We are discussing the difference between living with language and without language. — Athena

Yes. That's part of it. There's also the transition between. There are also different kinds of languages consisting of different kinds of meaningful behaviours, marks, utterances, etc.

Indeed, what counts as language matters in more than one way.

For example, when a dog checks out a bowl, because it expects there to be food in it, and is disappointed, I don't suppose it says to itself "Oh, my belief that there was food there is wrong" or anything similar. It simply walks away. But that action counts as a recognition that its belief was false. — Ludwig V

Recognizing that the bowl is empty is not the same as recognizing that one's own belief about food being in the bowl is false. The former is about the food and the bowl. The latter is about one's own thought/belief. The dog can directly perceive the food, the bowl, and its own hunger. Thought and belief are not directly perceptible things. Nor are truth/falsity. Nor is meaning. Nor are social/institutional facts. Nor are any number of abstractions.

I cannot find good ground for claiming that any creature incapable of naming and descriptive practices is capable of abstraction. Recognizing that one's own belief is false requires comparison/contrast between the belief and what the belief is about. That seems to require a skillset unobtainable to dogs.

But it's not enough for him to generalize and understand that (1) whenever he kills a chicken, he will be in trouble. He also needs to understand that (2) if he does not kill chickens, Janus wll not be displeased with him.

There's more to Jimi than just recognizing causal correlations. — Ludwig V

Of course there is more to any thinking creature than just the recognition/attribution of causality, but it seems to me that that process, regardless of the creature, is more than adequate for being a case of thinking(thought/belief).

I'm not convinced that Jimi knows he's in trouble, so I question the account above on its presuppositional ground.

It is more than enough that Jimi inferred that his own behaviour caused Janus'. Here, all Jimi needs to avoid killing chickens is to believe that if he does Janus will do whatever Janus did the first time. He does not need to understand that if he does not kill chickens Janus will not be displeased. He just needs to believe that if he does, Janus will do what he did the first time. His belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' comes replete with the further inference/belief/expectation that if he does not, Janus will not do that either. That's how the recognition/attribution of causality works.

I'm not sure that dogs have a concept of causality as such. — Ludwig V

I agree but...

Where does the need for having a concept of causality come from? Again, I do not find the notion of concept to be of help. Generally speaking, it seems to be a step backward instead of forward. One can recognize/attribute causal relationships, which is what is meant by "recognize/attribute causality" without having a concept of causality(thinking about causality as a subject matter in and of itself). A creature can believe that X causes Y without having a concept of causality. Recognizing/attributing causality requires only inferring that.

The claim was that walking away from an empty food bowl counts as recognition that the prior belief(that the bowl had food in it) was false. — creativesoul

That's right. I should have been clearer that that sentence was my report of the dog's behaviour. I thought it was obvious that the dog could not have made that report.

We do that with words, which stand in as proxy, for the belief. — creativesoul

Oh, dear, now we are in deep trouble. It is reasonable to describe some words as standing in as proxy for something. But not all. That's a big, even central, issue about language. For example, there is some sense in saying that if my dog's name is Eddy, "Eddy" stands in as proxy for the dog. But I don't think it helps to insist that "1" stands in as proxy for the number 1 or "Pegasus" as proxy for Pegasus. The philosophical issue of nominlaism vs realism as an account of universals (abstractions) is precisely about this.

Of course there is more to any thinking creature than just the recognition/attribution of causality, but it seems to me that that process, regardless of the creature, is more than adequate for being a case of thinking(thought/belief). — creativesoul

Of course. I only wanted to suggest that there are other kinds of belief.
However, Jimi's belief that Janus was displeased with him because he killed the chicken does not distinguish between causation as simply correlation and causation as something more than just correlation. I think Jimi is capable of the first, but not the second - at least, I can't think of non-verbal behaviour that would enable me to distinguish the two. I could be wrong.

His belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' comes replete with the further inference/belief/expectation that if he does not, Janus will not do that either. — creativesoul

H'm. "Replete with" is not altogether clear to me. I notice that you do accept that that Jimi's belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' displeasure is distinct from the belief that if he does not behave in that way, Janus will not be displeased. So it is possible that he might believe the first and not the second. This fits well with the fact that killing the chicken is a sufficient, but not necessary, consequence of Janus' displeasure, getting from one to the other requires an inferential step, which Jimi has failed to make after the first kill, but does (apparently) make after the second.

Knowing where to get food is not the same as knowing that one's own belief is false.

The claim was that walking away from an empty food bowl counts as recognition that the prior belief(that the bowl had food in it) was false.

What is involved in the process of recognizing that one's own belief about whether or not there is food in the bowl is false? It requires drawing a distinction between one's own belief and what the belief is about. This process, at a bare minimum, requires thinking about one's own belief as a subject matter in and of itself, which in turn requires a way to do so. We do that with words, which stand in as proxy, for the belief. How can an animal without naming and descriptive practices invent/create a meaningful utterance which stands in place of its own belief? That must be done prior to comparing that belief to the world. It is only via such a comparison that one can recognize that their own belief is either true or false. — creativesoul

I do not understand why you made that argument. An expectation is not the same as a belief. An expectation is thinking with the gut (feeling) not the brain (language).

Yes. That's part of it. There's also the transition between. There are also different kinds of languages consisting of different kinds of meaningful behaviours, marks, utterances, etc.

Indeed, what counts as language matters in more than one way. — creativesoul

How about smells? That is one of the major elements of communication. I think I smell a god. Well, maybe that doesn't work. However, we can believe someone will be a good mate because of how that person smells.

The theory is that individuals are subconsciously attracted to the body odors of potential partners with dissimilar MHC genes. This preference is believed to be detected through scent, which serves as a cue for genetic compatibility.
https://myotape.com/blogs/articles/the-intriguing-science-behind-smell-and-partner-choice#:~:text=The%20theory%20is%20that%20individuals,related%20odors%20influence%20mate%20choice.

Perhaps what is going on in our subconscious also counts and is closer to animal thinking with messages that mean something but have no language for rational thinking. Just a smell and a reaction.
Or a movement and shooting in fear without thinking, thereby killing one's son. The book Emotional Intelligence uses a story of a man killing his son, as an example of our reaction system that does not involve thinking.

That's a big, even central, issue about language. For example, there is some sense in saying that if my dog's name is Eddy, "Eddy" stands in as proxy for the dog. But I don't think it helps to insist that "1" stands in as proxy for the number 1 or "Pegasus" as proxy for Pegasus. The philosophical issue of nominlaism vs realism as an account of universals (abstractions) is precisely about this. — Ludwig V

Wow, you used a word I never came across before and did not know the meaning. Without the knowledge I could not understand what you said so I looked it up...

nominlaism- the doctrine that universals or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality, and that only particular objects exist; properties, numbers, and sets are thought of as merely features of the way of considering the things that exist. Important in medieval scholastic thought, nominalism is associated particularly with William of Occam. Oxford Languages

That is the perfect word for what I think is important to this thread. Humans behave as though their thoughts are accurate, concrete information when the thought is not reality. Making humans the most irrational animals.

FYI, for those interested in such...

Gene expression in the human brain: cell types become more specialized, not just more numerous

How can an animal without naming and descriptive practices invent/create a meaningful utterance which stands in place of its own belief? That must be done prior to comparing that belief to the world. It is only via such a comparison that one can recognize that their own belief is either true or false. — creativesoul

The standard expectation is that when someone asserts that p, they are asserting that it is true. We can infer, without further evidence, that they believe that p. The dog cannot assert that there is food in the bowl, so we cannot infer that the dog believes that there is food in the bowl. Conventional discussions about belief do not give us any basis for inferring that any dog or other animal that does not have human language believes anything. But those discussions do not pay attention to the fact that non-verbal behaviour in humans is also evidence of what they believe. Similar non-verbal behaviour can be observed in animals that don't have human language and that provides evidence for what they believe.
The dog walks up to the bowl and sniffs it; that is evidence that the dog believes that there is food in the bowl. If there is food in the bowl, we expect the dog to eat it, and that action confirms our inference. If there is not food in the bowl and the dog walks away, that action is evidence that the dog recognizes that there is no food in the bowl.

I do not understand why you made that argument. An expectation is not the same as a belief. An expectation is thinking with the gut (feeling) not the brain (language). — Athena

I do agree that there is a difference between beliefs based on feeling (I would say, intuition) and beliefs based on a rational process (language). But surely, if I expect the children to get home from school at 4.00, I believe that they will. That may be based on feeling or on a rational process, but it's the same belief/expectation.

How about smells? That is one of the major elements of communication. I think I smell a god. Well, maybe that doesn't work. However, we can believe someone will be a good mate because of how that person smells. — Athena

Yes, there is evidence that smell plays a bigger part in our social lives that we mostly choose to recognize. (It would be good to know how often our expectations based on smell turn out to be true.) But I wouldn't call it a language. When eggs go bad, the smell puts us off eating them, but the smell is a sign that we read, not a communication sent by the egg. The smells that we (and other animals) give off play their part in negotiating our social lives, but it's not the same part as language does.

Perhaps what is going on in our subconscious also counts and is closer to animal thinking with messages that mean something but have no language for rational thinking. — Athena

Yes, that's a tempting thought. The trouble is that there doesn't seem to be any way of knowing what is going on in our sub-conscious other than supposing that it must be like what goes on in our consciousness. Which is a big assumption and should be treated with some scepticism.

Wow, you used a word I never came across before and did not know the meaning. Without the knowledge I could not understand what you said so I looked it up... — Athena

I'm sorry. I dropped a bit of philosophical jargon without explaining it. I'm glad you could work it out. The internet is sometimes very helpful.

That is the perfect word for what I think is important to this thread. Humans behave as though their thoughts are accurate, concrete information when the thought is not reality. Making humans the most irrational animals. — Athena

I think that's a bit harsh. I would say that humans are a mixture of rationality and irrationality, just like other animals. But their capacity to harm the world around them is greater than animals, so their irrationality is more damaging than the irrationality of other animals.

Gene expression in the human brain: cell types become more specialized, not just more numerous — wonderer1

Interesting. But I don't see any clear philosophical implications. Do you?

I think that's a bit harsh. I would say that humans are a mixture of rationality and irrationality, just like other animals. But their capacity to harm the world around them is greater than animals, so their irrationality is more damaging than the irrationality of other animals. — Ludwig V

Trump has announced he would use military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
This is not any worse than the Neo-Cons and invading Iraq and Afghanistan. However, Christians got this man into office and it is Christian mythology that a god favors the US and that is irrational thinking based on a false belief. No animal could sin more than the human one. Our belief in the Biblical god is a curse.

Trump has announced he would use military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.This is not any worse than the Neo-Cons and invading Iraq and Afghanistan. — Athena

I must admit, I have trouble seeing how Trump's adventures would make America great again, any more than the NeoCons' expeditions did.

However, Christians got this man into office and it is Christian mythology that a god favors the US and that is irrational thinking based on a false belief. — Athena

Yes. It is hard to understand how Christians could bring themselves to support him. It seems that the prospect of power can make strange allies. It also encourages wishful thinking and so distorts people's capacity for rational calculation.

No animal could sin more than the human one. — Athena

l wouldn't say that a non-human animal can sin at all. They aren't subject to human morality. That's something that is uniquely human.

Our belief in the Biblical god is a curse. — Athena

People do seem to give up on rational thought in the context of religious belief.

I appreciate everything you said. I am reading a book about the Christian mythology of being God's chosen people and what this has to do with the westward movement and assuming China would improve as Christian missionaries spread Christianity through China. The explanation of our entrance into China and how we screwed that up is interesting, and the screwup was due to the Christian delusion that is also the Trump delusion of power.

I take your point. It does seem to me that ideological convictions are uniquely human and by far the most dangerous power we have. A dose of philosophical scepticism is a good medicine for those delusions. But, sadly, those who need it most are also the most resistant. Whether such convictions are ever rational, or even reasonable, is an interesting question. I can't imagine that animals are ever gripped by them.

There's a famous quote about this:-

“I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken.” — Oliver Cromwell - Letter to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland. 1650

Good advice. The irony is, of course, that Oliver Cromwell was driven by ideological convictions about which he never seems to have wavered.