I'm right that dogs can't understand the significance of "not", and I think I am, can you see why that would limit its ability to form complex thoughts? — frank

Do you have a dog? My dog definitely understands "no."

These are just such odd claims that are empirically false. I remember my philosophy professor explaining to me the simplistic and limited intellectual capacity of animals, and I thought then (as now) whether he ever spent time with animals.

Intellectual ability among the species is a matter of degree, not type. I'd imagine chimps and baboons would make this more clear, but alas, zoning laws won't allow me those.

These are just such odd claims that are empirically false. — Hanover

Ok.

See, when I mentioned this to Constance, she was like, 'Yea, Hegel.'. And I was like, to myself, 'Yea, she understands that without negation, there are no propositions because a P is the negation of a negation.'

So it's not just emotion that makes me silent here, it's that somebody on the planet understood and that's enough? — frank

:ok: I was simply pointing out what seems to be a fact - animals know what negation is. I'm not sure but doesn't animal training involve a carrot-and-stick (reward-punishment/affirmation-negation) schema?

was simply pointing out what seems to be a fact - animals know what negation is. I'm not sure but doesn't animal training involve a carrot-and-stick (reward-punishment/affirmation-negation) schema? — TheMadFool

If the dog thinks, "I shouldn't stay in the road." then it would appear that the dog is using language.

We were trying to arrive at non-linguistic thought.

As I said, Isaac's non-linguistic modeling is probably our best bet.

If the dog thinks, "I shouldn't stay in the road." then it would appear that the dog is using language.

We were trying to arrive at non-linguistic thought.

As I said, Isaac's non-linguistic modeling is probably our best bet. — frank

You seem to be of the opinion that negation is limited to human-level languages. How then do you explain the dog's actions? The dog gets up on all fours and moves away from the vehicle's path (negation) , there being no indication of it wanting to do something else (affirmation). I'm just curious. Does that mean dogs have human-level language or are you wrong? I'm not sure.

Not sure what you mean when you state at the beginning that you are not interested in insight, — Constance

The point I was trying to make is that we can deconstruct to gain insight, but then we have to construct new understanding in terms of our new insight.

Ultimately what is needed is an understanding of the big picture, into which we can situate our narrative, and insight. This is what I try to do, but on re-reading my comment, I can see you would be hard pressed to understand me. It is a bit too much to unload in this setting. Thanks anyway for the chat. :smile:

You seem to be of the opinion that negation is limited to human-level languages. — TheMadFool

I get the feeling you didn't read the post you responded to.

We're trying to arrive at non-linguistic thought.

If a dog uses language, then the dog won't help us with our project.

the dog thinks, "I shouldn't stay in the road." then it would appear that the dog is using language. — frank

My dog thinks "I shouldn't knock over the garbage can, " but then he does, and I can tell from the way he's now under the bed that not only does he know he shouldn't have, he doesn't want to get in trouble, so he's hiding.

I get the feeling you didn't read the post you responded to.

We're trying to arrive at non-linguistic thought.

If a dog uses language, then the dog won't help us with our project. — frank

Well, I can tell you this: I have thoughts which I find hard, sometimes impossible, to articulate.

Yeah, I used to have border collies. I know how intelligent dogs can be.

Well, I can tell you this: I have thoughts which I find hard, sometimes impossible, to articulate. — TheMadFool

I don't think that's unusual.

Well, I can tell you this: I have thoughts which I find hard, sometimes impossible, to articulate.
— TheMadFool

I don't think that's unusual. — frank

So, does what I said about myself make/break your case?

So, does what I said about myself make/break your case? — TheMadFool

I wasn't making a case. But I'm sure someone on this forum is just waiting for a chance to not only disagree with you, but insult the fuck out of you.

Start a thread on it. :up:

I wasn't making a case. But I'm sure someone on this forum is just waiting for a chance to not only disagree with you, but insult the fuck out of you.

Start a thread on it. :up: — frank

:smile:

Would it be reasonable to guess that a dog, with very similar neuro anatomy and physiology to a human, is modeling without language?

Could that kind of modeling show up in a dog's memories? — frank

Yes. By what I understand to be modelling. A model is just a device which generates a probability function of producing some result given some input. My model of the table just takes the various inputs (visuo-spatial, locational, sensory, proprioceptive...) and generates a set probability function of a known result (trigger the collection of models likely to produce the word "table", trigger the models to plan the movement of my cup-holding hand...) etc.

We could call the resultant function a symbol 'table' (it functions like one, in that it stands in for an actual table). Abstract concepts can be just such a model, but they don't have any means (that I know of) of actually being in charge of the models which use such concepts.

So my concept 'not' (as in negation) is a higher order model (a model of models), which takes inputs (model) and is likely to produce outputs such as language (using the word "not") and decisions about categorisation (which of the understood models fall into the category {negations}). This higher order model has little to no necessary* effect on lower order models which actually use negation in their functions (for example where inputs are likely to lead to a negation of action).

* I say 'necessary' because they will have some constraining effect, our models are well-networked and each can have promoting or constraining effects on the others. Even something like our higher order concept of [negation] can affect the priors for lower order models using that process, it's just that it's not necessary.

Interesting that you read ‘an infinite source of energy’ as ‘eternity’. The finitude/infinity of energy is the paradoxical quality of time, and the qualitative flow of energy is time’s directional logic. Have you read Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’? — Possibility

But the issue here has nothing to do with Rovelli or physics. Philosophy is not physics, nor is it abstract speculation. Think of eternity, for example, but withdraw from assumptions that are in place in the everydayness of affairs (of which science is an extension) and move into a more basic analysis, which is the structure of experience itself. The issue of time is fundamentally different, for time at this level is what is presupposed in talk about Einstein's time. Has nothing to do with physicists being wring and phenomenologists right; rather, these are modes of inquiry radically different from one another.

Yes, there is not just this possible prediction, but also its negation - the impossibility of it all. You’re presuming a ‘perceptual event’ has form: a definable quality to be changed. But any perceptual event is qualitatively variable in itself - it manifests variable observation events according to a predictive relation, but it’s also variably perceivable as such. So it isn’t so much change as a vague awareness of variability - on the periphery of any capacity for perception. That either draws attention and effort (affect), or not. It’s not undeniable - it comes down to an availability of energ — Possibility

Where you go wrong here is in "vague awareness of variability". One has to pull away from any particular categories of disciplined thinking, whether it is be science of knitting, and withdraw one's attention altogether. Of course, this kind act is usually cognitive, and here, in the idea I am defending, this is true as well, as it is a movement from the particular to the general. E.g., I withdraw from one taxonomic classification to a higher one, and there is no qualitative existential change, only different vocabularies come into to play while others dismissed. Look at the entire enterprise of thought this way, and while certainly qualitative changes are there, in the practice, in the subject matter, after all, biology is not pottery, but the understanding remains steady in the familiar way of things, and when some Kuhnsian paradigm shift does occur, it is MOSTLY assimilative, having to make revolutionary changes out of the normal science's established systems. Where does Quantum physics get its terminology? It is borrowed from existing vocabulary, and modified using metaphorical extensions. The new is always an assimilation of an existing totality (to borrow a term form Levinas, Heidegger, et al).
This provides a working concept to proceed here: Philosophy, I am claiming, is where thought goes when the world exceeds all paradigmatic categories. Heidegger wrote Being and Time just to go here, to the place where thinking meets its terminal point and explanations run out. But (and this is a crucial idea) instead of thinking like a scientist and dismiss what is not known as something always coming, waiting to but constructed conceptually, theoretically, which is an essential part of Heidegger, where Heidegger looks for some primordial language that has been occluded by centuries of bad metaphysics, I claim the reduction to something primordial and profound lies in Wittgenstein;s eternal present. Put Rovelli aside, pick up Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety.

Again, NOT at all that Rovelli (I read a synopsis) is in any way wrong, but the terms of analysis are very different. Time, its past, present and future, are here features of the experience that is already in place antecedent to what a physicist might say. (Einstein knew this. He read Kant when very young. He just knew he wasn't going to take on philosophical issues).

My point here is that at this intersection we must embody energy, logic, quality, or some combination, in order to relate to anything at all. You agree that any quest for an unlimited source of energy is one of identity: it assumes that everything has a proper, definitive relation to everything else, and if we somehow manage to complete this process of identification, then the source must reveal itself. It’s an issue for ethics because to do this we assume that our perspective embodies a proper, definitive relation to everything else. — Possibility

Yes and no. No, because this definitive relation is never definitive. All of our concepts are open, evidenced by what happens when you chase down meanings, which is what deconstructionists do, and can sound childlike doing it: What is a bank teller? What is money? What is economics, and so on, and so on. Then, what is a person? What is this, that, and questions are not simply playful antagomisms, but are indicative of the indeterminacy of language (something Willard Quine famously wrote about; and he hated deconstruction...while agreeing!) Concepts are, all of them, open. So what happens, I ask here, when the broadest concept imaginable, Being, stands in openness? THIS is an extraordinary event, to allow the entire conceptual edifice to be "suspended". My claim is that if this is done faithfully, allowing openness its full due, then the world qualitatively changes, for there is no longer any conceptual recourse, no body language into which one can retreat, no "totality" that can subsume all things, for one has breached into eternity.

Energy? Why not shakti, or Brahman? Or thathata? Of course, these terms have different meanings, all of them, but note something important: When Hindus and Buddhists use vocabulary like this, they are understanding the world as it appears, mixed with thought and affect; cognition is not separated from these and objects in the world. How does one privilege ideas in a system like this? According to meaning, and affect is no longer a marginalized phenomenon. It takes center stage in ontology. And saying something like God is Love no longer is just a romantic foolishness.

Some games invoke the modification of their own rules. That's not necessarily a termination. — Banno

True, and such it is with being a person. To put it in Rorty's terms, vocabularies are open, waiting to be recast. But again, I say, much in opposition of Rorty and others, not that there is a final vocabulary (bad metaphysics) there are higher vocabularies, and I don't mean just higher as more inclusive; I mean more profound, and yes, that there is such a thing as what you could call existential profundity. It is why religion is so full of cliches like "the power and the glory"--a lot of metaphysical hogwash, but mixed with something else that is certainly not howash.

My model of the table just takes the various inputs (visuo-spatial, locational, sensory, proprioceptive...) and generates a set probability function of a known result — Isaac

It doesn't seem likely that you have math floating around your synapses. It sounds like you're saying the brain has something like logic gates to create if-then networks? And these are pre-linguistic models?

What else could it be?
Definition of "speech" by Oxford LEXICO: "The expression of or the ability to express thoughts and feelings by articulate sounds." Aren't sounds material? — Alkis Piskas

But is a concept material? But then, what do I mean by material? Material is at the basic level supposed be the most inclusive term, including pots and pans and abstract thought in mathematics. The idea is that there is this ontology that concludes all of this, but the problem is that there are obvious apparent differences and a term like material is borrowed from the pots and pans contexts of use and extended to include all things? Sure, saying a word, using lips and larynx and the rest is material, as a classificatory term, but ideas, logic, language and meaning, and so forth, these do not fit the category, and for obvious reasons. We want to say all things are one, perhaps, but this one is not materiality, because this would be a violation of the boundaries of the appearances upon which out concepts are drawn. My pen is material, but a thought? It has no feel to is, no weight, no visibility and so on. But these are the defining marks of material, are they?

No, I din't say that. I only said the "Word" ("logos") as "speech" doesn't make sense in ths famous Christian quote and I just tried to give a better explanation by considering the meaning that word "logos" acquired with time, and that was "reason" ("logiki"). This is much more plausible since reason is beyond any borders imposed by languages (speech), religions and civilizations. And this because its nature is mental, spiritual and not material. The expression "conscious thought" which you are using is very close to it. The word "Consciousness" that I used, is also very closely connected to "Thought". — Alkis Piskas

I see. So instead of "in the beginning the was the word" is should be "there was reason"; but I thought you had an objection due to words not being sufficiently liberated from the vulgarity of physicality, as if God had vocal chords. Anyway, I would certainly agree that God is not like a person vocalizing the world into existence. It's just that the word 'word' I never took to be this physical event. I equate word with a meaning and its logic. Instead of logos, which sounds more like a reference to principles and laws of logic that are universal, I look at meaning, which is inclusive of affect as well as cognition. This is the original affair that sits before me prior to the analytical separation. There is no separation in base line experience: I think, feel, concern, care all in the single event. Analysis reveals what it is, the what is it does not thereby become a body of analytical pasts. It remains whole. (This is one way to talk about a complaint against rationalism existentialists have.).
Consciousness, I agree, is closely connected to thought. But more that this: it IS thought. I tend to think like this: When we talk about consciousness, it is an ontological matter, as consciousness Is the ISness of my egoic presence, call it a transcendental ego. But to talk about this sans thought, reflection, reason, affect, mood, and so on, is to reduce consciousness to a pot or a pan or a star cluster, a mere presence before my eyes sort of thing. But clearly consciuosness never comes before one's eyes, so this classification is simply off the table. And since our notion of things are evidenced only by the way they appear, and consciousness never makes an appearance (like this) it is entirely wrong minded to infer from object appearance's concept of Being or Reality, to that if a consciousness.

Yet, as plausible as this "version" may be, I cannot claim anything more about it, since I have not has any realization about Consciousness being "the beginning of all things" as you say. A lot of thinkers calim or believe that, though. — Alkis Piskas

The beginning of all things in my thinking here has to do not with some temporal order, but outside ot a temporal order, in the here and now. How is this possible? It gets very weird, frankly. One has to make a critical step out of familiar thinking. But look: putting all texts in abeyance, at least explicitly, observe the world before you, and there are tables, chairs, a computer and so on. My view (constructed out of readings) begins with the question what is it that lies before me? And, how do I know these things? Ontology and epistemology. I know them in time, or better, they are constructed or made out of time, for these are presented to me as events in which memory is called up to identify. Thus, this present is made of the past, to put it bluntly. But I am trying to acknowledge the present thing there before me, so how do I get to the present when the past is the very essence of "knowing" it is there at all?

Such is the dilemma. I claim that the "metaphysics of the present" is a real possiblity. This claim goes against most others. They are mistaken. They don't indulge the aesthetics of the real enough; such is the bane of the intellectual philosopher, so busy constructing thought, it isn't meaningful to think that the point is to dismantle thought. How does one dismantle thought? This is philosophy's job: make the eternal present a real event by undercutting memory's hold on the present via inquiry at the level of basic assumptions.

So you want to do philosophy of language, but vaguely back it up and give it a sense of authority with references to the Bible (and other assorted scriptures)? — baker

This about the Bible: I have a lot of respect for what you could call primitive authentic experience. Ideas so full of nonsense, yet they are closer to the foundation of something deeply important.
Authority with references to the Bible? Really, it's the other way around: philosophy brings analytic clarity to obscure thinking. What kind of authority did you have in mind?

I really wonder why haven't they translated the Greek quote at least as "In the beginning was the Reason" ... This would have saved us a lot of time in discussing it! — Alkis Piskas

Take a look at my later comments. I try to go more into the issues you raise. ) I wrote them this morning not having read this post of yours here.)

What proposition, exactly? — Banno

"I am tasting an oyster," for one. There is, in this event, a great deal of language involved, though it is not explicitly exercised in the actual tasting event. When I walk out in the morning and see all around me as familiar, the trees and hills, etc., if I were, say, a feral child all grown up sitting on a limb like Tarzan, things would still be familiar, and I might even be able to wonder existentially in some simple way, but how far could this go having no schooling, no language modelled around me giving definition to things? It is language articulates the world in symbols and makes inquiry and logic accessible. Language is the essence of thought itself. I imagine Tarzan would be more like a beast of the jungle than a king.

So, as I taste something, I know I am tasting it, and the tasting event emerges out of a matrix of language that has already established a working understanding. Right there, behind the tasting, if you will, there are "regions" of language possibilities waiting for context to "speak" that is, give meaning to, the occasion.

So you are saying that the cat being on the mat is one thing, the proposition "the cat is on the mat", a different thing? And yet "the cat is on the mat" is true only if the cat is on the mat.

Of course the world is always, already interpreted. Your reaching for, talk of, an uninterpreted world is a conceptual mistake. — Banno

No, I'm not saying that either. I am saying something that is frankly radical, but true. Observe the cat. In this observation there is a conceptual counterpart to the "presence" of what is there, and by presence I refer to what is not spoken, or speakable. Moore called ethics a matter, at the level of metaethics, of a non natural property. He was referring to, if you will, the qualia of pain and pleasure (and internal prohibition and valuation) Think, as Kierkegaard did, of the actuality over there on the sofa like this: in the broadest sense, it is an actuality that is qualitatively NOT a cognitive presence as an actuality. We, says Wittgenstein, bring meaning (and ethics and aesthetics) into the world, and take up the whatever it is there on t he couch as a cat, that way we can anticipate it when we see it, "know" about its possibilities, etc. This is what a thought is, a forward looking apprehension. BUT: the moment of apprehension is seized by knowledge in the forward looking event. If knowledge, this forward looking affair, can be put down, like a Buddhist or a Hindu puts down experience in deep meditation, or, via jnana yoga (philosophy), the world becomes a revelation--something altogether new comes to light.

It is a conceptual mistake, and I agree, as do many others, but it is not an existential mistake. This goes right to the point: conceptual mistakes belong to a body of judgment and error that is deliberately being opposed. The argument speaks for itself, but the "soundness" depends on the world and the way it presents itself. These concepts we are supposed to abide by come to us with foundational biases that have to be identified. Deconstruction, e.g., is part of this.

But is a concept material? — Constance

No, it certainly isn't. But I am talking about speech itself, not the concept or faculty of speech. And as I see now, this is not clear from the definition I brought in. Sorry about that!
Speech is composed of sounds, which are material. And it is produced by an air stream from the lungs, which goes through the trachea and the oral and nasal cavities. And all of these are also material. It is in that sense that I mentioned "speech" connected to the word "word". A word is an element of speech, recorded (spoken, audio) or printed (written).

Sure, saying a word, using lips and larynx and the rest is material, as a classificatory term, but ideas, logic, language and meaning, and so forth, these do not fit the category — Constance

Certainly.

We want to say all things are one ... — Constance

Are you talking about "One is all, All is One", the alchemist belief? Or, maybe the mystical "Everything is One?" If so, such things do not belong in my reality. Mixing physical objects and non-physical elements do not fit in my reality either. So I can't think, and much less talk, about that.

So instead of "in the beginning the was the word" is should be "there was reason" — Constance

Well, I actually said that it makes much more sense. But even if I accept this, it's only a hypothesis, and it is not part of my reality. I don't have any such realization neither have I given it much thought. So fact is I'm really not interested in it at all! We can talk of something else if you like ... :smile:

The beginning of all things — Constance

Your views are quite interesting.

how do I get to the present when the past is the very essence of "knowing" it is there at all? — Constance

Do not think. Thinking involves past and future. Just be there. Be aware. Observe. Perceive. This is the only way to be in the present.

I claim that the "metaphysics of the present" is a real possibility. — Constance

It may be. But Metaphysics are involved only when you think about and try to describe "present". You don't need them to experience the "present"! :smile:

Take a look at my later comments. I — Constance

I did and found them quite interesting. But as I said a little earlier, one way or the other, I m not really interested in that quote furthermore. It was just an "intellectual" exploration of the subject and maybe egotistical in a way from my part! :smile:

↪Valentinus Seems to me to be the same point. All talk occurs within language games; all language games are embed in -constitute - the world, what can be said. Constance is puzzling over ways to talk about the world without using language. You can't. But you might act in the world - do something; paint a picture, demonstrate a kindness, make a sacrifice. — Banno

Just to make clear: the rabbit out of the hat is not a world without language, but a world through language making itself and its alinguistic content appear. Language is the house of Being (a great philosopher once said), but as language brings being to light, there is that-which-is-being-brought-to-light. We receive this in interpretative language, but language does not have fixity in this; it is malleable, expendable, not rigid or dogmatic because the world holds it there. Language is open. I am saying in this openness, the question (the piety of thought), the second order reflection, inserts an aporia, and here one is freedom. Now, freedom to do, to see what? that is the question.

My dog definitely understands "no." — Hanover

A thought: no, your dog does not understand "no". Understanding what another says means there is agreement between both parties, and a dog's received meaning has no conceptual contextualization. Humans say this word, and the prohibition is wrapped a body of associated thought. Not so with Rover. Rovers "no" does not register symbolically because she has no language. She does have, you could argue, associated experiences that make the "no" familiar and is conditionally connected to punishment and reward, the same as us. But "to understand" the word, well, dogs don't have words.

So knowledge of god wouldn't be propositional?

thought: no, your dog does not understand "no". Understanding what another says means there is agreement between both parties, and a dog's received meaning has no conceptual contextualization. — Constance

Not sure how you know what a dog knows. But anyway, if you take my phone and I say "no," how is your understanding of no different from my dog's in terms of type and not degree of understanding.

A thought: no, your dog does not understand "no". Understanding what another says means there is agreement between both parties, and a dog's received meaning has no conceptual contextualization. Humans say this word, and the prohibition is wrapped a body of associated thought. Not so with Rover. Rovers "no" does not register symbolically because she has no language. She does have, you could argue, associated experiences that make the "no" familiar and is conditionally connected to punishment and reward, the same as us. But "to understand" the word, well, dogs don't have words. — Constance

How then do you explain a dog's ability to recognize the names of 1022 items, replete with a capacity to "categorize them according to function and shape"? Less extraordinary, border collies are notorious for knowing such things as their left from their right in herding sheep per the instructions of their caregiver. All this requires a good deal of conceptual contextualization regarding what sounds symbolize - with no language production on their part.

Heck, my own dog recognizes the difference between "go inside" and "go outside", be this the house, a specific room, or the car. A very abstract idea that is very relative to context. And this without any formal training; hence, no formal punishment and reward.

Whether you agree or not, the basic idea is old and has little to do with who's best at reading a dog's mind.

Being stands out against non-being.

It's the the answer to the question you asked.