…..and with that, I’m out. — Mww

Redundant information. I already knew you weren't in it to begin with, which was the point I was making.

Numbers are markers of their predecessors.

2 means "1+1". 4 means any of "1+1+2". "1+1+1+1" etc... So not sure cause is the right word.

Thoughts are not facts, and neither are minds. I say that in the same sense that a table is not a fact. An apple is not a fact either.
— Arcane Sandwich

It might be worth pointing out that these things are "states of affairs" which I think can be distinguished from 'fact's. That said, they are suspiciously close in concept. But "the table" is a state of affairs (with regard to its atoms, i guess) and "that there is a table in X position" is the fact about hte table as you point out. But hte table itself is a "something" in existence. A "State of affairs" seems apt. — AmadeusD

"State of affairs" is fine with me. I've use that phrase before as well.

Numbers can only be conceived once you establish mental categories and members of a category, as there can only be a quantity of members of a category whether it be tables, atoms or ideas. There is only one of everything until you establish mental categories. The question is do the boundaries of our categories mirror the boundaries in the world, or are the boundaries mental projections (the observer/measurer effect)?

No, I'm not a philosophical zombie. I can experience pain, as well as other qualia. I know "what it's like" to have a first-person perspective, because I actually have one. — Arcane Sandwich

To say that you actually have one is to say that there is an objective state of affairs where you have a first-person perspective. You can talk about it like you can talk about the apple on the table. The problem is your dualistic thinking in separating thoughts and minds from the world in describing them as being fictions and non-existent when there is no logical reason to do so. If anything there is evidence to the contrary. When you ask people to explain their behavior, they refer to their thoughts or mental states as the cause of their behaviors. Even false thoughts have an impact on our behavior as I already pointed out how you can manipulate people with lies, as much as I can manipulate their behavior by injecting them with drugs.

Thoughts are not facts, and neither are minds. I say that in the same sense that a table is not a fact. An apple is not a fact either. What would the fact be, in such cases? It would be a fact that there is an apple on the table. But the apple itself is not a fact, it is instead a thing. The same goes for the table: it is a thing, not a fact. Thoughts are not facts, and they are not things, they are processes ("mental processes", if you will) and the mind is not a fact, nor a thing, it is instead a process (it is a series of processes that the brain undergoes, just as digestion is a process that the gut undergoes, just as the act of walking is a process that the legs undergo). — Arcane Sandwich

All things are relations between other things. All things are process. Science shows that each thing is an interaction of smaller things. You never actually get at a thing - only a process.

Think of the world as an analog signal and your mind converts the analog signal into a digital signal (as discrete 0s and 1s). The objects you perceive are really these converted signals - from relational to discrete. Your brain processes sensory information at a certain frequency relative the the frequency of change in the environment. This relative frequency will have an effect on how we perceive other processes with fast processes appearing as a blur of motion or appearing to happen without cause, where slower processes will appear as solid static objects. Changing our view from microscopic to macroscopic also changes how we view objects as part of larger processes and vice versa. This is similar to the observer effect in QM.

What is meant by "thoughts" and "mind" when people use those words has nothing to do with their existence, because they don't have existence to begin with. Existence is a real property that concrete, material things have, and only they (the concrete, material things) have it (existence is not a quantity, therefore the existential quantifier "∃" has no ontological import). Ideal objects (such as Plato's Ideas, or Aristotle's Prime Mover) do not have it. Stated differently, ideal objects do not have the property of existence. And the creative intentions of the speakers of a language make no difference here: you can creatively intend as much as you want when you mean that thoughts and minds exist, that doesn't magically grant them the property of existence. — Arcane Sandwich

Yet we talk about them like we talk about everything else that does exist. So what does it actually mean to exist or not exist if the way we talk about them does not provide a clue? Your use of, "material things" just shows how you are confusing the way things are with how you perceive them. What makes something material? What makes material things have causal efficacy and not non-material things? What do you say to someone who says that the word, "material" is meaningless when you never get at anything material - only processes, and material things are mental projections. In other words it is the idea that the world is material that is fiction, but it is real and exists because you are here expressing the idea in the form of scribbles on the screen. You can refer to it in the same way you can refer to apples on tables.

From computer programming point of view, AI is just an overrated search engine. — Corvus

From a genetic point of view humans are just a baby-making (gene dispersal) engine.

Put AI in a robot body with cameras to see, microphones to hear, tactile sensors for touch, chemical sensors to smell and taste and program it to learn from observing its own actions in the world (the same way you learned about the world when you were a toddler), could we then say AI (the robot) is intelligent?

I don't have a good definition. Problem solving? Surviving? Doing differential calculus? Tricking people?

It's very broad. I'd only be very careful in extrapolating from these we do which we call intelligent to other things. Dogs show intelligent behavior, but they can't survive in the wild. Are the smart and stupid?

It's tricky. — Manuel

What if we were to start with the idea that intelligence comes in degrees? Depending on how many properties of intelligence some thing exhibits, it possesses more or less intelligence.

Is intelligence what you know or how you can apply what you know, or a bit of both? Is there a difference between intelligence and wisdom?

Sure, we have a good amount of structural understanding about some of the things hearts (and other organs) do. As you mentioned with the Chinese case above, it's nowhere near exhaustive. It serves important functional needs, but "function", however one defines it, is only a part of understanding. — Manuel

So what else is missing if you are able to duplicate the function? Does it really matter what material is being used to perform the same function? Again, what makes a mass of neurons intelligent but a mass of silicon circuits not? What if engineers designed an artificial heart that lasts much longer and is structurally more sound than an organic one?

One of the things I like about ChatGPT when it comes to discussing philosophy with it is that it does not hold any emotional attachments to the things it says. It is capable of "changing its mind" from what it said initially given new information and new relevant questions. Does that mean ChatGPT is more intelligent than us emotional humans?

No, they do not. But when it comes to conceptual distinctions, such as claiming that AI is actually intelligence, that is a category error. I see no reason why philosophers shouldn't say so.

But to be fair, many AI experts also say that LLM's are not intelligent. So that may convey more authority to you. — Manuel

Fair point. The same could be said about philosophers not agreeing on what is intelligent and how to define intelligence. Even you have agreed that we may be deluding ourselves in the use of the term. What these points convey to me is that we need a definition to start with.

Understanding is an extremely complicated concept that I cannot pretend to define exhaustively. Maybe you could define it and see if I agree or not.

As I see it understanding is related to connecting ideas together, seeing cause and effect, intuiting why a person does A instead of B. Giving reasons for something as opposed to something else, etc.

But few, if any words outside mathematics have full definitions. Numbers probably.

We can mimic a dog or a dolphin. We can get on four legs and start using our nose, or we can swim and pretend we have capacities we lack.

What does that tell you though? — Manuel

That there is more to being a dog than walking on four legs and sniffing anuses.

Are wolves mimicking dogs? Are wolves mimicking canines? It seems to me that we need to define intelligence to say what kinds of processes exhaust what it means to be intelligent.

I see understanding as equivalent to knowledge. It is information in the mind that has been tested empirically and logically by being used to accomplish some goal.

Searle says the man in the Chinese room does not understand anything. Yet the man does understand the language the instructions are written in. He understands what language is - that the scribbles refer to some actions he is suppose to take in the room, and which actions those scribbles refer to.

He does not understand Chinese because he has not been given the same instructions Chinese speakers received to learn how to use the scribbles and sounds of Chinese. He is not using the scribbles in the same way even though it appears on the outside the man is mimicking an understanding of Chinese. In other words, the man's understanding of what to do with Chinese scribbles and sounds does not exhaust what it means to understand Chinese.

Yeah, it is artificial. But the understanding between something artificial and something organic is quite massive. — Manuel

How so? If we can substitute artificial devices for organic ones in the body there does not seem like much of a difference in understanding. The difference, of course, is the brain - the most complex thing (both organic and inorganic) in the universe. But this is just evidence that we should at least be careful in how we talk about what it does, how it does it and how other things (both organic and inorganic) might be similar or different.

We are talking about LLM's not problems with software. — Manuel

You were talking about people that attribute terms like "intelligence" to LLMs as being deluded. My point is that philosophers seem to think they know more about LLMs than AI developers do.

That's the point.

You seem to think that mimicking something is the same as understanding it. — Manuel

What is understanding? How do you know that you understand anything if you never end up properly mimicking the something you are trying to understand?

The point is that mimicking behavior does nothing to show what goes on in a person's head. — Manuel

What goes on in the head and how do we show it?

Unless you are willing to extend intelligence to mirrors, plants and planetary orbits. If you do, then the word loses meaning. — Manuel

Straw-men. That isn't what I am saying at all. Mirror-makers, botanists and astrophysicists haven't started calling mirrors, plants and planetary orbits artificially intelligent. AI developers are calling LLMs artificially intelligent, with the term, "artificial" referring to how it was created - by humans instead of "naturally" by natural selection. I could go on about the distinction between artificial and natural here but that is for a different thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2405/artificial-vs-natural-vs-supernatural

If you don't, then let's hone in on what makes most sense, studying people who appear to exhibit this behavior. Once we get a better idea of what it is, we can proceed to do it to animals.

But to extend that to non-organic things is a massive leap. It's playing with a word as opposed to dealing with a phenomenon. — Manuel

Why? What makes a mass of neurons intelligent, but a mass of silicon circuits not?

How would you categorize an animal you have not seen before but looks like an animal you have seen before?
— Harry Hindu

This is contradictory. If I haven’t seen a thing before, I can’t say it looks like one I have. If I’ve not seen this cat, but I’ve seen those cats, I’m justified in characterizing the unseen as the same kind as the seen. The difference is, in the first the thing is undetermined, in the second the thing is determined as cat. — Mww

Strange. I posed the same question in the exact same way to ChatGPT and it did not think it was a contradiction. It understood the question as I intended on the first try. Either you are intentionally being obtuse or you're less intelligent than artificial intelligence.

If you encounter an unfamiliar animal that resembles an animal you've seen before, you would likely categorize it based on similar physical features or behaviors. This process involves analogical reasoning, where you relate the unknown animal to known categories based on observed similarities. Here's how it works:

Visual Comparison: You compare features such as size, shape, fur, scales, or feathers. For instance:

If it has feathers and wings, you might categorize it as a bird.
If it has four legs, fur, and a tail, you might think of it as a mammal.
Behavioral Clues: You observe its actions, such as flying, swimming, or climbing, to relate it to known animals with similar behaviors.

Habitat Context: You consider the environment where you see the animal. For example, an animal in water might lead you to think of fish or amphibians.

Scientific Classification Framework: Even without formal training, humans intuitively use a simplified version of taxonomic classification, grouping animals by broad categories (e.g., birds, reptiles, mammals).

Trial-and-Error Refinement: If the initial categorization doesn't seem to fit (e.g., a mammal-like animal lays eggs), you might refine your understanding, possibly creating a new subcategory.

In essence, you'd rely on existing mental schemas and adapt them to fit the new information, aligning your understanding of the unknown with the known. — ChatGPT

What I don't see here is any use of language being necessary (like, "I think...") in the perceiving and the interpreting of our experiences.

What key characteristics do they share to then place them in the same visual category?
— Harry Hindu

That condition belongs to sensation, not cognition. For different things be placed in the same visual category is for each to have congruent visual representation. — Mww

Yet you just described the visual representations as conceptions and the act of categorizing as cognizing here:

The quantity of conceptions that sufficiently correspond with the original experience. Those conceptions that do not sufficiently correspond are those which tell me I’m justified in cognizing a different version of the original experience; those that do not correspond at all tells me I’m not justified in cognizing a cat at all. — Mww

Categorization is a type of cognition. ChatGPT called it "analogical reasoning".

All my cognition includes abstract objects; they are representations. The objects represented in my cognitions are particulars, not universals. — Mww

So when we simulate others' thoughts we are representing universals with universals? Are you not having particular thoughts that I am trying to represent in my mind to get at your particular state of mind? Or maybe everything is both a particular and a universal depending on what (simulated) view you are taking at a given moment.

How do you think that it may be examined and critiqued in an analytical and philosophical point of view? — Jack Cummins

We could start by defining "intelligence" and "consciousness".

Also, how important is it to question its growing role in so many areas of life? To what extent does it compare with or replace human innovation and creativity? — Jack Cummins

Considering how many people today are lazy thinkers, I think that there is a growing reservation that people will allow AI to do all their thinking for them. The key is to realize that AI is a tool and not meant to take over all thinking or else your mind will atrophy. I use it for repetitive and mundane tasks in programming so that I can focus more on higher order thinking. When you do seek assistance in your thinking you want to make sure you understand the answer given, not just blindly copying and pasting the code without knowing what it is actually doing.

I don't think it does raise any questions about intelligence or consciousness at all. It is useful and interesting on its own merit, but people who are taken by this equaling intelligence I think are deluding themselves into a very radical dualism which collapses into incoherence. — Manuel

There are monists that are neither materialists nor idealists. For them, intelligence is simply a process that anything can have if it fits the description. Don't we need to define the terms first to be able to say what has it and what doesn't?

To say that AI developers and computer scientists are deluding themselves you seem to imply that AI computer scientists should be calling philosophers to fix their computers and software.

To make this concrete and brief. Suppose we simulate on a computer a person's lunges' and all the functions associated with breathing, are we going to say that the computer is breathing? Of course not. It's pixels on a screen; it's not breathing in any meaningful sense of the word. — Manuel

Poor example. Cardiologists do not use a computer to simulate the pumping of blood. They use an artificial heart that is a mechanical device that pumps and circulates actual blood inside your body.

But it's much worse for thinking. We do not know what thinking is for us. We can't say what it is. If we can't say what thinking is for us, how are we supposed to that for a computer? — Manuel

Then are we deluding ourselves whenever we use the term "intelligent" to refer to ourselves?

Seems like definitions are the solution to the problem we have here.

What if we were to start with a simpler term, "memory". Do we have memory? Do computers have memory? Computer scientists seem to think they do. How does the memory of a computer and your memory differ? What is memory?

Is there an ontological relation between mind and world?
— Harry Hindu

No, there isn't. There is an (embodied brain)-world correlation, instead of a mind-world correlation. And I say that in a Meillassouxian way. And I would add: the nature of the correlation in question is ontological.

Is there an ontological relation between different thoughts?
— Harry Hindu

No, because thoughts are fictions, which exist as brain processes — Arcane Sandwich

Ohhhhh! I get it now! You're a p-zombie!

So Chalmers was wrong because p-zombies DO behave differently (they talk differently about what thoughts and minds are - as being non-existent fictions, as opposed to what people with actual minds do - talk about thoughts and minds as being existent facts).

According to verificationism, for words to have meaning, their use must be open to public verification. Since it is assumed that we can talk about our qualia, the existence of zombies is impossible. — Wikipedia

But you've just proved that they do exist because you seem to have a different (or lack of) understanding of what is meant by "thoughts" and "mind" when people use those words.

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. . . .

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. — George Washington's Farewell Address (1796)

If this does not describe the current political climate, I don't know what does.

Dawkins also popularised the idea that "memes" (a term that he coined) tend to propagate in proportion to their fitness. Ideas being useful no doubt enhances their "reproductive" fitness. But this concept of memes analogises memes to parasites. What enhances the fitness of a meme needs not enhance the fitness of the individuals who host it anymore than real parasites enhance the fitness of the animals that they infect. Else, they would be symbiotes rather than parasites. One main weakness of the "meme" idea as a way to explain cultural evolution is that human beings aren't passive hosts of memes who pass them on blindly. Cultural practices and common forms of behavior are being refined intelligently by people who reflect about them and adapt them to their specific circumstances. An idea that is useful for me to enact in my own circumstances might be useless or harmful for others to enact in their different circumstances. Practical reason isn't a process whereby one gets infected by the memes within a common pool of ideas that have proven to be the most useful in general. Again, practical rational deliberation about one's particular circumstances and opportunities might indeed involve intelligently adapting the means to pursue a predetermined end, but it can also involve revising those very ends regardless of the effects pursuing them might have on one's biological fitness (or reproductive success). — Pierre-Normand

This isn't much different than how various species have re-purposed certain traits (think of the ostrich's wings), or re-purposing a chair as a weapon.

New traits can only evolve from existing traits. New ideas can only evolve from prior ideas. New ideas are an amalgam of prior ideas.

An idea that is useful for you in a circumstance would also be useful for others in similar circumstances. Some birds can use their wings to fly in the air or fly through the water. They are different environments but depending on the trait or idea, it would be useful in similar environments.

Is every situation the same? No, and that is not my point. My point is that every situation is similar, in some way, to another. The point is do the differences really matter in this particular instance of using some idea, or are they irrelevant?

Yes, what some term a priori cognition under empirical conditions. Nevertheless I can’t think a possible cat a priori without having the antecedent experience, in order to reduce the possibility to a particular object. Otherwise, I have no warrant for representing the conception with the word “cat”. — Mww

I wasn't talking about terms or words (scribbles). I was talking about the visual of a cat in your mind - the cat that you think of when thinking of cats. Maybe when thinking of cats you might think of different types of cats if you had the experience viewing various cats, but then what was it about those different cats that allowed you to place them all under the umbrella of cat (not the term, but the image)? Your imagined visuals of cats somehow allows you to recognize actual cats by the way they appear in your mind compared to how they appear in the world. Language (scribbles) is not needed to recognize similar objects to predict their behavior. It seems to me that you have to be able to categorize similar visuals and sounds together prior to learning a language as you have to be able to discern the differences and similarities between scribbles and sounds to learn a language in the first place.

how would you recognize a cat that is different than the one in front of you…..
— Harry Hindu

Isn’t that just another possible cat? As far as my cognitive operation is concerned, it is. — Mww

That wasn't my question. How would you categorize an animal you have not seen before but looks like an animal you have seen before? What key characteristics do they share to then place them in the same visual category?

Doesn’t matter that an in abstracto object in general is represented by a universal idea, it isn’t a cat until I cognize that thing as such. — Mww

What is that process like? What goes on in your mind to cognize some thing if it does not include an abstract object?

It seems to me that your mental object of cat is the very cat you first experienced until you've experienced other cats in which your mental object changes to leave out certain characteristics and retain others. For instance, cats can have long or short hair. If your first cat you observed had short hair and you saw a similar looking animal but it had long hair, why or why would you not cognize that thing as a cat?

….we can never get at the world as it is independent of us, only at the relation itself.
— Harry Hindu

Close enough, but given relations alone is insufficient for knowledge. — Mww

Knowledge is itself a relation. If everything is a relation then it would it be fair to say that getting at relations is getting at the world?

Is there an ontological relation between mind and world? Is there an ontological relation between different thoughts?

Can it be said that each sentence you wrote above is the cause of the following sentence? Is each letter the cause of the following letter you typed, or each word the cause of the following word in each sentence?

I think it's safer to assume that whatever filth one side is accusing the other of, the accusing side is guilty of too. — Tzeentch

Exactly. The problem isn't one party or the other. The problem is both parties.

Abolish political parties. Abolish group-think and group-hate.

Evolutionary explanations of the origin the general traits and intellectual abilities of human beings contribute to explaining why those traits and abilities arose on (long) phylogenetic timescales but often are irrelevant to explaining why individual human beings behave in this or that way in specific circumstances, of why specific cultural practices arise within this or that society. I disagree that circumstances of resource scarcity always, or even generally, lead people to act under the instinctual impulses that favor individual fitness. — Pierre-Normand

This could be said for any organism with an array of senses that responds in real-time to immediate changes in the environment. The world as a dynamic set of patterns is a selective pressure that enables brains that are more adaptable to changing environments to be the prominent mental trait. Instincts can only take you so far as they are more like general purpose behaviors. Consciousness allows one to fine tune one's behaviors for multiple environments by learning which behaviors work in certain situations and which do not.

Cultural practices, language, and views of the world are themselves subject to natural selection, as humans are natural outcomes and part of the environment and are selective pressures themselves. New ideas are "mutated" former ideas, or an amalgam of former ideas, and those ideas that are more useful tend to stand the test of time.

No. Representations are not for universals, which are objects of reason, concepts without representation. We don’t think all possible cats; we think either the one right in front of us, or the one that might be. — Mww

One that might be is the same as a possible cat. If you can only think of the cat in front of you or one that might be, how would you recognize a cat that is different than the one in front of you and the one you imagine might be, if the universal does not represent all possible cats?

What purpose is a universal? How are they used in our thinking, if not to stand for the characteristics of a cat?

Isn't the primary purpose of thinking to simulate the world as accurately as possible? — Harry Hindu

Nothing wrong with that, but specifically I rather think the primary empirical purpose of thinking is to understand the world’s relation to us, the way we are affected by it. Bu empirical thinking is not the limit of thought, so technically, the primary purpose depends on the domain in which object thought about, is found. — Mww

Sounds like we're saying the same thing. To simulate the world as accurately as possible includes the world's relation to us and how we are affected by it, as we are part of the world. The mind is a relation between body and world so one might even say that all we can never get at the world as it is independent of us, only at the relation itself.

Nothing of that has anything to do with numbers. Why is this such a controversial idea to you, that you feel the need to discuss it so passionately? I see it as utterly mundane, it's like talking about what number you're going to bet at the lottery, there's not much to it in terms of metaphysics or ontology. — Arcane Sandwich

You brought up the rules of chess as a separate example to numbers, so if chess has nothing to do with numbers, that's your problem, not mine. Why is it so difficult for you to focus?

Look. With all due respect. I see that you're an educated gentleman, and I've been acting a bit like a clown in my responses to you. But this thread is called "is the number 1 the cause of the number 2?" Now I ask you, sincerely: do you actually think that the answer to this question is yes? Do you really believe that? Or are you just wanting to have a verbal sparring session with me because you find it entertaining in some way? — Arcane Sandwich

I actually believe it because it is observable and provable. I have provided many examples where ideas have a causal relation with the rest of the world. Are you saying that thoughts and ideas and your mind is not part of the world? Or are you saying that the mind is an illusion? If the latter, then all you have done is pull the rug out from under your own position because everything you ever learned is via your mind, including information about brains and what they do. You also seem woefully uninformed of other possible views and explanations of the theory of mind and the observer effect.

Does the Merriam Webster dictionary have the final word in matters of first-order predicate logic and the ontology of fictional entities in general, and of mathematical objects in particular? That sounds like they have the Foundations of Mathematics all figured out then. I wonder why professional mathematicians don't read the Merriam Webster dictionary more often. I will contact them and I will tell them to read it. — Arcane Sandwich

Are you saying you have the final word on the nature of existence? Are you saying that the matter of the ontology of existence has been settled?

I don't think so: https://iep.utm.edu/existenc/
"It is not easy to characterize what existence as a first-order property is."

The most likely problem to occur here is that we end up talking past ourselves.

But ideas are fictions. They're just brain processes. We pretend that they have some sort of autonomous existence, but they don't. Do the rules of chess exist as ideas, with causal efficacy, in your view? — Arcane Sandwich

Not every idea is a fiction. Everything is a process. Non-fictional ideas "are just brain processes too". The difference is their relationship with the world, and what kinds of things you can accomplish by implementing them. Do you successfully get your starship to Mars, do you dress up in a way that others successfully recognize you as Santa Claus?

Does your idea of how to play chess permit you to play chess? Does it not have a causal effect on whether you get disqualified from the chess match or not?

But Santa Claus is a fictional character. He doesn't exist. Real people just pretend to be him, just like a professional actor pretends to be a character. Batman doesn't really exist, he's just a character played by different actors (i.e., Adam West, Christian Bale, etc.) — Arcane Sandwich

But how could real people act like someone that does not exist, or does not have some sort of causal efficacy? How did they come to dress and act like that in the first place?

Thank you for your replies, but am now off on holiday.

Perhaps deflationary towards truth. As the SEP article on Truth writes

One long-standing trend in the discussion of truth is to insist that truth really does not carry metaphysical significance at all. It does not, as it has no significance on its own. A number of different ideas have been advanced along these lines, under the general heading of deflationism. — RussellA

According to the deflationary theory of truth, to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself. For example, to say that ‘snow is white’ is true, or that it is true that snow is white, is equivalent to saying simply that snow is white, and this, according to the deflationary theory, is all that can be said significantly about the truth of ‘snow is white’. — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

So something is true simply by saying it? What happens when someone else says, "Snow White isn't white"? Can contradictory statements be true? If every statement is true simply by saying it that seems to deflate the meaning of truth to meaninglessness.

How is defining truth as a correspondence between some proposition and its usefulness in achieving some goal any different?

If one were to say, "Snow White is white", and another say the opposite, we verify the truth of the statements by using them to achieve some goal. If we succeed, the statement is true, if we fail, the statement is false.

In my vision there is a postbox, which I know because it exists in my mind. I believe that there is something outside my mind that caused me to see a postbox in my mind, but I don't know what that something is.

The correspondence theory of truth doesn't apply, as there is no correspondence between a known thing in my mind and an unknown thing in the world. — RussellA

But you just said that something outside your mind caused you to see a postbox in your mind, how is that not a correspondence - a link of causation?

That’s not what we’re doing. Ok, fine. I reject that’s what I’m doing. I’m processing an extent understanding given from experience, subsequently the possibility of expressing it coherently. — Mww

Would you say you are simulating expressing it coherently, essentially thinking what you are going to say before saying it?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expression
Expressing is the act of representing or symbolizing something else.

In expressing something are you not using some form of representation? Are the sounds coming from your mouth representing, or referring to your simulation (thinking it before saying it), or to some other thought that is neither the thought of you expressing it nor the sound you are making. When expressing something to me, what exactly are you trying to express - more words, or some other type of sensory experience?

We don’t think in representations, but by means of them in their relation to each other. I’m not getting a third-person out of that. — Mww

So when you think of the image of a cat, that is not a representation of all possible cats? Isn't the primary purpose of thinking to simulate the world as accurately as possible? What type of relation exists between your mind and the world?

"Think" exists in my mind as an imagined sound. — RussellA

Then you are talking to yourself when thinking? What are you talking to yourself ABOUT? Do the imagined sounds in your mind represent other things that are not sounds in your mind? If so, couldn't you just think in those things instead of thinking only sounds in your mind?

"Think" exists in my mind in its own right, and doesn't refer to anything else. — RussellA

So the act of thinking is only the act of hearing the sound "think" in your mind?

If "think" in my mind didn't exist in its own right, and referred to something else, such as "A", then this "A" must refer to something else, such as "B", ending up as the infinite regress homunculus problem. As I see it, I am my thoughts rather than I have thoughts.

Therefore things in my mind must exist in the own right without referring to anything else. — RussellA

Then I don't understand how you can be an indirect realist that asserts that your thoughts are not the world, but about the world. You are describing solipsist stance, not an indirect realist one.

When I see the word "think" on the screen I hear the sound "think" in my mind. After many repetitions, in Hume's terms, this sets up a constant conjunction between seeing the word "think" and hearing the word "think". Thereafter, when I see the word "think" I instinctively hear the word "think", and when I hear the word "think" I instinctively see the word "think".

The sound "think" doesn't refer to the image "think", but corresponds with it. — RussellA

You're saying that the act, or process, of thinking is simply seeing those scribbles and hearing that sound in your head. For you, the scribble and the sound do not refer to anything, like the act of thinking.

There are many definitions of "truth" (SEP - Truth)

My favourite is a correspondence between something that exists in the mind and something that exists in the world, such that "the oak tree is shedding its leaves" is true IFF the oak tree is shedding its leaves.

Unfortunately, being an Indirect Realist, I don't think we can ever know what exists in the world, meaning that we can never know "the truth".

What you want seems to be similar to the Anti-Realist approach to truth, such as Dummett's, where truth is not a fully objective matter independent of us, but is something that can be verified or asserted by us. (SEP - Truth - 4.2). — RussellA

You say that your favorite version of "truth" is one where you can never know what the "truth" is. :meh:


How is your version independent of us if it is a correspondence between something that exist in the world and something that exists in the mind? :roll:

I don't know how to answer the question, because I don't know the difference between the way I can think and the way I think. If there are different ways a person can think, do we each choose different ways at different times? Or do we each have just one that, for whatever reason, we settled on, perhaps very early in life? — Patterner

I don't know either. You were the one that used the phrase "the way we think" and I was just going with the flow. I assumed you knew what you were talking about when using those words.

What did you mean when you said that language changes the way we think?

I assumed that "ways we think" include things like problem-solving, reason, logic, representation, categorizing, interpreting, recalling, etc.

It seems to me that we must already possess these ways of thinking to be able to learn a language in the first place and learning a language is like learning to ride a bike. When you master the skill, you outsource some of the work to unconscious processes. You no longer need to focus on balance and the movement of your legs. It is all done unconsciously. Mastering language is the same. Once you master the skill you outsource some of the processes to your non-conscious parts of your brain, so it makes you more efficient in riding your bike and using your language. While language does not change the way we think. It represents the way we think and improves the efficiency in our thinking.

My focus has been on things and types of things we think about, not the way we think. Thinking about an object, say, a boulder on a hill, and thinking about what that boulder might do in the future, say, roll down the hill, are different kinds of thoughts. Thinking about that boulder landing on me leads to thinking about my mortality, which is yet another kind of thought. Thinking about these different kinds of thoughts Is a fourth kind of thought. At least it seems this way to me.

But I don't know that I'm not thinking these different kinds of thoughts in the same way. If they are different ways of thinking, I guess they are the thingd that might answer your question? But what are those ways? — Patterner

Do you need language to think those things, or is language merely representative of your thinking in images, sounds, feelings, etc.? When thinking about a boulder on a hill and the possibility that it might roll down the hill, are you experiencing that thought as the visual of scribbles, "That boulder might roll down the hill.", the sound of your voice saying "That boulder might roll down the hill.", or visuals of the boulder and it rolling down the hill? If you say you experience hearing the sound of your voice saying that, then does the sound of your voice refer to the visual of the boulder rolling down the hill, or is the boulder rolling down the hill just sounds in your head?

Pretty open-ended question, isn’t it? Within the context I was talking about, though, there isn’t any third-person to be found, the very notion is absurd. — Mww

Could we say that one can simulate one view within another? Can we simulate a third person view from the first person?

The view belonging to the subject, yet without the pitiful nonsense of Cartesian theater, right? — Mww

I'm not sure. It seems that the very idea of a "view" is what invokes the nonsense of a Cartesian theater and homunculus.

What about when we talk to ourselves in our head? Who are we talking to? If language is representation and we think in language, what does that say about which view we are participating in when thinking in a language rather thinking in images, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells? In thinking in representations are we not relegating ourselves to the third person?

Numbers are fictions, without existing as fictions. — Arcane Sandwich

Look up the definition of "be" and you will see the definition is "exist". :roll:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/be
2.a.
: to have an objective existence : have reality or actuality

I find it much easier and simpler (Occam's Razor and all that) to simply say that numbers exist as ideas, and to assert that numbers exist as anything other than ideas is a category mistake. The same goes for Santa Claus. Santa is an idea and to assert that Santa is anything more than an idea is making a category mistake.

What I meant was that while language does change what we can think, it does not change the way we think. It is merely representative of the way we already think. You should try to answer the question I just posed to you in what ways of thinking are required for you to learn a language in the first place and that might help resolve the contradiction and provide a better explanation of what I am getting at.

At first, I was ok with Rödl’s initial premises; each published philosopher has his own. But later on, came to object to the development of them.

I mean…

“…. What is thought first-personally contains its being thought….” (Pg 2)

….what does that say except thought is what is thought; IS thought and BEING thought are exactly the same thing; was there ever a thought that wasn’t first-personal? Watahell’s a guy supposed to do with any of that?

Ehhhh…probably just me, too dense to unpack what’s being said. — Mww

What is the difference between first and third person anyway? It seems to me that you are always stuck in one view and the other view is simply changing what it is you are attending to in your mind - the world or yourself? What does it mean to be self-conscious - the act of talking to yourself in your head?

What forms do your thoughts take? If you hear your own voice talking to yourself, is that a first or third person view - hearing the sound of your voice in your mind? Is the sound of your voice all there is to your thoughts?

I agree that all these exist in the mind "I", "think" and "p". — RussellA

But what forms do they take in your mind? How do you know they exist in your mind? Are "I", "think" and "p" just scribbles and that is the form they take in your mind, or do the scribbles refer to other things that are not scribbles and those are what exist in your mind? In seeing these scribbles on the screen, are the same as what is in your mind?

It seems to me learning language played a pretty big role in his ability to think in ways he could not before. — Patterner

As I have said, learning anything can play a role in your ability to think in ways you did not before. Language is not special in this regard. After you learned a language, did you stop learning anything? Have you not learned new things since you learned a language that changed your ability to think in ways you did not before?

I am not saying that language does not change the way you think. I'm saying that there is nothing special about language in this regard. Making any observation, whether it be watching the behavior of birds, or reading about the behavior of birds, changes the way you think about birds, and I would argue that directly observing birds is better than than reading about them in a book.

At this point I think you should provide examples of how language changed the way you think in ways you did not before. What ways of thinking do you need to be able to learn a language in the first place?

Are you saying that if we start with a preconceived notion of the truth, and this is supported by observations, then this shows that our preconceived notion of the truth was correct.

The problem becomes when we only use those observations that agree with our preconceived notion of the truth and reject any observation that doesn't. — RussellA

You said,

I agree, observations and reasoning are important.

Plato’s explanation of knowledge as justified true belief has stood for thousands of years.

The question is, which justified beliefs are true.

Problem one is that there is no one definition of truth, and problem two is that, even if there was, how would we know what the truth was. — RussellA

...which I understand to mean that the word, "truth" is meaningless if we could never know when we know the truth and when we don't.

I'm trying to redefine "truth" in a way that is meaningful in that maybe truth is not a relation between some state of the world and our ideas of the world. Instead "truth" can be thought of as a relation between some idea and the success or failure of some goal.

I wonder if Ildefonso now thinks in ways he could not before he learned language. I'll have to think about that. — Patterner

Sure he thinks in ways he could not before. He now understands that there are ideas can be shared. Can't it be said that you change when you learn anything new? Again, you seem to be trying to make a special, unwarranted case for scribbles.

But even if language did not make him think in ways that he already could not, it certainly made him think in ways he had not. One day, I saw a book called Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. I'm a Bach freak, and Escher is great, so, despite never having heard of Gödel, I thought I'd see what it was about. I had never heard of Zeno's or Russell's paradoxes before I found GEB. We know everything we know because, at some point in our lives, we're exposed to them for the first time. My first exposure to these paradoxes came from reading a book. Because of the scribbles. One guy scribbled on paper, and, decades later, by looking at those scribbles, someone else is thinking in ways he never had before. — Patterner

Exactly. It wasn't language that made you think differently. It was the ideas in a book expressed in language that changed your thinking. The ideas could have been expressed in any form as long as there were rules that we agreed upon for interpreting the forms, and as long as you had a mind capable of already understanding multiple levels of representation.

And I'm using real-world counter-examples to prove that they don't. — Arcane Sandwich

Any example you use proves my point, not yours, as how could you be here in this thread proving the existence of something that you claim has no causal efficacy? What caused you to type out the scribbles, "numbers", "1", "2", etc. if the idea of numbers has no causal efficacy? Do you even understand the mind-body problem?

Numbers are fictions, and no fictions have causal efficacy. If you want to say that all fictions are brain processes and that as such, they have causal efficacy, then I would say that you're failing to distinguish numbers as fictions and brain processes as facts. — Arcane Sandwich

Santa Claus is a fiction yet look at all the images of Santa Claus and people dressed like Santa Claus during the holidays. What caused them to dress like that and to create images in Santa's likeness if Santa does not exist?

What else could explain their behaviour? A lot of things. Atoms, for example. Contemporary physics might explain it. You don't need numbers in your ontology to begin with. — Arcane Sandwich

Yet physics is based on mathematics. :roll:

Well, I'm not going to make your case for you, I don't see how an ontology with numbers that have causal efficacy is better than an ontology in which that is not the case. — Arcane Sandwich

Understanding that mind and body are causally linked helps to get past the mind-body problem.

A useful fiction in the Nietzschean sense, which is ultimately a brain process. — Arcane Sandwich

What does it mean for something to be useful if it has no causal efficacy?

Numbers don't exist as fictions, they exist as brain processes. — Arcane Sandwich

You are contradicting yourself (and in the same post):

Numbers are fictions, and no fictions have causal efficacy — Arcane Sandwich

Because other things have the causal efficacy that you're referring to: the cells of my body, the chemicals that I am made from, the subatomic particles that compose me. — Arcane Sandwich

Yet you cannot explain how ideas cause you to behave in certain ways. If I told you a lie (a fiction) to manipulate you into behaving a certain way then the fiction had a causal effect on your behavior.

How so? Numbers are not the sort of entities that have causal efficacy. That was my point, irony notwithstanding. — Arcane Sandwich

Saying so doesn't make it so. I'm using real-world examples to prove my point that numbers do have causal efficacy. Numbers are ideas and ideas have causal efficacy, as I have shown using many real-world examples - your wife's behavior at the number of oranges you purchased, your behavior caused by the number of pills you took, and a SpaceX Starship on a launch pad blasting off into space. Another example is behavior caused by hallucinations and delusions. What else could explain their behavior except that they are hallucinating - having false ideas.

It was a poor example, that's all I'm saying. — Arcane Sandwich

You're not playing along with better examples.

But a scribble is not a number. The scribble "2" is a numeral, not a number. — Arcane Sandwich

Then what is a number? A requirement of existence is that it has causal efficacy. Is a number the very scribble, "number"? If not, then what does the scribble, "number" refer to? How is it that you are here talking about numbers if numbers have no causal efficacy?

I agree, observations and reasoning are important.

Plato’s explanation of knowledge as justified true belief has stood for thousands of years.

The question is, which justified beliefs are true.

Problem one is that there is no one definition of truth, and problem two is that, even if there was, how would we know what the truth was. — RussellA

If we link the truth to our goals does that resolve the problem? The information we use to accomplish some goal is true. The information we use that causes us to fail in our goals is false.

A number caused my wife to become angry at me? It seems like I should have a talk with that number, and I should tell it to stop making my wife angry at me. And then I should have a talk with my wife, and I should tell her that I'm talking to the number that made her angry, so that it doesn't make her angry anymore. — Arcane Sandwich

A number caused my anger towards my doctor? It seems like I'm not a very reasonable person myself. I should probably apologize to my doctor. I will tell him that a number caused me to become angry at him. — Arcane Sandwich

Straw-men.

Doesn't seem like a very good test if I have to calculate something so basic like one plus one. — Arcane Sandwich

Not the point.

What do I think will happen? Given those circumstances in the present moment? I don't know. Maybe I'll get a phone call from my doctor. Maybe my wife interrupts me, because she wants me to buy some fruit. A lot of things could happen in those circumstances. — Arcane Sandwich

Moving the goal posts. You've given a new set of circumstances.

What caused me to write a scribble? I don't know, I guess my brain is what caused it. — Arcane Sandwich

Ok. What caused your brain to do that if not the visual of scribbles (numbers and operator symbols) and a goal to pass a test?

You typically want to think beyond the first thought that comes to mind when responding to posts on a philosophy forum.

In general, the more observations the better one's conclusion ought to be. However, in practice, most people are entrenched in their positions, regardless of how many new observations they make.

Even so, this does not take away from the fact that observations cannot be guaranteed to be trustworthy, as anyone reading mainstream media would testify.

However, this doesn't mean that certainty cannot be discovered from uncertainty. Zero-knowledge proof is an interesting concept, and not only in computer sciences. — RussellA

As I have already explained, observation alone does not constitute knowledge. It is observations coupled with reasoning that constitutes knowledge. It was not just multiple observations that led you to be more certain in your beliefs. It is both multiple observations and the logical categorization and interpretation of those observations that constitutes knowledge.

Is it? Can we "adequately convey the subjective experience" of a hand that hurts in the first person, with "my hand hurts", more effectively than in the third, "@RussellA's hand hurts"?

Is that what Wayfarer was claiming? What more is in the first person account than in the third person account? — Banno

If scribble/utterance-use is conveying first-person experiences in the third person, then what does it mean to use scribbles/utterances in your mind to refer to the experience of pain which is in inherently first-person? If thoughts consist of scribbles/utterances then thoughts are inherently third-person not first-person.

Does using representation inherently put one in the third-person stance relative to what is being represented?

Will you, ChatGPT?

No, I will never know what it is like to have a sore hand. I can analyze and convey the meaning of "my hand hurts" based on linguistic and logical structures, but I lack subjective experience and the capacity for first-person awareness, which are necessary to truly feel or know pain. This distinction underscores the unique nature of first-person experience, as discussed in your thread.
— ChatGPT — Wayfarer

You also don't have hands, ChatGPT. I think that is the more important qualifier here because there is still a question what a subjective experience is and why a solid hunk of neurons can have subjective experiences but computers cannot.

Ok. Well, Human languages are much more complex than any non-human language that we are aware of. With them, we can discuss things, and kinds of things, that cannot be discussed in any non-human language. Things that are not thought by any non-human.

Humans created systems using scribbles in order to make lasting records of ideas that can be expressed in those languages. Presumably, the motivation for creating such systems was the desire to communicate those utterances, both to distant people and to future generations. The squiggles can record and communicate relatively simple things that can be communicated in non-human languages, and also things, and kinds of things, that cannot be discussed in any non-human language.

The result being, when we look at the scribbles, we can, and very often must, think things, and kinds of things, that cannot be discussed in any non-human language, and which are not thought by any non-human. Also, they are often things the one looking at the scribbles has never thought before.

I don't know what's not logically possible in any of that. And I don't know how any power can be read into any of it. At least not in the magical/fantasy sense that I believe you mean it.

But these scribbles are signs that can pass extremely complex ideas, in great detail, from the mind of one person into the mind of a person living thousands of years later, who never had any inking of those particular ideas, or kinds of ideas. That's pretty darned special. — Patterner

As I have already pointed out, it is simply the sheer number of symbols being used, along with the sheer number of relations between the scribbles (letters to words, words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs, etc.) that makes language complex. But you must already be able to think in multiple layers of representation, and the memory to store the number of scribbles and their associated rules to be able to understand language use and how to use it yourself.

Pictures say a thousand words. So if I can substitute words with pictures, would that make a difference?

Our ancestors drew cave art. When our ancestors drew a mammoth on the cave wall, did they attempt to throw their spears at the picture, cook and eat it? No. They understood that the picture represents the mammoth they successfully hunted during the day. Instead of a picture of the mammoth, they could have drawn scribbles representing the mammoth and the hunt, but isn't it that the scribbles really point to the visual of the mammoth and the memories of the hunt? Language merely provides another layer of representation for the purpose of communicating ideas that a listener or speaker does not have access to the picture or the experience. Language does not make us think in ways that we already could not. Language use is itself a representation of the structure of our thoughts, not the other way around. For instance, the pictures on the cave will inform the women that did not participate in the hunt what happened during the hunt.

It sounds like my wife isn't a very reasonable person if she gets mad about some fruit that I forgot to buy. Not sure if I can conclude something about the ontology of numbers and their causal efficacy (or lack of it) from my wife's anger. — Arcane Sandwich

Again, it wasn't the fruit you bought that made her angry. It was the number of fruit.

Would you be angry at your doctor if they instructed you to take two pills at bedtime when you were only suppose to take one and you have some severe side effects? Again, its not the pills themselves. It was the number of pills that caused the severe side effects and your anger to towards your doctor.


Here's another example:
Say you're taking a math test. Say you have a goal to pass the test. You see your first math problem:
1.) 1 + 1 = _

Given your present goal to pass the test and your knowledge of what the scribbles on the paper mean, what event do you think would happen next given these set of circumstances in the present moment? I predict that you will draw a scribble, "2" in the blank space. What caused you to write the scribble if not your present goal and the knowledge of what is suppose to go in the blank space if not some idea of numbers?