I don’t understand your response. — Michael

Of all the responses it feels as though you've not understood, that was the one I had most confidence in. I was just a joke.

there is no context in which 1+1=2 is false. It is true in every context. Therefore, The independent fact and the mode of expression are the same. — john27

Maybe. I think @I like sushi mentioned this earlier. There are conceivably abstract systems in which we can know for sure what's true because it's declared to be so by the system. I don't see how these examples prove any kind of general case, it's easy to prove exceptions, harder to prove the rule.

Our taking some proposition to be knowledge is what is defeasible. This is the distinction you seem to keep missing. — Janus

Not missing, no. Just saying that the expression is universally and solely used to express this 'taking', and as such to suggest the actual real definition is something other than it is ever used for seems odd at the least.

Because 1+1=2 exists, regardless on whether I have said it exists or not. — john27

Houses exist, that doesn't mandate that I refer to them. I can refer to whatever I want. I can say "house" and mean 'fish', nothing prevents me from doing so, the mere existence of houses included.

I think I have said earlier that the content that I am referring to does not rely on me to exist. — john27

We agree there.

At one time you are saying that my assumption requires a logical necessity, but earlier you had stated that they are not the same by logical necessity. I don't know, I can't wrap my head around it. — john27

You've said two things are the same. They're not necessarily the same (by tautology or somesuch), so you need an argument demonstrating why you think they're the same.

it is a possibility for me give a context that allows 1+1=2 to be false. However, that is false; 1+1=2 — john27

If there's a context in which 1+1=2 is false, then 1+1=2 is false (in that context), otherwise the prior statement is itself false. 1+1=2 remains true in other contexts, and there's no context-free 1+1=2 that represents the really real expression against which all others must be measured.

You’re wrong. — Michael

Oh. You could have saved us a lot of time by just telling me that in the first place. I bet you let people leave the restaurant with spinach still stuck in their teeth too.

if one views "it's raining" separate from its factual counterpart, and solely as a mode of expression, it is reliant on the speaker to be true. — john27

I don't see how. It seems perfectly possible that someone saying "It's raining" tells us about their beliefs, and there still be a fact about whether it actually is raining, I can't see any logical way on prevents the other.

I still don't fully understand why one must refer to them as different.. — john27

I'm not suggesting one must refer to them as different, only that one could (as things stand). Your argument relied on assuming that they were the same. I'm just saying that such an assumption is not a logical necessity, so you ought have a means by which you justify it.

how could I find a mode of expression without a speaker and a listener? — john27

I don't see a way you could.

If I did, I would only be referring to the belief independent/not mode of expression part of 1+1=2 or "it's raining." — john27

I don't see how. If there were no speaker, why would the content refer to anything at all, surely, if there were no speaker, the content would be as yet undetermined?

Address something I've written, or just repeat your existing claim as if this were you own personal blog. Either way I don't really mind, but I'm not going to respond to the latter...definition of madness and all that...

The more healthy unmasked immune people surrounding a vulnerable person, the proportionally safer she becomes. — Roger Gregoire

The question is not whether vulnerable people would be safer this way, it's whether there's an even safer means to protect them.

Even if you were right about healthy people not contributing much to viral replication, there's still an even safer way to protect the vulnerable. Keep everyone masked, clean their environment and simply wait for the viruses there to die, it'll only take a few hours.

Alternatively, vaccinate them against the virus so that they are protected that way.

The question is why would you advocate the option which puts people at risk when there's an even less risky option open to you?

Then consider what you meant by the cat being on the mat being belief-independent in that context. — Michael

I meant that the success of our tests aren't determined by how much we expect them to be successful. If I continue to test my belief that the cat is on the mat, there may be some future time where I no longer believe it. The entire language community's present and future beliefs about the cat's on-the-matness is not governed by my current belief, or any of their current beliefs, but rather by the properties of the hidden state we're trying to model. I can't see a way in which it could be that...

That is how a true belief is distinguished from a false belief in the context of the JTB definition of knowledge. — Michael

We don't have any access to the asymptotic beliefs of a community who've thrown every test they can think of at the model. So it can't possibly be how a true belief is distinguished from a false belief, otherwise no one would ever use the word, because no one would ever carry out such process.

Can you finally accept that, in the context of the JTB definition of knowledge, this third condition has nothing to do with what any particular person or language community believes? It's a reference to a belief-independent fact that must obtain for the belief to be true and the person to have knowledge. — Michael

I've never denied that. As I said...

At best JTB could be an account of what 'knowledge' could mean, or ought to mean. In which case... thanks, but no thanks. — Isaac

The issue I have is not that 'knowledge' couldn't be defined that way, it's that it isn't.

The process thereby needed to use 'knowledge' correctly is one which is impossible to carry out. So we're left either concluding that everyone is constantly using the word incorrectly or the definition is wrong. I just think the former is a bit silly, so prefer the latter.

It's like saying that 'human' is a term only correctly applied to someone God has invisibly marked. It's a daft definition because no one could ever use the term to describe anyone since there's no way of identifying an invisible divine symbol.

You could argue that we use the term to apply to things we think are true (just like we use term 'human' to apply to someone we think has a certain genetic make-up, even though we can't check.

There's normally no problems with this approach to definition, but with JTB, us thinking it's true is just what JB already is. T, then can only refer to the state of actually being 'true', which renders the word unusable.

Is it appropriate to think of a worm's consciousness as intention driven? Are going to end up equivocating about "intention" if we do? — frank

You'd like to reserve 'intention' for conscious species? I see that as more of a religious/ideological decision than a scientific one. Not that that makes it wrong, but it's just not a useful distinction for me.

I suppose we could differentiate between actions which we can trace through some typically conscious areas of processing and those that don't, but it'd be a very hazy line.

I certainly think it would be possible, but I'm not quite as clear on what we'd gain by doing so.

Just stop with narrative of the end of the World is nigh and we have to repent our hedonistic materialism!!! — ssu

What has materialism got to do with it? Fertility rates in developing countries are controlled mainly by age of marriage, length of breastfeeding and mortality (or morbidity) prior to 50. None of those factors are related to materialism in any way whatsoever. They're largely cultural changes and medical/healthcare improvements. Even the cultural lag effect (having excess 'insurance' children because of a perception of infant mortality which lags behind actual infant mortality) is mostly cultural and partly medical/healthcare. The value of a child workforce is mostly related to the balance of rural/urban jobs. The opposition to contraception is religious. The unawareness of, or lack of access to, contraception is mostly cultural, partly political...

I'm not seeing materialism even in the top twenty...How does owning a second car have the slightest effect?

All you've shown is a weak correlation* with an extremely vague measure.

(* are you seriously suggesting Poland is wealthier than the United States?)

"Follow the LOGIC" ...not the Bad Science (the science that disregards logic). — Roger Gregoire

Yet apparently...

Science tells us that the healthier/stronger one's immune system, the less likely the replication (and subsequent spreading). — Roger Gregoire

Which 'science' would this be? The one you just instructed us to ignore?

if we want to stop these deadly mosquitos once-and-for-all, then, more importantly than vaccinations, we must allow healthy people to freely socialize un-clothed, or else the mosquitos will ultimately win the battle of "survival-of-the-fittest". — Roger Gregoire

Why would the old woman not just put a mask on, wash her hands frequently, and wipe down high contact surfaces for the few hours it takes for the 'mosquito' to die anyway since it can't survive outside of a body?

Engaging the services of a 'human hoover' seems incredibly stupid when an actual hoover would do the job just as well.

Would the intentionality in saccades best be called 'belief' or 'expectation'? — Janus

What do you see as the difference between the two?

A move which gets taken is to massage the notion of dependence and the type of content. You could 'bite the bullet' of whatever externalist argument you like which was dedicated to mental content of type X and say "Yes, type X as a whole has some external dependence, but type X1 which is a subset of X does not", I think that type of mental content gets called 'narrow'. — fdrake

Yeah, I see how that could work. I was more thinking of the whole chain such that some mental content could not be wholly dependant on other mental content because at some prior time their was no mind. Kind of a mental version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (and no-one wants to go there!).

that system of predictions will completely rule out some things from occurring (as we think anyway, we might be wrong) and largely endorse some things, it will split up 'epistemic space' into what's plausible, irrelevant, implausible etc. But what splits up the predictions is arguably solely determined by non-external properties, since you just fixed them.

Why I did not spend more time with the Chalmers papers exegetically


I imagine you maybe have some sympathy with a view like that? — fdrake

Yeah, that's right (and thanks for the great links, not generally a fan of Chalmers - too much qualia and zombies - but always satisfying to read some crossover, makes me realise we're not all radically different, still trying to navigate the same world!). For me, it's more pragmatic than anything else. We simply can't be including all the wider net of influences in all our thinking about any given step or node in a network, we'd never get anything done. I can, however, see how this causes a great deal of confusion about my position, and some of that is my fault for (innocently) stepping into a world where people genuinely do try to argue for things like an entirely mind-dependant reality, and not being careful enough to distinguish my thinking form theirs. Though I should say, I have (from reading the papers you cited) some grave concerns about the route Chalmers takes to get here (if here is indeed where I think he is - I suspect my ability to understand what he's on about is substantially less than yours). I'm not sure that the modality is actually a viable approach if he's trying to get at the way we actually think. There's too little scope in a kind of 'this else that' model where I think It's more 'this until further notice', but I may have misunderstood.

if social processes act as some kind of distributed mental process - cf Lakatos' term for reasoning with people 'thinking loudly' -, then social processes are vehicles in that regard. The latter seems like an extended mind thesis towards the social milieu. — fdrake

By odd coincidence, see my response to Andrew above, I happen to have started banging on about that exact topic...

Yes I see it as implausible that intentionality isn't right down in the motor functions considering the directedness of visual foraging, that it's not conscious, and that it's salience+causal relevance+information density based. I recall having a long argument with Banno about whether the intentionality in saccades counts as a form of belief that wasn't propositional (I argued that it was not propositional), so that might be another point of tension with someone who's quite strict about the relationship of mental content to statements and truth conditions. — fdrake

So, there's these strong connections which neuroscientists (to my knowledge) have yet to fully work out the function of between early areas of sub-conscious cortices and the hippocampus, an example might be the V2 region of the visual cortex. Usually a connection to the hippocampus is involved in consolidation of some memory, so it seems odd that such early regions would be strongly tied to it. One idea is that there's some higher level modelling suppression going on even in these early centres, like - 'is that likely to be an edge? Let me just check'. I think (though I can't lay my hands on any papers right now) there's one of these connections into the cerebellum too.

So the phrase "veil of perception" has a historical connection with certain 17th century metaphysical views that deny any direct world-involvement. — Andrew M

Ahh. I'm not very well versed in these things so didn't realise I was sowing more confusion than I was eradicating. Best I avoid the term in future, thanks.

our model of (some part of) the world and the world we are modeling sometimes match up. I think we essentially agree. — Andrew M

Yeah. We have a vested interest in them matching up, not just with the world, but (and this is the really important part, for me) with each other's models. In fact I'd be tempted to go as far as to say that it's more important that our models match each others than it is they match the state they're trying to model. I'm pretty sure this is main function of many language games, the main function of social narratives, the main function of rational thought rules. To get our models to match each others.

Right, but I've already said that knowledge, as it is generally understood, is defeasible. This is an example of what I meant when I referred to your "confusion"; presenting an objection as though it is a problem for the JTB understanding, when it really isn't, makes it seem that you are confused about it. — Janus

If knowledge (correctly used) is defeasible, then it can't also be 'true' (where 'true is used to denote some property other than simply 'well justified' - I'm not yet clear what that property is meant to be). People are then (apparently) constantly using 'knowledge; incorrectly. Applying it to beliefs which they merely think are 'true', not to beliefs which actually are 'true'. But merely thinking something is 'true' is just the same as having good justifications for that belief, so that can't be right because JTB implies that 'Truth' and 'Good Justification' are two different things. In order to correctly use the term 'knowledge' is must be that the belief being referred to actually is 'true'. Since no-one can ever establish that about any belief, they're all using the word incorrectly. That just seems a silly conclusion to me.

the earth has been observed and imaged from space, from satellites, and we can see that it is a sphere, so the likelihood of that observation being wrong is minuscule. That is not magical, but it is a paradigm leap to be able to observe the Earth from space. — Janus

That's right. The justification for believing the earth to be spherical is very, very good.

to the degree that we can be confident that our justifications are based on true observations, the degree to which we can be confident that our beliefs are true is commensurate, and that is what is generally meant by claiming to have knowledge. — Janus

...which sounds identical to the position I'm presenting. Perhaps you could highlight what you think is different? Both are saying that we use the word knowledge when we have a high degree of confidence in our justifications. So that's just JB, not JTB. all you seem to be saying is that we use 'knowledge' when we have a very high degree of confidence in our justifications. I agree. Not just any old justification will do, it's usually the two most powerful ones (when I act as if X is the case I get the results I'd expect if it were, and most of my epistemic peers would agree that X is the case). These are why 'The earth is a sphere' is knowledge. Everything we do to the earth, every test we can think of treating it as a sphere produces exactly the results we'd expect of it were a sphere, and (by way of checking we're not mad, or hallucinating) everyone who knows about these sorts of things would agree that it's a sphere. (Incidentally, this is how I define 'truth' also, but is seems to mean something else in JTB)

your logic that "the cat is on the mat" means "I believe that the cat is on the mat" — Michael

You're still not allowing that the position I'm discussing entails all propositions only have meaning in context. You still take a meaning I've given in one context and complain that applying it to another makes no sense, is inconsistent. It's inconsistency is exactly the point I'm making. Whole expressions, in context have meaning, not individual components of them, and not out of any context. I've said (in certain contexts) that "It's raining" means the same as like "I believe it's raining". I've also given examples of contexts where it doesn't mean the same (where the 'I believe' prefix is meant to indicate a level of uncertainty).

I don't mind continuing to explain my position, but I can't do so if you insist that I do so by half adopting yours. It is not a part of my position that expressions have the same meaning in all contexts, so claiming that I'm inconsistent in the meaning I give to expressions between contexts is not pointing out a flaw in my position, it's a feature of it. Merely pointing it out doesn't constitute an argument against it, you'd have to say why that's a bad thing.

I can't help but find this contradictory. Am I looking at this wrong? — john27

Possibly, or I might have explained it poorly. I'm not seeing a direct contradiction (the two quotes aren't even on the same subject), so perhaps you could expand on what you find contradictory here.

I don't understand. By what necessity is it not the same as how a fact obtains? — john27

All I'm saying there is that there's two enquiries, 1)what it is for 1+1 to equal 2, and 2)what the expression "1+1=2" means. You seem to be treating them the same (ie if 1+1=2 is a mind-independent fact, then "1+1=2" must be referring to this mind independent fact). They may well be the same, but sine they are not the same by logical necessity, you'd have to provide an argument to support your position.

Do you mean to say that 1+1=2, as a mode of expression, has no meaning if theres no context? — john27

Yes. Mathematical statements are at a very extreme end where the rules constraining the maths language game are pretty tight, so it's probably the hardest example to use (and good for that reason), but It's still (as a spoken or written expression) spoken or written for a reason and that reason is a more pragmatic and concrete measure of meaning than any other.

What meaning does 1+1=2 contain as a mode of expression? — john27

Well, it depends on the context. I might be correcting someone's maths, in which case it means that when faced with the sum '1+1' one should write the answer '2', or an instruction that one can replace the word '2' for any instances of a group of 1 and another 1, ad so on...

I must admit I'm a little confused... — john27

What I'm asking is for you to fill in some of the gaps in the model you're espousing. If an expression (as say, "it's raining") has a meaning outside of the various uses to which that expression is put, where should we look to find it, and on what grounds can that source claim primacy of other sources of meaning?

When did I say that I determine that 1+1=2? — john27

Not at any time as far as I recall.

I am insignificant in its apparent truth. it is not reliant, on me, or anyone whatsoever. — john27

What's 'it' here? 'It', the statement, seems entirely reliant on you. Without you there'd be no statement.

'It', the fact, doesn't seem reliant on you, but no one claimed it was.

I'm talking about what statements mean, not about how facts obtain. Two different topics.

1+1=2 obtains because of the rules of mathematics.

"1+1=2" is a statement, a speech act, it has a meaning. Determining that meaning is not, by necessity, the same as determining why or how the fact expressed obtains.

I'm claiming that the meaning is determined by the full expression, in context. It requires a speaker and a listener, and it has no meaning at all out of context.

If you think it has a meaning outside of any language game it might form part of, then you'd have to say where we look to find that meaning. In what does the meaning inhere?

And as I'm the one arguing this and you're the one arguing against this, I'm right and you're wrong. — Michael

The point I'm highlighting is not that you think I'm wrong, it's that you seem to think I must be lying or stubborn... that you can't just think I've reached a different conclusion to you because we're different people.

I can believe 1+1 is 2, and believe that it is correct; that doesn't change the fact its an axiomatic statement independent of belief. — john27

..because...

I'm not the center of the universe. — john27

Could you join the dots any further. I don't see how you not being the centre of the universe determines what "1+1=2" means.

Ah, the classic.

"The world is as it seems to me to be, therefore anyone who thinks otherwise must be mistaken, lying, or deliberately obtuse"

Do you really struggle that much with the idea of things seeming to other people to be different to the way they seem to you?

I can believe 1+1 is 2, and believe that it is correct; that doesn't change the fact its an axiomatic statement independent of belief. — john27

It seems to. Why do you think it doesn't?

it is positively possible that the supposed fact is currently enacted. — john27

I can't make sense of that sentence I'm afraid.

But "a quick walk" and "a nice cup of tea" have a meaning. — Michael

Yes. And "it's raining" has a meaning too, but not within "I believe it's raining". Having established that some portions of expressions can be expressions in their own right yet others can't, it seems you're missing the step in your argument where you demonstrate that the 'it's raining' (within "I believe it's raining") is of the former type and not the latter (as I've argued).

No, you believe it is raining. — john27

But you said...

If it was a belief, they would pose it as an opinion such as: I think it is raining. — john27

...they didn't, so we conclude that it wasn't a belief.

If it was a belief, they would pose it as an opinion such as: I think it is raining. — john27

So when I say "it's raining" I don't believe it's raining?

What does the "it's raining" part of "I believe that it's raining" mean? — Michael

Nothing at all. Partial expressions don't mean anything, it just 'bewitchment by grammar' to think they do.

What does 'for a quick' mean in "I'm going to go for a quick walk now"?

What does 'for a nice' mean in "It's about time for a nice cup of tea"?

when people say things like "it's raining" they mean that it's raining. — Michael

How is this an answer?

"What does 'it's ambiguous' mean?"
"It means it's ambiguous"

"What does 'he knows' mean?"
"It means, he knows"

No one considers those to be answers to an enquiry about the meaning of words. So what makes you think "they mean it's raining" is a satisfactory answer to an investigation into what people mean by "it's raining"?

I'm not going to continue this game forever. — Michael

Well then you could address the point instead of avoiding it.

When people say things like "it's raining", they mean that they have a belief that it's raining (in this case, one they're very confident in ,one with good justifications.

You arguments are circular because you keep defining what people mean when they say "X is..." in term of "Y is...". You haven't addressed the general case of what a statement that something 'is' actually means.

they tell you that they're referring to whether or not it's raining — Michael

And if you want to know what they mean by "whether or not it's raining..."?

You've just given a circular definition.

The question was what people mean by "it's raining", the answer can't contain the expression "it's raining".

If you ask English-speakers which of these count as knowledge, almost all will say only the first.

1. John knows that it is raining if the weather is as he justifiably believes it to be — Michael

And if we want to know what they mean by "the weather is..."?

And the T in JTB is saying that the weather must be as you believe it to be. If it isn't as you believe it to be then your belief is false and you don't have knowledge. — Michael

As I said...

At best JTB could be an account of what 'knowledge' could mean, or ought to mean. In which case... thanks, but no thanks. — Isaac

I didn't ask if the pharmaceuticals intended to monetise those problems too. I asked you why you thought our governments weren't previously willing to spend the money on saving those lives that it is now willing to spend on saving COVID-threatened lives (now that 'saving' them involves huge transfers of wealth to the pharmaceuticals).

I don't doubt for a minute the pharmaceuticals will profiteer from all those crises as well.

Why an anti-malaria vaccine now when mosquito nets have been available for decades, are cheaper and yet budgets to pay for them have been cut?

Why a cancer vaccine now when moves to stop the sales of cigarettes, processed meat, and carcinogenic chemicals have been blocked at every turn. Why a cancer vaccine when simply cleaning the urban air could save millions of lives?

Your sycophantic apologetics for the pharmaceutical industry is noted. The question was about effective interventions.

However when we see a red flower, do we see it in the brain, or in the mind, or in the garden? I'm not suggesting this applies to you but without clarification of the terms involved, this is the kind of confusion that can arise. — Andrew M

Yes, it's the primary difficulty here. If I (as a scientist) am to explain what your 'seeing the rose in the garden' consists in, I can't very well give the answer "you're not seeing the rose in the garden". That didn't really answer the question. But equally, I'd be remiss if I didn't provide an explanation of how you can see the red rose out of the corner of your eye despite dendritic trees from the ganglia there being too complex to interpret colour from. You filled-in the colour you expected the rose to be, nothing to do with any physical activity in the actual garden.

If you agree that there can be a red flower there that I can perceive, then I'm not clear why you're invoking a "veil". What exactly is being veiled here? — Andrew M

Because the 'red flower' I'm trying to model and the current 'snapshot' state of my model are not necessarily the same, and some of the reason they're not the same is expectation biasing the interpretation of (and occasionally outright suppressing) the sensory data. It's only the sensory data which is directly connected to the 'red flower', the thing I'm trying to model. The 'veil' is everything else which plays a part in the modelling process not caused directly (or even indirectly) by the 'red flower'.

The example I had in mind was a hallucination, which isn't perception. Yes of course there can be conditions where we see a flower that looks red (or assume is red), but isn't. — Andrew M

Then how is that not a 'veil'? If we can see a flower as red.but it isn't red, then what got in the way? Whatever got in the way - that's what I'm referring to as a 'veil'.

someone is an internalist about X if they believe X only is determined by/depends upon the body or mind of the individual which bears X. — fdrake

Do they have to believe in non-determinism of some sort? After all, our bodies have not been around forever (though mine sometimes feels like it has!)

Rather, they are, partly, constituted by, or are composed of, factors that lie outside those boundaries. — SEP

This is intriguing, do we have some examples? If I've understood it right, could my theories about the role of social narratives fit here (always looking for interesting new ways to frame this stuff)? That someone's beliefs often cannot be expressed without reference to the social entity which defines (part of) it? Is that what they're talking about, or have I missed the point entirely? - Side issue not related to the OP, I know. Just a quick yay or nay perhaps if I'm on the right track.

Maybe it could be construed that the ball isn't a 'physical bearer' or 'partly constituting' the process of perception - if you focus on what's 'logged to consciousness' as a meaning for 'what's perceived', it might be possible to argue that 'what's perceived' doesn't have an immediate dependence upon the external state values because the sensory states interface with the world and the internal states which are logged to consciousness don't. There's probably some wrangling regarding where you draw the line. If the 'dependence' is 'any sort of dependence' rather than 'proximate cause in terms of states in the model's graph', it looks to be vehicle externalist in the process sense, if it's the latter maybe it's still possible to be a vehicle internalist. — fdrake

I think you're right in that it could, but I'm inclined to think (as I suspect you are) that it would be a mistake to do so. My reasons are that it would mistake the process of perception with the process of response (speaking, reaching - -catching the ball). We're in danger of an excessive holism this way, as I mentioned with the process of perception itself. we are one deeply interconnected body, within which is a deeply connected mind with causal connections reaching deep into the world around us. Without being comfortable with drawing (semi-)arbitrary lines around a process we end up unable to anything about anything. So, I think this is just such a case. Even though the perception of the ball is intricately connected to the process of catching the ball, we have to comfortable drawing a line between them somewhere, just as a façon de parler if nothing else. In that spirit, I'd say that the process of perception is directly connected to the ball, the process of catching only indirectly so. To the ball-catching system, the actual ball's location is a hidden state inferred by the signals it receives from the ball-perceiving system. To the ball-perceiving system, however, the ball's location is the direct cause of the state of some of it's nodes (certain retinal ganglia, for example) - the wind/air pressure/gravity/propulsion would be hidden states to that system.

So there's a puzzle regarding bridging the 'content of a state in a neural network' with the content of an intentional act.

The content of a state in a neural network doesn't seem to be a good match for the use of the word 'cup', since using the word to refer to a cup involves a perception which consists in lots of states synergising together in a body-environment interaction — fdrake

Again, I think allowing ourselves some arbitrary lines helps to talk about this. The 'content of a state in a neural network' is one of the exterior-facing nodes in the 'take a sip form that cup' system. But important missing nodes are things like 'what a cup is', what people in my culture do with cups', 'what effects are likely to result from sipping from it' etc. None of which are directly contained in the process of perception, despite being intimately linked to it.

Did I ever tell you (sorry if I end up repeating myself) about the experiment on macaques where they but a blocker to interfere with the connection between the dorsal and ventral streams exiting the visual cortex. They could interact with bananas in a perfectly accurate manner (locate them, pick them up with appropriate pressure etc), even peel them, but they had no idea what they were (food, bargaining tokens etc). I think this shows that there's a perfectly acceptable (semi-)arbitrary line we can draw if we so wish between the object of perception as a physical emitter of light/sound/pressure and the object of perception as a social object (one with a name, a use, a role in our intentions)

Let's say I want to take a drink from my mug. I have an intentional state toward my mug, desiring to drink something out of it. I'm sure there are more than two ways of spelling out their content relevant to this discussion, but I'm going to write down two. — fdrake

I think essentially we'd be remiss if we didn't include our intentions toward an object in the act of perception, but again if we're not to prevent ourselves from being able to say anything at all, we have to be able to draw a line somewhere. I may be oversimplifying, but is there any reason why we shouldn't draw the line at the decision to act? If we're asking the question "Why did you hit your brother?" we might well include intentionality in the perception "he was about to hit me", did our aggressive intention have some role in the perception of the shoulder going back, the fist clenching - probably. But at the point of the message being sent to the arm to strike - that's the point we're interested in - not because it's got some ontological significance, but because that's what we asked the question about. At that point, there was an object (a brother threatening violence) which was the result of some perception process (plus a tone of social conditioning) and the object of an intention (to punch). I don't think it matters that the intention (to act aggressively) might have influenced the perception (a person about to hit me). We can have our cake and eat it here. We can talk about the way in which the intention influences the perception of the object before the question we want to ask of it and still have the final version* be the object of the intention we're asking the question about. (*final version here referring to the object on which the move to strike was based). after the action in question, the whole process will continue seamlessly, the perception might change a bit as a result of our interaction with the object, our intention might change and so affect the perception..., but we marked a point in that continuous process, simply to ask a question (why did you hit your brother) and to answer that question we need to 'freeze-frame' the movie to see what the object of perception was at the time the intentional decision was made.

It's not different to asking what speed a car's going. You have to just pick an arbitrary distance and measure how much time it took to cover it. It inevitably makes artificial break in a continuous process, but it's the only pragmatic option.

Another distinction between the kind of directedness state relations have in a perceptual neural network and the kind of directedness intentional states have is the directedness of an intentional state might be an emergent(I mean weakly emergent, but I'd guess there are strong emergentist takes too) property of the whole perceptual process. — fdrake

Like saccades, perhaps? Yes, I think there must be cases where this is true, but again, probably just some, not all. We'd be missing something if we wanted to model perception and action this way, but we'd be kidding ourselves if we didn't have such a model to explain things like saccades.

I baulk at equating each neural network with some attitude towards a proposition. — Banno

Why is that?

(I've got a vague memory of us discussing this before, but I couldn't find it in the 'archives')

You want to say there’s no grass ‘out there’ — Srap Tasmaner

No, I'm pretty sure there's grass out there. I model it as grass, my wife models it as grass. In fact, everyone I speak to models it as gras, so I'm quite confident there's grass out there. If I model it as grass and everyone else models it as carpet, I might have my doubts.

it’s meaningless to say you’re modeling anything as grass. — Srap Tasmaner

'Grass' is the name of the model that seems to me to be the one where we mow the stuff, feed it to cows, that sort of thing. That model we call grass. So I can't see how modelling some hidden states as grass is meaningless. It means (to me, anyway) what I just explained.

There is more to the world than just our beliefs. The facts do not depend on us being able to justify them. — Michael

Agreed. We seem to be going round in circles. Perhaps you could address the issue I raised last time you made this point.

You seem to think that fact requiring someone to believe them in order to be talked about somehow makes those facts belief dependant and I'm not seeing why. — Isaac

My beliefs about the weather have no impact on the weather, it is what it is despite any belief I might have about it.

My beliefs about the weather do impact everything that can be said about the weather, including whether I use the word 'true', knowledge' or 'belief' when referring to propositions about it, including what I use as the object of those prepositions, the words I reach for, the very use of the term 'the weather' (as in the sentence above this one). Every response I make to 'the weather' is entirely dependant on my beliefs about it.

So you do understand what it means for the belief-independent facts to be as we believe them to be? — Michael

As I said. I think I understand. I doubt my understanding is the one you're looking for.

For a mind-independent fact to be as I believe it to be is for it to survive all the tests I could throw at it.

So...

how is it “incoherent” to argue that this is a requirement for knowedge? — Michael

It's not. It's just that surviving all the tests I could throw at it is the same thing as justification. That it survives all the tests I throw at it is a justification for believing it. The J bit of JTB. Making the T bit superfluous.

We all agree that consciousness includes phenomenality. What difference does it make what you call it? — frank

And yet we hear talk of such spectres as the 'red quale'. Does the 'red consciousness' make any sense at all?

It doesn't in the context of the JTB theory of knowledge. The "true" in "justified true belief" is to be understood as the facts being as they are believed to be. — Michael

Yes. Which makes JTB incoherent because we can't talk about the facts simply being as we believe them to be yet both 'knowledge' and 'truth' are words... used in talking.

At best JTB could be an account of what 'knowledge' could mean, or ought to mean. In which case... thanks, but no thanks.

So, again, forget the words "true" and "false". If the belief-independent facts are as we believe them to be then our beliefs are X, otherwise they're Y. Knowledge is JXB. — Michael

Makes no difference because 'X' and 'Y' are just stand-ins for words, else they have no meaning at all. And all words suffer the same constraint. To have any meaning at all they must be actually spoken in some act of communication. They're just collections of letters otherwise.

Is this the internal subjective qualia? — Jack Cummins

No. It's "see[ing] geometric shapes and patterns", as you said first... before introducing the word qualia. What's qualia doing that the first expression was lacking?

Do you understand what it means for the belief-independent facts to be as we believe them to be? Do you understand what it means for the belief-independent facts to not be as we believe them to be? Do you understand the difference between them? — Michael

I'm not sure how to judge whether I 'understand' I think I do (obviously). Is there some aspect of the understanding I've presented here that you could specify?

If it's simpler, forget the words "true" and "false". If the belief-independent facts are as we believe them to be then our beliefs are X, otherwise they're Y. Knowledge is JXB. — Michael

The belief independent facts can't be any way without us believing them to be that way. You seem to think that fact requiring someone to believe them in order to be talked about somehow makes those facts belief dependant and I'm not seeing why.

Let's say the cat either is or is not on the mat. It's on-the-matness is belief independent. That has nothing to do with my claim that we can't talk about the cat's on-the-matness without someone holding a belief about it. 'Knowledge' is a word. 'Truth' is a word. These only have any meaning at all in speech acts between people. People who have beliefs about things like whether cats are on mats.

My claim, in the above sense, is simply that 'truth' (the word) has the same meaning in speech acts as 'justified' (the word)*

*more accurately, it's that 'truth' is a species of justification, but I don't want to muddy the water too much.