Undercover

Luckily it was not much work that I lost, so I am happy for you to laugh about it to your heart's content. :smile:

I am not clear though on how you think belief could be equivalent to memory, although belief certainly relies on memory.

And that means it is always in a state of expectation about what might happen next. Surprises reveal that its belief system needs updating. — apokrisis

That raises an interesting question. If something happens most of the time, for example, let's say lions have never been at the waterhole first thing in the morning, but suddenly lions start appearing at the waterhole first thing in the morning, but only occasionally; does the gazelle revise her expectation that lions will not be at the waterhole first thing in the morning, or continue to expect that they will not be there. Presumably she will not think 'they may or may not be there' but she will become just a tad more wary.

Presumably she will not think 'they may or may not be there' but she will become just a tad more wary. — Janus

Like I replied to MU, do you think that beliefs can only speak of absolute certainties? If they are Bayesian expectations concerning probabilities then they are more accurate if they capture something true about the inherent uncertainties of life.

This again highlights a fundamental difference in metaphysical outlook. If you take a constraints-based view of ontology, like Peirce, then reality is inherently spontaneous or uncertain. It only become regular and predictable to the degree that unpredictability is regulated by habits, laws or past history.

So the argument is the world itself is inherently unpredictable (as quantum mechanics demonstrates at a fundamental physical level). And brains evolved to be Bayesian reasoning devices as that is the probabilistic logic - the constraints-based approach - which reflects the way the world itself works.

So the problem would be in believing "belief" to be deficient to the degree that it fails to speak with absolute definiteness about a world that is absolutely definite - the familiar position Banno takes in his naive realism.

Instead, we are in the contrary position where the world is inherently probabilistic and any entity seeking autonomous being through a modelling relation with that world would be wise to mirror the constraints-based probabilistic structure of that world. We wouldn't want to be doing information processing like an input-crunching computer, for instance.

So a gazelle would take a Bayesian approach - one that is "selfish" in terms of including its own needs in terms of a risk/reward assessment of waterhole safety.

If the lions are always there, but it is the only place to drink, then that is a problem that is going to have to be solved somehow - as the alternative is simply two different ways of dying.

The smartest thing to do is then to approach the waterhole in as wary a fashion as possible. If the gazelle had enough brains, it might be able to work out the best time is when the lions are just eating one of its friends. The sight of a pride of lions chowing down and occupied might become the basis of a new belief about when to approach a waterhole.

A counter example to uncertainty leading to wariness is the kind of behaviour that animals show when the world seems to present no recognised threat.

Check out lions in a zoo. It is damn near impossible to get them to notice you as a visitor standing outside the cage. Likewise in the wild where the presence of a human does not signal any kind of traditional threat - the story of the dodo.

The way the brain works, we don't even notice the world that doesn't matter. The fridge in the kitchen hums the whole time and we don't ever hear it. The hum may as well not exist. But when the hum suddenly stops - your power goes out perhaps - then suddenly that is a significant fact showing you did have some kind of running expectation about the noise being there after all.

So our beliefs have to be able to be accurately tuned to the way the world really is. And the way the world is can range from the continuous to the intermittent, from the possible to the certain, from the vague to the definite.

Propositional belief would seem to be a special class of belief in that context - belief that is somehow either absolutely right or wrong, and not merely constrained in its ambiguities or uncertainties. That is certainly how naive realists would go about it. But Pragmatism would say the world actually is probabilistic and so an accurate description of it would be accurate in terms of the objective ambiguity or uncertainty it can attach to any truth value.

So beliefs can't be weak and strong? Beliefs aren't by nature probabilistic and so held with various degrees of conviction? There is some "degree of doubt" that is inherent for good reason. It helps to know that we don't know as well as to be sure that we do know. — apokrisis

I agree, doubt is inherent within belief because we know that we are never beyond the possibility of mistake. But I think that what separates belief from similar mental content which is not belief, is the conviction that there is a low possibility of mistake. This conviction is tied up with temporal extension such that a longer period of time without mistake reinforces the conviction.

I am not clear though on how you think belief could be equivalent to memory, although belief certainly relies on memory. — Janus

I didn't say belief is equivalent to memory. I said that of the different mental conditions which I could think of, thinking, memory, and anticipation, belief seems to be most closely related to memory. So it may be like a special type of memory, not equivalent to memory though.

But I think the relationship between belief and memory is more than just belief relying on memory. Belief relies on thinking, and it relies on anticipation, in the same way that memory relies on thinking, and memory relies on anticipation. So belief is more closely related to memory than it is to thinking and anticipation, even though it relies on these things.

I agree, doubt is inherent within belief because we know that we are never beyond the possibility of mistake. But I think that what separates belief from similar mental content which is not belief, is the conviction that there is a low possibility of mistake. This conviction is tied up with temporal extension such that a longer period of time without mistake reinforces the conviction. — Metaphysician Undercover

So isn't this just pragmatism? You are now thinking of a belief as a proposition - a hypothesis that, if true, would have expectable consequences. You are breaking down the three-part method for forming a reasonable and justified belief - abduction, deduction, inductive confirmation - into its components and labelling the first bit, the leap to a hypothesis that makes predictions, as "the belief". And that separates it from "the justification".

Fair enough. And that goes to the disembodied way that linguistically-scaffolded humans can learn to speak about how they think. We can learn the trick of understanding "a state of believing" to devolve into these three essential steps. That is how we can objectify "what we believe", and the extent to which "it is justified", even to ourselves. We can point to the hypothesis, its expectable consequences, and the degree that our predictions are not false.

So all I say is that animals can't of course speak objectively in a way that clearly separates a belief from its justification. But the basic psychological structure is the same in that the brain is naturally wired up to work like that - to form general expectancies, to then make particular predictions, and then finally to revisit habits of belief when error correction becomes needed.

So isn't this just pragmatism? You are now thinking of a belief as a proposition - a hypothesis that, if true, would have expectable consequences. You are breaking down the three-part method for forming a reasonable and justified belief - abduction, deduction, inductive confirmation - into its components and labelling the first bit, the leap to a hypothesis that makes predictions, as "the belief". And that separates it from "the justification". — apokrisis

Right, but "the justification" may or may not be composed of other beliefs, or may be partially composed of beliefs and partially composed of other things. So the strength of the justification depends on the strength of the beliefs used in the justification, such that if things other than beliefs are used to justify, then the justification is weak. That's why feelings and intuitions don't make good justification, though they are often used.

So all I say is that animals can't of course speak objectively in a way that clearly separates a belief from its justification. But the basic psychological structure is the same in that the brain is naturally wired up to work like that - to form general expectancies, to then make particular predictions, and then finally to revisit habits of belief when error correction becomes needed. — apokrisis

I think that what separates belief from the other psychological capacities which you refer to, is the temporal persistence. We must be able to maintain the same idea for an extended period of time in order to bring about the effect of inductive confirmation. This is why words are necessary, words have the capacity to fix the idea, to a much greater extent than is possible by simply remembering images. Images shift and change, and become vague very quickly. With words ideas become inter-subjective and this provides the temporal extension which is necessary to strengthen an idea into a belief.

Now you are talking about mental "objects" like feelings, intuitions, images, etc. You are conceptualising the mind as some kind of stage across which various kinds of actors come and go.

But does this really carve up the mind at its joints once you get into a systems-style understanding of neurocognition? Is there an imagery faculty, an intuition faculty, a feelings faculty, all making their individual contributions to the activity being witnessed in this theatre of conscious experience?

I think not. If our models of neurocognition can't rid us of this Cartesian theatre metaphor - this uber-representationalism - we have failed.

But does this really carve up the mind at its joints once you get into a systems-style understanding of neurocognition? Is there an imagery faculty, an intuition faculty, a feelings faculty, all making their individual contributions to the activity being witnessed in this theatre of conscious experience? — apokrisis

Perhaps we cannot carve up the mind because that would kill the person, but we can make these distinctions in principle to help us understand, just like we can make distinctions on the visible spectrum, and say "blue" and "red" are particular ranges of wavelength, when in reality, the colours we see are all combinations. Likewise, neurocognition, as it exists consists of all these features together, but we can separate them out, in principle, to help us understand.

I haven't denied that animals are capable of signaling in quite complex ways, but any assertion like the one underlined would need to be supported by strong argument. — Janus

It is supported by strong arguments. 20 years of scientific research into animal communication. Thousands of recordings analysed and matched to very subtle behavioural clues as to the mental states of the animal involved by people far more qualified to make such judgements than you or I.

Notwithstanding the above, I take issue with your anthropocentric assertion that it would need to be supported by a very strong argument. Why? Why is it not the case that the idea that human beings are magically endowed with some special powers unavailable to other animals is the one requiring a 'very strong argument' to support it?

it would be a perversion of the term "belief' to say that she therefore necessarily believes that the sky is blue. — Janus

The whole point of this discussion is about the meaning of the term belief. To suggest anything would be a 'perversion' of the term begs the question. We're asking what the term means, we cannot dismiss options on the grounds that they would be a 'perversion' of what the term means in the middle of such an investigation, it makes the whole matter pointless. If you already know for a fact what belief's are then why are you taking part?

I don't think it is plausible that a percipient could form such an abstract concept in the absence of linguistic capacity. In any case how could we ever know that they were able to formulate abstract concepts in the absence of symbolic language? — Janus

These two statements are self-contradictory. In the first you claim that it is not plausible that something could form an abstract concept in the absence of linguistic capacity, then you state that we would know whether they had or not anyway. Well if the second conclusion is true, how have you formed the first other than through anthropocentric prejudice.

The whole argument seems to be of the form -

"Animals can't form beliefs because they don't have language"
- "But animals do seem to have a language capable of communicating abstract concepts such as beliefs"
"They can't have"
- " Why not?"
" Because animals can't form beliefs"

It is significant that in your second paragraph above you place "believe" between inverted commas; it seems to show that you are not counting it as fully fledged belief. — Janus

No, the use of inverted commas indicates that the term has a disputed meaning, I'm acknowledging that we do not agree on it.

If a dog could feign a happy tail wag in order to fool another dog so as to achieve some other purpose, then we would have the start of a symbolic or abstract level of semiosis. — apokrisis

Try;
Mitchell, Robert W.; Thompson, Nicholas S. (1986). Deception, Perspectives on Human and Nonhuman Deceit.
Byrne, R.; Whiten. A. (1991). Computation and mindreading in primate tactical deception. In Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development and Simulation of Everyday Mindreading. Whiten, A. (ed.). pp. 127-141. Cambridge: Basil blackwell
Byrne, Richard; Whiten, A. (1985). "Tactical deception of familiar individuals in baboons (Papio ursinus)". Animal Behaviour. 33 (2): 669–673.
Byrne, Richard; Corp, Nadia (2004). "Neocortex size predicts deception rate in primates". The Royal Society. 271: 1693–1699
Simmons, R (1992). "Brood adoption and deceit among African marsh harriers, Circus ranivorus". Ibis. 134: 32–34
Bugnyarf, T.; Kotrschal, K. (2002). "Observational learning and the raiding of food caches in ravens, Corvus corax: is it 'tactical' deception?". Animal Behaviour. 64: 185–195
Byrne, R. and whiten. A., (1991). Computation and mindreading in primate tactical deception. In Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development and Simulation of Everyday Mindreading.
deWaal, F., (1986). Deception in the natural communication of chimpanzees. In Deception: Perspectives on Human and Non-human Deceit. Mitchell, (ed.). pp. 221-224
Kirkpatrick, C., (2007). Tactical deception and the great apes: Insight into the question of theory of mind,"
Byrne, Richard; Whiten (1985). "Tactical deception of familiar individuals in baboons (Papio ursinus)". Animal Behaviour. 33 (2): 669–673.
Wheeler, Brandon (2009). "Monkeys crying wolf? Tufted". The Royal Society. 276: 3013–3018
Miles, H. L. (1986). How can I tell a lie? Apes, language, and the problem of deception. Deception: Perspectives on human and nonhuman deceit, 245-266.

Yes, I’m familiar with the literature thanks. My opinion is that you overstate your case.

Yes, I’m familiar with the literature thanks. My opinion is that you overstate your case. — apokrisis

Yes, don't let's allow evidence to get in the way of our opinions, I must have forgotten where I was for a minute.

Did you have an example of animal deception that involved abstract symbolism rather than indexical or iconic signs?

I am not arguing against borderline examples. I am setting out the nature of the difference.

Chimps of course get close to the use of private signs that are semi symbolic. One of de Waal’s chimps held out her hand clasped in the other as a begging motion. That is indexical going on symbolic in having a new element of ritual or repetition. But it didn’t catch on as a group symbol - syntactic structure with habitual meaning.

So again, I am familiar with the literature. Evolution of language was what I was studying about 35 years ago. If you have specific examples to discuss, bring them on.

I can find the papers for you when I am back in the office tomorrow morning, but if you studied the matter, you must at least be familiar with predator calls, which are entirely symbolic, and their deceptive use in resource exploitation?

if you studied the matter, you must at least be familiar with predator calls, which are entirely symbolic, — Pseudonym

Again, I'm not disputing that there are numerous borderline cases. And so the question then becomes, why a sudden and vast human difference?

It's an open question. I don't think that it has been adequately answered.

But we do know stuff like that the great apes can be taught vocabs of a few hundred words and yet vocab learning never "takes off" in the exponential fashion it does in infant Homo sapiens. And grammatical structure never becomes a natural habit in the easy and fluent fashion it does for all humans.

Likewise there was a fairly sudden transition to symbolic culture in Homo sapiens' history. The wearing of jewellery and the painting of caves. That picture has become muddied now that the evidence is shifting to credit Neanderthals with greater symbolic culture. But still, this is another pointer towards a genuine transition from a pre-abstract, pre-symbolic, pre-syntactic, animal condition to the full-blown, free and easy, human level of linguistic semiosis.

So what I am reacting against is the one note tone of your posts. You seem only concerned about minimising the scale of the evolutionary transition here. I agree that there is plenty of evidence of some continuity in regards to language use or symbolic thought. And indeed, animals are far closer than most people think once science looks in detail.

But then there is the other side to this debate - the fact that human language use and symbolic thought becomes as different as night and day. And that raises the question of exactly what explains the strength of this sharp difference? We need the further theory that accounts for that.

I'm happy to discuss the possible evolutionary mechanisms. But first we would have to move beyond the simplistic arguments based on there being an actual borderline where animals employ sign - and even employ it deceptively or counterfactually.

Yes, perhaps that surprises some. But then that use remains rooted in the here and now of an ecological context. Nothing has changed in a big way. It is only with humans that something explosive happens and sign becomes the tool of thought itself. We find ourselves in a different game.

Presumably she will not think 'they may or may not be there' but she will become just a tad more wary. — Janus


Like I replied to MU, do you think that beliefs can only speak of absolute certainties? — apokrisis

I'm not getting the connection between what you quote from me here and your question.

To answer generally: I don't think beliefs can speak of absolute certainties at all. For example I am absolutely certain that I see a blue sky; belief simply doesn't enter into it. Note, though, that when I say I am absolutely certain I see a blue sky, I am not making any claim about what is causing that seeing.

But I think the relationship between belief and memory is more than just belief relying on memory. Belief relies on thinking, and it relies on anticipation, in the same way that memory relies on thinking, and memory relies on anticipation. So belief is more closely related to memory than it is to thinking and anticipation, even though it relies on these things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I wasn't suggesting that there is a simple one way relationship of dependence between memory and belief. It could be said that memory is dependent on belief, in the sense that I must believe my memories to be accurate. But I prefer to say that I know (some of) my memories are accurate. I really don't like to talk in terms of belief at all except when it comes to speculative matters, and even there I prefer to talk about judgement than belief. How do we know what we know? We know by experiencing ourselves knowing. Knowing, in the absolute sense of deductive certitude, is possible only in a very limited ambit.

For example I am absolutely certain that I see a blue sky; belief simply doesn't enter into it. — Janus

This seems just like word play over definitions.

In my approach, it is all one process - a sign relation with the world, a modelling relation with the world. And so I don't really get this business of trying to chop things up into beliefs vs certainties vs whatevers. Sure we can emphasise different aspects of the whole process in our jargon, but it becomes word play to die in a ditch over unnecessarily disconnected definitions.

So here, is it your belief that the sky is blue? Is your certainty about what you will see if you check not the justification of this belief when propositionally framed?

To say belief simply doesn't enter into it is to make the point that when you are looking and seeing a blue sky, then there is a level at which you are modelling the world - the biological level of perception - which is clearly distinct from the linguistic level where you might be talking about the fact of this biological level of modelling.

Rightfully speaking, your belief would concern the fact that there is this "you", and it is experiencing certain qualia - namely a "sky" that is a certain general hue which you label "blue". But then - to sustain your point - you want to set all that linguistic framing aside and pretend there is only the naked experiencing of a blue sky with no doubt involved, and hence no belief either.

Which you should realise is a meta-cognitive position. It is the linguistic self imagining what it would be like to be a non-linguistic self, and then insisting in speech that it actually is just like that. You have adopted a model of the phenomenal self that you insist is the reality - despite knowing it to be a linguistically framed model of "raw feels with no believing involved".

As a form of denial, it is pretty elaborate.

But then - to sustain your point - you want to set all that linguistic framing aside and pretend there is only the naked experiencing of a blue sky with no doubt involved, and hence no belief either. — apokrisis

No, that is not what I was saying. I am just as absolutely certain that I am a linguistic being whose cognition is mediated by that fact, as I am that I see a blue sky.

I am just as absolutely certain that I am a linguistic being whose cognition is mediated by that fact, as I am that I see a blue sky. — Janus

So are you proposing that "absolute certainty" as a verifiable fact or not? Is your willingness to act in accordance with that belief the evidence required by the social construction involved?

There are two views in play here.

The naive realist just thinks linguistic framing can be stripped away to leave some kind of direct and unmediated phenomenology exposed, like the seabed after the tide has gone out. I am arguing - counter to that - that the best we can do is to ascend to a meta-linguistic frame in which there is now the self that is seen to have a linguistic framing wrapped around their raw animalistic consciousness.

This is why I would draw attention to the "I" that you mention as the being that is by turns, linguistic or experiential. This "I" that is suddenly so certain in an apparently direct and unmediated fashion.

Can you explain the presence of this "I-ness"? My explanation is that it is arises semiotically as part of the modelling relation. It is the necessary "other" to the construction of "the world". A naive realist, by contrast - as Banno continually demonstrates - just takes this "I" for granted. And so from there we wind up in all the confusions of Cartesian dualism and an idealist metaphysics of mind.

Can you explain the presence of this "I-ness"? — apokrisis

I would say the "I-ness" is the fundamental fact upon which all other knowledge turns. It cannot be explained because it is the ground of all explanation.

Yes, the world is the ineliminable "other" to the I, it is what-is-to-be explained and the I is what-explains.

Of course our modeling of the world is inevitably dualistic in the sense that there are those two poles of explained and explainer, but there is a third element; the relation between the two poles: the explanation. So the unity of reality is really a trinity.

I would say the "I-ness" is the fundamental fact upon which all other knowledge turns. It cannot be explained because it is the ground of all explanation. — Janus

So that is where we would differ then.

Of course our modeling of the world is inevitably dualistic in the sense that there are those two poles of explained and explainer, but there is a third element; the relation between the two poles: the explanation. So the unity of reality is really a trinity. — Janus

Well that is the semiotic position I take. And it serves to generalise this "I-ness" in a suitable fashion. The I-ness becomes as much a problem for physics as neuroscience. It becomes a generic issue of knowledge.

So again, there are two choices here. Either you take I-ness at face value - the face value it now has within our dualising culture which speaks of "consciousness" as some kind of ultimate substance. Or you instead step back to see this as the most general metaphysical issue of all - the dichotomy of the observer and the observable which has to be resolved in the pan-semiotic generality of a sign relation metaphysics.

You seem to be arguing for these two opposed approaches as if they were the same thing. One treats consciousness or experience as ineffably subjective - beyond inquiry. The other just gets on with building a meta-level objective theory - making it the subject of an inquiry.