Gonna be no trouble getting the century.

I thought he wanted to show that one can demonstrate belief without it being belief that A. — frank

What I had in mind:

X believes (placeholder)

What kind of thing goes in (placeholder), can it only be a statement? That's what characterising belief as only an attitude towards statements would commit someone to.

I'm trying to suggest that (placeholder) can also be stuff that happens. Not stuff that happens that can be described at some time later in a way that turns out to be logically equivalent to the event, not stuff that happens that occurs along with an intention towards a statement, just stuff that happens.

I think getting at that by an appeal to some Bayesian neuroscience model shows:
A) There's some scientific precedent for characterising beliefs as targeting non-statements.
B) The eye movement example I think is a concrete example that shows we are acting on perceptual expectations that are not perceptual expectations regarding statements.
C) Going through something very obscure was an attempt to stop @Banno playing "I can turn that into a statement" and "What is it that you cannot say?" moves. Not that it did much good, as the former immediately happened.

Stuff that happens is propositional - you can put it in a statement.

I get that you might take a line similar to Patricia Churchland, such that neural networks are not representational. But if that view be granted then I'd just say neural networks are not about beliefs.

This can also be parsed in physicalist terms. The knower is the brain/body, whose activity is never known — Janus

In fact Bitbol starts with the physicalist concept of blind spot. Each of our eyes has one, corresponding to where the optic nerve starts, and yet we are not naturally aware of it. It’s not like we see two dark spots on the right and left of our focus area.

Incidentally this is another evidence for the idea that what we see is NOT what we get from our senses. Sense data are actively repackaged, interpreted and corrected before we see them, and that includes erasing the blind spots. But that’s not the point that interest Bitbol. Rather, for him it’s merely a metaphor for the epistemic blind spot of neurology, which thrives to objectify subjectivity and in doing so takes a necessary distance with subjectivity, ignores the subject in order to make of it an object. According to Bitbol, and as talking to Isaac confirms, neurologists don’t necessarily know that they have this epistemic blind spot.

As for a physicalist rendering of knowledge, as in “my body/brain knows A, B or C”, I would concede that a little bit of that is possible in a biosemiotic framework, inasmuch as cells share information all the time by way of hormones and other chemicals. But information is not the same thing as knowledge. Knowledge implies an epistemic cut between subject and object, between an observer and what he observes. This is the real problem, and it does not matter whether one calls the observer a body or a mind... When a subject tries to understand subjectivity as an object, this necessary epistemic cut is introduced within the subject himself. The discursive, analytic self tries to take and maintain a distance with its own subjectivity, e.g. tries to shut down emotions and intuitions that don’t fit with the discourse being attempted. And this may explain a certain cock-sure attitude of materialists who keep contradicting themselves, like Dennett: they have managed to shut down their own subjective intuitions when they don’t conform with their self-denying discourse, so they literally don’t see their own contradictions. Blind spot.

I get that you might take a line similar to Patricia Churchland, such that neural networks are not representational. But if that view be granted then I'd just say neural networks are not about beliefs. — Banno

I wonder when we train neural networks to recognize cats on mats, what does that amount to? Or when AlphaZero learns to play superhuman chess. Can we say it has representational knowledge of chess strategy?

I also wonder whether we could pursue an eliminativist view of computing. When you look at the actual hardware, it's just moving electrons around. Where are the software programs in that? Where is the data?

Maybe just looking at neurons firing is missing the higher level view of what all that adds up to, such as belief formation. After-all, it's kind of hard to explain how humans are so adept at navigating and manipulating the environment without positing some knowledge of the world. In fact, that's an ongoing issue for improving AI. The lack of common sense understanding is one of the big remaining obstacles to a more general purpose AI. Somehow biological neural networks are able to handle that.

I’m not onboard with your rendering of consciousness....
— Mww

(...) Here's where I differ with Kant.....

In order to know that A is not equal to B, we must know what both consist of, because knowing that they are not equal requires comparison/contrast between the two. — creativesoul

None of that has to do with the Kantian philosophy pertaining to consciousness, even if it does have correlations to Kantian philosophy pertaining to empirical knowledge.
—————

Can we at least agree that there is a difference between our bodies and our reports thereof? — creativesoul

Absolutely. I’m going to insist I’ve satisfied the criteria for establishing the difference. Because it seems I’ve failed miserably at it, and in the interest of proper dialectic, the onus of enlightenment is on you.

Stuff that happens is propositional - you can put it in a statement. — Banno

Do you agree that these two statements don't imply each other?

(1) Everything that happens can be put into a statement.
(2) Every belief regards a statement.

I see what you're saying. I think dealing with everything in terms of statements and truth is a comfort zone for some. Now that we know more about neuroscience, we might have to ditch some of that and explore new ways to think about it.

That belief is a propositional attitude is not up for debate. It's just part of the logic of belief. — Banno

If it is the case that all belief is a propositional attitude, then it cannot be the case that language less creatures have belief.

The problem:Language less creatures have belief.

Because language less creatures have belief, but no ability to form an attitude towards a proposition, it only follows that not all belief is a propositional attitude.

Yep.

And?

Incidentally this is another evidence for the idea that what we see is NOT what we get from our senses. — Olivier5

What we get via the senses, specifically the eyes, provides the raw material that makes up what we see. It seems obvious that, as Kant says, “Perception without conception is blind; conception without perception is empty”.

which thrives to objectify subjectivity and in doing so takes a necessary distance with subjectivity, ignores the subject in order to make of it an object. According to Bitbol, and as talking to Isaac confirms, neurologists don’t necessarily know that they have this epistemic blind spot. — Olivier5

I don't believe neurologists are so stupid. Of course treating perception as an object to be studied is not the same as perceiving. We cannot perceive perception, although we can be aware that we are perceiving. However this is a second order reflexive conceptual awareness; what Kant aptly calls "apperception".

But information is not the same thing as knowledge. Knowledge implies an epistemic cut between subject and object, between an observer and what he observes. This is the real problem, and it does not matter whether one calls the observer a body or a mind... When a subject tries to understand subjectivity as an object, this necessary epistemic cut is introduced within the subject himself. — Olivier5

"Subject and object" is just the way we conceive the situation vis-à-vis perception and knowledge. I think it's best understood as an artifact of language; a reification. We can know things, just as animals do, without conceiving of the process as 'a subject knowing an object'. Language, with it's binary nature, does allow us to conceive of ourselves as split somehow, of mind and body being separate somehow, but I think there is no real separation; it's merely conceptual.

In this context (i.e., regarding human experience), "practical contact" and "physical contact" can have different senses, which is why I gave the robot example. — Andrew M

I'm still not clear on the distinction between the different senses of "physical contact" and "practical contact" or how the robot example helps to distinguish them. Unless you are just stipulating that people can have "practical contact" with their environment but robots can't?

And physical contact is still an abstraction over concrete things. A concrete thing is something that is not predicated of anything else. So the cup and the person are examples of concrete things. Whereas physical contact is a relation between concrete things. Since it's predicated of those concrete things, it is abstract, not concrete. — Andrew M

Surely a physical interaction between a person and a cup is not merely an abstract relation.

OK, I thought you were saying that "seeing red" was an experience in the mind — Andrew M

I don't really see much difference between experience vs. experience in the mind. For there to be "seeing red", there needs to be a subject or a person who sees red. This involves a dichotomy between the subject (or person) and their environment, sometimes called subjective/objective. You pay lip service to dispensing of this dichotomy but you cannot avoid speaking in terms of it.

When I touch something, the implication is usually that I felt it (though I need not have), and whatever other human-specific aspects are involved in that event. That's not the case with a robot (though the robot may register it as an event if it has sensors). — Andrew M

What is the difference between touching and feeling something? Touching is physical, whereas feeling is... what? Conscious? Experiential? This is simply another manifestation of the subjective/objective or mind/matter divide that you seem to want to eliminate in the name of a Cartesian theatre.

What about the hardware and software dichtomy in computers? Do you forgo that dualism in favor of just the hardware? — Marchesk

It's a useful distinction. We understand how hardware and software are related, and there is no cause for disagreement.

However with regards to dualism, I would note that there is no ontological hardware/software difference such that the laws of physics apply to one but not the other, or that one is public and the other intrinsically private, or that the executing software has a separate (or otherwise ineffable) existence in relation to the hardware.

If we understood the use of terms like "physical" and "mental" as having naturally arising uses instead of being ontological duals with the above kinds of characteristics, then perhaps there would be little cause for disagreement there as well.

I also wonder whether we could pursue an eliminativist view of computing. When you look at the actual hardware, it's just moving electrons around. Where are the software programs in that? Where is the data? — Marchesk

This goes to the approach I've been advocating; that there can be different ways of talking about the same thing, which need not be reducible, one to the other. So I spent the day redesigning spreadsheets, without any reference to the electronics involved. Indeed, talking in terms of the electronics would simply serve to obscure the functionality of the sheets.

Yeah, I've been reading Mary Midgley again.

Concrete things here seem to be just individuals. It's a cup and a person, not cups and people. — Banno

:up:

Look like just plain 'ole names to me. — creativesoul

Also fine. We give names to individuals.

Since it's predicated of those concrete things, it is abstract, not concrete.
— Andrew M

That seems weird to me. Physical contact consists in concrete actions and responses. — Janus

I think you're using the term "concrete" in the sense of "definite" (or maybe "real"). That's OK, but it's not how I was using it.

It seems very wrongheaded to me to be saying that there are these concrete objects, but that none of their actions are concrete. Sounds like a Parmenidean world in which change and movement is illusory. — Janus

No, not Parmenides. Though Aristotle could be seen as integrating Parmenides and Heraclitus. That is, how do we account for change in things but also have those things maintain their identity through that change?

Anyway, perhaps an example will help. Suppose we observe Alice kick a ball. If I point in her direction, and ask you what am I pointing to, what do you answer? You might say, "Alice" or you might say "the ball". Those are both concrete things (or individuals). Or you might say "Alice kicking the ball". That's also fine - we observed that. But kicking is an abstract term (a universal) - it doesn't have an independent existence. And kicking is an example of physical contact which is similarly abstract.

So this gets into the issue of universals, which I'm not sure this thread has covered yet... I discuss my position (which is broadly Aristotelian) in more detail here.

Long story short, I think kicking happens out there in the world, not in people's minds (it's a kind of relation, which is part of the physicist's toolkit). However it doesn't follow that it has an independent existence apart from individuals. Which is why it is abstract, not concrete.

We could define "Alice kicked the ball" in extensional terms; Alice is one of the things that kicked the ball. If we do so, is there nothing left that is not concrete? We have Alice, Fred, Jack, the ball, the cat. "Kicked" is defined in terms of relations between these items:

Kicked (Alice, Ball)
Kicked (Fred, Ball)
Kicked (Jack, the cat)

I'm attempting to provide an adequate evolutionarily amenable account of all conscious experience from non linguistic through metacognitive.
— creativesoul

Interesting. What's your present view of the non-linguistic phase? Those of us inclined to agree with this,

consciousness is the ability to attribute meaning.
— creativesoul

... might assume there wasn't one? — bongo fury

Non linguistic conscious experience consists entirely of correlations drawn between different directly perceptible things, none of which are language use.

That is, how do we account for change in things but also have those things maintain their identity through that change? — Andrew M

Kripke?

I don't believe neurologists are so stupid — Janus

Some are smarter than others I’m sure, but the argument has nothing to do with the alleged stupidity of neurologists. It’s about a blind spot.

Subject and object" is just the way we conceive the situation vis-à-vis perception and knowledge. I think it's best understood as an artifact of language; a reification. — Janus

I don’t believe in ‘artifacts of language’, which I hold as the lamest philosophical argument ever made.

No, because what you remember of an experience is yet another form of experience. Therefore experience still precedes any report, and can never be fully described by reporting. — Olivier5

I haven't disagreed that experience can never be fully described by reporting. In fact I've said exactly that, so I'm unsure as to what point you think you're making here. The argument was about whether discussion of neurology of of experience has primacy on some given point (say perception of colour). The point there still stands - that anything you say from a phenomenological perspective about your experience of colour is only selective and filtered data from your memory of having that experience, which is no more accurate than interpreted data from third parties. Pointing out that memories are experiences too doesn't make any difference, the reporting in a discussion of such 'experiences' would still themselves be memories, and so flawed.

This seems to be the perennial trick of the idealists and woo-merchants. To point out that empirical data has flaws (subjectivity, the necessity of an observer etc) and then for some reason assume this counts as an argument in favour of alternative methods of discussion. Pointing out that one approach is flawed does not count as support for another unless you can show that it is not similarly flawed, and in this case you can't.

We could define "Alice kicked the ball" in extensional terms; Alice is one of the things that kicked the ball. If we do so, is there nothing left that is not concrete? We have Alice, Fred, Jack, the ball, the cat. "Kicked" is defined in terms of relations between these items:

Kicked (Alice, Ball)
Kicked (Fred, Ball)
Kicked (Jack, the cat) — Banno

Yes, those are all concrete. Whereas Kicked as an uninstantiated relation (i.e., without items) would be abstract.

That is, how do we account for change in things but also have those things maintain their identity through that change?
— Andrew M

Kripke? — creativesoul

Rigid designators? For Aristotle, things have essential and accidental characteristics.

There.s also the quantic wave-particle duality, and Aristotle’s duality of form and matter. Dualism works just fine. — Olivier5

Actually Aristotle's form/matter distinction was a counter to dualism (in this case, Plato's). Instead of Forms being separate from the material world per Plato, Aristotle regarded observable things as being analyzable in terms of form and matter, but not as ontologically separate. A modern way of putting that would be that physical systems are characterized by state (or information - which derives from the Greek term morphe, or form).

Then your concrete and abstract looks like what I'd call extension and intension, after Frege.

Can we at least agree that there is a difference between our bodies and our reports thereof?
— creativesoul

Not if you're a BIV. — Marchesk

How is that different than a brain in a skull (BIS)?

Can we at least agree that there is a difference between our bodies and our reports thereof?
— creativesoul — Marchesk

I wonder when we train neural networks to recognize cats on mats, what does that amount to? Or when AlphaZero learns to play superhuman chess. Can we say it has representational knowledge of chess strategy? — Marchesk

Is the visual of a brain a representation of a brain or something that isn't a brain? If its a representation then how does the visual differ from the actual?

I also wonder whether we could pursue an eliminativist view of computing. When you look at the actual hardware, it's just moving electrons around. Where are the software programs in that? Where is the data? — Marchesk

The same can be said of brains.

Maybe just looking at neurons firing is missing the higher level view of what all that adds up to, such as belief formation. After-all, it's kind of hard to explain how humans are so adept at navigating and manipulating the environment without positing some knowledge of the world. In fact, that's an ongoing issue for improving AI. The lack of common sense understanding is one of the big remaining obstacles to a more general purpose AI. Somehow biological neural networks are able to handle that. — Marchesk

Or maybe looking at neurons firing is a naive realists view of what is happening.

I'm still not clear on the distinction between the different senses of "physical contact" and "practical contact" or how the robot example helps to distinguish them. Unless you are just stipulating that people can have "practical contact" with their environment but robots can't? — Luke

No. I'm just saying that phrases can have different senses depending on how they are used. Practical contact is going to be different in some sense for a human than it is for a robot, even though the same phrase might be used for both.

To return to the original issue, an experience is a relation between yourself and the things in your environment (say, the coffee). Experience is a term that applies to humans but not to robots. Not because humans have Cartesian minds (where they have internal experiences), but because humans have different capabilities to robots. A human's practical contact with the world instantiates differently to a robot's.

I don't really see much difference between experience vs. experience in the mind. For there to be "seeing red", there needs to be a subject or a person who sees red. This involves a dichotomy between the subject (or person) and their environment, sometimes called subjective/objective. You pay lip service to dispensing of this dichotomy but you cannot avoid speaking in terms of it. — Luke

No, you're just reading what I say through that dichotomy. I've said that a person experiences the world (i.e., that there is a relation between the person and the world), and you read that as an experience in the mind.

What is the difference between touching and feeling something? Touching is physical, whereas feeling is... what? Conscious? Experiential? This is simply another manifestation of the subjective/objective or mind/matter divide that you seem to want to eliminate in the name of a Cartesian theatre. — Luke

From Lexico, touch means "Come into or be in contact with." while feel (in this context) means "Be aware of (a person or object) through touching or being touched."

If I felt someone touch my shoulder, then I have become aware that someone is there. That's my experience of the world.

What I felt was not "in my mind", it was in the world. It is only the introduction of a Cartesian theater that makes what I felt internal to a container mind.

Then your concrete and abstract looks like what I'd call extension and intension, after Frege. — Banno

Yes, that seems to be the case.

So this gets into the issue of universals, which I'm not sure this thread has covered yet... — Andrew M

We could always marry qualia to universals and really stoke the flames.

So, as a vacillating woo-merchant: I sell @Banno two red apples ...

Actually Aristotle's form/matter distinction was a counter to dualism (in this case, Plato's). — Andrew M

Didn’t know that, thanks. True that form cannot exist without matter and vice versa. Still it is a duality of sorts, like the two sides of the same coin.

Indeed, talking in terms of the electronics would simply serve to obscure the functionality of the sheets. — Banno

So it can't be just a matter of talking. It's about understanding, for which talking is not necessary. Why even mention it?

To understand what X is, is to be in possession of information. Different points of view give us access to different information. So this is about emergence.