You are simply misrepresenting what I said (as is your usual habit) to continue with a strawman argument. I didn't say that it was necessary that you had to have toast instead of cereal. To the contrary, I said that was a choice you made from real possibilities. What I say, is that now, after you've had toast, it is impossible to change that fact, so it is necessary. So I'll repeat, though I doubt it will affect your strawman, before the act, it is possible, after the act, it is necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are using "necessary" as a synonym for "has happened", "in the past", or "no longer possible". Nobody but you uses "necessary" to mean "no longer possible". Even if I freely chose to have toast instead of cereal for breakfast and nothing about having toast was inevitable, you would call this event "necessary" only because it is no longer possible to replay the event and to choose again. This fails to answer whether the original event was necessary or merely possible in the first place.

Belief about the future goes from prediction to knowledge when it becomes true, and from prediction to falsehood when it becomes false. — creativesoul

No. Very, very no.

My answer would probably be the same as MU's on this point. — Luke

Whoa! Do I get some sort of prize for bringing this about?

Even if I freely chose to have toast instead of cereal for breakfast and nothing about having toast was inevitable, you would call this event "necessary" only because it is no longer possible to replay the event and to choose again. This fails to answer whether the original event was necessary or merely possible in the first place. — Luke

I agree with all of this, at least in spirit, but you have to be careful about the position from which such a claim is made. We have to be able to say that what is cannot not be without falling into a modal fallacy of treating all truths as necessary. (Sometimes it's trickier than it looks, and I said things to @Janus way back in this thread (or maybe the omniscience thread) that were dangerously close to fallacious.)

MU's point is, I think, a little different: from our position in time, we can only "really" think of the past as fixed, so claims about what was or was not possible in the past, at a time before some event occurred or didn't, are inherently somewhat suspicious. And that's not crazy: counterfactual reasoning is famously dicey; but it is just as famously indispensable.

Belief about the future goes from prediction to knowledge when it becomes true, and from prediction to falsehood when it becomes false.
— creativesoul

No. Very, very no. — Srap Tasmaner

Well at least we agree that belief about the future cannot be true...

:nerd:

While I feel more confused than when I began, I'll say one positive thing I learned is I'm not really sure what I want from a theory of truth -- and now I can explicitly recognize that and begin to try and make a list. Also, I'd say it's opened my mind even further on how truth itself is an open question, still -- and that one of the inferences we can make from this belief is that we don't need to know what truth is, explicitly, to know how to use truth. Else, we wouldn't be able to say things like "Well, math should count in addition to pictures"

I think, most of the time, I've just been asking of a theory of truth that it be true of truth (self consistent), without begging the question. Further, that it not depend upon metaphysics, since as I understand metaphysics at least the theory would then beg the question on truth: we might be able to say, after having settled what is the case "oh, and here's the truth" after the fact, but that's not satisfactory -- we might as well just say the forms are behind the veil of appearances and be done with it if we're going to assume what is the case in order to understand truth.

Not sure what else to add to the list.

Do you agree with all of the following?



1.)Anthropomorphism is when we attribute uniquely human kinds of thought and belief(those that are exclusively human) to things that are not.
2.)Some human thought and/or belief are exclusive to humans.
3.)Some human thought and/or belief are shared by other language using creatures.
4.)Some human thought and/or belief are shared by other language using creatures and language less ones alike. — creativesoul

Nothing there is controversial except "other language using creatures"; I already asked you to identify which other animals you think use language.

I agree that - in the overall bigger evolutionary picture - anthropomorphism was inescapable. I disagree that it remains so to this day. — creativesoul

Again I both agree and disagree depending on your definition of 'anthropomorphism'. That our understandings are human-shaped is inescapable, but egregious uncritical projection of human attributes onto the non-human is avoidable.

Whoa! Do I get some sort of prize for bringing this about? — Srap Tasmaner

For finding a point of agreement between MU and me? You probably should.

I agree with all of this, at least in spirit, but you have to be careful about the position from which such a claim is made. We have to be able to say that what is cannot not be without falling into a modal fallacy of treating all truths as necessary. — Srap Tasmaner

I’m pretty sure I’m not committing that fallacy, but I can see how MU most likely is.

MU's point is, I think, a little different: from our position in time, we can only "really" think of the past as fixed, so claims about what was or was not possible in the past, at a time before some event occurred or didn't, are inherently somewhat suspicious. — Srap Tasmaner

I think you’re being quite generous there because that’s not how I’m reading him. He doesn’t mention such suspicion about what was possible in the past when he says that we can make free choices.

Best to recognize that I cannot reject that this is a bus when I already have experience of busses, which manifests as a blatant self-contradiction, in just the same way I cannot reject the feeling of moral reprehensibility, but without ever having the experience of an object by which a self-contradiction would arise. This is sufficient to prove feelings are not cognitions, from which follows that moral knowledge is a misnomer. Further support resides in the fact that I may know this is true now yet find later this is no longer known as true, a function of experience in which I must cognize something, but that for which I feel as moral will always be what I feel is moral, as a function of personality, for which no cognitions are necessary. — Mww

We're too far apart on this issue to even start discussion. There's too much I disagree with here. To begin with, I believe that morality consists of judgements of good and bad, not feelings, as you seem to think. There is some merit to your position though, because some feelings are naturally desirable and others we naturally desire to avoid. So it appears at first glance like morality might just be based in whether a feeling is desirable or not. But on a closer look at what morality really consists of, we can see that it involves knowing when and where to seek desirable feelings, and knowing when and where to put up with undesirable feelings. Therefore morality cannot be based solely in feelings, it must also involve knowing when and where specific feelings are appropriate. The problem is that morality is not one or the other, feelings or knowledge, it's complex, and both.

we should find that it is impossible to be dishonest with oneself. — Mww

I do not agree with this. There are many forms of dishonesty, and some of them are applicable to oneself. The common example, lying might appear to be impossible to do to oneself, but there are many subtle forms of dishonesty, like withholding information. And we do this to ourselves often. I might tell myself that I can proceed with a project without proper research first. That's a type of laziness, and laziness is often a case of being dishonest with oneself. Sometimes we know what needs to be done, safety precautions, or something like that, but we dishonestly tell ourselves that it's not required this time. The desire for simplicity, in what is a complex situation, can produce dishonesty. We are dishonest with ourselves in many subtle ways when we follow our feelings and proceed into doing what we know is morally wrong. Sometimes this amounts to what is called rationalizing. But you probably won't agree to these examples because you don't think morality involves knowledge anyway.

Nobody but you uses "necessary" to mean "no longer possible". — Luke

It is actually the common philosophical definition of "necessary", the opposite of impossible. This is why I strongly objected to your proposal to oppose necessary with possible. It is completely inconsistent with conventional philosophy which opposes necessary to impossible. When necessary is opposed to impossible, then possible is completely outside this category. So I said, whatever is necessary or impossible, as dictated by past time, can no longer be considered possible.

This fails to answer whether the original event was necessary or merely possible in the first place. — Luke

Well of course it does not answer that question. No one was trying to answer that question, it's an assumption we make, as part of a world view. What I was doing was attempting to define terms, and under those definitions, it makes no sense to speak about a future event as "necessary".

There is however another use of "necessary" a completely distinct meaning, which we do apply to future events. This is "necessary" in the sense of what is judged as needed as a necessity, for the sake of fulfilling a goal. These necessities are the means to the end. The means are determined as necessary in relation to the end, then the act is carried out. So we judge the possibilities, determine which possibilities are required for our goals, and we say that these things are "necessary". We then act on these possibilities which have been designated as "necessary", and the acts come into existence and become "necessary" in the other sense, as the opposite of impossible.

Whoa! Do I get some sort of prize for bringing this about? — Srap Tasmaner

I'll hand it to you. What do you want for a trophy?

And that's not crazy: counterfactual reasoning is famously dicey; but it is just as famously indispensable — Srap Tasmaner

I think the reason why counterfactual reasoning has become so successful is that we have a very good capacity to control and replicate precise circumstances in scientific experimentation. When we replicate an experiment, it's very similar to going back in time to the same situation over again. Then we can change one particular thing and look at the difference in outcome. And we can repeat, changing something else. After we get familiar with how the particular changes affect the outcome, we can simply apply the counterfactual logic instead, without actually redoing the experiment.

We have to be able to say that what is cannot not be without falling into a modal fallacy of treating all truths as necessary. — Srap Tasmaner

I’m pretty sure I’m not committing that fallacy, but I can see how MU most likely is. — Luke

We start by opposing necessary with impossible. Fine, no problem. But then we need to give "possible" a position, because "possible" provides a truthful description. It appears like "possible" ought to be opposed to "impossible". But it also appears like "possible" ought to be opposed to "necessary". And those two are already opposed to each other, so the real problem begins.

Do you agree with all of the following?



1.)Anthropomorphism is when we attribute uniquely human kinds of thought and belief(those that are exclusively human) to things that are not.
2.)Some human thought and/or belief are exclusive to humans.
3.)Some human thought and/or belief are shared by other language using creatures.
4.)Some human thought and/or belief are shared by other language using creatures and language less ones alike.
— creativesoul

Nothing there is controversial except "other language using creatures"; I already asked you to identify which other animals you think use language. — Janus

Well, some species of primates use specific vocalizations as alarms for specific predators sighted in the immediate vicinity. It's also my understanding that not all communities of some species do this, or have the same vocalizations for the same predators.

That certainly seems like a case of naturally emerging language use to me.

The thought and belief shared between them and humans would be the sounding of the alarm and believing a predator was nearby upon hearing it. Humans also sound alarms in the face of danger. Humans do it more deliberately, for the sake of sounding the alarm. That's the difference. Language less creatures have no ability to sound an alarm, so sounding an alarm is not the sort of thought and belief that can be shared by language less creatures.

I agree that - in the overall bigger evolutionary picture - anthropomorphism was inescapable. I disagree that it remains so to this day.
— creativesoul

Again I both agree and disagree depending on your definition of 'anthropomorphism'. — Janus

It's defined above. You agreed at that point.

That our understandings are human-shaped is inescapable, but egregious uncritical projection of human attributes onto the non-human is avoidable.

This looks far too abstract, poetic, and flowery to be of much use for analysis. Human understanding has no shape at all. I cannot wrap my head around what you're trying to say by using such terms. I ignored it earlier, but it seems pivotal to your position, and given I'm attempting to understand your position, could you rephrase the following...

...understandings are human-shaped...

we should find that it is impossible to be dishonest with oneself.
— Mww — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree.

But then we need to give "possible" a position, because "possible" provides a truthful description. It appears like "possible" ought to be opposed to "impossible". But it also appears like "possible" ought to be opposed to "necessary". And those two are already opposed to each other, so the real problem begins. — Metaphysician Undercover

Modal logics define necessary and possible as a pair of operators that apply to propositions; either can be taken as primitive and the other defined in terms of that one, or you can just allow that you're defining the pair together; the interaction of the operators maps naturally to a number of ways of talking about modality (alethic, epistemic, physical, temporal, etc.), but can be defined purely syntactically without specifying a particular interpretation of the operators; a particular modal logic will usually be defined by axioms intended to capture the particular sort of modality desired, and those axioms will vary.

In particular, if we take the necessary operator ▢ ("box") as primitive, then the possible operator ◇ ("diamond") is defined as ~▢~, that is, not necessarily not. Similarly, the necessary operator is defined as ~◇~, that is, not possibly not. This pairing has been very fruitful in clarifying modal issues, and is at this point in the history of logic no more controversial than the standard quantifiers ∀ and ∃. (And in fact, it turns out that one very useful way to think of ▢ and ◇ is as a kind of restricted quantifier over possible worlds, which ought to be obvious because ∀ is ~∃~ and ∃ is ~∀~.)

+++

If it isn't clear, the interdefinability of such operators means you only need one of them, but using the pair is way more convenient, and foregrounds how common and important two particular ways of using such an operator are. In other words, we could get by with just ▢ for a modal operator, and we would find ourselves writing formulas with ▢~, and ~▢, as well as unadorned ▢, but we would also find that we were writing one particular little phrase all the time: ~▢~. Same is true for ∀ and ∃: if we just used ∀, we'd have to write ~∀~ all the time.

(There are no doubt deep reasons for this neg sandwich pattern, but I don't know what they are. Interested, though.)

Modal logics define necessary and possible as a pair of operators that apply to propositions; either can be taken as primitive and the other defined in terms of that one, or you can just allow that you're defining the pair together; the interaction of the operators maps naturally to a number of ways of talking about modality (alethic, epistemic, physical, temporal, etc.), but can be defined purely syntactically without specifying a particular interpretation of the operators; a particular modal logic will usually by defined by axioms intended to capture the particular sort of modality desired, and those axioms will vary.

In particular, if we take the necessary operator ▢ ("box") as primitive, then the possible operator ◇ ("diamond") is defined as ~▢~, that is, not necessarily not. Similarly, the necessary operator is defined as ~◇~, that is, not possibly not. This pairing has been very fruitful in clarifying modal issues, and is at this point in the history of logic no more controversial than the standard quantifiers ∀ and ∃. (And in fact, it turns out that one very useful way to think of ▢ and ◇ is as a kind of restricted quantifier over possible worlds, which ought to be obvious because ∀ is ~∃~ and ∃ is ~∀~.) — Srap Tasmaner

If A is existentially dependent upon B, then B is necessary for the existence/emergence of A.

Possible world semantics is fraught.

Logical possibility alone does not warrant belief. It is a measure of coherence/consistent terminological use/lack of self contradiction... nothing else. That which does not warrant belief cannot warrant being called "truth".

I agree. — creativesoul

I know we've discussed this before. You believe self-deception is a nonsense concept.

If it isn't clear, the interdefinability of such operators means you only need one of them, but using the pair is way more convenient, and foregrounds how common and important two particular ways of using such an operator are. In other words, we could get by with just ▢ for a modal operator, and we would find ourselves writing formulas with ▢~, and ~▢, as well as unadorned ▢, but we would also find that we were writing one particular little phrase all the time: ~▢~. Same is true for ∀ and ∃: if we just used ∀, we'd have to write ~∀~ all the time. — Srap Tasmaner

What I see here, is that if we start with "necessary" under the definition provided by Luke, as "must be", then we need an opposing term which would be "not necessary", and this would provide a rendition of "possible" by Luke's reckoning. However, we also have "necessarily not", and this is a rendition of "impossible". And, we can oppose "impossible" (as necessarily not) with "not necessarily not", and we now have an alternative rendition of "possible", which is opposed to "impossible". So we have here two very distinct renditions of "possible", Luke's is opposed to necessary, as not necessary, and the other is opposed to necessarily not (impossible) as not impossible.

Notice though, that "necessary" and "necessarily not" (impossible), are both forms of necessity. That's why I class them together (like hot and cold), as the two extremes of necessity, under the category "necessary". In the terms of ancient logic, these opposing terms are being and not being, is and is not. Then I propose another name, "possible" which we use to refer to all things outside this category. We can say that the things within the category are things known with certainty, what is and is not, while the things outside this category are the unknowns. Possibilities, whether logical possibilities (could be), or ontological possibilities (may be, as becoming), are the unknowns.

In my representation, the negative sandwich is exposed as a sort of misnomer. The first "not" in "not necessarily not", and "not possibly not", is not used in the same senses as the last "not". This is because the second "not" has been given an elusive referent. What does "necessarily not" or "possibly not" really mean? They are both predications, requiring a subject to give them real meaning. And when we allow for the subject we see that "necessarily not" is just a form of "necessary", and "possibly not" is just a form of "possible". So the negative sandwich is just an unnecessary obfuscation which distracts from the reality that what we are talking about has lost the assurance of certainty, because we have removed ourselves from the realm of the necessary, to talk about the possible. The form of "necessary" employed, now called "necessarily not", is opposed to "possible", as "possibly not", just like Luke's rendition, and is no longer opposed to "necessarily so".

This is done by taking the opposite of necessary, necessarily not (impossible), and proposing it as an independent form of necessary independent from its opposite. So the question is whether this is a valid move, to take the opposite of necessary, i.e. what is not (necessarily not, or impossible), and separate it from what is (necessary), and place it into the category of "possible", as a valid form of certainty. Can we import certainty into the category of the unknown in this way? So let me ask you this, can we determine what is not, without reference to what is? We can in principle describe what is, without reference to what is not, but can we describe what is not, without reference to what is? That I think is what is required to separate "necessarily not" from its true opposite, "necessary", and produce a new category in which it is opposed to "not necessarily not".

There's too much I disagree with here. — Metaphysician Undercover

I write to express an understanding, not to convince of its truth, so disagreement is to be expected, especially considering the non-scientific nature of the subject matter. Actually, I appreciate intelligible disagreement for its complementarity.

There is some merit to your position though..... — Metaphysician Undercover

Then all is not lost. Might’ve been a significant step forward if the respective causality had been unpacked from my Earth/Iranian women comment the other day.

There are only two feelings, pain and pleasure, each with varying degree. The causality of some pain/pleasure is beyond our control, an instance of that which is done to us, the causal objects or circumstances of which are possibly avoidable. The causality of some pain/pleasure is ourselves, given from our own control, an instance of that which we do to ourselves, therefore are impossible to avoid. These alone are reflections of our moral constitution, which presupposes we are moral agents by our very nature. Which in turn makes morality a valid conception a priori, representing the irreducible and absolutely necessary condition for the being of a moral agent.

There is no knowledge involved herein. None whatsoever. There is pure speculative reason alone. Knowledge has no warrant in its attempts at reification of an abstract a priori conception; reason, on the other hand, has perfect warrant for the providing of it.
————-

I believe that morality consists of judgements of good and bad, not feelings — Metaphysician Undercover

Conventionally speaking, that’s fine; most people would agree. As a metaphysician, on the other hand, you should know better, insofar as a mere condition has no constituency. That which makes something else possible, is just that. Just as causality, possibility, necessity, community, and so on, is each a singular representation unto itself, that is to say, has no other representation subsumed under it, so too is morality. Whether or not all that is granted, it nonetheless authorizes us to say judgements are limited as constituents of our moral disposition, in that because we are this kind of moral agent we will judge good and bad in this way.

Now, again, best to keep in mind this kind of judgement is aesthetic, representing a feeling, as opposed to discursive, which represents a cognition. We often do good things that feel bad, as well as do bad things that feel good. From that it follows that the judgement of how it feels subjectively to do something, is very different than the judgement for what objectively is to be done.
————-

but there are many subtle forms of dishonesty, like withholding information. — Metaphysician Undercover

All that shows is dishonestly relative to another person, which happens all the time. To withhold information from oneself, presupposes it in that same self. Can’t withhold what was never there. That which is presupposed is impossible to deny, which is the same as the impossibility of withholding.

We are dishonest with ourselves in many subtle ways when we follow our feelings and proceed into doing what we know is morally wrong. Sometimes this amounts to what is called rationalizing. — Metaphysician Undercover

True enough, but is the purview of empirical psychology. The subject matter we’re discussing properly resides in the doctrine of metaphysics. Which is probably why we disagree so much. You have not reduced the concepts far enough for metaphysical issues; I have reduced them too far for psychological issues. Meeting in the middle doesn’t appear likely.

I agree. — creativesoul

Good.

Possible world semantics is fraught. — creativesoul

Better.

Logical possibility alone does not warrant belief. — creativesoul

Best.

Simple example of how we do this, instead of all this concept juggling:

(1) It is necessary that the book falls if and only if it is not possible that the book does not fall.

(2) It is possible that the book falls if and only if it is not necessary that the book does not fall.

"Not" seems to be used in two ways, but it really isn't; under this scheme it is always a proposition-level operator, just like "possibly" and "necessarily". You build necessary this way:

(1) The book is falling.
(2) It is not the case that (1), the book is falling.
(3) It is possible that (2), that it is not the case that (1), the book is falling.
(4) It is not the case that (3), that it is possible that (2), that it is not the case that (1), the book is falling.
(5) It is necessary that (1), the book is falling.

(5) is here just shorthand for (4). There is a single complete proposition (1), and three operators applied to that proposition, which we can abbreviate as a single operator.

This simplified usage of "not" avoids many confusions: you never predicate "not falling" of an object, you deny that it is falling; you never predicate "not possible" of a proposition, you deny that it is possible. By maintaining discipline in the treatment of "not", you avoid any possibility of confusing, say, "I know it's not Tuesday" and "I don't know it's Tuesday". We can be clear about the scope of the operators we apply to sentences, and we can be clear about the order in which we apply them, and we need not abide ambiguity. This is how we win.

Well, some species of primates use specific vocalizations as alarms for specific predators sighted in the immediate vicinity. It's also my understanding that not all communities of some species do this, or have the same vocalizations for the same predators.

That certainly seems like a case of naturally emerging language use to me. — creativesoul

I can't see the relevance of what you are saying here. There are many examples and kinds of animal signalling. Only humans, as far as is known, are capable of symbolic language and linguistically mediated thought. I certainly haven't said we have nothing in common with animals, if that is what you were thinking. There are many analogies between animal and human behavior; the difficulties arise when we want to posit analogies between human and animal experience.

Humans do it more deliberately, for the sake of sounding the alarm. — creativesoul

Yes. symbolic language enables abstraction, which enables self-reflection and deliberation; in other words it inaugurates linguistically mediated thought.

could you rephrase the following...

...understandings are human-shaped... — creativesoul

Many uniquely (as far as we know) human understandings are linguistically mediated, that is they are in symbolic form. There may also be human understandings which are not linguistically mediated, and some of these also may be unique to humans. We don't really know what animal understandings are like, as to that we can only surmise in our human ways. Our interpretations and speculations are always human interpretations and speculations, couched in the forms that are possible for humans; that is to say our understandings are "human-shaped". That doesn't seem hard to understand.

we should find that it is impossible to be dishonest with oneself.
— Mww — Metaphysician Undercover


I agree. — creativesoul

I think it is well established that humans are capable of deceiving themselves. I've certainly seen self-deception at work in my own case. Perhaps it is impossible to be deliberately dishonest with oneself; self-deception doesn't seem to be intentional (in the psychological, not phenomenological, sense). That said it does seem humanly possible to be willfully blind to things that one really does not want to admit or confront, but still that willfulness does not seem to operate with fully conscious awareness.

Only humans, as far as is known, are capable of symbolic language and linguistically mediated thought. — Janus

I agree with Joseph Rouse’s take on the homologies between humans and other animals with respect to language.

“Elisabeth Lloyd (2004) shows that the fortuitous success of the bonobo Kanzi in acquiring a rudimentary linguistic capacity has changed the terms in which these issues should be addressed (Savage-Rumbaugh, Shanker, and Taylor 1998). Kanzi inadvertently participated in experi­ments on language acquisition because his mother was a research sub­ject, and he was too young to be separated from her. While his mother struggled with the experimental protocol, Kanzi did much better despite not being initially targeted for instruction. Eventually, Kanzi acquired not only a substantial vocabulary of symbols but also the ability to produce novel, intelligible syntactic recombinations. The experiment­ers plausibly characterized his eventual linguistic capacities as in some respects comparable to those of a thirty-month-old normal human child. The interpretation of these data is controversial (see Pinker 1994,Savage-Rumbaugh, Shanker, and Taylor 1998; Lloyd 2004; Bickerton 2009), but I follow Lloyd in her insistence that Kanzi’s achievement shows that the neurological capacity for linguistic understanding is ho­mologous between humans and bonobos and probably extends further to common ancestors.

…the capacity for producing and consuming linguistic expressions is not uniquely human and did not emerge as a novel capacity in the Homo lineage. Other species in the primate lineage who share this ca­pacity have nevertheless not developed language on their own, even in rudimentary forms, despite having the neurological basis for produc­ing and understanding symbolic expressions with syntactic structure.
This capacity for linguistic expression and understanding has only been expressed in experimental settings that bring other apes into contact with an analogue to human language adapted to their perceptual and expressive abilities. This fact strongly suggests either a lack of selection pressure in other lineages for linguistic communication or substantial barriers to the realization of this latent capacity.”

A dog might be able to ask for food, but it can't ask to be fed next Tuesday.

Animals don't do the "...counts as..." thing that we do as a matter of course.

A dog might be able to ask for food, but it can't ask to be fed next Tuesday. — Banno

Right, but dogs do ask to go outside, which is interesting because it means they are not purely responsive to their environment. It's not like the sight of the door to the backyard triggers the desire; they go to the door. The natural thing to say here is there is some kind of idea of backyard even when they're not immediately experiencing backyard, so that's at least some kind of displacement.

Animals don't do the "...counts as..." thing that we do as a matter of course. — Banno

Don't they? Doesn't just about every living organism? Counts as food. Counts as protection. Counts as scary predator. Counts as my territory. Counts as invader.

Then again, there are those beetles that mistakenly "mate" with brown beer bottles. Maybe a lot of organisms skip the class step and only have the criterion of class membership. But then you're right back to counts-as-the-criterion.

Of course, evolution is a cheapskate, so it gave the beetles a really crappy mate selector that was just good enough until it was foiled by the arrival of brown beer bottles

Don't they? Doesn't just about every living organism? Counts as food. Counts as protection. Counts as scary predator. Counts as my territory. Counts as invader. — Srap Tasmaner

They don't get to decide what is or is not food. It's food or it isn't, it's a mate or it isn't. So no.

We get to say that this counts as Tuesday, that counts as money, and so on.

Suppose you are selling tea, and a customer offers to trade a blank piece of paper for a cuppa; You would presumably refuse; but if that piece of paper is a $5 note you might accept. In what exactly does the difference between these two pieces of paper lie?

The difference is in the status of the note in relation to our shared intentional attitudes. It is our collective attitude that gives some pieces of paper a special role. The paper counts as $5; it has a status function.

Again, it is not my intention alone that makes the paper a note; it is our intention, together with all the background paraphernalia of banks and credit and so on, that makes it a fact that the note is worth $5.

Or consider your car. You exchanged funds for it, signed the appropriate paper, have suitable documentation; and as a result you may within certain guidelines do with the car as you please. If someone else takes the car without your say so, then you have certain rights and may make a claim against them.

That is, you own the car. And you do so as a consequence of our collective intent, that certain things count as your property under specified circumstances. Your ownership is a status function. And it exists because of our collective intent.

That the bishop stays on the same colour is a result of its status as a bishop. Where it to move down a file, it would cease to count as a bishop. That Zelenskyy is Ukraine's President is status function; he counts as President as a result of our shared intentionality.

A status function is created by a declaration similar to
X counts as Y in C
Money counts as legal tender in our economy; This piece counts as a bishop in chess; Zelenskyy counts as the Ukraine's president in Ukrainian government.

A status function requires collective intentionality; and it is had not as a result of some physical structure, but as a result of our collectively imposing and recognising that status.

You might notice the relation to declarative utterances. A declarative makes something the case by declaring it to be so. Recall that declaratives are curious in having two directions of fit: a declaration sets out how things are, yet how things are changes to match the declaration. — Banno

They don't get to decide what is or is not food. It's food or it isn't, it's a mate or it isn't. So no.

We get to say that this counts as Tuesday, that counts as money, and so on. — Banno

I see. That's rather a different claim than I was addressing.

And judging by the quote next, your idea is that other organisms lack institutional facts.

Pretty much.

The idea that our closest relatives or other "higher" forms of life might have the capacity, yet to be developed, for symbolic language, seems plausible to me. I had thought that @creativesoul was claiming that there were other species who were capable of symbolic langauge, though, which would be something else altogether.

Recall that declaratives are curious in having two directions of fit: a declaration sets out how things are, yet how things are changes to match the declaration. — Banno

This doesn't seem right to me: I would have said that declarations set out how things shall be; things which may or may not already be as declared.

Don't they? Doesn't just about every living organism? Counts as food. Counts as protection. Counts as scary predator. Counts as my territory. Counts as invader. — Srap Tasmaner

This reminds me of the phenomenological notion of "seeing as" and Gibson's "affordances". It seems plausible to think that animals and humans alike see things as affording possibilities for action. Different animals, for example, will see different things as food; as "to be eaten". But, lacking symbolic language, this would not be potentially self-reflexive; such that the animal could think "I can eat this, therefore it counts as food".

This doesn't seem right to me — Janus

A shame, since it is right. it's just that we get to decide what counts as a simple.

Of course, evolution is a cheapskate, so it gave the beetles a really crappy mate selector that was just good enough until it was foiled by the arrival of brown beer bottles — Srap Tasmaner

Donald Hoffman has a lot to answer for.

A shame, since it is right. it's just that we get to decide what counts as a simple. — Banno

I wasn't talking about what counts as a simple or what counts as anything else, so I don't know what you are referring to with that. I think it is more correct to say that declarations set out how things shall be, which allows that things may already be or not be as the declaration sets out. I'm thinking more of declarations in the political sense, though, which is what I thought you had in mind. I wasn't thinking of things like:

She declared, "Look, the sun is rising and the clouds are clearing".

I don't think such locutions count so much as declarations, despite the use of "declared", as they count as statements. The 'declared" there seems to me to indicate that the sun rising and the clouds clearing is of some more than usual import. Do you count all statements as declarations, and if not how do you distinguish them?

Donald Hoffman has a lot to answer for. — Tom Storm

I didn't know he was the creator of beetles.

I wasn't talking about what counts as a simple or what counts as anything else, so I don't know what you are referring to with that. — Janus

But I was, in the part you quoted... so you are not addressing that?

"The cat is on the mat" supposes cats and mats.

The relevance is that such stuff is already an interpretation.

it's just that we get to decide what counts as a simple. — Banno

"Decide" seems an unusually cognitive word for you to lean on.