I think it's important to draw a distinction between what's important for the creature and what's important to the creature. The sun is very important for the survival of all creatures on earth, for instance. So, in that sense the sun is significant, it affords the creature the ability to live, etc. However, it is not necessarily the case that the sun is meaningful to the creature. — creativesoul

The sun is a necessary elemental constituent of all interactions between it and other things(all interactions it becomes part of). Not all interaction affecting/effecting individual creatures is meaningful to them. As before, the sun is important - vital, in fact - for all life on earth as we know it to emerge, survive, and/or thrive. The interaction is vital/causal. Significant for the creatures' emergence/persistence, but not necessarily meaningful to the creatures' mind(s).

The language less creature has no inkling of just how important a role the sun plays in its own existence.

Significance to the creature is what we're after here, not just significance for the creature to emerge and/or persist as they do/have.

Meaningful experiences of the sun require creature(s) capable of drawing a correlation, making an association, attributing, and/or otherwise discovering some sort of meaningful connection between the sun and something else. Meaningful experiences of the sun require the sun to somehow or other attain some sort of significance/importance to/within the mind of the candidate under our consideration. It does so by virtue of becoming meaningful to the creature(as compared/contrasted with significant for the creature). This is true concerning previously existing meaningful things as well as novel(newly connected) ones.

Earlier I mentioned the difference between something being significant for a creature and that same something being significant to a creature. In the paragraph above, I offered an outline covering all meaningful experiences of the sun. All meaningful experiences of the sun are meaningful to the creature drawing and/or discovering meaningful correlations, associations, and/or connections between the individual elements of its own thought/belief/experience at that time(to the creature having the experience).

Meaningful experience requires - at a bare minimum - some things to become meaningful, a biological creature/agent for things to become meaningful to, and a means/method/process for those things to go from being meaningless to being meaningful to the biological creature/agent.

The sun is a meaningful part of each and every individual experience of the sun. It is not meaningful to everything that it effects/affects.

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it.
— creativesoul

Oh, absolutely.
— Mww

How do you square that with your minimum criterion presented earlier which demanded being able to describe the conditions of one's own experience in order to count as meaningful experience?

You see the problem?
— creativesoul

There shouldn’t be one. I said describes even if only to himself. To describe conditions to oneself, is to think; to think is to synthesize conceptions contained in the conditions into a cognition. — Mww

Describing conditions to oneself is practicing language. One issue is that your bare minimum criterion for meaningful experience includes/requires language use and yet you've "absolutely" agreed that we have meaningful experience prior to ever taking account of it(taking account of it is necessary on your proposal and doing so requires language use). That is a contradiction. Either we have meaningful experience prior to being able to take account of it, or we don't. Your suggestion fits only into the latter. They are mutually exclusive.

Another issue(shown by reductio) is that the result of the criterion you've suggested, when taken to its logical conclusion, is that only humans capable of describing the conditions of their own experience can be admitted having meaningful experience.

At what age do we begin being capable of describing the conditions of our own experiences?

Bottom line….in examining meaningful experience the first thing to be done is to eliminate instinct, or any condition that could be attributed to mere instinct. And the best, more assured way to eliminate instinct, is to ground the necessary conditions for experience, as such, in reason alone. — Mww

If a cat instinctually chases a mouse, then according to your method, hunting mice is not a meaningful experience for/to the cat. That doesn't seem right M.

Instinct when compared/contrasted to reason is used when setting out why/how creatures behave(what drives/causes the behaviour). It has nothing to do with whether or not that behaviour is part of a meaningful experience for the behaving creature.

I agree we start with us, because “us” is what we know, it is that by which all else is judged. When we examine “us”, we find that the bare minimum form of experience is the very multi-layered complexity of the human cognitive system. No experience is possible at all, without the coordinated systemic process incorporated in human intelligence. — Mww

Thought and belief. Thinking about thought and belief. Thought and belief come prior to thinking about
thought and belief. Some experience does not include a creature capable of thinking about its own meaningful experience. That alone refutes/disproves/falsifies your bare minimum criterion.

If meaning is a relation, wouldn’t the relations need to be describable in order to comprehend that they belong to each other... — Mww

Meaning is not just a relation. We need not comprehend that we are having meaningful experiences in order to have them. That sort of consideration requires talking about our own experiences as a subject matter in their own right. We have meaningful experiences long before we begin talking about it.

What does our own language less meaningful experience consist in/of? Bare minimum criterion.

If meaningful experience happens prior to our awareness of it(prior to language), then any notion of meaning under our consideration better be amenable. Evolutionary progression demands it as well.

how would you attribute meaning to an experience without a description of its conditions? — Mww

Am I answering for your viewpoint or mine?

...the candidate under consideration(the creature having the experience) must be capable of attributing meaning to different things.
— creativesoul — Mww

We must first have an experience as well as the ability to reflect upon it prior to being able to describe the conditions thereof/therein. You're starting at some of the most complex sort of meaningful experience(s) we know of.

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it. I would go as far as to say that meaningful human experience began happening prior to language creation, acquisition, usage, and/or mastery of it.

Some meaningful experience involves talking about it. Not all. We're looking for both kinds of cases some and all.

Seems to me that all meaningful experience consists of an agent capable of meaningful attribution. Attributing/recognizing causality seems a rather uncontentious time/place to think about. It counts as meaningful experience. If the endeavor of meaningful attribution does not count as meaningful experience, then nothing will. We attribute meaning to many different things within our personal experience. This approach promises to offer a glimpse of all sorts of different creatures drawing correlations between different things.

This language less creature need not be able to describe the conditions of its own experience in order to be capable of having it solely by virtue of attributing meaning to different things. It is capable of having meaningful experiences even if language is not a part thereof; even if it has no capability of describing anything at all; even if we never know.

The candidate under consideration(the creature having the experience) must only be capable of drawing correlations, associations, connections, etc., between different things in order to attribute meaning to different things. Language use is not necessary for the emergence of meaningful experience. Despite the fact that it has long since become an inevitable/irreplaceable/irrevocable part of ours. It was not always that way. It does not begin that way.

We are a fine example proving both, that your criterion is shared by most humans, and that a more foundational one must be shared by all. That is also the aim.

If we are capable of having meaningful experience prior to and/or in complete absence of language use, then that fact and that fact alone demands explanation/answer. Any adequate bare minimum criterion for/of meaningful experience will be amenable.

Dunno….maybe too analytical on my part. — Mww

No such thing! :wink:

We're getting somewhere. I'll give the last reply it's just due upon returning. I think I'm understanding our positions better insofar as they compare/contrast with one another. I hope you are as well. Seems that way to me!

Kudos and thanks for the engagement.

Soon.

Things that grab the creature's attention 'stand out'. Anything external to the creature may 'stand out', given the creature is capable of perceiving it. Those things that 'stand out' may already be meaningful to the creature. They may not. That's often the first step in becoming meaningful.
— creativesoul

Do you count anything which does not stand out as being perceived? Per the question I asked you above, everything perceptible in your external environment is currently broadcasting information in the form of light, sound, smell, and tactile sensation to your eyes, ears, nose and skin. Would you say all that counts as being perceived merely by virtue of that information affecting the body? — Janus

I initially misunderstood you yesterday. My apologies. It seems our positions may be very close. I prefer "meaningful" where you may prefer "significant". They are used synonymously sometimes, so it may not matter much.

The bit above applies to both of our positions accordingly, I think. Current knowledge shows us that not all things interacting with our bodies at a given time are being perceived at that time, or at least not in a manner we'd call "consciously perceived".

Circling back...

I think it's important to draw a distinction between what's important for the creature and what's important to the creature. The sun is very important for the survival of all creatures on earth, for instance. So, in that sense the sun is significant, it affords the creature the ability to live, etc. However, it is not necessarily the case that the sun is meaningful to the creature.

Can we say that a percipient has perceived something if it does not stand out in some way? — Janus

Stand out in some way? I think that's far too broad/loose a claim for now. A creature is capable of perception if it is equipped with biological machinery capable of interacting with distal objects.

Things that grab the creature's attention 'stand out'. Anything external to the creature may 'stand out', given the creature is capable of perceiving it. Those things that 'stand out' may already be meaningful to the creature. They may not. That's often the first step in becoming meaningful.

We largely agree upon the requirement of/for biological machinery, so that's good!

So, only previously meaningful things are perceived?
— creativesoul

I think that's right. — Janus

How does anything become meaningful before it is ever perceived?

I have not said that cats perceive trees as trees, but they perceive trees as some kind of affordance or other (although I am not saying they could conceive of it linguistically as an affordance or as anything else)
— Janus

That's what I was thinking with the term, too -- objects with affordances make sense of a cat's or a bat's experience being different, but still about the same objects all while their experiences are probably different... — Moliere

What the mouse is behind? Where the bird is?

Perception is necessary, we agree presumably. The tree is perceived as something it affords the creature? A place to sleep? Does the bear perceive the cave as a place to sleep? Bears go there to sleep, but unless they think about the cave as a subject matter in its own right, they do not perceive it as anything. They perceive the cave. The cave is part of the bear's experience. The cave is meaningful to the bear. Going back to the cave is a meaningful experience to the bear.

For me, seeing something is always seeing something as something. So I think anything perceived, in the sense I use the word, is always already something interpreted, and I think that interpretation is not dependent on language, and that in fact language could never get started without it already being in place, and I think it is the case with the other animals just as it is with us. — Janus

Interpretation is always of something already meaningful. The meaning is what is being interpreted. So, only previously meaningful things are perceived?

All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Perception is necessary but insufficient for attributing meaning to different things; meaningful experience.
— creativesoul

It depends on how you are using "perception". For me, seeing something is always seeing something as something. So I think anything perceived, in the sense I use the word, is always already something interpreted, and I think that interpretation is not dependent on language, and that in fact language could never get started without it already being in place, and I think it is the case with the other animals just as it is with us. — Janus

Sometimes. Not all the time.

Perceiving the tree in the yard does not require perceiving it "as a tree". Surely, we perceive the distal objects being named, right? See it "as a tree" presupposes naming and descriptive practices. Cats interact with trees all the time. They do not perceive the tree, "as a tree". That invokes a middleman where none is necessary, indeed where none can be. It could be that the tree in the yard is being directly perceived in direct relation to the rest of the hunters' mind, the tree is what the mouse is hiding behind. That's all it is at the time. It is and remains the tree, nonetheless.

Perceiving a tree "as a tree" only makes sense to me when we're referring to those who know how to use the phrase.

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it.
— creativesoul

Oh, absolutely. — Mww

How do you square that with your minimum criterion presented earlier which demanded being able to describe the conditions of one's own experience in order to count as meaningful experience?

You see the problem?

I'm saying that direct perception of distal objects is necessary for all cases of human perception, and that there are many other creatures capable of it as well.
— creativesoul

I agree with that as well, with the caveat that mere direct perception is very far from meaningful experience... — Mww

Agreed. Necessary but insufficient.

…..a bare minimum criterion….
— creativesoul

I agree that for a creature to have a meaningful experience, such creature must be able to at the very least describe the conditions of that experience, even if only to himself, in order for the meaning of it to be given. — Mww

I don't agree with that. Weird way to use "I agree".

At what age are we able to do that?


I agree that that is one kind of meaningful experience. There are several. Your proposal has several layers of complexity; several layers of existential dependency. We're looking for a bare minimum form of meaningful experience. We start with us. We set that out. Then, we look to see if there are any parts that do not require language. We end up with parts and kinds of experience that require language, and parts that are not existentially dependent upon language. Perception is one necessary constituent thereof. Perception is necessary but insufficient for attributing meaning to different things. I think we agree there.

All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Perception is necessary but insufficient for attributing meaning to different things; meaningful experience.

The experience you suggest as bare minimum is itself existentially dependent upon language use(naming and descriptive practices). The consequence is not being able to admit that any of us have meaningful experience prior to becoming able to describe the conditions of our own experience. That is metacognition. We're looking for cognition.

You begin by denying that all sorts of humans have meaningful experience.

..we must first get our own meaningful experience right prior to being capable of discriminating between experiences that only humans are capable of and experiences that some other creatures are as well.
— creativesoul

And how do we get our experiences right? — Mww

That's a great question. Methodological approach matters. Guiding principles matter. Basic assumptions matter. Comparison to/with current knowledge base matters.

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it. I would go as far as to say that meaningful human experience began happening prior to language creation, acquisition, usage, and/or mastery of it.

There is when and where we would 'look for' common denominators with language less creatures also capable of having meaningful experience(s).

Again, I think that one basic necessity for having meaningful experience is the ability/capability of attributing meaning to different things. I do not see how it is possible for any creature that is inherently incapable of perceiving different things. Hence...

The biology matters.

Just because it is so for humans does not mean it is so for all intellects. — Mww

Agreed. A little early on for an anthropomorphism charge though.

If it is the case that multiple kinds of creatures are capable of meaningful experience, including those without naming and descriptive practices, then we would expect to find some shared common denominators/elemental constituents between the candidates that satisfy the bare minimum criterion for being a meaningful experience. One basic common denominator - a bare minimum criterion for experience - shared between all individual cases thereof, is that the experience itself is meaningful to the creature having it.

If all experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience, then the candidate under consideration(the creature having the experience) must be capable of attributing meaning to different things. That basic capability must be shared/possessed by all creatures capable of having meaningful experience(s). I'm saying that direct perception of distal objects is necessary for all cases of human perception, and that there are many other creatures capable of it as well.

Are you saying that direct perception of distal objects is not necessary for meaningful experience, or that direct perception of distal objects is insufficient for meaningful experience, or that direct perception of distal objects is something that is exclusive to only humans?

This presupposes all experiencing creatures experience via direct perception, which makes explicit there is no other way to experience, irrespective of the type of creature. We have no warrant for claiming that is a valid condition... — Mww

Sure we do. It just hasn't been laid bare yet. It's a complicated topic, and you're not easily convinced into believing anything that contradicts your current view.

What meaningful experience is of a creature that is entirely incapable of perceiving distal objects? How could mindless behaviour evolve into meaningful experience(becoming meaningful to the creature) if not by virtue of the creature being and/or becoming capable of attributing meaning to different elements/constituents therein?

More rhetoric straight from the lips of the disinformation campaign...

...the irony.

There is a distinction between meaningful and meaningful TO someone.
— Possibility

I missed this. I completely disagree.

If we replace "someone" with "a creature capable of attributing meaning" there is no distinction between being meaningful and being meaningful to a creature capable of attributing meaning.
— creativesoul

Okay, now I think we might be getting somewhere. You’re talking about meaningful as a way of being or becoming in relation to a creature. This seems to be a temporal relation for you, as if at some point the relation, once meaningful, can cease to be so. Would that be accurate? — Possibility

I know that this was years ago, but recent discussions on the forum have me revisiting this thread.

I must've been in too argumentative a mood or something else perhaps when first reading the above, because upon rereading it today, I found myself wondering why I had not concurred, hesitantly anyway, with the interpretation above.

Yes! Without doubt, meaningfulness has temporal duration/relation. Things that were once meaningful can cease to be so.

After rereading this thread, I want to once again commend you on continuing to maintain a respectful 'tone' despite what clearly looks to me - now at least - like my own unwarranted bristling/taking unwarranted offense at different times throughout.

Experience, as such, yes, the reason being, all of that by which experience is considered a valid concept is derived purely a priori from the nature of human intelligence alone, and insofar as this concept is a priori, it can never apply outside the intelligence from which it arises.That being said, experience, as such, is forbidden to non-human animals, but that does not preclude them having something conceptually congruent with it, albeit exclusive to their kind of intelligence. — Mww

Even granting Kantian terms, that first part makes little to no sense to me whatsoever M.

:brow:

Have you forgotten that, in philosophy, a priori and a posteriori are used to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on experience. A priori knowledge is supposed to be independent of any experience.

I agree that there are differences between human experience and other animals', but there also are similarities. Finding and/or figuring out what those similarities are finds importance here. I mentioned a general rule of thumb which ought help guide our endeavor. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Here, despite our differences in preferred terminological frameworks, perhaps progress can be made. You wrote "exclusive to their kind of intelligence" which may provide segue.

I'm arguing that there are things we can know about other creatures' minds, and thus experience, based upon adequate evidence and sufficient reason to infer/conclude that other creatures have minds/experiences. The catch here, however, is that we must first get our own meaningful experience right prior to being capable of discriminating between experiences that only humans are capable of and experiences that some other creatures are as well. Successfully doing so avoids anthropomorphism. It is worth mentioning here again, that we need not know everything in order to know some things.

Circling back to the OP...

Direct perception of distal objects is one physiological capability that all experiencing creatures must possess. This points towards the irrevocably important role that biological machinery plays.

These sort of considerations warrant their own thread.

No it's not. Light often causes us to see colours, but they are not the same thing, as evidenced by the obvious fact that I can see colours when I dream and my eyes are closed in a dark room. — Michael

measure the wavelength of light and then program it to output the word "red" if the wavelength measures 700nm.

Well, say what you will... when your eyes are closed in a dark room or you're dreaming, you're doing neither seeing light nor seeing colors. You're dreaming or hallucinating. I've seen enough here.

Be well.

This is where you're getting confused by grammar. The words "see" and "experience" and "perceive" and "aware" are all being used ambiguously and interchangeably. — Michael

An open admission of equivocation.

Are you asking if I'm aware that eliminative materialism and property dualism are incompatible? Yes, I'm aware. I'm undecided between them, but my inclination favours property dualism although I'm open to eliminative materialism. — Michael

Arguing for them both results in saying incompatible things when compared to one another. Have you been arguing for both throughout this thread, at different times arguing for one, and then the other later?

Hence, we've arrived at incoherency/self-contradiction.
— creativesoul

How so? — Michael

Light is color. Light does not reside in the brain/mind. Remember this?

It's not odd at all. We build it to measure the wavelength of light and then program it to output the word "red" if the wavelength measures 700nm.

Your words about color matching. Either light resides in the mind or color is not a constituent of experience.

You do realize that they are incompatible with one another, yes?

Have you abandoned the eliminative materialist approach in favor of a sense data theorist one?

Are those constituents of experience? Earlier you said they were. Hence, we've arrived at incoherency/self-contradiction.

ndirect realists don't believe or claim that our eyes respond to light reflected by mental phenomena and that our ears respond to sound emitted by mental phenomena, so you clearly misunderstand indirect realism and are arguing against a strawman. — Michael

Coherency/consistency demands that all constituents of experience reside in the mind.

Light comes from where? External to the mind. So, light itself cannot be a constituent of experience. What is color again?

What all is involved? That’s gonna be a pretty long list, I should think, depending on what one thinks experience is. In my world, experience is an end, the terminus of the human speculative intellectual methodology, from which follows, all that is involved for that end, is the sum of the means necessary for the attainment of it. — Mww

Indeed. Carelessly worded on my part. I suspect neither of us requires omniscience from us in order to know anything about experience though. I also note the use of "human" here. Combined with the earlier reply concerning the cow, I'm left with a question: Do you restrict experience to only humans? Are non human animals forbidden, by definition, from having any experience?

For my part, although we cannot know everything, we can surmise one very important feature of our own experience. It is meaningful to us. Thus, if any other mind is capable of experience, it ought at least be meaningful to them. I'm curious what you think about that?

Help me understand what agreement we’re having here? — Mww

Seeing a cow requires a cow. It's the direct perception part we agree on, I think? Perhaps it's the a priori reasoning that cows are necessary for seeing cows? We differ when it comes to what all is involved in/for experience.

The difference now is, you said “talk of what the cow is doing”, which presupposes it as an extant experience. — Mww

This topic finds agreement between us.

What the cow is doing may or may not qualify as an experience. Extant behaviour seems better here. Experience is always meaningful to the creature having the experience. So, we ought to know how creatures attribute meaning in order to have any clue about whether or not cows can have experience, and to what extent they are or become meaningful to the cow.

Biology looms large.

One cannot adhere to both, an eliminative materialist, and a sense datum theorist account of perception.

What do you think "constituent" means? — Michael

Feigned interest is rather unbecoming.

Re read our exchanges, or better yet, click my avatar, click my comments and read for yourself how I use the word. Then you'll know what it means.

Something that exists in one location cannot be a constituent of something that exists in a different location. — Michael

:lol:

That's the missing presupposition. As I said, it didn't follow. The above is just plain false or there is no such things as constituents of any kind. Two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time.

Conscious experience occurs in the brain, distal objects exist outside the brain, — Michael

What is below does not follow from what is above.

...therefore distal objects are not constituents of conscious experience.

.

Measuring is an interesting act to consider here. If all constituents of experience exist only in the head and never distal objects, then what exactly is happening when we begin measuring the size of the red cup? We're certainly not measuring things that exist in the brain. The same question can and ought be asked about measuring the reflected wavelengths of the visible spectrum. Do we measure things in our brain, or do we measure light being reflected off the cup, neither of which are in our brain?

It follows that on a naïve realist view, the veridical perceptions and hallucinations in question have a different nature: the former have mind-independent objects as constituents, and the latter do not.

Yup.

[N]aïve realists hold that ... [t]he conscious visual experience you have of the oak has that very tree as a literal part. — French and Phillips 2023

Yup.

when we describe what's going on when we dream and hallucinate we're describing what's happening to/in us and not what's happening elsewhere in the world. The indirect realist simply argues that the same can be true of veridical experience because veridical experience, hallucinations, and dreams are all of a common kind – mental states with phenomenal character – that differ only in their cause (which is not to say that we can't also talk about their cause). — Michael

That's yet another place in reasoning where the indirect position goes wrong. All experience is experience, of that we can be certain. It doesn't follow from that that there are not differences between veridical, hallucinatory, and illusory experiences. It certainly does not follow that veridical experiences are the same as hallucinations and dreams. That is to willfully neglect the difference between them.

Another issue is the unstated but mistaken presupposition at work here. Distal objects do both, cause and become and/or 'act' as necessary elemental constituents of veridical experience. Those are not mutually exclusive roles when it comes to how physiological sensory perception works. Moreover, it is only after those things have happened that the biological machinery is primed and ready(so to speak) act as if red cups are being perceived once again, even though they're not.


----------------------------------------------------------------

Circling back to where I left you to think about the difference between a dinner party and a painting. Dinner parties are experiences. Paintings are not. That's one difference. Dinner parties consist of guests, hosts, food, drink, conversation, furniture, etc. If apple pie is served, then it is a constituent of that dinner party. It's not a mystery. It's very straightforward. Some parties may include and/or directly involve a painting. If the party includes a conversation about a particular painting on the wall, then that painting is also a constituent of that party. Anyone involved and/or listening to the discourse is having an experience that includes the painting, and the paint as constituents thereof.

In short, portraits are not experiences. Dinner parties are.

This is the third time I've pointed out the issue with your analogy. It's false. Continuing to use it is a textbook example of a non sequitur, strawman, red herring, misunderstanding, and/or perhaps deliberate misattribution of meaning to the term "constituent". Very unhelpful.

Red cups are necessary elemental constituents of seeing red cups. The red cup has a reflective outer layer. The color we talk about is not inherent to the cup, but the outer layer is, so the cup inherently reflects/refracts the wavelengths we've named "red". The cup will reflect those wavelengths if we all die tomorrow.

Seeing red cups that are not there is malfunctioning biology. The red cup is not a part of hallucinations. Hence, the difference between hallucinations and veridical experience is whether or not distal objects are constituents thereof.

...our perceptions are shaped by those objects. — Luke

That's what I'm saying; earlier pointing at the need to unpack the phrase.

He didn't listen.

I'll leave you to think about it.