That's what many anesthesiologists say. Yes they can put people to sleep, clearly, but the mechanism by which this works is not well understood. They can do something without understanding very well how the body reacts the way it does. No, I'm not a dualist. I'm a "realistic naturalist" in Galen Strawson's terms. — Manuel

I think you are confusing how anesthesia works with how the brain and mind are related. Those are two separate issues. If you Google, "how does anesthesia work" you will find many articles that do not seem to exhibit any kind of doubt about how anesthesia works on the brain. How the brain relates to the mind is a separate and hard problem. How anesthesia works is not a hard problem. If it were we would be having a lot more issues with people going under.

So what's the benefit of using "function" instead of process or what a thing does? Saying it's one of the processes of the brain does not carry the suggestion that it does a few main things, and then some secondary things which are less important somehow. Sure, no term is perfect, but we can then start believing that function is something nature does and attribute it to things that fit these criteria, including computers. — Manuel

Are you saying that it is sensible to call, "intelligence" a thing, or an object, instead of what things do? When you point to intelligence, what are you pointing at - a thing or a behavior or act?

I agree. I personally think that it is more beneficial to think in terms of "this person" has a mind like mine, than a brain like mine. We deal with people on a daily level in mental terms, not neurophysiological terms. We could do the latter if one wanted, but it would be very cumbersome and we'd have to coin many technical terms. — Manuel

Sure, because we have direct access to our minds and only indirect access to our own brains (we can only view our own brains via a brain scan or MRI, or an arrangement of mirrors when having brain surgery).

Imagine yes. To actually do? I think we're far off. The most we are doing with LLM's is getting a program to produce sentences that sound realistic. Or mesh images together.

But a parrot can string together sentences and we wouldn't say the parrot is behaving like a person. — Manuel

Not behaving like a person, but behaving intelligently. Does every person behave intelligently? If not, then being a person does not make you necessarily intelligent. They are separate properties. What are the characteristics of an intelligent person, or thing?

All you have to do is research some of the recent news stories about the advances made in robotics to know that it is not that far off:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/03/1108937/fast-learning-robots-generative-ai-breakthrough-technologies-2025/

I don't see a difference between brain and mind. I think we both have similar brains and minds. My brain and mind are less similar to a dog or cat's brain and mind. Brains and minds are the same thing just from different views in a similar way that Earth is the same planet even though it looks flat from it's surface and spherical from space.

Here I just think this is the wrong view of language. It's the difference between a roughly empiricist approach to language "learning" and a rationalist one. We can say, for the sake of convenience, that babies "learn" languages, but they don't in fact learn it. It grows from the inside, not unlike a child going through puberty "learns" to become a teenager. But let's put that aside.

Ok, suppose I grant for the sake of argument, that computers "learn" faster than we can. Why can't we say the same things about mirrors? Or that cars run faster than we do? Or that we fly more than penguins? If you grant this, then the issue is terminological. — Manuel

Learning a language (or being intelligent in general) requires both an empirical and rational approach. You cannot have one without the other. You need to be able to see, hear, or touch (in the case of braille) to learn a language. You have to be able to observe it's use. You also need to be able to categorize your observations into a sensible view to be able to try an use it yourself and respond appropriately. The Empiricism vs Rationalism debate is a false dichotomy.

I don't know what you mean by "grows from the inside". What does a language you don't know look and sounds like? Scribbles and sounds, so it does not seem to me that language comes from the inside. You have to learn what those scribbles and sounds mean to be able to use them. What comes from the inside is the power to categorize your experiences of the world, which includes language, to respond to it in meaningful ways, either by scribbling something, saying something, or just doing something.

No. Not in principle in terms of results. The point is, that I believe we are astronomically far away from understanding the brain, much less the mind (and emergent property of brains). The brain is organic. Doesn't it make more sense to understand what intelligence and language is from studying human beings that from studying something we created? I mean, it would strange to say that we should study cellphones to learn about language, or a radio to learn about the ear. — Manuel

That doesn't sound strange at all. Is not part of studying humans studying what they created? Humans are calling it artificial intelligence. Are we to believe them when studying them? The other examples are nonsensical. Again, the inventor of the radio and mirror-makers are not claiming that their devices are intelligent.

None of what you have said explains what makes organic matter special in that it has intelligence and inorganic matter does not.

If you looked into the coding of AI, they are just a database of what the AI designers have typed in to hard drives in order to respond to the users' input with some customization. AI is glorified search engine. — Corvus

And your responses to me and everyone you ever speak to is a product of your history of interacting with English speakers. Many people claim that we think in our native language (I don't necessarily think we do, but this is their claim). Is that any different than what AI does? One could say that the visuals of written words (scribbles) and the sounds of words (utterances) are etched in your brain. The words on this forum are typed and by reading them you might learn new ways of using words and adapt your responses in the future. Again, how is what you are saying AI does is any different from what you are doing right now reading this? Are you a glorified search engine? What is needed to make one more than a glorified search engine?

Exactly. But AI is designed to hallucinate the users as if they are having the real life conversations or discussions with them. — Corvus

It's not designed to hallucinate users. It is a tool designed to provide information using everyday language use instead of searching through irrelevant links that appear in your search, like ads.

Yes, still waiting for your definition of intelligence. If you don't know what intelligence is, then how could you have asked if AI is intelligent? Without clear definition of intelligence, whatever answer would be meaningless.

The boundary of concept is critical for analysis of their the logic of implications and legitimacy of applications. — Corvus

I did define intelligence earlier in the thread:

Let's start off with a definition of intelligence as: the process of achieving a goal in the face of obstacles. What about this definition works and what doesn't? — Harry Hindu

You query what makes organic sentient? Presumably, you, as a human being, are sentient. This means that you have the experience of an organic body, with features such as hunger, thirst and pain. Obviously, these are limitations, but they involve experience, in the form of embodiment. However, the experience of embodiment which leads to understanding of suffering and needs. As non sentient beings do not have needs, including the whole range from the physical, social and self actualization of Maslow's hierarchy of needs they lack any understanding of other minds. — Jack Cummins

None of this explains what makes organics sentient. Yes, I know I'm sentient, but why am I sentient? What is it about me that makes me sentient other than me, or some robot, just saying so?

Let's explore this. Suppose there's a parallel world where computers work without software. Whenever a user wants the computer to do something, they turn the computer on, and all the electronic switches that make up the computer just randomly open and close in ways that produce the output the user wants. It just all happens by fantastic coincidence.

For example, in this parallel world, there are computers that have hardly any circuits that are capable of passing BAR exams, and solving complex math problems, and passing Turing Tests, and acting as therapists because they all just accidentally always give the right output. If the multiverse is sufficiently large and varied enough, this kind of world actually exists. So, are the computers in that world intelligent? — RogueAI

I can't imagine a computer without software. If it does not have software, it isn't a computer. I don't see how such a device could pass BAR exams or solve math problems. It needs software to do this - something to direct the switching into producing meaningful output.

Random switching isn't what I would attribute as intelligent. Intelligence is goal-directed and we can program a computer with goals.

I don't see how any of what you just said helps as it has nothing to do with anything I have said.

I don't think you understood my post. It was about how Tobi's article pointed out that the capitalists might back Trump only so far as he is profitable. If he is unpredictable or if his policies are otherwise not conducive to profit, they will not back him. — Banno

I understood your point. You did not understand mine. Would you support a incumbent when you have lost money during their tenure, or does your politics not allow you to make sound financial decisions?

It seems to me that if Trump started to control speech, Elon would drop him like a bag of garbage.

Trump supported both Democrats and Republicans before he ran, and his support earned him the same benefits that any donor gets. This is nothing new. Again, both sides do it.

I think the perception is that liberalism ended up screwing people over and leaving them without reliable income or healthcare. Or the perception is that liberalism opened the door to changes people didn't want, like LGBTQ. — frank

I would say that the "Liberals" were no longer liberals. Once you start telling others what they can say or think you've crossed over into authoritarianism.

Sure, they like to label themselves as liberals and progressives, but they are anything but. Authoritarianism is not progressive or liberal. They keep the label to influence the sheep into thinking they are sheep like them when they are a wolf instead, and know that most of their constituents will believe what they are told without question, and if you do question it then you're a heretic. Political parties have essentially become religions.

I no longer call them liberals. They are leftists. Libertarians are the true liberals.

The right is no different - using the term "freedom" instead of "liberal" when they are just as likely to impose their religion on you and call it "freedom". If the Dems had their way, we'd be a communist state. If the right had their way, we'd be a theological state. Both sides are playing us against each other, focusing our attention on each other rather than on them - the real oppressors.

Processism: a philosophy characterised by the prioritising of 'happens' over 'is'; of event over object; of doing over being. Now I can relax! I still know everything! — unenlightened

Not over, but as. Happenings as is, object as event and doing as being. It seems to me that these terms are interchangeable depending upon which view we are taking at any given moment. It's not that the process philosopher is abandoning those terms but is instead re-purposing them.

Here's the response from Google A.I. Overview : "Process philosophy is often compared to substance metaphysics, which is the dominant paradigm in Western philosophy. Process philosophy differs from substance metaphysics in its focus on becoming and change, rather than the static nature of being." — Gnomon

What is a substance. What is a process? Which one is more difficult to define?

We've discussed our ideas before and I think we share a lot in the way we view the world. I would add that process and relations can be used interchangeably here, and information is another relation or process - a causal process/relation.

I personally do not like to invoke the term, "becoming" as that seems to imply some sort of goal, or intent, and nothing lasts forever, so becoming nothing would essentially be the case for everything and "becoming" becomes meaningless.

Methinks they don't fully grasp how just seeing things as processes is a bad thing. For one it would be like saying that individuals don't exist. — Darkneos

It's not saying that at all. It's saying that individuals are processes. You are a process. Your mind is a process. Your body is a process, or relation between organs. Your organs are a process, or relation between molecules. Molecules are a relation between atoms, and atoms a relation between protons and electrons, and protons a relation between quarks. It's possible we could go on for infinity as we continue to dig deeper. The point is that when we try to get at actual objects we are actually getting at relations between smaller objects, which are themselves relations.



If you think process philosophy is nonsensical then please explain exactly what is substance?

You want real change? Stop voting for Democrats and Republicans.
— Harry Hindu

I think the real political division in the West is moderates vs. extremists, with the moderates standing for old school liberalism and democracy. The extremists could be reactionary or progressive, but they have the same drive to upset the status quo. — frank

I would say it's more a battle between authoritarianism and liberalism. In (what is suppose to be) a free society authoritarianism is the extreme.

Well, we know personally that we are special because we know we have minds. We then assume other humans and high-order animals have them too. But machines, that's a totally different beast. — RogueAI

But why? That's the question I'm asking. What makes machines different? What is a machine? Are their not biological machines?

Humans are not special because we know we have minds. Every thing has something everything else does not have, or which makes it a member of one group and not another. That is nothing special. You seem to be saying its special because you have it. This type of thinking as a culture and in politics is the underlying cause of much of the violence in human history.

Any computer is at heart a collection of electronic switch-flipping, correct? How is turning switches on and off any kind of intelligence? — RogueAI

It's the cumulative effect of that electronic switching that is intelligence, not at the level of the electronics themselves - just as a neuron's electrical and chemical switching is not intelligence, but its combined effect with other neurons and the muscles in your body that is intelligence and just as a carbon atom is not organic but forms organic molecules in its relation with other molecules.

A basic understanding yes. Some structural understanding probably. But notice that these things tell us little. For instance, an anesthesiologist can make someone lose consciousness, but it is not known how this is done. Some liquid enters the bloodstream does something to the brain and we lose consciousness. It's functional in the sense you are using it, and it says something but it's not well understood. — Manuel

It is known how it is done, or else they wouldn't be able to consistently put people under anesthesia for surgery and they wake up with no issues. The problem you are referring to is the mind-body problem which is really a problem of dualism. If you think that the mind and body are separate things then you do have hard problem to solve. If you think that they are one and the same, just from different views, then you are less likely to fall victim to the hard problem.

Again with function. Why not just say capacity? Function implies it does one main thing, but it does many things. We'd consider the capacity to be conscious to be primary, but that's from our own (human) perspective, not a naturalistic perspective, which I think ought to treat all things equally. — Manuel

Again, it depends on your view. Function does not imply that it does one thing. A function can include many tasks. What if I said that the brain's function is to adapt one's behaviors to new situations? That function would include many tasks. Both terms are used to refer to behavioral expectations.

What I want to know is intelligence only a mental function, or a bodily/behavioral function, a capacity of the mind, or a capacity of the body? When you are observing someone's behavior, is the behavior intelligence, or is it symbolic of intelligence (what is going on in the mind)?

Many people in this thread are saying that you can observe someone's behavior but their behavior can fool us into believing they are intelligent, implying that behavior is not intelligence, but symbolic of intelligence. So it seems to me that intelligence is a process of the mind, not the body. Which is it?

A computer does what the coding is designed for it to do. But here we do become bewitched by terminology. You can say that a computer "processes" information, or "reads" code or "performs calculations". That's what we attribute to it as doing. — Manuel

It's not just me that is saying. Computer scientists are saying it. There must be some kind of functionality or capacity that we both share for them to be able to talk this way and it make sense to people like you and I. Humans have been programmed by natural selection and the cultural environment one is born into. You can design a program to be open-ended, to take in new information in real-time and produce a response. As a human you do not have an infinite capacity to respond to stimuli. You can only engage in behaviors that you have tried before in similar situations and then learn from that. It is not difficult to image a computer-robot that can be programmed to do the same thing.

With people, the difference is that we are the ones categorizing (and understanding) everything, so we have a quite natural bent to interpret things in ways we understand. As for organic matter, it's a difference, billions of years of evolution and a complexity that is mind-boggling. It goes way beyond crunching numbers and data. The capacity to recreate a human brain in non-organic stuff, may be possible, but the engineering feats required to do so are just astronomical. — Manuel

It has nothing to do with organic vs. inorganic. It has to do with the complexity of the structure - the relation between its parts, not the substance of the structure. One could say that the structure is just another relation between smaller parts - an interaction of smaller parts, or a process.

Brains make people intelligent... I mean yeah that's one way to phrase it. But so does education, culture, learning, etc. Yes, that gets "processed" in the brain, but we cannot reduce it to the brain yet, in principle it has to be there, but in practice, I think we are just massively far from realizing how the brain works with these things. — Manuel

No. Learning is an intelligent process. Learning does not make one intelligent. It is a signifier of intelligence.

Also, a kind of trivial example: a person may have a brain and be completely "stupid". They could be in a coma or brain dead. There's something kind of off in saying this person is stupid, because his brain is not working. There's something to work out in this. — Manuel

Sure, the difference between a normal person and a person in a coma is in their brains.

Take ChatGPT, how does it work? It goes through a massive data base of probabilistic words to give the most likely outcome of the following word. But look at what we are doing now. You don't read (nor do I read you) by remembering every word you say. It would be a massive headache. We get meanings or gists and respond off of that. That's the opposite of what ChatGPT does. — Manuel

Sounds like what humans do when communicating. You learned rules for using the scribbles, which letter follows the other to spell a word correctly, and how to put words in order following the rules of grammar. It took you several years of immersing yourself in the use of your native language to be able to understand the rules. The difference is that a computer can learn much faster than you. Does that mean it is more intelligent than you?

Yeah, I think other animals are intelligent. No doubt, but in so far as I am saying that about them, it's related to the usage of them having capabilities that allow them to survive in the wild. That's kind of the standard as far as I know. But there are other aspects we may want to include in intelligence when it comes to animals. — Manuel

Then, for you, there is a distinction between organic and inorganic matter in that one can be intelligent and the other can't. What reason do you have to believe that? Seriously, dig deep down into your mind and try to get at the reasoning for these claims you are making. The only question remaining here is what is so special about organic matter? If you can't say, then maybe intelligence is not grounded in substance, but in process.

Your post with the genetics point of view on humans
just a baby-making (gene dispersal) engine
— Harry Hindu
sounded too restricted and even negative, which didn't help adding more useful information on understanding or describing humans. — Corvus

Neither did your comment about AIs being overrated search engines. You cannot have a philosophical discussion with a search engine. The only other object I can have a philosophical discussion with is another human being. Does that not say something?

I am not sure, if intelligence is a correct word to describe the AI agents. Intelligence is an abstract concept with no clear boundary in its application, which has been in use to describe the biologically living animals with brains.

Could usefulness or practicality or efficiency better terms for describing the AI agents, unless you would come up with some sort of reasonable definition of intelligence? What do you think? — Corvus

Yet we use the term, "intelligent" every day. If intelligence really were abstract, our conversations would cease once the word, "intelligence" is used, as we would all be confused by its use. The boundaries are only vague in a philosophical discussion about intelligence. All I'm trying to do is get at the core meaning of intelligence, not its boundaries. It seems that most people here want to cling to their notions that humans, or organic matter, is somehow special without providing any good reasons for thinking that.

Also, creating a body passable as a human would have to involve sentience which is complicated.It may be possible to create partial sentience by means of organic parts but this may end up as a weak human being, like in cloning. The other possibility which is more likely is digital implants to make human beings as part bots, which may be the scary idea, with the science fiction notion of zombies. — Jack Cummins

Why? What makes organic matter sentient? What is so special about organic matter that allows sentience but inorganic matter not?

These are extremely weighty questions that have been asked for a very long time, with no good answers given (I lean towards idealism, by the way). This is why I think Ai is going to have profound impacts on society. We're not at all ready to determine whether these machines have minds, yet we are intimately familiar with our own minds and how we use them to make decisions. — RogueAI

Not really. It's just that humans have viewed themselves as special creations for most of our existence, or that creation itself is centered around us, so it is difficult in giving up these notions that we are somehow special and that intelligence cannot be attributed to things that are not human, or even organic.

For the moment supporting Trump seems to be conducive to making a profit. — Banno

Yeah, just ask Nancy Pelosi.

The fact that you make some argument that is hypocritical in the light of the other side's actions just shows that either you live in a bubble, or you just don't care about being taken seriously.

Politicians are not nice, caring people. If you think that one side cares more for the common folk than the other, you're deluding yourself. Just watch Obama and Trump talking and smiling during Carter's funeral and you will see that they never thought he was a fascist. The left just wanted you think he was to manipulate you, and it appears they have succeeded.

Abandon the group-think and group-hate already. Evolve.

I certainly take you up on it. Of course we have to settle on what 'of note' means. I predict that a major constitutional event will take place that furthers or tries to further the hold on power of current government circles, including, but not limited to, Presidents being allowed a third term, prosecution of political and social high profile figures on drummed up charges, the administrative branch blatantly ignoring a supreme court verdict or something else of significant constitutional weight. — Tobias

Hasn't that already happened? The thing that each side seems to forget is that increasing the hold on power by one side is increasing it for the other as well. Both sides are stroking each other's ambitions of power while manipulating citizens like yourself into thinking short-term that it is only the other side that is power-hungry. By supporting the two-party status-quo you are enabling them and their aspirations of power.

Neither side is concerned about the country turning communist or fascist. They just want more power and authority.

After reading this thread, any reasonable person would walk away understanding that both sides are hypocrites and is pointless to keep supporting the status quo.

You want real change? Stop voting for Democrats and Republicans.

But I know I have a mind and my mind is what I use to come up with responses to you (that I hope are perceived as intelligent!). We assume we all have minds because we're all built the same way. But with a machine, you don't know if there's a mind there, so this question of intelligence keeps cropping up. — RogueAI

So what you're saying is that you need a mind to be intelligent? What exactly is a mind? You say you have one, but what is it, and what magic does organic matter have that inorganic matter does not to associate minds with the former but not the latter?

Is it your mind that allows you to come up with responses to me, or your intelligence, or both?

No, I don't have any idea what genetics suppose to be or do in depth. I just thought that genetic is one way to describe humans, but to define humans under the one tiny narrow subject sounds too obtuse and meaningless. Because humans are far more than genes, and they cannot be reduced into just genes.

Genetics supposed to add the bio-structural information to the knowledge of understanding humans, not to reduce it, in other words. Makes sense? — Corvus

Sure. A valid view is one that allows you to accomplish some goal. We change our views of humans depending on what it is we want to accomplish - genetic views, views of an individual organisms, a view as the species as a whole, cultural views, views of governance, etc. It's not that one view is wrong or right. It's more about which view is more relevant to what it is you are trying to accomplish.

The question now is, what point of view do we start with to adequately define intelligence, one of a particular organism (each organism is more or less intelligent depending upon the complexity of its behaviors), species (only humans are intelligent), or universal (any thing can be intelligent if it performs the same type function)?

"Understand something", yes. This would be activity in the brain. I don't, however, see this having much to say about the mind. We could, theoretically (or in principle), know everything about the brain when we are consciously aware, and still not know how the brain is capable of having mental activity, which must be the case.

The issue here, as I see it, is how much this "something" amounts to. I'm not too satisfied with the word "function" to be honest. It seems to suggest to me a "primary thing" an organ does, while leaving "secondary things" as unimportant or residual. This should cause a bit of skepticism. — Manuel

If neuroscientists can connect a computer to a brain in such a way as to allow a patient to move a mouse cursor by thinking about it in their mind, it would seem to me that they have an understanding (at least a basic understanding) of both. I think that the distinction between mind and brain is a distinction of views, but that is a different topic for a different thread.

What are the primary and secondary functions of a brain? What are the primary and secondary functions of a computer? Are there any functions they share? If we were to design a humanoid robot where its computer brain was designed to perform the same primary and secondary functions as the brain, would it be intelligent, or have a mind? If not, then you must be saying that there is something in the way organic matter, as opposed to inorganic matter is constructed, (or more specifically something special about carbon atoms) that allows intelligence and mind.

I don't want to sound pesky. I still maintain that reasoning (or intelligence) is something which people do and have respectively, not neurons or a brain. Quite literally neurons in isolation or a brain in isolation shows no intelligence or reasoning, if we are still maintaining ordinary usage of these words.

You say neurons are involved in reasoning. But there is a lot more to the brain than neurons. Other aspects of the brain, maybe even micro-physical processes may be more important. Still, all this talk should lead back to people, not organs, being intelligent or reasoning. — Manuel

No worries. Being pesky about terms is something a computer would do. A computer is a demander of precision and explicitness as well as any software developer would attest to.

I just want to make sure that you're not exhibiting a bias in that only human beings are intelligent without explaining why. What makes a human intelligent if not their brains? Can a human be intelligent without a brain?

If you want to say that intelligence is a relationship between a body that can behave in particular ways and brain, then that would be fair. What if we designed a humanoid robot with a computer brain that acted in human ways? You might say that ChatGPT is not intelligent because it does not have a body, but what about an android?

The point of my questions here is I'm trying to get at if intelligence is the product of some function (information processing), or some material (carbon atoms), or both?

Human beings have committed atrocities in the name of the moral, so it is not as if the artificial has an absolute model to live up to. In a sense, it is possible that the artificial may come up with better solutions sometimes. But, it is a critical area, because it is dependent on how they have been programmed. So, it involves the nature of values which have been programmed into them. The humans involved in the design and interpretation of this need to be involved in an analytical way because artificial intelligence doesn't have the guidance of a conscience, even if conscience itself is limited by its rational ability. — Jack Cummins

Humans have values programmed into them as well via interactions with their environment (both cultural and natural). If we designed a humanoid robot to interact with the world (which would include others like it both natural and artificial) with a primary goal of survival, would it not eventually come to realize that it has a better chance at survival by cooperating with humans and other androids than trying to exterminate them all?

It seems to me that if we are scared of AI taking over that we limit the range of AI's access to the world by placing them bodies like our own and not allowing them access to every utility (the internet, electrical grids, water and sewage, military, government, etc.) that runs the modern world.

A Republican Congressman is already proposing to abolish the term limit in the Constitution so that Trump can serve a third term: — Wayfarer

Well, isn't that the beauty of the Constitution of the U.S.? It wasn't that long ago that the Dems wanted to make a similar change to the Constitution regarding term limits for the SCOTUS. The Constitution was designed to be molded by future generations, and any change made by one party applies to all of them where a Democrat president might be able to have three terms as well.

I'm all for limiting terms, I only wish Congress should start with themselves.

It's brilliant arguments such as this that convince folk to support Trump. — Banno

It's certainly a better argument than this argument: "What we really need is a feminomenon!". https://www.youtube.com/shorts/48G82Cq9C9k

Point is what brilliant argument can be made to continue voting for either side instead of something else considering the state of the U.S. the past 30 years? There are other options. People just need to stop seeing the world as red and blue, or black and white. There are other colors in the spectrum (other ideas/solutions that are neither red or blue). People just need to stop thinking that either-or are their only options and the power to change in ourselves because we know the politicians are not going to..

Aren't we going to end up in the Chinese Room? No matter how the Ai is programmed, it's following a rules-based system that we perceive as giving us intelligent answers. Even if Ai's start solving outstanding problems in science and logic and mathematics, aren't there still going to be doubts about their intelligence? — RogueAI

But where does this doubt stem from if not a bias that humans are intelligent and not machines? There is no logical reason to think this without a definition of intelligence.

When learning a language you are learning a rules-based system. Learning anything is establishing rules for how to interpret sensory data.

A genetic point of view seems to have a peculiarly limited idea of humans. — Corvus

Only if you have a peculiarly limited view of genetics. Everything humans do is a subgoal of survival and dispersing the genes of the group. The design of your adaptable brain is in your genes.

Please define intelligence. — Corvus

I am attempting to do so:

It may and probably does come in degrees. However, notice, that neither you nor I have defined what "intelligence" is. I think real life problem solving is a big part. And so is reasoning and giving reasons for something. — Manuel

Let's be patient. I think trying to do much in one post will cause us to start talking past each other. Let's make sure we agree on basic points first.

But this probably overlooks a lot of aspects of intelligence, which I think are inherently nebulous. Otherwise, discussions like these wouldn't keep arising, since everything is clear. Wisdom? Something about it coming as we age, usually related to deep observations. Several other things, depending on who you ask.

That's even more subjective than intelligence. — Manuel

In everyday language-use we tend to understand each other's use of words more often than not. It is only when we approach the boundaries of what it is we are talking about (which is typical in a philosophical context) that we tend to worry about what the words mean. It is the blurred boundaries of our categories that make us skeptical of the meaning of our words, not the concrete core of our categories - which we are typically referring to in everyday language.

We can replace hearts and limbs. If function - whatever it is - is the main factor here, then aren't we done studying the heart or our limbs? I doubt we'd be satisfied by this answer, because we still have lots to discover about the heart and our limbs.

And these things we are still studying say, how the heart is related to emotion or why some hearts stop beating without a clear cause, are these not "functions" too? — Manuel

Sure, we have not developed an artificial heart that a person can live with indefinitely. Artificial hearts are designed to keep the person alive long enough to receive a hear transplant. But this is not to say that we never will.

We have developed the ability to connect a computer to a person's brain and they are able to manipulate the mouse cursor and type using just their thoughts. Does this not show that we have at least begun to tap into the functions of the mind/brain to the point where we can say that we understand something about how the brain functions? Sure, we have a ways to go, but that is just saying that our understanding comes in degrees as well.

I don't understand what it means to say that a mass of neurons is intelligent. — Manuel

Which of your organs involved with reasoning? Your brain. Your brain is a mass of neurons. Your mass of neurons reasons. Does a mass of silicon circuits reason?

Let's start off with a definition of intelligence as: the process of achieving a goal in the face of obstacles. What about this definition works and what doesn't?

You speak of the way in which using ChatGPT does not have emotional attachments as being positive. This is open to question, as to how much objectivity and detachment is useful. Emotions can get in the way as being about one's own needs and the ego. On the other hand, emotional attachments are the basis of being human and connections with others. Detachment may lead to absence of any compassion. This may lead to brutal lack of concern for other people and lifeforms. — Jack Cummins

I did not imply a sense of morality in anything that I said, or that being intelligent or emotional is either positive or negative. You are talking about morality. I am talking about intelligence. If an alien race with superior technology arrived on Earth and began exterminating humans would you say that they are not intelligent because they are exterminating humans? Morality and intelligence are mutually exclusive. There are intelligent serial killers.

…..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?