The hallucinated cat is not a cat at all. The perceived cat is a cat. — Janus

On what grounds if both percepts are physical in the same way via the functioning of the brain. (To better drive the point home, I'll specify that the observer of the cat is not surrounded by others - and that he observes a cat which he has no reason to presume is a hallucination even though it is.)

I'm wondering how non-physicalism could support morality in any way that physicalism cannot, since that seemed to be your contention. You haven't attempted to address that question. — Janus

Via examples, the Platonic / Neoplatonic notion of the Good can only be a non-physical ideal - one that is nevertheless the ultimate reality. But please note: no law-giver created or else decreed the Good in either system of understanding. And such objective good requires an non-physicalist metaphysics. Wtih the occurrence of such an objective good then also is entailed an objective morality.

Because they are generally important to people, and because a society with moral principles that promoted general disharmony and suffering could not last long. It would necessarily be despotic. — Janus

I acknowledge the sentiment, but none of this is a rational grounding for what is good. Slavery was once generally important to people, for example. Would that make slavery morally good? And on what grounds would an Orwellian 1984 not last long? Besides, why is lasting long a good to be aspired toward within physicalism?

The philosophical analysis I was referring to was epistemology, so not directly related to "the real world or manufactured bubbles" - which is metaphysics. — Relativist

Epistemology is not directly related to the real world? I disagree.

Do we? It sounded like you were just defending the use of a definition of belief . — Relativist

I really dislike the idea of "absolute/infallible certainty" being something that anyone can hold. You affirmed that:

implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty. — Relativist

Which to me is not a position that a fallibililist can hold.

You sound pissed off, like when you (falsely) accused me of making a confrontational statement. I've simply tried to address things you've brought up, as honestly as I can. If my views piss you off, there's no point continuing. — Relativist

No, not pissed off, just in a rush. I appreciate your replies, but I've learned that there are certain impasses do discussions/debates. The discussion of what fallibilism is and entails can present itself as one such. To put it differently, unequivocal fallibilism devoid of exceptions is modernized terminology for Ancient Skepticism - which is contrary to Cartesian Skepticism. A long story that doesn't seen to belong on this thread. But, in this vein, I can well affirm that, "I fallibly know that in infallibly know nothing." If that makes sense to you, great.

The hallucination is a neural process and hence physical. Of course it is not a physical (real) cat. I see no inconsistency there but rather a conflation between the hallucination and what is hallucinated. — Janus

How is a distinction between the perceived physical cat and the perceived non-physical cat to be made when both are equally "neural process and hence physical" as perceptions?

I read it attentively the first time and I can't see what in a non-physicalist model the objective support for morality could be other than a lawgiver or else some kind of karmic threat of having to pay for transgressions. And again, I don't see how any of that could work absent the assumption of an afterlife. — Janus

There is here a warrantless conflation between lawgiver and afterlife. See, for example, Buddhism. I said "no" to your assumption of there being a deity (a law-giver) which ordains an objective good.

It would be grounded on human flourishing and social harmony. — Janus

And, within physicalism, why are these to be deemed "good"?

By "inconsistencies" I take it you mean that physicalism is not consistent with our "normal' intuitions about the nature of mind and consciousness and the subject? — Janus

No. I mean that phisicalism has internal inconsistencies of logical reasoning - mostly having to do with awareness.

The last unaddressed example I made in this thread was:

The question again was "are hallucinations physical?". So if a person hallucinates a stray cat running along their path, is the hallucinated cat physical?

As to perceptions being this and that in the brain, this will include all veridical perceptions just as much as it will include all non-veridical perceptions. So claiming that the hallucinated cat was caused by the brain does not resolve whether or not the hallucinated cat was physical as a hallucination per se. — javra

Anyway you've left those aside so are you saying that because (many or most?) people need to believe that moral laws are given by a higher (necessarily non-physical) power, physicalism in denying the existence of such a law-giver will lead to moral nihilism? — Janus

No. Reread what I've stated more attentively before replying and you might see how this assumption is unwarranted. All the same, thank you for putting it in the form of a question.

I don't think the idea of an objective moral good depends on a law-giver. — Janus

Yea, ditto.

What about the idea of living a good life. improving the lives of others. Do you believe that it's all pointless if there is no afterlife? It may be for you but I'm sure there are many people who don't think this way. Thinking this way is after all only a particular attitude or disposition not an objective truth. — Janus

And on what is this notion of what a "good life" is itself grounded, philosophically speaking within systems of physicalism? I'm not here addressing dispositions. I'm addressing logical reasoning.

I think your point is that you can believe X, but not be fully committed to it or completely certain of it. This is the way the word "belief" tends to be used in common conversation, but why force this vague concept into a philosophical analysis? — Relativist

There a rather long enough post in which I explained, to which you did not directly reply. What does philosophical analysis address? The real world or manufactured bubbles?

We commonly hear people expressing certainty as "I don't just believe it, I know it", implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty. — Relativist

Um, no, not "absolute - hence infallible - certainty". But it does mean that the belief can be justified without inconsistencies, thereby evidencing both its truth and that the knower can thereby confirm the truth of the belief.

Hell, we disagree galore on epistemology then. As I've previously stated, I'm a fallibilist. And since it's now evident that you are not, I now take it that you will uphold the possibility if not actuality of infallibility.

We differ significantly in this regard. I'll leave it at that.

Why would you want this?? — schopenhauer1

Given your shpiel, I can only assume this is an honest question. To answer honestly: because friendship reduces suffering. I'm pretty sure this is supported by the empirical sciences as well, something to do with dopamine and other neurotransmitters, improved longevity and quality of life, and some other such things. There's also the having help in times of need, to boot.

As to the risks, a news-flash: you risk your health by living. I already know your general conclusion, life is therefore bad. To be nice and polite, most life, humans included, disagree, with me included.

BTW, isn't this thread a bit hypocritical? You're doing the opposite of withdrawal by posting it.

I guess that answers that. Thanks

Withdrawal is preventative, but also a statement about not allowing oneself to inflict harms upon others. The key is to ensure that any contact is purely transactional- just enough to meet the basic requirements of existence, without letting it spiral into further emotional entanglements. — schopenhauer1

Is this to say that Agape, Philia, and the like are wrongs to be avoided and shunned? After all, if there for example is no "emotional entanglements" of friendship, then there is no possibility of undergoing the suffering of being betrayed by those you trusted as friends - nor is there the possibility of inflicting such wrongs upon others.

Not my cup of tea, this general outlook. But it does appear entailed by your conclusion: friendship is a vice rather than a virtue. Am I wrong in this inference?

Fuzzy logic involves reasoning with imprecise/vague statements. Alternatively, one can cast beliefs in terms of probabilities, and utilize Bayes' Theorem.

IMO, the best thing to do is to transform one's informal statements of belief into something precise, so the formalism can be applied. — Relativist

Out of curiosity, how do you deem any of these generalities you mention to touch upon the philosophical analysis of what beliefs are and are not - this in manners that don't make use of the No True Scotsman fallacy?

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Here, in parallel to your anticipated answer, my own philosophical appraisal of what belief in general is as presented in more precise terms:

- To believe X = via conscious, unconscious, or both means simultaneously, to impart or else endow the attribute of reality to X; i.e., to trust that X is actual and thereby real (where trust is itself understood as confidence in or dependence on)

- A belief = an instantiation of the process of believing just specified.

To my current comprehension, this definition of belief encompasses all possible instantiation of what can be referenced by the term "belief" without overgeneralizing. For one example, in the believe-that / believe-in divide this denotation will apply to all cases: e.g., To believe that extraterrestrials have visited Earth is to endow reality to (and thereby uphold the reality of) extraterrestrials having visited Earth, whereas to not believe that extraterrestrials have visited Earth is to not endow reality to this very same claim. In contrast, to believe in, for example, John's ability to pass the test is to endow reality to the future even of John's having passed the test via his efforts. It accounts for tacit beliefs just as much as it does for explicit beliefs. And so forth.

Hence, if (any degree of) reality is imparted to X by a psyche A, then X is believed (in due measure to the degree of reality one endows it with) by A. If no (degree of) reality is imparted to X, then X is not believed by A.

As such, beliefs need not be complete or absolute but can well be partial.

Does you precise definition of belief in general fair any better?

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@Wayfarer, my bad for this diversion from the thread's theme, but I don't have the time to create a new thread with this subject matter in manners where I could significantly participate.

However, for the sake of this thread's topic, I'll further tweak the above so as to emphasize that all beliefs - and hence anything that we can in any way take to be real - will be dependent on the occurrence of psyche. The physicality of our brains included, for one example.

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Edit: For improved clarity: by "degree of reality" I in the above strictly meant a shorthand form of "degree of likelihood and, hence, of probability that something is actual and thereby real". I'll leave this correction here rather than apply it to the body of this post.

I suppose it all depends on how one qualifies belief. Still, in ordinary life, when a guy is asked, "do you believe your team will win?" or, as a different example, "do you believe she'll say 'yes'?", the guy might well honestly answer with a categorical, "Hell yea!" (rather than with a, "well, it depends") ... yet without being foolish enough to presume that this honestly held belief is in a full blown correlation to a not yet actualized future reality. But I get it, this to you would not be a "strictly true belief". — javra

Philosophical analysis requires more precision than ordinary language often delivers. — Relativist

This is starting to overly deviate from the thread’s theme, but since you here invoke what philosophical analysis ought to consist of with a broad stroke … in a manner that could insinuate my own deviation from this ideal:

Sure, good philosophical analysis should strive for more precision than ordinary language provides, but to what effect?: When you say “a strictly true belief”, via the correspondence theory of truth, what you are technically specifying is “some given, some X, that strictly conforms to the reality of what a belief is” and which, thereby, is a genuine belief.

If you meant something other by the term “true” then please let me know.

So, then, ought a “strictly true belief” conform to a) the reality of a human concocted understanding of what beliefs are or b) the reality of belief as it occurs in the real world, fully including as it is expressed in ordinary language?

Seems to me that option (a) is a lousy way of doing philosophy, for it here can easily become thoroughly biased to certain human’s convictions rather than being as impartial (i.e., as objective) as possible - whereas philosophy ought to properly address in as impartial a manner as possible that which the real world consists of and, hence, in this particular case, that which was given as option (b).

In sum, what actuality/reality ought a “strictly true” belief conform to? To that actuality of certain humans’ abstractions regarding what beliefs are which exclude certain real-world applications (which can thereby be in keeping the No True Scotsman fallacy) or, otherwise, to that actuality of its various occurrences in the real world which encompasses all its applications, fully including the term's use in ordinary language? This, again, as regards proper philosophical analysis.

The approach I myself aspire toward is the latter rather then the former.

[...] This is why Bergson believed that clock time presupposes lived time.

This highlights how understanding “what exists” inevitably involves interpreting it through something that only a perspective can provide. In both Kant and Bergson’s views, the subjective experience of time is foundational, suggesting that any scientific or philosophical statement about existence must, knowingly or not, rely on this element of lived experience. — Wayfarer

:up:

So it is not strictly true that the guy believes his team will win. Rather, he believes it more likely than not that they will win, or that it is a near certainty, or some other probabilistic qualification. — Relativist

Using the same reasoning, then you'd claim that "it is not strictly true that I believe the sun will rise again tomorrow", this because I believe it more likely than not that it will, or that it is a near certainty, or some other probabilistic qualification. Being a fallibilist, then, I do not hold any "strictly true" beliefs. Yet, despite all this, the fact remains that I do believe the sun will once again rise tomorrow, as can be evidenced by my behaviors and preparations in relation to this belief - despite my not holding this belief to be certainty, but to instead hold a probabilistic qualification, such that it is, in technical jargon, more likely then not.

I suppose it all depends on how one qualifies belief. Still, in ordinary life, when a guy is asked, "do you believe your team will win?" or, as a different example, "do you believe she'll say 'yes'?", the guy might well honestly answer with a categorical, "Hell yea!" (rather than with a, "well, it depends") ... yet without being foolish enough to presume that this honestly held belief is in a full blown correlation to a not yet actualized future reality. But I get it, this to you would not be a "strictly true belief".

Then he doesn't have a categorical belief that his team will win. Rather, he believes it probable that his team will win. — Relativist

I'm not big on that distinction. For starters, as a falliblist, upon analysis all my beliefs are graded (probabilistic or else comparable) - this even though I will typically address them in the categorical "yes/no" format. Do I believe the sun will rise again tomorrow? My answer is "Yes," this barring the odd improbable occurrence, such as of a large meteorite hitting the Earth before then in a manner that makes the Earth shatter, or some such (this such that I will hold this one graded belief with a probability assignment - say of 99.999% or thereabouts). All this then makes the distinction between categorical beliefs and graded beliefs artificial, to my own ears at least.

All the same, the initial point you made was:

If a person believes X, then he necessarily believes X is true. — Relativist

My point was that this is not always the necessary case. Graded beliefs, when so dichotomized from categorical, being beliefs all the same.

I hope you understand why it's relevant. I absolutely believe there is an external world that exists independently of minds. I can't possibly accept idealism unless I drop this belief, and that would require a defeater (not just the mere possibility it is false). — Relativist

Are you then in search for infallible proof. I've none to give ... regarding anything whatsoever.

That's not what it means. A verdical belief is one that is actually true, i.e. it corresponds to an aspect of reality. — Relativist

Yes, I know what it means.

If a person believes X, then he necessarily believes X is true. — Relativist

This is not always the case in real life applications, most especially when it comes to beliefs regarding future facts. If John believes his team will win the game then he might bet accordingly while nevertheless having a great deal of doubt regarding this same belief. Here, a person believes X without necessarily believing X is true. To claim otherwise is to try to force-feed all real life instantiations of belief into a somewhat limited understanding of the term's denotation.

If the protagonist in the movie had hallucinations that he believed were false because his psychiatrists convinced him they were false, then the belief in their falsehood was an undercutting defeater of the (seemingly true) hallucination. — Relativist

The movie was based on real events. And he wasn't convinced by psychiatrists but by inconsistencies in the hallucinatory people he was observing and interacting with (namely, they were not ageing over time as they ought to have).

The point made seems to however not have been grasped: Until inconsistencies appear, no one has reason to believe that what they observe as an aspect of the physical world is in fact a hallucination - say, for example, a cat that one sees running across one's path. Which however does not entail the necessity that the last stray cat one saw was therefore not a hallucination (... hence being a non-veridical experience and belief regarding what is real). The only means we hold for discerning what is and is not veridical is justifications, which tend to not hold when inconsistencies are present.

The question again was "are hallucinations physical?". So if a person hallucinates a stray cat running along their path, is the hallucinated cat physical?

As to perceptions being this and that in the brain, this will include all veridical perceptions just as much as it will include all non-veridical perceptions. So claiming that the hallucinated cat was caused by the brain does not resolve whether or not the hallucinated cat was physical as a hallucination per se.

You would have to defeat my belief in an external, minds-independent world. — Relativist

That's a bit confrontational to me. And, as I previously expressed, I'm not interested in so doing.

As to your other replies, they sidestep the questions asked without providing answers. E.g. are non-veridical beliefs of themselves physical? BTW, to the person hallucinating X, the physical reality of X will be a veridical belief ... this up until the time reasoning might intervene (it doesn't always). The movie "A Beautiful Mind" makes a good point of that, for one example.

But I'll leave it at that.

There is no guarantee that physicalism is false. Nor is there a guarantee that it is true. The real issue as I see it is what does it matter? Why should we mind whether physicalism is true or false? — Janus

Hmm, because of its implications.

There a bunch of other reasons, but as one significant gripe I have with it (here placing its inconsistencies aside), if physicalism is true, then this will easily lead to - if it does not directly entail - moral nihilism. And it certainly does away with any possibility of an objective good.

... For example: Given phisicalism, everything sentient then necessarily ends in nonbeing wherein all suffering permanently ends upon their own corporeal death (we're atheists so this for us is a good thing to uphold - lest we suffer the encroachment of that diabolical theism crowd with their concepts of an anima mundi and such). Ergo, enduring the suffering of life with as much grace as possible when things get rough is stupid - and there is no ultimate good to aspire toward, well, other than one's personal death when life gets a bit too much. The abused, the tortured, etc? They too obtain this same salvation from all suffering via their own physical death to this world ... so when one places a bullet through a child's head under the cover of war one in essence is blessing the child with eternal peace and an absolute lack of suffering. Is so murdering a child right or wrong? Within systems of physicalism, there is no one right answer - either due to moral nihilism or to moral relativism.

... Kind of thing. And I say this as one who sometimes longs for the days when I used to believe that my corporeal death to this world meant my absolute nonbeing.

There's concrete shitty stuff happening in the world right now that bothers me, at times galore. And so the issues addressed tend to matter to me, in large enough part for this very reason regarding a proper grounding for ethics. ("God does everything" also not being anywhere near any such proper grounding.)

All this written a bit tongue in cheek, but I hope it might still get the general point across.

BTW, if it doesn't matter to you (as you sort of insinuate), then why bother replying to my post to begin with?

My pleasure. And yea, I myself like the concept of constructive empiricism as just outlined.

No. You expressing your judgement is not a reason for me, even with a vague allusion to some questionable assumption that it seems based on. — Relativist

Hmm. Physicalism can be defined as entailing that everything which does or can occur can only be physical in its nature. (In keeping with part of @Wayfarer's latest post:) There's a question which Darwin's Bulldog, the Agnostic who first coined the term "agnostic", Thomas Huxley, once placed which is to date yet unanswered: what is "the physical" (or else that "matter" from which one obtains materialism) defined as, exactly **. Yet, in overlooking this very awkward lack of coherent reasoning in affirming the stance of physicalism:

Mind in part consists of thoughts. How are thoughts physical? One can of course state that the thoughts of a corporeal sentient being would not be in the absence of the respective corporeal body. But this does not entail that the given thoughts - say of a unicorn or of Harry Potter - are of themselves physical. I can get that that objective rock over there is physical, but how is my concept of a unicorn (which I can mold, make appear, and make disappear at will, and which might not be significantly similar to your concept of a unicorn) of itself physical?

Or, by extension, we perceive physical realities, but then - given the entailment of physicalism - how is a bona fide hallucination of itself physical? Say, for example, someone hallucinates seeing a burning bush; is the burning bush which this person sees physical?

But if not everything that does or can occur is physical, then physicalism so defined can only be false.

Then there's the definition of physicalism where everything supervenes on the physical. Which carries its own multiple philosophical problems. But I'll leave it at that for now. All this just intending food for thought. I have little interest in convincing you to reject or doubt your beliefs - and currently far more interest in properly justifying my own.

My reply to this will be that of panpsychism - this in the sense that awareness pervaded the cosmos long before life evolved into it (i.e., in the sense that the physical is, was, and will remain dependent of the psychical). This conclusion for me, though, is only a deduction from the premise of a non-solipsistic mind awareness-created world. — javra

You're indicating panpaychism is a logical step beyond the "premise of a non-solipsistic mind awareness-created world." I'm just asking why should entertain that premise. — Relativist

a) If non-solipsistic idealism is true, this then entails that everything is ultimately dependent on psyche in one way or another. My own stance is that of an objective idealism wherein there occurs an objective world of physicality as effete mind that itself evolves - which, ultimately, would not be but for the occurrence of disparate psyches.

b) If we are to trust the information which the empirical sciences present us with regarding the objective world - which, in short, is an extension of our trusting our own empirical senses - then there indeed was a time when the cosmos existed in the absence of all corporeal, biological life.

If both a) non-solipsistic idealism and b) the occurrence of a world in the absence of all life are taken to be true premises, then it becomes entailed that the occurrence of psyche is not dependent on the occurrence of biological life. This while the occurrence of multiple psyches - else of psyche in general - is yet requisite for any physical world to occur (this as per (a)).

This entailment then can be labeled panpsychism (all-psyche-ism) - which, I'll argue, is a modernized rebranding of animism ("anima" being Latin and "psyche" being Greek for the same thing: in a word, "soul" - with the Latin "animus" and the Greek "nous" being used to address "mind"), from which one can obtain concepts such as that of the anima mundi, among others (hence, an anima mundi that occurred long before biological life came into being)

If your answer is that this feels right, and/or provides you comfort, I have no objection. I'm not trying to convince you that you're wrong. I'm just seeking my own comfort- I'd like to know if there are good reasons to think I'm deluding myself with what I believe about the world. — Relativist

:grin: I wasn't being fully literal, but, all the same, at the end of the day yes: we all seek some sort of comfort in that which we search for and end up holding onto. A different topic for a different thread, but all reasoning can be said to serve this underlying purpose. If we search for truths for example, we are discomforted by not finding them, or else by finding reason to belief that what we stringently endorse as true is in fact not true (at which time we might welcome the pain of the catharsis which grants us greater awareness via better understanding). To harshly paraphrase David Hume: reason-derived conclusions are always enslaved to the intentioning volition's drive of obtaining emotive satisfaction. In this sense, reason is then always a slave to passion. Which, in a way, can work its way back to the motif of this thread: all that occurs is ultimately dependent upon psyche. The very reasoning which psyches utilize as tools for the purpose of obtaining what is wanted included, or so I will uphold.

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** In fairness, T. Huxley, the staunch agnostic that he was, held the same complain against materialism that he held regarding an adequate definition of "spirit" from which one obtains the notion of "spirituality". Here's a quote from him to this effect:

My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same absurdity-the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter. — Thomas Henry Huxley

When I say "independent of minds", I mean that the world at large exists irrespective of the presence of any minds at all. I believe the universe is about 14B years old, and there were almost certainly no minds within it for quite a long time. Can you give me a reason to reject or doubt this belief of mine? — Relativist

Reasons such as these?:

That mentioned, I agree that the sometimes tacitly implied notion of physical reality being somehow metaphysically independent of the individual minds which, after all, are aspects of it—such that physical reality could be placed here and minds there without any dependency in-between—is a logical dud. A close second dud is the attempt to describe minds, and all their various aspects, as purely physical (such that, for one example, all ends one can conceive of and intend are all physical in their nature). — javra

Yes, I can provide them, but I don't think reasons will here much help. We are all typically attached to the notions we are habituated to hold, in this case that there was physicality long before there was any type of awareness, ergo physicalism.

My reply to this will be that of panpsychism - this in the sense that awareness pervaded the cosmos long before life evolved into it (i.e., in the sense that the physical is, was, and will remain dependent of the psychical). This conclusion for me, though, is only a deduction from the premise of a non-solipsistic mind awareness-created world. And I do not claim to have any great insight into how panpsychism works - nor into any metaphysically cogent explanation for how life evolved from non-life (the physicalist explanation that "it must have" doesn't much console me either as far as metaphysical explanations go - I find it just as comforting as the explanation of "God did it").

OK, thanks for your reply. We disagree in multiple ways. But, since I don't much feel like argument at the moment, I prefer to leave it at that.

How can an external world exist independently of human minds AND be contingent upon human minds?

Being contingent upon entails a dependence, does it not? — Relativist

Yes "contingent upon" entails "a dependence" but your fist question equivocates what I have been proposing. With the equivocation taking place between the notion of "all elements from a multiplicity of elements of type X" and "one (or some) element(s) from a multiplicity of elements of type X - but not all". As an added example of this:

The presence of a heap of sand will be contingent upon, and hence will depend on, the presence of a multiplicity of sand particles in general - which are structured in a particular way. But it will not of itself be contingent upon the presence of any one particular sand particle, such that the heap of sand will remain present even if individual sand particles are taken away or added to it. No one sand particle on its own produces, or else equates to, the heap of sand. And so the heap of sand will occur independently of (i.e., will occur without being contingent on) any one individual, particular sand particle that partakes of the heap of sand. Take that one sand particle away and the heap of sand remains. The heap of sand can then be said to exist independently of any one individual sand particle from which it might be composed but, simultaneously, will be dependent on the occurrence of a multiplicity of sand particles in general. One could then incrementally replace each and every particular sand particle in the given heap of sand with the heap of sand persisting to occur unaltered throughout - even though it becomes constituted by utterly different sand particles. And the larger the heap of sand is, the less any alteration in its particular sand particles will make any meaningful difference to the identity, or else properties, of the heap of sand itself.

Replace "heap of sand" with "the physical world" and "individual sand particles" with "individual minds". The same relations will hold. This can thereby lead to the logically valid affirmation that, in a non-solipsistic mind-created world, the physical world occurs independently of me and my own mind, even though it will be dependent on the occurrence of a multiplicity of minds in general.

What we can conclude from the assumption that solipsism is false, is that there must be something which separates one mind from another, some sort of medium. But we cannot exclude the possibility that the medium is an illusion, or mind-created, as a sort of deficiency in minds' ability for direct communication with one another. — Metaphysician Undercover

And, at minimum, part of the medium you address has to be physicality, aka physical reality - that same physicality of which our brains are made up of and which when damaged disrupts the functioning of our minds. In an Eastern train of thought wherein all but either the atman or the anatman (depending on philosophical perspective) is maya and hence illusion (i.e., "a magic trick"), yes, all aspects of this medium with partitions awareness into discrete parts (e.g., me and you, etc.) can be deemed mind-created illusion - including all of physical reality. But so entertaining goes far deeper, I believe, than claiming physical reality to be on par to something one hallucinates or else can imagine at will or so forth. As individual first-person points of view we are all bound to the physicality that surrounds, and our very lives are dependent on there being a sufficient degree of conformity to it. This even if it is to be considered pure maya (i.e., pure illusion in the sense of a magic trick).

This one doesn't make sense to me. What is a "drop of water"? Why can't we say that the ocean is a single drop of water? And to me, "a drop" is an isolated quantity of water, so it makes no sense to talk about a body of water as if it is made of drops. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I've already acknowledge the analogy was imperfect and less then ideal. Still, a drop is typically understood as that amount of liquid which might remain intact and maybe fall as such from a stick which had been placed into the liquid. Place a stick into the ocean, lift it up, and one will remove drops of water from the ocean. But yes, it was and remains, again, a very rough analogy. Sorry to hear it didn't make any sense to you.

Sorry javra, I just cannot understand what you are saying here. This is what I get from it. If there is a complete absence of minds, then there is also the complete absence of a physical world. In that sense there is no mind-independent word. However, if there is so much as one mind (or a multitude of minds), then there must also be a mind-independent.

So how does the existence of a mind (or multitude of minds) necessitate the existence of a mind-independent world? If it is the existence of a mind, (or minds), which necessitates that world, how can it be a mind-independent world? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yea, the "how does a plurality of minds necessitate an objective world which is constitutionally determined by them" part is not that easy to tersely express. But importantly, if no solipsism then, necessarily, the world can only be brought about by a multitude of minds - and not by a sole mind. If there are a plurality of minds which constitute the world, then the disappearance/death of any one mind from the world will not entail the disappearance/obliteration of the world itself - for there are yet other minds from which the world remains constituted. So the world occurs in manners not dependent on any one particular mind.

I don't deny that there would be something outside my own mind, what I called the "medium" above. But why conceive of this as "a world", or "a universe", or even "reality", as all these refer to mind dependent things, if you want to think of the medium as mind-independent? But, since I believe in the reality of numerous minds, there is nothing to persuade me that the "medium" is not something inside another mind, therefore not mind-independent at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

To be clear, are you then saying that if the so-called "medium" of physicality in total - to include my physical body and its brain - is not something that is an aspect of my own mind it would then need to be something the occurs as an aspect of some other individual mind?

As to the initial question, (I take it that) there is an actuality, or set of actualities, which affects all observers equally irrespective of what the observes believe, perceive, imagine, want, interpret, etc. This I then term the objective world (objectivity can well mean impartial, and this set of actualities in being as just described would then be literally impartial in complete manners to all observers which are thereby subjected to experiences, i.e. to all sentient beings as subjects, aka as subjective beings).

Do you deny there being actualities which occur irrespective of what any one individual sentient being intends, believes, and so forth?

I'm guessing at the end of the day we'll end up disagreeing. but I'm still honestly curious to hear your replies so as to better understand your point of view.

We obviously perceive space and time, so why doubt that this is an aspect of the actual world? The mere fact that we have a perspective does not entail that this perspective is an illusion. — Relativist

Not to dispel the question you've posed, but only to observe that the way in which it is posed the issues are lot more complex than not.

Our perception of time sometimes drastically differs from that time we commonly deem to be objective, with the latter being measured via use of objective/physical tools, by which I mean anything from sundials to clocks. As one example of this, when we are forced into an event we are bored with time will slow down (relative to objective time) and when we find ourselves engaged in an event we are enthralled by time will speed up or fly by (relative to objective time).

So our time perception is not necessarily an adequate representation of the time that occurs in the actual world.

This can then go in any number of different ways - but please note that I am not by this denying the reality of an objective time as previously addressed (which for me is another can of beans altogether (especially since I take objective time to be relativistic)). Nor am I by this then claiming that that aspect of reality we can term objective time is not of itself ultimately dependent on the co-occurrence of a plurality of minds.

I really can't understand what you are saying here javra. Perhaps you could rephrase it? — Metaphysician Undercover

Fair enough. I'll try. First, we all know in our heart of hearts that solipsism is false. Therefore, ours is not the only mind that currently occurs in the world. Given this fact, we then entertain the metaphysical reality/actuality that there can be no world in the absence of minds (in the plural).

Via one convenient though imperfect analogy: We all know that an ocean is not one single drop of water. Given this fact, we then hold the conviction that there can be no ocean in the absence of individual drops of water from which the ocean is constituted.

So the physical world is itself here taken to be determined from the constituency of a plurality of individual minds - without which there can be no physical world. In rough parallel, an ocean is taken to be determined by the constituency of a plurality of individual drops of water - without which there can be no ocean.

Then, just as the given ocean will continue to occur independently of any one individual drop of water from which it is constituted, so too will the physical world continue to occur independently of any one mind from which it is constituted.

Take all individual drops of water away and no ocean remains. Take all individual minds way and no world remains. But adding or removing one drop of water from the ocean does not alter the ocean in any meaningful way. In like enough manner, adding or removing one mind from the physical world does not alter the physical world in any meaningful way.

The ocean is then drop-of-water-independent when it comes to any one individual drop of water from which it is constituted (or even from a relatively large quantity of individual drops of water - say as can be added by a hurricane or else removed by evaporation, etc.) - this even though the same ocean is drop-of-water-dependent in the sense that no ocean can exist in the complete absence of such.

In a roundabout way, the same can then be upheld for any non-solipsistic idealism: the physical world is mind-independent when it comes to any one individual mind (or any relatively large quantity of minds) - this even thought it is mind-dependent in the sense that no physical world can exist in the complete absence of minds.

This explanation via analogy is less then ideal by my appraisal, but it does I think adequately enough illustrate the necessity that in a non-solipsistic idealism (wherein the physical is thereby dependent on the psychical) the physical world will be independent of, say, my mind or your mind ... or any other individual mind or non-global-cohort of such for that matter.

As one possible summation of this, within any non-solipsistic idealism, there will necessarily be an external world that occurs independently of me and my own mind.

That doesn't address the issue I raised.

I believe there exists a world (AKA "reality") independent of minds. I also believe nearly everyone agrees with me. — Relativist

If you re-read what was my initial reply to MU, you'll see that I also believe there exists a world independent of individual minds, and so I too agree with you on this count - even if, as the case is, I simultaneously believe this same world is contingent on the occurrence of mind as a generality.

So I'm not sure how to further reply.

I think the idea of a mind-independent reality is really incoherent. Reality is something which minds create, as pointed out by the op. If you try to imagine the world as existing without any point-of-view, from no perspective at all, it becomes completely unintelligible, so it cannot be imagined. That's because "reality" as we know it, is point-of-view dependent. So the idea of a mind-independent reality really is incoherent. — Metaphysician Undercover

If what is addressed by the term “reality” (I presume physical reality which, in a nutshell, is that actuality (or set of actualities) which affects all minds in equal manners irrespective of what individual minds might believe or else interpret, etc.) will itself be contingent on the occurrence of all minds which simultaneously exist—and, maybe needless to add, if the position of solipsism is … utterly false—then the following will necessarily hold: reality can only be independent of any one individual mind. As it is will be independent of any particular cohort of minds—just as long as this cohort is not taken to be that of “all minds that occur in the cosmos”.

Which is to say that reality will be independent of individual minds in a so-called “mind-created cosmos” (just as long as it’s not solipsistic).

That mentioned, I agree that the sometimes tacitly implied notion of physical reality being somehow metaphysically independent of the individual minds which, after all, are aspects of it—such that physical reality could be placed here and minds there without any dependency in-between—is a logical dud. A close second dud is the attempt to describe minds, and all their various aspects, as purely physical (such that, for one example, all ends one can conceive of and intend are all physical in their nature).

"I've said, I don't deny the reality of there being an objective world, but that on a deeper level, it is not truly mind-independent." - Wayfarer

These two clauses seem to be contradictory. If there is an objective world external to ourselves, then it exists independent of our minds. — Relativist

Just say this quibble between you and @Wayfarer. As I've just tried to illustrate, the quibble can be resolved by differentiating "mind" as generality (which occurs wherever individual minds occur) and "mind" as one concrete instantiation of the former (such that in concrete form minds are always plural and divided from each other) ... this in the term "mind-independent". Physical reality is not mind-independent in the first sense but is mind-independent in the second sense, this in any system of (non-solipsistic) idealism wherein the world is contingent upon the occurrence of minds.

I already acknowledged that the force was known but not the (scientific) explanation for it. — Janus

The (scientific) explanation allows for no exceptions. How could the force of gravity have been known prior to the force of gravity being discovered - before which exceptions to the force of gravity were granted (again, as per flying witches)?

There are no two ways about it. Human exceptionalism stinks. — Janus

That's not an enumeration of how humans are lesser than non-human animals. It also completely overlooks what I've previous addressed, namely: the far greater powers and cognitive abilities of humans relative to all other known animals. As though there is no comparative value to be found in these. As you say, :roll:

Again I disagree. The force was known. It would have been observed everywhere and even felt in the body. What was different was the explanation for the force. — Janus

And I again disagree with your disagreement. With one reference already provided in support of this. The notion of gravitational force as a scientific law was unknown until the 17th century, right about Newton's time. Before that, it was conceivable by people that witches could fly on broomsticks - but not afterwards (at least not by those who ascribed to this newly discovered force of gravity). Do you have any references to the contrary?

What you've said there boils down to saying that no other animals have symbolic language. — Janus

No, it doesn't. It boils down to lesser animals being of lesser value in comparison to humans. One can kill a mosquito without qualms but not a fellow human, kind of thing.

Well we are lesser than other animals in many different ways. Need I enumerate them? — Janus

Are you addressing things such as "humans are of lesser height (than giraffes, for example)" or that the individual human is of lesser value than the individual non-human animal?

If the first, it's already known. If the second, please do enumerate at will ... such that the life of some non-human animal is to be valued more than the life of a human.

Gravity defined simply as the tendency of things to fall was and is experienced by everyone. It is hardly something one could be unaware of. Speculations about it and the other things you mention are not in the same class for the obvious reason that the other things would not have been common experiences or to be skeptical even experienced at all. — Janus

Sure, but neither does this dispel that the force of gravity was unknown till a few centuries back nor does it in any way differentiate humans from non-human animals (which was sort'a my point): both commonly experience the tendency of things to fall. That stated, do you then claim that non-human animals know about gravity?

lesser animal — javra

:roll: — Janus

I've already made my case for this terminology here.

Can you think of a scenario with a rational thinker who doesn't know about gravity? — Patterner

The scientific sense of the term "gravity" which we now make common use of is first recorded in the early 17th century. Yes, people before this mused about why things fall back down to Earth, but then you also have musings about witches flying on broomsticks, people walking on top of water, yogis levitating in the East, and the like. So, among many other possible examples, I'll answer that that first hominid (or group of such) that invented the wheel was just such a case of rational thinking unaware of what we now know to be (the physical force of) gravity. But then neither has any lesser animal that has ever calculated a jump been aware of gravity.

Going to a train station at a certain time every day for ten years, expecting to see a certain man get off the train, even though that man has not gotten off the train once in the 3,650 days you were there in the last ten years, is not rational. — Patterner

And yet many a rational human yet plays the lottery hoping for the big win - this sometimes for well over a ten-year span during which no such win has occurred. Is it rational to deny the possibility of winning the lottery? Or, given the entailed limitations of knowledge, the possibility that the person who used to get off the train at such and such time and location will someday once again appear as they did previously?

In a way, I write this to point out that rational thinking includes inductive and abductive thinking, which are far less certain than deductive thinking.

A question I ask out of curiosity:

In my own appraising that many a lesser animal has the capacity for forethought: What forethought can occur in the absence of any and all rational thinking - this as regards the present and past so as to best infer the future?

and also, Aristotle's 'De Anima', translated as 'On the Soul'. I love the connection between Anima, Animal, and Animated. — Wayfarer

Aye. Me too very much so. To be fair, Aristotle spoke in Ancient Greek whereas "anima" "animal" and "animated" are Latin based. But the associations are fairly blatant to understand, at least from where I stand.

A controversial thought, but if incorporeal beings of far grander stature - here thinking of polytheistic deities or else angels and archangels - were to be, what else would they be but more universal animas (souls) whose animus (mind) would be that much more evolved than any human's? Hence, if one were to entertain a great chain of being, it would start with the anima of bacteria or thereabouts and progress onward through the anima of humans into animas whose bodies of Logos would consist of non-physical Logos. No stark metaphysical divides anywhere to be found, just differences of degrees that then result in classifications of different kinds. This difference in kind amid an every fluid scale of degrees being in keeping with one nature of Logos being that of ratio-ning one something from the other.

This, of course, is just one hypothetical to be found among many others - that of an utter non-spirituality included. But I'm here intending to draw attention to the realty that there needs to be no sharp metaphysical divide in being/anima/psyche anywhere from bacteria all the way to deities in order to entertain views such as those professed by many a spiritual reality, both Western and Eastern.

Not sure how this thought will fly hereabouts. For the record, I'm not here endorsing any theology, but I am endorsing an absence of sharp metaphysical divides between all "animated" beings that coexist. And that this can just as easily apply to materialist interpretations of biological evolution as it can the concepts regarding the great chain (or, more aptly, ladder) of being. But, hopefully, I'm just preaching the the choir in saying all this.

What is needed is engagement of a particular kind, so that one can grasp that animals in many ways will engage with us in many (but not all) of the same ways that we engage with other people.

[...]

That's very vague, but I'm trying to gesture at the idea that this is not just a matter for abstract reason. It's about how to live with beings recognizably like us. After all, that's how we come to treat people as people and not "just" animals". — Ludwig V

... else how we come to understand that we ought not treat any other group of people as sub-human animals ... neither granting leeway to those who deem this to be so on "Nature-given" grounds or on "God-given" grounds, for both streams of reasoning leading to this same mentioned conclusion can, when more impartially addressed, only be utter bullshit. Black and Whites, for one example, being equally evolved not just biologically but also in their intellectual abilities - socioeconomic constraints of the current world aside.

All this maybe being a different set of issues for a different thread. But I very much liked your post. Thank you for it.

:grin: Yea. I think I've already mentioned in this thread that I often muse of lesser animals being nothing more and nothing less then lesser "anima-endowed beings" ... which, if one gets the gist of this train of thought, would then also entail their having their own lesser animus - this by comparison to that of humans.

IOW, a lot like us, which is why we love them. — Vera Mont

:grin: :up:

And very interesting to me. Do you have more to share about animals and laughing? That surely involves a degree of thinking. But what is thinking without words? — Athena

I guess I do, but then much of it wouldn't be in keeping with this thread's topic. To make things more philosophical, though, first off no human concept is perceptual. I make a somewhat more in depth argument for that here - although the chapter in general is not the easiest of reads. The very concept of "animal" for example has no look, no tactile feel, no smell, taste, and no sound. Yet we understand the concept nonetheless and, in English use, associate the auditory, visual, or tactile (for the blind) symbols of "animal" as a perceptual word to the non-perceptual concept we associate the perceptual word to. In like manner "3", and "III", and "three" are all perceptual givens that reference a commonly referenced fully non-perceptual concept.

Words of course allow us the ability to manipulate concepts to great extents. But words are not required for concepts to occur within anyone's awareness. If words were sufficient for expressing all concepts, many if not all artistic manifestations would be direly redundant.

To again address lesser animals, my last dog, for example, had no problems in understanding "(go) inside" and "(go) outside" in relation to particular rooms, the house itself, the car, etc. And this is a relatively complex concept, for it addresses relations between non-specifics. It's no big deal nowadays to claim that lesser animals, dogs included, gain a theory of mind as they mature: My first dog, whom I greatly loved (just like the other two) and who did have an Alpha personality (a Bouvier des Flandres weighing 120 pounds healthily) knew how to (try to) deceive us. I'd say "come" at a distance after he'd misbehaved and he'd sit his ass on the ground and calmly stare in all directions except toward me, as though he was not hearing what I was saying. I've got far better anecdotes of deception but these would take far longer to tell. At any rate, a theory of mind can only be conceptual - addressing the conceptualized perspectives of the other mind and how to act and react relative to these, such as when attempting to intentionally deceive the other. Other than maintaining that lesser animals are automata (wherein one encounters the philosophical problem of other minds as it applies even to other humans), there's no reason to infer that lesser-animals are devoid of conceptualizations and hence of concepts.

Great apes exhibit eureka moments - which don't occur absent thoughts. An example I hastily found:

The young female gorilla watched another older male attempt to collect ants from a hole in the ground, only to see the ants bite his arm, scaring him away. The female gorilla tried to put her own arm in the hole, and she too was bitten. But instead of giving up, the young ape then had her very own ‘eureka’ moment. She looked around for a suitable implement, and selected a piece of wood approximately 20 cm long, tapering from 2 cm wide at one end to 1 cm long at the other. She then inserted the stick into the hole, withdrew it, and licked off ants clambering over it, avoiding being stung. — http://www.virunganews.com/wild-gorilla-creates-a-food-tool-in-eureka-moment/

The one example I distinctly remember from undergrad studies was of a chimp faced with a banana hanging from a rope - this in a taken video. He stood there in the yard for a few minutes appearing to do nothing after trying and failing to get the banana. Then he all of a sudden stood up without hesitation and purposelessly walked to collect a few items which he next put under the banana in a pile, then climbed on top of, and then proceeded to easily take the banana from the string.

As to humans and our purposeful fire use, I know bonobos did not invent the match stick, but check this out all the same:



One can of course try to bend over backwards to explain this factual occurrence as having consisted of no concepts and thoughts on the bonobo's part, but I'd find it more ontologically believable if one were to try to stipulate that this one bonobo was actually an extraterrestrial alien which had descended form a UFO and took the disguise of a bonobo for fun (and I wouldn't be all that enamored with the latter explanation).

Human language creates a scaffolding for greater concept manipulation, and hence for far more abstract levels of thought than any lesser animal is capable of. But language is not required for either acquired concepts or thoughts.

So, what is thinking without words? I'd say it consists of forethought regarding what one best do given two or more alternatives so as to actualize that which one wants, hence intentions, hence holds as a goal. And to claim that this must then be utterly unemotional in order to be valid reason, or rationality, is to be full of self-hypocritical baloney: no human that has ever been has ever found themselves in states of rational thought utterly devoid of some emotion or other, be it contentment, curiosity, or some other.

Well, that's my overall take on this thread's subject at least. But, to be honest, I get bored in repeatedly presenting the same facts regarding lesser animal's observed behaviors - as just one measly example, that dogs can understand hundreds and great apes thousands of words, with each word entailing its own understanding of a concept - to only find these same factual presentations repeatedly overlooked for the sake of the given counter argument.

...something that might anecdotally be termed a sixth-sense. — javra


I rather fancy the idea that there might really be a kind of field effect, analogous to but different from electric fields, that is only detectable to organisms. Maybe something like the akashic field, or the morphic field. — Wayfarer

:up:

do other animals laugh? — Athena

BTW, one can easily find a bunch of videos and articles on great ape laughter online via a search for "great ape laughter" or some such. When its intense enough, it often enough sounds like a broken up yell or scream, which if not broken up vocally would indicate a good deal of aggression, canines exposed as a form of intimidation and all (apes can do a lot of harm with them). This being in tune with laughter (and what is in ethology termed the "play face") being non-verbal forms of communication that have evolved from emotions and states of mind associated with playing - which in essence almost always involves some sort of mock conflict and, hence, often, mock aggression. This approach then will hold human laughter to be a non-verbal communication of mock aggression which, then, can be either pleasant or unpleasant to undergo, depending on contexts. E.g., the difference between laughing at the absurdity (i.e., laughability) of an idea someone expresses or of otherwise laughing at the worth of the very person themselves. (my independent research and experiment projects as an undergraduate concerned this and like topics, pivoting on the evolution of the human smile; interesting stuff to me)

There's a dissonance between those two statements - not exactly a contradiction, but close. How do you get from one to the other? — Ludwig V

I've tried to illustrate what I've stated and so far uphold via examples. Using those previously provided, on what grounds would you disagree that a bacterium is a different kind of lifeform relative to an ameba? ... This despite their being evolutionary continuity in-between (most of which is now extinct) and, hence, , for example, degrees of awareness-ability between the two otherwise distinct lifeforms.

That looks very like trying to have your cake and eat it. — Ludwig V

Even so, see the just mentioned.

Yes. Whether there is anything substantial behind it is an interesting question. But if they do, they are superior to us in that respect. Just as homing pigeons and other migratory species have superior navigational abilities to us (in that they don't require elaborate technologies to find their way about the globe). So why do you insist that they are lesser? — Ludwig V

To address the first portion of this, not all lesser animals (say all cats or all dogs) give evidence of something that might anecdotally be termed a sixth-sense. This just as not all humans experience events that might anecdotally be termed a sixth-sense. (Example, one of my grandmas occasionally had REM dreams which she interpreted in ways such that she was certain of things that would occur in the future and, generally to the best of my knowledge, she was able to - coincidentally or not - predict some future events in this way. Tangentially, this can get into a more in-depth philosophical question, one for which I have no answer: how many co-incidences does it take to make one entertain the possibility of a causal connection?)

As to why lesser animals (rather than, say, fellow animals of equal status to us): to mention just one pivotal reason, no other known lifeform, either as an individual self or as a collective, has a total selfhood (hence, a body-mind totality of being) which is anywhere near in holding the same degree of power - by which I here strictly mean "the ability to do and to undergo" - that human selfhood holds ... and, one would hope, the same then entailed degrees of responsibilities for this very same power. And this despite the sometimes extensive range of perceptual abilities which humans are not endowed with but which some lesser animals are: to include magnetoception (e.g., pigeons), electroreception (e.g. sharks), infrared sensing (e.g., certain snakes - which ought not to be confused with vision (e.g., with our use of infrared binoculars)), and so forth.

Of course lesser animals hold concepts of which they experientially learn. No mature canid or feline, for example, is devoid of an understanding of what is and is not their territory - and this can only be a non-concrete but abstract understanding regarding concrete percepts, and, hence, a non-verbal concept. But their concepts come nowhere near the complexity and magnitudes of the concepts humans can entertain. And, with us being a species other than the other species out there, we are of a different kind, despite the evolutionary continuity addressed.

But all this ties into notions of value. There are two senses of being "evolved". "An adult human's mind is more evolved that that of an infants" - is one such usage. Here, whatever the standards might be, an adult human's mind is closer to these standards than is that of the infant's. In this same general sense, humans are more evolved than bacteria as lifeforms. The other notion that stands at a stark crossroad to this is that of "evolved" signifying "adapted to the ever-changing physical reality all life on Earth inhabits"; and in this second sense of the word, all life presently living is equally evolved, bar none. Evolutionary biologists know of this second sense of the term all too well, but even an evolutionary biologist will not hesitate to kill a mosquito, for example, in some sort of then rather twisted belief that the mosquito's life is of equal value to the life of a human. An individual mosquito is then of lesser value than an individual human - thereby again leading to the term "lesser animals" (or, as I like to sometimes muse, lesser "anima-endowed beings").

To be fair Eliade makes it pretty clear he is talking about Shamanism not shamanism - as in not the true name associated with Siberia but a global phenomenon. — I like sushi

Yes, true, thanks of the embellishment. Yet the term "shamanism" - rather than witch-doctor or medicine-man for example - does originate in the Siberian region. From best recollections: This together with the interpretation of the shaman initially leaving the village where he becomes a type of outcast, then there being ripped to shreds by the spirits and deities till all that is left is his bones, wherein he is considered to be dead yet still spiritually living, then needing to reassemble himself as a living person (a time and phase traditionally termed "special" insanity), then after having healed himself (and presumably the spirits that surround) reentering the village as a bona fide shaman. Certain Australian Aboriginal mythoi can be likened to hold similar general accounts but here they will be a multifaceted singular jewel remaining rather than the bone (upon which the flesh and skin is attached). One can find a similar enough mythos in the Ancient Egyptian story of Osiris - who was cut into innumerable pieces and then reassembled by the goddess Isis. If find all such accounts - which, as Eliade illustrates, can be quite global - to symbolically describe ego-death and one of its potential aftermaths. All the same, shamanism as previously just described is, tmbk, specific in its origins to the Siberian region. I'd gladly accept being corrected on this, though.

[Edit: JC's wanderings about in the desert and the Buddha's near starvation under a tree could each likewise be likened to a type of such shamanistic experience, else of ego-death - such that, for one example, the individual in each case was tempted in a plethora of ways away from "enlightenment" by the spirits that surrounded. And after their enlightenment/revelation/personal-apocalypse (i.e., unveiling of truth) they then walked back into their respective village, so to speak. But I nevertheless have a very hard time in then addressing either individual as "shaman" ... this largely due to the connotations the term tends to hold. At any rate, since I was already opining ... :smile: ]

I think I see where you are slightly misunderstanding what I am saying. This is why I tried to steer clear of one particular example. The story is the competitive element here NOT the personhood. — I like sushi

I'm by no means one to shy away from or else deny the role of competition in the evolution of ideas. Still, to be concise about things, I do find that there often occurs a bifurcation when it comes to competition: on one hand there is competition for the benefit of one's ego (which often is unconcerned for underlying truths, say akin to ancient sophistry) and on the other there is competition for the benefit of greater understanding of truths, if not of Truth with a capital "T" (which often deems the welfare of one's ego to be of a secondary importance, if even that much). Empirical scientists of today all compete, for a more concrete example, but while some compete for the sake of status or financial profit, in short for greater "power-over" (and thereby sometimes twist if not fabricate truths :cough: those who deny global warming :cough:) all those with sincere interest in their profession compete cooperatively for the sake of better uncovering truths, this for the sake of obtaining a type of "power-with" (such as in relation to the scientific community at large, if not for the sincere benefit, and hence increased power, of all humanity). It to me seems to only be in this second sense that anyone can in any way be competing with their own selves for optimal discovery (pushing themselves harder, so to speak, toward this end).

To the extent this generalized (and I grant, likely oversimplified) perspective is granted, I then doubt that egotists' sophistic competition for new ideas can lead to improved reasoning anywhere near as much as the sincere hunt for the truth(s) that await to be found, both physical and metaphysical. The very same overall dichotomy I'd then ascribe to humanity's history of conceptualizations regarding divinity, or spirituality, or god/s. Some emerged out of competitions for power-over others and yet others emerged out of competing views, competitions to this extent, for what is genuinely true - such that truth (and thereby awareness of what is real) becomes the prize that is to be won (and not an ego's greater power-over that which is other which bolsters one's magnitude of egoism). And, of course, there then can be rivalry galore between these two overall ambitions and resulting forms of respective competition.

In short, I don't find that all notions of divinity, spirituality, and god/s are there strictly due to oneupmanship - which, if true, would entail that all such accounts are strictly about granting some egos more power over other egos and that none of these concepts were in any way obtained via sincere inquiries into what is true and thereby real. Most interpretations of Buddhism, as one example, don't in any way strike me as being about oneupmanship - but, instead, as addressing being about as egoless as is possible.

Work that one out! — Wayfarer

:grin: I know of more than a few anecdotes of lesser animals giving all appearances of having a sixth-sense, as it's often termed. From cats finding their way back home after having been driven many many miles away and dropped off by themselves to dogs that (as was videotaped) start waiting for their owner's return home by siting in front of the window staring out of it, this at various times that synchronize with the variable time the owner leaves the workplace, etc. But, if there were to be any such sixth-sense, it would either never be empirically verifiable in a scientific manner - not for humans and certainly not for lesser animals - were it to be spiritual or, else, it would then become something physically explainable and therefore mundane. Cool quote though. And, yes, there are a number of anecdotes of elephants having at times incredible degrees of communication ability via the infrasound they make use of - which seems to possibly be part of what happened in the quote you've mentioned. Still, while some might give effort to interpreting what these anecdotes might or might not signify, there are some humans who'd still affirm that only humans are conscious beings, etc. :palmface:

It has been suggested that because there is some continuity between h.sapiens and other species, then the difference is only one of degree rather than of kind. That is what I’m taking issue with. — Wayfarer

We once, a long long time ago, had a debate about whether bonobos which have learned to communicate with humans via human-devised symbols could be asked the question "what occurs after death" (or something to the like) and give a meaningful, or else cogent, conceptual reply (which I take to not necessitate a "well reasoned" reply). My stance was and remains that, while I don't know, it to me remains within the scope of (lets call it) physical possibility that they might then entertain some conceptual notion of the same end of physical life we hold in mind - thereby having, or else obtaining, an awareness of their own mortality. (Just that, much like many a human, they might not be pleased with so contemplating.)

With that said, I myself happen to be in accord with what you here express. Differences in degree do indeed produce differences in kind. A bacterium is of a different kind than an ameba, both being of utterly different kinds than a cat, for example - this though evolutionarily speaking the differences between in issues such as that of awareness, or else of behavior, is a matter of degree. Maybe needless to then add, Homo Sapiens is a species of an utterly different kind than that of any other species on Earth with which we co-inhabit (most especially with all the other hominids that once existed now being extinct). I'll hasten to add that our species is nevertheless yet tied into the tree of life via an utmost obtainment, else utmost extreme, within a current spectrum of degrees - this as, for example, concerns qualitative magnitudes of awareness, of forethought, and the like. But this in no way then contradicts that we humans are of an utterly different kind than all other living species on Earth. Relative to bonobos and chimps very much included. Since we're on a philosophy forum, no other animal - great ape, dolphin, or elephant, for example - can comprehend the concepts we can when addressing the many diverse philosophies that have occurred. Thereby, again, making us of a distinctly different kind from all other lifeforms of which we know.

I'm sort of pondering on what grounds anyone might disagree with this (I should say, anyone who accepts biological evolution as fact).

I would say because of cognitive dissonance. I don't find it hard to see that many higher animals could experience that. — Wayfarer

I happen to very much agree with that. Though I'm uncertain as to how this might relate to reasoning among lesser animals in your own view.

To me, for cognitive dissonance to occur, there is required some modality of reasoning. As just one example, there is required a non-linguistic understanding that if this then that. Having such non-verbal if-then reasoning would bring about the dog's madness via an extreme cognitive dissonance wherein it becomes impossible for it to discern what action (that of either touching the one door or the other) leads to what consequence (that of obtaining food, which would be pleasurable, or of being electrically shocked, one can only presume quite unpleasantly so) prior to commencing any action.

From where I stand, other then the misapplication (else misconstrual) of purely poetical metaphor in expressing that "an AI can experience extreme cognitive dissonance and thereby go mad", I find that while AI might malfunction, they cannot go mad strictly due to experienced stressors such as that of extreme cognitive dissonance. In conjunction with this, I so far find that AI - unless they were to gain some first-person awareness whereby I-ness/ego becomes ontically established - does not and cannot engage in reasoning (this in non-poetic/metaphorical terms). All this on par to what can be said of a thermostat. Maybe paradoxically for some, all this however being unlike the bona fide reasoning of lesser lifeforms - which again occurs in various diminished extents relative to the average human. (With some humor, I say that some animals from corvids to octupi exhibit far more reason-driven intelligence than some non-average - and yet not mentally handicapped - humans. ... myself included at times :grin: )

Good point. I don't remember (its been some 30 years since I've heard of this experiment). My best hunch is that the hypothesis tested for might have had something to do with symbolic representation among lesser animals. But, in truth, I don't now know.