I found this note on the Wikipedia entry on Pragmatism:

Joseph Margolis in Historied Thought, Constructed World (California, 1995) makes a distinction between "existence" and "reality". He suggests using the term "exists" only for those things which adequately exhibit Peirce's Secondness: things which offer brute physical resistance to our movements. In this way, such things which affect us, like numbers, may be said to be "real", although they do not "exist". Margolis suggests that God, in such a linguistic usage, might very well be "real", causing believers to act in such and such a way, but might not "exist".

Close to what I believe, although I think the number is indeed embedded in the fabric of the cosmos, so that it is ontologically greater than merely 'something that affects us'.

Number being physically instantiated begs the question as to just what about physical existents exists.

Quite!

I haven't said that the factor or mechanism or whatever you might want to call it in the neural processes that gives rise to conscious self-awareness is well understood. I would say it never will be because consciousness cannot be directly observed, and because the kinds of explanations we have for intentional behavior are given in terms of reasons, not causes, and the two kinds of explanations cannot be unified into a single paradigm. — Janus

If those two kinds of explanations cannot be unified into a single paradigm, then one or both of those kinds of explanations need to be modified or discarded. Because, since everything exists in this one universe, there must be a single paradigm that explains it all.

But perhaps there is a paradigm that they both fit within. As opposed to melding the two.

If those two kinds of explanations cannot be unified into a single paradigm, then one or both of those kinds of explanations need to be modified or discarded. Because, since everything exists in this one universe, there must be a single paradigm that explains it all.

But perhaps there is a paradigm that they both fit within. As opposed to melding the two. — Patterner

I don't see why there must be a "single paradigm that explains it all". Those two modes of explanation are both essential to human life. For the modern mind explanations of phenomena as intentional cannot carry any weight because they are justified neither by observation nor logic.

When it comes to explanations of human and some animal behavior the notion of acting for intelligently formulated reasons would seem to be indispensable so I can't see a possibility of discarding either one. As to "modifying" them or finding a "master" paradigm within which they would both fit I cannot even begin to imagine what those would look like.

Of course that doesn't mean it is impossible, but it certainly seems impossible from where I sit. The logics of intentional behavior on the one hand and being constrained to act by external causes on the other just seem incompatible.

The logics of intentional behavior on the one hand and being constrained to act by external causes on the other just seem incompatible. — Janus

Yet they are entirely compatible. There can be no question of that. Here we are. There is some commonality, or they could not exist in the same universe, much less in the same being. We just have to figure out what the commonality is. Something explains the different modes operating in the same being.

As explanations they are incompatible in the sense that they cannot be combined into a 'master' explanation that incorporates them. That is not to say that being caused and intentional behavior cannot both exist in the same universe or being.

Say I go to the shops for milk. If someone asks why I went to the shops I'll say it was to buy milk. That's one explanation. On the other hand, I could say I went to the shops because the neural activity which is experienced as realizing I was out of milk and neural activity which is experienced as wanting to have milk led to neural activity which led me to go to the shop.

The reason I went to the shops was to buy milk. The cause of my going to the shops was neural activity. The two explanations do not rule each other out they are just two different ways of understanding the same event. Their incompatibility consists in their different ways of understanding. It doesn't follow that one is right and the other wrong,

The reason I went to the shops was to buy milk. The cause of my going to the shops was neural activity. — Janus

Without wanting to nit pick, I don’t think that’s quite right. The stock example I’ve always read is, the answer to ‘why is the kettle boiling?’ can be either ‘to make tea’ or ‘because it’s been heated to the appropriate temperature.’ Both answers are of course correct, but the former is teleological - what is the water boiling for? - while the latter refers to the preceding cause of the water boiling. Generally speaking science since Galileo has attempted to avoid teleological explanations, preferring explanations in terms of preceding causes.

The stock example I’ve always read is, the answer to ‘why is the kettle boiling?’ can be either ‘to make tea’ or ‘because it’s been heated to the appropriate temperature.’ Both answers are of course correct, — Wayfarer

Yes. As far as I'm concerned, as a philosopher, that's a datum.
A neat resolution is to see it as a question of lenses rather than about the world. Wittgenstein's "seeing aspects" is one attempt, and the puzzle picture analogy is, I think, very helpful. Two problems. First, there is a description of the picture as marks on paper - lines or patches of shading. That description "loses" both ways of interpreting it - it couldn't be neutral between them if it didn't.
If, for example, we were to interpret our debate about animals as about two different ways of understanding (representing) them, we would have neat explanation of why we find it so hard to agree. It's a false choice. But then, we would expect there to be a description of them that is neutral between the mechanical, physical explanation and the rational explanation of what they do.

We just have to figure out what the commonality is. Something explains the different modes operating in the same being. — Patterner

Yes. However, traditional metaphysical explanations like dualism resolve the problem by positing two different substances (and then there's the "three worlds" idea, which seems to me to be in the same boat with dualism), which rejects your description of different modes in the same being. Materialism and idealism make a choice within that framework by rejecting one substance or the other and "reducing" one horn of the dilemma to the other. We won't get anywhere down that road.

Generally speaking science since Galileo has attempted to avoid teleological explanations, preferring explanations in terms of preceding causes. — Wayfarer

Yes. "Preferring" is a bit weak - unless you mean it in the traditional sense of "pushing forward" or "promoting". They had a methodological issue as well as all the theology - mathematics. Mental objects appeared not to be capable of being incorporated into that new way of doing science. But, as we are now seeing, that was actually just kicking the can down the road. We can't do that any more, though some people (Nagel, Searle) seem to think that's an option.

The reason I went to the shops was to buy milk. The cause of my going to the shops was neural activity. The two explanations do not rule each other out they are just two different ways of understanding the same event. Their incompatibility consists in their different ways of understanding. It doesn't follow that one is right and the other wrong, — Janus

You are quite right. My problem with your way of putting it is that the cause is a different entity or event from the effect. That's why I want to say that my going to the shops consists of my moving my legs, etc and the neural activity (which, after all, is involved throughout by controlling the movement of my legs.
You can say that the thermostat causes the boiler to switch on and off, because, at that level of description, they are recognizable to two different entities. But if you talk about the heating system, the thermostat controls the system and so is part of it. It doesn't cause the system to switch on and off - the system doesn't switch on and off.

But perhaps there is a paradigm that they both fit within. As opposed to melding the two. — Patterner

Well, there is - Aristotle's four "causes". Actually the word that we translate as "cause" also means "reason", so it would be better to talk about Aristotle's four explanations. But that is lodged deeply in his hylomorphic metaphysics, so that all four explanations apply to everything, which won't do for us - unless we fancy accepting the Supreme Good and the Great Chain.
The problem now is that we do not want to (cannot) apply both explanations to everything. We would be happy to say that some things require causal explanations only and some things require both. Many cases are clear, but others or not - both at the line between living and non-living things/beings and between sentient and non-sentient beings and again at the line between rational and not rational beings. What's worse is that it appears to be an empirical question which things belong in which categories.
Our problem is not helped by the fact that ever since evolutionary theory developed we have had a scientific theory hovers between (combines?) the two - there is a rational explanation for what evolves as well as a mechanistic one. But there is no question that the purposes of evolution are not the purposes of the animals that evolution applies to.

We can't do that any more, though some people (Nagel, Searle) seem to think that's an option. — Ludwig V

I haven't looked into much by Searle, aside from The Chinese Room, but my impression is that Searle isn't so resistant to physicalism per se, but to a naive computationalist physicalism which he is well justified in resisting. [FWIW, some writer on Wikipedia seems to agree saying, "Searle says simply that both are true: consciousness is a real subjective experience, caused by the physical processes of the brain. (A view which he suggests might be called biological naturalism.)]

it’s the precise nature of the causal relationship that is at issue. Physicalism says it must be bottom-up, but the placebo effect mitigates against that.

Physicalism says it must be bottom-up... — Wayfarer

Not really.

Do tell!

See The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation by Peter Tse.

That’s a book, not an argument. A synopsis would be preferable.

See The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation by Peter Tse. — wonderer1

Is there any chance you can give any guidance on that? You must know it fairly well to have recommend it multiple times as having found a solution. I find it very difficult. Likely my lack of education in most areas ever discussed here. But maybe you can give me some kind of summary? Or handholds to look for along the way? Anything to keep my head above water.

I haven't looked into much by Searle, aside from The Chinese Room, but my impression is that Searle isn't so resistant to physicalism per se, but to a naive computationalist physicalism which he is well justified in resisting. [FWIW, some writer on Wikipedia seems to agree saying, "Searle says simply that both are true: consciousness is a real subjective experience, caused by the physical processes of the brain. (A view which he suggests might be called biological naturalism.)] — wonderer1

I may well be wrong. The last thing I read by him was an interview with Dennett in which he insisted that first-person subject experience is real - not an illusion.

it’s the precise nature of the causal relationship that is at issue. Physicalism says it must be bottom-up, but the placebo effect mitigates against that. — Wayfarer

I agree that it is the nature of the relationship that is at issue. But if you say that event A causes event B, you are positing the two events as distinct. So are physicalists positing that the experience or thought caused by a process distinct from the process? That means it must exist independently of the cause. Dualism.
Further, what physicalists forget is that in order to correlate a physical process with an experience or a thought, you need to know what thought or experience you are correlating it with. There's no prospect of deducing what experience or thought a physical process may be correlated with from the physical process alone. Ditto light waves and colour.

But this is why, when you say ‘number is real’, the difficult question comes up ‘what do you mean by “real” or “exists”?’ The analogy of the divided line in the Republic addresses this. — Wayfarer

What I mean by saying that numbers exists is explained by explaining how to count and perhaps to calculate. What is meant by saying that numbers are real is explained by explaining the zoo that has become the world of numbers, especially about imaginary and infinite numbers.

By "rational reconstruction" do you mean something along the lines of 'thinking about how things seems to us and then imputing it (in some kind of suitably modified form) to animals' or something else? I have that Braver book on my shelves somewhere, but I've never gotten around to reading it. Would you recommend it? — Janus

Yes, I would. It needs to be read with a certain charity. If you fasten on all the obvious analytic objections to Heidegger, you'll spend a lot of time being angry and not learn much. But your charity will be rewarded - not necessarily by becoming a full-blown Heideggerian, but by some thought-provoking ideas. (I'm particularly taken with "present-at-hand" and "ready-to-hand" and how he develops his argument against traditional philosophy) His exposition of Wittgenstein has a perhaps unusual focus (on grounds and justification and certainty), but I thought it was good and, especially by seeing him and Heidegger as working on parallel projects, it taught me something about him.

There's an entry in the index for "rational reconstruction". You may have to read around the actual passages a bit to see what is going on. If you do read it and want to ask me questions by private message, I would be happy to answer - not that I can answer all the questions, by any means. It's all about the role of articulation (in language or talking to oneself) in thinking and action. So relevant to animals.

Would you be able to elaborate on this a little? — Janus

The roots of this go right back to elementary a language. As soon as you have the concept of an apple, you can identify many apples, so the distinction between one and many is embedded as soon as you start thinking/language. (The ancient Greeks didn't recognize "1" as a number, but as the "source" of all numbers. It makes sense if you think of it in this way.) Some actual languages only have words for "one", "two", "many". But counting has already taken off - it's just elaboration from there on. One can think of counting as sticking a label on each apple in turn which individuates the apple and tells you many there are. You have arithmetic as soon as you can do that, but for true mathematics, you really need to go in for more elaborate calculations, such as algebraic ones and recognize "0". That changes the concept of number, but still grounds it in the relevant activities, not in any objects, physical or abstract.
That's off the cuff. I hope it helps.

Is there any chance you can give any guidance on that? You must know it fairly well to have recommend it multiple times as having found a solution. I find it very difficult. Likely my lack of education in most areas ever discussed here. But maybe you can give me some kind of summary? Or handholds to look for along the way? Anything to keep my head above water. — Patterner

Yeah, I had a 35 year head start in thinking about such things with a background in electrical engineering. I can't really imagine what it must be like to try to understand what Tse is saying without that background. I understand many won't find it an easy read.

An analogy to what Tse refers to as "criterial causation", that occurred to me before Tse's book came out, is that of locks and keys. Different locks have different criteria for what will be effective as a key that opens them.

So if you can mentally translate between locks and keys, and neural networks having different criterai for inputs/keys that will open the lock (activate a neural network output having intentionality) maybe that could help?

I may well be wrong. The last thing I read by him was an interview with Dennett in which he insisted that first-person subject experience is real - not an illusion. — Ludwig V

I might disagree with Dennett similarly. I consider Dennett's views a mixed bag. Some good stuff as well as bad stuff.

A synopsis would be preferable. — Wayfarer

Ok.

Causality in brains is very complex, with all sorts of feedback loops, and if you are thinking about it in terms of a top down vs bottom up dichotomy you aren't thinking about it very seriously.

Yet another criterion. The more requirements you add, the fewer entities may exercise a faculty that was once available to everything in possession of a cerebellum.
All thinking animals can act rationally, emotionally, instinctively or chaotically (when they're ill). I very much doubt that thought processes take different amounts of energy to perform. — Vera Mont

If you doubt that different thought processes consume different levels of energy you might google for information. There are problems with accessing some sites. The following site has the information but requires an email address and maybe you can find one that is easier to access. I already recommended the "Fast and Slow thinking" link but I don't think you paid attention to it.

Yes, it's true that some types of thinking require more energy than others, as complex mental tasks, like problem solving or learning new information, activate more brain regions and demand a higher level of neural activity, resulting in increased energy consumption compared to simpler thought processes like daydreaming or routine tasks.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thinking-hard-calories/#:~:text=%22In%20theory%2C%20yes%2C%20a,percentage%20of%20the%20overall%20rate.

All thinking is not the same and animals that instantly do mathematical calculations, such as bats with sonar are not doing those calculations as we do them. Understanding differences in thinking is important to the subject rational thinking- human and animal.

I might disagree with Dennett similarly. I consider Dennett's views a mixed bag. Some good stuff as well as bad stuff. — wonderer1

That's about right. It's probably as much as you can ask from a human being. I usually find him worth reading.

If you ask what makes us human, the answer will not be "rationality", but emotion. Ironical, don't you think? — Ludwig V

That is a very interesting comment. It deserves its own thread- What Makes Us Human. My first love was sociology. Compared to primitive cultures religions today might pose different reasoning regarding what makes us human. I am not sure if today, all people believe we are all human. We still live with the reasoning that some people are less than human.

We still live with the reasoning that some people are less than human. — Athena

I don't see that in most cases as a matter of reasoning so much as a matter of tribalistic instinct. I think we are naturally biased towards see US as human and THEM as less so. It takes reasoning to get beyond tribalistic thinking.

The rest is available for learning, memory, language, culture, skill acquisition, storytelling, convictions, wealth accumulation, altruism, invention, emotional complexity, deceit, social bonding, philosophy, ambition, superstition, delusion and madness. As well as reasoning and assessment. — Vera Mont

But all that is not rational thinking. Rational thinking requires critical thinking and we would have an extremely short lifespan if all our awake time was also our critical thinking time. — Athena

Reasoning and assessment are rational thinking, that require some degree of critical thinking. So do the accumulation of wealth, invention, skill acquisition and deceit. And yet rich people, academics, scientists and con artists do not have noticeably shorter lifespans than janitors, navvies and assembly line workers, who are not required to expend very much brainpower for their work - and the majority of whom are unlikely to be chess champions or ingenious puzzle solvers in their spare time. I

Yes, it's true that some types of thinking require more energy than others, as complex mental tasks, like problem solving or learning new information, activate more brain regions and demand a higher level of neural activity, resulting in increased energy consumption compared to simpler thought processes like daydreaming or routine tasks.

Indeed. Yet occasional bouts of intense thought don't shorten one's life, though they sometimes lengthens one's afternoon nap or elicit a strong craving for ice cream. Not all critical thinking is complex problem-solving and learning new tasks. A lot of rational thought is simply choosing what to cook for dinner, whether to walk or take the bus, which air conditioner comes with a better warranty, or what to wear for a date? All decisions are either rational or irrational, but only a few are intellectually challenging.
We all need both intensive thinking time and down time. Humans have resources other than critical thought: instinct, intuition, memory, imagination. None of them need to conflict with observed fact or rely on blind faith - iow, we don't need to be irrational in order to daydream or perform routine tasks. We can be irrational, even though we have language and mathematics, access to information we did not personally collect, and critical faculties that we can engage at will.
But that doesn't mean we need to be irrational most of the time, or that other animals can't be rational even though they have no human language, math or databases.

This demonstrates that rationality is not contingent on being correct or knowing the truth.

That's certainly true. But the reasoning you outline starts from "If someone has fired a gun, I might get shot, so I should hide", and then considers a range of possibilities around that. That's the starting-point. Factoring in my beliefs and knowledge amounts to factoring those possibilities in. It's still about the facts.

That still doesn't show that rationality is contingent on being correct or knowing the truth.

We still live with the reasoning that some people are less than human. — Athena

Yes. I'm not sure exactly what cases you have in mind. One of the most popular ones is the moral cases. We classify people who do seriously outrageous things as "bestial" or "animal" even when they are doing things that no animal is capable of doing or even be interested in doing. Sadistic cruelty, War, Mass murder.

We all need both intensive thinking time and down time. — Vera Mont

Yes. I heard somewhere that Descartes reckoned to do not more than one hour per month of intenseive thinking. Perhaps someone knows the details.

We can be irrational, even though we have language and mathematics, access to information we did not personally collect, and critical faculties that we can engage at will. — Vera Mont

Yes. Our image of a perfectly, or even just excessively, rational person is not a compliment. The complaint would be that they are emotionless, too like a machine, without understanding of those endearing irrationalities that makes us all human.

I don't see that in most cases as a matter of reasoning so much as a matter of tribalistic instinct. I think we are naturally biased towards see US as human and THEM as less so. It takes reasoning to get beyond tribalistic thinking. — wonderer1

Yes, you are right about that. However, I think that part of that is the effect of crowd thinking. When people get swept up in a crowd is a classic situation when one does things that make no sense.

That still doesn't show that rationality is contingent on being correct or knowing the truth. — night912

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to contradict that. Whether p and q and r are my beliefs or not, the rational relations are the same. It is the content of the beliefs that determines what rational conclusions from them are.

Our image of a perfectly, or even just excessively, rational person is not a compliment. The complaint would be that they are emotionless, too like a machine, without understanding of those endearing irrationalities that makes us all human. — Ludwig V

I don't think irrationality - thinking contrary to factual information, as in ideological zealotry, or baseless prejudice, or self-destructive delusion - is particularly endearing. We humans who are supposedly in possession of the only rational mind in the universe, are capable of profound and catastrophic irrationalities. But we don't have to indulge them. Most of the time, most of us respond in rational ways to mundane, practical events and interactions; most of the time most of us make mundane, practical, rational decisions about ordinary matters. Otherwise, all our lives would be in constant chaos. Most of us can be emotional, empathic, kind, compassionate, generous, curious, spontaneous, insightful, irresponsible, angry, sad, confused, frustrated, ignorant, lazy, careless, spaced out, or off on flights of fancy without becoming irrational. Yet all of us get away with being irrational sometimes, because we have strong familial and community support networks, and some of us can be irrational in groups, because they're armed and hard to resist.
Most other animals don't have that luxury.

The dog knows when the human is about to arrive, and it is perfectly rational in doing so... but it does not know what time the human is expected to arrive.
— creativesoul
Because he doesn't know the names humans have artificially given the hours and minutes of the day. Okay. — Vera Mont

Are you having a conversation by yourself, for yourself, and to yourself?

"Okay." ???

No, the dog knows when their human is about to arrive but has no clue what time the arrival happens because the dog doesn't practice timekeeping. You neglect some very important distinctions. That much has become clear.

Dogs do not have that.
— creativesoul
I wonder how you know this... — Vera Mont

I know other things, and "this" follows from those things.