People can produce, and think about, new thoughts {productivity, language} {language productivity}.
People can misrepresent {disjunction problem} {problem of misrepresentation} {misrepresentation problem}.
States {doxastic state}| can be about beliefs and similar things. Mental-information states can be non-conscious {subdoxastic state, non-conscious} or have non-mental information {non-doxastic state}.
Physical things can use basic-science languages {linguistic physicalism}.
Semantic ideas, such as references, can be explainable by non-semantic ideas, such as correlation, causation, resemblance, structure, or teleology {naturalized semantics}.
People can refer to non-existent things and events {Plato's beard} {Plato beard}.
Words are in larger expressions or link expressions to make larger expressions {scope, expression} {expression scope}. Scopes can be noun phrases, complex sentences, or predicates. If sentences rearrange or make inferences, words often have ambiguous scope or change scope, causing fallacy {scope fallacy, philosophy}. Statement, subject, or predicate negation changes scope. Reference change changes scope.
Questioning others {Socratic method}| {elenchus method} {refutation method} {method of elenchus} {method of refutation} can obtain agreement on facts and definitions; find contradictions, fallacies, and incomplete ideas; end false beliefs; obtain understanding; and reach agreed conclusions.
Descriptions can use logical particles, connectives, and other logical constants {syncategorematum}.
People can imagine experiments {thought experiment}| to test physical theories. Thought experiments are complex, because mind has hidden variables and results are not directly verifiable. Computers and/or people can perform mental experiments, to see actual results, note pitfalls, and propose better experiments. Experiments can also have control groups, with which to compare results, to verify that no other variables affected experiment except intended variable.
Analysis {topic-neutral analysis} can state something is similar to something else, but state nothing about objects, events, states, or properties.
Thinking {verbal thinking} can be in words without talking to oneself.
Mental states can be about something else {representation, symbolic} {symbolic representation}. Representation is neither reflexive nor symmetric.
types
Representations are beliefs, hopes, fears, or ideas.
forms
Representations can be linguistic, non-linguistic, or other mental states. Representations can use gestures, sounds, marks, or natural phenomena.
interpretation
The same representation can be about several different objects or events, depending on interpretation. Different interpretations can make different representations. Representations do not necessarily resemble the represented. Representations are not necessarily about real external objects or concepts but about perceptions, experiences, history, or actions relative to external objects. Representations can represent concepts, as well as things.
Similarity representation does not imply representation similarity. Representation absence is not the same as absence representation. Representation presence is not the same as presence representation.
process
Representations are not just labeling and not just associations between arbitrary symbols and the represented. Outside rules or other agents do not assign representations. Representations use agent structure or configuration, with functions. Representations have meaning to agents, because structures or functions associate with agent history, memory, structures, and functions. Agents can use representations, such as goals or reasons.
process: information
Representations include only parts and relations necessary to act for survival and omit most information about objects and events. Principles include how objects construct. Representations build through multiple eye fixations and so involve memory. Representations have hierarchies, in which larger patterns inhibit smaller ones.
images
Representations store general shapes at low resolution and parts at higher resolution. Representations include features and feature probabilities. Surfaces can be ellipsoidal segments, so objects and events can be like generalized ellipsoids, whose equation is a*x^2 + b*x + c*y^2 + d*y + e*z^2 + f*z + g = 0. Networks need 10 to 100 units to represent all possible three-dimensional-object views. Representations can include viewer-centered and object-centered properties.
People can introspect about representation {higher-order thought theory, meta-representation} (HOT theory) and so make consciousness {meta-representation} (Rosenthal). However, why should consciousness require thinking about mental states? Is culture necessary to have higher-order thoughts?
Cognitive representations have intrinsic connections {systematicity argument}. Reasoning is systematic.
Representations have both causal factors and conceptual-role factors {two-factor theories}. However, why do the factors match?
6-Philosophy-Epistemology-Thinking
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Date Modified: 2022.0225