I think philosophers in general ought to be more reluctant to take part in these discussions over "what is X?" questions. The debate about the meaning of the word can be endless and fruitless if there are no criteria for a succesful definition and no purpose served by the defining. — PossibleAaran
— Banno
If behavior were belief you could, but it's not. Belief references a conscious state, — Hanover
That's the whole point of my example. What are we defining if we insist that belief requires a concious state (a state which we cannot even reliably identify since no-one is agreed what conciousness is anyway)? — Pseudonym
If you think a belief requires conciousness in order to define it, in order to separate it meaningfully from other similar states without conciousness, then what is the job that adding conciousness as a condition is doing for our definition? What error would we be making if we were to describe the thermostat as 'believing' it was cold on the basis of it's behaviour (turning the heating up) other than insulting your anthropocentric view that humans must have a whole series of special words to describe their states of being? — Pseudonym
Yes, you've discovered it. I don't believe a word I'm saying, but I feel the need to keep humans in their esteemed place in the world so I'm insisting upon an anthropomorphic definition of belief. No, I do believe that cats and dogs have beliefs too, but not thermostats or waving trees.What error would we be making if we were to describe the thermostat as 'believing' it was cold on the basis of it's behaviour (turning the heating up) other than insulting your anthropocentric view that humans must have a whole series of special words to describe their states of being? — Pseudonym
We all know that we are conscious, and we subjectively have no doubt about it. — Hanover
It's just a misuse of language to say a thermostat believes, and it's clear that something different is happening when I believe it's too hot and the thermostat switches on the furnace. — Hanover
Behavior is not what defines belief. It's just evidence of an internal state. If I'm shivering and exhibiting every sign of being cold, it is not necessary that I believe I'm cold. I might think I'm warm because I've become unable to distinguish cold from hot, or maybe I'm entirely numb, with no feeling at all and my body is reactively shivering. — Hanover
We can figure out (just as we can when computers submit to a Turing Test) when an entity is mimicking conscious like behavior and when it is truly conscious. — Hanover
No, I do believe that cats and dogs have beliefs too, but not thermostats or waving trees. — Hanover
Not at all, there are many perfectly rational people (myself included) who consider consciousness to be an illusion, that we are distinguishable from thermostats only in the number of such computations we can carry out at any one time. In fact, I would go as far as to say that, if we allow for some phenomenal emergence, then actually most philosophers of mind agree that our brains work in this way. There is nothing ontological to distinguish us from thermostats other than volume of data processed. — Pseudonym
As I said, if you've already made up your mind as to what 'believe' should mean and what is apparently "clear" about the differences between the state of our brains when we believe something and the state of the bimetallic strip in a thermostat when is 'believes' it is cold, then what purpose is there to your involvement in this discussion? — Pseudonym
Indeed, and the thermostat, if broken, might turn the heating off despite 'beliving' that it is cold, but we would in both cases be equally able to judge that something has gone wrong. I'm still not hearing anything of this magical difference between humans and thermostats which actually makes any difference to the meaning and use of the term 'belief'. — Pseudonym
Firstly, no we can't figure it out, but that's an entirely different debate and unnecessary herebecause, secondly you're talking here about consciousness (which I agree it is easy to see the thermostat doesn't have). You have yet to establish why you think it necessary for belief to be linked to consciousness. What job does such a restriction do to the meaning and use of the word? — Pseudonym
Sure, when is a chair a chair. Some things are clearly not chairs and some things clearly are, but that I can't tell you the exact dividing line hardly means there are no chairs. But, back at you, the same question. When is a belief a belief? Does the tree waving in the wind believe the wind is blowing? Does the ice forming in the freezer believe the temperature fell to 0 degree Celsius? Does the grape crushed on the floor believe that people are heavier than grapes?So what about insects, bacteria, unconscious people, philosophical zombies, AI... Where do you draw the line on what can have beliefs and why? — Pseudonym
Do you suppose thermostats have phenomenal states? — Hanover
guess having an opinion bars one from discussing that opinion with someone who has an opposing view? — Hanover
I do think it is very clear that your claiming that a thermostat has a belief is not how the word belief is used among speakers of English. — Hanover
Apparently metal expanding and flipping a switch is a belief, so I'm not real clear why all physical reactions aren't beliefs. — Hanover
No, but then I don't really hold with phenomenalism in humans either. — Pseudonym
The thermostat isn't conscious, although I thought we've already been discussing that.If you wish to assert that "it's clear that something different is happening when I believe it's too hot and the thermostat switches on the furnace.". I'd like to hear an argument as to why you think that, I'm not going to just take your word for it. — Pseudonym
This is a philosophy forum, not a linguists forum, I'm not so interested in how the word is used so much as what we can learn from it. — Pseudonym
That's why I keep coming back to the question of whether there is any meaningful job being done by restricting the word belief to conscious creatures. What is it about consciousness that makes belief data different from any other data (such as that which is stored in the position of a bimetallic strip)? — Pseudonym
What is it about consciousness that makes belief data different from any other data (such as that which is stored in the position of a bimetallic strip)? — Pseudonym
A belief is an attitude to a proposition in some way, I think perhaps we can all agree on that (although maybe not). The question is whether there is any need for the holder of that attitude to be aware they are holding it. — Pseudonym
What differentiates a thermostat from the examples you give is that in the examples, there is no outside observer to whom the data is relevant. We're all quite comfortable with the idea that a computer hard drive contains data, it's all just diodes, but we call it data because the outcome is unpredictable to us. The ice in some way 'contains' the data that it's below freezing point, but that data was not unpredictable to us, the thermostat's data is. — Pseudonym
I'm a determinist, so as far as I'm concerned, a person putting a coat on is a direct mechanistic consequence of the environment acting on their biological system. No different to the air temperature acting on the thermostat and causing it to switch the heating on. Yet at some point in time, we want to be able to say that the person 'believes' it is cold and it is this belief that causes them to put a coat on. — Pseudonym
In order to be a cause, this belief must be a prior state of the biological system. More specifically it must be exactly that particular state which causes the coat putting on activity. If that state is what a belief is, then logically, that same prior state must also be a belief in the thermostat. — Pseudonym
My use of the thermostat was never intended as an Ordinary Language proposition about how the word 'belief' is used (the single quotes are to indicate reference to the word as opposed to its accepted meaning, by the way). The example is to explore whether our restriction of the term 'belief' to conscious creatures is justified analytically. This is a philosophy forum, not a linguists forum, I'm not so interested in how the word is used so much as what we can learn from it. That's why I keep coming back to the question of whether there is any meaningful job being done by restricting the word belief to conscious creatures. What is it about consciousness that makes belief data different from any other data (such as that which is stored in the position of a bimetallic strip)? — Pseudonym
The significant difference between the thermostat and the human belief is that the thermostat necessitates action, and in the human being belief doesn't necessarily result in action. One may or may not act on a belief. That's free will. — Metaphysician Undercover
If consciousness exists in belief(1) but not belief(2), they are different. — Hanover
So are you admitting that there is a distinction between my belief and the thermostat's, yet you just don't think it's relevant enough to warrant it having a different term attached to it? — Hanover
Is a proposition a linguistic statement? Are you now saying the thermostat has an attitude toward a linguistic statement? As best I can tell, all the spring does is expand, and that's what you call an "attitude"? — Hanover
This is an antiquated view of determinism, but regardless, it's irrelevant whether the thermostat's reaction and the human reaction are pre-determined. I've not argued that beliefs arise from an other world miracle substance. — Hanover
The significant difference between the thermostat and the human belief is that the thermostat necessitates action, and in the human being belief doesn't necessarily result in action. One may or may not act on a belief. That's free will. — Metaphysician Undercover
A thermostat cannot have a belief without a behavioral correlate because there's complete identity between the behavior and the belief in the thermostat. — Hanover
So explain to me how this works then. A human has a belief that it is cold and no other beliefs at all. The human 'decides' nonetheless to ignore the belief that they are cold and take off their jumper. Where did the thought to take off the jumper come from? Did it just magically appear in the brain? — Pseudonym
The only way you can say that your not going to the store is not the direct and necessary consequence of some belief is if you invoke dualism to say that the notion of not going to the store arose spontaneously in your mind. Otherwise it must have come directly and with absolute certainty, from some previous brain sate ('belief') — Pseudonym
the person holds the seemingly contradictory beliefs, "I am going to the store", and "I am not going to the store (right now)" — Metaphysician Undercover
The person is all ready to go to the store, and chooses a time to leave, randomly.. . — Metaphysician Undercover
No, the person could be said to hold the entirety complementary beliefs 'I am not going to the store right now' and 'I am going to the store at some point in the future'. As soon as the belief 'I am not going to the store right now' is removed or replaced as a direct consequence of external or internal stimuli, then they go to the store. — Pseudonym
So how do they do that? Have they got a random number generator in their brain? Where does the random element come from?
What's more, if there is a truly random element (say quantum uncertainty) then that's not free-will is it. We're no more in charge of the randomness than we are of the causal chain. — Pseudonym
To summarise - what difference is conciousness making to the properties of the data we're calling a 'belief'? — Pseudonym
That's why dualism is required, as you implied in your earlier post. Without dualism these features of the human being cannot be understood. — Metaphysician Undercover
Consciousness mediates data by adding the ability to act on account of believing in different ways. — Janus
So, lay out for me exactly how conciousness does this. — Pseudonym
In other words, if you're claiming "the nature of those acts is not mechanically determined", by what are they determined? — Pseudonym
Personally, I think ten thousand years of presuming the world is deterministic and having that presumption work is pretty good evidence that it is, in fact, deterministic (at least at the scale we're looking at). Rather than invent magical realms, I'd rather first explore the far simpler possibility that what we think it is to be a human being is maybe wrong. — Pseudonym
Consciousness enables animals to perform unpredictable acts, and to an even greater degree, it enables humans, to perform not only unpredictable acts, but completely unpredictable kinds of acts. — Janus
They are organically determined. — Janus
Huh? You think that free will has been consistently denied in favour of determinism for the last ten thousand years? Are you blind to the evidence? — Metaphysician Undercover
What evidence? — Pseudonym
I'm saying that the whole rest of the universe apart from our personal experience is demonstrably deterministic so the simplest theory that does not require us to invent new realms is that we too are deterministic and any impressions of ourselves to the contrary are wrong. — Pseudonym
The Libet experiments for example, showing that the sub-concious brain prepares to take physical action before the concious part of the brain is aware of the decision to. — Pseudonym
Experiments on hypnotic suggestion which have shown that when subjects have an hypnotic suggestion implanted, say to crawl on the floor when the hypnotist clicks their fingers, they will invariable come up with some justification for their desire to do so in terms of a free choice "I'm just going to check if I've dropped something" or "what a fascinating floor tiles, I'm just going to take a closer look", all the while the experimenter knows full well that these are post hoc stories and the real driver of the action is the hypnotic suggestion, yet to the subject the feeling is entirely that they are checking if they've dropped something, or interested in the floor tile. — Pseudonym
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