"Taking to be the case" does not seem to me to need include "giving one's attention to"... — Banno
The cow/brick metaphor doesn't work for you - perhaps cows and bricks are too similar. Let's try cows and assets. You have a cow that is an asset. I'm pointing out that not all cows are assets, and not all assets are cows.
So for some purposes it does make perfect sense to talk of cows using the term "asset". But not for all. — Banno
you're asserting that not all cows are assets. I'm asking you for some evidence or line of reasoning to back up that assertion. — Isaac
If you want to say the solidity of the floor is not represented in its brain you are just flat out wrong about that. — Isaac
What role does the tree play in an individual's belief about the tree? The tree is an irrevocable elemental constituent of all belief about trees according to the position I'm advocating for/from. It's one of the elements within the correlation itself. Trees are one part of the correlations drawn between them and other things. Without trees, there can be no belief about them. — creativesoul
I would say that. Does the above hold true regardless? — creativesoul
Our language is made up of many kinds of beliefs that can be called foundational or even bedrock, but not all foundational beliefs have the same structural significance. For example, what's foundational to a chess game (the pieces, the board, and the rules) doesn't have the same significance in our life as the bedrock belief "This is my hand." In terms of structure (as in a building) "This is my hand," is a bedrock belief/proposition, i.e., it's structurally more significant than what's foundational to a game of chess — Sam26
I may be completely off the mark here but you seem to be surprised by how "foundational" beliefs differ with domain and that some of them are, in your words, "structurally more significant". Could it be, is it possible, that you're under the spell of, in a Wittgensteinian sense bewitched by, language? — TheMadFool
if you wanted to present an argument that the tendency to treat the floor as if it were solid was not represented somehow in the brain of the animal, you'd have to provide an alternative explanation for the effect of changes to the F5 region in treatment of object shape and density. — Isaac
I am not the only philosopher who has raised the issue of pre-linguistic beliefs, there are others. However, it is not something that is prevalent. It is good to think outside the box, but often we are wrong; sometimes we get it right, but it takes a while for the idea to catch on. — Sam26
If I was to boil all of this down into one fundamental thing, it would have to do with the nature of belief, i.e., what do we mean by belief? How do we normally use the word belief in a variety of contexts, we would have to look at it in terms of its Wittgensteinian grammar. — Sam26
You're saying that not all beliefs can be thought of as their equivalent neural architecture — Isaac
How does the cat (a biological entity - if we're being physicalist) 'take the floor to be solid' without doing so using it's brain in some representative way? I'm not seeing what route you'd like to take here. — Isaac
We should note the new caveat "which directly influence behaviour". So if there were beliefs that did not directly influence behaviour...? Then, there would be beliefs that are not the equivalent of some neurological architecture... which was to be proved.All beliefs which directly influence behaviour can be talked about in terms of their neural architecture, there aren't any exceptions. — Isaac
If you want to say the solidity of the floor is not represented in its brain you are just flat out wrong about that. Models of the solidity, consistency and constancy of objects are not only located in the brain but we've a very good idea exactly where they are and how they work. — Isaac
Ah, is that it? Yes, the monkey treats the surface uncertainly - he appears to have lost his belief in solidity! Has he lost his belief that this surface is solid, or has he lost his belief that any surface is solid? OR have you just "deleted" the concept of solidity....? There's a bit more to be done until you can lay claim to these particular neurones being the very belief that this ball is solid! But this is impressive stuff; no need to overstate your case so!Well, within the F5 region of the motor sensory area in the cerebral cortex there are 85 neural clusters which code for hands and feet responding in different ways to different shapes and densities of the surface they are about to contact with. Disrupting these areas causes the hands (or feet) of monkeys to treat the surface they are about to interact with as if it were of uncertain shape or density. With these regions acting normally, the hands or feet responded to the surface as if it were the shape and density it actually was. — Isaac
The only way out I can see is to include, in the set of beliefs, all negative beliefs. That because I walk without a crash helmet, home from work, I must therefore 'believe' that I am not in the path of a flying object, that I'm not going to be mind-melded by aliens using their remote mind-intervention rays, that I'm not going to be targeted by psychic attack from Russian agents trained in telepathy... — Isaac
all belief has propositional content — creativesoul
IF you doubt this(all belief has propositional content), you should be able to give an example of a belief that is not a belief that such-and-such is the case. — Banno
...there seems to be an incipient idealism in some of what Isaac says. — Banno
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