Are you denying that all belief is meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding the belief? — creativesoul

Do you have issues making sense of the above?

You need to do better than that.

Ok. Good.

Are you denying that all belief is meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding the belief?

Are you denying that all belief is meaningful?

l You keep talking about meaning. It obscures what's going on. — Banno

I don't think it does though; at least not when it comes to taking proper account of all belief. It provides a simple undeniable true statement(all belief is meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding it) that serves as standard of sorts. Drawing correlations is attributing, and sometimes (mis)attributing meaning, so in that sense, you're close when you say I've done it already with correlations.

Finding a use though, that seems to me to be more about language.

I'm wary. Thanks for the heads up.

He claimed that all propositions are about the self, which is absurd on it's face. There's adequate ground for doubting his sincerity already.

However, the comment about what we can know about creatures' belief when the creatures under consideration are incapable of articulating that belief via language is one worth considering though, even if that consideration eventually leaves counterpunch behind...

There's no insight to be gained, from the "beliefs" of babies, or the "beliefs" of cats - because they're not the same thing as an adult, human, articulated belief - with or without propositional content. If the purpose of this debate is to decide if the content of belief is propositional, how can we possibly examine that question in organisms incapable of articulating a belief? — counterpunch

By virtue of acquiring knowledge of what all belief has in common. The insight is a notion of belief that is amenable to evolutionary progression. The result is a reliable standard by which we can discern between what counts as anthropomorphism and what does not.

Furthermore, think about the sheer scope of the consequences of getting our own thought and belief wrong...

Hence, in so far as we can talk of our beliefs as being true or false, we must also include that their content is also capable of being true or false. — Banno

This is a point I also agree with, with the additional caveat that all belief is meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding it.

The fire example is a case of learning that fire causes pain when touched. We know that that is the case. We know that that statement is true. A language-less creature can learn that fire causes pain by virtue of drawing correlations between the fire, the touching, and the ensuing pain. That could be described as a belief that touching fire caused pain, but the creature has no language, so this puts the claim that that language-less creature's belief is propositional in content in serious doubt.

There's certainly a bridge between the language-less belief and the simple belief statement, but it cannot be propositions, unless propositions somehow exist in their entirety prior to language in such a way that a language-less creature is capable of drawing correlations between them, or having an attitude towards them, etc.

The bridge, it seems to me, is the ability to attribute meaning by virtue of drawing correlations between different things. With the language-less creature, the correlations are drawn between the touching, the fire, and the pain in such a way that amounts to the recognition/attribution of causality. With the belief statement, it's all that in addition to the naming and descriptive practices.

the proposition is always...

"I am right that..." — counterpunch

No, it's not.

I'm imagining one who is first learning how to use names such as "mouse" and "tree" to pick mice and trees out of the world to the exclusion of all else.

In that circumstance, "the mouse is behind the tree" could be an answer to a question and carry along with it some considerable uncertainty.

Well, okay then creativesoul - good talk. Maybe give my approach a little more thought and get back to me if you wish to discuss it. I "believe" it's right, and largely for the reasons you state:

The proposition is sometimes said to 'sit well' with the individual's other beliefs whenever there is no readily apparent disagreement between the proposition and the individual's worldview. — counterpunch

That's about propositional attitude. Not all belief is equivalent to an attitude one has towards a statement/proposition. So, it's right in that particular sense. Some belief is equivalent to a propositional attitude. Not all.

Read the rest of that opening post, perhaps the entire debate and then get back to me if you wish to discuss it further.

:flower:

The notion of a level of interpretation that is not linguistic is counterintuitive. — Banno

I almost concurred.

:wink:

That which is interpreted is already meaningful. Some meaningful belief and behaviour exists in it's entirety prior to language use. Thus, if we have two language-less creatures, we can have one interpreting the other's behaviour when that behaviour is already meaningful to the other, and that level of interpretation would not be at a linguistic level. It does follow the same process as linguistic level interpretation though... drawing correlations between different things. It's just that none of those things in the case of language-less animals includes language use.

Head shaking and...

Growling and...

Dancing and ruffling feathers and...

These statements are contradictory. — counterpunch

Bald assertions won't do.

You described metacognition. That is thinking about one's own thought and belief. In order to think about one's own thought and belief, there must be something to think about and a means for doing so.

You're not right if you believe that all belief is about the self, because that is not true.

I suggest that belief is belief about the self. — counterpunch

Some. Not all.

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.