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Single Idea 5801

[filed under theme 11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / f. Animal beliefs ]

Full Idea

A mouse can see and hear a piano being played, but believing is something else; it requires the concept of a piano, and understanding. Mice who hear pianos being played do not believe pianos are being played.

Gist of Idea

A mouse hearing a piano played does not believe it, because it lacks concepts and understanding

Source

Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §1.3)

Book Ref

Dretske,Fred: 'Naturalizing the Mind' [MIT 1997], p.9

A Reaction

Are we to say that when a mouse hears a piano it has no beliefs at all? Might not a belief involve images, so that a mouse calls up appropriate images from previous experiences, which are in a grey area on the edge of belief?

The 18 ideas from Fred Dretske

19544 Closure says if you know P, and also know P implies Q, then you must know Q [Dretske]
19545 We needn't regret the implications of our regrets; regretting drinking too much implies the past is real [Dretske]
19547 Reasons for believing P may not transmit to its implication, Q [Dretske]
19546 Knowing by visual perception is not the same as knowing by implication [Dretske]
19548 The only way to preserve our homely truths is to abandon closure [Dretske]
19549 P may imply Q, but evidence for P doesn't imply evidence for Q, so closure fails [Dretske]
19550 We know past events by memory, but we don't know the past is real (an implication) by memory [Dretske]
6445 You have knowledge if you can rule out all the relevant alternatives to what you believe [Dretske, by DeRose]
5801 A mouse hearing a piano played does not believe it, because it lacks concepts and understanding [Dretske]
5802 Representations are in the head, but their content is not, as stories don't exist in their books [Dretske]
5805 Introspection does not involve looking inwards [Dretske]
5803 In a representational theory of mind, introspection is displaced perception [Dretske]
5804 A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind [Dretske]
5806 Belief is the power of metarepresentation [Dretske]
5807 Introspection is the same as the experience one is introspecting [Dretske]
5808 Qualia are just the properties objects are represented as having [Dretske]
5809 Some activities are performed better without consciousness of them [Dretske]
5800 All mental facts are representation, which consists of informational functions [Dretske]