You asked:

Isn't belief existentially contingent on judgement?

Some. Not all.

I mean, in order to believe something, don't you have to do some sort of deliberate assessment as to whether or not it is true?

No.

During language acquisition, one has no ability to perform such an assessment, and yet s/he is acquiring thought/belief via purely adoptive means.

Without that judgement, how can it be a belief, which means to accept something, and acceptance implies deliberate judgement?

As above.

So don't you think that we need a separation between thought and belief...

There is no separation regarding what both consist in/of. At their core, they are the same.

Your argument concerned use.

All use of both terms consists entirely of mental correlations drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's mental state. Any difference in terminological usage is one of complexity, not basic elemental constitution.

During language acquisition, one has no ability to perform such an assessment, and yet s/he is acquiring thought/belief via purely adoptive means. — creativesoul

I don't understand why you would say this. Since belief is the conviction that what is believed is true, I would think that belief requires the deliberate assessment as to whether something is true. Can you imagine believing something without such an assessment, even in a child learning language? You do realize that a child goes through a lot of trial and error in learning language, before the beliefs concerning language use are formed, don't you? Don't you think that this trial and error is an act of performing such an assessment. Why would you say that a child has no ability to perform such an assessment prior to learning language?

What I wonder, is why you think one can have a belief without performing a deliberate assessment (judgement) as to whether or not the thing believed is true, when the word "belief" implies that one has decided that the thing believed is true.

One learning the names of things does not - cannot - perform a deliberative assessment concerning whether or not "That is a tree" is true.

Then how is learning how to refer to a particular type of thing as a tree, a belief? Learning language is just learning how to use words, like any other form of learning how to use a tool, it is habituation, not belief.

Learning how to use language is not a belief. It requires forming and holding them.

OK, then how were these beliefs formed without a judgement of truth, since belief implies a conviction that the thing believed is true? How does one form the conviction, or belief, "X is true" without having judged that x is true?

The fact that one must think/believe that something is there prior to thinking/believing that that something is called "a tree", shows that not all belief is believing that something is true.

You're talking about our judgment/assessment concerning whether or not some statement of thought/belief is true.

Those initially acquiring language cannot do that. That is a metacognitive endeavor. Prior to thinking about thought/belief is thought/belief.

To directly answer:All thought/belief is formed by virtue of drawing mental correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's own mental state.

The fact that one must think/believe that something is there prior to thinking/believing that that something is called "a tree", shows that not all belief is believing that something is true. — creativesoul

Well now you're just redefining "belief". But this doesn't avoid the issue of judgement. That one can sense something, and identify the thing sensed, when sensed at a later time, implies judgement. I don't see how you can place belief as prior to judgement, when belief clearly requires judgement.

Are you denying that one must think/believe that something is there prior to thinking/believing that that something is called "a tree"?

I need to clarify something here, because upon re-reading my earlier post, it could be misleading. I do not mean to imply that recognizing an 'object' as a laptop requires re-drawing every single correlation necessary for doing so. So...

In that sense, we do 'skip' quite bit of the earlier process involved in arriving at complex thought/belief such as recognizing a laptop.

Hey Creative, thanks I am still considering what you said, but I am traveling, dead tired right now,

No worries Cava. Real life comes first.

;)

OK, back in FL

I think we perceive more than just raw impression, that the world is structured in a 'natural' order, which is understood and intuited by us inductively. Language is a good starting place. You said:

If learning the rules of language requires only using language correctly, then there is no issue with Chomsky's claim that children learn the rules with seemingly little effort. I'm not so sure that correct use equals learning the rules. As a matter of fact, that equivalency is highly suspect, on my view.

Yes, I agree, I misspoke. The child does not know the rules, they only learn them latter. The child is mimicking the the sounds it hears, putting them together, constructing sounds that produce effects in their care-givers. It is not belief yet, it is trial and error (A Gopnick's Theory, Theory....a built in Bayesian function). She admits (with Chomsky) that grammar is not learned, it is picked up in the child's process of learning about the world about it. Our organic structures have evolved to the point that they provide structured information which we then process.

I keep thinking about how an Osprey can spot a fish from a great distance dive at a fantastic rate of speed and automatically (they are successful 1 in 4 dives avg!) compensating for the differences in refractive indexes. They must possess biologic structures than don't require thought/belief that are built in, that enable such feats of perception.

While we are not Osprey's, I think we also possess certain biologic structures that enable us to perceive automatically and that the quality of the information is already structured prior to our awareness of it. Language is structured, the child mimics and manipulates that sound design features it hears, producing results it considers significant when it gets the attention of others.

I hold that the complexity of one's thought/belief increases after language acquisition, and then again upon metacognition. The main difference between our viewpoints seems to be the linguistic(conceptual) framework that we're using.

Seems to me that that notion is crucial.

What does the one you're using offer(with regard to perception - as historically conceived - compared/contrasted to thought/belief) that mine cannot effectively take an account of and/or exhaust?

Are you denying that one must think/believe that something is there prior to thinking/believing that that something is called "a tree"? — creativesoul

Yes, I'm denying this, I think it's categorical wrong, and the reverse of what is actually the case. When we see something, and identify it as a tree, we do not identify it as a something prior to identifying it as a tree. "Something" is a special, complicated ontological concept. We do not identify that there is something there prior to identifying the tree, we just identify the tree. Later we might learn that the tree is part of a larger category referred to by "something".

Nothing I said leads to what you're arguing against.

When we see something and identify it as a tree, we do not think/believe that it is called a tree until then. Thought/belief does not require identification. Or perhaps this be best put a bit differently...

Seeing something doesn't require identifying it as "something".

You wrote:

I keep thinking about how an Osprey can spot a fish from a great distance dive at a fantastic rate of speed and automatically (they are successful 1 in 4 dives avg!) compensating for the differences in refractive indexes. They must possess biologic structures than don't require thought/belief that are built in, that enable such feats of perception.

I would agree to this, generally speaking.

However, if the osprey is capable of perception, which is presupposed by the last claim above, it leads one to directly question exactly what counts as perception. I mean, it's most certainly not the same thing as recognizing a laptop as a laptop, and yet that is also called "perception" in the framework you've been employing...

While we are not Osprey's, I think we also possess certain biologic structures that enable us to perceive automatically...

I agree up to this point.

...and that the quality of the information is already structured prior to our awareness of it. Language is structured, the child mimics and manipulates that sound design features it hears, producing results it considers significant when it gets the attention of others.

No argument here either, aside from a small quibble about "the quality of the information is already structured"...

Probably inconsequential though. Seems an unnecessarily complex way to frame it.

What does perception consist in/of?

That question requires a standard of measure; a criterion. What is the criterion, which when satisfied by X, counts as being a case of perception?

I think that this line of thought gets to the heart of the matter I'm focusing upon.

Seeing something doesn't require identifying it as "something". — creativesoul

This is what you said:

The fact that one must think/believe that something is there prior to thinking/believing that that something is called "a tree", shows that not all belief is believing that something is true. — creativesoul

I merely pointed out that this is incorrect. We believe that there is something called a tree there, prior to believing that there is something there. We learn to call what we see a "tree", and believe that it is a tree without believing that it is "something". It is only at a later time, when we learn categorization, that we come to believe that the thing we call a tree is something. So we believe that there is a tree there prior to believing that there is something there.

This is directly contradictory to what you said, that we believe there is something there prior to believing that there is a tree there. And "seeing something" doesn't imply that one believes that something is there. Seeing and believing are distinctly different.

Same straw man, different post...

Thinking/believing that something is there does not require thinking/believing that it is a "something".

Then what does it require? Obviously it requires thinking/believing. How can it be a case of thinking/believing that something is there without believing that it is something which is there? If it's not a belief that it is something, then clearly it cannot be a belief that something is there.

You need some other way to describe this type of thinking/believing, other than as believing in something. But if you describe it in another way, then your argument doesn't hold. What you now refer to as "thinking/believing that something is there", cannot be called believing something is there, and believing a tree is there remains prior to believing something is there. Believing some unidentifiable thing cannot qualify as believing anything because if the belief cannot be identified it cannot be believed.

This seems to be your mistake, you think that believing something is there is prior to believing a tree is there. But this is not the case, because "belief" implies that the thing believed has been identified. And you seem to be claiming that there could be a belief in which the thing believed has not been identified. What do you think would be believed then, if the thing believed is not in some way identified?

It requires drawing mental correlation(s) between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's own mental state.

You're conflating reports of thought/belief with thought/belief(metacognition and cognition).

It requires drawing mental correlation(s) between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's own mental state. — creativesoul

It appears like "drawing mental correlations" is the very same thing as "the agent's own mental state". So where do these claimed 'objects' of "physiological sensory perception" enter this scenario? The correlations are mental, why do you think that 'objects' are required? Sure, sensory perception enters the scenario, but what justifies the claim that it enters in the form of 'objects'?

I think that 'objects' only enter the scenario when we give things names. The name must signify something with temporal stability so we assume an object. In other words, objects are created by language. We name sensory perceptions, and to justify the application of the name, we assume an object which is named.

You're conflating our talk with what we're talking about. The world isn't existentially contingent upon the term "world"....

The world isn't existentially contingent upon the term "world".... — creativesoul

But the world is existentially contingent on the word, and that's what you don't seem to be grasping. "World" implies a particular way of apprehending, understanding one's environment, which developed from the use of the word "world". What "world" refers to is existentially contingent on this way of understanding. Consider the concept of "worldview". Even when you insist that "world" refers to something prior to the word, this way of understanding the word is dependent on the existence of the word. Prior to the use of the word "world", this way of understanding the word did not exist. So the world is existentially contingent on the word "world", because what the word refers to is contingent on the use of the word. No matter how much you insist that the thing referred to is prior to the word, the actual thing referred to is dictated by the understanding of the word, which develops from the use of the word.

When the word "world" first came into existence, our understanding of the world, and consequentially what the word referred to was completely different from today. Perhaps it was under the notions of geocentrism. As our understanding evolves, changes, so does the thing referred to by the word "world". What the word refers to is dictated by the way that we understand. And the way that we understand changes with time. Therefore the word existed prior to what the word refers to right now.

You wrote:

But the world is existentially contingent on the word("world"), and that's what you don't seem to be grasping. "World" implies a particular way of apprehending, understanding one's environment, which developed from the use of the word "world".

It's not that I do not grasp what you're claiming Meta. Rather, it's that I do, and I know that it's wrong in several ways...

First of all, the term "world" does not imply a particular way of apprehending, understanding one's environment. To quite the contrary, it implies many, many different ways. The world is not many many different ways; worldviews are. Thus, worldviews can be wrong. Worldviews are expressed in language(our talk). They consist of thought/belief about the world(what we're talking about).

That shows your conflation between our talk and what we're talking about.

Now, as soon as we start talking about our worldviews, we've begun a metacognitive endeavor, and if history repeats itself, you'll then neglect to draw a distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief and your position will continue suffering the consequences of that.

First of all, the term "world" does not imply a particular way of apprehending, understanding one's environment. To quite the contrary, it implies many, many different ways. The world is not many many different ways; worldviews are. Thus, worldviews can be wrong. Worldviews are expressed in language(our talk). They consist of thought/belief about the world(what we're talking about). — creativesoul

This just supports what I said. What the word "world" refers to depends on the individual. Therefore there cannot be a thing referred to by the word "world", which is prior in existence to the understanding which the person has.

That shows your conflation between our talk and what we're talking about. — creativesoul

There's no such conflation on my part, I recognize the distinction. You just refuse to recognize the fact that there is no such thing as the thing talked about, without the talk. The thing talked about is existentially dependent on the talk, because without the talk it is logically impossible that there is the thing talked about.