Nick, That is not a valid syllogism. All X have Y x has Y Therefore x is an X
Is that a correct formalization of what you said? --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, 1:54 PM Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > While I find all the ancillary considerations raised on the original > thread extremely interesting, I would like to reopen the discussion of > Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the > question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it. Baby > Steps. > > Where were we? I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and > anybody else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware > of their own awareness) what basis they had in experience for thinking > that.. One offering for such an experience is the absence of language in > animals. Because my cat cannot describe his experience in words, he > cannot be conscious. This requires the following syllogism: > > Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious. > Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ > languages. > Ergo, Animals are not conscious. > > But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise. How do we > know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious. I > hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic", both > in its strictly tautological or merely circular form. > > There is a closely related syllogism which we also need to explore: > > All language using beings are conscious. > George Peter Tremblay IV is a language-using being. > George Peter Tremblay IV is conscious. > > Both are valid syllogisms. But where do the premises come from. > > Nick > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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