Gets pretty lonely over here sometimes, I must say. — Mww

That's what comes of a) not thinking with the crowd and b) thinking about philosophy. I'm not ignoring you - it's just that I have limited bandwidth.

I think there's quite a lot of work both with you and Wayfarer to tease out "discovered" vs "constructed".

Because humans literally hold the power of life and death over the whole planet and separately, of many of its species, by what we do or don't do, or because of unintended consequences of our actions. — Wayfarer

This (which, in theory, I was perfectly aware of) made me look at things differently. Which is what good philosophy is all about. There are enough ways for people to doge the issue, and I'm in favour of ideas that make it more difficult for them. (But that doesn't mean I retract anything that I've said. Perhaps I would put some of it differently.)

I know it's a very non-politically-correct philosophy, but I can't help but believe there's something vitally important in it. — Wayfarer

Well, I would suggest that the reason why it's not politically correct is more to do with what people have made of it, rather than the doctrine in itself. But it's perhaps you have in mind the disfavour that platonism has fallen into amongst philosophers. The doctrine seems to be surviving, however. For me, however, that it is a philosophy and deserves to be considered as such. I'm not a fan myelf and I'm prepared to argue the issue as opposed to dismissing it.
However, for various reasons, I'm very interested in why you think it is important. After all, on the face of it, it doesn't make any difference to anything. Life will go on exactly as before.

I’m very much in the ‘discovered’ camp, although once we have the intelligence to discover, with it comes the ability to construct, which muddies the water somewhat. — Wayfarer

That deserves teasing out. But for the moment, let me observe that you seem not to hold a "pure" version (as exemplified in Lukasiewicz's articulation). That makes a difference.

But a rainbow is a matter for physics and optics, in a way that living beings are not. Yours is the misunderstanding here. — Wayfarer

Human beings not a matter for physics? What on earth is physiology about?

We may therefore now assume it to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation 'north of', which is a universal;

I'm not sure that "north of" is usually considered to be a universal, but I'll let that pass, because platonism is about more than "formal ideas, like those of logical and arithmetical principles". It is about universals.
BTW I couldn't quite follow his argument here, but I'm not sure how much it matters. We're not dealing with details here.

.... the relation 'north of' does not seem to exist in the same sense in which Edinburgh and London exist. If we ask 'Where and when does this relation exist?' the answer must be 'Nowhere and nowhen'.

Well, Russell's answer suggests that it doesn't exist, which he doesn't mean to imply. But certainly they are not spatio-temporal objects. But that's not a dramatic conclusion. They are objects in a different category, which means that the manner of their existence is not that of spatio-temporal objects like "Edinburgh" or "London". No sweat. (I'm guessing that you might have no difficulty with the notion of a category, because Aristotle invented the term, in this application.) Is it a mental object? That's more dubious, partly because I'm not all that clear what mental objects are. But I can see why Russell would not want to call them that because the term suggests that it only exists as and when it is thought about and that clashes with the objectivity of "Edinburgh is north of London". My point here is only that there are different kinds of object in the world, and their existence is of different kinds. Not everything is a spatio-temporal object. That's not a problem for me. So what do you say about this example?

But somehow, there is not a 'cumulative culture' of the more complex behaviors in animals, unlike in humans. — L'éléphant

At least some animals learn from each other (likely by means of mimicry) and even pass on (some of) what they have learnt to succeeding generations. (Don't lionesses and wolves teach their cubs to hunt?) That is simply an extension of the ability to adapt one's behaviour in a changing environment. One might expect "memes" to develop and evolve as they do in human cultures. But what extends this process is writing, painting, sculpting, which leave a permanent record for later generations to interpret and adapt for their own use - and sometimes simply to preserve if we wish to.

Animals do acquire layers of behavior, but they are best described as scaffolds, rather than 'traditions'. — L'éléphant

"Scaffolds" is a very interesting concept. Without knowing exactly how ethologists apply the term, I shouldn't comment. But I don't see "scaffolds" as an opposition to "traditions". For human beings, our traditions are scaffolds - a framework within which we develop our behaviour and which we can alter and adapt as our needs and fancies change.

We are unexceptional in that we are the product of evolution, like every other species is, bacteria to sequoias. We designed ourselves no more than any other species did. We are on the continuum along with every other animal.
Where we ARE exceptional is that we are much further out on the continuum (than other species) in our ability to reason, invent, think, etc., and enact the rational and irrational motives driven by our far superior lust for aggrandizement. — BC

Yes, that's a much better picture of what's going on. Though we may be driven, not by a stronger lust for aggrandizement, but by better opportunities made available by our technological capablities. We may also be driven, not by simple aggrandizement, but by something as simple as population pressure.

We are the only species to do many, many things. All because of being the only one capable of thinking the ways we do. It seems to me that's the very definition of exceptional. — Patterner

Yes. I think the issue may be what our being exceptional means.

My objection was to the definition of the word, precisely because evolution accounts for the many traits common to species with a common ancestry. Nothing suddenly happened to strike man with reason; reason was developed in many species over millions of years. That man took it into further realms of imagination and language is interesting, but it makes him unique only in magnitude, not in kind. — Vera Mont

Sometimes a difference in magnitude does make a difference in kind.

The distinction between h.sapiens and other creatures is something we have to take responsibility for, rather than denying the obvious. — Wayfarer

I think this is the heart of the debate. Exceptional or similar is, to a great extent, a difference of perspective, or emphasis. What matters is what difference the difference in emphasis makes. Why does it matter? It comes down to a question of values. Does our dominance over other species mean that we are entitled to treat them as machines or use them for sport? Or does it mean we need to be stewards rather than owners, including taking into account the interests of at least other animals, but maybe also fish, insects, plants, bacteria and microbes.
This gets bound up with arguments appealing to enlightened self-interest - we need the planet to function in certain ways if we are to survive at all - as against arguments appealing to a moral view - that because we can see to the welfare of other living beings and even, in some sense, of the inanimate landscape itself, we ought to do so.

One of the ironies implicit in scientific humanism is that it looses sight of the very thing which enables us to pursue science. — Wayfarer

Not knowing what scientific humanism is, I wouldn't want to comment on what it loses sight of. Come to think of it, I don't even know what the very thing is that enables us to pursue science. I would have thought that there is no one thing involved, but a number of intersecting things, working, as it were, in concert.

My point is that to depict reason as a biological adaption is to undermine it....Reducing it to the status of a biological adaption fails to come to terms with it. — Wayfarer

That's like saying that the explanation of a rainbow in the terms of physics undermines it, or reduces it, or even abolishes it. Which, I'm sure you will agree, is a serious misunderstanding.
It is true that understanding the evolution of eyes doesn't deal with many questions and problems about sight. But it does do something to answer the question "how come we have eyes?", doesn't it?

I think we tend to assume that evolutionary theory provides an explanation for it when there are very many unanswered questions in that account.. — Wayfarer

Did I ever say that there are not?

Do you think, for example, that the basic axioms of logic, or the natural numbers, came into existence along with the hominid brain? Or are they something that brain now enables us to recognise and manipulate? See the distinction? — Wayfarer

Ah, yes. Now we are getting to the issue. The basic axioms of logic are certainly something that we are able to recognize and manipulate. Whether they are constructed or discovered is contested. That's what this is all about, isn't it? I'm very fond of this:-

Whenever I am occupied with even the tiniest logistical problem, e.g. trying to find the shortest axiom of the implicational calculus, I have the impression that I am confronted with a mighty construction of indescribably complexity and immeasurable rigidity. This construction has the effect on me of a concrete tangible object, fashioned from the hardest of materials, a hundred times stronger than concrete or steel. I cannot change anything in it; by intense labour, I merely find in it ever new details, and attain unshakable and eternal truths. Where and what is this ideal construction? — J. Lukasiewicz, A Wittgenstein Workbook, quoted and trans. by P.Geach

Which nicely states the problem. Lukasiewicz doesn't answer the question, but does observe that "A Catholic philosopher would say: it is in God, it is God’s thought." Perhaps we can get closer to understanding each other if you can see my observations as another attempt to answer Lukasiewicz's question. You would not be mistaken to see Wittgenstein's influence in my approach.

Scientific materialism. It is parasitic on the classical tradition of Western philosophy, but fundamental elements of that classical tradition are making a comeback. — Wayfarer

Well, the classical tradition never really went away. But it is true that it is more prominent now than it used to be.
I'm a bit puzzled. Many people say that materialism first appears in Democritus and Epicurus. But other pre-Socratics also have a claim. What distinguishes Democritus and \Epicurus is that they proposed an atomic theory of matter. In which, of course, they were, in a sense, right. It is true that they were largely ignored when Christianity became dominant until Gassendi revived that tradition in the first half of the 17th century. Is this revival what you are referring to as "scientific" materialism? Gassendi certainly though he was reviving the ancient works and developing them.
We may have different ideas about what "fundamental" means, but Aristotle, though early in our canon, was not at the beginning. Many people would put Plato/Socrates at the beginning, others various "pre-Socratics - such as Democritus and Epicurus. Thales of Miletus is a popular candidate for first place. He worked and wrote about 300 years before Aristotle.

It's just a word for empty that was translated to void. The world is already here, just kind of messy. — Vera Mont

Actually, that's how I read it. I suppose the problem is that the translation inevitably introduces distinctions and ways of thinking that may or may not have been available to the people who wrote the original. It's the word "form" that attracts my attention - I think that's an inescapable trace of philosophy, which might (MIGHT) have been in the original.

Most religion still demands the same. — Vera Mont

Yes, with the added twist that you are supposed to surrender voluntarily. (Threats of punishment notwithstanding)

You say we know how their habits, but not how they thought. Don't people usually have an attitude or idea before they decide on a course of action, which eventually becomes habitual? Don't their actions give us an indication of what they think?
A king of Assyria decreed massive lion-hunts, sometimes with caged lions in an arena and commissioned a huge bass-relief monument to the sport. Does this give you an inkling of his thought-process? He recorded his thoughts, and they match his actions perfectly. — Vera Mont

I think we've got a crossed wire here. Where we have archaeological relics, then of course we can, with due caution, read off something of what they must/might have been thinking. All I'm saying is that when the archaeology, as well as the writing, is missing, we are stumped.

Most people at the University disapproved of the Klan, and there had been some speculation the KKK might get ugly, but they backed off and were more or less silent. — jgill

I had no idea. I don't recall the Klan being even mentioned in the coverage here.

I was astounded in the transformation. — jgill

I bet you were. I don't suppose you ever had a chance to talk with him about what happened. Likely, he just wants to forget it.

The Democrats used to be the party of the working class. They've become the party of the wealthy liberal elites and the poor who benefit from government services. — fishfry

Thank you. That may be short, but it gets to what I was trying to say. And then I was trying to say that Labour has exactly the same problem. The working class, represented within the party by the unions, used to be represented by Democrats/Labour. But, since around 1980 (Thatcher/Reagan), that has gradually declined (basically, I think, as the power of the unions declined). The assumption was always that the working class would align with the poor and socially liberal ways, but that was simply false. Many of the working class do not think of themselves as poor and are certainly not socially liberal, and they basically have nowhere to go. Mind you, another dimension of the problem is that most people are not only reluctant to think of themselves as poor, but also reluctant to think of themselves as working class.

In other news from merry old England, I hear Labour has it in for the House of Lords.
Don’t ‘reform’ the Lords – abolish it — fishfry

Good Lord! You'll be wanting to abolish the Monarchy next! That's not how we do things here! We don't abolish things! The two Houses started in 1341! How could they be abolished? Tradition, you know!

I like your "spiked online" article. It explains things quite clearly.

More seriously, though, Your constitution is designed to make sure that no-one has total power by splitting the power into three parts - legislators, executive, law. We don't have that. But we do have the equivalent. Any Government, no matter how large its majority, is restrained by thinking that there's no point in doing something that can be undone by a later Parliament.

The reason that abolishing the Lords is not on the agenda is quite simple. If Labour abolished the Lords, the Conservatives would recreate it when they get back in. I'm sure that the Labour plans have been discussed through back-channels with the Conservatives, and they have signalled that they would not reverse these reforms when they get back in.

Mind you, there is another problem. If you abolish the Lords, what do you do next? There's no consensus about that - never has been and likely never will be. If there was a consensus, it would be done. Same for the monarchy.

There is one thing that your founding fathers missed. The theatre of the state. Dressing up in funny hats and strutting around like peacocks in gaudy costumes. That's what all this is about. It's gratifying for those in power and entertains the masses - and provides assurance of stability when everything else is falling apart. Like a conjuring trick, it works so long as you don't look too closely.

Starmer's plans are unsatisfactory, but they are very likely practical, so they will have to do. Better than nothing.

The reform I would like to see is the abolition of the life peers (political appointees) or at least their ejection from Parliament. Imagine if the President could appoint people to your Senate! We have a phrase "kicked upstairs", which means being "promoted" somewhere you can't get in the way. That's what the political peerages are all about. The weird practice actually helps to get things done. So there's absolutely no chance of that.

No, it probably originates in Sumer. — Vera Mont

I knew it had roots in earlier myths. I didn't know exactly which myths. So thanks. I've learnt something.

A couple of observations/questions about Genesis.

The opening about God and the Void. I seem to remember reading that the concept of the Void was a priestly concept much later than Sumer, in fact contemporary with when it was actually written. Do you know about that?

I take the point about the nostalgia for the pre-agricultural past. It makes perfect sense of the Garden of Eden. I hadn't thought of that.

It's always seemed very odd to me that the reason God told Adam not to eat the apples because he didn't want them to learn about good and evil and become like the gods (or was it God?). Why would God want us not to know about morality and become god-like. It's weird and very confusing.

Is it probable that they habitually acted on what they didn't think? — Vera Mont

I don't quite understand what you're getting at here.

It also reduced all other predators from a threat to be feared to rivals to be hated and exterminated. Settled agriculture did the same to land and vegetation, water and forest. — Vera Mont

We know about their habits. What we don't know is how they thought about them. I can see the point about the predators in the abstract, but that's not the same as knowing what they thought. We are talking about attitudes to nature. There's not going to be an record of that outside language.

The Genesis story (which originates in an oral tradition before Judaism) already shows the drive to "subdue and fill the earth" as well as nostalgia for pre-agricultural life. — Vera Mont

And Genesis is an example and that's much later than 3000 BCE, isn't it?

Yes, I know that's a pessimistic, depressing view of our reality, but I see no other. — Vera Mont

Oh, well, if you are talking specifically about climate change, yes, I'm pessimistic as well. It's already shifted from preventing climate change to mitigating it, and that the target of 1.5 degree rise is already pretty much out of reach. It's all a slippery slope now. God knows when we'll begin to take it really seriously, never mind actually do some effective things. I feel really sorry for upcoming generations and am already embarrassed about what they will think of us when they grow up and take charge.

But the fact that you and I can have such a conversation as this, should indicate a key differentiator between us and other creatures, none of which could entertain such ideas, let alone devise the medium by which we're able to discuss them. — Wayfarer

There might be a single difference that explains all the difference. But there might not.
There might be a key difference. But there might not.
The difference(s) might be a difference in degree, not in kind.
There is also the issue of what, exactly, reason is. If you define it as the ability to plan and execute a project, we have what seems to me to be an open and shut case.

A not-so-clever Pyrennese who liked to roam would ask her border collie confederate to help her escape. — Vera Mont

Sure, it's not rocket science. But that doesn't mean it is not rational.

Evolutionary biology is not, after all, an epistemological theory, but a biological one, intended to explain the origin of species, not the origin of such faculties as reason. — Wayfarer

Quite so. But the origin of species necessarily includes the origin of faculties. The evolution of the eye is also the history of the development of the faculty of sight, &c. For example, the development of the faculty of reason is part of the development of homo sapiens. So far as I know there is no doubt that faculty depends on the brain, at least in homo sapiens. There is story of the evolution of the human brain from the early precursors to our day compare the story of the evolution of the eye.

Donald Hoffman is .. a cognitive psychologist who argues that if our sensory faculties are explicable in terms of evolutionary fitness, we have no reason to believe they provide us with the truth. — Wayfarer

That's odd. One would expect evolution to favour a creature with sensory apparatus that provides them with true, rather than false, information. Still, I can't take responsibility for what cognitive psychologists might choose to say. (Perhaps he has an idiosyncratic view of what truth is?)

But that passage I quoted, concerning the ability of reason to grasp universals, is really, in my opinion, part of the real mainstream of Western philosophy, which I do think is Platonist on the whole. Incidentally the essay from which the quote was taken can be found here. — Wayfarer

Platonism is certainly an important part of the tradition of Western philosophy. But that is not a reason for believing that it is true. The traditional canon of Western philosophy is as much an opportunity for criticism as anything else. You seem to suggest that there is an unreal mainstream of Western philosophy. What does that consist of?

But the ability to reason, speak, and to invent science, indicates a kind of ontological discontinuity from other animals in my view. — Wayfarer

You mean something like the emergence of life from the sea to the land? Or of mammals from reptiles? Maybe.
I have to say that the emergence of science has not done much to change the basically animal nature of human beings, so for my money, the discontinuity is not particularly significant. If we do mange to destroy ourselves before we destroy the entire planet as a habitation for life, future species might well consider us to be a faulty evolutionary line that got out of hand, until it self-destructed, much to the benefit of the planet. But then, they may well think that they are the unique peak of their evolutionary line, just as we do....

Unlike other animals, we can see meaning in an abstract and comprehensive way. And I think the case can be made that this ability - the ability to grasp ideas and concepts - is foundational to language, and so a key differentiator between h.sapiens and other species. — Wayfarer

Well, you are making a case, so obviously it is possible to do so. I notice that you seem to accept that this is not the only, and not the only relevant, differentiator. A good deal of clarification of what you mean by "abstract and comprehensive" and "ideas and concepts" is needed, and you have the difficulty that philosophy doesn't have a consensus view about what those terms mean.
The other difficulty you face is the empirical evidence that animals do have communication systems that are, at least, language-like, so you need to show what the "essential" relevant differentiation is between animal languages/communication systems and human languages/communication systems.

I was wanting to get at the meaning of reason, in particular, which is fundamental to the OP. — Wayfarer

I'm not at all sure that there is single, coherent, meaning of reason.

I've read about the Caledonian crow studies and other studies indicating rudimentary reasoning ability in some animals and birds, but I don't see the relevance in terms of the philosophical question at issue, as to what differentiates the rational ability of h.sapiens, 'the rational animal', from other species. — Wayfarer

So the idea that human reason might be a development (hyper-development, perhaps) of abilities that animals have is not entirely implausible to you. Where we may disagree is that you seem to presuppose a cliff-edge distinction between humans and animals. However, if evolution is correct, even in outline, humans have evolved from animals, so the expectation must be that human reason is a development of animal reason. So to understand human reason, we have to understand animal reason. Of course, it is possible that you don't accept the evolutionary approach to these questions.

Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. He plays and lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; but he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And the dog's field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in h.sapiens -- a potential infinity of knowledge. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

Each differentiation of human from animal arrives out of the blue. I need to understand what each of them amounts to. It looks as if he is not writing from me, but for people who already accept the philosophical ideas that are at stake. There may be much that the dog does not know about sugar and intruders. But there are some things that they do know. What he means by "he does not see the similarlity, the common features as such". "The flash of intelligibility" and "no ear for the intelligible meaning" are particularly obscure, and my understanding of "(universal) idea", "concept", "objectivity" is clearly very different from his.

Intelligence does not see in its function of judgment -- there are not intuitively grasped, universal intelligible principles (say, the principle of identity, or the principle of causality) in which the necessary connection between two concepts is immediately seen by the intellect. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

When someone attacks a doctrine but doesn't bother to ensure that his version of the doctrine coincides with his opponent's understanding of his own doctrine, I'm a bit inclined to suspect that a straw man may be all that is at stake. But it may be that his writing is not directed at his opponents, but to his supporters.

Intelligence does not see in its reasoning function -- there is in the reasoning no transfer of light or intuition, no essentially supra-sensual logical operation which causes the intellect to see the truth of the conclusion by virtue of what is seen in the premises. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

Is he a platonist of some kind? What does "cause" mean here?

When a dog really wants something, whether it's your pizza or your flip-flops, he makes a plan and carries it out step by step. That's nothing like salivating on cue. And they're very good (wolf legacy) at co-ordinating team work. Watch some You Tube videos. — Vera Mont

I'm sorry. There is in; deed a wide spectrum. I wanted to undermine the idea that actions are either rational (plan, execute, enjoy liberty/food/ whatever) or mindless cause/effect. Salivation is not even a voluntary action - it is controlled by an "autonomic" system. Yet making rational connections is possible even at that level.

At some point - about 7000 years ago, but there were interim steps that took much longer - humankind turned against nature and began to treat it as Other/the enemy. — Vera Mont

I don't know. There's so little to go on. But I think you are over-simplifying. Our attitude towards nature is ambivalent, in the sense that there are negative and positive attitudes which play into our interpretation of nature. "We" don't have a single, consistent view of it.

There are people - a growing number of people - who take their own path to simplicity and balance. Global economy, global culture are too big to be changed, but individuals are capable of change. — Vera Mont

Surely there is some room for thinking that when more and more individuals start to change, sometimes the movement gathers weight and pace and ends up changing things at the macro scale?

Far from it. I grew up in a segregated South and the Democratic party supported that. Political winds finally shifted during the 1960s. — jgill

Yes. I knew that. I'm sorry I wasn't clear.
What I didn't know is that most blacks (I'm assuming you mean most blacks who weren't slaves) belonged to the Republican party before the war. I'm confused now.
Perhaps I'm just making a mistake trying to apply the political divisions that apply now to politics then.
I should read up on this more carefully before trying to talk about it.

I was in a math class at the University of Alabama in 1963 when Governor Wallace was asked to step aside and allow two Afro-American students to enroll. He complied and those of us on the sidelines cheered. An old Confederate cannon went off at the time, but I can find no reference to that. — jgill

I remember reading about that. Some of us thought there would be another civil war. I don't remember the reports saying that people cheered when Wallace gave in. That very good to know. It was also my first year at University. Do you think the cannon was a protest or a celebration? Presumably, it didn't have a ball, but was loaded blank?

My first vote for President was the 1960 election, and I caste my ballot for JFK. He had been a genuine war hero, and when he extended my tour in the USAF for a year because the Berlin Wall was going up I forgave him. Turned out it worked out well for me. — jgill

I was almost completely apolitical. That didn't change until 1968. Remembering those terrible yet exciting times makes me a bit less worried now.

I have to be honest. I'm afraid I lost the thread of this conversation. I'm not sure what I was saying here as well.

It's a pity. I thought we were doing well, even if we weren't agreeing. Thank you for your time.

I think there’s a difference between behaviours that can be accounted for in terms of stimulus and response, and behaviours that can be attributed to rational inference. — Wayfarer

"Stimulus and response" can cover a multitude of sins, including rational responses to events as they happen, but I get what you're after. Where I differ from you is that I think that actions can be rational responses even if they are not the result of (conscious) inference. This doesn't actually depend on a single argument, but it seems best to propose one here and develop others as needed. So, forgive me for quoting myself below. Put it down to laziness.

What's more, action without discursive reasons is found in human behaviour. Perhaps the most dramatic example, for philosophers, is the ability of people to use words correctly without being able to give a definition; they are often even more bewildered if they are asked to explain the rules of grammar (linguistic sense). It seems inescapable that articulating one's reasons is itself an example of an activity that is executed without discursive reasons. — Ludwig V

Human observers can obviously perceive the causal relationship between stimulus and response, but I don't think that implies conscious rational calculation ('If I do this, then that will happen') on the part of the animal (or plant). — Wayfarer

When a human, or a dog, smells food, it is an automatic reflex (i.e. not the result of conscious control"). It is by way of a preparation for chewing and digesting food - a product of evolution. Before Pavlov's dogs were fed, a bell was rung. Before long, the dogs started salivating as the bell rang, before the food arrived. In the jargon, they associated the bell with food. Was the response rational or merely causal? In my book, both. I'm not dogmatic about that, but rocks don't change their behaviour like that.

When a dog gets hungry and sometimes just when the smells get tempting, it is will known that they will position themselves where they will be noticed and sit very quietly, but very attentive. This behaviour is called "begging". It is a behaviour that is voluntary, not a reflex. It seems perfectly clear that the dog thinks that if s/he does that, food will happen. It is also perfectly clear that the dog did not say to itself or anyone else "If I do this, that will happen". If you don't call it rational thinking, what do you call it?

I don't think that plants think or believe or feel emotions or have desires. But we do say that they do things. So that's another whole mystery that needs untangling.

It might be worth recalling the distinctions Aristotle makes between different organic forms. — Wayfarer

It certainly is.
Though I sometimes wonder why he left insects and fish out of his hierarchy.

This rational capacity sets humans apart, as it involves deliberation and the ability to grasp universals, which Aristotle sees as the hallmark of true rationality. — Wayfarer

There's that sneaky little "true" rationality. Which means that whether Aristotle did or did not recognize other forms of rationality, you do. For some reason, you don't think that other forms are "really" rational. You cite Aristotle as identifying the critical marks as deliberation and a grasp of universals.

He recognizes at least two forms of deliberative rationality - practical and theoretical. The former directed to action and the latter to contemplation which he thought was infinitely superior to merely practical reason because it is what the gods to and so we are more god-like when we contemplate. If I remember correctly, one of the distinctions between practical and theoretical is that practical is concerned with universals. By that criterion, practical reason is also not "true" rationality. One can understand his reason, but I'm not at all sure that we can accept it.
EDIT Ouch! That should have been "one of the distinctions between practical and theoretical is that practical is NOT concerned with universals". Sorry. Red face!

Alice Juarrero, in her work on causality and complex systems, sees continuity with Aristotle’s notion of formal and final causes. — Wayfarer

Yes. These have more application to living things. He was apply to apply them to the whole universe because he thought that the entire universe was directed to achieving The Good - the supreme good of everything.

I said in my first post here that the goal of rational thinking or reasoning is to arrive at a valid/sound conclusion. Animals do not use rational thinking, but instinctive behavior. — L'éléphant

I think we're talking past each other. The short explanation is that we have different ideas about the goal of rational thinking. Let me put it this way. Arriving at a valid/sound conclusion may sometimes be the point of the exercise (as it usually is in philosophical discussion, for example). But very often the point of a valid/sound conclusion is that it is a better basis for successful action.

In particular, it enables the organism to adapt behaviour to circumstances, whereas purely instinctive behaviour, which cannot, by definition, adapt, is likely to be less successful and even counter-productive. However, very often, what animals (and people) do is a combination of instinct and rationality. Birds have an instinct to build nests, and do so in different ways according to species. But, inevitably, they have to pursue that goal in negotiation with their environment. Hunger is "hard-wired", but how we satisfy hunger is extremely flexible in response to the environment that we find ourselves in.

When we observe human behaviour, we do not hesitate to interpret (read) their behaviour as rational even when we have no access to their given reasons. If you like, we reconstruct their reasons, in order to make sense of their behaviour. To be sure, we make certain assumptions, which may be falsified and reconstructions based on them can be contested either at the level of the assumptions themselves or at the level of the specific reasons attributed.

What's more, action without discursive reasons is found in human behaviour. Perhaps the most dramatic example, for philosophers, is the ability of people to use words correctly without being able to give a definition; they are often even more bewildered if they are asked to explain the rules of grammar (linguistic sense). It seems inescapable that articulating one's reasons is itself an example of an activity that is executed without discursive reasons.

You said, "purpose", "rewarding" and "reasonable to suppose". All these are fine -- nothing wrong with this behavior, but it is not rational thinking. .... Did the parrot articulate to you his reasoning for mimicking? It looks reasonable to you, but you did not arrive at this 'reasonableness' by discussing it with the parrot. — L'éléphant

So when we see animals adapting their behaviour to circumstances, we are inclined to read their behaviour as rational even though we have no access to any verbal account. It seems to me to be a reasonable extension of our practice in relation to other human beings. What's more, it works.

Personally, I have difficulty in applying this process to insects and fish and I often feel that people anthropomorphize too far. A dog might sympathize at my distress when I can't find my glasses, but I don't think that s/he necessarily understand what my glasses are. But I have no doubt that lobsters are frightened when they get caught, so this is not binary issue.

Do we have a member here in the forum that is dog or a parrot? Then let us invite that parrot on this thread and let him lay out his reasons for mimicking. — L'éléphant

It's tempting to think that the discursive account by agents of their reasons is the gold standard. It is true that it will often give us details that we cannot read off from the behaviour or the context. But, the rational reconstruction is often so persuasive that when the verbal account of reasons conflicts with our rational reconstruction, we are often (but not always) inclined to give preference to the rational reconstruction.
So if animals could tell us what "their" reasons were, we would not necessarily believe them.

Well, I skimmed them. I'll read them more carefully.

Thanks for the Wittgenstein quotation. I had forgotten it.

The upper midwest of the US doesn't harbor many red squirrels, so I'm not familiar with their behavior. Grey squirrels are everywhere around here. They usually are grey with a white belly, but they sometimes are black or white (not a seasonal change). — BC

Your greys are a bit different from ours. I've never heard of black or white ones. It wouldn't be surprising if the two groups diverged over time. I wish I could post a picture of a red for you - their ear tufts are incredible.

I've read about the terrorism directed at your red squirrels by the Yankee grey squirrels. Social scientists and psychoanalysts have not been able to determine what, exactly, is the source of this inter-squirrel hostility. — BC

You mean that the cognitive dissonance created by the similarity combined with the difference in colour is not sufficient? They should read some social history.

It's not hard to let them eat out of your hand; even to sit on your knee and eat the offered peanuts. I've established such a relationship several times since I was a kid. I'm more fastidious as an old guy, and would just as soon NOT have even cute rodents sitting on me. — BC

I hate to say this, but most people in the UK regard grey squirrels as vermin along with rats and mice. But that's because the red squirrels are much cuter and the greys are immigrants and consequently are thought to have no right to exist.

The urban grey squirrel readily exploits human behavior. The smart squirrels on the University of Minnesota campus follow people carrying paper bags. If you stop, because you happen to like squirrels, they'll go so far as to climb up your pant leg to access the presumed food in your bag. This is somewhat disconcerting. — BC

There was a lot of fuss in sea-side tourist resorts a few years ago. People couldn't resist feeding the sea-gulls (herring-gulls) with sandwiches and potato chips. Then the sea-gulls took to swooping down and grabbing them from their hands as they were munching them. I haven't heard any complaints recently. People must have learnt not to "open-carry" goodies along the sea front.

Thanks. Obvious once you know. I can see the rationale for both projects. Beyond that, I'm not competent.

because the latter is pop-sci / metaphysical hype and the former is a scientific research program. — 180 Proof

I had the impression that Einstein pursued the T.O.E at one point. So how come you are so scornful of it? Especially as the G.U.T. looks like a stepping-stone to the T.O.E.

Sorry, I don't know what G.U.T. and T.O.E are. Could one of you explain?

I am still a registered Democrat, but it has been awhile since I have thought of myself as one. — jgill

Same here. It's the Dems who changed, not me. — fishfry

I can't really talk about the Dems, but I have the impression that the Dems, back in the day, were an alliance of (mainly social) liberals and political left wingers; there was also a lot of support in the South, which goes back to the civil war. If that's true, there's a very similar phenomenon in the UK. The Labour party has always been a rather uneasy alliance between those two points of view. It's not unreasonable, because both were in opposition to existing orthodoxy, just on rather different grounds and with rather different aims.

The last ten years in the UK were largely based around this problem, which got hugely focused on Brexit, though it was never just about that. The promises have been revealed as fantasies, and now we have to make the best of a bad job.

The problem arose because of the success of the social liberal movement, which became a new orthodoxy, in many ways, but also transformed. Many social liberals became successful and powerful and so acquired a new point of view. "Socialism" became more of a threat to them and they espoused free market ideologies, which had been their route to success and became their security. This left the left wing isolated and nearly powerless.

Do you (two) think that I'm talking rubbish, or does this fit with what has happened to you?

For me, it does fit, with one further development since the good old days. The liberation movements since the successes between, say, 1950 and 2000 have moved on as the generations have changed, and some of the demands and expectations seem to me more problematic than the original demands. I'm very hesitant about this because I am just an old fogey who has fallen behind the times. Nonetheless, I'm not comfortable. But I'm even more uncomfortable with what the free market ideology has become.

Insuperable in my context here is simple: you can’t know things outside of being cons, so you can’t know yourself outside of being cons, so as long as you persist as yourself, the cons that empowers you to be yourself is, for you, insuperable. — ucarr

Saying "you can't know things outside of being conscious" is like saying "you can't see things without your eyes/walk without legs." "Insuperable" implies an obstacle, but consciousness enable us to know. I simply don't get this.

The Hard Problem acknowledges that what it’s like to be an enduring self is resistant to the objective exam and manipulation of materialist science. — ucarr

That's like complaining that sciences like physics are incapable of explaining chess or that a car can't fly. It was not designed to do that. An enduring self knows perfectly well what-it's-like to be an enduring self in the only sense of "what-it's-like" that assigns any sense to the question. It's not as strange a use of "know" as you might think. "I know Taylor Swift" may be false, but it is true of many people and there's no difficulty establishing that it's true. But it isn't propositional knowledge.

A big part of the reason for the hardness of the problem is the insuperability discussed above. Another problem of materialist science vis-a-vis selfhood is the insuperable selfhood of the scientist thwarting materialist objectivity. — ucarr

What would it be like to thwart materialist objectivity?
Actually, doesn't relativity solve the problem, at least in one sense, by developing and solving equations that cover all possible points of view/observers?

This conversation is an exam of how the the two great modes differ, and The Hard Problem is that difference under a microscope. — ucarr

The Hard Problem was developed in order to disprove materialism and prove dualism. So I doubt it can be solved. Certainly it would be a lot easier (though still not easy) to dissolve it.

Thanks for the Wittgenstein quotations. I had forgotten it. There's a philosophical angle to this, of course.
Perhaps more relevant is that if we are forced to admit that dogs' brains enable them to achieve mathematical results even though they don't speak mathematics, we may be less resistant to the idea that they and other animals are rational even though they don't speak languages like ours.

What's interesting here is that sometimes our 'subconscious' mental calculations are not quick and dirty – they are enormously precise and accurate. A good example might be professional snooker or pool players. They are capable of modelling physics interactions to extraordinary degrees of specificity. Their models are probably superior to purely mathematical models in terms of predictive accuracy. But they do not consciously perform calculations at all. — cherryorchard

I meant "dirty" on in the sense that it won't be like the mathematical version. Which, to be fair, comes in very handy in some of the situations we put ourselves into. Long ocean voyages, navigating in the air and beyond. Calculating the orbits of planets, etc.
Compare how we judge distances by what it takes to focus our two eyes on an objects. It doesn't work at longer distances, so instead we judge by apparent size. The latter is quick and dirty, in the sense I intended.

People who live in crop growing rural areas certainly see more insects than urban dwellers. — BC

I guess I was wrong about in thinking there might be more insects in the suburban area I live in. I see so much about how the countryside is losing all its insects mainly ot pesticides that I made an assumption. There are pesticides here too, but likely less than in crop-growing areas.

Next year may be altogether silent. — Vera Mont

Are you referencing Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" that started the ecoological movement? The title was a prophecy at the time, but it looks as if it is coming true, and we are at last recognizing it - virtually too late.

How could big fat juicy earthworms be a problem? — BC

How indeed? There are invasive species in the UK too; some of them come from the US, others from the Far East - a legacy of Empire and globalization. The grey squirrel is a good example from the US; there's a European species that is, in my book, even cuter, but it's become marginalized now. There are sanctuaries and a lot of greys are being killed to preserve them. The mink escaped from fur farms and caused a lot of damage. They seem to be on the retreat now. I'm afraid the cause is at least partly endless eradication campaigns.

A mathematician shows that his dog, when fetching a ball thrown into water, appears to be calculating the optimal path from A to B as if using calculus. But, of course, calculus is computationally tricky even for most non-expert human beings. A dog cannot know calculus. Can he?! — cherryorchard

That's fascinating. I don't do any calculus when I'm catching a ball - I "just know" where to put my hands. Some people talk about "judgement". One supposes that my brain is doing the calculations sub- or un-consciously. I guess my brain is doing some work, but doubt that it is doing calculus calculations. But who knows? However I think it is more plausible to suppose that it is using some quick and dirty heuristic, which, no doubt, would give mathematicians a fit; but evolution only cares what works well enough. The same, I would think, for the dog.

Humans will forever fight over morals because adaptation is ruthless and desires are dictatorial. — ucarr

I think it's much more complicated than that. One has to distinguish the proffered reason for the fight and what's actually going on. The interplay between morality and self-interest is very complicated but morality is always a more respectable reason for a fight than self-interest. But self-interest is a more effective motivator.

The social contract is a necessary prerequisite for a peaceable society, so an effort towards moral standards is also necessary. — ucarr

The social contract is not always a contract. Sometimes it is a peace treaty and the stronger imposes the contract.

For me, independence = distinct things running on parallel tracks that don’t intersect. The tracks might converge and diverge at points along the way. — ucarr

OK. .So long as they don't intersect, I suppose.

Regarding “from within,” knowing, i.e., cons, is insuperable. As for the question of the existence (ex) of an external (ext) world, this conversation is deeply concerned not with the question of an ext world , but with the deep interweave connecting the two. This translates to the question of the two great modes: subjective/objective. — ucarr

Fair enough. I'm still not sure what "insuperable" means here. I've already mentioned, I think, that I don't see that as the same problem as the Science/Humanities issue. Fortunately, there's no chair to rule things off topic.

I suspect what QM has done, in essence, is manipulate quantity, i.e., discrete measurement, towards existential ambiguity. That’s fascinating because scientific discovery of discrete particles for seeming continuities like radiation and vice versa for seeming things like elementary particles was a drive toward definitive boundaries, with opposite result of real boundary ambiguity affirmed. — ucarr

Yes. It was a nasty surprise.

Is a purely objective world out there? The answer to this question is ambiguous, and cons plays a central role in the fact of existential ambiguity instead of discrete boundaries being the picture on the scientific view screen. — ucarr

Are you possibly confusing our opportunities to discover things with hindrances to perceiving them? What does "purely" objective mean? (In what ways is the objectivity that we know and love impure?)

Part of the difficulty of The Hard Problem is the global question whether cons is insuperable. If it is, then the “what” of experience is forever compromised by subjectivity who partially contradicts and nuances it. — ucarr

I still can't work out what "insuperable" means, so I can't comment. This problem is not what I understood to be the Hard Problem, except that in some way, it is concerned with the interface between consciousness and it's objects (to put it that way).

This afternoon, a sunny September say, I set a freshly-painted board out on the porch to dry, confident that no insects would stick to it and no bird would crap on it. I haven't had to wash the windshield all summer. — Vera Mont

It's the shortage of birds I'm noticing. Insects are around in fair numbers. I expect they do better in non-agricultural areas.

They don't talk much either and petting them is a bit of a problem.
But I knew a goldfish once that blew a bubble at you when you gave it a crumb of fish food. They called him/her "Professor". There's been work done on the intelligence of goldfish.
Octopuses, now. They'll spit water at you if they don't like you. They can escape from a screw-top jar. OK, they're not fish. But you have to admire them. Perhaps not as pets.
Everywhere you look, when you look closely, there's more to non-humans than humans think.

Yes. I've had dogs and cats and a pony - oh, and some fish long ago. They were fun in a different way.

I don't think either one of us is right, or wrong. I don't know enough about how the brain works to be right or wrong. I'm just guessing and passing on ideas I've picked up here and there. — BC

That makes two of us. Exchanging views sounds a bit pointless to some people, but it is a very good way of learning and passing things on.

'SELF' EXISTS as a durable, cohesive entity. — BC

Yes. With complicatons. See your question below.

The "terrible twos" are a time when young children have come into possession of their self. And then we spend the rest of our lives cultivating 'selfhood'. — BC

Yes. There are milestones in the story. The identity of people is peculiar because they have a say themselves about who and what they are. It gets very complicated because other people also have a say and the views may differ. Take the example of someone elected to be pope. They take a new name, and this is intended to reflect the beginning of a new identity. (There are other examples, but I'm not sure how widespread the practice is.) You make or may not but that. He is the guy who was called X by everybody, but became pope and now is called Y (by some people) But what's the guy's real name?

Some animals seem to have a self and some do not. An alleged test of 'self' is whether the animal recognizes itself in a mirror. 'Elephants do, dogs don't. On the other hand, the dogs I have lived with all seem to have diligently pursued their self-interests and preferences. I don't know any elephants. — BC

It's not unimportant, but it's less than having a self or not. It's not even about whether they are self-conscious or not. Perhaps it's about whether they know how others see them. That's not a small thing.

So, question: How do you think the self is composed? Does DNA play a role? When does the self form--does it arise gradually or suddenly? Can we 'lose our self"? — BC

I hope you don't hate this.

I think it's most likely that it develops over time and never stops developing until we stop living. What is it composed of? Well, partly we decide what it is composed of. But only partly. We can change many things, but not our physical body - though that also changes continuously. But, as I said earlier, other people also have a say in what and who I am. That's my first observation.

My second observation is this. "Identity" is a noun connected to a verb and roughly means the means of identifying whatever. Unlike "table", "chair", "tree" etc. which pick out or refer to objects, "identity" does not pick out or refer to an object. "Ludwig" picks out or refers to me. It does not pick out a part of me or even all the parts of me. It picks out the whole of me, just as "table" picks out or refers to the whole table, not a part or even all the parts. Then think that instead of saying "picks out" or "refers to", I could have said "identifies". Then think that when you identify a table you pick out the whole table. (Pronouns are flexible names. "I", "You", "He, She, It", etc are pronouns. Who or what they refer to is determined by the context. What they identify is not fixed, but varies according to context.)

My third and final observation is that "self" is a kind of pronoun that allows one to talk about self-reference in various ways. So my selt is just me. The idea of self-consciousness cropped up earlier. But it also allows me to explain that a car is a machine that moves itself, or that the computer switches itself off. So it's not just about people.
It is also sometimes used for emphasis. If I send you a birthday present, it is from me whether I bought and dispatched it myself or not; but it will usually go down better if you bought and sent it yourself. Or, there's a big difference between my ordering a boat and paying someone to build it and building it myself. This is really quite elusive and complicated. A good dictionary will give you various examples, which will help more than anything I could say.

I hope that's helpful. I want to stop there for now. If you are interested we can go back to brains and I'll try to explain why I was saying the weird things I was saying.

Does our self survive death? ..... Even if I don't believe in it, I find it difficult to imagine an afterlife of zeroed out souls who are without the selves they possessed in life. — BC

I don't believe it partly because I can't imagine what an after-life without a physical body would be like. No senses! How does that work? Is it like being blind, deaf, dumb? Ugh!

Usually, quite literally and directly rewarding. ...... And some birds just mimic for the same reason they dance to music: it's fun. — Vera Mont

I knew that rewards came into it. I just wondered whether they also did it for fun. Doing it for fun is intrinsically rewarding, but then the handler reinforces the reinforcement?
Doing it for fun. They're almost human, aren't they?

In US academia these days there are internal review boards which proposed research on human subjects must be approved by. ...... I don't know as much about nonacademic human research subjects review, but I doubt there is as little oversight as you suggest in most scientific research. — wonderer1

Yes, I know that. I think it's quite general in the scientific world these days. So things have got better - partly because of the fuss about that project. But I wouldn't dream of denying it. However, the failings of human beings are, let's say, persistent, so we should not get complacent. I'm sure you also agree with that.

These days, probably not. Up until the late 1970's, research wasn't at all well supervised or regulated in most countries. It was probably - just speculating now - government agencies' unconscionable behaviour that prompted legal and professional constraints on the use of human subjects. Other species have not fared as well - ever. — Vera Mont

No, they haven't. They can't fight back. I like to think the glass is half full, but i can never forget that the glass is also half-empty. I'm always getting accused of being too optimistic and too pessimistic.

I am hungry, I will forage/hunt for food" is a rational stepwise train of thought for any animal that supports their survival. — Benj96

Of course it is. WIttgenstein's work, especially on rule and rule-following indicates that, at some point, we act without benefit of articulation and I think that can be extended to understand how animals act rationally when they don't have the benefit of language.

We are still animals. — Benj96

Yes. And they and we are also machines.

I think my reply to you before was a bit hasty.

Mimicry and imitation are not rational thinking -- regardless of how intelligent or useful or mind-blowing they are. Animals and plants can mimic each other to avoid the predators and increase their chances of bringing their offspring to maturity. — L'éléphant

Whether mimicry and imitation are rational or not depends on why it is being done, surely? If it is being done to avoid predators, for example, why is it not rational?
When a parrot mimics speech, there is no doubt that it is the parrot that is doing the mimicking. Quite why I don't know, but it seems most reasonable to suppose that the parrot has some purpose in doing that, because it clearly finds the behaviour rewarding in some way. There a kind of mimicry in which a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species to scare off predators, for example. This is clearly a result of evolution (and I have no problem with the purposive explanation attributed to evolution). It is not the plant's purpose, (except in an extended sense)
BTW Personally, I am quite unsure whether insects have purposes in the way that animals do or their mimicries are the result of evolution's purposes. I think that birds, on the other hand, do have purposes of their own.

The only way that we can distinguishes between coincidental similarities and mimicry is by reference to purposes, whether of the individual entity or of evolution. That means that we are attributing rationality as well, though not the discursive rationality that human beings practice.

A lot of people do not understand that if animals are truly rational animals, they would have the same level of communication as we do. They could consult us in matters of daily survival, and vice versa. — L'éléphant

Everybody agrees that human language is uniquely distinctive and more extensive than animal communication systems (I call them languages) of animals. I'm quite unclear why you want to call how animals communicate anything other than a language and bracket them as not "truly" rational. It seems to me to be simply a question of definition, rather than anything substantial or interesting.

But there is a lot more to be said.

The distinction between knowing how (to do something, in the sense of being able to do it) and knowing that something (is true). The former does not require language, but the latter clearly does. Philosophy has never seriously focused on the latter of each pair, leaving the former aside as trivial or irrelevant.
However, philosophers have long been amazed that people are able to speak coherently without being able to give a definition of the words they use. They have mostly ignored the phenomenon. But it is the most direct and dramatic demonstration that it is possible to do something and follow rules without being able to articulate what one is doing or why one is doing it.
To say that animals are rational is to attribute to them knowing how to do things, without being able to articulate what they are doing. It should not be a conceptually problematic thesis. The difficult, of course, is which interpretations of the behaviour are accurate. Sorting that out takes extended and close observation, but is not impossible.


Sadly, there is nothing to prevent a scientist being a bad scientist and even a racist scientist.

If morals correspond to real things and thus they are objective, then the “what” of life, that is, the facts of life (ha ha!) can generate a type of science, the science of morality. This is what the world religious try to teach. — ucarr

That's big if. I think the real point is that if we are not absolutely sure that they do and which preferences are moral and which are not, we should not pretend we know.
(PS I wrote the above yesterday and forgot to post it!)

Right now I’m going with the notion consciousness independence cannot be certified from within consciousness. — ucarr

It depends a lot what you mean by "independence" and "from within". If you mean something like "Can we know whether our consciousness is independent of a non-conscious world, I think that's just the old question whether we can know whether or not there is an external world. If we can know there is one, I suppose we are dependent on it. If we can't know whether there is one, we can't know whether we are independent of it.

Why do you think cons-embedded language can interact with a non-cons world without perturbing it fatally? — ucarr

I don't thin k language can interact with anything; language is something we do. We can interact with the non-conscious (for the most part) world, so we clearly observe it without undue damage to either side.

To ask it another way, why do you think an unknown world can persist as unknown once you’ve observed it? — ucarr

I don't think an unknown world can persist as unknown once it is observed, since once it is observed, it is not unknown.

I'll go along with that, but want to be generous and widen the scope of "need" to include benevolent aims and simple curiosity, as well as practical applications, and maybe, tentatively, forgive the social ignorance and complacency of the academics who made the early tests. (No, not the voting rights literacy tests of 1879 Kentucky!) — Vera Mont

Well, maybe you are better balanced than me. I'm thinking, though, that good motives do not excuse everything. You probably know about the Tuskegee Syphilis Research Study, 1932 - 1972. It was only terminated because of a press leak - i.e. by public opinion - so you can't excuse by historical context. Anyway, the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1964 and 1968 had been passed by then.

It's a general theme of mine that environmental do-gooding generally results in disaster and misery. — fishfry

Well, change usually brings disaster and misery to the most vulnerable people, and the rich are mostly not the most vulnerable, so you're not wrong. Some environmental do-gooders claim to be trying not to inflict any additional disaster and misery on the poor and vulnerable and claim also to be succeeding to at least some extent. But of course many people approach the whole business on the basis that it's a profit opportunity and act on their priorities. (Did you notice all the reports a while ago about how China has more or less cornered the market for rare metals, and looks like dominating the market for electric cars - which it makes with power from coal?) That's my the-glass-has-a-drop-of-whisky-left message for today.

Your response was interesting. Clearly you're getting more and better info about his tragedy over where you are. I have to depend on my alt-right sources. — fishfry

Well, it did happen here. The full report is over 1,500 pages long. Only fanatics and people paid to read it will plough through that. But I haven't heard a single complaint that it is prejudiced, thought the government is trying to defend itself the best way it can - it makes things easier for the politicians that every government since Thatcher is blamed. The commission's own summary is probably more than you want, but it is at Grenfell tower report executive summary and recommendations
The Telegraph is Conservative aligned. The (London) Times and Financial Times are not too bad, but are Conservative-leaning. The Guardian is liberal. The Independent is not reckoned to be aligned to a political party, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a view. All of them are reasonably reliable. The BBC tries hard to be impartial so everyone thinks it is opposed to them, which is a good sign, I think. I tend to use that. My reaction was based on their reports. Here's their outline:-

* The inquiry's chairman says that all deaths in the fire were avoidable
* The inquiry blames "decades of failures" from governments, firms and the fire service for the disaster that unfolded in west London
* Grenfell residents were badly let down by those responsible for fire safety and there was a "failure on the part of the council"
* Manufacturers of cladding products – which were "by far the largest contributor" to the fire – are found to have engaged in "systematic dishonesty"
* The report also says that "incompetent" companies involved in the 2011 refurbishment of the tower – Studio E and Harley Facades – bear "significant" responsibility for the disaster
* The report said there was a "chronic lack of leadership" and an "attitude of complacency" at the London Fire Brigade
* The victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster were killed by toxic gases, not the fire itself. — BBC News at 17:06 BST 4th Sept

There's also a lot of comment on the slow progress of remediation - seven years after the actual fire. 4,630 residential buildings are involved. 29% have completed remediation. 20% have started remediation. 50% have not started remediation. Tens of thousands of tenants. That puts all the stuff about it not ever happening again into perspective, don't you think?

There doesn't seem to be anything about the races for the Senate and the House. But isn't it just as important as the Presidency? I have the impression that unless the President and Congress are the same party, the President is pretty much hog-tied. What's happening there? Is it as tight as the Presidency?

We have reached an impasse. — BC

Yes. That's sadly common, isn't it? But we do have a choice, if we can set aside the question who is right and who is wrong. There is some risk, if one tries simply to explain oneself, one may realize that one understands one's own position less thoroughly than one thought, but that would be a bonus, wouldn't it?
So instead of arguing with you, I shall simply ask you a question.
In return, I will try to explain my own position on a particular point to you
Perhaps you may want to ask me a question?
OK?

I think it's because we've become accustomed, through the 20th century, to evaluate human mental capability according to a standard, easily quantifiable set of responses. — Vera Mont

It's more accurate to say that we thought we needed a standard, quantifiable set of responses and decided to develop whatever we had to hand. "We need something, this is something." One can see this, because the development of personality tests (somewhat less conceptually incoherent, but, in my view nearly as vicious) when it was realized that intelligence tests didn't tell the story we needed (i.e. correlate with what we were looking for in our officers.) Essentially, the driver is our increasingly massified society, which is, at best, a double-edged sword.

The earliest IQ test, if I recall correctly, was intended to identify learning difficulties in school children, but the army soon adapted one to make recruitment more efficient, eliminating those applicants who were deemed unfit for service and identifying candidates for officer training. — Vera Mont

Correct. The first is a humane impulse, the second not wrong, but not particularly humane.

Nothing sinister about those limited applications... — Vera Mont

Well, they thought intelligence was culture-free - It isn't - and not affected by training and education - actually, it is, but to a limited extent. If that had been true, the test could have helped remove racism and classism from those decisions. They are still trying to deal with that, but using them when it hasn't been sorted out is morally very dubious, to put it politely.

but, like all handy tools, people came to depend too heavily on the concept of IQ and on tests (more recently, personality tests) to measure intelligence, it's been widely misapplied and abused. — Vera Mont

Too right. Mind you, there have been moments when people have resisted the impulse.

mice and rats that have been bred in captivity - often for a specific purpose - for many generations. — Vera Mont

Yes. People think that makes what they do to them OK. But I find it really ghoulish. I'm really ambivalent about the morality of this.

These highly controlled laboratory environments, as well as close observation of domestic species in what has become their adopted habitat, yields indicators of what to look for; they don't provide definitive answers. We have a beginning, not yet a conclusion. — Vera Mont

Quite so.

A lot of people do not understand that if animals are truly rational animals, they would have the same level of communication as we do. They could consult us in matters of daily survival, and vice versa. — L'éléphant

Do we really need us to tell them what they think about daily survival?
Your definition of rationality is no more than a stipulation. Anyone who is rational enough to read their behaviour (which we can do, in the same way that we can read the non-vernal behaviour of human beings) knows that they experience pain and pleasure and respond rationally to both.

I’ve been wrong in claiming existence and consciousness are biconditional.
They are linked, but they remain distinct. They are not interchangeable. — ucarr

I think that's right. But the links are complicated. Language is our clue (in philosophy), but it is our only clue and it itself tells us when something is consciousness-independent and when it isn't. Unfortunately, sometimes it is ambiguous, so sometimes the question is undecideable. Even more unfortunately, sometimes its clues are misleading. But there you go, that's life.

It isn't that 'I' or 'you' don't exist; rather, the identity that I have doesn't occupy a specific region of the brain called "the self" -- at least they haven't been able to find it, and they've been looking, — BC

I think that you and they badly need a deeper understanding of the concepts of identity and the self. Then they wouldn't waste their time on obviously futile searches.
The classic place for this is the paradox of Theseus' ship. Have you encountered it? It demonstrates quite clearly that the identity of anything is not a constituent element of any part of that thing. There are difficult cases, but that much is clear.

What seems to be the case is that various facilities in the brain maintain our identity as a seemingly solid self. — BC

I don't know what that means.

So, once the sentence is ready, the motor centers are in charge of the typing. — BC

Yes. This is a version of Chomsky's theory. But it doesn't fit with what happens. Sometimes, typing out text is like unspooling a sentence. But not always. Sometimes one pauses in the middle of a sentence to work out how to end it. Sometimes one types out a sentence as a trial or draft, not because it is finished. Or consider what is going on when I work out a calculation with pencil and paper.

Obviously Broca's area, (language production) is involved; thought creation areas are involved; memory, etc. None of these areas control motor functions (like typing). — BC

Yes, yes, you know all those areas are "involved". But you don't know what they are doing beyond the roughest outline. But they must control motor functions - through the relevant department. If they did not they could not send their completed sentences to be typed.

Brain injuries and brain manipulation (during surgery) reveal that different areas of the brain control different aspects of our whole behavior. — BC

Yes. That is well known.

No matter what you say, what you think, what you do, it issues from the brain labeled "Ludwig V". — BC

But you do admit that I do say things and think things and do things. "Issues" is pretty vague, so I don't have to take issue with that. No, the brain does not make me do anything, unless you can describe it as making me do what I have decided to do - which is a very peculiar notion.

What the neurological researcher is saying is that the "representation called the self of Ludwig V" is not doing the thinking, — BC

There is no self apart from me, Ludwig V. A representation of me would be a picture or model of me. Why would it do any thinking? It doesn't even have a brain.

It feels like "we" are doing the thinking, but that's part of the fiction of the self. — BC

But you just said that we do think. I think it would be better to talk of constructions rather than fictions. I can recognize that in some sense, I am a construction - there are lots of bits and pieces working (mostly) together.

it's just that "your thinking" happens in your brain below your radar. — BC

I do realize that there's a lot going on in my brain when I think &c. We do know a bit about what is going on. But you could only describe it as thinking if you are prepared to say that a computer thinks. The brain is, after all, a machine.

Why don't you claim the task of keeping yourself upright when walking; blinking regularly to keep your eyeballs moist; keeping track of your temperature, blood pressure, heart beat, and breathing; waking up every morning (rather than not waking up); registering a patch of itchy skin; and hundreds of other services going on all the time? — BC

How do you know what I claim and what I don't claim? If you had asked me, I would have told you. But I think you are going off the rails in this and the next paragraph.

Thinking is just one of many things that we are not 'personally' responsible for. — BC

It is true that consciousness is the tip of an iceberg, and there is indeed a lot going on in our bodies that we are not aware of. We know a bit about the brain, but not very much. It is always tempting to get ahead of oneself and posit things because they "must" be so. That has led us into many blind alleys and idiocies, so it is best to be cautious.
Thinking does seem to go on automatically. But I find that I do have some control over it. I guess it is a bit like breathing.
You are aware that anyone who is convicted for many crimes is found guilty because they intended to do what they did?