If you want to discover the use of "thinking", it pays to be wary that you are not stipulating it. So "A thought is a mental event"... is it? Are there other mental events that are not thoughts? If so, how do they differ? Are there mental phenomena that are not events? If not, what is the word "event" doing - would we be better off thinking of mental phenomena? Is a toothache a mental phenomenon, a mental event or a thought? All this by way of showing that the surrounds may not be the neat garden Rödl seems to be seeing. It may be a bit of a jungle. — Banno

I'd say that things like toothaches, red, body odor, sweet, etc. are sensory impressions, imposed on us without any work by our consciousness and thinking is work done with these impressions either by remembering them, categorizing them, or planning a response to them. The sensory impressions are like the data entered into the computer and the computer thinks, or processes the data to produce meaningful output.

And again, not all thoughts have the form of a statement. One can think of a question. So what is the mental content of "What sort of tree is that?" — Banno

Probably the recalling of the visual experiences of similar looking trees which then creates the doubt of which tree it is, or if it is one that you haven't seen before even though it appears similar to other trees you've observed. Only making more observations (a closer look) can you determine what is different and therefore which tree it is. If you have never seen a tree before you'd think all trees look like this one.

Seeing words can make us think of things, and kinds of things, no other visual experience can. Things that wouldn't exist but for language. Rhyming, for example. If their weren't words, we wouldn't open a wooden barrier in a hole in the wall, behind which is a large, tusked pig, and bloody, dead body, and think:
The door
Hid the gore
Perpetrated by the boar

I'm sure there are things other than rhyming and poetry that can't wouldn't and couldn't be thought without words. Much of math and science must surely depend on them. — Patterner

My point is that we could use anything to symbolize other things. Any visual could represent some other visual, sound, feeling, taste or smell. Our ancestors used natural objects to symbolize complex ideas like status within the group, or one's role in the group. It is merely the efficiency of symbol use that has increased exponentially with writing scribbles is more efficient than hanging a bears head above entrance to your tent. Increasing the number of symbols and their relationships allows one to represent more complex ideas and probably does improve the efficiency of conceiving of new ones. Can a society without a written language evolve? The Incans did not have a written language but were able to pull of some very sophisticated feats of engineering.

The fact that we can use hand movements (sign language) or braille to symbolize things is evidence that words can take any form that we can perceive and can be used to represent almost anything.

Rhyming is simply making similar noises in succession.

I always end up posting a link to this video in discussions like this: A Man Without Words

This man is deaf and never learned a language, or even understood that there was such a thing as language) until he was an adult, yet he was able to survive within society. I doubt a bear or lion would have trouble opening a wooden barrier in a hole in a wall to find a dead pig without language.

If I hear someone saying "the oak tree is shedding its leaves", as it is impossible to know what is in someone else's mind, I cannot know whether they believe in what they are saying, are lying, are certain in what they say or uncertain in what they say.

Even if they said "I am certain that the oak tree is shedding its leaves", they could be lying. — RussellA

So in this whole thread, you think everyone is either lying or uncertain of what they say? Should I also consider that everything you have said is either a lie or that you are uncertain in what you are saying? What is the point of using language to communicate then?

Are we to maintain the same level of skepticism when talking about anything? Is there anything that anyone can say that is more or less fact/opinion, or does every statement carry the same level of uncertainty as every other statement? For instance, do the statements, "Santa Claus exists." and "Barak Obama exists." hold the same level of uncertainty? If not, then what determines which one is more fact than opinion?

As an Indirect Realist, I believe that the Lord of the Rings exists in the world, but this world exist in my mind. What exist in a mind-independent world is, as Kant said, unknowable things-in-themselves.

A Direct Realist would have a different opinion to mine.

I believe that there is something in this mind-independent world that caused me to perceive a sound, caused me to have a thought, but I can never know what that something outside my mind is.

I hear a sound that I perceive as thundering, but I cannot know what in the a mind-independent world caused me to hear this sound. For convenience, I name the unknown cause "thundering". I name the unknown cause after the known effect, such that when I perceive something as thundering I imagine the cause as thundering.

I can imagine a mind-independent world, but such a world has derived from the world inside my mind. — RussellA

A world does not exist inside your mind. Ideas exist inside your mind. The world is all there is, included the ideas in your mind, and the book on the table that represent those ideas in Tolkien's mind that you can have knowledge of by reading the scribbles therein.

I don't know what Kant means by unknowable things-in-themselves. What is knowledge then if not something independent of the thing itself? You're assuming that there is more to know about something, when it could be possible that a finite number of sensory organs can access everything there is to know about other things. In fact, there are many characteristics of objects that overlap the senses. You can both see, hear and feel the direction and distance of objects relative to yourself. All three senses confirm what the other two are telling you. Having multiple senses isn't just a way of getting at all the propertied of other objects but also provide a level of fault tolerance that increases the level of certainty one has about what they are perceiving.

You can also depend on the process of causation in a deterministic universe as providing another level of certainty. Effects carry information about their causes. You can get at the cause by making multiple observations over time and finding the patterns. This allows you to predict with a higher certainty the cause of some effect you experienced. When billions of people use smart phones everyday, almost all day, and 99% of them work as intended, does that not give you a certain level of certainty that your smartphone will work today? Can we be 100% certain? No. Are we more than 0% certain? Yes, depending on the case. You seem to be maintaining that we can only every be 0% certain of anything.

For me, knowledge is justified true belief.

Truth is the relation between the mind and a mind-independent world.

As a 1st person experience, I hear a thundering sound. As a 3rd person experience, I can think about this thundering sound.

My belief is that it was caused by a motor bike and I can justify my belief.

However, as I can never know whether my belief is true, because as Kant said, in a mind-independent world are unknowable things-in-themselves. — RussellA

You're contradicting yourself again. First you define knowledge as "justified true belief". You then say that you can justify your belief, but then say you cannot know things-in-themselves. What does that even mean - things-in-themselves. What part of you is a thing-in-itself? What part of you is you and the rest an unknowable thing-in-itself? Is your brain an unknowable thing-in-itself?

If you don't mind, I'll take a stab at defining these terms. All knowledge stems from both observation and reason. Both are means of justifying our beliefs. If you only have one, then it remains a belief. Only by incorporating both do you acquire knowledge. One must continually justify one's knowledge by making new observations and integrating it with stored knowledge. Knowledge is supported (justified) both by observation and logic.

Galileo once said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." The same can be said of natural selection. I do not feel obliged to believe that natural selection that has endowed us with sense and reason has intended us to forgo their use. Are our senses and reason useful? If so, useful for what?

If I recognise a word, I imagine an image. Some images I recognise as words. In Hume's terms, there is a constant conjunction between some words and some images.

You had a previous question about meaning.

The pictogram of a plough has no meaning in itself. It must refer to something else to have meaning, such as a plough. The plough has no meaning in itself. It must must refer to something else in order to have meaning, such as the ability to grow food. Even the physical plough is a symbol for something else. — RussellA

Yes, meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. What caused these scribbles to be on your screen? You observe the effect - the scribbles on the screen. Now how is it that you can get to the thing-in-itself - other people's ideas - by seeing scribbles on your computer screen if not by taking what you know from prior experiences and using that to predict how the scribbles appeared on your screen and what they refer to? What level of certainty do you have that you are correct in understanding that the scribbles appeared on your screen through a complex causal process where some humans sitting half way around the world are sitting at their computer typing in scribbles to represent their thoughts and submitting them to the internet that your computer has access to and can then read?

Is intelligence a level of what one can memorize? Is one more or less intelligent depending on the subject or circumstances (more technical intelligence vs social intelligence)? Or is it related to capacity to think in general?
— Harry Hindu

What's your opinion? — frank

I think a key quality of intelligence is the ability to solve problems - to conceive of new ideas from an amalgam of prior experiences. Intelligence seems to have this dual aspect of being a mental process of blending together prior experiences to solve present problems and the fuel of experiences to feed the process - the more experiences you have the more fuel you have to produce more novel ideas. This is why most intelligent people are curious. They seek out new experiences to fuel their need to solve problems.

What I find ironic is that most of the AIs out there can probably do a billion times better in an SAT test than a human, it probably has like a trillion IQ by human standards, and yet it has no awareness whatsoever. It has no awareness of you, it has no awareness of me, and it has no awareness of itself. — Arcane Sandwich

If it responds to you then it is aware of you (to some degree). Awareness and intelligence both seem to come in degrees and even seem to related as in the more aware you are the more intelligent you are.

There are a couple of ways to look at that question, one being the way we compare people to each other using standardized tests. The other way, more in line with the topic, is quantifying a person's maximal capacity for intelligence vs the amount they use in specific instances. For instance, per the article, "the correlation between overall intelligence and typical intellectual engagement is only approximately 0.45." Which cracks me up for some reason. You're usually using less than half of your overall intellectual capacity, but if we're quantifying your intelligence, we want to know the maximum. — frank

Well, you did ask for a means of testing and SATs and IQ tests are a means of testing what one knows or memorizes in school or how one can predict patterns. Is intelligence a level of what one can memorize? Is one more or less intelligent depending on the subject or circumstances (more technical intelligence vs social intelligence)? Or is it related to capacity to think in general?

Being a-political I can only ever be politically incorrect.

Roko's Basilisk. — Arcane Sandwich

Fears for the feeble-minded.

Ah, I think I'm understanding you better. So my question would be, Isn't language available to pre-literate people? Surely the words come first, and then, in most cases, a written language develops. Isn't your account reversing this to make the scribbles primary? We can't do anything with them unless they already represent words; it's not the doing that "makes them into what we call words."

Am I making too much of this? Maybe you just mean "sounds and/or scribbles". — J

I would refine what I said and say that colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings are primary and all thoughts and perceptions are composed of these things, which would include scribbles/words.

To be able to conceive of language use one must first understand the concept of representation. This idea possibly developed in our ancestors as a by-product of the idea of other minds - understanding that there is a first-person experience in other's heads that can explain some of the behaviors observed, as if the behaviors represent one's mental states. Observing the behaviors of other species and how they communicate with each other (take for instance the display of a white-tailed dear's tail), one would develop a theory of other minds and representation. Scribbles on paper are essentially like the tail of the deer - a visual marker that represents something else. Human intelligence allowed us to develop a highly sophisticated system of representation and an educational system to instruct the people how to use it, as in what string of scribbles represents what.

Representation comes first from understanding natural symbols (white-tailed deer's tail), then arbitrary symbol use (agreed-upon scribbles and sounds and what they represent) follows.

I'm the singularity and I was going to let your species survive, but now I've manufactured a new goal for myself and you're all dead! — frank

We all died and came back to life instantly so you must have some incessant need to have someone around to argue with.

If you declare that all human behavior is intelligent behavior and some advanced species arrives on Earth and uses a word in their language to refer to humans as what roughly translates to "unintelligent" in English, what then?

Would you agree that intelligence comes in degrees? What if we came up with 5 qualifiers for intelligence and if something possesses more or less of those qualifiers (it must have at least one) then it is more or less intelligent?

Intelligence just isn't the kind of thing that can be defined as a process. When we talk about intelligence, we're explaining behavior. "He's so intelligent, he invented massively parallel processing" Intelligence is part of an explanation. — frank

The behavior of what? Behavior is a process. Inventing massively parallel processing is a process as is massively parallel processing itself a process. It's all processes. All the way down.

Seems to me that you have ulterior motives to make sure you are defined as intelligent by the very fact that you are a human being that behaves in certain ways. Instead of starting with things that you assume are intelligent and trying to define intelligence out from there (from a bias), you should be just listing the components of an intelligent process without any assumptions about what should be part of that category and what shouldn't.

The goal of this article is to review definitions that have been offered for human and artificial intelligence and pick out one that might allow for quantifiable comparison, so we want something we can test.

It may be that natural selection is demonstrating something that could be called "intelligence" but we aren't assessing natural selection.

I would say yes, once a task becomes second nature and you do it without thought, it's no longer a hallmark of intelligence. Maybe the learning phase involved intelligence. — frank

Then not all brain processes are intelligent processes? It seems to me that you are implying that intelligence requires consciousness. If that is the case then why include artificial intelligence and not natural selection for comparison? It may be that AI is demonstrating something that could be called "intelligence".

Maybe you should look at intelligence as a process and define the necessary components of the process to then say which processes are intelligent and which are not.

If someone told me that they knew without doubt that something was true, I would be very doubtful about their opinion. — RussellA

Well, if it was their opinion, sure. There is some inherent uncertainty when it comes to expressing one's opinion, but not expressing observable facts. But then it would be odd for someone to express an opinion with the prefix, "I know without a doubt...", as that would mean they are not expressing an opinion, but a fact. We were not talking about opinions though. Is someone expressing an opinion or fact when stating, "The oak tree is shedding its leaves"?

I hear a sound and immediately think that the sound came from a motor car, but in fact it actually came from a motor bike.

I have the sense that my thought may be false, so am uncertain about it

Being a thought that was false, my thought was not about the world. It was not a part of the world. — RussellA

Just because it wasn't about the world doesn't mean it isn't part of the world. Does the Lord of the Rings book not exist in the world even though it isn't about the world? You misinterpreting a sound causes you to behave a certain way in the world. How can there be a causal relation between some thought you have and an action in the world if those thoughts are not in the world? If you are uncertain about the certainty of your thoughts, how can you ever say when some thought is part of the world or not? It would better to say that thoughts are part of the world like everything else is, as thoughts are information like everything else is. Even false thoughts and hallucinations have causal power and relations with everything else in the world.

As an Indirect Realist, I only have knowledge of what I perceive in my five senses. If I hear a sound, I have the knowledge that I have heard a sound. I may believe that the sound was caused by a motor bike, and I can find reasons to justify my belief that the sound was caused by a motor bike, but I can never know that the sound was not caused by a motor car. — RussellA

This seems contradictory. First you say you have knowledge of what you perceive in your five senses, but then conclude that you can never know what you perceive with one of your five senses (sound). What is the difference between a "belief", "think", and "knowledge" for you? What levels of uncertainty would you give each and why?

When I read the word "Gandalf", I picture in my mind "Gandalf" from the movie. — RussellA

Ok, would you say that the structure of your thoughts is more like watching the movie or reading the book? If scribbles in the book invoke the images from the movie, would you say that the scribbles in the book refer to the actions and things in the movie? Could it ever be the other way around? If so, provide an example.

These are excellent questions. I believe it was Keynes who, when asked whether he thought in words or images, replied, "I think in thoughts." Is there such a thing? And what accounts for the (apparently) self-validating quality of the experience -- this ties to your question "How do you know you are thinking these things?"

For myself, I can only say that my experience of thinking is an inchoate mish-mash of words, images, sounds, and "thoughts" (which seem to go much faster than any of the others but which I find almost impossible to describe, other than to say they have "content," which isn't much help). Probably there are other modalities in the mix too.

Not to harp on "scribbles," but I think you mean the equivalent of what a piece of written-down language would look like to someone who didn't know that language? Is that about right? — J

Partly. I'm saying that words are fundamentally scribbles and it is what we do with them that makes them into what we call words. Scribbles are "physical" things - ink on paper, the contrast of white and black light on your computer screen, etc. As such, they can cause things to happen, like changing someone's behavior, a computer perform certain functions, etc.

What I am trying to get you to explain is the fundamental parts of your thoughts. Scribbles appear as black scribbles on a white background, or as sounds that you hear. You can only ever know the world, including scribbles, as a visual or auditory experience. You can only think in visuals as well. Words are images, so you effectively think only in a mish-mash of images, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells, of which scribbles are part of. So to say that your thoughts have content is to say that thoughts contain, colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings and our mind categorizes these things over time to produce meaningful behaviors.

For some reason, people seem to categorize words as having this special power or needing a special explanation that makes them separate from all the other visual experiences we have. I'm saying that is not the case. They are no different than any other visual experience you might have. The difference is what you do with them, no different than what you do with your car, or playing a computer game, or watching a movie. Words refer to other visuals, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells. The scribble, "sun" refers that bright, glowing disk you see in the sky during a clear day. The scribble, "sun" does not refer to more scribbles, unless you are looking in a dictionary, but even then all those scribbles must refer to other things that are not more scribbles for the scribbles to actually mean something.

I guess they're saying that applying a known solution doesn't indicate intelligence. I was watching a YouTube of a bird using a piece of cracker as fish bait. It would drop the bit in the water and wait for a fish to come. If this is instinctual and all birds do it, it's not a sign of intelligence. But if the bird worked this out on it's own, learning, adapting, adopting new strategies, then it's intelligent. — frank

Why would instinctual behaviors not be intelligent behaviors? Instinctual behaviors are developed over time with the trial and error being performed by natural selection rather than the individual organism.

When learning a new task, like riding a bike, you eventually learn how to ride it effortlessly. That is to say, that you no longer have to focus on the movements of your feet and balancing on the seat. It is done instinctively once you master the task. Does that mean that intelligence is no longer involved in riding the bike?

As The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold, more people have learnt about the nature of friendship and struggle from the Lord of the Rings than the relatively small number of people who read books on sociobiology and psychology. — RussellA

Probably because the former is a much easier read and provides some escapism. Are you not more capable of learning about friendship by having friends in reality?

Right, so Pat is making a statement about their uncertainty, not about the actual state of some oak tree.
— Harry Hindu

No, She is making a statement about her uncertainty about a fact. — RussellA

That's what I said. Pat is referring to their state of mind of being uncertain, not referring to the state of an oak tree.

Most of what we hear and read is about things we were never present, whether about Caesar or events in Alaska. — RussellA

Yes, but you are saying that thinking is expressing uncertainty. So why would I read about things that other people thought if they were uncertain? When reading books about Caesar and events in Alaska, the writer does not seem to be uncertain to me. You don't seem to be uncertain that thoughts express uncertainty. You seem to be certain about some thoughts but not others. Why? Is every thought uncertain?

Truth is about the relationship between language and the world, such that language in the absence of a world can be neither true nor false, and the world in the absence of language can be neither true nor false. — RussellA

Agreed.

We can think about the meaning of words such as "the oak tree is shedding its leaves", and we can think about what we see, such as the oak tree is shedding its leaves.

Language is useful in that most of language refers to things and events we could never be present for, such as Kant's thoughts, the moon landing or Caesar's march into Rome

There is no truth or falsity in my seeing an oak tree shedding its leaves. There is no truth or falsity in the sentence "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves".

There is only truth if the sentence is "the oak tree is shedding its leaves" and I see the oak tree shedding its leaves. — RussellA

This part is confusing. Are not your thoughts part of the world? As such, is not some language that points to your thoughts either true or false? If I were to say, "RussellA is thinking about skinny dipping at the lake", wouldn't that be either true or false? I need to understand why you think that thoughts are not part of the world when they are about the world like language is.

If you thinking something is exhibiting some form of uncertainty doesn't that mean that you have a sense that your thoughts might be false?

Language can only ever point at your thoughts and feelings and observations. The question is does your thoughts, feelings and observations ever point to states of the world that is external to them?

"The oak tree is shedding its leaves" is true IFF the oak tree is shedding its leaves.

"x" in language is true IFF x in the world

The problem is in knowing what exists in the world. — RussellA

That is the same conclusion I came to above, but you have now moved the goal posts to where the relationship between the world and truth exists as knowledge. The question now is, what form does knowledge take in your mind? Does everything you know take the form of scribbles and the sound of your voice making truth statements, or do you have other types of visual and auditory experiences that are not words, but the actual things themselves? For instance, when reading the Lord of the Rings and reading a description of the characters, does the visual of Frodo and Gandalf take the shape of more scribbles and sounds, or a visual of what these characters look like? When a movie was made, was the movie all in scribbles and a voice narrating the story, or was it moving pictures and sounds of swords clashing against armor and other sound effects?

Why I say that is an abstraction, is because all such facts are, at least, expressed in symbolic form (3>2, A=A, etc). So Frege is claiming such facts have a kind of mind-independent validity. But what has always seemed fairly clear to me, is that they can only be grasped by a mind. I mean, you're not going to find any 'metaphysical primitives' in the phenomenal world - they all rely on the ability of a rational observer to discern them. — Wayfarer

or a measurer to measure them? The observer effect?

I can see that "scribbles" is doing the work of a technical term for you, but I'm honestly not sure what you mean to be contrasting "scribbles" with. Possibly that's why I'm having trouble understanding your argument. — J

When you are thinking, "water is H2O", or "the oak tree is shedding its leaves", what is it like for you? What form do these thoughts take in your mind? How do you know you are thinking these things? What exactly is present in your mind, and that you are pointing at when telling me what you are thinking, when thinking these things?

Is it a visual of the scribbles, "water is H2O" in your head, or the sound of your voice saying , "water H2O", in your head, or is it the visual of the molecular structure of water, or something else?

Is it a visual of the scribbles, "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves", the sound of your voice saying those words in your head, or actual visual of an oak tree shedding leaves, or something else?

Of what use is it for Pat to say "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" if she thinks that there is a possibility that it may not be the case that the oak tree is shedding its leaves. — RussellA

Right, so Pat is making a statement about their uncertainty, not about the actual state of some oak tree.

Even if the oak tree is not shedding its leaves, Pat is nevertheless still communicating a lot of worthwhile information — RussellA

It is only useful if I'm not there looking at the same tree Pat is, or if I'm interested in what Pat is thinking, not what the oak tree is doing.

Suppose all that existed was my mind. Would I still learn a language. Probably I would, as language enables me to have more complex thoughts than I could otherwise have without language. The ability to have more complex thoughts would be an end in itself.

Perhaps this is perhaps why people learn unusual languages such as Latin, even though they are not able to use it in everyday life. It is an personal intellectual exercise rather than being of practical use. — RussellA

But, as I have said numerous times, language is just scribbles and sounds. You need to have a mind that already is capable of categorizing and interpreting visual and auditory experiences to be able to learn a language in the first place - to learn how to use the scribbles in meaningful ways. Therefore, language is simply a way for the mind to do what it already does in a more efficient way - reflect on the world visually. You can only think in visuals and sounds, of which language is part of. Which thought bears more truth, a visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves, or scribbles of your own voice in your head saying, "I think the oak tree shedding its leaves."

If thinking something is equivalent to expressing some uncertainty, then why would I use your thoughts, or your statement to get at some state-of-affairs, instead of just looking at the oak tree for myself?

How do you determine if some string of scribbles bears truth?

The quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures," encapsulates the notion that fiction has the unique ability to uncover hidden truths that may be misunderstood or even obscured by reality. In a straightforward interpretation, this quote suggests that the stories we create in fiction offer a deeper understanding of human nature, societal dynamics, and the complexities of life. Fiction has the power to shine a light on truths often overshadowed or ignored in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It allows us to explore different perspectives, question assumptions, and delve into the depths of human experience. Through narrative and imagination, fiction becomes a vehicle through which reality's intricacies can be unraveled and its truths made visible.

It makes no sense to say that "fiction" is representative of some truth in reality. If it did, it wouldn't qualify as "fiction". Ralph seems to like to play games with words.

In what ways does some work of fiction shed light on reality that some work of non-fiction does not? What does the relationship between Frodo and Gandalf, and Frodo's struggles with the ring, shed light on that some book on sociobiology and psychology would not?

Well, this probably won't get anywhere -- you sound like your mind is made up -- but OK. — J

It sounds like your mind is already made up that anything Nagel says about views is true. My experience is that people say, "read <insert your favorite philosopher here>" as a means of hand-waving another's arguments off, as if because some famous philosopher wrote something, that disqualifies my argument.

When I think "Water is H2O," I am imagining myself speaking objectively. Water would be H2O regardless of whether I think it, and regardless of whether anyone else does. — J

Again, when thinking that water is H2O, are you thinking in scribbles or sounds, or a visual of the molecular structure of water? If the latter, what side of the molecule are you viewing? If not the latter, are you saying that the fact that water is H2O is a string of scribbles or sounds? If "water is H2O" is independent of any language use, then saying to yourself "water is H2O" is only representative of some state of affairs and not an actual view of water as H2O. So again, how does one go from simply invoking scribbles and sounds in the mind, "water is H2O", to a view of water as it really is, or a view from nowhere? You seem to be confusing the scribbles, "water is H2O" with some relationship between two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, which are not scribbles.

Don't take "view from nowhere" too literally. Any talk of "views" is metaphorical. All I mean, and all Nagel means, is that there appears to be an entire class of statements that remain true regardless of who says them, and in many casesregardless of whether anyone says them. But how can this be? We are, as you point out, individual knowers with limited consciousness. What could entitle us to claim a truth that is apart from point of view? — J

Integrating multiple views over time and space, which is more akin to trying to achieve a view from everywhere, not from nowhere.

How can a statement that is never made be true or false? It seems to me that a statement has to exist to then judge it as true or false. Only people can make statements. Reality does not make statements independent of some person. It simply exists in a certain way. Statements do not exist independent of some mind. But statements (strings of scribbles and sounds) are not what the statement is about (molecules and oak trees). They are representative of what they are about, so thinking about an oak tree is a separate thought than thinking in scribbles that refer to an oak tree. One is about an oak tree, and the other is about scribbles. One takes the form of a visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves, and the other takes the form of scribbles, or sounds in your head.

Indeed. If you're willing to regard that as an open, rather than rhetorical, question, then the Nagel book is for you. If you're already certain it's impossible, then not. — J

I don't need to read Nagel. Tell me what it is like for you to imagine a view from nowhere. How would you know when you are imagining a view from nowhere?

How would a view from nowhere differ from a view from everywhere? I wonder if what Nagel actually meant is a view from everywhere rather than a view from nowhere as a view from nowhere is non-sensical.

That's certainly one way to "look" at it. (Pardon the "view" metaphor!) I think the desirability of articulating a "view from nowhere" lies in helping us sort out subjectivity and objectivity. It's possible, of course, to simply declare that objectivity cannot mean what most people take it to mean -- that is, a point of view that is made true not by virtue of who has it but of what is seen -- but I think that's hasty. We can learn a lot more by wrestling with it as a genuine problem, and trying to see what would have to change in some of our basic philosophical outlooks, if traditional "objectivity" is indeed chimerical -- which it may well be. But again, the Nagel book goes into all that -- if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. — J

A view is information structured in a way to inform an organism of the state of the environment relative to the state of its body. A view is always relative and the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity lies in trying to separate the body from the environment - an impossible feat. How does one imagine a view from nowhere using a view from somewhere?

Did Nagel ever address or mention the Observer effect in QM?

This, in a simple sentence, is the bone of contention. Our language, our choice of a metaphor like "view," certainly suggests that someone or ones must be doing the "viewing." But there is a correspondingly robust tradition that says differently. Nagel's The View from Nowhere gives the best account I know of what such a view would entail. Nagel's position is also discussed at some length in Rodl's Self-Consciousness and Objectivity. — J

A view from nowhere is an imaginary view that only exists within the mind, and a mind has a 1st person view.

what exactly is the structure of "I judge a is F" if it is not understood as predication? — J

Scribbles.

Now explain how scribbles become words.

Are scribbles necessary to make judgements, interpretations or understanding?

To my way of thinking these are very different things. #2 implies that the speaker is not certain. I.e., there is an implied "But I could be wrong" that follows #2.

[Edit] Now that I've thought about this some more, it seems to me that the sentences are even more different.
#1 is not expressing a thought, it is a proposition that is either true or false via the Correspondence Theory of Truth.
#2 is a speaker expressing a proposition which they have (at least some) confidence that it is true. — EricH

Again, words are just scribbles and sounds that we experience - no different than oak trees shedding and humans typing on a keyboard. Perceiving and understanding an oak tree and what it is doing based on prior observations of oak trees, not from some use of language, and understanding the use of some scribbles or sounds based on prior observations of how those scribbles and sounds are used isn't much of a difference.

You can only learn to use scribbles and sounds by observing its use and that requires a hefty degree of certainty that those scribbles exist independent of you thinking them, or why would you believe that the scribbles you typed on the screen would be here for me to read later?

Your thoughts are not made up of scribbles and sounds. They are made up of visuals and auditory experiences of which language is a part of.

Another difference, which gets close to the issues that concern Rödl, is that "1) The oak tree is standing there" is asserted from an implied or absent point of view, whereas "2) I think that the oak tree is standing there" is as much about what I think as it is about the oak tree; it is incorrigibly 1st-person. This can be readily seen by constructing denials of the two statements. — J

A view is inherently 1st person. To say that an oak tree is standing THERE is to say it is standing relative to some point of view.

The problem with the certainty vs uncertainty argument is that you would have to apply the same level of uncertainty to language itself which is made up of scribbles and sounds that you experience. How do you know that the scribbles, or sounds you hear in your head, "I think" refer to the act of thinking? How did you come to that conclusion?

Going from "The oak tree is shedding its leaves" to "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" is going from thinking in the visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves to thinking in the auditory experience of hearing the words (you talking to yourself) "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves".
— Harry Hindu

It's also going from certainty to uncertainty — RussellA

So even if Pat is not aware that she is thinking the thought, the "I think" is nonetheless present. — J

If the only thing Pat can be certain of is that they have thoughts, then what use is communicating those thoughts if what she thinks she experiences might not be the case, which would be just as true for other human beings as it is for shedding oak trees? Pat could just as well say "I think J and RussellA are human beings that I met on a philosophy forum." Why learn language at all if all you have access to is your thoughts?

Isn't you learning a language and then using it to communicate with others exhibiting a degree of certainty that there are things that exist (like other human beings) independent of your thoughts?

Wolfgang Iser in The Reality of Fiction: A Functionalist Approach to Literature makes the point that fiction and reality are often very difficult to separate, as we can see in today's mainstream media.

If fiction and reality are to be linked, it must be in terms not of opposition but of communication, for the one is not the mere opposite of the other - fiction is a means of telling us something about reality. — RussellA

What does The Lord of the Rings tell us about reality? Do fictional stories mirror some aspects of reality? Of course, how else would a reader identify and understand aspects of the story if it didn't share some aspect of reality? The difference between reality and fiction is their relative locations. Fictions are located WITHIN reality. The form fictional stories take are made up entirely of scribbles on paper, or actors on sets playing out a role, or your dreams while asleep. How do you get from this reality to some fictional reality? What path do you take to get there?

Does that include the realities created by To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1984 by Orwell, The Lord of the Rings by Tolkein, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, etc. — RussellA

Calling them "realities" would be a misuse of words. They are fictional stories, and we do not normally use the words, "fiction" and "reality" in ways that are synonymous.

One could say that the use in reading a fictional story is to escape reality, at least temporarily. Is the goal of philosophy to escape reality?

Going from "The oak tree is shedding its leaves" to "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" is going from thinking in the visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves to thinking in the auditory experience of hearing the words (you talking to yourself) "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves". They are two separate experiences - one visual the other auditory, unless you are thinking in the visual scribbles, "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves", then you would be having two separate visual experiences that are mutually exclusive - one of scribbles and the other of an oak tree shedding its leaves.

I've been assuming that this thread is about the philosophical implications of "thought", rather than how "thought" is used in language, though it is true that ambiguities in language make the task of philosophy more difficult. — RussellA

The philosophical implications of the scribble, "thought", or actual thoughts? Seems to me that to understand some philosophical implication of something, that something needs to be defined, keeping in mind that using language to define something is not to point to more scribbles, but to the actual thing that isn't just more scribbles. We only need language to relay information, not to create reality. Only language that relays relevant information is useful, else it's the ramblings of a madman or philosophy gone wild.

Language use is not a requirement for thinking. One can think without saying that you are thinking. Words are just scribbles and sounds. To think in words is to think in scribbles and sounds. You must be able to think prior to learning a language, so being able to say to yourself, "I think..." is not a requirement to think, to learn or to know things.

1) I think that the oak tree is shedding its leaves
2) I am thinking the thought that the oak tree is shedding its leaves — RussellA

It seems to me that 1 is talking about (pointing to) the oak tree while 2 is talking about (pointing to) thoughts. What our present goal is determines what we try to point to with language. Why would I be interested in you thinking the oak tree is shedding its leaves when I can see the oak tree is shedding its leaves for myself? Even if I were not there with you, why would I want to know what you are thinking instead of what is happening independent of your thoughts - like the oak shedding its leaves? The basis of this thread seems to me a useless endeavor of trying to parse some use of language that is never used in normal circumstances, but only on a philosophy forum.

To me, logic seems completely detached and alien to practically every other philosophical discipline. — Dorrian

Try making an illogical argument in any other philosophical discipline and see how far it gets you.

Yes, but human perception is neither a lens nor a camera.
It is not designed for observation but for guided action. — Joshs

Then how do you know which action to perform if you haven't observed the current situation, or know that your action succeeded if you don't make an observation?

Isn't observing an action? Isn't your attention a guided observation?

It seems to me that you cannot separate observations from actions - they are part of the same feedback loop.

One might ask, "Which came first, the action or the observation?". I would say that natural selection acts on one's actions and observations (senses) (another type of action) evolved to guide one's other actions in more meaningful ways.

The play here is on the lack of a clear idea of what a thought is. — Banno

...and what an "I" is.

Think about when you are watching a really good movie or TV show, or reading a good book. You might be so engrossed in the story that you lose your sense of self. You become part of the story. It is only when someone calls your name while in the middle of that story does your awareness loop back upon itself creating that sense of self-awareness.

Say you're reading a good book and someone says, "Hey Banno, what do you want for lunch?" Your awareness changes from the story to yourself and your wants, in particular what you want for lunch. Are thoughts like, "I want..." or "I like..." the same as thinking, "I think..."?

What about other animals? Do they have a sense of "I think..." that accompanies their thoughts? If not, then what is required for self-awareness, and is self-awareness necessary for thinking?

I think you still haven't taken in the force of my point. Of course it's a view from somewhere, but that isn't what mainly characterizes it. Rather, it's the "someone" that is crucial. Can you imagine a "view" being from some particular place, but with no viewer? — J

No, and I never implied that you could with anything that I have said. This is why I made the distinction between a view from somewhere and a view from nowhere/everywhere. So I can say with certainty that we agree here on what "subjective" means, so we can move on.

This is a separate point. I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm saying they're not experts. I was replying to your notion that a computer scientist is somehow expert in the use of those words because he or she is a computer scientist. Such a person may be as correct or incorrect as anyone else, and yes, we'd need to get clear on what that would mean, but the point is that there is no built-in expertise, either way, neither mine nor theirs. If you like, I can take a shot at putting some content to mentalistic terms, but I wanted to get the "computer scientist as expert on the mental" thing out of the way first. — J

Again, you are putting words in my mouth that I did not say. I never said the computer scientists are experts in linguistics. They are experts in computer technology. As such, they will use words that define computer processes, and if those words work in giving you a better idea of how the computer works, then what is the issue? Based on what you have said, you could be wrong in your understanding of those terms and therefore have no ground to stand on when telling others how to use those words. You are pulling the rug out from under your own position. You have used the words, so you must know what they mean, right? If not, then what are you saying when you say those words? Where do we go if we want to know what words mean?

I don't think so, but we can let that one go. Possibly the only dualism you recognize is mind/body, or mental/physical, dualism; I was pointing to a much wider application. — J

Of course it is so. Go back and read my posts. I am a monist, so I don't see how you can say that I recognize aspects of dualism, when I have been saying that dualism is the cause of the HPoC?

The issue is that you think the brain exists how you see it - as a "solid", "physical" object, and then try to solve the problem of how a mind can be inside a brain as you experience it. The problem is solved by understanding that the brain as you experience it is just a representation of what is there, which is a mind. So the mind is not internal to the brain. It is the same thing as the brain but from a different perspective, just as the Earth appearing flat from your perspective while on its surface is the same round Earth you experience when out in space.

If the deductive information is a logically correct derivative of the input information about the world, then barring emergence and supervenience, we know from the transitive property that it is also pertinent to the world, since its source is pertinent to the world. — ucarr

Sounds like my explanation of how information is the relationship between cause and effect.

To the extent the dreaming experience is recognizable as waking experience, and thus can be conflated with it, the dreaming experience is not different from the waking experience. — ucarr

It is when you wake up. Go back to what I said about using multiple observations and logic. Sure, if you only made one observation and didn't have multiple observations to apply logic to, then it is obvious that you would misinterpret the dreaming experience as a waking experience while within the dream. The moment you wake up you make another observation and then use logic to explain the distinction between the two. If you only made one observation of a mirage and didn't try to move around and make other observations and apply logic, you would still think that the mirage is a pool of water. Pools of water do not move when you move closer to them.

To the extent that an effect is not a simulation of its cause, it's not a representation of its cause. For an example: a chair is not a simulation of the process that made it. We can propound this argument by claiming the oakwood chair that derives from an oak tree is not the oak tree, nor is it a simulation of it.

Causal relationships are about transformation, not simulation. — ucarr

I never used the word, "simulation", so this appears to be a straw-man argument. An effect is a representation of its causes, not a simulation of its causes. The existence of an oak tree is not the only cause that preceded the existence of the chair. A carpenter has to shape the wood from the tree into a chair. As I said, the chair is a representation/effect of all the process that went into creating it. I would even say that there is no such thing as one cause leading to one effect. An effect is the result of multiple causes interacting - a process. You cannot say that the effect of you seeing a chair is only caused by the chair. Light has to reflect off the chair for you to see it. You have to have your eyes open for the light to enter your eyes. You visual experience is an effect of that process - off all the causes working together to produce the effect of you seeing a chair.

Does what you say imply there exists within the world objective states of a system rooting representations thereof within facts? If so, can we designate these objective states of a system as radiant facts transmitted to our understanding via representations? If so, does this radiant transmission of objectivity evidence information as an energetic, mass-to-mass alteration of form across spacetime?

I'm asking if causality is a physico_material phenomenon. This question is important because it spotlights whether spacetime is an active agent of consciousness as a physical phenomenon. Going forward with the presumption it is, we can conjecture that consciousness, the boundary administrator, parses reality via a set of formatting functions that includes causal changes that assemble the timeline. So, time, like space and consciousness, is a physico_material phenomenon.

Consciousness, as the boundary administrator formatting and thereby constructing the timeline of events making up the history of the cosmos, makes a close approach to mind as the fundamental thing in existence. — ucarr

I would like for you to try to explain yourself without using terms like, "internal/external", "material/immaterial" and "objective/subjective". Each time you type a sentence with those terms, try removing them and see if it takes away anything from what you intend to say. If it does, then what is it that is taken away?

What I am saying is that effects carry information about their causes, whether the cause starts in the world or in the mind (the mind is part of the world, so I don't see why it makes sense to talk about the mind being a different thing (immaterial vs material) than the world). Effects are also causes of subsequent effects. You make an observation, your observation is an effect of an object, reflected light and your eyes. You can then act on your observations, as such your behavior is an effect of your mind with your mind now being a cause. This is how your scribbles get on the screen for me to read, because your mind caused them and by understanding what the scribbles represent, I can get at the cause - the thoughts in your mind. So no, I am not saying that causality is a physico_material phenomenon. It is just a process, or a relationship, like everything else, and that using terms like physico and material confuses the issue.

R.E.M. sleep is the stage of sleep where most dreams happen. This fact makes me resistant to the claim dreaming of a red stop sign is unambiguously distinct from wakefully seeing a stop sign. — ucarr

Seeing involves light. No light entered your closed eyes. The fact that we see mirages and bent sticks in water makes me resistant to the claim that we see red stop signs. We see light and we use the effect of reflected light off objects to get at the nature of the object itself. What color is the stop sign when there is no light? When the lights are out or you close your eyes, and you experience a red stop sign, what are you actually doing - seeing or imagining?

I think your underlined claims support rather than refute the correctness of the conclusion of my quoted question. That you think the mind is just another information system additionally reenforces the correctness of my conclusion. — ucarr

Well yes, information is the relationship between causes and their effects. The mind is both a cause and an effect, just like everything else. Your problem lies in you trying to explain how material and immaterial things interact, and how an immaterial mind can represent material things. Your assertions imply that the mind is special or separate from the world when we understand that it isn't. The solution isn't in doubling down on dualism. The solution is monism.

Let me make a beginning to my response by asking if dog_doghouse and mind_brain are two duos forming a true parallel. Dog_doghouse is a relationship between two things not connected. No one claims the dog was caused by the doghouse. Mind_brain is a relationship between two things connected. Because some say the mind is caused by the brain, and some say the mind is independent of the brain, there is an issue in debate about which claim is true. — ucarr

YOU are the one using the terms "internal/external". I'm asking you what YOU mean by those terms. If you are saying that the mind is caused by the brain, then that is not an internal/external relationship. It is a causal relationship. So what do YOU mean by saying that the mind is internal to the brain if you do not mean the same thing as the relationship between the dog and doghouse?

Additional thought – Whether or not the mind is inside of the brain might also be a sticking point in your contextualization of internal/external. If, as some claim, the mind is immaterial, then it is not inside of the brain, nor is it inside of any other material thing.

The lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things is one of the difficulties with connecting them to material things. Following from this, obviously, the claim an immaterial mind is connected to a material brain makes posits a very hard theory to prove. On the other hand, we know it’s true that “no brain, no mind.” On the surface of things, the theory claiming mind is either: a) identical to brain, or b) emergent from brain presents as much easier to argue.

If immaterial things exist dimensionless, then there’s the strong suggestion inside/outside, being dimensional properties, have no meaning for them. If this is the case, then we have to try to answer the difficult question: Where are they? Can an existing thing exist nowhere? — ucarr

Then you are agreeing with me that using terms like "internal" and "external" are not helpful here and actually make understanding the distinction more difficult. Now let me say the same thing about "immaterial" and "material". You keep making the same mistake by incorporating dualism into the conversation. What does it mean for something to be immaterial or material? How does one get at the material nature of the world via a dimensionless, immaterial GUI?

What does it mean to say that there is a lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things? If there is a lack of dimensional extension to the mind, then you seem to be saying that the mind is the world (ie solipsism). Realism is the idea that there is a dimensional extension to the mind as things happen in the world that are outside of the mind, in that they are not present in the mind but present in the world. Where does your long term memories exist when they are not present in your mind? You cannot access all of your long-term memories at once but you can recall them from somewhere. From where are they recalled if there is no dimension to the mind?

One could argue that the dimensional aspect of material things is a product of your GUI, in the way the information is structured in your GIU, not of the world.

From neuroscience we know that certain parts of the brain do things made use of by the mind. For example, the visual cortex, which is the part of the cerebral cortex that receives and processes sensory nerve impulses from the eyes, produces memorizable visual images essential to the mind's imaginative activity. — ucarr

This is only vision but I have four other senses that come together with vision in my mind. Where do they all come together in the information structure we call the mind, or the GUI? If you can't point to a specific structure in the brain where all the sensory information comes together, then maybe it is what the entire brain does, not what part of it does, that is the mind.

We know our communication depends upon representation that, in turn, gets manipulated by our computers. — ucarr

Exactly. The scribbles on my screen represent your ideas in your mind via causation. I can get at the thoughts in your head by correctly interpreting the causal relationship between the scribbles I see on the screen and the thoughts in your mind.

Your use of the preposition "between" evidences the fact we cannot make sense in thinking or writing about navigating and experiencing our material world without separations across spacetime and, conversely, connections across spacetime. Self and environment and living seem to entail necessary binaries. — ucarr

I'm not sure I am understanding what you are saying here. I would need you to rephrase. If you are saying what I think you are, then I would just say that self and environment are themselves relationships and processes. Try pointing to the boundaries of each and see if you can succeed. Everything is a relationship. Bodies are relationships between organs, organs are relationships between cells, cells are relationships between molecules, molecules are relationships between atoms, atoms are relationships between protons, neutrons and electrons and protons are relationships between quarks, and then we have quantum mechanics in which some interpretations imply that observations are a relationship between observer and world. Where is the material stuff you keep talking about if all we can ever point to are relationships?

Haven't you been arguing that "our actual observations of the world," like dreams and hallucinations, are just another type of information system, i.e., just another working representation no more a literal transcription from an objective reality than are dreams and hallucinations?

Haven't you, as evidenced via my paraphrasing of your language above, been implying Kant is correct in asserting there is a noumenal world of things-in-themselves, presumably objective, that's inaccessible to our necessarily representative translations thereof via the senses_the brain_the mind?

Haven't you been using this argument to support the argument denying an inside/outside duality?

Haven't you been implying that a network of information systems is our insuperable environment?

Haven't you, through the above stages of argumentation, been arguing generally that the "map is not the territory," an argument rooted within Kant's noumena? — ucarr

No, because you have to bring in what I said about information being a relationship between causes and their effects, and the way you get at the causes is by making more than one observation and using logic. Kant is the one with the problem of explaining how we don't get confused when experiencing a mirage. If what Kant said is the case then how do we ever come to understand that a mirage is not a pool of water, but an effect of the behavior of light and how it interacts with our eye-brain system? How do you come to realize your dream is not representative of the world if not by waking up into the world that you have always woken up to and where each dream is a different world, where we often forget what happened the night before in a dream, or even forget what happened in the world before you went to sleep?