Where's the acceptable theory of meaning at?

Where's the explicit account of how meaning first emerges onto the world stage in it's most basic identifiable form such that it continues to grow and/or evolve over a sufficient enough time period so as to provide enough groundwork, a semantically rich enough basis, for us to be able to begin naming and describing all of the different aspects of own personal experiences as well as getting the simple language less ones right?

It's certainly not found in semiotics, qualia, belief as propositional attitudes, or meaning as use, although all of them are helpful regarding certain complexity levels throughout the ongoing process, from conception through times like these.

a Reagan — were themselves the creators of the ideas they came up with — Rafaella Leon

:rofl:

What does his belief consist in? — fdrake

Exactly.

Sure. All sorts of definitions for "proposition". I do not know, nor understand them all. Banno's use was the one under consideration, as it pertains to belief and statements thereof.

I've since dropped "mental", and "state of mind" from my account. Seems to work much better. Also dropped "objects", for the reasons given elsewhere(rejection of subject/object).

Art doesn't like it when you call her by by name...

Sure she can, but I wouldn't advise doing so.

"Qualia" is an empty concept, if it is completely private and ineffable.

A proposition is a state of affairs. — frank

I've seen the term rendered as such before. I find it tenuous. A proposition is proposed, it seems. As a result, it requires a creature capable of proposing something; language use. While I do not care too much for rendering with "states of affairs", it seems pretty clear that they do not require language users. At least, not all of them.

Expectation(the kind that is of interest here) is belief about what has not yet happened, belief about what's going to happen, and it's based upon belief about what has happened, and/or is happening. It's a good direction to go in, particularly regarding language less creature's beliefs. It's not always belief regarding statements/propositions.

The "snow is white" example almost makes the point that not all belief is regarding a statement; that not all belief has propositional content; that not all belief is an attitude towards a statement/proposition. The problem with the example is that it is not a belief that can be had by a language less creature.

Some belief is about what happened, is happening, or what will happen. Some belief about that does not consist of language, nor is it existentially dependent upon language. The fire example serves to make the point better.

A language less creature can learn that touching fire causes pain. The belief that touching the fire caused the subsequent pain is not an attitude towards the proposition "touching fire caused pain". It's a belief about what just happened. The proposition/statement is a part of our report, not a part of the creature's belief. All belief is meaningful to the creature having it. This crucial point gets glossed over and/or outright neglected far too often. We always attribute meaning, and form meaningful thought and belief(conscious experience as a result) by virtue of drawing correlations between different things. In the fire example, the creature draw correlations between the fire, the touching, and the pain. It has conscious experience of being burnt by fire. It learns, and subsequently believes that touching fire caused(causes) pain.

There is no language necessary in order for this to actually happen. No propositions. No statements. There is meaningful conscious experience, thought, belief, the attribution and/or recognition of causality. And... the belief is true(corresponds to what happened). Touching the fire did cause the pain. We know that, as does the creature, despite the creature's inability to say it. It formed meaningful, well-grounded, and true belief about what happened.

Are there sides? Shit. I'm clueless, I seem to be arguing against both.

:wink:

In order for conscious experience to have been able to have gradually emerged over an evolutionary timeline, it must have been able to have begun at some simple, basic, and/or rudimentary level of complexity, and continue to grow and evolve in it's complexity over sufficient time and repetition into something like exactly what we're doing here and now.
— creativesoul

So, would you describe your overall approach as scientific realism? — Wayfarer

Nah. I don't do 'isms'.

I recently posted an article on 15 years of research that showed that humans really aren't like other animals in terms of memory storage.

Human memory is stored in an overlapping jumbled way compared to other animals like us.

An obvious speculation would be that our ability to abstract is related to this anomoly. So human thought may be truly unique in the animal world (now that our cousins are all extinct). — frank

I actually agree that our thought is unique in the animal world, as a direct result of written language, but not regarding everything prior to.

So if your goal is to say something about evolution, you might have to be tentative.

I've not read the article mentioned. Do you find that anything I've written stands in conflict?

...you are taking a piece of language and supposing that because we talk as if it refers to something, there must be something to which it refers. You are reifying belief. — Banno

Pots and kettles for a purveyor of belief as propositional attitude.

That's not what a reification fallacy is anyway, and anyone whose read what I've wrote here ought know that I'm not treating belief as if it is physical or concrete.

Qualia aversion is a serious condition that often goes undiagnosed. Symptoms include need for public reassurance and an inability to introspect. — Marchesk

A sure sign that there's no substance to the counter-argument is when a participant focuses upon the author rather than the argument being given.

No it's not.

Can an infant have a belief? Can a cat think? — Daemon

Sure. To the precise extent that they are capable of drawing correlations between different things. At that level of cognitive ability it's always correlations drawn between directly perceptible external and internal things.

Banno's position, while very very popular, cannot admit either. His recent participation supports that charge... quite clearly so.

Then how should we think about these correlations? — frank

Evolutionarily seems best to me? I'm attempting to put forth an elemental description of a complex entity in such a way that most reasonable people would at least agree that the description has done it's job and provided a basic outline from which all levels of conscious experience from the simplest through the most complex can be derived and/or sensibly said to have evolved within the confines of.

In order for conscious experience to have been able to have gradually emerged over an evolutionary timeline, it must have been able to have begun at some simple, basic, and/or rudimentary level of complexity, and continue to grow and evolve in it's complexity over sufficient time and repetition into something like exactly what we're doing here and now.

So the question is what could all conscious experience consist of such that it is capable of naturally emerging and evolving over time? I'm not looking to answer all the questions of the origin of humanity or the universe. I'm not looking to solve all the problems of philosophy. I'm focusing specifically upon human thought and belief(world-views) and I'm using the general influence of methodological naturalism accompanied by a strive for adequate simplicity in accounting practices.

Verifiability is always a plus too. Falsifiability... well... we cannot falsify a true statement, so there's that.

What is there that cannot be characterised as "correlations drawn between things"? — Banno

Irrelevant.

We're discussing what I'm arguing/advocating for here:What does it matter if someone can attempt to use that same description as a means to characterize everything as such? I certainly don't. It's the quality of the characterization/criterion/accounting practice/linguistic framework/report/model/conceptual scheme that matters here, not whether or not it is possible to use the same terms differently than I.


To directly answer the question...

On my view, all sorts of things are not characterized as "correlations drawn between different things". Everything that existed in it's entirety prior to becoming part of a meaningful correlation drawn between it and other things by a creature capable of doing so. Simply put:The content of the correlation(the things); the creature drawing the correlations.

The coffee, the tasting, and the resulting bitterness. The creature drawing the correlations between the three is having meaningful conscious experience of tasting bitter coffee.

The fire. The touching. The resulting pain. The creature drawing correlations between the three is having meaningful conscious experience of being burnt by fire.

Exceptions abound with correlations drawn between language use and other things, but that's not an issue given the recursive nature of language. It's to be expected - required even - of a minimalist criterion that is amenable to the evolution of language and meaning. Sometimes we draw correlations between language use and other things. Language use consists of correlations drawn between it and other things. That's not a flaw of the outline. It's a feature to be expected of a model capable of taking proper account of the evolutionary progression of conscious experience, particularly when it comes to the bridge between language-less meaningful conscious experience to conscious experience that is informed thereafter thereby.

Belief is correlations drawn between things.
— creativesoul

This statement would be a reflection on your own folk psychology (specifically mind-reading.) — frank

Could be I suppose. I doubt it though.

All statements are predication
All predication is correlations drawn between different things
Not all correlations drawn between different things is predication

The question is whether or not all correlations drawn between different things is adequate for belief. They are all meaningful to the creature drawing them.

Belief is not a mental state, on my view. I reject the notion. Correlations are drawn between internal and external things. The correlations drawn consist of both, and thus they themselves are neither.

Another's belief and our report of it.

"Belief that 'X'" is our report, where X is a statement/proposition. Pointing out that our reports are in propositional/statement form is irrelevant to the content of the creature's belief being reported upon, especially when reporting upon a language less creature's belief.

Cats demonstrate purposeful behavior. You're calling this belief. — frank

Behaviour is not belief, on my view. Belief is correlations drawn between things.

Whether we want to conflate purposefulness with belief is a decision made at the level of language game, not philosophy. Right? — frank

I do not really see much of a difference between the two levels, aside from philosophy being metacognitive and not all language games being so.

That is, how do we account for change in things but also have those things maintain their identity through that change? — Andrew M

Kripke?

I'm attempting to provide an adequate evolutionarily amenable account of all conscious experience from non linguistic through metacognitive.
— creativesoul

Interesting. What's your present view of the non-linguistic phase? Those of us inclined to agree with this,

consciousness is the ability to attribute meaning.
— creativesoul

... might assume there wasn't one? — bongo fury

Non linguistic conscious experience consists entirely of correlations drawn between different directly perceptible things, none of which are language use.

That belief is a propositional attitude is not up for debate. It's just part of the logic of belief. — Banno

If it is the case that all belief is a propositional attitude, then it cannot be the case that language less creatures have belief.

The problem:Language less creatures have belief.

Because language less creatures have belief, but no ability to form an attitude towards a proposition, it only follows that not all belief is a propositional attitude.

A suggestion...

Can we at least agree that there is a difference between our bodies and our reports thereof?

While there are all sorts of language less creatures incapable of drawing correlations between different things, those aren't of interest here, for such creatures aren't capable of attributing meaning, and consciousness is the ability to attribute meaning.
— creativesoul

Good. Now we can remove the ghost of anthropomorphism from the dialectic. I just needed assurance, if not actual verification, so....thanks for that. — Mww

I've a thread about attributing things that are unique to human beings to other animals/things. The personification of other creatures and the world; anthropomorphism.

I’m not onboard with your rendering of consciousness, but that’s ok.We may return to that after I’ve a better understanding of the intricacies of your account. — Mww

The differences between our approaches are certainly stark enough to be noted. Mine remains incomplete in ways that I'm always attending to. Kant's was far more complete. It just focused upon the wrong sorts of things.

Here's where I differ with Kant...

In order to know that A is not equal to B, we must know what both consist of, because knowing that they are not equal requires comparison/contrast between the two. If A is unknowable, then we cannot know what it consists of. If we cannot know what it consists of, then we cannot ascertain how it is different from B, because by definition all we can know is that it is.

We cannot pick and choose things from the Noumenal world. That's the very first step in comparison.

We cannot know that no thing is as it appears, despite our having long since known that some things are not.

A concrete thing is something that is not predicated of anything else. So the cup and the person are examples of concrete things. Whereas physical contact is a relation between concrete things. Since it's predicated of those concrete things, it is abstract, not concrete.
— Andrew M
Concrete things here seem to be just individuals. It's a cup and a person, not cups and people. — Banno

Look like just plain 'ole names to me.

"Sounds like" would be better.

Look! An argument for qualia.

If it is the case that we are both objects in the world and subjects taking account of it and/or ourselves, then the dichotomy cannot be used as a means to draw a distinction between us and our accounts...
— creativesoul

Us and our accounts are not the dichotomy, they are the same thing, in that the account is contained in us. An account is, after all, merely a judgement, thus the account belongs to that which judges. — Mww

Bolding above is mine

As I said, if it is the case that we are both objects in the world(and we most certainly are), and subjects taking account of the world and/or ourselves(and we most certainly are), then the dichotomy cannot be used to draw and maintain a meaningful distinction between us and our accounts. Your claim that us and our accounts are the same thing is based upon employing the dichotomy, and that conclusion conflates us and our accounts. Thus, you've just confirmed my reasoning for rejecting the dichotomy.

As I mentioned earlier but it bears repeating:The need to draw a distinction between our reports and what we're reporting upon cannot be overstated. Because employing the subject/object dichotomy results in an inability to draw and maintain such distinctions, and drawing and maintaining such distinctions is a required step in the process of acquiring knowledge of that which existed in it's entirety prior to our accounts of it, the employment of that dichotomy becomes an impediment, a self-imposed obstacle to our understanding that is impossible to overcome.

...My body (in the world of things) has arms and legs (objects included in the world of things) is an account I make as a judge of things in the world belonging to my body. My account is not in the world, it is in me as the judge of the relatedness of things. — Mww

These are exactly the sort of conclusions that put the conflation between us and our reports upon public display. They are very problematic, unacceptable, and prima facie... just plain false.

Your body is not an account. Your account is most certainly in the world.

The only way to reject the counter-argument favoring the necessary subject/object dualism, is to deny the human cognitive system is inherently a logical system... — Mww

Oh, but I beg to differ. I reject it for the reasons given.

Sidebar: is a language-less creature one that has no language to use, or one that has no use of the language he has? — Mww

A creature that draws correlations between different things, none of which are language use, and none of which have ever been language use.

While there are all sorts of language less creatures incapable of drawing correlations between different things, those aren't of interest here, for such creatures aren't capable of attributing meaning, and consciousness is the ability to attribute meaning.

All conscious experience is meaningful to the creature having it.

You chopped out too much context regarding my comments on propositions for me to make much sense of the rest...

using the word differently is equivocating.
— creativesoul

It would be if I were not setting out explicitly how I am using the word. — Banno

You may tell me as often as you like that you're going to be using the same term in different ways, and in most normal everyday situations that would be more than acceptable. This is not one of those normal everyday situations.

What counts as belief is precisely what's at issue.

When you propose that belief is an attitude towards a proposition, that cats have beliefs, that cats cannot have attitudes towards propositions, and that cats cannot have beliefs, you've arrived at self-contradiction and/or incoherency. An open public admission of practicing multiple different accepted uses of a term in the same argument does not exonerate you from equivocation, regardless of whether or not you readily admit to committing the fallacy without outright naming it.

It may save you from seeming to be self-contradictory, but it does not save you from committing the fallacy of equivocation.

I reject the subject/object framework altogether. We are both objects in the world and subjects taking account of it
— creativesoul

How are those two assertions not contradictory?
—————— — Mww

If it is the case that we are both objects in the world and subjects taking account of it and/or ourselves, then the dichotomy cannot be used as a means to draw a distinction between us and our accounts...

So, I reject the dichotomy.

... leads to conflating pre-theoretical language less conscious experience, pre-theoretical linguistically informed conscious experience, and theoretical linguistically informed conscious experience.
— creativesoul

Fair enough, but if the goal is to distinguish "conscious experience" from a non-conscious variety of something or other (experience?), and all three of your sub-categories fall on the positive side of the distinction, what exactly is the point of the proposed sub-division? Ah...

Only the first of the three consists entirely of directly perceptible things.
— creativesoul

Ok, I'm curious to know in what way you aren't offering to help frank here to,

Clean away the strawmen piled in the idea of phenomenal consciousness,
— frank

?

Just interested. — bongo fury

I'm not entirely sure what frank is arguing for, so if it is the case that what I'm arguing somehow helps them, it is purely coincidental.

I'm attempting to provide an adequate evolutionarily amenable account of all conscious experience from non linguistic through metacognitive.

Red cups, apples, and pains in hands are not propositional content.
— creativesoul

Can’t they be subjects or objects of propositions, hence contents of them? Or can propositions not have content? — Mww

Red cups, apples, and pains can be directly perceived, named, and further described.

I reject the subject/object framework altogether. We are both objects in the world and subjects taking account of it and/or ourselves. As far as the objective/subjective dichotomy goes, I grant subjectivity in it's entirety. Everything ever thought, believed, spoken, written, signed, expressed, and/or otherwise uttered comes through a subject. Thus, the notion cannot be used to further discriminate between anything we're saying. It's all subjective.

They are most certainly always part of the correlational content of belief about them.
— creativesoul

Yes, always, with the caveat that correlational content of belief is not propositional. — Mww

I take similar issue with the very notion of "proposition"(the historical renditions). It's fraught with confusion regarding what meaning is, how it emerges, and the role that it plays in our experiences, including language less, pre-theoretical linguistically informed, and theoretical linguistically informed. Of course, philosophy proper - at large - has very deep-seated issues regarding meaning. Hence, there is no consensus on the matter, to this day, despite it's being so basic, so pivotal, so crucial, so irrevocable, so fundamental to each and every philosophical position throughout history...

No, your account wants for nothing. It is incoherent, and hence not an account. — Banno

:flower:

I'll leave that alone.

In so far as we ascribed beliefs to cats, we are not treating beliefs as attitudes towards propositions. We are using the word differently. — Banno

In the same argument, using the word differently is equivocating.

It's not my accounting of belief that has been found wanting.

Obfuscation is disappointing.

Do cats have beliefs?

According to the position you're working from, in order to avoid self-contradiction, incoherence, and/or equivocating the term, you must admit that they do not.

The cat can't form an attitude towards a proposition, because it cannot form a proposition. That is, it can't believe it is hungry, but it can be hungry.

Talk of cats having beliefs is at best metaphorical. — Banno

That's one way to skirt around the issue, but leaves you with being forced to admit that cats do not have belief. Otherwise it's still an equivocation fallacy, incoherence, and/or self-contradiction regarding the use of "belief". I say that that is ground for rejecting the "attitude towards a proposition" definition. It's wrong, plain and simple. The notion that all belief has propositional content is based upon conflating reports of belief with belief.

Red cups, apples, and pains in hands are not propositional content. They are most certainly always part of the correlational content of belief about them.

I would completely agree that a cat cannot believe it is hungry, but it can be hungry.

One can hold an apple in one's hands prior to language use, just as one can have a pain in one's hand prior to language use. Language use is not part of the content of a language less creature's belief(conscious experience). It is most certainly a part of our accounting practices thereof.

So, it becomes clear that there is an actual distinction to be drawn and maintained between our reports of an experience(Jack's notwithstanding) and the experience being reported upon, particularly when we're discussing how to best take an account of language less creatures' belief. That distinction between another's belief and our account must be drawn in terms of content, particularly regarding the content of language less pre-theoretical conscious experience, linguistically informed pre-theoretical conscious experience, and linguistically informed theoretical conscious experience.

There are always apples and pains in all such experiences. There is not always the ability for the creature having the experience to report upon it's experience, nor need there be.

The interesting, relevant to the topic, portion is what sorts of beliefs(conscious experiences) are existentially dependent upon language use, and are thus neither private nor ineffable. There are also a broad category of 'properties' and experiences that are quite simply not immediately apprehensible without prior language use. The coffee tasting comparisons between then and now come immediately to mind. Such experiences are not private for they are existentially dependent upon language use, and language use is not. Remove language use, and you remove the capability to compare past and present. Remove the capability to compare past and present and there is no such experience as a change in one's preference, even if it actually happened. A change in one's own personal preferences would not even be possible to experience as such, for that change would not even be apprehended without the comparison/contrast that only language can facilitate.