at least with pain we have something clearly subjective. — Marchesk

No, we don't, otherwise the word wouldn't mean anything. If any subjective experience counted as pain without any objective measures, then how would we ever learn what the word meant?

For example think about what you can imagine and can’t imagine about some ‘object’ of experience (be it a sound, shape, colour etc.,.). — I like sushi

We've been through this, I don't see any reason to presume that the 'object' comes first. What I can and can't imagine comes first, then I divide that up into objects according to how useful I find each division. Whether I can think of a shape with no angles is about the meaning of the word 'shape'. If the word 'shape' means 'things with angles' then no, I can't. But that's just deductive tautology, I haven't learnt anything.

I know that there can be no hallucination, dream, and/or illusion of red if there is no red. — creativesoul

Simple. Take a sensation, call it 'red'. Job done. 'Red' isn't out there waiting for us to find it, we experience things and give some of them names, the names have to be related to some external behaviour otherwise naming fails (no one else knows what we're talking about). So examining this external behaviour is adequate for examining the referent of the name.

It demonstrates that red experiences require both, red things and the ability to see them as such. — creativesoul

What on earth are 'red experiences'? I've certainly never had one.

Talk about eyes, occipital lobes and retinas is not an experiential investigation. — I like sushi

By that token no talk can be an experiential investigation. Talk requires referring terms which requires agreement as to the referrent, which, by definition, cannot be subjective in the sense you're using the term. To say anything at all is an engagement in collective agreement about referrents, so the only completely subjective investigation by your standards is entirely silent meditation. A great idea, but doesn't work very well on an Internet forum.

I do think and would strongly argue that language is necessary. — creativesoul

Yet all you've given thus far is...

they are further thought of as being unfair. — creativesoul

This implies some sort of agreement — creativesoul

it requires some measure of morality(what ought happen) — creativesoul

I'd agree with all of those (with the same caveats as you). But you've not demonstrated any of them are necessarily dependant on language, so I don't see how they're relevant to your argument.

When we're claiming that some non human creature has a sense of fairness/justice, we're saying something about that creature's mental ongoings(thought and belief). Thus, it behooves us to know what all thought and belief consist of, lest we have no way to know whether or not some creature or another is capable of forming/holding those kinds of thought and belief. — creativesoul

Yes, but this just goes over the ground we've already covered with regards to terms. There isn't something which just is what thiugh/belief consists of. There are just the phenomena we observe, how we choose to group them and what we choose to call those groups is arbitrary. I've already defined what I'm referring to by belief and thought. I've not heard (or perhaps not understood) how you're using those terms.

I'm having trouble with the equivalence being drawn between clear discontent due to false belief about what's going to happen(accompanied by and exemplified after unexpected events/results), with complaining and taking restorative action. There's no issue with discontent being characterized as showing negative emotion. However, not all discontent and negative emotion are equivalent to complaining and/or taking restorative actions. — creativesoul

Well, why don't you start with what you would expect to see. If taking restorative action is not sufficient, then what, by your measure, would be sufficient. Say someone says to you "hey that's unfair", but you think they might be lying, what behaviour would you look for to confirm that they did genuinely believe it to be unfair?

Which experiments show conclusively that those animals are acting out of a sense of what ought be done as compared to what was? — creativesoul

As I've said, I don't believe in experiments showing anything 'conclusively'. They might overwhelmingly contradict a theory, in which case it should be rejected, absent of that you're free to continue rationally believing any of the huge range of beliefs the experiments does not actually contradict.

Thst being said, Franz dWaal has placed a large bowl of grapes within reach during the reward experiments, and has given grapes/cucumbers in different combinations in prior exchanges. Together these satisfy me that simple expectation frustration is not the explanation (otherwise prior priming of expectation would have made a difference), nor is it simple greed (otherwise the larger available reward would have made a difference). It does seem to be related to a social peer getting a better reward, so if there's expectation involved, it's an expectation of equal distribution of rewards. I'm happy to call that a belief in fairness.

What's the difference between behavioural discontent as a result of the cognitive dissonance that takes place when expectations are dashed by what happens and having behavioural discontent as a result of thinking, believing, and/or 'feeling' like what happened is unfair/unjust, or ought be somehow corrected? — creativesoul

Nothing. The expectation that rewards be distributed equally is what a belief in fairness is.

So why would it be noteworthy that people you're making up share the model you're making up? — Terrapin Station

I never said it was noteworthy. Useful, not noteworthy.

It's more curious that some people you're making up--like me--think that you're a philosophical mess. — Terrapin Station

As you have many times before, you're confusing a model of my construction with a model over which I have voluntary creative control.

Your "interlocutors" are part of your model, no? — Terrapin Station

Yep. You're definitely getting the hang of this.

You mean that you have a model where there are non-linguistic primates and they have a sense of fairness, but it's strictly something you've constructed. Objectively, you don't believe there are things with properties that make them primates or make them have a sense of fairness or anything like that. You should always be clear that you're simply talking about models that you've constructed, and this reply is part of your model that you've constructed in your view, too. — Terrapin Station

Yes, that's right. Luckily most of my models are shared with my interlocutors with sufficient congruity for us to dispense with the declarations to that effect. But any time you feel the need to clarify the matter, feel free to do so.

I was asking if that assumption was the one you're holding.. — creativesoul

Yes, I understood that, and the answer was, no, that's not the full assumption I'm holding because it does not contain the assumption that I need to convince you otherwise. To clarify, I think non-linguistic primates have a sense of fairness, I'm working on the presumption that you don't (because you stated that fairness requires a pre-existing agreement and that such agreements are impossible without language), I'm arguing in defence of my position, I've no desire to get you to change yours (at this time). Does that clear things up?

That notion of belief grants inference and disposition to act to inanimate objects. — creativesoul

I have no problem with beliefs being attributed to non-living things, but if you do, then the notion could be limited to such states when expressed in the architecture of a brain. It makes no difference to my defence. The main point is that I don't believe they can be sensibly talked about as having 'content' in the same way a book has 'content', they are not necessarily 'about' other concepts (though they can be).

I'm asking you for exactly what counts as a sense of fairness? What is the criterion which - when met by any and all candidates - counts as a case of that candidate having a sense of fairness? You and I meet the criterion.

What is it such that the non human primate meets it too? — creativesoul

A sense of fairness, for me, is a belief that some restorative action should be initiated if certain resources in certain scenarios are not distributed either equally (by default) or according to some rule which has been previously established between individuals in a group.

Non-human primates can be said to have met that criteria if the take restorative action (complain, show negative emotion etc) in such scenarios. the evidence is stronger where alternative explanations for those restorative behaviours have been ruled out by careful experiment design such as the use of ultimatum games, tokens, eliminating social hierarchies etc. instead of simple resource distribution.

I am not of the opinion that such alternative explanations for apparent restorative behaviour needs to be entirely ruled out before we accept the hypothesis because I think that would imply an unwarranted principle of anthropocentrism. We know we evolved from primates, we should presume, as a default, that they share all of our traits until we demonstrate one to be unique, not presume all of our traits are unique until we prove that they're not.

I'm assuming that non linguistic animals(non human primates) are capable of having a sense of fairness/justice, and you need to convince me otherwise.

Is that about right? — creativesoul

No - why would I need to convince you otherwise? If I thought your views might cause harm to me or others, then maybe I'd have a crack at convincing you otherwise, but outside of that scenario I can't think of a single reason why I would want to do that.

What is thought and belief then, if it is not the sort of thing that has content? — creativesoul

I think a belief is a disposition to act a certain way, its an inference manifest in the action it sets in motion. I think all living things, and some non-living things, have beliefs.

Thoughts, for me, are any neural activity, only creatures with brains can therefore have thoughts. The two are not the same.

our sense of fairness/justice - if it predates our language use - does not consist of anything we want it to. — creativesoul

We don't have a sense of fairness. I have one, and you have one but there's no reason at all why they should be any more similar than is required to have the most basic conversation on the matter. It never ceases to amaze me the power of this nonsensical conviction that we can somehow 'drill down' into words which never had a detailed meaning in the first place and somehow find some inherent truth that no one ever put there.

Of course the notion fairness did not predate our language use. Creatures had certain beliefs prior to language use. I've no doubt those beliefs varied. Which collection were going to come under the umbrella of 'fairness' was determined by the language community using the word, and at no point in time did they ever sit down to thrash out exactly what it, or any other word really means.

Conventional definitions. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yeah, as Sushi says, with conventional definitions I can't see how the question makes sense. 'Unconscious' is a label given to those mental phenomena which happen (as in neural firing, or good evidence of it) without the subject being aware. So the mental phenomena requiring a label came first. We didn't first speculate that such phenomena might exist and then go looking for evidence of them, we had a whole load of mental phenomena which the subject didn't seem aware of and we came up with a label for them.

It obviously depends on what you're going to class as 'mind', 'concious' and 'phenomena'. Define the terms in a standard way and there's definitely unconscious mental phenomena. Define them in some idiosyncratic way to make oneself sound more interestingly eccentric, and you can deny anything you like.

In order to know that we must first know what our sense of fairness/justice consists of. — creativesoul

Our sense of fairness/justice consists of anything we want it to consist of. It's not a term that pre-exists humans making it up.

So, those particular experiments produced results that provide equal support for different reports/accounts of those experiments, particularly reports/accounts regarding the content of non human thought and belief. — creativesoul

I'm pretty sure none of the experiments made any judgement about the "content of non- human thought/belief. I don't think thought/belief is even the sort of thing that can have content, so don't even know what evidence for such would look like.

Decades of careful study and accounting practices largely informed by methodological naturalism, use of logical reasoning, and knowing what all thought and belief consist of. — creativesoul

Check out the argument from epistemic peers.

non human primates cannot make an agreement with you to do certain things and receive certain rewards. — creativesoul

Again, you know this how? From your decades of primate research perhaps?

Many of our conceptual models are inaccurate or limited, leading to conflict and error in how we interact with the world. — Possibility

And how would we know that?

the misattribution of uniquely human attributes to that which is non human. — creativesoul

Yes, that is what I'm asking you about. If my null hypothesis were that attributes such as a sense of fairness were not unique to humans, what kind of experimental result would force me to think otherwise. Or are you suggesting that something other than empirical evidence should force me to hold a different null hypothesis?

What does the dot experiment prove with regard to whether or not some non human animal can possibly use Bayesian reasoning, or have some sense of fairness/justice? — creativesoul

The dot experiment has nothing to do with non-humann primate abilities. You asked me about how they measured gaze directions with regards to conscious harvesting of inference-related data, it's a standard scientific technique, nothing controversial.

Are you walking back the earlier claim? You've recently denied offering the experimental results of the grape/cucumber trials as support for also saying that the participants were working from some sense of unfairness/fairness and/or justice/injustice. That denial is false. It contradicts what happened. You did propose such. — creativesoul

The results of those experiments are pretty vague. They rule out a few extreme theories at either end of the spectrum, but they could reasonably support a number of quite different theories. That's why there's still no consensus on the matter.

In order to develop a sense of justice/fairness, the candidate must perform a comparative assessment between what they expected to happen and what did happen. To do this requires naming and descriptive practices. That how one begins to become aware that they have a worldview. — creativesoul

And you know this how?

What's the difference between a non human primate's clear behavioural signs of discontent because they did not receive what they expected, and discontent as a result of having a sense of justice/fairness? — creativesoul

Nothing, you just said, discontent related to a sense of fairness would also be a form of response to not receiving what one expected.

I'm not really interested in this "prove it" attitude. Hundreds of intelligent and dedicated people have spent decades trying to iron out these exact differences by creating more subtle and controlled experiments. If you want to just come in without any technical background whatsoever and dismiss the whole enterprise on the basis of having skimmed through one or two papers on a subject you don't even fully understand, you're welcome to. I'm not going to be involved.

Ah, I see what you mean now. You mean "the artist must....in order to produce art" . I read it as "the artist must..." in the same sense as the non-artist simply trying to make inferences about the the object in general. My mistake.

What experiment would you set up to show that humans had this feature? — Isaac


I've been watching, reading, and listening to quite a bit.

Which feature? — creativesoul

You said "I found it rather odd that they chose some experiments/games which are not even capable of showing in humans what they are wanting the same experiment to show in non humans?", yet you seemed to be saying, in the rest of your posts (maybe I've got this wrong), that humans were unlike non-human primates in their abilities in this regard. So I thought you would have an experiment in mind which showed as much to your satisfaction, but maybe I've misinterpreted what you're saying.

On what ground does one make this last claim?

What metric does one use to distinguish between eye movements and eye movements in a particular direction for a particular purpose? How can signals be sent to move the eyes to see a tree that is nowhere to be seen? If it is nowhere there is no way to move the eyes in that direction.

The same could be said of any and all eye movement that may happen during the experiment. That's a problem isn't it?

The rest of that post seems to rest upon this notion of "signals sent to the eyes to move them in the direction of a imaginary tree." — creativesoul

The experiments were done with appearing and disappearing dots of ambiguous contrast with cameras facing the eyes that track movement. Subjects were first asked to focus on where they thought the dots appeared and followed a predictable pattern. the eyes tracked the expected appearance of the next dot before it appeared, or even when the dot was not in fact at the expected location. The subjects were then asked to imagine a particular layout of dots on the blank page and their eye movements mirrored those seen in analysing and predicting the real dots.

Every experiment is only moving us toward a better model, one better able to make predictions, a more elegant one, or one with fewer assumptions. You can tear anything down using "but how do they really know". If there's some alternative explanation you'd rather believe, then you're welcome to it. Personally, I think you'll run into contradictions with other models in other areas, but at the end of the day, I can't precis the whole of cognitive neuroscience here (though I appear to have tried) such that you'd be satisfied the explanation is a good one one respect to other experimental results, other working theories etc.

You can either accept it into your world-view, if you like it, take it on advisement as "oh that's interesting", if you remain unconvinced, or reject it entirely if it conflicts with views you hold dear. What I don't think is rational is to reject it on the grounds it hasn't removed all doubt. Nothing does.

The experiment involved the subjects observing two specific objects being placed into a particular container/box. There was more than one container. They showed their own surprise when they looked for themselves into the box and did not find what they were expecting to find.

Then, under similar enough circumstances(I suppose), they observed another looking into the wrong box and showed that that bothered them in some way. The speaker claimed that such displays proved somehow that they recognized that the other had a mind???

I found it rather odd that they chose some experiments/games which are not even capable of showing in humans what they are wanting the same experiment to show in non humans? — creativesoul

What experiment would you set up to show that humans had this feature?

From a more objective standpoint, it’s not an ‘illusion’, but an alternative subjective experience of the same reality. — Possibility

No, it's not just an alternative, it's the model which minimises variance. You're making the same unwarranted presumption Terrapin made about artists. The experiments about updating predictions in the light of ambiguous data conforming to Bayesian models was not done exclusively with non-artists. The mathematics behind free-energy limits based on requirements for self-organising systems to reduce entropy against probability gradients do not only apply to non-artists.

I can see how an artist might actively look for some alternative way of seeing something, Terrapin gave the example of the child drawing a table rectangular, whereas an artist would draw a parallelogram, knowing that a parallelogram (or trapezium) on the 2d page represents the table best. But the model of the table isn't more real in the artist's mind nor are these alternative models in the same field, one is how to negotiate the object in our spatiotemporal environment, the other is how to make marks on a page to best invoke such a table. Two different models with two different variance-minimising results.

We experience tactile, auditory and motor, as well as taste and smell and many kinds of somato-sensory visualizations I would say. Well, at least that's my experience. I suppose it's not a given that we are all the same. — Janus

Yeah, I agree. We can actually see a lot of this happening in the brain. When you imagine a tree, the visual cortex is engaged in a very similar way to when you actually see a tree. What happens next is (I think) quite remarkable. Signals are sent to the eyes to move them in the direction the tree would be if it were there. The brain is assuming a tree is there (because you created an image of one) and 'sending' the eyes to check. What happens then is you get feedback from the part of the cortex which delivers the primary visual input to say "there's no tree here" and you update your model from "there's a tree in front of me" to "I'm imagining a tree in front of me". The whole thing is then rationalised post hoc as 'imagining a tree'.

Interestingly, it seems that this is (at least partly) what is wrong with schizophrenics. They do not have the same primacy mechanisms for visual input. They 'see' a tree with their imagination, their eyes go looking for it, see nothing, but the brain then places primacy on the image in the forward driving part occipital cortex, not the data delivered by the eyes.

Anyway, that aside, all I meant - way back - when I said about being able to imagine a box without sides, is that 'imagine' does not have to be about visual images, it can be about concepts, feelings, thoughts etc. I may not be able to 'see' such a box in my mind's eye, but I can imagine how it might feel to be in a world where such a thing existed. Apparently, time slows down (or is it speeds up?) for atoms accelerated near the speed of light such that they decay faster (or slower) than the same atom type at rest. I can't imagine what's happening there, no picture I can form of it represents what the scientists say is going on, yet I do live in a world where such a thing is the case. If, one day it's made into technology, someone might say "pop your pizza in the slow-down-time machine and it'll keep for years", and I'd say "sure, fine" without having the faintest idea what's going on. It's the same with the box. I can imagine someone saying "going on a long trip, just pop all your stuff in the box-without-sides, it'll store everything", "wow, how does that work?", "It's multi-dimensional", "uhh-huh...just show me where to put the stuff".

What I had in mind was the "pop culture" version of mind reading, where you literally hear someone's thoughts the way they sound in their head. And that probably requires you to model their entire brain — Echarmion

Yeah, fair enough.

in order to gather more than just very basic emotions, you'll probably need to know a lot about the structure of the specific brain you're trying to read thoughts from, since you'd need to know the connections between neurons to determine what their activity means. So in that sense, the history of the brain is much more important to it's current state than the history of a chair might be. — Echarmion

I see where you're coming from, but there's more than just the very basic emotions hardwired into the brain from birth. The somatosensory map, for example. any of these things could go wrong, of course, so activity in one brain area cannot be said for certain to indicate some though or other, but I think that, if were talking about flights-of-fancy type theories, I would envisage mind-reading to be more than just activity in a particular brain region. It would have to entail recognising neural firing patterns, combinations of those patterns in the presence of a certain neurotransmitter make-ups, and all this within a recognisable brain architecture. I don't see any of that as being beyond the capabilities of a machine in theory though. Once these things can be recognised, history becomes less important, because the markers of that history are readable. History cannot have an effect without leaving some (theoretically) readable mark on the present.

Thoughts are bound up in the individual experience of whoever has them, and you cannot recreate them without copying the entire person. — Echarmion

The trouble with that approach is it seems to set an unreasonably high bar not consistent with other objects. No one has any objection to me talking about 'this chair' yet have I captured all that is this chair, it's history, it's place in my life, it's connections to other stuff in the world, it's fuzzy boundary at the fundamental particle scale? No. But it's just fine to talk about 'this chair' nonetheless. I don't see why 'this thought' should be treated any differently. I'm thinking broadly about a chair. Yes the exact nature of that thought is inextricably linked to my whole ecosystem (as we're discussing on the other thread at the moment). But insofar as "have this machine read thought X?" is concerned, I don't see any reason why a loose similarity should not be sufficient to answer "yes".

Sure, I can "visualize" a really loud noise. I can visualize a set of all sets as a container that contains all other containers. I can visualize myself as being lost. — Janus

But can't you, for example, imagine how you'd feel if you won the lottery? Surely there you'd be imagining a feeling, not an image? Even visualising yourself being lost, it's more than just the image isn't it? Doesn't it come along with feelings, thoughts you might have etc?

Sadly though, one researcher in particular(regarding rhesus or macaques) was drawing unwarranted/unjustified/invalid conclusions that amounted to the personification of the the animals(anthropomorphism). However, not all of them did nor do all seem prone to make such mistakes. — creativesoul

I'm not so sure personification is unwarranted. We immediately personify humans we meet and it would have been grossly incongruous, for example, for me to refer to my subjects as if they were empty machines when conducting experiments. At no point do we collate a hefty, impervious bank of evidence to back up such assumptions. As long as it isn't overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary, I don't mind a range of interpretations.

Anyway, glad you found something of interest. This thread has initiated a number of really interesting tangents.

Yeah, I think we're on the same page as far as the fact that models relate, but that doesn't in itself, lead to external world properties somehow having to inform them at some point. Our models only need to infer the cause of the input from one step outside their Markov blanket. The real state of affairs, whatever they are, may well be further back than that and our own system (to minimise variance) would only ever have to have a good, low variance model of the nodes immediately outside the Markov blanket of our conscious awareness.

When we look at those causes as part of some other system (as a scientist, for example) we have a different Markov blanket to work within, so the models may be different, but there's no reason I can think of why these nodes might be heirachical, like we getting closer to the 'one true source' each step we take. Each step is just a different game with different rules and different model will best satisfy them.

Minimize variance? The sympathetic nervous system dramatically throws the body out of equilibrium. The parasympathetic does also. Some systems resist change, some create it. How does that fit into your perspective? — frank

'Minimise variance' is quite specific to variance within modelled statistical distributions, not just any and all variance. One semi-closed system (say a single specialised brain cotex) may be quite at odds with another because they have fewer extrinsic connections than they do internal ones.

Looking at the sympathetic nervous system as a system its clearly trying to maintain homeostasis right? But it's a cybernetic system so it needs to disturb the internal state to respond to a equal and opposite external disturbance.

As when deciding to go with "minimizing variance" for a metric. — Terrapin Station

Minimising variance is a well-supported principle of self-organising systems. A large proportion of neuroscience, and significant sectors of biology are now based on the idea that systems aim to minimise variance as a means of maintaining equilibrium steady state, so unless you have anything substantive to counter that theory with contrary empirical data, then just saying it's 'without reason' seems a bit empty.

I was definitely misreading you as some kind of 'external world constructivist' or something. Interpretive bias on my part. — fdrake

Well yeah, constructivism is pretty much where I'm coming from,im afraid. I mean, there's varieties of constructivist, but in the sense of model-dependent realism and Von Glaserfield in psychology. So epistemological constructivism, yeah, hermeneutic constructivism...bit too far fetched for me.

the phenomenal character of our internal states being populated with representational entities that don't track the mechanisms that generate them (like an idea like "the will", which is sort of a conceptual feature analogous to a perceptual feature). — fdrake

Yes, absolutely with you there.

Like, when we see stuff, it's usually because it's there and reflecting light — fdrake

OK, so take light as an example. One model it's just the opposite of dark, the stuff that we see, visible light. But that's just a model-dependent division of a wider electromagnetic spectrum no reason (apart from our eyes) why 430-770THz has any external world significance. So we see some arbitrary sub-division of electromagnetism. But then electromagnetism is just a model of energy types based on subdivisions we imposed on the experimental data, different energy bands. Then the division between energy and matter...

We're tracking something, but any and all descriptions of that something are themselves just models, and there's only one player in that game.

Whether that's the case or not (that it's really minimizing variance with respect to other models), it would be arbitrary that you're going with "minimizing variance" as the metric. — Terrapin Station

I think you're not understanding the meaning of the word arbitrary. It just means on a whim, without a system or reason. Not without a system or reason that whomever you're speaking to happens to agree with.

Corrected the quote, doubt it helps though from the sound of it.

I’m afraid whatever you’re talking about bears no relation to phenomenology then. Semantics and linguistics are no the direct concern of the phenomenological investigation. — I like sushi

I'm not so much asking about the correct categorisation as just talking about what I see as the implications. You can call it what you like. The fact remains that introspection cannot determine anything about 'a box' that is not later necessarily mediated by the use of the term in our common language. I cannot find the defining features of a box in my mind, it is a category of my community of language users.

For what it’s worth it doesn’t make any sense to me to say we can understand the function of a box yet not know what a box is. — I like sushi

The first is specific, the other general. Token and type. I can understand the function of a box, or even every box I encounter or can imagine. None of that gives me the first clue as to what a box is and isn't as a type, for that I must consult my community of language users to see if I'm applying the term efficaciously.

In the neural model paper you linked me; there are external states with their own dynamics and outputs which are then integrated into ourselves, and modified by our actions. The external states are not phenomenal, nor are the effects of our actions on our environment. — fdrake

Yes absolutely. I fear we might be talking past one another here. I'm not in any sense arguing that there are not external states, nor that our internal states aren't tightly connected to them. What I'm concerned to avoid is an assumption that our phenomenal experience of our sense representations marks any natural or real division of those external states.

The difference is between saying there is a real box, and saying there is some reality part of which we can decide to refer to as a box. Hence my example with the floor/wall. When a floor becomes a wall is intrinsically linked to our form of life, it's not one or the other externally.

So, even though it's harder to imagine, I see the same being the case with 'steepness', or for that matter 'colour', 'spatiotemporal extension'... That defining this measure (as opposed to that) is similarly placing divisions in some general field of 'states of affairs' which are intrinsically linked to our form of life, and in this case, the biology with which we carry it out.

Are you suggesting that it is impossible to understand what a box is without the word box? — I like sushi

Yes, pretty much. I think it's possible to understand what things do, how we can interact with them etc without language, but 'a box' is a distinct(ish) category of thing, and that division arose via our language community, my investigations into the apparent features I can use to distinguish 'box' from 'not box' are all tied up. It's how I learnt what a box is and so it's the way my neural connections represent it.

Anyone can experience a box without sharing a common worded representation of box. It is the subjective of a box that matters. — I like sushi

Yes, maybe, but we're talking to each other here. It's not true to say anyone can experience a box without sharing a common worded representation of box to me, because in saying it to me you're relying on a common use of 'box' to imply some parameters. My private distinction of what a box is never gets a look in, it's never relevant. The moment I even conceive of distinguishing 'box' from 'not box' I'm doing so entirely in a social ecosystem, I'm doing so entirely to get the word 'box' right. "Is this 'box', how about this, or this". My thought is testing what the world of my language users will accept as 'box' in different contexts.

My subjective experience of 'box' is inextricably tied up with the language community.

OK, but consider you're walking along the floor in some weird house, your feature detection system is telling you the floor is not level, you check with your level and indeed it is at 30 degrees. You walk into the next room and your feature detection system tells you the floor is steep, you check and it is indeed steep, it's 60 degrees. You walk into the next room and your feature detection tells you the floor is astonishingly steep, you check and it's 90 degrees.

Only this last never happens, because a floor at 90 degrees is a wall. you've decided already that whatever you're experience tells you about the steepness floor, it's only allowed to tell you certain answers because a floor only has certain steepness values before it's not a floor anymore.

And this is not arbitrary definition. It's strongly correlated with the very somatic feedback which modulates our perceptual experience. At what angle does a very steep floor become a wall? The angle at which we can no longer walk on it without falling over. Would spiders distinguish between floors and walls?

Gotta have both, surely? Can't collapse represented into representation or modelled into model or signified into signifier. — fdrake

I think you can. All I'm saying is that what is 'represented' to our conscious awareness is itself a model. So to take your running example. The experience of running on a road - the steepness alone - is 'represented' to us as an already integrated part of our 3D spatiotemporal model. There is no actual steepness of the road because 'steepness' is a variable within our spatiotemporal model, not a property of the road. When we then, as neuroscientists, or psychologists, or philosophers of mind, try to understand how all this fits together we must form a model of these models, right? But to do so, we have only the same system to use. I cannot imagine 5D space, not because there's no such thing (it's mathematically possible, even physically possible according to some). I can't imagine 5D space because I don't have a system in the device I'm using (the brain) that can do that.

Likewise with discussing the limits to such an investigation as this. Phenomenological or otherwise. Certain answers are ruled out by the parameters of the device we're using to investigate, What I'm referring to as our model of models, but if that term is confusing we could just say the limits of the device, just like a spectrometer can't detect how load something is.

What else do think imagination is beyond forming images in some sense? Can you describe some further function? — Janus

Can you imagine a really load noise? Can you imagine the set of all sets? Can you imagine if you forgot where your home was?...

You're joking I hope! Otherwise you are massively overreacting. — Janus

Unfortunately not, but I do have an ear infection which is making me more than usually cranky (which is very cranky). I'm a little fed up in general, so adding glib rejections of decades of patient scientific research to my list of antagonists was all too easy. You have my apologies.

A model is a full-blown conceptualization, and I can't see any way to coherently think that doesn't require symbolic language.

Now, I said at the start that I have read of studies which seem to contradict the idea that chimps have a "senses" of fairness; but I am not claiming that they don't. They may have a sense of fairness (as opposed to a "model" of fairness and justice) but I remain unconvinced that even this has been definitively shown.

See this for example.

If you can point to a study that does definitely show what you are claiming and explain just how it does show that, then I would be interested enough to take a look. — Janus

I don't see there's much point in pursuing the evidence, If you're not convinced by the two articles I gave CS here, then I have nothing more. I suspect what we really disagree about is not the evidence (though you may be more persuaded one way and I the other), but the definition of 'model', and no amount of evidence is going to solve that.

Your reliance on language to form complex conceptions is, I think, mistaken. there must first be a referent before there is a referring word. The concept has to come first. A very advanced brain, I'll give you as a necessary cause, but language... I think you're subliming certain mechanism of thought into something more esoteric than they really are.

This isn’t quite what phenomenology is about. It’s not merely a matter of words that gives an object. — I like sushi

Yes, but it obviously seems that way to me otherwise I wouldn't have wrote what I wrote. It's not really much a contribution just to say "you got that wrong".

Subjectivity isn’t a give or take. Without subjectivity there is no phenomenon to initially apply worded thought. — I like sushi

I don't understand this sentence at all, any chance of re-wording it?

There's absolutely no grounds on that for calling something an illusion, though. It's completely arbitrary — Terrapin Station

->

Rather than doing so randomly, we do so by minimising variance with a whole host of other models too. The white square being the 'illusion' does this best. — Isaac

we'd need to explain why you went with one model over the other. You didn't do that yet. — Terrapin Station

->

I don't think it's possible to answer such a question from outside of a model, the closest I can possibly get to an answer would be from a model of how models obtain. That's why I chose that one. — Isaac

If you don't like my answers then fine, but it's pointless keep asking for them as I haven't given you any, we're just going tend up going round in circles that way.