For that, you need to verify your knowledge or beliefs if they are not from deductive reasoning. — Corvus

Doesn't "verify" mean something like to demonstrate the truth or accuracy of something, as by the presentation of evidence? In that case, we must be talking about truth. Though you are right that it is possible to believe something on rational grounds and be wrong.

Intelligence means knowing something, or being able to do something in coherent way. It is not same as The ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledgesomething, which are what rational thinking does. — Corvus

I thought it was something like the ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge. That would make it something different from knowledge but more about how to acquire knowledge.

Any reasonable person would want his / her beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions to be rational than irrational. No one wants to have beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions which are irrational by human nature. That is why it does matter for your beliefs, actions, knowledge or perceptions to be rational. — Corvus

Yes, that's a good way to answer the question. "Any reasonable person..." By definition, nobody could be reasonable unless they preferred being rational to being irrational. Which means that, as a definition, what you say is circular. But that's perfectly OK in this case.
The usual answer is that rationality is our way to truth (or justification in the case of actions). That's circular as well, since truth is what rationality delivers.
Rationality is what delivers the truth, so there can be no question whether rationality delivers truth. It would be like trying to measure the standard metre in Paris in order to find out whether it is a metre long.
What you end up with is that rationality provides the justification for everything else and therefore has no rational justification.

Religious beliefs always have been from the blind faith rather than anything to do with being rational or irrational. — Corvus

H'm that's a bit quick. What about people like Aquinas or Descartes who believed that they had rational arguments for belief in God? That's quite different from belief from blind faith. True, most people (but not all) believe their arguments were not valid. But they certainly weren't blind faith.
There are theologians who take as their starting-point the "presupposition" that the Bible is the word of God. It has something of the status of an axiom. Something posited as true, but not capable of being proved or disproved. Their theology follows by rational process. Sometimes rational thinking has irrational elements.

Your problem seem to be confusion between intelligence and knowledge with reasoning and being rational. — Corvus

My problem is that I've never been able to grasp a clear meaning for the term "intelligence". So I mostly ignore it, especially in philosophy.

You could respond instinctively to the gooses hissing which I would say would be a non-symbolically mediated understanding of it. Discursive knowledge would seem to be always in symbolic form I guess. — Janus

Well, given the definition that we have of what a symbol is, any knowledge that is discursive would be in human-style language, so it follows that it would be in symbolic form.
But I like the idea of a non-symbolically mediated understanding it, though I'm taking that as what is called "tacit" knowledge. But then, we have to acknowledge that human beings are also capable of that same form of understanding.

"Instinctively" is a bit of a trap. Strictly speaking, instinctive behaviour is a set behaviour pattern that is not learned, but inherited. It is not, therefore, based on any process of learning or reasoning. It is capable of rational justification at the level of evolution as contributing to the ability of the creature to sruvive and reproduce. Most, if not all, behaviour, of sentient creatures is a combination of instinct, learning and response to the relevant context. Spiders do not learn to weave webs, but they weave them in a context and adapt the pattern to suit. Newly-born foals struggle to their feet and look for milk responding to and managin in the actual context they are in.

Thinking about this, there's no doubt that there are instinctive elements in our reading of body language - very small babies respond to smiling faces. But they can recognize mother at a very early stage, which must be learnt. Again, the behaviour of lobsters in cages when they are frightened is not difficult to recognize. But we do have to learn much body language in order to read it and it does not follow from the fact that we can read human body language that we can read the body language of other creatures without learning. But small children do have to be taught to recognize the body language of dogs.

Would that be an appropriate response? You might instinctively take it as a friendly greeting, or as just something geese do with no meaning.
In fact, it's a simple enough communication, usually accompanied by threatening stance and body language. — Vera Mont

Yes. It is possible, of course, that the unlearned response of the goose to a threat is recognizable by analogy with the threatening behaviour of other creatures and is recognized on that basis. No doubt those unlearned responses have evolved to work across species. A threat that was only recognized by other geese would be much less useful that one that can be recognized by other species.

All true. So why the symbol question? I've seen it bandied about and argued over, but I can't figure out the significance of it. — Vera Mont

The idea is that use of symbols is a distinctively human capacity - and the basis of our kind of language. If you look into what philosophers have said about it, there's a great deal of confusion about it. Peirce, for example, treats both what we call signs as distinct from symbols in the same class and calls that class "symbols". Cassirer doesn't seem to discuss what we are calling signs at all, though he does distinguish between symbolic meaning and "expressive meaning". This is not territory that I'm familiar with. I'm just illustrating how messy the philosophy of this topic is.
(Signs are here used to mean "Smoke means (is a sign of) fire" or "Clouds mean (are a sign of) rain" - causal connections. Not everyone draws the same distinction.)

It's just the distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic signs. The former denote whatever they do by convention. As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language. Again though I want to stress that I don't see that fact as a justification for human exceptionalism. — Janus

I agree. Discursive knowledge needs to be seen as a species-specific capacity alongside the species-specific capacity of bats and dolphins to find their way by echo-location, not as a radical distinction between humans and other species.

If a person is going to work for low wages because the economy requires people who work for no pay or low wages, what is that person's reward for putting the health of the national economy first? Should we close these people out of society's benefits because they can not pay for those benefits, or do we need planning, cooperation, utilities and a big "thank you" as opposed to a snide "oh, that is welfare"? — Athena

Well, I would say that an economy that requires people to work for wages that cannot sustain a decent life is broken. But that requirement is so common that I suspect I'm just being idealistic. Still, it seems inhumane and immoral not to see those jobs as problematic.

If only we could get away from the idea that welfare is charity! In a broken economy, it may be true. But it just reinforces exploitation. Welfare is not charity. It is insurance - pooling risks that would be catastrophic for individuals so that they can be dealt with or at least ameliorated. Life insurance is not charity, but common sense. Of course, some people prefer to stick to the short-term and drive their cars. That's why car insurance is a legal requirement. But, rationally speaking, insurance makes sense and is not charity. More than that, rationally speaking again, there are some risks that are so large that only the state can take them on.

But the reason for the introduction of the very first state welfare system (in Prussia in the late 19th century) was neither charitable nor an insurance policy. It was a question of riot control by a rigidly conservative and aristocratic chancellor - Bismarck. There are articles about it in, for example, Wikipedia.

Welfare is enlightened and rational self-interest, not charity.

Firstly, using a lot (random selection) has a problem: if a small number of people who received the offer accepted to participate in this group, these people are not a representative sample, and their opinions do not represent the opinions of the whole population. — Linkey

My impression is that the selection is random, but weighted so that the assembly overall is representative of the population. Men/women. Old/young. Class. and so on, as long as you wish.

The aim is not to represent the existing opinions of the whole population, but to enable the members to work out their own views and negotiate with others who disagree. (Negotiation with other points of view is difficult to impossible in the public forum). The result is expected to be a view that is likely to be at least acceptable to as much of the population as possible.

To solve this problem, sufficient sums of money must be offered to these people for participating in these groups. — Linkey

Participation is time-consuming. I don't know whether paying people for work-time lost is practiced, but it obviously could be.

My point was only that something quite like your suggestion is practiced already, and is proving useful - at least to policy-makers.

You want to take away from citizens even that illusion of control? — Vera Mont

I agree with you. I don't think anyone is suggesting that citizens' assemblies like these should acquire any legislative powers. Their effect is only on the people developing policy. But the reform of abortion in Ireland is a good example of how influential they can be.

The constitutional and legislative provisions were discussed at a Citizens' Assembly in 2016–17, and at an Oireachtas committee in 2017, both of which recommended substantial reform and framed the debate of the referendum in May 2018.[5] — Wikipedia - Abortion in the Republic of Ireland

Is there any way for ordinary people to dispossess the rich of their wealth? Sure -- some sort of revolution. This has happened a few times. Societies operated for the convenience of wealthy people, however, discourage revolutionary thinking. It generally gets nipped in the bud, so to speak. — BC

I'm afraid there's always a ruling class, if only because not everybody is willing to deal with the (often very boring) business of government. Revolutions just install a new ruling class. The best you can hope for is a ruling class that is sufficiently intelligent to realize that keeping the people reasonably happy is in their self-interest. The best way to deal with them is to have a way of getting rid of them when they become intolerable or incompetent (as Popper so wisely pointed out). That's the single greatest advantage of democracy.

Some of your questions are trivial. Concerning the necessity to gather information before voting, I have an idea of using a lot: a group of 200 random people would be chosen, the state will give them the money for studiing the subject, and possbly they will vote instead of the whole population. This is one implementation of the "lottocracy", for me there are better ones, but they are more difficult for explaining. — Linkey

This sounds very like what I know as citizens' assemblies. They seem to be very helpful in formulating policy. But I don't think that anyone sees them as a possible legislative bodies. For more detail, see, for example, On Citizens' assemblies

Right, I think conventionality is the key difference between signs which count as symbols and those which do not. — Janus

So when the goose hisses at me that is a sign (expression) of anger or hostility, which means that I do well to behave cautiously, yet I can only articulate what the sign means by using symbols. Obviously, then, the way I understand what the goose's hiss means, is by means of symbols, which the goose cannot use. Yet the difference in meaning between the two is hard to discern.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure.

Asking for grounds or justification for your belief, knowledge, actions and perception is not Formal Logic. It is just a rational thinking process for finding out if your beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational. — Corvus

Why does it matter whether our beliefs, knowledge, actions or perceptions were rational or irrational? Is it because that is how we know that they are true - or, in the case of actions, justified?
So it seems that even if I believe my perceptions without any grounds, I can justify them - that is, provide reasons (grounds) for believing them - after I come to believe them.

There's a lot packed in to your comments of the last few days. Thanks. I've had to be selective in what I reply to. I hope I've identified the best places to focus.

My issue with the phrase "what's going on in the heads" is that it presupposes a false equivalence. — creativesoul

Do you mean false equivalence between human thinking and animal thinking? I was using the phrase to refer to what is often described as the phenomenology of thinking. Perhaps most helpful would be to talk about what people will report as their thinking.

Meaningful thought emerged long before naming and describing practices. — creativesoul

Quite so. But I don't think there's any reason to suppose that meaningful thought without name or describing has been banished from human life. The complication is that we often want to talk about, or at least express such thoughts or experiences, and then we often find ourselves struck dumb or confused.

There are some things at work here, beneath all our discourse/ conversation about what counts as rational thought/minds. — creativesoul

Yes, indeed. If we could identify what they are, we might make a leap forward in our understanding of what's going onin philosophical discussion of that topic. The question about animals is particularly useful because it is a specific application of those concepts in a particular context where we find it difficult to be sure how to apply them. Our paradigm of rational thinking is articulate thinking independent of action. But that depends on our language, and animals do not have that kind of language. So we disagree about how to apply them.

One of my difficulties here is that there is an almost irresistible temptation to think that what is at stake is a process that is independent of the action - a process that is referred to by "thinking" or "reasoning". I happen to have recently read Lee Braver's "Groundless Grounds". In that book, he articulates an idea of rational reconstruction as a way of coming to understand what is happening when we attribute the application of reason where there does not appear to be any such process involved. He doesn't mention animals, but I think that it is also a good way to understand what is going on when we attribute reason to animals.

One way of explaining this is by means of an analogy. Aristotle developed the concept of the practical syllogism. He doesn't claim that When I eat my breakfast, I must have said to myself "This is food. Food is good for me. I should eat this." (Partly because he recognizes that that process doesn't necessarily result in action.) What he is doing here is exactly parallel to what he does when he formulates the idea of the theoretical syllogism - "All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human. Socrates is mortal." It is a formulation that helps us analyze and understand the actual ways that humans think. Theoretical and practical syllogisms are rational reconstructions of thinking, not empirical descriptions.

Sorry. Premature posting. Fat thumbs.

that an abstract object is abstract on account of the fact that it refers to no particular thing but ranges over a whole class of particulars thus qualifying it as a generalization. — Janus

You are quite right that that classes are abstract objects and that they range over particulars. But it doesn't follow that all abstract objects are classes.

I see the distinction between abstract objects as particulars and generalizations as a valid one. — Janus

Well, we can agree on that, though we may find complications if we looked more closely at the detail.

But it has not been converted by a linguistic culture into a symbol that stands by convention as signifying anger hostility or danger. — Janus

You are quite right, particularly about the hissing being an expression. The difference between that and a symbol would take some teasing out but set that aside. The lack of a convention does suggest that it is not. When we say that the goose is expressing anger and hostility, we are recognizing (and telling others) that one should expect a defensive reaction if you behave in certain ways. Recognizing that pattern of behaviour is recognising the meaning of the hiss. Our interpretation of, and talk about, the hiss is our application of our description.

Suggesting formal logic as your standard of rationality sounded very odd even as a conditional comment. — Corvus

You surprise me. I thought that was what you were suggesting. It's good to know that I was wrong.

That would mean children born deaf can think well enough to function, communicate and learn sign language. In fact, they begin to invent their own signals between 8 and 12 month, and can be taught the rudiments of ASL at that time, just as hearing babies begin to learn spoken language. They all do need sensory and intellectual stimulation. For non-verbal feral children the requirements of survival would provide plenty of stimulation, as it also does for fox kits and fledgling geese. — Vera Mont

Quite so.

I think this is a much more interesting issue to explore.

I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. I have acknowledged that I believe animals sense danger. I'm not sure what you think we are disagreeing about. — Janus

A symbol is a kind of sign but not all signs are symbols. Smoke is a sign of fire, but smoke does not symbolize fire. An animal cry may be a sign of whatever but it does not symbolize whatever it might be a sign of. — Janus

This is a much more pertinent, and illuminating, issue.
I think you are thinking of a distinction that was drawn quite a long time ago now to resolve a particular problem. "Clouds mean rain" and "'Cloud" means a mass of particles or droplets, as of dust, smoke, or steam, suspended in the atmosphere or existing in outer space". In other words, it was an attempt to distinguish what meaning means in the context of linguistic meaning and what it means in the context of drawing inferences from evidence. (I'm sorry I can't remember, and google doesn't find, any helpful reference)
I guess that if I must choose between the two, I would have to choose "sign", because the alternative "symbol" means attributing human-style language to the dog. But the catch with this is that if we say that a goose hissing is a sign of anger hostility or danger in your sense of sign, we are positing a purely causal relationship, which would be incompatible with attributing rationality, or even sentience, to the goose.
This means that we need to draw some more distinctions. Sign vs symbol is more complicated than ti seems. I don't have a neat account of the difference, just a few remarks towards a map. The same applies to the concept of action.

My first thought was that a stop sign is, just as it says, a sign. It doesn't symbolize a stopped car. — Patterner

This is a bit complicated. The question to ask what the difference is between a sign and a symbol in this context. For example, when the police or road workers cordon off a section of road - even close it - with a tape across the road, is that equivalent to the stop sign? I would say that it symbolizes a blockage - like a heap of rubble. Is a red light a sign or a symbol?

I was thinking a symbol would depict, even if the depiction was stylized, the thing. — Patterner

Mini-pictures have become a very popular way of conveying information, partly because they are supposed to be language-independent. They may be helpful, but in my view, they constitute another language; they are not always intuitive, but need to be learnt. I think the technical term for these is "icon", but it is obviously different from the sense that some rock bands are said to be "iconic". (I'm not suggesting that icons are not useful). (There are echoes here of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I don't know whether that book influenced their popularity now. It seems possible, but unlikely).

But then I looked up 'symbol', and the first example is: for example, a red octagon is a common symbol for "STOP" — Patterner

"Sign" and "Symbol" don't seem to have a well-defined, technical, definition. The terms are applied differently in different contexts. One peculiarity of this specific example is that a stop sign is not merely reporting a situation, like the or a sign-post. It is giving an instruction.
So at a police road-block, when the officer holds up a hand, palm open and facing towards you (I think this is more or less universal), the officer is ordering you to stop in a non-verbal fashion. Is that gesture a sign or a symbol? Is it linguistic?

In the realm of actions, we have been mainly talking about actions that have a purpose, because that is where the question of rationality or not is clearest. But there are different kinds of action. Reflexes, habits, expressions (Ouch! I'm in pain!), are just the beginnings of a list.

Abstract objects may be treated as generalizations or particulars and I have not said nor implied anything that contradicts that. — Janus

H'm. That's a large and tempting rabbit-hole, but I'm thinking that diving down it would be a distraction.

If you are treating abstract objects as particulars then yes. My point was that numbers are themselves generalizations. There are countless instantiations of 'two' just as there are of 'tree' or 'animal'. — Janus

I'm not at all sure that's a helpful way to think of them, but we would have to dive down the rabbit-hole to clarify that.

It seems to me that you have missing the point of what I've been saying and not the other way around since I have said that whatever we know about animal minds is derived from observing their behaviour and body language and I have not been concerned at all with explaining their behaviour by purportedly somehow knowing what is going on in their minds. The same goes for humans except that they can also explain themselves linguistically. Of course the verity of those explanations relies on the one doing the explaining being both correct and honest. — Janus

That's all fine by me.

Why would formal logic make the whole humanity irrational?. Formal logic is another area of academic subjects which enables human reasoning more rational. — Corvus

That's not quite what I said. I'm sorry if I was not clear. I left out the conditional "if formal logic is your standard of rationality" and qualified "the whole of humanity" to "almost the whole of humanity". As you say, formal logic is something that helps us to be more rational, which means that almost all of us have some level of rationality. Since very few of us know any formal logic, it follows that the rationality of most of us does not lie in our ability to do formal logic. That seems about right.

It is not about right or wrong on the inductive reasoning, but isn't it about lack of logical or rational ground in the reasoning Hume was pointing out? — Corvus

Hume's criticism was aimed at the scholastic concept of some power, hidden from our experience, was what enable to first billiard ball to make the second billiard ball move. Many people have believed that the conclusion is simply that induction is invalid. However, Hume was not saying that we should or could just give up on it, in the way that one would simply give up on an invalid form of argument. There's room for debate about exactly what he was saying, but it was not that.
Induction is not deduction. It is better thought of as a trial and error process, which can never get us to deductive truth, but can get us nearer to it. Popper's version of this was conjecture and refutation, now often described as hypothesis and falsification. Neither of those formulations is really satisfactory. recognizes that hypotheses/conjectures that have been tested but not falsified are what we rely on pragmatically. Asking what rational ground we have for that is asking for a rational ground for relying on rational grounds.
Compare what happens when you ask for a rational ground for relying on sound deductive arguments. I refer you to C.L. Dodgson's article about the dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise after their race.

I have never heard of anyone trying to justify what they saw. One can confirm what one saw. But usually one doesn't justify what one saw. One justifies what one believes, said, done and think, but not one saw, smelt, felt, drank, ate or heard. — Corvus

You said this earlier. It is another example of a situation in which asking for a rational ground (for believing that I saw what I saw, is not a question that has a rational answer. Yet believing that I saw what I saw is not irrational. For it can serve as a premiss in a sound deductive argument.

Humans have taken creative thinking and created their own reality. This is beyond what animals do. — Athena

"Creative" is a troublesome idea. There seems to be no clear boundary between creative and non-creative thinking. For example, I would say that the crow that we saw earlier in this thread was thinking creatively, when It realizes that a stick can serve as a way of getting the goodies.


I agree with everything you say.
People often regard improvements in technology and in their own prosperity as advances, when they are usually double-edged swords.

Thanks for setting this up. I'm looking forward to it.

Hume was not concerned on the fact that inductive reasoning can be wrong. What he was saying was that, "there can be no demonstrative arguments to prove, that those instances, of which we have had no experience, resemble those, of which we have had experience." (A Treatise, Hume). — Corvus

Oh, so now we are classifying as rational only what is proof against philosophical scepticism.

As to Hume, I suggest that the implication of there being no demonstrative argument is that one might be wrong - that's why everybody prefers demonstrative arguments. (Though it is possible to be wrong about even those.You are right, however, to interpret "demonstrative" as meaning conclusive and hence logical, in the strict sense. This is usually taken to mean sound by the standards of formal logic. Which makes almost the whole of humanity irrational.

But the devil is in the detail:-

Those philosophers, who have divided human reason into knowledge and probability, and have defin'd the first to be thaf evidence, which arises from the comparison of ideas, are oblig'd to comprehend all our arguments from causes or effects under the general term of probability. But tho' every one be free to use his terms in what sense he pleases; and accordingly in the precedent part of this discourse, I have follow'd this method of expression; 'tis however certain, that in common discourse we readily affirm, that many arguments from causation exceed probability, and may be receiv'd as a superior kind of evidence. One wou'd appear ridiculous, who wou'd say, that 'tis only probable the sun will rise to-morrow, or that all men must dye; tho' 'tis plain we have no further assurance of these facts, than what experience affords us. For this reason, 'twould perhaps be more convenient, in order at once to preserve the common signification of words, and mark the several degrees of evidence, to distinguish human reason into three kinds, viz. that from knowledge, from proofs, and from probabilities. By knowledge, I mean the assurance arising from the comparison of ideas. By proofs, those arguments, which are deriv'd from the relation of cause and effect, and which are entirely free from doubt and uncertainty. By probability, that evidence, which is still attended with uncertainty — Hume, Treatise, Pt II, Section XI, pg 124

Later on, in his "Enquiry" he says:-

Mr. Locke divides all arguments into demonstrative and probable. In this view, we must say, that it is only probable all men must die, or that the sun will rise to-morrow. But to conform our language more to common use, we ought to divide arguments into demonstrations, proofs, and probabilities. By proofs meaning such arguments from experience as leave no room for doubt or opposition. — Hume, Enquiry, Section VI, footnote 1

You have been seeing the train arriving at the train station at 7:00 every morning for last x number of years. That does not logically warrants you to expect the train will arrive at 7:00 next morning. There is "no demonstrative arguments to prove." — Corvus

I don't think I ever suggested that I had logically conclusive evidence.

I'll look forward to your reply.

I don't think it makes any difference to the concept whether there is a call, a word or a pictogram signifying 'danger', so long as the message is transmitted and received - i.e. the concept is shared within a species or a tribe: everybody ducks for cover to escape the danger, or flies up in dive-bombing formation to combat it. — Vera Mont

I would go further than that. Let's distinguish the word "danger" and the concept of danger. Creatures that don't speak human-style languages don't have access to the word. But the concept is wider than speech. It involves the possibility of harm to oneself (and others) and appropriate reactions (fight or flight) to that possibility. None of that requires any understanding of human-style languages. What's more, the behavioural reactions are more important in the concept that the ability to articulate what we would understand as a sentence.

Hume said that inductive reasoning can be irrational. Therefore your reasoning on the train arrival time could be irrational. — Corvus

Well, he didn't say exactly that. But the point that is usually made is that inductive reasoning can be wrong - which doesn't necessarily mean that it is irrational. Hume made two points in the light of his argument. The first was that we are going to go on using it even though it may be wrong and the second was that it was as much of a proof as you will ever get of how the world works, and even ends up (in the section on miracles) calling it a "proof, whole and entire".

We have more than one way of knowing what goes on in animal's heads. Observing behaviour can be one of those ways if and when we're testing hypothesis. Attributing meaning to body language, another. Comparing observations with notions/hypothesis, yet one more. — creativesoul

Quite so.

How is that done if we have no way of knowing what goes in animal's heads? — creativesoul

More than that, we also rely on observation of behaviour to know what's going on in each other's heads, as you suggest.
I'm afraid that there's a certain ambiguity going on here, and it's my fault. There's an ambiguity between the sense of "what's going on in X's head" in which observation of behaviour is a normal and reliable way of discovery and the "experiential" or phenomenological sense of what's going on in X's head." In that sense, we have no access at all to what's going on in anyone's head, because the only person who has access to it is X. (As in Mary's room or bats.) I don't think discovering the rationality of animals or humans is particularly closely connected to latter. Nagel thinks (unless I'm mistaken) that it is not possible.

Thinking about one's own belief is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon common language/shared meaning. — creativesoul

Well, if it is dependent on shared meaning (as opposed to common language), then animals could know themselves.

Inductive reasoning is a scientific method of applying our reasoning in forming the principles and theories from the observations, not daily ordinary habitual perceptions of general public. — Corvus

The story of Newton's apple is a bit more complicated than the popular summary. But apart from that, it seems pretty clear to me that Newton would not have made any inductive inference from one case. If he did, it would not be rational.
So John Doe and his friends and relations are not rational - ever? You set a high bar.
There is another problem. When Newton wanders in from his apple tree for afternoon tea and a gossip, does he cease being rational because he's behaving in an everyday way?
Perhaps we are all sometimes rational and sometimes not.

What if it gets no interaction? Does the brain wire badly? Does a time come when it is too late for things to work out well, no matter what happens? And what about irrational people who got the interaction that works best in the vast majority of cases? — Patterner

Your first three questions are empirical, not philosophical. My understanding is that there is empirical evidence that there are "windows" when the brain learns certain things particularly fast. If that window is missed for any reason, it will be difficult to impossible to learn it later. Examples are ducklings learning who is mum. They will fasten on the first large moving object they see and follow it faithfully until they are grown. Konrad Lorenz famously got one brood to imprint on him. That can't be changed, I believe. Another example is language learning in humans. If a baby doesn't get sufficient human interaction between specific ages, it till be very difficult to learn language later in life.

As to irrational people, We are all a mixture. More than that, rationality can't get going without some pre-rational starting-point. In any case, it seems to me that it is not really appropriate to call a new-born baby rational or irrational. Rationality develops quite slowly and I wouldn't say there was a threshold point between the two. Sadly, it also declines ln old age, but also slowly.

Not disagreeing; amplifying. People can be seen to act rationally even when they don't explain their motivations and sources of information. When you see someone doing the very same thing you would do in their circumstances, it's reasonable to assume they're thinking the same way. — Vera Mont

OK. You are indeed perfectly right. Dortmunder :lol:

Its a generalization and I doubt animals have a generalized conceptual notion we could refer as 'danger'.
— Janus
Then what do the sentries outside meerkat burrows, groundhog colonies, wild goose nesting grounds and rookeries shout when a hawk or kestrel or coyote or fox or cheetah or snapping turtle is spotted? — Vera Mont

"Our" concept of danger includes appropriate reaction to it. When animals exhibit similar behaviour in similar circumstances there's no good reason to withhold applying the concept to it. Apart from anything else, it enables us to understand what's going on - and that is the point of the exercise. But it is fair enough to say that any application need to be considered in the context of the overall patterns of behaviour that they exhibit. One case doesn't give us much insight, but each case contributes to our insight.

Plus there is nothing scientific about the accuracy of the train time shown on the website, why it has to be the info, and not otherwise. — Corvus

I see. The only knowledge is scientific knowledge, which excludes second-hand knowledge. But science is only possible because research starts on the basis of the results of previous research, and no-one is expected to repeat all that work for themselves. Newton standing on the shoulders of giants. Moreover, in order to do experiments, read texts, discuss ideas and results, they have to rely on common sense and common knowledge.
I have caught the 7:00 train every working day for the last 5 years. Standing on the platform at 6:55, I notice the signal changing. I have noticed that same event every time I have caught the train in the past. I expect the train to arrive shortly. I think that's inductive reasoning.
Shorlty after the signal changes, I hear a loudspeaker announcement that the train will arrive shortly. The same thing has happened every time in the past. I therefore believe the announcement. I think that's also inductive reasoning.
Yes, I do have blind faith in inductive reasoning, as Hume noticed. One has to start somewhere. One also has to risk being wrong in order to be right.

Watching many different things fall through space leads one to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. — creativesoul

Careful! Things only fall through space at the same speed in a vacuum. Most people have never watched anything fall through space in a vacuum. Galileo certainly never did. His "proof" was a thought-experiment - or at least I understand that is the case.

Tacit and articulate reasoning overlap one another. — creativesoul

Yes. They interact as well. Our knowledge of language is mostly tacit, but we can articulate rules in various ways.

I'm not sure how the notions of "tacit" and "articulate" are adequate tools for acquiring knowledge of that which existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge of it. — creativesoul

Quite so. There are only two (maybe three) ways that I'm aware of. One is the idea that tacit knowledge is exactly the same as articulate reasoning, but very fast. That's the traditional philosophical approach and has mostly fallen into disfavour. (Who says philosophy never makes progress?) Then there's the idea of "unconscious" reasoning and belief. There are very ancient roots of this idea, but the modern concept was developed in the 19th century. It was very like conscious reasoning and belief but was, by definition, not available to "introspection". The last one is the modern model of the information processing machine. This seems to ignore the question of tacit vs articulate reasoning and belief.
I don't think that the fact that the phenomenon existed long before we knew of it is necessarily a bar to our acquiring knowledge of it. After all, the same applies to most physics and chemistry. The real problem is that we have no way, at least at present, of getting empirical access to it.

since there seems to be a commonality of body language across at least some species we can speculate about other animals experience. — Janus

I do agree that there is a commonality of body language, and you are right to say "across at least some species". But describing our experience is no different from a gesture, a grimace or a smile or a wagging tail in terms of knowing what is going on in someone's head. If we can know what human beings are experience or thinking from their non-linguistic behaviour, why is it speculation to interpret that (ex hypothesi) animal behaviour in the same way. I can see no rational difference.

If you are treating abstract objects as particulars then yes. My point was that numbers are themselves generalizations. — Janus

For me, a generalization is a statement or proposition of the logical form I described. So you are missing the point. I am indeed "treating" abstract objects as particulars. So are you when you describe them as abstract objects.

We have no access to the inner workings of their minds. It's even questionable how much access we have to our own. — Janus

That's why I think it is a mistake to think that explaining animal actions has much to do with divining the inner workings of their minds. Mind you, I don't think that it is a determining factor in explaining human actions, either. It's more like interpreting a picture. Yes, sometimes we set out to divine the intentions of the artist, but not always. Sometimes it is just a question of seeing what is in the picture. (Puzzle pictures).

I understand animal warning cries to be signaling, not symbolizing, danger. — Janus

Sorry, I don't understand what that difference is.

Doesn’t ground mean some sort of cognitive capacity? Learning to use this capacity, and having this capacity in the first place are two different things. There seems to be a debate as to how modular our cognitive systems are. Is the brain a general processor or does it have domains? If it has domains does “rational thinking” count as a domain- a specialized brain/cognitive capacity? A dog solving a puzzle and a human inferencing- is that the same capacity/region or two similar but different capacities? — schopenhauer1

I don't know the answers to most of those questions. Yes, I do think that being able to justify one's beliefs (and act on them) is an important cognitive capacity.

I'm thinking maybe the capacity to think rationally is hardwired in. But we must learn how it works. — Patterner

In the end, it will not be for philosophers to decide what is "hard-wired in". But I'm inclined to think that what we call rationality is mostly learned by shaping the basic reflexes. For example, (as I understand it), babies are born with a reflex to seek mild and drink, to smile back at a smiling face. Both these activities seem to give them pleasure and the lack of them - or at least the lack of the former - gives them "pain". So a few reflexes, pleasure and pain, plus the ability to notice and remember what is associated with what (behaviourists were not complete idiots) are probably all that is needed. The basis of rationality is the discovery of what brings success and what brings failure. Then there's all the learning from those around us, including what counts as success/failure.

How would I know I did those things if I wasn't picturing the sequence of events in my head?? — Patterner

Well, you may have written that list by describing your visualations. But if you can remember what was on the list (in words), then you can also write it without. But perhaps it's just how one's memory works.

I don't know. it never occurred to me to try. I just automatically start visualizing the events. I don't know how I would do it. Lol. — Patterner

Most of our memories just come when we want them. "Trying to remember" is possible, though I don't find that I know exactly what I do when I'm trying or even succeeding. It just happens - or not.
What is really weird is that I've noticed that sometimes I know that I've remembered before I've remembered the details.

How do you approach this without visualizing? I will picture in my mind my exact movements, to whatever degree I'm able to remember, like trying to watch a movie of the events. — Patterner

Surely it is possible to remember a sequence of events without visualizing them? Actually, for me, it's not a choice. The sequence of events since I last had it occurs to me without pictures.

Would this not also be true of observed human behaviours? — Vera Mont

Sorry I wasn't clear. I think that's implicit in what I said - indeed it is the justification for what I said. I should have said so upfront.

Ground for rational thinking is, when you are faced with question to justify why your beliefs or thoughts were rational. — Corvus

Do you mean something like?
How did you know the train was coming at 12:00?
Because the company's web-site said so.
Why do you believe what the company's web-site says?
Because it is almost always accurate.
Why do you believe it is almost always accurate?
Because I and many others have used it in the past.
Why do you believe that its accuracy in the past means that it is accurate now?.
Because I am rational.
Why are you rational?
Because it is the best way to get to the truth.
Why is it the best way to get to the truth?
?
All justifications end in "groundless grounds".

You should be able to give explanation on your thoughts or beliefs in logical and objective way. — Corvus

But I'm guessing that your actual agenda was that animals can't be rational. It would have saved a lot of bother if you had just said so.

I have an impression that you are in confusion between skills, capabilities in problem solving with rational thinking. — Corvus

Why do you not believe that solving a problem can be an exercise in rational thinking?

Ground for rational thinking is, when you are faced with question to justify why your beliefs or thoughts were rational. — Corvus

Doesn't giving a justification count as solving a problem?

Sorry I don't see a logical link between the ground for your rational thinking or beliefs and the training and education in your youth. Could you elaborate further? — Corvus

I was taught to drive a car. Hence, I can drive a car.
I was taught to think rationally. Hence, I can think rationally.
I would be grateful if you would explain to me what you mean by "ground".

I am looking forward to see what you might have to say in reply to @Patterner's question.

We maybe talking about different things. This sentence makes it sound as though you are physically checking the pockets. I'm talking about sometime later, possibly several days. (So, it might not be a wallet, since I would probably notice that was missing much sooner.) I can't physically check every possible place where something might have been left between the last time I know I had it and now. So I think back to that last time I had it, and start visualizing everything that I can from that point forward. — Patterner

That is indeed different from the situation I was thinking of; yours is a much longer-term problem. In that case, you are adopting the same approach as me, excepting that I don't visualize.

I think what's going on is different approaches to the problem. Neither of us can remember where we put our wallet. You try to prompt your memory. I don't. When I'm at a cash desk, the range of possibilities is limited, so I just start checking them all. That's not so clever when I'm at home, so I will recover my last memory of having it and then retrace my steps (which I also have to remember) until I find it.

My understanding of formal logic is probably more limited than yours. When you say that a generalization is a quantification over a domain I'm not sure exactly what that means. Would it be the same as saying that a generalization is a name of a category? — Janus

Well, generalizations are a class of statements with a specific logical form. The line between categories and classes is pretty blurred. I could work with either.
The logical form of generalizations is "For all natural numbers n, 2xn = n+n". This contrasts with "For some (i.e. at least one) natural number(s) n, n×n = 25". This is called existential quantification because it presupposes that numbers exist. (If there are no numbers, universal quantification is true - paradoxical, but the point is that if no numbers existed, then there is no counter-example.)
So generalizations and statements about abstract objects have different logical forms and hence different meanings.

If so would generalizations not exist as names (or quantifications)? And do they not assert the existence of similarities that constrain the ways we categorize? — Janus

Generalizations are universal quantifications but not existential quantifications. They do not refer to specific individual things, so they do not name anything. It is the difference between "Human beings are moral" and "Socrates is mortal". Think of it as the difference between talking about a class/category and talking about a member of a class/category. Similarities and differences are involved in both, but they are similarities and differences at different levels.
Does that help?

I think we can observe animals avoiding danger—things they presumably feel to be threatening. I am not suggesting that animals think precisely in terms of 'avoidance' or 'threat' or 'danger' as those are linguistically generated concepts. — Janus

As I said animals can feel threatened. My point was simply that they don't think in terms of the word 'danger'. Of course I don't deny that there is a pre-linguistic sense or affect that such words as 'danger' or 'threat' refer to. How would we know what the words mean if we had no experience of such affects? — Janus

"Danger" and "threat" are words. Animals that don't speak human languages don't use words. Danger and threat are concepts, and as such involve more than uttering words. They also involve actions in the world. There are are certain behaviour patterns that are built in to these concepts. When we see animals displaying those behaviour patterns, there should be no problem whatever in applying those concepts to them.
When we come to the question which exact concepts apply in specific cases, it is not an at all unusual to find that there is a range of possibilities. In the case of the llamas, their behaviour is compatible with danger, threat, bad, evil. It may well be that with more information, more examples, we might be able to find behaviour patterns that enable us to distinguish between them. We also might not. But the mere fact that there are a range of possibilities in a single case which we cannot conclusively distinguish between is not particularly surprising or important.
I don't see that what is going on in the llamas' heads is particularly important. It is this behaviour pattern in the context of their overall lives that we are trying to explain.

I follow the same routine, more or less. But I'm just working down a list. Check all my pockets. Then the shopping bags. And so on.

Somehow it doesn't give impression you were thinking rationally for that act. — Corvus

I did say explicitly

on the company web-site (which I have chosen because there is good reason to trust it) — Ludwig V

You still haven't provided the ground for your rational thinking or beliefs, if you had one. — Corvus

The ground for my rational thinking or beliefs is the training and education that I got in my youth.

By "primordial" I mean generalization in the non-linguistic, non-abstractive sense. Think of painting as an analogy. A representational paining is not abstract because it is an image which shares the patterns of its subject such that they are recognizable. A representational paining is however a kind of generalization on account of its resemblance to its subject. An abstract painting is non-representational in the sense that it doesn't represent anything and if it evokes anything then it is a generalization in a symbolic sense.
So, I would say words are abstract in this sense because they do not resemble the generalities they stand for. Ditto for numbers. — Janus

Broad agreement. It occurs to me that it might be helpful to say that a generalization is a quantification over a domain, while an abstraction can be referred to hence hence be a member of a domain. (My understanding of logic is limited, so my language may not be accurate.) I'm thinking of "to be is to be the value of a variable". Another way of putting it might be to say that it makes (some) sense to say that abstractions exist, whereas generalizations do not necessarily assert the existence of anything.

Animals avoid what might injure them, just as we do. I don't imagine that they think in terms of "threat" or "bad" or "evil". I think to think they do would be us projecting our own abstractive concepts onto them. — Janus

This is puzzling. "Animal avoid what might injure them, just as we do" is applying/projecting our concepts to/onto them. When we describe anything, we apply our concepts to it. That is the same as projecting our concepts on to it, except that "project" implies disapproval.

If I can't find my wallet, I think back to the last time I remember having it, then replay as much of what I've done since then, and hope to remember enough detail to "see" where I left it. I do that in images, not words. — Patterner

I do the same thing, but in words, not images.

I was thinking there are people who claim they never think in words. If there are such people, I would like to know how they have conversations. — Patterner

Perhaps they are thinking of thinking as a "private" activity in the head. There's a lot of mystery about this.

I don't think a wolf bringing down prey is more evil than an avalanche burying the same victim. I think there needs to be malicious internet for evil to be present. And that means humans. — Patterner

Well, the intentions of the wolves are clear enough. Whether their intentions count as malicious is debateable and I rather suspect that the wolves and the llamas have different views on that.

I believe we think on several levels and several ways at the same time. The multi-chambered mind allows us to process input, store it in short-term memory, translate it into numbers, words, musical notation, symbols and picto- or videograms and cross-reference it, for storage in various compartments of long-term memory archive, whence it can be retrieved using any of several reference keys (voluntary) or automatic flags (involuntary). — Vera Mont

Yes, thinking is very complicated and polymorphous. I would hate to have to try to define it. But people often do think of it as primarily internal speech. The catch is that what I say to myself silently in my head, can be said in the usual way.

We also mix memory, emotion, prejudice and involuntary associations in with our conscious thinking.
It's never simple and pure; and it's - I hesitate to say never, so will settle for seldom - wholly rational. — Vera Mont

Yes. We have all ignored the difference between theoretical reason and practical reason. The difference is that values are integral to practical reason. So, in one sense, reason requires a non-rational starting-point. Insofar as theoretical reason is also an activity, even that requires some values as a starting-point.

I very much wish I knew one of these people, so I could talk with them and ask many questions. — Patterner

I encountered someone once who told me that he thought in images. Specifically, when he was packing a suitcase, he would lay out everything he was taking and visualize how they could be placed in the suitcase. When he had a satisfactory visualization, he would pack the suitcase. He said it worked. I was sceptical, but had no ground for arguing with him. I think it is possible. There's been some empirical work on this in psychology, and it seems that some people say they never think in images, but many say they do, at least sometimes.

but generalizing in the primordial sense I would say consists in recognition of concrete pattern recurrence and animals can certainly do that. — Janus

I've never heard of a "primordial" sense of "generalization". Could you explain, please? I'm particularly interested in understanding the difference between pattern recognition and generalization.

You seem to think that "threat", "bad" and "evil" are all on the same scale, rather like "good", "better", "best". It's more complicated than that. I do think that any threat to me or people that I approve of is a bad thing. Don't you? The difference is that there are other things that are bad, but no threat can be a good thing, when it is a threat to bad person. Evil is a superlative for bad, with moral and perhaps religious overtones.

All our abstract thoughts are about generalities — Janus

I'm not sure about that. If I am calculating 23 x 254, I am thinking about specific numbers, not generalizing about them. If I am thinking about the Olympic ideal of sport, I am not thinking about Olympics or sport in general. The perfect circle is abstract and quite different from not circles in general.

But if every such threat is evil, then the world is filled with evil, and has been since before humans came on the scene. — Patterner

That seems to imply that some threats are good - or maybe neutral. But surely such threats would be a promise, if good, and neither here not there if neutral.

Why should they? They already have concepts and strategies that work for them. — Vera Mont

I didn't mean to imply that they should. Sorry I wasn't clear.

The lost point there was that the sophistication of language, narrative and high level of abstraction which sometimes work for us are also what backfire on us - not the animal drives. — Vera Mont

OK.

Every entity with a brain understands threat. In between the dumbest and smartest are intelligences that assess the threat level as degrees of bad, and categorize the sources of threat accordingly. — Vera Mont

Yes, I understand that. But @Patterner seems to be suggesting that we can't attribute the concept "evil" to them because we created it. I wondered what difference he was getting at between "threat" on one hand and "bad" and "evil" on the other. What led him to suppose that we can attribute the concept "threat" to them but not the other two.

That was just my facile example of a generalization, of conceptual thinking. I loosely translated the llama's aggressive approach to any random wolf as analogous to a human categorizing his perceived enemies as evil. If I'd known so much would be made of it, I'd have been more circumspect in my choice of words. — Vera Mont

Well, it was good enough to make your point, in my view. But @Patterner's objection pushes us to go deeper into the way the process of explaining animal behaviour works.

I'm not sure about that. Have you tried getting clarity from a religious or political fanatic? If you listen to interviews with MAGA supporters or jihadists, you'll hear them use the most extreme language and yet they seem not to have any idea what they believe or why. — Vera Mont

Good point. Possession of language doesn't guarantee the application of rational standards to what one says/believes.

And yes, We create the very concept of evil. That's my point. — Patterner

So do we create the concept of a threat? Or a llama?

We show that we have understood a concept by the way we behave. Our linguistic behaviour is the quickest and most accurate (but not absolutely accurate) way of showing what understanding we have, but our non-linguistic behaviour does also show that understanding. There can be ambiguity in both llinghistic and non-linguistic behaviour. But many of them (maybe all) can, in principle, be cleared up on further investigation.
Whether "threat" or "bad" or "evil" is the best way of describing the llamas' behaviour is simply not clear from the information we have. Any of them would be a reasonable explanation for what we know. We would need a good deal more information to clarify that.
You seem to be wanting to get inside the heads of the llamas. We don't need to get inside the head of anyone, animal or not. That's just as well, because it's not possible to get inside anyone's head.

I don't understand what you mean by "we cannot exclude similar skills that have developed differently in other creatures." What would be an example? — Patterner

That was not well put. I should have said what I meant. I was thinking of the question of animal languages, human morality, and even rationality.

But it's interesting to think of someone who had no language thinking abstract thoughts. — Patterner

It seems to me that we need to distinguish clearly between thinking as a conscious action, a phenomenological event or process and the tacit thinking when our thoughts are enacted without prior, separate, thinking. Think of it as thinking in action.
It depends on what you classify as an abstract thought. Generalizations from experience do not seem to me to be problematic. It seems to me that maths, morality and articulate self-consciousness are.
However, there is an interesting possibility. Some people say that they think in images. That would be independent of language.

A couple of other people have just recently told me that llamas can't generalize something that threatens them as being evil or even bad. — Vera Mont

Some relatives of mine acquired a dog. Three maiden aunts sharing an apartment/flat. When I first met this dog, it backed off, bared its teeth and growled at me. I was bemused. I had always lived with dogs, so thought I understood them. I was expecting the cautious, tentative approach and delicate sniffing, but not immediate hostility. It was explained to me that this dog had had some bad experiences in the past and hated/feared all human males. That seems a perfectly good explanation to me and it relies on attributing to the dog on an (inductive) generalization. I don't know what else to say.
I don't think isolated events like that one, or your case of the llamas, are capable of determining, on their own, whether "threat" or "evil" or "bad" is the "right" concept to apply. One would need a much deeper understanding of the animals - much bigger and more varied data-set, if you like - to differentiate between the three possibilities.
There's a cloud of philosophy sitting behind this - and philosophy is not well-equipped to deal with our topic. Our topic is about how far we can attribute belief/knowledge (and rationality) to animals. The difficulty is that a) our paradigm is what we do when we are talking to and about humans and b) that we will inevitably conduct our discussion in human language.

I didn't say you blamed animals for anything. It's not even you, specifically, that I should have aimed that remark at. It's the double-think we humans do so well. — Vera Mont

Well, the truth is that I'm pretty confused here. I suddenly found myself holding humans responsible for climate change etc. and not holding animals responsible for it. So I was faced with human exceptionalism.

We're special because we have all these extra capabilities that raise us above the other animals, but when we dig ourselves into trouble, it's because the special capabilities are unequal to the animal instincts. — Vera Mont

I would rather describe them as hyper-developed, rather than extra, capabilities, but that may be nit-picking. In general terms, one feels that it must be something to do with our animal instincts not being evolved to cope with the cultural world that we have developed. I don't quite see what you mean by "the special capabilities are unequal to the animal instincts".

I'm saying neither the animal instincts nor yet our helplessness to control them, are responsible for our messes. — Vera Mont

That is very plausible. Do you have a diagnosis of what is responsible? (Probably in a causal, not moral sense.)

We do control them. We make laws, practice monogamy, have celibate monastic orders, teetotalers and anorexic teenaged girls. — Vera Mont

Yes, that's true. (Anorexia and suicide are indeed examples of control of instincts, but control that has gone wrong. Control is a bit of a two-edged sword.) Though the scope of those controls seems to be too limited to deal with the threats that we are facing. It does seem to me that the arguments about the planetary threats are not really moral arguments, although they are often framed as such. They are arguments about our real, long-term self-interest. We're not very good at the long term. However, that framing might convince at least some of the people who are so resistant.

Instincts don't lead to genocide. It's the extra special faculties, the facility for narrative, that creates the evil that we do - and the very concept of evil. — Vera Mont

Yes, I do accept that narratives are crucial to the way that things work for us. That does seem to be a product of language. It's hard to imagine what might convince us that creatures without human-style languages could develop them.

Oh, sure, don't give our ancestors credit for acting with common sense, but then blame them for the evil narratives that intelligence and imagination - all that vaunted unique cogitation - have wrought. — Vera Mont

I'm sorry. I wasn't clear enough. I don't blame animal instincts for the super-damage that we have done. There's nothing wrong with them. I thought that was obvious. I was blaming the super-rationality which enabled us to develop super-powers but has not enabled us to develop some super-self-control to go with them. Quite similar to what you are saying, I think.

When you stand at a scenic lookout, are you really describing the vista to yourself in sentences - or do your eyes and mind take it in and transcribe it later - maybe only a few seconds later? Do you look at a painting or hear a concerto in words? — Vera Mont

No. The verbal description is quite distinct from the experience. Though the people who seem to think that the photograph is more important than enjoying the scene may be missing out - substituting the fuss with the camera for the event itself.

I don't have problem. You seem to have. I am just pointing out your example is not reflecting what rational thinking is. When you are asked, "Why can't S tell red from green?", if you explained the reason is S is colour blind, then your answer is based on your guessing, or just parroting what you read or heard from other sources, not from your rational thinking. — Corvus

Sorry. I wasn't clear enough. My explanation is "S is colour-blind", but I thought that

I will want to work out my answer rationally, because that guarantees that my answer will be reliably correct. — Ludwig V

...excluded guessing and parroting.

You explanation must be based on either from deductive or inductive reasoning for it to be qualified as a rational thinking. Not just because you explained something based on your guessing or parroting what you have heard or read from other sources. — Corvus

If I look up the time of the next train on the company web-site (which I have chosen because there is good reason to trust it) and tell everyone that the next train is at 12:00 and the next train is at 12:00, I would claim that I knew the next train was at 12:00 and deny that I'm just parroting. Guessing, I agree, is not rational basis for claiming knowledge, though trial and error as a way of discovering truth is a good basis.

we that possess symbolic language are able to reflectively tell ourselves that we are doing that distinguishing and even tell ourselves that we are directly aware of doing that distinguishing. I tend to think the latter is a kind of illusion though. — Janus

Well, I certainly agree that there is no need for a distinct phenomenological experience as a basis for telling ourselves that we are aware of a distinction as opposed to simply reporting or noting it. "Illusion" suggests that I am not aware of the distinction I am aware of, so it seems the wrong classification to me.

I've often heard that language shapes our thinking, and is literally responsible for aspects of how our brains become wired. If that is so, then there must be thinking humans do that no other species does, and our brains must become wired in ways no others species' brains are. No? — Patterner

Very good. But then the brains of bats and dolphins must be wired differently from ours, because they have specialized abilities that we do not - and just as their specialized abilities have evolved from ancestors that did not have those abilities, so our specialized skills must have evolved from ancestors that did not speak human languages. But again, in both cases, we would expect to find precursors or simple beginnings in those ancestors and we cannot exclude similar skills that have developed differently in other creatures.

It seems to me that abstract thought, thought about generalities may be impossible without language. — Janus

Well, Pavlov's dogs were capable of generalizing from the bell ringing yesterday before food to the bell is ringing to-day, so there will be food. "Abstract thought", to me, means something different. Mathematics is abstract thought, because it is about abstract objects.

Could be. Is it possible that human language couldn't exist if we were not capable of abstract thought? — Patterner

I'm more inclined to argue that abstract thought couldn't exist if we were not capable of language. The truth most likely is that the two developed together.

Yes. all that. So what we call reflective self-awareness which some would say elevates us above the other animals I would say is not anything different in any phenomenologically immediate sense than simple awareness of or sense of difference between self and other, but merely the post hoc narrative about our self-awareness which language enables us to tell. — Janus

Yes. The bit about "post hoc" is important. That underlies many (possibly all) our explanations of what language-less creatures do and even of a lot of what we do. "Rational post hoc construction" is a good description. We model those on the pattern of the conscious reasoning that we sometimes engage in before and sometimes during executing an action.

(I imagine the dog's record of his internal life as a reel of virtual reality - like a 6D movie. Is it story-telling? Without grammar and syntax, it's hard to tell - in fact, at the time, it's impossible to communicate - but that's the way children with limited verbal skills view their own life.) — Vera Mont

The phenomenology of language-less creatures is extraordinarily difficult. I don't think it is reasonable to expect the level of accuracy and detail we can get from creatures that can talk to us.

Human history does not indicate - at least to this observer - that all that science and culture have contributed significantly to our collective ability to make rational decisions. — Vera Mont

The trouble is that human capacities have not eliminated the things we share with animals. They still motivate us in exactly the same ways - the will to survive, to reproduce, to eat, drink, seek shelter and company.

No, certainly not 'evil.' But I think even 'bad' is a stretch. I wouldn't think we are safe with anything more than 'threat' and 'not threat.' — Patterner

We can never eliminate the possibility of being wrong - even safe conclusions can be wrong. So long as we can recognize when we are wrong and do better next time, it's not a catastrophic problem.

The second of those two books recounts how Frank Brown was essentially ostracized by the scientific mainstream for the claim that the oysters somehow responded to changes in lunar gravitation. Nevertheless his findings still stand as far as I know. — Wayfarer

That's a good story. However, I recently happened to hear a BBC radio science programme that answers questions sent in by listeners (often children). There was a question about the effects of the moon's gravity on the earth. The answer was incredibly detailed, but mentioned, unless I misheard, that the moon's gravity had a (presumably measurable) effect on the earth's rocks; it suggested a kind of (mini-) tidal effect on land as well as water. Which doesn't seem fantastic to me, so I believe that. It would entirely explain those results. I wonder who we could ask? (I wouldn't rate that as particularly super, but the way. It's just one of those things that is so obvious one wonders why one didn't think of it before.)

I think so, In line with my response to Wayfarer above I tend to think that whereas other animals distinguish themselves from everything else in having a sense of self but are not conscious of doing that distinguishing we that possess symbolic language are able to reflectively tell ourselves that we are doing that distinguishing and even tell ourselves that we are directly aware of doing that distinguishing. I tend to think the latter is a kind of illusion though. — Janus

It seems to me that they most likely have self-awareness, because otherwise they couldn't navigate the world or tell the difference between the things around them moving and themselves moving. I have often seen them exercising self-control - just ask them to sit and stay while you walk away. Other animals I don't know well enough to opine. Self-reflection seems to me to depend on human language so I'm willing to let that go.

I'm not sure being aware of awareness makes sense. Perhaps it's just that we can tell ourselves that we are aware on account of possessing symbolic language. — Janus

The whole business is infected with the fact that the grammar of language allows one to apply recursion, so when S believes/knows/is aware that p, it is not ungrammatical to suggest that S believes/knows/is aware that S believes/knows/is aware that p, and S believes/knows/is aware that S believes/knows/is aware that p that S believes/knows/is aware that p and so on. There's also I know that p, and so now you know that p, and so I know that you know that p, and you know that I know that you know that p. The fact that grammar permits it is no reason to suppose that each step is meaningful.

A major one has been to bolster theologies and thereby, the lifting of Man half-way to Heaven. — Vera Mont

Yes. It is striking though how theologies need to convince us first that we are less than worms (no disrespect to worms, though) in order to be able to lift us up, but only half-way to heaven, with dire threats about what will happen if we break their rules.

Representational theories of consciousness reduce consciousness to “mental representations” rather than directly to neural states.

The question that bothers me about representational theories is that they never explain what it is that is being represented. I know how a picture is a representation, but not how those mental whatsits are. What does a smell/taste represent? or a touch? Or a pain? Representations of sounds seem to be more like mimicries or recreations that representations. It's all completely unclear, and yet people hang on to it. I don't get it.

conceptual thought depends on concepts, which are formed from sensory input. — Vera Mont

I hope you'll forgive me nit-picking at something that is broadly true. But I think it is important, in order to ensure we avoid various well-known philosophical traps, that we never forget, that actions (interactions) with the world are critically important, not only in learning how to interpret our sensory input, but also in understanding what concepts are - knowing what "gate" means means knowing how to use (and abuse) the gate.

I believe you are correct. It seems to me interaction with others plays a huge roll in the development of our consciousness. — Patterner

I've little doubt that is true. Which gives me one more reason for not understanding what it would mean for the universe to be conscious. There isn't anything else for it to distinguish itself from.

So

I am not sure if deciding what physical explanation is applying rationality. — Corvus

I don't see what your problem is. If my question is "Why can't S tell red from green?", I will want to work out my answer rationally, because that guarantees that my answer will be reliably correct.

Reasoning can be ground for the actions, speakings, beliefs, knowledge and explanations. — Corvus

"ground" is a bit vague. I hope you mean "justification". I notice you include explanations in your list. I'm especially happy with that.

And the part of the universe that is you is aware. Aware of yoursrlf individually, aware of a billion other things, and aware of the universe as a whole. A part of the universe is aware of itself. — Patterner

I don't disagree with that. I must have misunderstood you.

I have no idea why other people think this is remarkable, when we all not only have a sense of time, but can witness every living thing around us respond to the passage of time. — Vera Mont

I agree with you. It seems to me that there are two concepts of time in play. There is the idea of time as a rhythm or repetition, and our biological clock maintain what is called a circadian rhythm, making us more inclined to sleep and night and wake up during the day. (The human biological clock is located in the hypothalamus in the brain.) Then there is our clock time - which actual is a more sophisticated system that does the same thing. It's not unreasonable to suppose that dogs and other animals do not comprehend that system. But it is unreasonable not to recognize that they also have biological clocks that do give them an effective sense of time - it's a well established fact.

Circadian rhythms have been widely observed in animals, plants, fungi and cyanobacteria

Wikipedia - Circadian rhythm

It is perfectly clear to me. I am a part of the universe. We all are. Parts of the universe are aware of themselves, and of the universe as a whole. Maybe our planet is the only place in the universe where this is happening. But it is happening. The universe is waking up to its own existence, and coming to comprehend itself. — Patterner

I don't dispute that parts of the universe are aware of themselves and of the universe as a whole. But I can't see that it follows that the universe is aware of itself or its parts. I don't think that my car is aware of anything just because I'm driving it, though I can see some sense in such an idea. But the idea that my car is aware of itself just because someone is sitting in it makes no sense to me.
But I do think that there is something important about insisting that we are a product of the universe, not some alien imposition.

In case of mysterious or abnormal visual perception case, you would try to resort to the biological or psychological probes and explanation in clarifying the problems, rather than rationalisation. — Corvus

I agree with that. I was thinking, however, that deciding what the physical explanation is would be applying rationality.

Only if you have some external source of information that contradicts your defective senses. without that contradiction, you would ask no questions. — Vera Mont

That's right. But that external source has to be, or be based on, perception.