Can dogs think phenominally?

If so, why and how and what does that imply?

Can you think phenomenally?

If so, why and how and what does that imply?

why?: sort of how it looks like life, in it’s generalized form works. Spun into that direction as result of unknown forces. There are a vast number of speculations.
how?: Same way we learned it.
it’s implication?: A colorful, if brief history.

A few words and thoughts: Typically man separates himself from the animal…To think one needs a mind??? Does a dog have a mind??? Sometimes this separation makes it difficult to answer these questions. In my experience interacting with dogs, it seems like there is something going on in “there”. I wonder how big a mental landscape needs to be before it is considered a mind.

Here is something I wrote an hour ago - kinda related:


General Information/Generalized Learning
Discriminative Information/Discriminative Learning
New Information/New Learning

We primarily function based on general information and generalized learning. When we are required to do something more specialized we need discriminative information and discriminative learning. What about when we need to do something new? If we are taking in new information then we need to rely on both generalized and discriminative techniques. We need the means to take in new information; taking in new information requires us to discriminate the old from the new; we essentially need anomaly detection - we detect this anomaly by checking against general information and discriminative information. Once we have detected the anomaly and classified it as new information we can then generalize the new information(ie. assimilate it) and then discriminate the new information(set it aside in its own category).


Google: in a way that is perceptible by the senses or through immediate experience << phenomenally

Dogs experience phenomenally >> if there is a mind in there then the answer is yes(assuming physicalism) dogs think phenomenally

Something to ponder…

Yes.
My dog is brilliant, she understands so much more than is obvious.

She has a vocabularly: cat, rat, food, treat, ball, kong, walk, pig’s ear, oreille de cochon, bed, out, come on, bye-then. sit, paw, lay down, where’s squeeky, lead on, stop, Mr Ocado.

There are other words which illicit variable responses, but the above seem to summon up things in her imagination that are clear cut and unambiguous.

Pavlov lacked imagination, and did not understand a dog as a person, but as a lab rat. (rats themselves are far more intelligent that many people credit them).
When the Pavlovian bell is rung, it is not merely a conditioned response that occurs but the dog thinks it is time for food, and the thought of food make the dog’s mouth water. The dog imagines food. S/he knows what the bell means, and experiences anticipation. Humans can make thier own mouths water thinking about food, why would the dog have to accept an interpretation any less than a man?

That is the question from the point of view contrary to Descartes’ famous dictum : ‘cogito ergo sum’

Then the question arises about what thinking consists of, or, at least what is consistent with it?

The implications are tremendous I think, of maybe are becoming so.

This may take much more looking into and here it occurs that it begs some silmuntanous analysis concurrently specific and general.

Maybe this begs the question some way that correlates to the analog if circularity in though as in Descartes’s.

Or maybe he foreshadowed a critical problem phenomenally per se,

The forces spinning the distinction between the intellectualized against the perceived data of sense may be the key. I think some of these conjectures may veer into propositions, proposals or pre postured effects which at times correlate to logical distinctions ( exclusions), pf the go the other way of gathering by force of wit, mode inclusive logical structures? Does this makes sense?

I am not sure if you are aware of this but in my last post, there was a subtle hint of circular reasoning. But this comes under a category of thought I use called: The process of processing information - within this category is this: flawed logics still work in general, especially to basic thinking(but also aids in complex thinking), since a number of related processes have already produced the most accurate and most useful judgments.

But logics is such a dense and complex topic. I am led to believe that it is also relatively new(that is the combining of logics) but incredibly useful.

Regarding Descartes’: “Phenomenology is discussed as a way of disrupting Descartes’ visions of clarity and distinctness as paradigms of knowledge and as a return of inquiry to life as it is actually lived.” << I grabbed this quickly from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00367745 because at the moment at least, my mind is in a completely different place. My sincere apologies for that.

:laughing:

We can at least perhaps laugh at this last part.

No, I was not aware of Your reference to circularity as compatible to the cogito. Could You refresh it’s location?

Enclosed is a snipett to the ontological - ontic reference:

“Asking from the truth of Cogito as the basis of knowledge, this paper tries to analyze all possible answers in Descartes’ philosophy. Inductively, four possible answers are open to consideration: either Cogito is true 1) based on argumentation, 2) because it is clear and distinct, 3) because of being innate, or, lastly, 4) because of intuition. All of these explanations either entail accepting some prior knowledge to Cogito or fall in a vicious circle. A proper way to explain Cogito’s truth is a new perspective to the meaning of intuition in Descartes’ philosophy. Through this perspective Cogito is a presential experience. Lack of any gap, separation, and disjunction in this presential experience is the reason for the truth of Cogito because this lack is the lack of error’s cause.”

This is from an Iranian U. reappraisal of Descartes

But what I am trying to get at here OS the dog metaphor, ans a cognitive philosophy, as it may refer to Your procedure of comparitive inquiry to some structural basis between general and specific signs or languages, if understood correctly.

If this anology is applicable, then the basis of ‘esse est percipii’ and ‘cogito ergo sum’ can be reassesses ( as is done by enclosed summary); in order by definition prevent the circularity mentioned, on the same basis.

Definitive rejection may have overlooked this defining charactefistic, and as You back owledge as well.

Of course close to the middle ages, a draw toward more general ideas have yet hundreds of years to go until they realize into propositional validation- ( the positivists emergance of similarity over identity), so thought can not inhabit the brain functions of dogs using the mind of Man whose general ideas can not rise into that general level, irrespective to a subsistent, possible association of that level of logistics.

Therefore such obtuse use of sensibility, could not have connected a possible motive of some logical association from an animal behavior to a significant chain of meaningfully exhibited thinking process.

However, looking back with the use of a definite description, or map of cognitive tracing, such connections may come to be retro- constructed, in which case that may mean a sort of an emergence to validate reversal to the deconstruction to establish new found validity in meaning, of course strictly on the basis of intuition and the such as described in same said article attached above.

The effort to rise above the enthropic , deconstructive process, may yet hold to new paradigmn of establishing a rising level of the eidectic reduction, infecting the phenomenal reduction as analog-ically probable.

If this be the case, then, communication between man and dig would/could indicate levels of differing cognitions between the cognative and the phenominalogical, and raising the intent if Descartes’ cogito to more figurative levels , possessing a hidden objective then previously figured, and reduced toward a literal and contradictory effect through an unavoidable circularity.

That we can , retroactively rise to a reactive laughable position will then become a very good possibility, and the verbal communication of Dr. Lilly, with dolphins, adopted by the US navy , is the best example I can think of in the kind of relevance found here.

medium.com/predict/john-c-lilly … b7e41e3d6f

Note: just cited the article mining for main, general points of reference, and the latter parts turn to almost sci fi , therefore may not relate except having some almost entertainment value.

I just need to confirm whether "owledge " is a typo. I have spent time considering the rest of what you say but just need a clarification on this, please.

Thank you. :smiley:

Sorry, it is a typo, …thank You for Your time and I mean that in a positive way.

Is that a no?

YTou did not respond to my personal evidence!

My dog is brilliant, she understands so much more than is obvious.

She has a vocabularly: cat, rat, food, treat, ball, kong, walk, pig’s ear, oreille de cochon, bed, out, come on, bye-then. sit, paw, lay down, where’s squeeky, lead on, stop, Mr Ocado.

There are other words which illicit variable responses, but the above seem to summon up things in her imagination that are clear cut and unambiguous.

Pavlov lacked imagination, and did not understand a dog as a person, but as a lab rat. (rats themselves are far more intelligent that many people credit them).
When the Pavlovian bell is rung, it is not merely a conditioned response that occurs but the dog thinks it is time for food, and the thought of food make the dog’s mouth water. The dog imagines food. S/he knows what the bell means, and experiences anticipation. Humans can make thier own mouths water thinking about food, why would the dog have to accept an interpretation any less than a man?

Yes I agree having them throughout my life.

There weed 3 significant digs in my life, a large sheepherder, a breed escapes me but will look it up, a very big dog, and then Irish Setters occupying my consciousness in adilescence, and lately a dog which acquired a bad reputation: a breed I seem to forget, but will fill in later.

The fact is and the idea i am trying to entertain, is, that digs do ‘think’ but in a way that doesen’t require then to form non instinctive markers very much removed from immediate set borders of existential concerns of survival

They cannot relate to other dogs in terms other than sexual coupling or the care and safety of offspring.

Secondarily, their relation to their owners relates to their own survival, and granted in and through Pavlovian conditioned education.

So as a refrain, digs manage to relate through mode general, cuws of signals, through basic signs of effect.

Their affected responses are merely that slippery slope between effect and affect, that escapes dineation.

Masters imbue an anoulmous sense of non-deciphefable uncertainty between effect and affect, as if animals suffered from somilad confusions.

Why the disparity between man and animal?
Why would the dog expect less then man?

That’s good, and i hazard that dog somehow appreciated it’s subssr giant condition.It never realizes conditioning via reward as a ‘condition’ of it’s existence, whereas human beings have nit yet realized that his masters can emulate the same.

It is possible that the dog can have fleeting thoughts…

for example: “cat eat my food”

potentially actuating the emotional center

“growl, growl growl”

In other words: “Get away from my food”

you know, kinda like the way we imagine(perceive) caveman talk.

basic language…basic thinking…basic knowledge

Honestly, we think about instinct in a pre-conditioned way - there are infinite ways to think about thought just as there are infinite thoughts. We mostly follow the definition of instinct that is commonly known. The systems that give rise to thought are preconditioned just as instinct is pre-conditioned the same way(at the hardware level, so to speak )- maybe one in the same. The neocortex in dogs is there for a reason just as the basal ganglia is there for a reason.

I saw an experiment on a lab rodent where they connected wires to the neocortex to study the spatial reasoning of the rodent.

The subject of my thought however is not the neocortex - just that whether it is the basal ganglia or the neocortex, nature has converged in the instance of dog and human with its ideas for these things and more, just like eyes and ears.

Utterances of thought :smiley:

Perhaps a further fine tuning to more specific content can be gained by replacing ‘instinct’ with automatic behavior.

In that way some interveaning ganglia may morph into the more general cognitive function, .

That is what I get from Your pre-existent cognitive mapping of instinct.

Automatic seems more of a transitional function through learning rather then pure instinctive behavior, that may be viewed as some given at certain levels of morphology, leaving the learning process more like a series of validations of hypothetical summations at each level.

Which may beg the question of learning being a repetitive review of various newly formed coalesced or reified structurally reduced toward lower symbolic levels.

Not that lab demonstrations are not useful, but they only affirm the learned reduction through memory storage.

I would think a lot of lab work with the cognitive basis of dogs’ faculties are done to validate the hypothetical assumptions underlying them.

A lot of Russian research with dogs, and of course Pavlov setting the trend.

My approach bases is mode intuitive, and again begs where general hypotheticals about brain-mind function actually come from ,

I am happy :smiley:

Agreed - this is a technique I use often and I believe all the greats would have similarly been this way. I try not to delude myself; It is of course important to place a reasonable amount of faith in established science and philosophy since they have reached functional conclusions already(establishing usable facts). But it should be known that work in philosophy and science is not even close to being complete - each one of these alone is more than any man can comfortably handle. As you already know(I will place it here however for anyone else who is reading that may not be aware): remaining grounded outside of theory is important.

Yes, I agree. I am glad you are being level-headed about this. As we have witnessed, some people lose themselves into their own theories and negate already useful and functional theories previously developed by other philosophers and scientists(it is also worth noting and some scientists have closed their mind to philosophical inquiry(being lost to established functional theory))).

Yes, it would not make sense to think that basal ganglia and neocortex are not connected in some way. This makes about as much sense as to believe that the mind and brain are not connected. Given that we have both psychology and neuroscience that are very useful already in terms of real world application. It is just that the lay person is ready to accept established knowledge over the anomalous of the new. To say that the triune brain is interconnected with morphological processes happening all the time is I believe a statement of true but not fully established fact - intuitively we can already see that this is making sense.

What you are getting from my pre-existent cognitive mapping is exactly what I had intended to be understood.

Truly, I believe the concept of the instinctive to be useful but I do not think that it has been put into its proper place. It is good to have a point of reference that other things can emanate from >> but to be emitted rather than produced by. These levels of morphology are perhaps waiting to be discovered - inferences begin at a very low level, I already have proof of this through the use of artificial neural networks that essentially use vectors(tensors) to refer to dictionaries and are trained as such to take the dictionaries and make meaning from them. The network itself has no concept of each word - meaning comes from an arrangement of numbers representing distance and relation. Dictionaries are built through training - they are not there before training - words are learned through training. Dictionaries are contained within the mind and not physically arranged like our lay concept of the dictionary(this is the same in real life - each man contains a lot of dictionaries). All of this comes about from seeds and roots - metaphorically speaking of course. We know that when we plant a seed it is already pre-programmed to produce something more amazing than itself. The hardware and later the software are the seeds(ambiguous since hardware can contain the concept of pre-programmed roots) and roots respectively. Another way to think of this is in the format of a substrate containing similar principles that have already been discussed.

You hit the nail on the head Meno, therefore I will not comment directly on this but rather make an extension of previously mentioned material. The aforementioned vectors(>>tensors) have carry over information from previous vectors in the sequence and produce relations between the higher and lower levels - storing somewhere in there, representations of many sorts. Newly formed coalesced knowledge is formed through transfer-relations based on old knowledge - we are talking about generalized learning.

Side quote: “Transfer effects are found when learning one task either facilitates (positive transfer) or interferes with (negative transfer) learning the second task.”
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/transfer-effect

I think I have stated on ILP before along the lines that instinct need not be removed from higher-level functions << not in these exact words – more like >> existence need not be removed from its seeds and roots << but again not in these exact words. The point I am trying to make is that we can completely miss new learning opportunities by too often thinking about things in a pre-conditioned way. It is clear that thinking in a preconditioned way is not how those who make discoveries(all of us) are thinking at the time of the discovery and part of the period leading up to the discovery.

We also have to entertain the idea that some essential knowledge is passed down through genetic information - trial and error based upon the whole survival of the fittest and evolutionary concepts.

I disagree wholeheartedly here.
My dog is highly sociable. She does not know about Darwin so is not concerned with offspring or coupling, nor does she persue maximal “survival behaviour”.
And this is how it should be. Natural Selection has ensured the preservation of traits, as well as traits that have little or no bearing on mating ot survival. Natural and “Domestic Selection” (which is far more apt) provides her with feelings. She feels she needs to make friends with almost everyone. It provides her with feeling like she wants food. Were she to have an unlimited supply she would eat until she was sick and end up killing herself from obesity.
She has her special doggy friends, and others that she would be more interested in if they were more interested in her - this is all very human as far as I can see.

I disagree again.
She feels the need to be social and needs companionship. She has no alterior motive and has no understanding of survival in any sense.

You could, if you wanted ,also reduce human behaviour to survival. But how poor would such a view be?