You're welcome. I love sushi, just so ya know! Freshly sliced pickled ginger, freshly ground and prepared wasabi, and some good shoyu...

Mmmm.... Mmmmm... Mmmmmmm....

:smile:

Freshly cut and beautifully arranged sashimi. Dragon rolls... oh to die for!

I don’t think you understand. It is simply a philosophical position working from subjectivity - that is it is about subjective consciousness only.

I'm sure there are a plurality of different phenomenological approaches that I'm completely unfamiliar with. The one I've been considering here is Kantian.

What do you have in mind?

Chimpanzees also favour fair (50:50 split) offers in Ultimatum Game experiments to unfair ones (80:20 split), even when the unfair split is in favour of the proposer. — Isaac

I'd like to see the abstract and/or the synopsis along with some video footage of the behaviour under consideration. That would be very interesting.

What would you even be talking about when you say things like this given that you don't think the world has any properties? Are you just talking about things your own mind creates? — Terrapin Station

Yep.

This seems to be all in the interpretation: alternatively, it could be down to a feeling of envy or a preference for grape over cucumber. — Janus

Never ceases to amaze me the lack of respect for scientists we read about here. Not science itself, the people conducting the experiments. Yes, everyone is biased, flawed to some extent, but this is just plain disrespectful. Do you honestly think deWaal didn't think of that and try to control for it in his experiments? Do you think Brosnan Talbot and Ahlgren all missed that possibility when they repeated the experiments? Do you think Brauer and Tomosello just randomly changed the parameters of the game in their experiments? Was Josep Call just taking a wild stab in the dark when he set up the experiment to differentiate between unwilling and unable reward-givers? Jorg Massen's work with Macaques just another sloppy bit of guesswork?

I don't know if you've caught up on this yet, but scientists try to think of alternative explanations and control for them. a whole raft of other scientists try to remove confounding variables, alter contexts...these people are, despite the way they're negatively painted, quite interested in how other animals think. they don't tend to just set up an experiment off the back of fag packet that any casual lay reader can spot a massive flaw in and just say "fuck it, that'll do".

And another one...

The neuroscience is beyond my comprehension. — creativesoul

Yet...

I've been waiting for them(the experts, specialists, and groupies in/of the field) to admit that there is no one to one mapping between brain activity and particular thought. Many different thoughts correspond virtually the exact same brain state. Thought and belief(thinking about stuff) involve firing neurons, and different physiological biological structures and systems, but they most certainly do not consist entirely thereof. — creativesoul

...sure, you know, I don't think they've thought of that, perhaps you better pop up to the neurosciences lab at Sussex and give them a few pointers, sounds like they need a bit of help.

Husserl (aka ‘the father of Phenomenology’)

Everything is phenomenon. I don’t even believe Kant meant there were two worlds? I guess you’re referring to the ‘phenomenal world’ and ‘negative noumenon’ - ‘noumenon’ is merely a limiting factor NOT some dualistic separation.

That said I haven’t read all of Kant’s work and I hear he may well have said something different in his later works. I talking purely from the COPR

I'd like to see the abstract and/or the synopsis along with some video footage of the behaviour under consideration. That would be very interesting. — creativesoul

Here. And just for Janus who seems to be of the impression that scientists just produce experiments, randomly guess some possible answer and then just walk away - here is a meta study with some refutations of the original, some alternative approaches and a summary.

I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I've offered very good solid reasoning for my claims. Perhaps you could dispel me of this mindset. Address the arguments I've provided.

Or...

What counts as non linguistic thought and belief? I mean, that's exactly what you're describing and/or claiming is going on in the minds of chimps. I've tremendous respect for scientists who work from methodological naturalism and employ Occam's razor. The subject matter is no easy task. If it were, we would have had it all figured out long ago. The real world keeps on showing us otherwise, by offering the unexpected.

I don't think Janus is as flippant as you imply.

I've been waiting for them(the experts, specialists, and groupies in/of the field) to admit that there is no one to one mapping between brain activity and particular thought. Many different thoughts correspond virtually the exact same brain state. Thought and belief(thinking about stuff) involve firing neurons, and different physiological biological structures and systems, but they most certainly do not consist entirely thereof.
— creativesoul

...sure, you know, I don't think they've thought of that, perhaps you better pop up to the neurosciences lab at Sussex and give them a few pointers, sounds like they need a bit of help. — Isaac

Fair enough. I'm sure that not all experts/specialists are characterized well by what I wrote. The groupies... particularly some who call themselves physicalists... well...

Anyway. Point taken. Keep me in line. Gawd knows it's needed.

:wink:

Everything is phenomenon — I like sushi

If that's the case, then the notion itself can and ought be cast aside for it cannot be used to further discriminate between anything at all. It becomes superfluous, unhelpful, and offers nothing but unnecessarily overcomplicated language use.

So...

Is the sense of fairness uniquely human? Human reactions to reward division are often studied by means of the ultimatum game, in which both partners need to agree on a distribution for both to receive rewards. Humans typically offer generous portions of the reward to their partner, a tendency our close primate relatives have thus far failed to show in experiments.

In the modified version the necessary precondition for agreement as a precursor to being rewarded was foregone...

The agreement is precisely what establishes the basis from which thought, belief, and feelings of unfairness/fairness arise.

As recent work has shown, nonhuman primates, particularly chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys (Cebus ssp.), resemble humans in their decisions about cooperation (12–15) and their aversion to inequitable reward divisions (16–18). However, it is unclear how these same nonhuman primates respond to situations in which a peer can influence the outcome of a task, such as in the UG. In contrast to the human tendency to split rewards roughly equally (at least in most cultures), two previous studies found apes to be entirely self-interested: Proposers offered the smallest possible amount and respondents accepted virtually all offers...

you know, I don't think they've thought of that, perhaps you better pop up to the neurosciences lab at Sussex and give them a few pointers, sounds like they need a bit of help. — Isaac

After reading through the abstract, it seems that they've done a pretty job determining certain things. You're invoking them as a means to support that the chimps in question work from some model of fairness/justice is just plain not supported by what you've offered as support.

Weird.

What counts as non linguistic thought and belief? — creativesoul

For me, a belief is a predisposition to act as if some state of affairs were the case in one's model of the external world (external to oneself). In neurobiological terms, that belief is the architecture of the neural network which responds to the sensory inputs relevant to that belief.

You say that similar thoughts engage different brain cortices, and, to some extent this is true, but that's only relevant if you presume the classification of these thoughts as similar (presumably on the basis of your recognising them to be so) has primacy. But that recognition is happening in the very organ we're trying to investigate, so we cannot presume it's representations as fact if we're to carry out an impartial enquiry.

Notwithstanding the above, two things. The brain is both specialised and integrated. Specialised areas are involved in certain activities. We know this because damage in those areas hampers those activities. Yet the integration of the brain results in feedback from those areas to other potentially related sites. Which sites are involved here depends, in part, on your personal history because vast quantities of these connections are made (and un-made) post-natally.

Secondly, the brain works, to some extent, probabilistically. Timings are asymmetric and very rapid (electromagnetic signalling) this essentially makes much of the brain a stochastic system but one which can, nonetheless be understood with statistical methods.

You're invoking them as a means to support that the chimps in question work from some model of fairness/justice is just plain not supported by what you've offered as support. — creativesoul

Really? You're going to quote the part of the report which outlines the reason why the experiments are being studied as if it were the conclusion?

The point of it is not to get drawn into what is ‘real’ or ‘existent’ - to ‘bracket out’ those questions as it doesn’t matter beyond experience in terms of subjectivity.

There are then ‘modes’/‘intentionality’. I can ‘view’ a box as an object, a tool, a vessel, a metaphor, etc.,. I can also think of a box (mode of ‘thinking about’).

We can then start to ask questions about items of experience. What ‘aspects’ or ‘parts’ of a box can be said to be the ‘essence’ of boxes? How many sides does a box need? Do we have to necessarily observe every side or edge of a box to appreciate it as a box (can we observe a box from every angle - the eidetic givenness of a box regardless of our limited perspective).

The primary mode of human understanding and philosophical thought stems from the phenomenological principle.

I think Husserl thought Kant used the term ‘transcendental’ to mean ‘thing in itself’ yet I’m not convinced Kant meant this dualistically - Husserl had a go at him about that (mistakenly I believe).

From the subjective day-to-day lived life we don’t act as if the world is phenomenal. Our world is materiality for the most part.

No. Ooops. If thats true. Open mouth, insert foot. I'll attent to it more.

Keep me in line!

:yikes:

I'll attent to it more. — creativesoul

The second paper may be more in line with what you're looking for than the first, but when attending, I should make it clear that I'm not really "invoking them as a means to support that the chimps in question work from some model of fairness/justice "

Firstly, I presented them as an opposition to the idea that the grape/cucumber experiment could be explained simply by the chimp wanting a grape. The idea was to show that many many years of research effort has gone into eliminating such obvious interpretations, so the main thing was simply to show the depth of the research, it has unquestionably gone beyond mere preference.

Secondly, I'm not necessarily arguing that non- human primates have an abstract concept of fairness/justice like ours. For a start I think it more likely we'll find our concept isn't quite so abstract and top-down acting as we think, not that chimpanzees have topgdown acting abstract concepts, more that we don't. Also I wouldn't expect chimpanzee justice to be the same as humans, we're different species with different niches. What I'm arguing is that there's no evidence (occam's razor) to justify a belief that they are in some materially different category of process, not that there's no evidence they're different at all.

We can then start to ask questions about items of experience. What ‘aspects’ or ‘parts’ of a box can be said to be the ‘essence’ of boxes? How many sides does a box need? Do we have to necessarily observe every side or edge of a box to appreciate it as a box (can we observe a box from every angle - the eidetic givenness of a box regardless of our limited perspective). — I like sushi

This is the essence of the problem we started with. You're making one huge assumption here - that our 'experience' delivers us a single, time-consistent, and system-consistent answer to any of those types of question. The evidence from the neuroscience I've been outlining seems to be that it does not. Don't forget one side of all neuroscience is phenomena. We can't compare anything at all with brain states unless we have one side of the equation being the answer to "what have you just experienced?".

Some neuroscientific research favours the phenomenological approach, some doesn’t.

What you say above is mostly irrelevant to the subjective experience because you’re dealing with the naturalistic approach - phenomenology isn’t concerned with that (at least not directly).

To be clearer, there is no assuming in phenomenological approach and no empirical measurements. A ‘box’ is a ‘box’ because it has sides (in the physical mode of intentionality) yet it can have other meanings (in the metaphorical mode of intentionality).

Time is certainly a huge problem as all phenomenon is unique. The ‘essence’ is getting to what always remains in some said experience - universal terms whose abstract meanings don’t alter within set parameters (the number ‘one’ is such a universal term when it comes to basic arithmetic and adding up a number of items).

So, talk me through it, if you will. We're asking...

What ‘aspects’ or ‘parts’ of a box can be said to be the ‘essence’ of boxes? How many sides does a box need? Do we have to necessarily observe every side or edge of a box to appreciate it as a box — I like sushi

First question, what would constitute a measure of correctness for any answer?

I don’t see jumping straight in at ‘do Chimps have justice’, and such questioning, as reasonably grounding for a progressive discussion. It is like expecting five year olds to behave like experienced adults. Meaning it’s usually counterproductive to start from a multilayers and complex problem (and assume there is a problem that can be tackled).

Subjective experience. What can you and can’t you imagine? What do you merely believe you can imagine rather than actually imagine? It is really easy to get caught up in ‘thinking words’ to approach this task.

Example ... Imagine a box with no sides or volume

Imagine a box with no sides or volume — I like sushi

Depends on the definition of box.

What are you talking about?

What are you talking about? — I like sushi

Whether I can imagine a box with no sides or volume depends on what I decide a 'box' is. Since I'm encountering new concepts all the time, I'm quite used to changing (or broadening) my categorical definitions. So I can imagine an object with no sides and no volume (I can't picture it, obviously, but I can imagine it being a container in some hitherto undiscovered dimension whose ability to contain other objects is not mediated by 'sides'). Whether I call that thing a 'box' or not really depends on whether other people would know what I was talking about if I did.

So the answer to your question, I suppose, is yes, I can. Not sure where that gets us as I suspect the answer to every such question will be yes.

That’s a pretty poor stance to take as you can, even if you accepted box in the most obvious way (which I don’t need to point out), then you could then make other suggestions about ‘side’ and ‘volume’ pretending some imagined - yet undefined - principle that doesn’t occupy subjective consciousness.

That is precisely the point of the phenomenological approach. It doesn’t have a dog in the ‘possibility’ race of some extradimensional existence or with semantic word play (or rather they are in and of themselves ‘modes’ of intentionality; one which Heidegger set his fancy too rather than the broader project of subjective experience).

None of this is in denial of accumulated experiences of some said experience (maybe ‘box’ has some personal meaning to you outside of facility of the item ‘box’?). An ant never crawls on a table, it crawls on an object of subjective experience we call ‘table’ - there is a difference, yet there isn’t a difference. It’s the perspective that matters to subjective experience.

.... obvious way — I like sushi

I don’t need to point out... — I like sushi

... pretending... — I like sushi

... doesn’t occupy subjective consciousness. — I like sushi

This is all just another tired old variation on the same lame arguments we had against the "what it's like" objection. "it's obvious...", "you really do know...", "you're just pretending..."

Consciousness it seems is supposed to be completely unassailable by third parties...except apparently, when someone claims to have an experience of it which doesn't fit with preconceptions, then it's apparently open access as to what's 'obvious', and what's 'pretend'.

You can interpret it that way if you wish. I never said any of that specifically.

Note: the ‘you’ is a universal ‘you’ - inclusive of myself. I wasn’t, and try not to, attack what someone says like that anymore. It just makes the discussion go awry in my experience.

You may very well imagine the letters B-O-X, I’m not telling you what you imagine, I’m asking you to question the validity of the questioning and assumptions not offer up your hermeneutic interpretation of what I’ve said.

Can you imagine a box with no sides? As in create an image in your head of a physical box. The answer is no, as you said. I’m denying that you can speculate about some extradimensional box, but you cannot ‘see’ it.

To take this more in the direction you were steering, we could then ask if I could imagine a day with no hours? On the face of it most people would be inclined to say ‘of course not!’ But with a little thought it doesn’t take long to realise that an ‘hour’ is an empirical measurement and that time passes regardless of how we do or don’t account for it. The ‘mode’ of thought - the intentionality - is how we subjectively align ourselves.

Can you imagine a box with no sides? As in create an image in your head of a physical box. — I like sushi

I'm questioning both the accuracy (in terms of language use) and the usefulness (for our investigation) of that connection. I don't think "can you imagine" is limited to "can you form a mental image of", and even if we did impose such artificial limits, how is our thus shackled investigation of any use to us now?