Do minds exist?

[Speakpigeon]

Evidence is defined as being public and repeatable.

Yeah, I agree because I have subjective evidence for the fact that evidence is understood by naive people as something objective. Sure.
EB

Maybe some time refreshing yourself in sampling theory might help?

It would be wholly irrelevant here.

Not really. You haven't put the period on the distinction between subjective and objective. I'm pretty sure, having read summaries of the last 2500 years of philosophy, you can't.

There is a clear distinction although I accept I never directed your attention to how I phrased it personally, when I did. And I did. That you haven't seen it or understood it doesn't mean it wasn't there.

Also, I haven't published any philosophy so whatever I say wouldn't be in any summary. I suspect it still wouldn't if I ever published my ideas.

So you're pretty sure "I can't", hey? Dummer and dummer.

Look. Statisticians have found ways to approximate objective with subjective without requiring constraints on subjective re objective. All that need be done is use two independent sets of subjective categories of data and relate them with some objective (mathematical) measure.

Good. I'm so impressed when you go into the details of your fathomless expertise.

So, statisticians do routinely make a clear distinction between objective and subjective evidence after all. I thought you wanted to say that we can't make a distinction between subjective and objective!? I thought you wanted to say that all evidence could only be objective!? Beat me!

So, whatever could be "two independent sets of subjective categories of data" if not subjective evidence? Or is it something statisticians are able to conjure out of thin air?!

So here we are stuck between the subjective and the real place. No wonder philosophy is declining so agonizingly.

You're good at making irrelevant comments.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Evidence is defined as being public and repeatable.

Yeah, I agree because I have subjective evidence for the fact that evidence is understood by naive people as something objective. Sure.
EB

Maybe some time refreshing yourself in sampling theory might help?

It would be wholly irrelevant here.

Not really. You haven't put the period on the distinction between subjective and objective. I'm pretty sure, having read summaries of the last 2500 years of philosophy, you can't.

There is a clear distinction although I accept I never directed your attention to how I phrased it personally, when I did. And I did. That you haven't seen it or understood it doesn't mean it wasn't there.

Also, I haven't published any philosophy so whatever I say wouldn't be in any summary. I suspect it still wouldn't if I ever published my ideas.

So you're pretty sure "I can't", hey? Dummer and dummer.

Look. Statisticians have found ways to approximate objective with subjective without requiring constraints on subjective re objective. All that need be done is use two independent sets of subjective categories of data and relate them with some objective (mathematical) measure.

Good. I'm so impressed when you go into the details of your fathomless expertise.

So, statisticians do routinely make a clear distinction between objective and subjective evidence after all. I thought you wanted to say that we can't make a distinction between subjective and objective!? I thought you wanted to say that all evidence could only be objective!? Beat me!

So, whatever could be "two independent sets of subjective categories of data" if not subjective evidence? Or is it something statisticians are able to conjure out of thin air?!

So here we are stuck between the subjective and the real place. No wonder philosophy is declining so agonizingly.

You're good at making irrelevant comments.
EB

The point is there are objective sets of evidence which can be had at great expense. The two subjective sets can be gathered more cheaply with results rivaling those obtained in the much more expensive objective studies. It remains to be seen whether the two subjective method does always trend to the objective results proving their viability as objective substitutes or stand ins.

Whole pint is that there are methods, statistical and other mathematical, that have potential to generate objective equivalent results. Substituting objective as a stand in for reality is not much of a stretch given what I've just presented for subjective approximating objective. Always inductive my friend always inductive. All you have is rational and that is getting less play nowadays.

Cheers

FDI

 

[Speakpigeon]

Substituting objective as a stand in for reality is not much of a stretch given what I've just presented for subjective approximating objective.

Either your attention span is much shorter than my cat's wiskers or else I don't know. Your post is utterly irrelevant as to whether subjective experience is evidence. All your posts in our little discussion here have been irrelevant in this respect. Your point here is trivial and no one here had even expressed any view that could have possibly justified your insistence on it. You're such a waste of time!
EB

 

[Juma]

Not really. You haven't put the period on the distinction between subjective and objective. I'm pretty sure, having read summaries of the last 2500 years of philosophy, you can't...

One merely needs to be honest. There is no need for philosophy.

There is the chair I see and there is the chair.

There is the subject and the object.

And there is no doubt there is the subject and the object.

To doubt proves one is a subject.

This is philosophy.

 

[untermensche]

One merely needs to be honest. There is no need for philosophy.

There is the chair I see and there is the chair.

There is the subject and the object.

And there is no doubt there is the subject and the object.

To doubt proves one is a subject.

This is philosophy.

It is Descartes but it doesn't take a Descartes to know it.

A cat knows it is chasing a mouse. It knows there is object and subject.

 

[Juma]

This is philosophy.

It is Descartes but it doesn't take a Descartes to know it.

A cat knows it is chasing a mouse. It knows there is object and subject.

It is still philosophy.

 

[fromderinside]

It is Descartes but it doesn't take a Descartes to know it.

A cat knows it is chasing a mouse. It knows there is object and subject.

It is still philosophy.

For philosophy to have meaning it needs to get past where object and subject end. For a philosophy without meaning is, by definition meaningless. Since philosophy includes realities as dreams and dreams by dreamers etc, the knowing of object and subject have no end so no distinction can be made between them.

My view reflects that in the objective world where mathematics substitutes for the dreamer or dreaming dreamer parsing whither subjective approximates objective. Does that mean science has no meaning? I think not. Our example, life, adapts as conditions require. That adaptation though randomly driven tends toward reality driven by survival imperative. Similar observations can be found for energy although I, not being a physicist, don't know the driver.

 

[untermensche]

It is Descartes but it doesn't take a Descartes to know it.

A cat knows it is chasing a mouse. It knows there is object and subject.

It is still philosophy.

The cat is philosophizing?

 

[Juma]

It is still philosophy.

The cat is philosophizing?

If the cat ponders the difference between object and sibject then it is philosophizing.

 

[untermensche]

The cat is philosophizing?

If the cat ponders the difference between object and sibject then it is philosophizing.

The cat does no such thing.

But it knows there is a difference.

Just as humans know there is a difference without language or philosophy.

 

[George S]

The cat is philosophizing?

If the cat ponders the difference between object and sibject then it is philosophizing.

I have made agreements with cats. They know how to ponder our future interactions. Is that philosophizing?

 

[Togo]

If the cat ponders the difference between object and sibject then it is philosophizing.

I have made agreements with cats. They know how to ponder our future interactions. Is that philosophizing?

I taught my cat abstract rules by example. Or more specifically, he took my behaviour, extrapolated abstract rules from that, and then tested me for approval or disapproval at breaking them.

I'd say that qualifies.

Of course a lot depends on how you define philosophy. Abstraction from principles would seem to be covered, but you might insist that the heart of philosophy is collecting robust arguments.

 

[Speakpigeon]

And cats do like armchairs.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

A cat knows it is chasing a mouse. It knows there is object and subject.

I do believe there's something in cats that experiences a mouse as an object but I think we can't deduce this belief from the fact that a cat is chasing a mouse. Maybe there is collaboration between different parts of the cat's brain that allows a cat to chase a mouse without actually knowing it is doing so, unless one redefines "to know" to say that electrons know they repulse one another.
EB

 

[untermensche]

A cat knows it is chasing a mouse. It knows there is object and subject.

I do believe there's something in cats that experiences a mouse as an object but I think we can't deduce this belief from the fact that a cat is chasing a mouse. Maybe there is collaboration between different parts of the cat's brain that allows a cat to chase a mouse without actually knowing it is doing so, unless one redefines "to know" to say that electrons know they repulse one another.
EB

What concepts exist in a cat's head is impossible to say.

But humans make all kinds of conceptual distinctions. I don't see why we would think cats are incapable of the same thing.

Their distinctions may be less precise than human distinctions but they need to make distinctions to survive.

If it moves you chase it.

But there is still the distinction between the chaser and that which is chased.

 

[whichphilosophy]

A cat knows it is chasing a mouse. It knows there is object and subject.

I do believe there's something in cats that experiences a mouse as an object but I think we can't deduce this belief from the fact that a cat is chasing a mouse. Maybe there is collaboration between different parts of the cat's brain that allows a cat to chase a mouse without actually knowing it is doing so, unless one redefines "to know" to say that electrons know they repulse one another.
EB

How would a cat chase a mouse without knowing he is doing so???

 

[fromderinside]

I do believe there's something in cats that experiences a mouse as an object but I think we can't deduce this belief from the fact that a cat is chasing a mouse. Maybe there is collaboration between different parts of the cat's brain that allows a cat to chase a mouse without actually knowing it is doing so, unless one redefines "to know" to say that electrons know they repulse one another.
EB

How would a cat chase a mouse without knowing he is doing so???

Good solid philosophical discussion.

Don't go resorting to consciousness now when you are dealing with knowing, a purely analytic issue. Such would be retreating to philosophy as a theologically determined study.

If what Speakpigeon is correct for the cat then perhaps it is, at a much more complex level, true for the human.
Then we don't need to be anthropomorphic. We can just say that this and that collaboration allows one to chase without actually needing to articulate (my stand in for consciously knowing) what one is doing. I think a social system explantion could handle the rest.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I do believe there's something in cats that experiences a mouse as an object but I think we can't deduce this belief from the fact that a cat is chasing a mouse. Maybe there is collaboration between different parts of the cat's brain that allows a cat to chase a mouse without actually knowing it is doing so, unless one redefines "to know" to say that electrons know they repulse one another.
EB

How would a cat chase a mouse without knowing he is doing so???

How would an electron join a positive ion without knowing it is doing so?

Do you believe that a production-line robot knows it is making cars?!

So it's of course possible to do things without knowing one is doing them.

Sure, there has to be some reason that the thing is done, but maybe it's just because the robot has been designed by somebody to make cars, maybe the cat is chasing a mouse because, I don't know, cats are one end-product of evolution.

Brains are complicated things.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

If what Speakpigeon is correct for the cat then perhaps it is, at a much more complex level, true for the human.
Then we don't need to be anthropomorphic. We can just say that this and that collaboration allows one to chase without actually needing to articulate (my stand in for consciously knowing) what one is doing. I think a social system explantion could handle the rest.

I don't believe that what we do can be explained by the idea that we know what we do. I think we don't know anything about the material world so I'm not going to contradict myself here. However, that we don't need the idea of "knowledge" to explain what we do does not entail that we don't know anything. I for one know a few things but there's nothing material that I know.

And yes, cats may well be like us in this respect. But cats are mysterious so I don't know that.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

If what Speakpigeon is correct for the cat then perhaps it is, at a much more complex level, true for the human.
Then we don't need to be anthropomorphic. We can just say that this and that collaboration allows one to chase without actually needing to articulate (my stand in for consciously knowing) what one is doing. I think a social system explantion could handle the rest.

I don't believe that what we do can be explained by the idea that we know what we do. I think we don't know anything about the material world so I'm not going to contradict myself here. However, that we don't need the idea of "knowledge" to explain what we do does not entail that we don't know anything. I for one know a few things but there's nothing material that I know.

And yes, cats may well be like us in this respect. But cats are mysterious so I don't know that.
EB

Of the top, if you don't know that then how do you know cats are a mystery? Enough of the parry, thrust, routine.

You write; "What we do can't be explained by the idea we know what we do."

I reply: We're evolved social beings. My position is being evolved there may some 'knowing' of the physical world built in to us. It is not written we need have mind in which resides consciousness determining purpose to know. Paraphrasing "I exist I know" might work.

The trick comes in the articulating in sentences. Do we 'know' what we know because we say we do? Seems to me knowing is much more than that. So back to the necessity of mind and consciousness for 'knowing'. The cat seems to know how to catch a mouse. Of course it may be just learning and memory that actually provide that skill. If one observes them from kittens forward one sees behaviors emerging before identifying, catching, suggesting they are more or less wired to catch small rodents - mouse is just a place holder for that - begging the question whether it is what they know being imprinted into the mind and consciousness or is new behavior being learned. Cart, horse, maybe scenario, even paradigm, are potentially turned upside down when one looks at predisposition versus learning.

Of course I agree that what we do can't be explained by what we know. Still, you know cats may be like us in that we may know some things. But they are mysteries to you so don't know that they may be like us in that .....