I already understood you just fine. You're now assigning a singular value(X and Y) to a plurality of different things, and some of these things are the same. You've also ran into a bit of self-contradiction and/or incoherence...

Blather...

I'm over it. Come up with something that makes sense.

There are some simple things that we can know and work from there.

All language consists of shared meaning. Whatever shared meaning requires, then so too does language.

Follow me so far?

Is there something primordial to language? There must be, imo. But I don't know what it is. — tim wood

We agree here. I'm trying to show you how you can know. You began in the right place, by looking towards known examples of thought. It is a particularly good move to look for the common denominators. You found and focused upon only one; predication. You then drew a conclusion that neglected to draw and maintain a distinction that is crucial to understanding the basis of all thought, including all predication. And you've ignored relevant arguments hereabouts. Not a good start.

Thought, for present purpose, is mental activity that we are, or become, aware of. Mental processes and activity we are not aware of, for present purpose, are not thought. — tim wood

This is self-contradictory on it's face. Thought - if something that we can become aware of - must exist prior to our becoming aware of it, lest there would be nothing to become aware of. So, the first claim contradicts the second. If either is true, then the other cannot be. That is to say that they are negations of one another.

That's completely unacceptable.

Language is a behaviour that expresses something.

Are you prepared to admit all of the absurd consequences of this definition? Books do not contain behaviour. Following your 'logic', books do not contain language.

You'll have to do better than this...

Um, no. If all reporting "will consist in language," then all we have is language. — tim wood

This is a specious claim. It is borne of sorely neglecting to draw and maintain the meaningful distinction between a report and what is being reported upon.

We have both. The latter does not necessarily consist of language. The former always does.

We look to language to find thought. There is no reason to believe that all thought must consist of language. All predication does.

It doesn't follow that all thought is existentially dependent upon predication.
— creativesoul

Why "existentially"? Why "dependent"? Are these qualifications necessary or relevant? — tim wood

These questions have already been adequately answered. It may be helpful to address the post I made just prior to this one.

Some predicate-less creatures are capable of drawing correlations between their own behavior and what happens afterwards. These are causal connections being made by a creature without language.

The attribution of causality is not existentially dependent upon language. One cannot think or believe that touching fire causes discomfort without drawing the aforementioned correlations. One cannot draw the correlations unless they are thinking. That's precisely what all thought consists of. Mental correlations drawn between different things. There are no exceptions. None are immune.

All reporting upon some candidate or another that we could bring to bear will consist of language.

A report of something is not always equivalent to what's being reported upon... reports upon thought notwithstanding. The report requires thinking about thought. Thinking about thought cannot happen unless there is something to think about. Thinking about thought is existentially dependent upon pre-existing thought. It is also existentially dependent upon written language. We use the terms "thought", "belief", "understanding", "perception", "worldview", etc.

All mental ongoings capable of being appropriately and sensibly called "thought" must presuppose it's own correspondence and be meaningful.

That's what all predication does.

That's what all pre-linguistic and/or non-linguistic thought does as well.

Ought this not be considered more basic than predication? Surely.

A creature capable of drawing correlations, connections, and/or associations between different things.

Calling something "the bottom of things" presupposes that we've arrived at a basis. Predication is a part of the basis of all spoken/written language.

I would strongly argue that spoken language is not part of the the basis of all thought.

The two have something else in common.

In articulation...

That's key, I would think.

When I try to find the bottom of things, that is, what underlies, what I find is predication. Something said or thought about something. In English it's always is, whether or not the is is explicit. I suspect in other languages it's the same, no matter the language or the grammar. Always the is. Thinking, the same - near as I can tell. Feeling, emotion, as reaction doesn't seem to need an is. But it does in articulation: hunger to "I am hungry," and so forth.

This omnipresence of predication must be a clue to something. — tim wood

That's a good start.

It doesn't follow that all thought is existentially dependent upon predication.

Her Spirit Still Lives

The saddest of men once came to me
He swore that some things just could not be
They way that they seemed within his mind
So churlish this world with face unkind

His life had just gnawed feasting from within
His thoughts drained his soul and there seemed no end
An embodied sadness what remained severed life
Despair overwhelmed through day and through night

This world of mine he said to me
It's dark and dreary it's no place to be
There's nothing good here there's nothing good left
None to have or to hold my heart is bereft

Life isn't fair it's all just so cruel
Good's always fleeting a notion for fools
It is here that I asked what is it my friend
What's so damned bad that it never ends

For time and patience they will guarantee
That things will change for both you and me
Do not always fret at how things have been
Look from afar and maybe help this all end

Do what he exclaimed with furled brow
Look from afar what the hell how
Things are bad and that's how they've been
And facts like these they do not depend

Upon where we sit or our vantage point
It's not as if past events are disjoint
Those things were real and they happened to me
Just who are you to think you can see

Have you been to all the places I have
Do you feel my pain or forget how to laugh
You are not haunted by things lost in my past
It's a good thing too because you wouldn't last

As words escaped lips tears fell from his eyes
His story then began held me tight paralyzed
Twas a tale of true love and one deeply held
She was his life still so clearly spelled

They both had locks they both had keys
But neither had known just how to release
To set down the past in middle of road
That is the first step that so few can know

They showed each other how such a beautiful plight
Their keys fit the locks freeing each others' light
Before his words had ended I already knew
Clear to my mind this man's picture was true

I could hardly conceive before this man
What love could be like released from the hand
Until he spoke of her touch erasing his pain
Of a magical smile while his formed once again

Creating a valley that funneled those tears
Around mountains of cheeks recounting their years
Held with amazement my heart had grown fond
Of his story his life his deep love was beyond

My own understanding my eyes couldn't see
Until that is this man painted for me
The most beautiful mural of what love is like
Brush strokes of tenderness impressed in my mind

Soul mates they say like a hand in a glove
Every moment in time just being in love
The stories he shared while sitting with me
Recreated his life and of what love could be

When his words fell to silence I witheld tears
His pain had been grounded in all of those years
It had discolored his sight of what things could be
His past with her beautiful but a future without she

Had reminded him only of that which was lost
Her gentle light of all that was tossed
Off the script of his life those chapters had closed
The pages remaining were all empty prose

Do you see now wells still in his eyes
The cruelty of life has this heart compromised
Thoughts of her beautiful the edge of the knife
Her absence cuts happiness transforms love into strife

But my friend I spoke her affect is still here
Her touch is still with you her love's remained near
While I may not know her you've shown her to me
Her heart and yours things meant to be

Your keys fit her locks both hidden and known
Hers opened yours all of this it still shows
To this day her soul brings your face such a smile
Allowing her to light to live on for a while

In a trivial way, in order for the universe to be as it is with humans in it, it must have humans in it.

I am drawing and maintaining the crucial distinction between belief and reports thereof. JTB is about reports thereof. I am claiming that well-grounded true belief exists prior to language.

Since offering one's ground for belief does not make the belief well-grounded, that should tell us that a belief does not necessarily need argued for in order for it to be justified. The same is the case with a belief being true. It need not be argued for in order to be true.

One need not know that they know in order to know that touching fire caused pain.

Seems to me that all of the valid problems regarding JTB are dissolved by virtue of getting thought and belief right to begin with.

Blah, blah, blah...

;;;

It may be obvious to you, some of this, but I'm still trying to get clear on how you're using the words ground and justification. For me, to say a belief is well-grounded is essentially the same as saying, the belief is justified. — Sam26

When one justifies their belief to another, we say that that belief has been justified. We do not say that that belief has been well-grounded. We say that it is well-grounded, for we've just come to realize that. It was already well-grounded prior to another justifying it to us.

The point here is that providing the ground does not make the belief well-grounded. It shows that it is.

I can have the ground without stating the ground, but learning the ground is social. — Sam26

Is it?

Stating the ground is social. Learning another's ground is social.

Fire causes discomfort when touched. That doesn't require language to learn. Is it not the ground for believing that touching fire caused pain?

I think that how we're using the term "justify" is the root of our misunderstanding.

When one justifies his/her claims, they provide the ground(s) to another.

All I'm saying is, and you've agreed with me before, that one need not provide their ground to another in order for the belief to be well-grounded. Being well-grounded is the criterion for being justified. It is not providing that ground to another. — creativesoul

The confusion may be in the following: I learn through the language-game of epistemology, i.e., what it means to justify a belief. Once I learn it in the proper setting, then I'm able to apply it privately. I don't learn it privately, but I can apply it privately. Just as I learn mathematics within the language of mathematics (socially again), and then I can do it privately.

It's in the private setting, after I learn it in a social setting, that I don't have to state it. I know what it means to justify, so in this sense I don't need to state anything. Unless someone asks for the justification, then I can give it. The social, or the language part comes first though.

Are you saying that it can be done totally in private? Just trying to clarify. — Sam26

One cannot provide the ground of a belief to another privately. Providing ground is existentially dependent upon language. Language is social. That's irrelevant to the point being made.

I'm saying that one need not provide the ground in order to have the ground. Providing the ground doesn't matter at all with regard to the quality of the ground. It's the quality of the ground that determines whether or not the belief is a justified belief. This is obvious. Not all instances of offering one's grounds result in us concluding, saying, and/or recognizing that the belief is justified. If offering one's grounds justified one's belief, then all belief would be justified by virtue of the person offering the ground. That's just not the case.

This is common sense, I would think.

I'm suddenly reminded of Davidson.

Paraphrasing... if one knows what it would take for a claim to be true, then one knows what the claim means. The consequence here is that it would be quite possible for a listener(myself in this case) to better know what a speaker's words mean(Blue's purported counterexample in this case) than the speaker them self does.

Odd. A bit uncomfortable. Seems to be the case though.

Gibberish.

Look, all you're doing is talking about stuff that makes sense in it's own context. Your mistake is not realizing that what you've put forth is not a problem for the existential outline.

We can say that the concept of Experience includes any and all experience, and we can further discuss this notion. We do so by making sure that whatever we say about "Experience" is true of any and all experience. This notion of Experience would begin at the first and end at the last. So...

It doesn't pose a problem for the outline, for if someone were to try to carve out some small bit of the whole Experience - say the very first experience - and then claim that the very first experience is existentially dependent upon the very last experience, then that person is guilty of self-contradiction at worst and/or equivocation at best. It is unacceptable to use the same term in the same argument in two different senses.

We have "Experience" as a whole. That includes all individual particular cases of experience.
We have individual particular cases of experience. These are all part of the whole.

The claim in question is this...

That which exists prior to something else cannot be existentially dependent upon it.

You want to say that the very first experience is existentially dependent upon the very last experience because together they make up the whole "Experience". I would agree with that, for we're merely outlining the parameters of our speech. We would be defining our terms. Here's the problem...

There are two variables in my claim. You're attempting to use three different values.

There was no discovery of Carbon. — Blue Lux

I've nothing further...

What is it that is so importantly wrong such that it requires you to be continually and/or repeatedly depressed and/or sad about it?

You can do this solely by virtue of trying to remember how you felt at the worst times. That would be during the times when things were either horrible in your mind, horrible in the world, or horrible in both. Talking about your own thoughts during the horrible times, is expressing your memories. Memories are malleable. How did those events make a lasting impression?

Do you want to change it?

Come to more acceptable terms about the same events.

Or...

You could just as easily talk yourself into the idea that you are depressed. You could know all there is to know about being depressed. You could confirm that you've met all of the criterion.

You could always come to better understand what part of reality is so bothersome... and why.

Well, animals mourn and are not fearful of death. It's just a natural thing for them that they witness every day. Animals can become depressed or sad or anxious; but, never fearful of death. Is it our self-awareness that comes into play that makes us fear death? — Posty McPostface

I wouldn't think so, but it may be the case given the sheer complexity built into our self-awareness.

My cat is self-aware in some rudimentary sense unlike human self-awareness. At least that is what her use of a mirror shows. She knows that that's her in the mirror. She also knows how to look into the mirror and see something behind her. She looks at me through the mirror. I call her, and she then turns around and looks directly at me. That aside...

I think the human fear of death is akin in a specific way to many of our other fears... the unknown and unfamiliar.

For the purposes of this thread you are to assume that you have a "God like" power which allows you to bestow sentience on any currently inanimate object you choose. For example, your car, your carpet, your toaster.

I would like to pose 2 questions:

Q1: Is it morally sound to utilise that power and make an inanimate object sentient?

Q2: What are the implications for humans in a Creationist scenario? I.e. Is it morally sound for a creator to give sentience to humans?


Your thoughts please — Pilgrim

The purposes of this thread are based upon an utterly impossible notion... that of granting or bestowing sentience. It doesn't work that way.

Accept the way things are. Change what can be changed for the better. Accept what cannot. Learn the difference between the two.

Habits of thought play a crucial role... Habits of thought.
— creativesoul

But, I've already accepted my depression. So, now what? — Posty McPostface

Let me try this again...

What I meant to point out was that your depression, I would venture to say, is the result of certain things being certain ways. Notably, these things and ways are not the way you'd like them to be, or supposed that they were. Expectation didn't match up to reality.

Change the reality.

Historically speaking, philosophy proper has not drawn and maintained the irrevocable utterly crucial distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief. This is not so much a righteous indignation from myself towards academia, but rather it's more like a recognition and subsequent setting out of historical consequence(s). I touched on this a bit earlier with Sam.

Academia found itself with the need to further discriminate between equally coherent(in terms of a lack of self-contradiction) but diametrically opposed positions and/or claims. Hence, JTB was 'born'. While this proved to be and yet still remains a very useful way to measure knowledge claims(despite Gettier), it also helps one to determine whether or not such claims warrant our assent. However, unfortunately it doesn't draw the aforementioned distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief. To be fair, that wasn't an obvious problem to people centuries ago, for it wasn't at all obvious that there was such a distinction. After-all, most still held hat humans were 'special' in their ability to reason, and this was one of the many distinctions historically drawn between humans and animals. Across the board there was and there remains overwhelming evidence to suggest that no philosopher from any camp ever drew this distinction. Rather, the evidence clearly shows that there are multitude of different positions that are built upon the conflation itself. These range from Berkeley through today, as far as I know.

The result?

It's simple. Comparing/contrasting different knowledge claims is nothing more than examining different statements of thought and belief. Further analysis renders belief content in terms of propositions, or believing that some statement/proposition or other is true; is the case; is the way things are;etc. All sorts of different ways, from oppositional groups even from Russel to Rorty, to arrive at the same conclusion... that all belief is propositional in content.

That conclusion either sorely neglects the distinction, and or dubiously presupposes that there is no difference between belief statements(reports of belief) and belief. All of this actually underwrites Gettier as well. What gives his criticism a foothold is an utterly inadequate understanding of what it takes to believe a disjunction. His paper is nothing more than the consequence of a gross misunderstanding of thought and belief. That clearly shows by how he represents and/or takes an account of Smith's belief.

To put this in proper context of the existential outline...

If it is the case, as history has mistakenly held, that all belief is propositional in content, then it is also the case that belief is existentially dependent upon propositions. This has consequences...

Either propositions exist prior to language(no one wants that justificatory burden), or there is no such thing as non-linguistic belief.

Convention has obviously worked from the latter. That's part of how we've gotten to all the talk about mentalese, and absolute presuppositions, and all the other notions meant to take account of how we are able to invent and/or acquire language. It's also what Banno has been helping me with for quite some time now... all the different conventional notions of belief. Notably, the all-too-common one that belief is nothing more than an attitude towards some proposition.

That's a perfect description of thinking about thought and belief, and it follows nicely from historical convention. Sincere speakers believe what they write. That is, they believe that what they're writing is true. What they're writing is statements/propositions. Here again, we're putting things in a way that supports the idea that belief content is propositional. This has the same consequence...

There is no such thing as non-linguistic(ir prelinguistic) belief. At least, it cannot possibly be the same kind of belief that us - special - humans form and hold. It cannot possibly have the same 'structure'...

Ah bullshit...

Don't get me wrong here, the much more simplistic thoughts and beliefs that other creatures are capable of forming and/or holding pales in comparison to the sheer level of complexity that human thought and belief can acquire. These differences and/or 'degrees' of complexity are developed and/or actually determined solely by virtue of the complexity of the correlations themselves. This can be readily observed even within different groups of humans. It completely underscores the notion of "being refined" or "having a refined palate" or any other such continuum that places rudimentary simple talk on one end and purportedly complex and much more sophisticated talk on the other.

This site offers a steady diet of just such things...

My opinion?

More often than not it's nothing more than unnecessarily overcomplicated language. I'll say nothing about the psychology of the users, for it varies tremendously in my experience.

This is off the OP, but warrants a bit of attention since it's been raised here again...

On my view, "holding a belief" is a proxy phrase meant to simplify what would be an otherwise unwieldy manner of speaking. Creatures that have and/or hold belief are the ones that draw, have drawn, and will once again draw the same or similar enough correlations between different things. All thought and belief consists of such correlations(as does all attribution of meaning). The drawing of the correlation is thought and belief formation. That's how it's always done. That is the basic process. Now, this process, if we must call it such a thing, is replete with the presupposition of it's own correspondence to fact/reality, and the attribution of meaning which makes perfect sense in light of the fact that all thought and belief is meaningful and presupposes it's own truth somewhere along the line.

Point being...

Don't take the phrase "holding belief" too literally or seriously. It doesn't serve as philosophical ground.

So it is only while one is actually verbally expressing "The cat is on the mat" that s/he holds that belief...

You have something better than this to offer two face?

...If thought and belief are not determinate objects, and verbal expressions of thought and belief are, then it only follows that verbal expressions of thought and belief are not equivalent to thought and belief. — creativesoul

...the beliefs are held only within the verbal expressions of believing, otherwise they would not be expressions of believing. In other words you hold a belief only as an expression of believing; the believing itself, as process, cannot be held. — Janus

So, beliefs are not expressions of belief, but rather beliefs are held only within the verbal expressions of believing...

Yeah.

That's exactly the kind of precision we're looking for.

Have you justified the charge you levied against me earlier?

Mirror, mirror...

Pots and kettles...

Projection...

Special pleading...

Double standard...

Yeah yeah, I know. I'm a dick sometimes.

This(notion of holding belief) is a deceptive analogy with the notion of physically holding an object that many minds fall into; and I believe Banno is right to think that you are one of them. — Janus

Gotta love the irony...

Dontcha?

:vomit:

You do realize that I can set out precisely what that process includes?

Can you?

...the beliefs are held only within the verbal expressions of believing, otherwise they would not be expressions of believing. In other words you hold a belief only as an expression of believing; the believing itself, as process, cannot be held. — Janus

Held...

Like keys?

In short, all thought and belief consist entirely of mental correlations. There are no examples to the contrary.

What, you mean like we have to have experiences of things and events before we can have thoughts and beliefs about them?

If that's what you mean, it's obvious, but experiences of things and events don't constitute thoughts and beliefs about them; surely there is a distinction between constitution and dependence. — Janus

Well no. That's not what I'm saying.

Yes. Surely there's a distinction between elemental constitution and existential dependency. There's also a relation that matters here.

What I'm saying is this...

All thought and belief consist of the same set of elemental constituents. Some thought and belief exist prior to language. That which exists prior to language cannot be existentially dependent upon language. That which exists prior to language cannot consist of language.

If put to good use, this outline coupled with a good understanding of thought and belief, squarely places both truth and meaning prior to language. I've not made that argument in this post, but have in the thread and elsewhere. I could easily do so if you like.

You figure that that is just something that everyone would just agree to?

How about you?

I can't see that you are arguing for any position which does not merely consist in truisms; tautologies which no one would deny. I'm sorry to say I can't find anything substantive there to either disagree with, or to use as a beginning point for further discussion. — Janus

That's odd.

If there's nothing to disagree with, and what's been said is applicable to everything talked about, then one could begin application of these true claims anywhere they so choose. I've been piddling with such things the whole thread.

...verbal expressions of thought are determinate objects...you know, like written words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and texts and auditory sounds and combinations of sounds, and so on. — Janus

If thought and belief are not determinate objects, and verbal expressions of thought and belief are, then it only follows that verbal expressions of thought and belief are not equivalent to thought and belief.

So...

When you speak of holding thought and belief, in order for you to meet your own precision standard, you ought be talking in terms of holding expressions of thought and belief.

Have you justified your charge towards me yet? If so I missed it.