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? — Wayfarer

There is no essential difference I can see between the example I gave and your "stock example". If you see a difference perhaps you could highlight it.

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. — Ludwig V

Thanks, but I'm not seeing how it changes the concept of number beyond just extending the basic concept inherent in counting.

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. — Ludwig V

Thanks I'll check it out. By the way I'm not averse to Heidegger. I have read some of his work including Being and Time, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology and secondary sources such as Dreyfus, Malpas and Blattner, listened to Dreyfus' lectures and attended a couple of undergraduate units dealing with his early work and I found it all quite rewarding. It was my interest in Heidegger more than my interest in Wittgenstein that led me to buy the Braver books.

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. — Ludwig V

Yes I agree we must include the whole system of causes and conditions. That said nothing at all happens without the brain and the neuroscientists tell us that the neural networks in the brain model everything we think and do just prior to our thinking and doing.

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

I agree. The larger part of rational thinking consists in inductive and abductive reasoning which is inherently defeasible.

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. — creativesoul

The dog practices timekeeping in exactly the same way humans did before the invention of clocks. The dog knows when it's time to wake people, when it's mealtime, when it's time for various family members to leave the house and arrive home again, what time the newspaper and mail arrive, when it's time to go for an evening walk and when it's bedtime for children.

You neglect some very important distinctions. — creativesoul

These are manufactured distinctions with no meaning that I can attend to.

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

Ditto.

Is learning how to open a gate or door by observation alone possible by a creature completely incapable of thinking?
— creativesoul

Opening a gate is possible by observation... — Mww

No thought? No belief? No expectation? What, on earth, could mindless observation be? What is it to observe something that one does not believe is there?

Knowing others open gates is something that plenty of other creatures are capable of acquiring. This allows the creature to carefully watch. This shows innate interest. Curiosity. We can most certainlly watch that happen, in the right sorts of circumstances given the right sorts of creatures.

The subject is involved in a series of events. The subjects under consideration do not know that they are part of a routine. They do not know that they are participating in ritual. In order to see oneself as a subject matter in and of itself, one must be capable of drawing a distinction between themself and their own life. Doing that, at a bare minimum, requires naming and descriptive practices.

...but It is impossible to say apodeitically whether a creature incapable of thinking learns anything, whether by observation or otherwise. — Mww

Is it?

Thoughtless learning? Belief less learning? Learning without meaningful connections? Learning how to open a gate... without believing they can... without thinking about it... without drawing correlations between opening the gate and getting out?

Learning how to open a gate always includes a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. Dogs can want to reach the other side of a gate. They can know it's possible by watching it happen. They can want to get out, watch others doing so, and learn how to do it themselves, and then... they do so.

Performing a task grounded in observation alone could be mere mimicry, which does not necessarily support what it is to learn.

Not sure if that ever a bad thing, in this context. We're talking about what counts as thinking... and then, what counts as rational thinking

Some mimicry is learning how to behave(in the sense of learning what counts as acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behavior). Other mimicry isn't.

Learning how to open a gate by watching others do it results in a practically pure form of mimicry. Doing exactly what needs to be done in order to open the gate. The necessity of thought and belief seems apparent enough now, right? The dog wants to open the gate.

The striking singular difference between human minds and most(arguably all) other minds is that humans draw and maintain the meaningful distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief. Our own thought and belief(along with meaning, truth, and falsehood) are only discovered via language use. Other animals cannot think about their own thought and belief as a subject matter in its own right. Hence, they have no idea how to tell the difference between their own true and false beliefs. They cannot take account of them unless they pick them out of the world to the exclusion of all else. That cannot be done without naming and descriptive practices.

Learning how to open a gate is rational behavior practiced by a thoughtful creature. Not all gate openers know that they just learned how to open a gate. Zeke didn't think about the fact that he was opening a gate. He just opened it. Zeke was an old dog of mine, and dogs that are opening gates are an elementary constituent part/element of the gate opening facts/events, as they happen. Dogs do not take account of themselves and everything happening around them as it happens. They know what's happening sometimes, but they do not think about their knowledge of that. They think about what they're doing, what they're in the middle of. They think about distal objects and themselves. They think by virtue of drawing meaningful correlations between different things.

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. — Janus

I guess there are those who say the neural activity isn't experienced as wanting to have milk. Rather, the neutral activity is wanting to have milk. Experiencing the neural activity vs. the neural activity being the experience. The latter being the case if we are ruled by physical determinism. In which case, the "wanting to have milk" is, I guess, epiphenomenal, and serves no purpose.

The dog practices timekeeping in exactly the same way humans did before the invention of clocks — Vera Mont

Oh gosh. That is in dire need of argumentative support. I have no reason to believe that that's true, as written. Bald assertion is inadequate. Bald assertion conflicting with known relevant facts is completely unacceptable.

I want you to think about that for a few minutes. Humans charted stars, planned voyages, recorded seasons and all sorts of other things long before inventing clocks. We were drawing correlations between weather patterns and their own lives long before anyone figured out how to make mechanical gears with the 'perfect' number of teeth for our purposes.

Planning routines, instead of just being a part of them, is a time keeping practice. Dogs don't do that.

Dogs can be taught to wake up humans at a certain time. When this or that happens. That's not timekeeping. That's behaving as one is taught to behave. It's rational. It involves an unconscious autonomous sense of time. Waking up someone at the right time is rational.

Dogs do not think about their own expectations as a subject matter in their own right. When we think about what time we're expecting a loved one, stranger, friend, foe, and/or family member to arrive we're thinking about our own thought and belief. We're isolating our own expectations by virtue of naming and descriptive practices. That is to think about one's own thought and belief. Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires first having them, then becoming capable of isolating them as a subject matter in their own right.

Dogs cannot do that.

Oh gosh. That is in dire need of argumentative support. I have no reason to believe that that's true, as written. Bald assertion is inadequate. — creativesoul

It's not all that hairless:

The brain is an efficient machine in orchestrating temporal information across a wide range of time scales. Remarkably, circadian and interval timing processes are shared phenomena across many species and behaviours. Moreover, timing is a pivotal biological function that supports fundamental cognitive (e.g. memory, attention, decision-making) and physiological (e.g. daily variations of hormones and sleep–wake cycles) processes.

Bald assertion conflicting with known relevant facts is completely unacceptable.

Which relevant facts are those? From what source can you be certain that early hominids did not have a sense of time? If they did not, why did they not miss it for so long, and then suddenly, with the onset of civilization, perceive a need to devise instruments for measuring time?

Humans charted stars, planned voyages, recorded seasons and all sorts of other things long before inventing clocks. — creativesoul

Not really. Humans had been been measuring time for quite a while before those other innovations.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/keeping-time-at-stonehenge/792A5E8E091C8B7CB9C26B4A35A6B399

Horology—the study of the measurement of time—dates back to 1450 BC when the Ancient Egyptians first observed the earth’s natural circadian rhythms. They divided the day into two 12-hour periods and used large obelisks to track the sun’s movement.

Planning routines, instead of just being a part of them, is a time keeping practice. Dogs don't do that. — creativesoul

Probably not. But maybe that's because they're constrained by their people's work-leisure schedules, rather than the requirements of nature. The vultures in my area are staging for winter migration, holding exercises to make sure all the year's fledglings are flight-capable. The squirrels are very busy, hiding chestnuts and acorns. It's evening; the raccoons are preparing to forage, the salamanders and chipmunks have retired to their hidden nests. A coyote pack somewhere is assembling for the hunt - I hear their calls - but they must wait till moonrise.

Dogs do not think about their own expectations as a subject matter in their own right. — creativesoul

I only read their actions. You read their minds. Uncanny!

Thinking about one's own thought and belief requires first having them, then becoming capable of isolating them as a subject matter in their own right — creativesoul

But having them doesn't require reflecting on them or isolating them or deciding what their rights may be.
Dogs don't need to do that; they're not riddled with self-doubt.
(that last one is as bald as Patrick Stewart)

I guess there are those who say the neural activity isn't experienced as wanting to have milk. Rather, the neutral activity is wanting to have milk. Experiencing the neural activity vs. the neural activity being the experience. The latter being the case if we are ruled by physical determinism. In which case, the "wanting to have milk" is, I guess, epiphenomenal, and serves no purpose. — Patterner

I don't see the 'wanting to have milk' as epiphenomenal but as a necessary part of the associated neural activity. We certainly don't experience the neural activity as such.

Right. But, if all is physical determinism, then why would we experience the wanting? A robot that is programmed to fill a cup with water when its sensors detect it is empty doed not "want" water. Nor does it experience the electrical activity that senses the low water level, or that moves the parts that refill the cup. It's all just mechanical stimulus and response.

Body needs a nutrient that is found in milk. Brain initiates action potentials to move body to open refrigerator to get milk. Photons bouncing off of contents of refrigerator do not hit retina in a pattern that closely enough matches any patterns representing milk that have been stored in the past. Brain initiates new action potentials, so body goes to store.

There is no wanting in that description, and no need of wanting. Stimulus and response accomplishes what is needed. The subjective experience of the need for that nutrient is not necessary.

But the subjective experience is there. One would think because it is an evolutionary advantage. But if it is only the subjective experience of the neutral activity, and is not causal, then how is it an advantage?

And, advantage or not, how is the subjective experience accomplished?

Right. But, if all is physical determinism, then why would we experience the wanting? A robot that is programmed to fill a cup with water when its sensors detect it is empty doed not "want" water. — Patterner

Why would we not experience wanting? Why compare us to robots? We are not robots we are evolved organisms.

And, advantage or not, how is the subjective experience accomplished? — Patterner

We don't know, and may never know, how it is accomplished. I say we may never know, because even the neural processes cannot be directly observed in vivo. But we have no evidence to suggest that neural activity could not possibly be accompanied by conscious experience. We understand physical processes in causal terms by directly observing them and in the case of neural processes this is just not possible.

Even if we could observe in living detail the neural processes we cannot observe conscious experience, so establishing the link between the two would still seem to be impossible, as far as I can imagine. Of course I might be mistaken, I won't deny that.

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. — Vera Mont

Falling in love without becoming irrational?
Surely a rational reason for friendship turns the friendship into something else - a transactional, conditional relationshiop?
What are the rational reasons for generosity? For mercy? For forgiveness? For hope?

I don't think irrationality - thinking contrary to factual information, as in ideological zealotry, or baseless prejudice, or self-destructive delusion - is particularly endearing. — Vera Mont

I didn't mean that all irrationality is endearing. You are quite right about "ideological zealotry, or baseless prejudice, or self-destructive delusion". Surely, the irrational is two-edged - or perhaps, in itself is neither - it all depends on how irrational and what the irrationality leads to.
And then there's Hume claim that "reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions" and his fact/value distinction.

That said nothing at all happens without the brain and the neuroscientists tell us that the neural networks in the brain model everything we think and do just prior to our thinking and doing. — Janus

"nothing at all happens without the brain" is not helpful. Nothing at all happens without the legs, heart, etc. When you say that the neural networks in the brain are modelling the action, you are surely(?) going way beyond what we actually know. We do actually know that the brain is active before the action in ways that can be identified as precursors of the action, as well as during it. But we don't know exactly what the brain is doing. Still, it may well be doing something that we would call modelling the action. Such preparatory activity is perfectly comprehensible as part of the action. Preparation is concept that links preparatory activities to the activity, so it is conceptually, not merely causally, linked to the activity.

Thanks, but I'm not seeing how it changes the concept of number beyond just extending the basic concept inherent in counting. — Janus

I should hope not. It's meant to be a foundation, not the actual activity. It certainly represents a big change in the concept if you are a platonist.

By the way I'm not averse to Heidegger. I have read some of his work — Janus

I wondered which side of the divide you might fall when I wrote those comments. Not knowing, I just talked about how I came at it. Perhaps I should have gone into more detail.
Taking on both those very different philosophers is a real challenge, and I respect him for it. But he will obviously be in line for criticism from both sides, who are likely to have different criteria for assessing what he is doing.
Since you are already pretty well read, I shall be very interested to know what you make of the book. I'm very sympathetic to the project.

Why would we not experience wanting? Why compare us to robots? We are not robots we are evolved organisms. — Janus

I'm comparing us to an example of something that unquestionably operates entirely within the bounds of physical determinism, in order to show why I think we do not.
-Robots do not have any subjective experiences of the electrical activity within them by which they detect sensory input, discriminate this input from that input, and act based on what they are currently detecting. We do. Why don't they? Why do we?
-Building on what we have that something operating entirely within the bounds of physical determinism does not, we are aware of our subjective experiences. We talk about them all the time.
-Building on top of that, we are aware that we are aware of our subjective experiences.

That seems to be a lot that physical determinism needs to explain. Why any difference at all, and how those three differences are accomplished.

Even if we could observe in living detail the neural processes we cannot observe conscious experience, so establishing the link between the two would still seem to be impossible, as far as I can imagine. Of course I might be mistaken, I won't deny that. — Janus

We don't have reason to think otherwise. But sure, it's possible we'll discovery something or other one day.

Surely a rational reason for friendship turns the friendship into something else - a transactional, conditional relationshiop? — Ludwig V

It is. If you wish to deny that, you can use the excuse of irrationality. Me, I prefer to be befriended, as I choose my friends, for positive qualities and for compatibility of temperament and interest. Friends expect sympathy support and respect from one another; that makes it transactional.
I also terminate a relationship in which I feel cheated, exploited or betrayed. So, yes, it's also conditional.
It's the same with 'falling in love'. Do it irrationally, and you end up falling out again - in the usual case - and Shakespearean tragedy in the worst. In the spectrum between are unhappy marriages and emotionally scarred children, as well as happy accidents where crazy attraction leads a stable relationship.

Surely, the irrational is two-edged - or perhaps, in itself is neither - it all depends on how irrational and what the irrationality leads to. — Ludwig V

There is a line, which may look very faint and fine from some perspectives, between the non-rational (that is, emotional) component of interpersonal relations and the irrational (contrary to reason). Emotions and instinct can augment rational decisions; unreason undermines them.

And then there's Hume claim that "reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions" and his fact/value distinction. — Ludwig V

And how did he demonstrate this in his own life?

Opening a gate is possible by observation...
— Mww

No thought? No belief? No expectation? What, on earth, could mindless observation be? — creativesoul

Exactly, insofar as it is implicitly self-contradictory, hence altogether impossible, for a minded creature to comprehend a mindless condition. Comprehension by a higher intellect of a lesser animal’s behavior, which to an investigator of it is mere experience, was never the problem. To attribute to them a mind of some sort, sufficient for inciting that behavior, but without any means to prove THAT is the sort of mind they actually possess, from which arises causal necessity, or, without any means to prove they have any mind of any sort at all, when his only provision for it is his own experience, is certainly a problem.

To which the common rejoinder is….well, crap on a cracker, dude….how else could a dog, e.g., ever open a gate, if they didn’t do this or that first, which, in truth, is tacit admission that he could not possibly comprehend how that creature does anything at all, unless he supposes it to be enough like him that he could comprehend it, which immediately negates the possibility such lesser creature could manifest its behaviors by some means completely foreign to him. And that carries the implication he could comprehend the lesser creature’s behavioral causality iff he knew what it was.

But, where such investigator is human, he doesn’t. He can’t; he does not even know his own. He guesses his own, it works for him, the dog performs the same act therefore must be accredited with the same guesswork insofar as it apparently works for him too.

While this scenario may be good enough for sociologists, psychologists and lawyers, it is far and away “…beneath the dignity of proper philosophy….”
—————

Dogs do not take account of themselves and everything happening around them as it happens. They know what's happening sometimes, but they do not think about their knowledge of that. They think about what they're doing, what they're in the middle of. — creativesoul

I agree dogs do not take account of themselves, nor do they think about their knowledge, for to do so is to implicate a form of personal subjectivity separable from mere instinct, for which there is no observable warrant. I’d admit that it seems as though dogs take account** of the effects their behavior causes, but less so that they think themselves as causal.

How is to think about what they’re doing, not taking account of themselves? If it is the case dogs do not take account of themselves, it follows necessarily they do not think about what they’re doing, and if not of what they’re doing, then assuredly not temporal successions of it.

**Although, with that, is the lead-in to the suggestion they think, not about what they’re doing, but what they've done. But it is just as feasible to suppose an internal reaction predicated on external observed pain/pleasure, fight/flee, as rational thought in itself. I used to think my JRT did its thing just because it elicits a reaction from me which she found pleasurable, when it is just as likely she did her thing because to do otherwise elicits a reaction she finds less than pleasurable. Or, most likely of all, she did her thing regardless of me entirely.
—————

The striking singular difference….. — creativesoul

I like all that…..

Our own thought and belief(along with meaning, truth, and falsehood) are only discovered via language use. — creativesoul

…..except that. Which is a different can of different worms.

I guess there are those who say the neural activity isn't experienced as wanting to have milk. Rather, the neutral activity is wanting to have milk. Experiencing the neural activity vs. the neural activity being the experience. The latter being the case if we are ruled by physical determinism. In which case, the "wanting to have milk" is, I guess, epiphenomenal, and serves no purpose. — Patterner

If walking consists in putting one foot in front of the other, is walking epiphenomenal?

If walking consists in putting one foot in front of the other, is walking epiphenomenal? — SophistiCat

I would not think so. But wanting to walk would be, as wanting milk would be, if we are nothing but physically deterministic machines.

I would not think so. — Patterner

Why not? Moving your feet does all the work, so why would we need walking?

"nothing at all happens without the brain" is not helpful. Nothing at all happens without the legs, heart, etc. — Ludwig V

Of course it's the whole system working together. However the brain is the central processing unit so I think it is important to emphasize that nothing happens without the brain.

If the brain tells the heart to beat and the lungs to breathe and processes and renders intelligible all sensory input and tells our limbs how to move when performing actions both simple and complex how would all this be possible without prior modeling?

Apart from all the autonomic functions the brain gives rise to consciousness and creates an overarching model we refer to as the "self".

Preparation is concept that links preparatory activities to the activity, so it is conceptually, not merely causally, linked to the activity. — Ludwig V

We understand and experience neural activity only as affect, percept and concept. We can say the brain must model all our bodily functions and actions and all its sensory input, but its true we don't know exactly what all those neuronal processes and networks are doing simply because they cannot be directly observed in vivo.

I should hope not. It's meant to be a foundation, not the actual activity. It certainly represents a big change in the concept if you are a platonist. — Ludwig V

Right. Luckily I am no platonist. I find the very idea that numbers are somehow real apart from their instantiations and our generalizing concepts of them to be incoherent.

I shall be very interested to know what you make of the book. I'm very sympathetic to the project. — Ludwig V

Cheers. I do have quite a lot on my 'to read' list and nowhere near as much time to read as I would like so there may be a fair bit of time before I can get to it.

-Robots do not have any subjective experiences of the electrical activity within them by which they detect sensory input, discriminate this input from that input, and act based on what they are currently detecting. We do. Why don't they? Why do we? — Patterner

I think the answer is quite simple. We are complex multidimensional evolved organisms, and they are not. Also we do not have any subjective experience of the workings of the brain and the CNS, we only experience the sensations, affects, thoughts and actions that manifest on account of those workings.

If the brain tells the heart to beat and the lungs to breathe and processes and renders intelligible all sensory input and tells our limbs how to move when performing actions both simple and complex how would all this be possible without prior modeling? — Janus

Do you need prior modelling of the modelling? No? Then why do you need to model the action in the first place?

Apart from all the autonomic functions the brain gives rise to consciousness and creates an overarching model we refer to as the "self". — Janus

Is the brain part of the self or not? Assuming it is, then it has to model itself, including a model of its modelling. !?
Can you tell me the difference between my "self" and "Ludwig" and "I"? I don't perceive any.

We can say the brain must model all our bodily functions and actions and all its sensory input, but its true we don't know exactly what all those neuronal processes and networks are doing simply because they cannot be directly observed in vivo. — Janus

Yes. Exactly. So how do you know the brain is modelling anything?

It may be that I simply don't understand what you mean by "model" and "modelling".

I do have quite a lot on my 'to read' list and nowhere near as much time to read as I would like so there may be a fair bit of time before I can get to it. — Janus

Tell me about it. There's no hurry. It's just that it might be interesting to swop notes as and when. Up to you.

I don't understand how you mean things. What is epiphenomenalism?

Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events. — SEP

Epiphenomenalism is the view that phenomenal properties – the what it’s like of conscious states – have no physical effects. — Emerson Green

relating to an epiphenomenon (= something that exists and can be seen, felt, etc. at the same time as another thing but is not related to it) — Cambridge Dictionary

of or relating to an epiphenomenon (a secondary phenomenon accompanying another and caused by it /
specifically : a secondary mental phenomenon that is caused by and accompanies a physical phenomenon but has no causal influence itself) — Merriam Webster

In what way does the physical act of walking fit any definition of epiphenomenal? I may be misunderstanding your questions.

Do you need prior modelling of the modelling? No? Then why do you need to model the action in the first place? — Ludwig V

It seems reasonable to me to think that for everything we think and do there is a corresponding neural network of activity. That is what I mean by 'modeling'. As I already said although we think of it as modeling a conceptual or semantic process, we also think of what the brain does as a physical process. In any case, why would we need modeling of the modeling?

Is the brain part of the self or not? Assuming it is, then it has to model itself, including a model of its modelling. !?
Can you tell me the difference between my "self" and "Ludwig" and "I"? I don't perceive any. — Ludwig V

Are you denying that it most plausible to think that the brain evolves a model of our overall being we refer to as 'the self'? Of course that model includes the brain and the body. The brain that models is conceptually the central part of that model, but it is not an experiential part at all. Apparently the brain lacks any sensation. It is the one part of our bodies we cannot feel.

Yes. Exactly. So how do you know the brain is modelling anything?

It may be that I simply don't understand what you mean by "model" and "modelling". — Ludwig V

I'm saying that the brain's inscrutable neural processes we can only conceive as 'modeling'. What could it mean to say that conception is wrong when we cannot directly observe or even feel what the living brain is doing?

Tell me about it. There's no hurry. It's just that it might be interesting to swop notes as and when. Up to you. — Ludwig V

I agree it would be interesting to compare notes. I'll certainly let you know if I start reading Groundless Grounds. I'm enjoying our conversation. :cool:

In what way does the physical act of walking fit any definition of epiphenomenal? I may be misunderstanding your questions. — Patterner

Originally, epiphenomenalism was indeed articulated in relation to mental/physical relationship. However, the justification for it does not rely on any uniquely mental aspects and can be applied more widely. You have gestured towards this justification earlier in the discussion:

I guess there are those who say the neural activity isn't experienced as wanting to have milk. Rather, the neutral activity is wanting to have milk. Experiencing the neural activity vs. the neural activity being the experience. The latter being the case if we are ruled by physical determinism. In which case, the "wanting to have milk" is, I guess, epiphenomenal, and serves no purpose. — Patterner

The idea, known as causal exclusion, is that if A (neural activity) does all the work, then B (experience) has no causal efficacy. Surely, you can see that this is in no way specific to mental phenomena? So, if moving your feet does all the causal work, then walking is reduced to an epiphenomenon.

Oh gosh. That is in dire need of argumentative support. I have no reason to believe that that's true, as written. Bald assertion is inadequate.
— creativesoul
It's not all that hairless: — Vera Mont

I cannot help but to laugh. This smacks of irony. Assertions have no hair. "Bald assertions" are what we call exclamations that assume precisely what's in question regardless of whether or not they are accompanied by cogent argument. They're bald because they're unaccompanied.

They are bald, not necessarily due to being unjustifiable, but rather for not having been argued for, yet. It's possible, I suppose, that your position rests upon some solid ground.

Do you have a cogent argument for how it becomes the case that any creature could begin thinking about their own previous thought and belief? All timekeeping presupposes that.

As best we can tell, time keeping practices were existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. There is a difference between knowing what time I expect someone to arrive and knowing someone has. The latter is 'fully' in the moment. The former is existentially dependent upon having already been so. Dogs are always in the moment and unreflective. I've known some superbly expressive ones replete with wonderful temperament. Some have been absolutely amazing. Astounding even. Yet they remain creatures that cannot think about their own thoughts and beliefs, because they have no way of picking them out of this world to the exclusion of all else.

Knowing about one's own expectation requires having them. Having expectation does not require knowing that one does. The dog has expectations. Knowing what time one is expected to arrive is knowing about one's own thought and belief. Dogs do not.

When we think about what time we expect an arrival, we pick out the time.

Knowing someone has arrived is not knowing what time an arrival is expected. The latter is a metacognitive endeavor. The former is not. The former is about the one arriving. The latter is about the time. The dog doesn't think about its own thought and belief. The dog doesn't think about the time. The dog thinks about the one(s) arriving. Expectation is belief about future events.

The dog can acquire an anticipatory demeanor by virtue of correlations they draw between different things. These things could be called common elements of past ritual. Sounds. Sights. Tastes. Smells. Regularly occurring events. Becoming part of a routine requires the passage of time. It does not require knowing about the fact that one is part of a routine. The dog can think/believe that their human is about to arrive because the arrival has been well practiced.

The dog doesn't think about its own expectation. Expectation is belief about future events.

To think about one's own expectations, one must first have thought and/or belief, for there must be first something to think about, and a way of thinking about it. Then, and only then, can a capable creature begin to think about their own expectations. Dogs don't do that.

All expectation consists of belief about future events.

How far off into the future one contemplates is determined strictly speaking solely by virtue of one's time keeping practices. The dog doesn't look forward to Thursday, for it has no clue about which days are. No clue whatsoever. Thursdays can be very special days for the dog, but not to... the dog.

Avoiding anthropomorphism requires knowing what sorts of things are meaningful and how they become so... to ourselves and any other creatures capable of forming, having, and/or holding meaningful thought and/or belief. Knowing how things become meaningful is knowledge of paramount importance.

It allows us to know that the dog has no clue, no thought, no belief - whatsoever - about what time they expect someone to arrive. Their expectations are not arranged by them in timely fashion or manner.

Opening a gate is possible by observation...
— Mww

No thought? No belief? No expectation? What, on earth, could mindless observation be?
— creativesoul

Exactly, insofar as it is implicitly self-contradictory, hence altogether impossible, for a minded creature to comprehend a mindless condition. — Mww

According to your linguistic framework, perhaps. Not mine.

Comprehension by a higher intellect of a lesser animal’s behavior, which to an investigator of it is mere experience, was never the problem. — Mww

Who said it was?

To attribute to them a mind of some sort, sufficient for inciting that behavior, but without any means to prove THAT is the sort of mind they actually possess, from which arises causal necessity, or, without any means to prove they have any mind of any sort at all, when his only provision for it is his own experience, is certainly a problem. — Mww

Not mine.

To which the common rejoinder is….well, crap on a cracker, dude….how else could a dog, e.g., ever open a gate, if they didn’t do this or that first, which, in truth, is tacit admission that he could not possibly comprehend how that creature does anything at all, unless he supposes it to be enough like him that he could comprehend it, which immediately negates the possibility such lesser creature could manifest its behaviors by some means completely foreign to him. And that carries the implication he could comprehend the lesser creature’s behavioral causality iff he knew what it was.

But, where such investigator is human, he doesn’t. He can’t; he does not even know his own. He guesses his own, it works for him, the dog performs the same act therefore must be accredited with the same guesswork insofar as it apparently works for him too.

While this scenario may be good enough for sociologists, psychologists and lawyers, it is far and away “…beneath the dignity of proper philosophy….”
—————

I do not see how that gets you out of the pickle you're in.

Do you have a cogent argument for how it becomes the case that any creature could begin thinking about their own previous thought and belief? All timekeeping presupposes that. — creativesoul

I did include a citation about biological clocks. I don't see how that presupposes or requires 'thinking about own previous thought and belief'. Yet another caveat added in order to exclude other species.

As best we can tell, time keeping practices were existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. — creativesoul

From what can you tell that? Stonehenge? Obelisks? Athens' Tower of the Winds? They don't say much, except that humans have been keeping public time since the beginning of civilization. those practices may have been named and described. Before that, humans had to depend on our own sense of when to wake, when to eat, when to move to the summer camp, when to hunt, when to preserve food for the winter. Whether anyone named that or not, we don't know.

Dogs are always in the moment and unreflective. — creativesoul

Now, there is a bald, naked, unsupported statement.
you can have it. I'm done here.

So, if moving your feet does all the causal work, then walking is reduced to an epiphenomenon. — SophistiCat

Trying and trying to figure out what you mean, but I'm not getting it. But I feel this sentence is key. Can you explain the relationship between moving your feet and walking? (Of course, we're not talking about sitting in a chair and shuffling your feet around. Or lying on the ground doing leg-lifts. Or pumping your legs on a swing to gain height. Or any number of things other than moving them in the way that produces walking.)

I'm saying that the brain's inscrutable neural processes we can only conceive as 'modeling'. — Janus

What I'm trying to get at it is that what you are arguing seems to me to be exactly parallel to the argument of many dualists back in the day. They argued that the mind was a kind of "homunculus" - an ill-defined being that actually executed all the (mental) operations that the body could not. In the case of perception, for example, it was thought of as a perceiver who did the perceiving that the body could not. But if that's how you explain perception, you have set up an infinite regress, so the model explains nothing. In the same way, if you posit that the brain has to carry out some process - call it modelling - that has to be executed before any action can be carried out - it seems to me that you have created an infinite regress.

To attribute to them a mind of some sort, sufficient for inciting that behavior, but without any means to prove THAT is the sort of mind they actually possess, from which arises causal necessity, or, without any means to prove they have any mind of any sort at all, when his only provision for it is his own experience, is certainly a problem. — Mww

But this is exactly the traditional problem of other minds. So your argument also proves that we cannot know that other human bodies have a mind.

The dog doesn't think about its own expectation. Expectation is belief about future events. — creativesoul

Surely this proves too much. It proves that the dog cannot act purposively.

if you posit that the brain has to carry out some process - call it modelling - that has to be executed before any action can be carried out - it seems to me that you have created an infinite regress. — Ludwig V

I don't see why you would think that if the brain is constantly modeling all experience and action that it would imply dualism, a homunculus or an infinite regress.

I'm not saying the process of 'modeling" is anything other than a physical process,

I'm not claiming that there is somehow a kind of theatre with a little watcher in the brain which is prior to our experience, thoughts and actions. Think of a computer program that generates novel ways of articulating ideas. The processes that do that we could refer to as a kind of modeling constituted by the electronic switching that gives rise to the program.

I can't see why an infinite regress would be involved. You haven't actually explained your reasons for those three claims.

I went to the shops because the neural activity which is experienced as realizing... — Janus

You’re attributing agency to neurophysiology. It’s what Hacker and Bennett call the ‘mereological fallacy’, the attribution to a part that which can only properly said of the whole.

Can a qualitative difference between humans and other animals be found in what humans "do" differently rather than how humans "are" different? For example, humans make tools that make tools. Whereas a sea otter may use a rock to crack open shellfish for food, humans create tools (machinery) to manufacture lobster and crab crackers. This seems to be a behavior that animals lack.