Gregg,

I agree with you  that Descartes would probably  acknowledge perceptions and sensations to animals, but nevertheless would consider them as mechanistic, thus, with no qualia, (in these cases, pain qualia) , speaking in contemporary terms. So it is morally acceptable to beat a cat to death, because its perception are not painful. I am also with you that a refined Descartes scholar could probably help us in clarifying our speculations.

Contemporary science seems to have cleared the way though: cats feel pains.

However, and I am with you again on this, the problem is deeper, it regards our terms_words and our language game. (For example, the different meanings of "phenomenology" you mentioned...)

As you know, I have a profound esteem of your work because it deeply resonates with my fundamental intention as a scientist: to build a common scientific language to overcome hyperspecialization and eventually aiming at transforming knowledge into wisdom.

However, while writing this reply, it came to my mind that the esteemed and authorative  Circle of Vienna had the same basic  fintention: the unification of science through the creation of a new language based on logic and maths.

Their noble intention of building a new universal language based on logic famously failed though.

What position the TOK system have on such issue? If logic and mathematics are not enough, what can we propose instead?
On what fundamental rules is the TOK system based?

TY,
Andrea

Il 20/dic/2020 18:10, "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask]> ha scritto:

Andrea,

 

  My read is that Descartes is not clear on what animals experience. IF there is a refined Descartes scholar on this list, I would love to hear more. And, I am also saying that what people are saying becomes very clear once we use the Map of Mind1,2,3.

 

  To my read, both Romanes and Descartes thought that animals had Mind1 and Mind2. Regarding Descartes, the reason is that for Descartes, perception as perception, is mechanistic. That is, subjective experience per se is not what makes up the magical domain of mind. Rather, what is magical is reflective reasoning about perceptions. That is, the Mind2 to Mind 3 jump and that is what he means by the world of mind and consciousness. This, BTW, is how Zoltan Tory uses the term “conscious mind”. John argued that Descartes likely would not have argued that animals have no inner life in terms of base sensory experiences and even perceptions. Rather, they have no reflective inner life. That gets shortened to no pleasure or pain, but that interpretation is unclear and debatable. To see how, consider I was just reading a book on animal consciousness that had a good logic for differentiating sensory experience of sharp pain from prolonged suffering. The authors argued that fish likely have the former, but not the latter. In terms of a reference that makes this point, see this entry on the Stanford Encyclopedia on Animal Consciousness and see the section on Descartes. It basically makes this point; namely, that there are many variables in the field of consciousness that are operating with no clarity of reference, so it is highly unclear.

 

The overall point is clear. Confusion abounds and that confusion can be clarified by the Map of Mind1,2,3. Consider, for example, what is meant by the word “phenomenology”. In my conversations with John, I was using phenomenology as you describe here—that is, as a straight forward reference to Mind2 world as the stuff that makes up subjective conscious experience. But in my exchange with John, he pointed out that many people think of the proper usage of phenomenology as being the self-reflective awareness of Mind2. Thus, here again, we have Mind2 (alone) versus Mind2 accessed via Mind3. If the meaning is the latter, then you could argue that animals lack  phenomenology, in the sense that active access and self-reflection about inner life (i.e., introspection) is what is required for the full meaning. And here again we see how something that seems clear can easily become fuzzy if we equivocate in the meanings of our words.

 

Best,

Gregg

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]EDU> On Behalf Of Andrea Zagaria
Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2020 10:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK Mental Evolution and What is Mind?

 

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Hi Gregg, my knowledge of Descartes is not profound, but from the basics I've got  in my lyceum he denies almost completely animals can have consciousness (in the sense of phenomenology). For example, the moral philosopher Peter Singer contrasts his view from an animalistic standopoint. According to the Descartes (according to his vulgata, at least), you can beat a cat to death, it won't feel nothing because it has no soul. So, according to Singer, we have to contrast this view and to protect animals as sentient beings (i.e. beings with phenomenology that can feel pain). 

 

Reading your comment, it seems this is misguided. Do Descartes admit that animals can have some levels of phenomenology? Could you provide a precise reference of this? I would be very curious to know more about this. 

 

Andrea

 

 

 

 

 

On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 at 16:44, Joseph Michalski <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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Hi folks. I'll second Mike's proposal Gregg, with enthusiasm! -Joe

 

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From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]EDU> on behalf of Mascolo, Michael <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2020 10:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]EDU>
Subject: Re: TOK Mental Evolution and What is Mind?

 

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I would encourage you to write this up as an article. It is important. M 

 

On Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 10:14 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi TOK List,

 

  So I am doing Chapter 13 in my book, The Problem of Psychology and Its Solution. It is titled Mind2: Subjective Conscious Experiences in Animals and Humans. I am writing you all about it because I thought folks might find this interesting.

 

  In the chapter, I wanted to make a contrast between historical points of view on animal consciousness. So, I wrote about Descartes being very skeptical of animal consciousness and then, to contrast him, I was looking at the work of the early comparative psychologist George Romanes. He is often referenced as someone who was hugely guilty of anthropomorphizing and imputing massive levels of consciousness in animals. However, I am now in the process of actually reading what he wrote, especially his work Mental Evolution. It is amazing, and actually quite prescient, minus a few stretches. Check out the attached graph that depicts Romanes model of the 50 steps of mental evolution and forms the central argument. As you will see, It is remarkably close to the ToK and map of mind that John and I laid out in Untangling the Word Knot!

 

  Here is another fascinating thing. In the series, John helped me get a better frame on what Descartes really meant about “consciousness.” In Map of Mind1,2,3 terms, consciousness for Descartes was how perceptions and feelings become ready for reason. In other words, it was the jump between Mind2 and Mind3 and to have full consciousness, you needed both. Ergo, no (self-reflective) consciousness for animals.

 

  Now, we go back to Romanes. He has a 50 step latter. The first half is the evolution of animal consciousness…but animals (e.g., dogs and apes) only get up to level 28. The latter half is all human! And it is cultural evolution and self-reflective capacities. In other words, the evolution of Mind3 and the Culture-Person plane of existence!

 

  All of this means something quite remarkable. The two individuals who I was about to lay out as having the most diametric opposed views on animal consciousness agree almost completely! They agree that the ground is in the animal kingdom and it starts with a nonconscious Mind1. Then subjective experience (i.e., inner perceptions and feelings appear at some point). That is, they both would have agreed Mind2 is present in many animals. And they both would have agreed that Mind3 is the domain of the human!

 

The take home point here is that we had a HUGE problem of language and conceptual fields. The Enlightenment Gap on matter v mind blinded us to the proper language and grammar. With the proper language, we can achieve much greater clarity on what we are talking about! And when we do that, we can see that what sounded like radically different proposals (animals have NO consciousness versus animals have consciousness that resembles humans) are actually remarkably well aligned! It is all based on inadequate language games!

 

Best,
Gregg

 

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)


Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.

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