It's all about how meaning emerges onto the world stage.

:ok:

If your correlations cannot be put into the form of a proposition, then what are they? — Banno

What kind of question is that? As if everything can be put into the form of a proposition, aside from correlations drawn between different things?

Mice, trees, chairs, and mountains cannot be put into the form of a proposition.

Well, I suppose a creative butcher-type material reconstruction could amount to parts and pieces of mice, trees, and mountains being arranged into the shape of names and/or descriptions themselves, but that's not what we're after here.

The point is that mice, trees, chairs, and mountains can become meaningful to a creature capable of drawing correlations between those things and others. Part of the content of the language-less belief in question here is a mouse. Another part is a tree. Another part is the desire to catch the mouse. All language-less belief is meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding the belief. Trees, mice, and spatial relations are part of the content of that particular language-less belief. Tress, mice, and spatial relations are not propositional in form, nor are they in any way shape or form existentially dependent upon language use at all. All propositions are. Thus, not all belief content is propositional.

...that form must be capable of interpretation in propositional form... — Banno

Well, much of our talk uses propositional form because that's just a matter of how our naming and descriptive practices work. It quite simply does not follow that everything we talk about(name and describe) has propositional form.

Mt. Everest certainly does not. Nor does a chair. Nor does a correlation drawn between one's own instinctual involuntary urge, drive, and/or desire(if we must) to chase a rodent and the rodent's whereabouts.

Our reports of chairs, mountains, and mice most certainly do.

Well, if it is not propositional, what is it? What other form could it have? And even if there is some alternative form, that form must be capable of interpretation in propositional form. If it were not, then we would have no grounds for referring to it as "content". — Banno

Correlational form, if we must talk like that. Both require a plurality of things, but propositional form requires that some of those things are meaningful marks or sounds(language use).

I would agree that language-less belief is capable of being talked about and our talking about it has propositional form.
— creativesoul

Then what are we arguing about? — Banno

About what follows from that...

...that form must be capable of interpretation in propositional form. — Banno

I would agree that language-less belief is capable of being talked about and our talking about it has propositional form. All our interpretations come in exactly such a form.

I think smoke being a sign of fire, and the like, are different than, for example a letter symbolizing a sound or a sound symbolizing an object. I would agree they are related of course, you might say symbolizing evolves out of signifying — Janus

I would agree that smoke being a sign of fire is different than marks symbolizing, referencing, picking out, etc., other things.

What's interesting to me though, is exactly how much they are alike.

They both require a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. They both require something to become sign/symbol, something to become significant/symbolized, and a creature capable of drawing correlations between them.

Enough.

Statements and propositions are both existentially dependent upon language use. While language-less belief is prior to language, it can still be about language use and/or products thereof. Some language-less belief is about language use and/or directly perceptible stuff that is itself existentially dependent upon language use. Some language-less belief is about cups, shelves, and cupboards. Language-less belief that is about cups, shelves, and cupboards can be so, can have such content, because those terms pick out directly perceptible things, and some language-less creatures are capable of drawing correlations between directly perceptible things.

A creature cannot have belief about "red cups full of Maxwell House coffee" unless it can say that. However, some of us may DO need to be reminded that while a cat can most certainly chase a mouse, and that mouse can most certainly run behind a red cup full of Maxwell House coffee(for the sake of argument, we'll pretend it's a big cup and a small mouse), the mouse most certainly does not hide behind a statement, a proposition, a use, a mention, language, or "red cups full of Maxwell House coffee".

There is such a thing as language-less belief.

It is the simplest of all the different kinds that I'm convinced exist, and we talk about; where "kinds" are determined by the content of the correlations being drawn.

Here's the point:No language-less belief uses or mentions language. Period. The use/mention distinction is totally irrelevant with regard to what language-less belief consists of - the content - of language-less belief. Honestly, the only sensible use I find is that use is not always about language use, and mention has it as the focal point.

Language-less creatures are capable of neither using nor mentioning language.

I'm not saying these supposed hidden parts of the world are necessarily untranslatable... — frank

I would say exactly that. The unknown(hidden parts of the world) is most certainly untranslatable, for it is utterly meaningless, and all translation is of that which is already meaningful.

What do you mean when you claim that the world and/or states of affairs are 'shaped' like statements or propositions?

Surely that's not to be taken at face value.

Trees and mice and mice running around trees are not shaped like statements or propositions(using these terms synonymously). And... some statements are false. Someone else raised this point earlier, as have I on more than one occasion. The world is not the sort of thing capable of being true/false either, so... I'm a bit confused regarding exactly what you're trying to say here.

By the way, just so you know better, I'm not using "correlations" as you're using "propositions"... not even close.

All this stuff about language use...

The debate is about the content of all belief.

Some belief is prior to language.

:roll:

The world can't have the property of being wrong. — frank

There's an emaciated notion of truth, meaning, and belief at work here in Banno's position, which comes as no surprise to me given that truth and meaning are both existentially dependent upon belief formation. They both emerge via correlations drawn between different things.

...our only point of disagreement is your refusal to acknowledge that events have propositional form; that states of affairs are shaped like propositions. — Banno

...the very equivalence between word and world. — Banno

From my second post in the debate...

The above conflates what accounting practices require with what that which is being taken into account requires. Another conflation here is between our accounting practice and that which is being taken into account by virtue of using that practice. These confusions are part and parcel to Banno's approach, for they are built in. There is an utterly inadequate notion of belief at work here as a direct result. — creativesoul

I think Peirce's distinctions between signs, ikons and symbols make good sense. — Janus

I'm very sympathetic to the idea that meaning is prior to language use, marks, symbols... However, I've found that apo conflates meaning with causality, and he's not alone in that regard. There's a notion...'natural meaning', perhaps, or something like that that believes that meaning is somehow prior to becoming meaningful to a creature. Smoke being called "a sign" of fire is exactly such a conflation when and if it is called such in the complete absence of a creature capable of drawing correlations between the two. In other words, I agree that smoke can become a sign of fire, but do not at all agree that it is in any situation apart from becoming and/or already being meaningful to a creature capable of attributing meaning.

Misattribution. This is important.

We might all agree that having a belief is not like having something in one's pocket. — Banno

Important, and a bit ironic, given that I've never said otherwise, but you've acted as if I have.

I got the feeling that it was about whether belief in God (and other religious claims) is justified. — baker

Nah. I'm pretty sure Banno and I are on much the same page when it comes to belief in God.

...what was the gist of the motivation for the debate about whether beilef is propositional or not? — baker

Presenting a notion of belief that is amenable to evolutionary progression and doesn't lead to anthropomorphism when talking about the minds of other animals.

...what was the gist of the motivation for the debate about whether beilef is propositional or not? — baker

Correcting a long-standing conventional error of treating propositions as equivalent to belief(conflating belief and propositions) that stemmed from epistemology(JTB), by virtue of neglecting the stark differences in the truth conditions of some belief as compared to the truth conditions of a proposition in general when both are represented by the same marks, such as "The man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job" or "Either Jones has a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona".

...what was the gist of the motivation for the debate about whether beilef is propositional or not? — baker

If all belief has propositional content then either propositions somehow exist in their entirety prior to language use in such a way so that language-less creature's belief can have propositional content or language-less creatures have no belief.

The scents and sounds become significant(meaningful) as a result of becoming part of a capable creature's correlations drawn between them, possible food items(prey), their own hunger pangs, etc. Prior to becoming part of those correlations, they were not at all meaningful for the aforementioned animal. Rather, they were just sounds and scents.
— creativesoul
So you're arguing for semantic holism? — baker

I'm arguing that all belief is meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding the belief; that all belief consists of correlations drawn between different things; that some language-less creatures have belief; that not all belief is propositional in content; that all our accounting practices of an other's belief(and our own) are propositional in form.

One believes a mouse ran behind the tree if one draws correlations between the spatiotemporal locations of itself, the mouse, and the tree...
— creativesoul

...which can be put into propositional form; hence, all belief is propositional. — Banno

It's not put into square form or propositional form. It is square or propositional. — Banno

:smirk:

More self-contradiction.

For animals scents and sounds are signs of prey, for example, but they don't represent prey symbolically. — Janus

Indeed. The scents and sounds become significant(meaningful) as a result of becoming part of a capable creature's correlations drawn between them, possible food items(prey), their own hunger pangs, etc. Prior to becoming part of those correlations, they were not at all meaningful for the aforementioned animal. Rather, they were just sounds and scents.

Meaningful belief is not the sort of thing that has a spatiotemporal location.

A capable language-less creature believes a mouse ran behind the tree if they draw correlations between the spatiotemporal locations of themselves, the mouse, and the tree. The content of that belief is the mouse, the tree, themselves, spatiotemporal locations, and the correlations drawn between all those different directly perceptible things(and others undoubtedly).

The content of all belief about mice running around trees always includes mice, trees, and spatial relationships. All of these different directly perceptible things are necessary elemental constituents of such language-less belief. Remove any one of them and the elemental correlational content is lacking.

That's exactly what you are doing in supposing that the belief of you mouse is some sort of correlation going on in its head. — Banno

I suppose no such thing.

One believes a mouse ran behind the tree if one draws correlations between the spatiotemporal locations of itself, the mouse, and the tree...
— creativesoul

...which can be put into propositional form; hence, all belief is propositional. — Banno

If something can be put into propositional form, then it is propositional?

Surely, you're not claiming that, are you?

:brow:

I would think that when something is put into propositional form, it was not propositional prior to the putting.

We might all agree that having a belief is not like having something in one's pocket. — Banno

I would think. Why then, continue talking about belief as if it is? I've certainly never claimed that having belief is equivalent to having something in one's pocket. I'm left wondering what the point of that post was???

Having belief about mice and trees is the result of having drawn correlations between mice, trees, and other things.

What would count as a misattribution of belief as compared/contrasted to correctly attributing belief to such language-less creatures?
— creativesoul

Ah, not a bad question.

One would suppose that misattribution would be the same for animals and people. — Banno

Trivially speaking, it's the same in that the misattribution is not what they believe.

Misattributing belief to another(regardless of whether they are language-less) is to provide a false account of the other's belief. In order to know whether or not that account is false, we must first know what the other's belief is, or at the very least what it could possibly be given what else we do know about the other.

What can we know about a language-less creature's belief?

We can know that it cannot include language use. All predication is language use. We can know that it cannot include predication. All propositions are predication. We can know that it cannot include propositions. All statements are language use. We can know that it cannot include statements. We can know that it cannot be about language use, predication, propositions, or statements.

Since language-less belief cannot include or be about predication, propositions, or statements, then the claim that all belief has propositional content is false, for language-less belief cannot.

Can there be a correlation drawn that cannot be put into propositional form?

I've always wondered why you believe that this is so important?

Putting meaningful language-less correlations(language-less belief) into propositional form does not make the language-less belief themselves propositional in their content. Rather, it makes them amenable to being talked about; which, evolutionarily speaking, makes perfect sense. That also speaks to my second post in the debate.

A mouse running behind a tree is an event. Believing that a mouse ran behind a tree is belief about those events. A language-less creature, such as a cat, can form such beliefs about such events. One believes a mouse ran behind the tree if one draws correlations between the spatiotemporal locations of itself, the mouse, and the tree. The event takes place regardless of whether or not any creature forms belief about the event. None of it - the occurrence of event or the occurrence of language-less belief formation about the event - includes or is about language use. None of it is propositional in content.

Our account most certainly is.

How am I to think of a cat as drawing correlations? — bongo fury

My cats know the sound of my car, as a result of drawing correlations between it and me. They believe I am home when they hear it. The sound of certain kinds of plastic is also meaningful to them by virtue of being part of the correlation they've drawn between it and getting treats, etc. I've already offered the directly perceptible things in believing the mouse ran behind the tree. Some other things are of course the cat's own hunting desire/instinct, or perhaps hunger pangs, etc. The cat wants to catch the mouse.

Banno's cat has drawn correlations between the sounds and smells of other cats(unfriendly ones) and those other cats. Hence, she spits and hisses because she believes that an unfriendly cat is outside. Certainly these correlations between her past fighting with such cats develop into a predisposition towards those cats and those sounds and smells, that's part of how belief about the world and/or ourselves effects/affects how we think about current events(what we believe is happening).

an example of how — bongo fury

This makes no sense.

The how part is autonomous. It requires certain biological machinery, etc. It just happens(at first anyway)... the drawing correlations, I mean.

Smart phones are not the sorts of things capable of attributing meaning by virtue of drawing correlations between different directly perceptible things, including but not limited to themselves...

...and that is how all belief systems emerge/begin. Smart phones do not attribute meaning.

Not seeing the relevance of "smart phones"...

(Scratch that. I see now you want misattributed not mistaken.) — bongo fury

Yes, and for very good reason. I'm invoking the distinction between our reports of an other's belief, and an other's belief.

Drawing correlations between different directly perceptible things, none of which are language use.
— creativesoul

Example? — bongo fury

Mice, trees, spatial relations between mice, trees, and the creature themselves...

Believing the mouse ran behind the tree...

The notion to be avoided is that different statements can say the same thing, and that hence there is a thing called the proposition, which is what the statement means. — Banno

Here we agree.

Drawing correlations between different directly perceptible things, none of which are language use.

From the debate...

It seems natural that we attribute beliefs to animals and small children, despite their lack of language. — Banno

Indeed it does. We may make some headway here.

What would count as a misattribution of belief as compared/contrasted to correctly attributing belief to such language-less creatures?

It's worse than I thought, if "x" isn't even abbreviating "x is true". — bongo fury

Yeah. A simple substitution exercise shows the error of equivocation nicely.

By virtue of drawing correlations between different directly perceptible things.