...I've enjoyed our discussions over the past couple years. I would suggest toning down the passive aggressive personal pokes and jabs. I'm very slow to anger... as they say. You will be biting off more than your position can even get in its mouth, let alone chew. — creativesoul

Oh, dear. I'm sorry. We are getting a bit heated. I'll sign off and go away and cool down.

The dog cannot feel guilty. It did not eat the tuna. It may be fearful. Especially if it has been falsely accused in past or punished for something that it does not understand for a lack of recognizing the causal relationship. — creativesoul

That's very plausible.

it may have a simplistic sense of what it's allowed to do and what it's not allowed to do(acceptable/unacceptable behavior). — creativesoul

But if the dog understands what it is allowed to do and what it is not allowed to do, how is that not a simplistic moral sense?
I'll tell you what - in my view, cats have absolutely no moral sense at all. There are certain behaviours, which I have observed in dogs, which I have never observed in cats, that lead me to differentiate.

The glaring falsehood though, is the very last claim. As if a dog is capable of thinking about your beliefs about him. — creativesoul

That's just dogmatic.

It acquires this groundwork for rule following by drawing correlations between its own actions and the praise/condemnation that follows. — creativesoul

As do we all.

You claimed in past, on more than one occasion, that beliefs are reasons for action. Now, I think that may be better put as "belief" is a term you use to explain behavior/action. — creativesoul

Well, suppose I said that belief is a term we use to explain behaviour/action by giving reasons.
One difference is that reasons justify what they are reasons for, while causes do not.
Another difference is that reasons play a part in teleological explanations, while causes do not.

Are you claiming that beliefs are not real or that beliefs do not effect/affect/influence? — creativesoul

Of course not. If I were to say that "infinity" or "49" or "love" is not an object, would you think I was saying that infinity or 49 or love are not real and do not effect/affect/influence?

The child named the balloon. — creativesoul

Exactly. It was the balloon that he named - our description, our concept, not his.

Does the dog believe the train arrives at 5 o'clock? — creativesoul

Does the dog believe that no train arrives at 5 o'clock?

Let's see...

The dog is on the platform at 4:55, looking down the track, just like he is there every week-day when Ueno goes off to work in the morning, and just like most of the humans who have gathered there in the last ten minutes. Agreed?
We will say of the humans that they are expecting a train. We know that the next train is due at 5.00. So we know that they are expecting the 5.00 train (whether they know that it is due at 5.00 or not - they might be unclear and only know that it is some time soon.).
Why will we not say of the dog that he is expecting a train? If we do, we know that the next train is due at 5.00. So we know that he is expecting the 5.00 train. "The 5.00 train" is our description, not his. So I'll give you this. The dog is not expecting a train at 5.00; he is not expecting anything at 5.00, because he doesn't have a concept of 5.00.

We know that when the train appears down the track, dog and humans will all come to attention - humans gathering their bits and pieces or moving towards the edge of the platform, dog standing with tail waving slowly back and to. When the train stops, the humans will climb into, and more humans will climb out of, the carriages. The humans still standing on the platform will meet and greet the people they have come to meet, the dog will meet and greet the human he has come to meet. Perhaps some humans will not meet anyone, but will pause till the train has gone and the platform cleared and then walk quietly away. Perhaps they will come back to meet another train. Eventually, the same will happen to the dog and the dog also will come back to meet another train.
Why will we not say that the dog is hoping to meet Ueno? Again, "Ueno" is our description (name), not his.

What if we did not have a system for numbering things and a system for telling time? What if our experience of life were the same as other animals without our thinking systems? How would that affect our sense of reality and our sense of importance in the scheme of things? — Athena

I don't know. I would suggest that one thing that would change would be our ability to co-ordinate with each other.

They are rather beliefs or propositions that are the result of social conditioning. They are introjections. In that sense they are "hinge" or "bedrock" or "background'. — Janus

Why don't you call it learning? It is after all, what one must be able to do before one can join in. The rower who is "conditioned" to that particular routine is learning to row, acquiring a skill.

I did not have in mind the 'social role' conception of the self at all. I was thinking of the difficult to articulate primal sense of being an individual. As the name imply an individual is one who is not divided. One who experiences a sense of continuity. That is what I meant by saying that memory unifies experience. — Janus

When you decide to "bracket" the social role conception of the self, you have created your own problem. "Self" is a complex, multi-faceted idea. ("Facet" implies that each facet depends on the others for its existence). It is an idea that not realized in identifying objects, but in the ability to take part in various activities.

Does the dog believe and/or know that the train arrives at five o'clock? It seems absurd to even hint at an affirmative answer. — creativesoul

One day, we (2 parents and 2 very young children) were driving along a country road. We came round a corner and saw the common of the next village. At that moment, a hot-air balloon was taking off, majestically sailing along and up. We were very close. We all watched in silence for a moment and then my son cried out "Bye, Bye, One". He had never seen or heard of a balloon before. He was too young to understand about such things. He knew it was leaving. "It" refers to the balloon. Why should I deny that he knew the balloon was leaving, even though he had no concept of a balloon? I am not saying it for his benefit, but for yours.
It is very plausible that it is going too far to attribute to the dog a concept of belief; I cannot imagine dog behaviour that would lead me to do that. But saying that the dog believes that the train arrives at 5 p.m. is not for the dog's benefit, but for yours.
However, what would you make of this thought-experiment. Suppose we had some tea and sandwiches one day, and carelessly left the last one on the table and left the room. The cat was sleeping peacefully on a chair. When we got back, the cat had eaten it - or at least the tuna that was in it. The cat was again sleeping peacefully on the chair. The dog was quivering with what looked like guilt. The dog believed that we would think that the dog had pinched the sandwich.

That's not true.
All belief consists of correlations drawn between different things by a creature so capable. <--------that's not a that clause. It is a description of all belief, from the very simplest to the most complex abstract ones we can articulate. — creativesoul

I didn't say anything about what belief consists of. I only said something about how we describe belief.

That looks like a conflation between beliefs and behaviors. In your own framework, it amounts to a conflation between cause and effect. — creativesoul

Now you are reifying beliefs and conflating explanations by reasons and explanations by causes. You are trying to play chess with draughts (checkers).

The question is not how we can attribute beliefs to others. The question is what do their beliefs consist of such that they can be and obviously are meaningful to the creature under consideration. The approach you're employing is focusing upon the reporting process. What's needed here is an outline of all thinking processes. — creativesoul

You are doing phenomenology, then - first person view. Not possible with a dog. But the phenomena that are relevant in this context are not the thinking processes.

They are the benchmark. They are the standard. — creativesoul

If they were the benchmark (the standard), first person reports of beliefs would be irrefutable and irreplaceable. But they are neither, though they are relevant and important.

That's odd. You say it seems about right to say that dogs cannot hope that something will happen despite knowing it may not, and then attribute hope to the dog. — creativesoul

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I was admitting that it seems right not to attribute hope to the dog, and then, with a "But..", introducing a case that makes that conclusion doubtful.

The reason why is because we all know that "the mouse is under the cabinet" is meaningless to the cat. .... Those things are part of the cat's experience and are meaningful to them as a result. — creativesoul

Yes, and the cat's grasp of that meaning is what justifies us in using "mouse" to describe what the cat is doing. To be sure, the cat's concept of a mouse is different from, and more limited than, our concept of a mouse. But cat and human are both thinking about the same furry animal, hiding away behind the wainscot.

My initial interest was piqued in that story regarding whether or not dogs could look forward to 5 o'clock trains, and/or whether or not it's being the 5 o'clock train could be meaningful to the dog. — creativesoul

Oh, Yes. Philosophers are so obsessed with belief in the first person - "I believe.." that they don't seriously think about 2nd or 3rd person attributions. In those cases, the question whether the dog can apply the human language-game of what is the time? is not relevant. See below.

If that dog has beliefs, then they exist in their entirety regardless of whether or not we take account of them. Are they propositional attitudes? They clearly do not consist of the language used to report on them. They are clearly not equivalent to our report of them. — creativesoul

Clearly, beliefs are not propositional attitudes, except in the sense that a proposition is grammatically necessary to describe them. (There is no description of a belief except by means of a "that..." clause - indirect speech, as it's called. Except, of course, when we believe in someone or something.)

I'm not sure that the question what they consist in is applicable, but my best answer is that they consist in what we say and do. So what the believer says is often given a specially authoritative status. But the believer's own description of their belief is not conclusive. We often overturn it when other evidence convinces us that they are lying or pretending or deceiving themselves.

When we don't have access to what the believer says, (or the believer does not speak English) how can we possibly attribute beliefs to them? We must have a sentence to complete the "that" clause, and the only sentences available are in English. The actual words that the believer would use to express the belief are irrelevant; so is what's going on in his head. The "that" clause is not there for their benefit, but for ours. It needs to make sense to us, not necessarily to them.

If you still have doubts, think about how we might describe the belief of someone who thinks in images.

Hope, it seems to me anyway, is distinct from expectation in a very clear sense. One has hope that something will or will not take place despite knowing it may not or may. I do not see how the dog could ever process such considerations. — creativesoul

That seems about right. But when I'm cooking a meal - not at the dog's dinner time - and my dog hangs around near the kitchen (but not in it - not allowed in my house), I have no hesitation in saying that the dog is hoping that there will be something to eat. But when I'm preparing the dog's dinner (and the dog is allowed into the kitchen and comes in the kitchen without being invited), I have no hesitation in saying that the dog expects there will be something to eat.

I'm curious, if after some time, the dog ever began going on days that the human would not have been on the train. — creativesoul

The story doesn't tell. But surely, if the dog turned up at random times when the human is not coming, there would not have been anything like the same fuss.

Those feelings would continue to result from being a part of the routine if they are the result of not only the expectation of the human, but also all of the other correlations drawn by the dog between other elements within the experience, including between the state of its own brain/body chemistry(its 'state of mind'), the walking, and other surroundings along the way. — creativesoul

Yes, you do need to look more widely and/or have a decent background knowledge of the dog's habits. But if going to the station itself was a pleasurable experience for the dog, would they not turn up at random times as well as at 5 p.m.?

While I agree wholeheartedly, if it is the case we looking for truths relative to other un-like animal’s rational machinations, we must first presuppose there is such a thing, and we find that the only way to grant such a presupposition, is relative to our own, for which no presupposition is even the least required. Further than that we cannot go, and remain strictly objective in our investigations. — Mww

Surely, we would not even try to apply explanations of actions that work for humans unless we found that animal behaviour was sufficiently like human behaviour for that to make sense. It's not an arbitrary choice.

Odd, innit. The thing everybody does, in precisely the same way….because we’re all human….is the very thing on which not everyone agrees as to what that way is. I for one, readily admit I haven’t a freakin’ clue regarding the necessary conditions controlling the disgust I hold concerning, e.g., Lima beans, or controlling the supposed exhilaration for an experience I never had. — Mww

It's the result of the peculiar condition of the philosopher. But it is perfectly true that there are many experiences that we have that seem more or less completely arbitrary. But one can sometimes explain dizziness, for example, by the spinning dancing you've been indulging in, or by an ear infection. So perhaps one day...

With that in mind, it is far further from me to think I’m qualified to affirm the necessary conditions controlling the inner machinations of any animal that isn’t just like me, insofar as I have nothing whatsoever with which to judge those conditions except my own, which I’ve already been forced to admit I don’t know, hence can only guess. Or, as some of us are wont to say, in order to make ourselves feel better about not knowing…..speculate. — Mww

Oh, I think it's a bit over-cautious to say that we know nothing about animals. Their thoughts and feelings are on display to us in just the same way(s) that our thoughts and feelings are on display to them. I don't think speculation is particularly harmful in itself. It's when it gets mistaken for established truth that it can do damage.

(Guy puts a camera in his living room, records his faithful companion looking out the window…
….Guy thinks….awww, how sweet; he’s anticipating my car coming into the driveway….
….Guy next door has a similar camera….
….1st guy shows his dog to the second guy, remarks: look at Fido sitting at attention, anticipating….
….2nd guy shows 1st guy a squirrel sitting on the lawn, by the tree, next to the 1st guy’s driveway…
….says, yeah, he’s anticipatin’ alright. Anticipatin’ the hunt, and lunch at the end of it.) — Mww

In fact, you know perfectly well how to play the game. The fact that we sometimes get it wrong is not important. We can spot mistakes and put them right.
Although in this case, I would propose that he did go out to welcome you home, but got distracted by the squirrel when he got out there. However, I take the point that the sentimental explanation is not always the right one.

My point was that being rational must be able to be verified, justified and approved to be so. — Corvus

You didn't quite say that.

Not always. I know it is autumn by looking at the falling leaves from the trees outside. My knowledge of autumn arrived to me purely from the visual perception. Why do I need to justify the knowledge? If someone asked me to justify it, I could then do it. But before that unlikely event, I just know it is autumn.
But in some other case of knowledge, rational justification is needed, helps or even based on. You seem to be over simplifying the issue, which results inevitably in the muddle. — Corvus

On the other hand, you could be talking about the case when I attribute knowledge to someone else. That is indeed a bit different. But there are still simple cases and more complex ones. In a simple case, I know the person quite well and know that they are in a position to know and are reliable, and then I will say just that.

You cannot call something or someone being rational just because someone went to a shop, or a dog opened the door or hawk hunted his meal. — Corvus

I agree, a single case on its own doesn't cut much ice. One needs a framework of background knowledge, including a decision about whether rational explanation applies to at least some things that the subject does. However, given that you are a homo sapiens, if you walk down the street, stop at the shop door, open it and go in, I am justified in saying that you walked to the shop. I might be wrong, but that possibility applies to everything that I say. It would be unreasonable to deny that you walked to the shop in those circumstances. Ditto the dog and the hawk.

Daniel Dennett in From Bacteria to Bach and Back, I think is the name of it, goes into the biological mutative aspect in more detail than I fully understood even after listening several times. It's an interesting piece of writing. Audiobook was free on youtube at one time. Read by Dennett himself. — creativesoul

I also thought it was fascinating. Being thought-provoking is just as valuable as being right, in my book.

What exactly constitutes being two separate beliefs of that particular dog? Keep in mind that the dog's beliefs must be meaningful to the dog. — creativesoul

I was thinking of the belief that their human has shown up to-day (a distinct belief for each day), and the belief that their human will show up every day, shown partly by their going to the station in advance of the human's arrival, without any specific evidence about to-day, not to mention their persistence in going to the station after their human has not shown up, not just for one day, but for many days. But it would be fair to say that these two beliefs are closely linked, since one is an inductive generalization of the other.

If the only sense of "thought" and "belief" we employ is the one meant only to make sense of reasons in rational actions, then it may be the only place all beliefs overlap. — creativesoul

I was responding to a specific issue. It may be possible to generalize, but it's certainly very complicated.
If you include our sayings as well as our doings as actions, then beliefs do show up in actions. What sense could we make of a belief or thought (rational or irrational) that didn't (couldn't) affect what we say or do at all? But perhaps there is a different sense of belief in which we can make sense of such beliefs. What do you suggest?

I do not feel at all confident saying what the dog expects or recognizes. I could speculate that the dog ran into many people on a regular basis. I'll bet it got petted by dozens of people every day. I'll bet some people saw it regularly, and started bringing a treat when they could. If the man stopped coming, the dog still got tons of love and attention. What began for one reason continues for another. The dog might not remember the man at all. — Patterner

It's entirely appropriate not to be confident about some things - especially when attributing beliefs (and other motivations to animals, and indeed to humans. I confess I hadn't thought of the changes in circumstances. Of course you are right.

The details of the real life story are compatible with your bet. Hachikō would leave the house to greet his human, Ueno, at the end of each day at the nearby Shibuya Station - until May 21, 1925, when Ueno died at work. Initial reactions from the people, especially from those working at the station, were not necessarily friendly. However, the first reports about him appeared on October 4, 1932. People then started to bring him treats and food. Hachikō died on March 8, 1935.
(My source is Wikipedia - Hachiko)

That makes 7 years without much, if any, positive reinforcement. I'm sure the dog was an embarrassment to the station staff and perhaps to the some of the passengers. That changed when the publicity gave them a different perspective. So we could argue about when the reason for meeting the train changed. But your point stands.

We could also debate how far the dog was rational. I would say that persisting for a while after Ueno died is rational. But continuing for that long... I'm not sure. Other dogs, I think, would have given up much, much, sooner. One factor in his persistence may have been that his new home (with Ueno's former gardener) did not distract him from his habit. Habits, I would say, can be rational, but can also be irrational, especially when they do not change when changed circumstances imply a change in habits.

But then, people saw his persistence as loyalty, which is not necessarily rational, but is something that we value, on the whole. So this question of how far we apply the "people" framework to animals extends beyond rationality or not. It incudes values.

Rational thought and thought that is not. — creativesoul

You are distinguishing between thought that the thinker is able to articulate in language and critically evaluate and thought that the thinker is not able to articulate in language or critically evaluate.
I suspect that most people will have thoughts of both kinds. So we cannot say that people either are or are not rational, just that they are rational in some ways, but likely not in others. That, at least, we could agree on.

What do all examples of thought have in common such that having that commonality is what makes them count as being a thought? — creativesoul

There's no easy way to answer that - especially if you are trying to find commonalities between thoughts that are articulated in language and thoughts that are not. The only place that they overlap is in their role as reasons in rational actions.

There are much better ways to do that. — creativesoul

What do you have in mind? What would be better than the ways we already have?

Avoiding anthropomorphism. — creativesoul

I think we have different ideas about what that means. For me, explaining actions as rational is a language-game - a conceptual structure - whose paradigmatic application is to homo sapiens. It has been extended to various other cases, many of which are contested. What's at issue is how far that game/structure can be applied to animals. You have a point which I think does have something to it, that self-reflection is likely something that animals that lack a language like human language are not equipped to do. The complication is that they clearly have self-awareness and self-control as well as, or even because, they are capable of acting rationally - in my sense, though not in yours.

Your versions are fine, although I might insist every experience affects the condition of the subject. — Mww

I wouldn't want to deny that, since every experience has an "owner" or subject. I just wouldn't put it that way.

Hence the new terminology in new philosophies, to stand for a thing that is not an object. — Mww

I do agree that the thought is almost impossible to formulate clearly without a lot of dancing around explaining. I think this is a case that suits well Wittgenstein's idea that some things cannot be said, only shown.

Red herring. — creativesoul

If you say so.

Are you denying that thought and belief is prior to thinking about thought and belief? — creativesoul

If being awareness of my belief is thinking about belief, then surely the two are simultaneous, since the one follows logically from the other. But perhaps awareness of something is not thinking about it - even though awareness of something is being conscious of it.

Thinking about one's own thought and belief as a subject matter in and of itself requires an ability to pick one's own thought and belief about this world out of this world to the exclusion of all else. — creativesoul

This world is not simply composed of entities arranged before us, waiting to be picked out. ('m assuming that you mean something like "focussed on" or "attended to" or "distinguished from other things".) But the problem of the sel f is preciselky that there is nothing to pick out in the world as it is presented or rvealed to us. The same applies to our thoughts and beliefs.

Certain sorts of things captured our attention - as a species - long before documented histories began being recorded. Things become meaningful that way. — creativesoul

The same is true of many animals. So what's the problem?

Does the dog recognize the fact that its own belief is no longer warranted, based upon everyday fact? It is no longer true. The falseness is a lack of correspondence. Recognizing one's own false belief - in that situation - requires recognizing that the world does not match one's expectations. — creativesoul

Yes and no. The dog expects their human to arrive. The dog recognizes that their human is not showing up. It is also true that it does not abandon its general expectation that their human comes back on the 5:00 train every day. But those are two separate beliefs, and it is not unreasonable to retain a generalization in the face of a counter-example. It may be unreasonable not to abandon a generalization in the face of many counter-examples. But the single case and the generalization are two separate beliefs.
We may be pursuing different projects. You seem to be pursuing a phenomenology for the dog. I don't think that the rational explanation of actions is limited to identifying phenomenological events. Third person attributions of thoughts and beliefs are affected by first person declarations. But sometimes, the first person version is not available and sometimes first and third person versions conflict and we reject the first person version. So the authority of first person claims is not absolute. (Lying, self-deception.)

I'm not sure about saying that myths and metaphysical speculations are pre-rational. I guess it depends on what you mean by "rational". I think of rationality as "measuring" things against other things and seeing possibilities. — Janus

I was a bit sloppy there. For us, myths have no special status and can be evaluated by standards we have learnt in other ways. For, say, the ancient Greeks their status is different. So the myths, in themselves are neither post- not pre- rational. It's a question of what they are to one group of people or another. (I'm setting aside the point that nowadays, the evaluation of myths is complicated. They are generally recognized as being at least partly true or based on truth.)
One inevitably moves on to wonder what serves the function of myths in our upbringing and education? The answer is, different stories - the Christian or Buddhist stories, the story of philosophy (Socrates) or science (Copernicus or Galileo), stories from our history - Battle of Hastings, Founding Fathers etc.

I agree with you that culturally entrenched beliefs were probably at least by and large unquestioned and in view of that they could be thought of as being in the Wittgensteinian sense "hinge propositions" (although I never liked the word "proposition" in that context and I think 'belief' would probably be better). — Janus

Good point. Myths are composed or propositions, but that's doesn't mean that they are propositions. Belief does seem to be better - so long as we bracket the context of evidence that applies to most run-of-the-mill beliefs.

A sense of self that via memory "unifies" experience. — Janus

It seems to me that there are two related but different ideas of the self. To a great extent, we define ourselves or create who we are by what we (choose to) do. But that sense of self-identity is not always identical with our sense of the identity of others. A further complication is that often our identity is given by the roles that we occupy and these differ in different contexts. (Parent/child, teacher/student, manager/colleague) One can appeal to continuities of one kind or another - stream of consciousness, physical continuity, and so forth - but then there is the question of how important or relevant they are - especially when they conflict. So unity of experience is one factor amongst others.

Are those leaps? What would incremental steps between other species and us mean? Is there a species that can think of what its life will be next month? Another species that can think of next year? Another that can think of a week after its own death? Another that can think of a month after its own death? — Patterner

I've no idea how the story would go. But it won't be easy. The best evidence would be evidence of how creatures behaved. We can likely make some deductions from the physical remains we have, but we will never achieve the ideal of observing them in action. So we may never come to a plausible, evidence-based story of how rationality evolved.

However, The eye is the classic case of something that seemed to escape the possible range of evolutionary development. A major issue is that soft tissue is not often fossilized. But there is at least an outline of what happened. See:- New Scientist - Evolution of the Eye

As well, since Plato earlier and Russell later, knowledge of is very different than knowledge that, such distinction being entirely absent from experience. — Mww

Oh, yes, well, that makes a lot of difference. People mostly seem very reluctant to deal with that. I think the reason is that they think that knowledge of can be reduced to knowledge that. The probably haven't faced up to Mary's Room.

Knowledge is an end in itself, pursuant to the operation of a system, that end being a change in the condition of the intelligence under which the system operates; — Mww

My version:- "Knowledge is an end in itself, achieved by the operation of a system, that end being a change in the information available to the system itself".

Experience is an end in itself, pursuant to the operation of a system, that end being a change in the condition of the subject to which the system belongs, all else being what it may. — Mww

My version:- "Experience is the operation of a system, which often results in various changes to the condition of the subject to which the system belongs."

Which you must immediately recognize, given your historical commentary precedents, as a (gaspsputterchoke) language game. — Mww

Careful - I'm not sure that is not a dirty word around here.
But that concept enables one to give "knowing oneself" a meaning. But it couldn't be based on the standard concepts of how we come to know things - a different, specialized, language game.

“One’s self can never be an object of experience” works just fine, though, right? — Mww

I think it does. But it is misleading to say that there's no such thing. It's just that one's self is not an object.

Exactly. Although some things, like a pile of sand, are definitely made up of tiny units, we can't define how many are needed for it to qualify as a pile. My guess is that applies to consciousness. — Patterner

Yes, though that's not because consciousness is made up of quantities of atoms or particles. It's in a different category.
Rationality is not dissimilar, but, unlike consciousness, it is the result of a range of skills. One's range may be wider or narrower, greater or lesser.

Thanks for noticing! — Wayfarer

Sorry to be dense, but what have I noticed?

But in some other case of knowledge, rational justification is needed, helps or even based on. You seem to be over simplifying the issue, which results inevitably in the muddle. — Corvus

So you know that it is autumn because you can see the falling leaves. You don't know because you have said to yourself "I know that.. because...". However, you will be able to cite that if anybody asks you how you know, i.e. it is your justification. (I accept that "I can see the falling leaves" needs no further justification under normal circumstances. But so far as the question "How do you know" goes, I don't see the difference between your simple case and your "other cases".

I don't see any other explanation having an easier time. One neuron? Two? A thousand? A million? — Patterner

The moral of the sorites paradox is that some concepts do not have precise border-lines. Consciousness seems to me to be one of them. (So does "rational")

The reason I am arguing so strongly is we learn how to think and we should not expect everyone to think rationally without training. We should not take thinking for granted. — Athena

That's exactly right. Rationality is a complex of skills. Some of them we learn informally in the process of learning to navigate the world. Others (e.g. mathematics, critical thinking) we have to learn in more formal ways. There's no guarantee that everybody learns all the skills.

The problem is not answering the question. Is believing and defending a myth or false belief, rational thinking? — Athena

Well, it depends a bit, partly on which myth or false belief is involved, but also on how you choose to defend it. Granted that most myths contain only a element of truth it will often be irrational to defend them as true. And it is possible to be mistaken about a belief and so end up defending a false belief.

I am struggling to understand how given our modern, science-based understanding of life, can people still believe the Bible is a good explanation of reality. — Athena

The short answer is that they do not start with your presuppositions. The slightly longer answer is that a religious belief involves adopting a specific world-view, that is, a framework within which you assess truth or falsity or good explanation or bad explanation.

And one can also bear in mind experience is an end in itself, laden with nothing, — Mww

But isn't experience supposed to be the foundation of knowledge? How is that possible if it is an end in itself? Aren't experiences pleasant or unpleasant, meaningful or meaningless, &c. &c? How is that possible if they are laden with nothing?

oneself can never be an experience. — Mww

I think you mean that there can never be an experience that is an experience of oneself? Or one's self can never be an object of experience (since oneself is posited as the subject of expereience.)?

The dog is incapable of isolating its own thought/belief to the exclusion of all else. — creativesoul

I don't know what "isolating its own thought/belief" means.

A dog's inability to become aware of its own fallibility is due to not possessing the capacity/capability to isolate their own thoughts and beliefs. Realizing/recognizing that one's belief is false, in this case, happens when reality does not meet/match expectations and we're aware of that. — creativesoul

Perhaps you are thinking that in order to grasp the rationality of what a dog is doing, we have to somehow get inside it's head. That isn't necessary. We just need to interpret what it does. I'm sure that the dog understands that their human has not arrived on the train. I can't think of anything that they could do to make it clear that they recognize in addition, as a distinct belief, that their belief that their human would arrive on that train is false - other than saying it. Yet the latter belief is implicit in the former. i.e. is not distinct from, isolable from, the former.

Either truth and meaning exist in their entirety prior to language or true and false belief exists without meaning and/or truth. — creativesoul

You are forgetting about non-linguistic action.

I am not sure if you would count them as fantasy stories but I was thinking more specifically of myths and metaphysical speculations and religions. That is conjectures which count themselves to be non-fictional. — Janus

OK. "Myths and metaphysical speculations and religions" all belong in a very special category. I'll express this by saying that they are pre-rational and foundational. By which I mean that they give the people who accept them their framework for explaining and understanding the world. It's misleading, in my view, to say that people believe them, because that places them alongside believing that an earthquake is happening or that the harvest is bad - everyday facts.

Yes, perhaps the "I" is nothing more than a mere idea which we hold as an overarching unifying principle. If that were so it would be a kind of metaphysical or ontological illusion. A proudly human linguistic reification of an idea. — Janus

Well, I disagree with the "mere" in "mere idea", because some ideas (including "I") are what set the framework within we can identify facts, experiences, etc. On the other hand, I agree that many people (try to) reify that idea. But that is a misunderstanding of language, which is not built in to, but results from imposing a limited model of language on our linguistic practices.

That said we have a sense of self (or is it just a sense of being?) which seems to be pre-conceptual. If it is just a sense of being it is also a sense of being different (from everything else) it seems. I don't doubt that (at least some) animals have this kind of sense. — Janus

I don't see how the dog can't know that it itself is in pain, for example. Call it a pre-conceptual sense if you like, but there's no way for us to recognize it except in language or in how we respond.

I haven't looked into phenomenology much, but I'd think it a poor basis for understanding the experience of someone with schizophrenia of someone with bipolar disorder who is in a manic state. — wonderer1

That's a good point. I don't know how a phenomenologist would respond. But it seems pretty clear that they think they are talking about what is built in to any experience whatever. It seems better to say that what we are looking for when we try to understand those phenomena is an account that makes sense of them by interpreting them in a framework that rationalizes them.

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them. — Emptiness, Thanissaro Bhikhu

It seems that the idea of raw data is a necessary illusion for empiricism. But it is an illusion, since the raw data would be "a blooming, buzzing confusion" - except even recognizing that is to interpret the phenomena. But the next two paragraphs show that that's not what is meant. The proposition does not require dropping the entanglements, but not getting entangled in them in order to see them from a different perspective. Bear in mind, that I'm already distorting this explanation, because I'm not considering it within it's intended context of the actual aims of the practices of mndfulness/meditation, which is not the theoretical context posited by philosophy practiced here.

I believe this is near to both the meaning of the 'phenomenological suspension'/ epochē and also to the original meaning of skepticism in ancient philosophy (a very different thing to skepticism in modern terms). Ancient skepticism was grounded in 'suspension of judgement of what is not evident' (ref), namely, the entailments and entanglements that arise from emotional reactivity. That is where the similarity with epochē becomes clear. — Wayfarer

I agree that it is close, and might enable us to learn something. But I think we have to see what the actual practice of phenomenology is.

I was trying to clarify the correct use of the concept "rational" from the muddled way. — Corvus

Well, your criterion is clear. It's also clear because it justifies saying of a person that they are rational or not - because it relies on a capacity, ability or skill. It's just that it's not very useful - for the purposes of thinking about various problems, including the one of this thread.

Having ability of using language or knowing meanings of some words doesn't make one rational, nor does ability or preference eating sushi. — Corvus

I agree. One can (and most people do) use language in irrational ways. But language does open up the possibility of articulate reason. It's necessary, but not sufficient.

Knowing something is not also being rational. — Corvus

That's a bit odd, at least for me. I start from the justified true belief account of knowledge, so for me, knowing something means being able to justify it, which would require some rationality, wouldn't it?
But then that requires language, which would rule out my dog. So I need something else, which would be highly unorthodox, because orthodox philosophy doesn't even attempt to consider epistemology for language-less creatures. It's the same issue, how far and in what ways we have to adapt our concepts to recognize the similarities that there are between humans and animals.

Philosophy of action is very, very complicated, because our thinking/language about actions is very, very complicated - all human and animal life is there. But it is also capable of recognizing some very fine and yet important distinctions. I think it is probably better to patiently disentangle the complications before jumping to the conclusion that our concepts are muddled.

More important, should we assume all humans are rational thinkers or must they learn the higher order thinking skills to be rational? Is believing and defending a myth, rational thinking? — Athena

The trouble is that there is nothing to prevent people using the word "rational" in different ways.
The truth is that even we humans are not rational simplicter. We are a mixture. Our starting-point is the ability to learn - this happens automatically from the moment we are born. There's a range of skills involved and there's no guarantee that everyone will learn all of them.
The word "thinking" is very, very difficult to pin down. We distinguish explicit thinking from acting, forgetting to notice that thinking is something we do, and so is also an action - thought sometimes thoughts just occur to us and we aren't deliberately doing it and sometimes it is not under our control. So is more like breathing - it can be automatic, and it can be under voluntary control.
But we can act without explicit thinking beforehand, and I don't think there is any reason to say that all such actions are non-rational. But it is complicated. Habitual actions, for example, are a bit marginal; we often do them, as we say, without thinking - that's when the habit doesn't adjust to unusual circumstances. We can also react very fast in an emergency and these actions can be more like a reflex than a true action. (True actions need to be under our conscious control.)
I hope I'm not confusing you. I'll stop there.

Whew!! Thanks for editing me out, saves me any more time trying to figure out how to respond. — Mww

I posted by accident and had run out of time. I hope you don't mind that I'm back.

Epoché; the bracketing. A method for removing the necessity for the human cognitive system to operate in a specific way for every occassion. In other words, a method for disassociating the subject that knows, from that which it knows about. — Mww

Well, I'm very much in favour of adopting whatever approach most suits the subject-matter, so I don't have a problem with that. I've lost what I said before about Heidegger, but I expect you'll remember that it was about his distinction between present-at-hand and ready-to-hand.
I have the impression that it was intended as a critique of Husserl, and one can see how Heidegger's distinction maps on to Husserl's. But Heidegger was not only criticizing Husserl, but the idea of the theoretical stance, objective and disconnected from ordinary, involved life. In other words, both sides of the mirroring relationship that you described. His argument was that it is the involved life that is fundamental and the theoretical stance (of both kinds) that was the optional extra. As I understand it.

namely, the experience of the world and self that one has if one determinedly seeks to experience the “I”; and, Hume notwithstanding, such an experience is possible…. — Mww

I don't doubt it. But there are others who maintain the opposite, as you notice.. The question is which experience is veridical. One has to bear in mind that our experience is laden with skills and expectations. Many people think that there is a way of shrugging all that off and experiencing the true experience. But that involves shedding all those skills and expectations. Demonstrating that one has succeeded in that is, let us just say, difficult. I'm not even convinced that there is a truth of the matter, although I do favour the "no-self" view, or more accurately my self = Ludwig = me.

And how one meets and greets, and gets lost in, the other. — Mww

That's perfectly possible. On the other hand, I can only recognize myself when I can recognise the other.

No, they are not rational at all. They are more in the arena of emotional states. — Corvus

In one way, you are not wrong. I think "emotional state" is not the whole story. But I want to ask whether, given that you believe in a myth, working out what it is rational for you to do in the light of that myth is not an exercise in rationality. For example, we know, from textual evidence, that the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids because it was in their interest to do so and that makes sense to us. Why would we not say that given that they believed their myths, they were rational to build the pyramids?

They were physically rational, but not philosophically rational. There is no record or evidence of their rational explanations on how and why they had built them. — Corvus

We know the why, but not the how - thought we have some ideas from the finished product. They also had quite reasonable arithmetic, though they limited themselves to severely practical applications. From textual evidence. Irrational, but capable of arithmetic?

I've been accused of worse than that! :grin: — Patterner

I think it's the sorites problem. One bit of information processed doesn't mean anything. Many bits of information processed is more persuasive. But it's more than just processing information. It's reacting to it in complex ways, and, it's not just responding to information, but initiating action based on information as well.

I was just trying to say that theoretical systems metaphysics is a pretty good way to distinguish one from the other, their respective commonalities notwithstanding. — Mww

Yes. I just like details - but not so many I get confused. .

As far as I remember Husserl considered phenomenology to be the science of consciousness, of human experience. I see the epoché, the bracketing of the question of the existence of an external world as being the kind of reverse mirror image of the bracketing of concern about first person experience in the other sciences. — Janus

That makes sense, and I didn't mean to imply that it couldn't be called a science at all. But the epoche does set on one side the "hard" sciences, doesn't it? That's why phenomenology has to have a method of its own.

But I do think that our capacity to imagine possibilities beyond the ambit of common experience is an important phenomenological fact about the human. — Janus

Yes. You may be thinking of fantasy stories. But those rely on hand-waving - magic or future technology - to keep plausibility going.

German has an expression, Geisteswissenschaften, which literally means 'sciences of the spirit', covering subjects other than what English calls 'natural science', including philosophy. There is no equivalent term in English. — Wayfarer

So it does and so there isn't. I guess English culture is just not comfortable with them.

That would be 'positivism', wouldn't it? And what precisely constitutes 'common' in that sentence? Where do you draw the line between what would be accepted as 'common' and what would not? But then, the kinds of observations produced by the LHC would not be 'common', nor would the interpretive skills required to analyse them, even if they are designated 'scientific'. — Wayfarer

Perhaps I didn't express myself well.
My attitude to this is that truth conditions are not the whole of the meaning of anything. But they are a part of the meaning of everything that is "truth-apt".
But I was thinking that if something cannot affect us in any way, then it makes no difference to us. So it is irrelevant.
I was also thinking that absolute reality, "beyond" all the contextual frameworks that we use to define what's real and what's not is not just an unachievable goal, but meaningless. The framework that defines meaning is, ex hypothesi, missing.
Also, I did refer to the "amplification" of our senses "by techniques discovered or at least validated by science".

Therefore, treating them as suitable sources amounts to relinquishing on developing one's own understanding since developing an autonomous understanding requires that one plants their own flags in relation to those of other participants in the discussion. — Pierre-Normand

This point is a very good one, and suggests that the biggest loser when AIs are misused is the misuser. Socrates would be very gratified.

When I was teaching and found derivative or plagiarized work in their essays, they often said "But X says it so much better than I can". Which reflects a misunderstanding of or perhaps a disagreement about the point of the exercise.

Perhaps a comment somewhere in the guide-lines might help some people not to get caught up in that mistake?

This discussion has been very helpful to me personally. I'm coming out with a view that nothing much has changed. Judicious scepticism still seems the best policy.

AFAIK since Nietzsche Husserl and Heidegger the continentals have (purportedly at least) eschewed metaphysics or at least reduced it to be a subset of phenomenology. — Janus

That is my understanding.

It does depend on how you define science. I think Husserl considered phenomenology to be a science, and I see no reason not to think of psychology, anthropology, sociology and history as sciences. — Janus

Well, the Husserl's crucial idea was the epoche or "bracketing" of external reality to exclude it from consideration. The "first-person" or subjective "lived world" was the subject-matter. The methods of the sciences as understood in his day were not applicable. But he did think of phenomenology as a systematic study and methodology. So in that sense, it was a science but it wouldn't have been called that at the time.

I can see your point if you mean to say that we needn't worry about whether or not what we say is absolutely adequate to the reality, but should rather concern ourselves with the relevance, validity and soundness of what we say within the ambit of common human experience. — Janus

That's about right. I would add that no clear meaning can be attributed to reality beyond our access and the the ambit of common human experience - amplified by techniques discovered or at least valdiated by science - is all there is.

We generally recognise that there is a hard border where no amount of "greater good", not even family ties, can overcome a person's wishes. — Echarmion

Yes. A qualification. Even in those cases, we can recommend to people that this or that course of action would be better prudentially or morally.

That second one is hard to answer. Is it rational to believe something that is not true? — Athena

Is believing and defending a myth, rational thinking? — Athena

The answer to the general question is that it is rational to believe anything that you have good evidence for. Sometimes good evidence is misleading, but that doesn't affect the answer. Sometimes we believe things without good, or even any, evidence. That is irrational. Believing a myth is a bit different. Short story, myths (and religious beliefs in general) have a status a bit like axioms, and in that sense are pre-rational. But one could, nevertheless defend them on rational grounds.

I think any bit of information processing brings a little bit of consciousness. — Patterner

H'm. I think that's a bit extreme, but comprehensible.

But, as far as consciousness goes, I don't think epiphenomenalism applies. — Patterner

It does depend what you mean by the causal explanation "doing all the work". That's a complicated issue. What is the work that the explanation needs to do?

You are mixed up between driving and fueling cars and opening the doors which most people do without having second thought about doing so based on habits and routines, and rationalising i.e. analysing, criticising, reflecting and questioning about them logically, critically and reflectively. — Corvus

OK. I can make some sense of that. To be rational is to rationalise.

1. So do you think that the people who built the pyramids were rational or not? (They built them before the ancient Greeks started philosophizing.)

2. About the process of learning or acquiring a habit or routine. I grant you that putting on one's lucky trainers when going out to compete is not (normally) rational. But when the habit or routine is capable of rational justification - driving or fuelling one's car would be examples - is learning or practising those activities rational or not?

If someone had rational thinking on why he went to a shop, then he should be able to explain the reason why when asked the reason why. — Corvus

That's the great mistake that Socrates made. Articulating one's reasons is a different skill not the same as having them. Even if you can't define courage, you can use the word correctly. You may not know whyhow the fuel makes the car go, but it doesn't mean you are irrational when driving the car.

Just because a hawk has hunted his meals, or dog has opened door to go out for whatever don't mean they have rational thinking. They are just instinctual survival and habitual response by the animals. — Corvus

So when we act appropriately on our survival instincts and open doors when appropriate, are we acting rationally or not?

If you trace back to the origin of rational thinking, then it would be the ancient Greeks. — Corvus

If that's how you choose to define it, that's fair enough. But it seems a bit odd to characterize the people who built the pyramids as irrational, don't you think? (They were indeed irrational in some ways, but not when they built the pyramids.)

Would you be inclined to agree that although the prevalence of the continental tradition writ large has declined, at least it couldn’t be said to have killed itself, as the infusion of OLP and LP eventually self-destructed the analytic? — Mww

No. For a number of reasons.
The OLP advocated that philosophy should analyze, but wanted to analyze in a different way- in Ryle's terms, informal logic as opposed to formal logic or untechnical as opposed to technical concepts - and tried to carve out an arena for philosophy which avoided awkward conflicts with more technical disciplines - though he also thought that philosophy's arena was "more fundamental\" than the technical disciplines' one other feature was abandonment of the idea that it is philosophy's task to reform and regulated language. Philosophy of Language (that is what you mean by LP?) was rather different, and was, I would say, a development of the idea that philosophy's primary method was logical analysis.
Actually, I don't think that analytic philosophy has self-destructed. My perception is that it is alive and kicking strongly - even though some people are very critical of it and are announcing it is over.

I think using the caterpillar and butterfly analogy is incorrect, I think a better one would be a seed planted in a garden. The life cycle of a seed starts at germination, where it starts to take in moisture and sprout, if you were to compare it to a foetus it would be the stage where the egg is fertilized and it starts to divide. — Samlw

I was talking about a certain kind of concept, so I didn't have an actual analogy in mind. Caterpillar and egg were examples rather than analogies. Yes, seeds vs plants are a better analogy.

Obviously I'm not calling for all abortions to be banned. I just think that in the future, we would do well to adhere to a policy of not aborting when not completely necessary (presuming a future that has improved upon the world today, which might be a stretch, but is also the only way I can see a future at all). — Igitur

There's plenty of room for debate about "not completely necessary".
I think we have to be careful about a policy in relation to decisions that ought to be made at an individual level. A policy of encouraging people to have children because the population is declining (or the reverse) is one thing - and actions to make the process (for or against) easier would not be objectionable. But laws compelling people in either direction are objectionable; people tend to resist them strongly anyway.

And he replies that it is not yet fixed, therefore it is fixed, and you should pay. — tim wood

You are confusing me with someone who is making that mistake. There are indeed important differences between the flood that has not yet happened and the flood that is happening now. But it is also important not to confuse the flood that has not yet happened with no flood happening.
I think this is just a question of language and emphasis - unless you can show me what hangs on it. I think that what hangs on this is that, just as one should not confuse a foetus with a child, one should not confuse a foetus with a parasite. A pregnant woman is not yet a mother, but her pregnancy is still important, ethically and in other ways.

It is well established that prior to WWI, German idealism was still highly influential in English and American philosophy departments. That began to wane with GE Moore and Bertrand Russell’s criticism of idealism in the 1920’s, — Wayfarer

That's true. I was placing Husserl a bit earlier than I should have done. I just wanted to point out that their characterization of what they were doing might have been a bit partial. A rebellion was also going on in Germany, which they didn't like, of course. But Bentham and the two Mills had continued the empiricist tradition through Hume from Berkeley and Locke through the 19th century. I think the divide can be traced back to rationalism (Descartes and others, on the other side of the Channel) and empiricism (Berkeley, Locke, Hume, in England).


You see, sometimes I go too far the other way and insist on calling a spade an agricultural implement.

What are some of the major differences you see between Continental and Anglo philosophy? — Janus

First and foremost, and from which all relevant distinctions evolve, the presence in continental, the absence in analytic philosophy, of theoretical system metaphysics.
Probably isn’t a single all-consuming response, but I read this one somewhere, seemed to cover more bases. — Mww

It certainly covers some of them. Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein and Carnap made it clear that theoretical system metaphysics was their primary target. This was a not an unfair characterization of the German Idealism, based on Hegel, and Kantian tradition which were indeed dominant in the whole of Europe at the time, But a rebellion (Husserl, Heidegger) was also going on across the Channel at the same time. Analytic philosophers mostly didn't like them, but they were not simply a continuation of metaphysics.

(Ray Monk was biographer of both Wittgenstein and Russell, although the latter bio is not very well regarded.) — Wayfarer

Yes. I have read the Wittgenstein biography, but not the Russell one. As I remember it, the Wittgenstein book rather stole a march on Brain McGuiness and there was some bad blood. I read McGuiness' as well and it was the better book. But it stopped half way.

The article I linked to ascribes the rift to Gilbert Ryle’s hostility to Husserl and Heidegger in the 1940’s and onwards, and also Ryle’s dominance of English philosophy at that stage (he was editor of Mind from 1949-71 and had a lot of say in who got philosophy chairs in Britain). — Wayfarer

Yes. There were problems, but I just don't feel strongly about it - perhaps because I have always been very sympathetic to his project. I can understand the hostility to Heidegger - there's still an issue about his venture into public life in the 30's. Some people still want him "cancelled". In the context of WW2 so soon after WW1, it would be surprising if there were not some hostility. It looks unreasonable now, I grant you. But we're 70 years, at least two, perhaps three, generations, further away from those times.

Your rhetoric always seems quite circumspect to me, for what it’s worth. — Wayfarer

You don't know how much I delete before posting. When I read others indulging themselves, I don't like it, so...

I've saved the review for later. Thanks.

As am I, make no mistake! But Nagel, in particular, has the advantage of being dissident inside that mainstream, so at least he is paid attention, even if it's often hostile. — Wayfarer

I can recognize that I should not lump him in with the materialist mainstream - nor Chalmers. At present, I'm inclined to think that he is not dissident enough. I need to take a closer look. When the closer look will happen, I do not know. In the mean time, I can perhaps moderate my rhetoric.

According to Ray Monk, the Continental-Anglo divide stems from the period of Gilbert Ryle’s dominance of Anglo philosophy. — Wayfarer

I don't think that's historically accurate. I have the impression that the divide was well embedded before WW2. Indeed, it goes back to Hegel and beyond. Some people seem inclined to blame Ryle for everything, but I don't think that's fair.

Don't we already have, and have had for a long time, that "first-person science" in the form of phenomenology? — Janus

But I thought that Husserl specifically developed phenomenology to be something quite distinct from science - unless you define science as anything that attempts to achieve objectivity.

Which prompts me to complain that this entire discussion is scientistic and ignores the possibility that disciplines that do not aim to emulate science may be (I think are) essential to understanding consciousness. History, Literary and Cultural Studies, Sociology, some branches of Psychology etc. - not to mention Marxism and Psychoanalysis which might well have something to offer. But, of course, it all depends how you define "science".

I have literally never heard anyone try to deny that anywhere, at any time in my life. — Patterner

You didn't mention it in your account of how different humans are from animals. Mind you, I don't mention what you emphasize in my accounts of how similar they are. Perhaps it comes down to "glass half full/empty" - a difference in perspective rather than a disagreement about the facts. Then we need to tease out why that difference in emphasis is so important.

Are you contradicting yourself? Or am I reading it wrong? — Patterner

Yes, it does look peculiar. I didn't put the point carefully enough.
I think that "sensory input" is already a recognition that consciousness and experience are present. I also think that there is no a priori reason to rule out in advance the possibility that conscious beings might have bodies of plastic and silicon. Does that help?

My point is there couldn't be such a thing. As I've said before, just because we can say the words, doesn't mean we can conceive of them. Like a square circle. — Patterner

That's exactly why I can't do anything with your thought-experiments.

Right, but then isn't that the "simpleminded" case? — Janus

Yes, I guess it is. Perhaps that simple-mindedness is a fault. One can't, for example, describe an unborn baby as a foetus and pretend not to know what kind of context that sets up.

I'm not bothered by it either, so it wasn't a complaint, but merely an acknowledgement. I see it as a good thing to acknowledge our limitations. — Janus

Well, I certainly agree that it is a good thing to recognize the difference between a picture and a description and being there. Whether "limitations" is appropriate for that is another question.

But the point is that there is not any such thing. — tim wood

I'm surprised that you think that is a point so obvious and simple that one can simply remind me of it and pass on. There are profoundly different views at stake here. The view that you are expressing here is, on my reading of it, a kind of atomism that posits a world consisting of entities each of which exists in its own right, independently of all the other entities in the world. Everything is what it is, and not another thing. This view works quite well in many contexts, but sometimes does not work at all well.

You can insist that a caterpillar is not a butterfly. I shall insist that a caterpillar is not yet a butterfly. I am thinking of the state of being a caterpillar (or a chrysalis or a butterfly) as a stage in a life-cycle. Because the changes in this life-cycle are so dramatic, we apply different terms to the stages. But we include our understanding of each stage in the concept - the way we think about - each term. We call this the life-cycle of the butterfly, choosing the final stage to identify the life-cycle, which is somewhat arbitrary, but not incomprehensible. This is why there is so much argument about abortion.

The common argument here is that bodily autonomy is a defensive right - you have the right to refuse interference with your body, but you don't have a right to a specific treatment. And in case of a pregnancy, the fetus/baby is "using" the body of the mother, hence her bodily autonomy takes precedence. — Echarmion

I hate this argument. I would think that a mother who thinks like that about her unborn baby is likely to think like that about baby/child and that will not be a good thing for either child or eventual adult. Perhaps one might one posit a radical change of heart. But in fact it amounts to occupying the opposition's ground and turning it against them. It high-lights how inappropriate it is to think of a foetus as a small person as opposed to a future person.

Well, I think it's either simpleminded or dishonestly tendentious. "Trying to gain a rhetorical advantage" seems a strategy more suited to sophistry than to philosophy. — Janus

Yes, it is exactly the kind of thing Plato had in mind. But, to be fair, those effects are not always being consciously manipulated.

It's not clear to me what you are wanting to get at here. — Janus

Perhaps it's not relevant. Let's not pursue it here.

No. I really like Chalmers. Most of the time. But PZs are just dumb. A planet that never had consciousness, but had our intellectual abilities, would never come up with three concept of consciousness. They wouldn't ever talk about it, or have words for it. — Patterner

OK. The PZs are supposed to be indistinguishable from normal humans, so that case is not relevant. You get much closer to that with your planet. I don't know of any reason to suppose that's possible, so I have no opinion to give.

Don't we have robots that perform certain actions when they get certain sensory input? — Patterner

It depends. If they have sensory input, they are conscious, so I don't accept that we have robots like that. But I agree that we can strap a camera to a computer (or input an image) and program it to respond in certain circumstances. I understand also that we often call that seeing or calculating or speaking. But it's by extension from human beings, not in their own right. Getting it to do everything that we do is a different matter. I don't rule out the possibility that one day there might be a machine that is conscious, but I have very little idea of what it would be like. But I also don't think that consciousness is on/off, like a light and sometimes there may be no definitive answer.

Now we think about things, and kind of things, nothing else thinks about. — Patterner

.. and yet we are still animals.

When you say it's a "non-issue", do you mean we're in agreement that a human foetus and a human baby are the same thing, despite the different terms usYeed? — Hallucinogen

Yes.

A person's ethical attitudes ought to be based on reasoning, just as their descriptions ought to be. The descriptions don't justify their ethical attitudes, their reasoning does. — Hallucinogen

Yes. But these descriptions involve both facts and values, and that makes for an argument in which it is easy to get confused.

The debate has constrained usage and most dictionaries are sometimes not helpful in understanding all usages. — tim wood

If I was a dictator - which God forbid! - I would legislate that a foetus is a foetus until live birth occurs, after which it is a baby.

I don't know the details about Roe v Wade, but from what I've seen, it is certainly a good start.

I agree with what you said, barring nit-picking details.

Above I asked you if you thought a caterpillar is a butterfly. Or even if the contents of an egg are a chicken. Pro-lifers seem to think they are, which given that they are not, is an example of what I call vicious. — tim wood

I thought they were trick questions, so didn't answer. I would be an idiot to answer either yes or no.

A caterpillar is not just a caterpillar, but a future butterfly. It should be treated as such. Ditto the contents of an egg.

A foetus is not just a lump, but a future person (even if it has died). (There's been some conflict about that between parents and doctors.) This creates a complicated situation. Of course the mother has a predominant interest, and, as a living person, prior rights. But society also has a reasonable interest and perhaps the father too.

There's far too much content to take on nowadays. — Wayfarer

The most annoying tendency is for people to append very long lists with no comment whatever. Very unhelpful. They give the appearance of being the result of a search and little more. You can tell who's read a lot from the text itself (and the footnotes). Reviews are good, when they don't just repeat the publisher's blurb.

My interest in David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel in particular, is because they are both opponents of philosophical materialism but from within a generally mainstream analytic context. — Wayfarer

Opposing materialism is good. But I'm very ambivalent about the analytic mainstream. Yet it is the analytic mainstream I am opposed to and I have to admit that from time to time I come across ideas that I can take on board.

Very much so, but let's leave that for now. — Wayfarer

Agreed. One cannot pursue every rabbit that pops up.

He doesn’t say it’s insoluble. I quoted it for its succinctness. But that is one paragraph - actually one half of one paragraph - from an entire book. Nagel’s suggestion for a solution is sketchy, but revolves around the idea of there being a natural teleology - a natural tendency for minded beings to evolve, which can be seen as a movement towards the ‘universe understanding itself’. As distinct from the neo-Darwinian picture in which we’re the accidental byproducts of a fortuitous combination of elements. — Wayfarer

Hold on! I thought we were talking about Chalmers. But perhaps that's not important. I suppose I'll have to Nagel's book on my ever-lengthening reading list - and I'm a slow reader of philosophy books. I'm beginning to think I'll never catch up. But I would like to be fair to him in future.

An interesting idea. Back to Aristotle again. Perhaps.

I'm not sure that "a natural tendency" and "accidental by-product" are in flat contradiction. They could constitute different attitudes to the same phenomenon. (Except I have serious difficulties about "the universe understanding itself" - but then I don't have to go that far.) Evolution itself could be an example of how to make progress. It manages to posit a blind, purely causal process, which nevertheless manages to have the effects of a purposive process. Dennett argues at length that such a process deserves to be called "purposive", and, on the principle of the duck, that seems a reasonable proposal.

Maybe Hakicho? — Wayfarer

Indeed. I've been trying to remember that story ever since the example was proposed (by Vera, I think). I couldn't remember enough detail to construct a search that would throw it up. Thank you.

I don't see how. There is no need to think about one's own beliefs about future events in order to have beliefs about future events. — creativesoul

I'm waiting on the platform for the 5 pm train; it is 4.58; I expect (believe) that the train will arrive shortly. It doesn't. I am disappointed. Is it correct to say that I now recognize that my belief that the train will arrive shortly is false? It is correct to say that that constitutes a belief about a belief?
Why would it be incorrect to substitute "the dog" for "I" in that story?
I think you would reply that it is incorrect because the dog is unable to speak English.
However, I do not believe that attributing beliefs or knowledge to an agent is about what is going on in the agent's head. It's about making sense of what the agent does.

Despite being very similar in almost all ways, we can think in ways no animal can. — Patterner

That's true. But, since we are animals, the ways that an animal thinks are still available to us, so these special ways are grafted on to the ways of thinking that an animal thinks.
My favourite quick way of making this point is to remind you that we are perfectly capable of using language without any ability to formulate the rules that we are following. Articulating definitions and grammatical rules is grafted on to "wordless" thinking.

Of course this is the background to Chalmer's 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'. — Wayfarer

Certainly. But I don't think that formulating the problem in such a way that the problem is insoluble is particularly helpful. I wish I was sure that it was an unintended consequence, but I very much doubt it.

The brain's activity could do these things without any subjective experience/consciousness anywhere. — Patterner

The problem is that your thought-experiment only works if I pretend that I accept this. It begs the question. (This is about the P-zombies, isn't it?)

What seems most misguided and retrogressive to me is the very idea that the brain is merely "grey glutinous matter". That seems most simple-minded to me. The counterpoint to that—thinking of the mind as ethereal is the equally retarded sibling. — Janus

Oh, I don't think it is all that simple-minded. It is an attempt to gain a rhetorical advantage by labelling the phenomenon in a prejudicial way. If I'm feeling charitable, I try to ignore the label for the sake of the argument.

That said, we are concerned with what it seems most reasonable to say, while acknowledging that our words can never capture the reality. — Janus

I'm not that bothered about that supposed failure. It's a bit like complaining that a photograph doesn't capture the reality of the scene. Of course it doesn't - unless you allow it to by supplementing the coloured patches by empathetically imagining (remembering) being there.

Consider Wordsworth's famous lines "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven!" For me, they capture what it was to be Wordsworth in France before the Revolution. But not by reporting facts. Language has resources beyond that.

To start with, that they are not the same thing, ergo different; and different, ergo not the same thing. — tim wood

Very true. All I asked was what the differences are that make the difference. I didn't think that was a particularly vicious question. Let me try again.

Foetus - An unborn or unhatched vertebrate in the later stages of development showing the main recognizable features of the mature animal.

Baby 1. A very young child; an infant. 2. An unborn child; a fetus. 3. The youngest member of a family or group.

These are dictionary definitions and not particularly authoritative. However, I have the impression that they are an acceptable starting-point for discussion. So can you please explain where they are wrong?

You're just playing games with words, and since I don't reckon that you're actually playing, I must assume you're serious, which makes you vicious. Just exactly as I would be if I mislabled you for nefarious purposes of my own. — tim wood

I don't disagree with you. But it's not quite the whole story. I do think that the labelling of - let's say - an unborn baby as a foetus or a baby is part of the very serious business of debating the issue. I also think that in this context, it is vicious, or at best irrelevant. That was my point.
The emotional overtones of "foetus" and "baby" are very different and are being used to gain rhetorical advantage in the debate. Participants in the debate are indeed playing games with words.
(Not that the proper use of "foetus" in clinical and research contexts is vicious.)
You must forgive me if I made the point in a way that misled you. .

You will probably both disagree with me,
— Ludwig V
:rofl: — Patterner

I did notice what was going on. But were going off on a discussion of epiphenomenalism and walking. I didn't feel I had much to contribute to that - and my bandwidth is rather limited.

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

I agree with your beginning. But, as you predicted, I don't agree with your ending. ("neutral" is a typo for "neural", I assume.)
Monkeys and Shakespeare. Think of someone who has never seen or conceived of a calculator. They may press keys and random and watch the changes shapes on the screen. They have no idea of the meaning. The causal sequences are working away behind the screen. Some of them are calculations, some are not. The significance of what is going on escapes them.
But we know how the calculator was set up and the correct sequences of keys to press in order to execute the calculations we want to make.
The causal sequences on their own cannot distinguish between calculations and random numbers. They work in just the same way whatever keys are pressed. Only when you know how the calculator fits in to human lives can you grasp their significance.
It seems to me a complete misunderstanding or misrepresentation to say that the screen display is an epiphenomenon. The screen display is the point of the whole exercise.
Causal sequences in the brain are described in a way that is designed to ignore the significance of what is going on. Unless you know how they fit in to human life, you cannot grasp that. Wanting to have some milk is the point of the causal sequence, not an epiphenomenon.
(This involves rejecting the idea that a causal sequence always undermines the rational, human understanding of what is going on. The progress from a brain state of thirst to walking to the shops is causal, but is what enables me to do what I want to do. The reductionist deterministic view of causal sequences only reflects the fact that we only pay attention to causal sequences when they have gone wrong, and prevented me from doing what I want to do.)
Does that help?

epiphenomenalism is supposed to argue against that on the grounds that consciousness appears to be superfluous if neural activity does all the causal work. — SophistiCat

No, the conscious outcomes are the point, the meaning, the significance of the causal sequences. It's just that we ignore them unless something goes wrong.

According to the definitions I quoted earlier, epiphenomenalism says mental states do not have any effect on physical events. Walking is a physical event, not a mental event. And walking certainly has an effect on physical events. So I don't know how you are thinking walking is epiphenomenal. — Patterner

Well, the fact that mental states make me walk to the shops demonstrates that epiphenomenalism is false.

With this I disagree. They are different things, their differences being in part recognized by differences in description. One may become the other - but being and becoming very different, yes? — tim wood

I must be missing something. What are the differences that need to be recognized?

Though I suspect that the terms may be being used, shall we say, more flexibly, because "baby" is more emotionally appealing than "foetus".

The same may apply to "egg" and "sperm", which may help to explain explain why they are less protected than babies.

Thank you, Ludwig V, for reflecting further on my question, and trying to rescue me from myself. I don’t even think my mother would do that! :cool: — Thales

You give me too much credit - or maybe you thought I was patronizing. I was, selfishly, trying to work out a space in which we might have a constructive debate.

Animals don’t use different voice “genres,” or plan out concert schedules, or reserve venues, or collect money, or issue tickets, or require dress codes, etc. — Thales

No, they don't. But they do have voices and they do do something that is at least akin to singing. But we can bat this back and to forever without anything of any interest emerging.

Because whenever animals use their “voices,” it is for some survival reason – e.g., mating, warning, etc. And that’s it. — Thales

Surely we do sing for mating, warring, etc.

certainly most singing is for enjoyment, expression of emotions or some other “human” reason. — Thales

I don't know about "most", but some is. How do you know that wolves don't howl at the moon, for example, for the enjoyment of it?

My starting-point is that human beings are animals. We have bodies in the same way that they do. We have instincts which dominate our lives just as they do. Pretending we are not animals is something that are very much tempted to do, because we spend much time and effort trying to distinguish ourselves from them. But most animals do that in one way or another. For the most part, species prefer not to share their homes, roosts or whatever with other species. So that desire is shared with other animals as well.

When someone tries to find some respect in which humans differ from animals, what I hear is a desire to pretend that they are not an animal. But they eat and sleep and do all those animal things. How are they not animals - admittedly an animal with over-developed capacities? But that doesn't change the foundation.