What is my cat thinking? …
Yes, what is she thinking? Does she think at all? Does she have emotions? Does she daydream from time to time? Does she like me or does she only see me as an automaton that feeds her? (It makes no difference whether you prefer to think about your dog, your guinea pig, or some other kind of animal – the important thing is to think!)
Does a bird plan the construction of its nest? Or does it merely obey “blind instincts”? (Whatever that may be?) Does my cat think about what she might do next? Can she choose “freely” whether to visit the tomcat next door or whether to go hunting for mice?
Why don't we know these things? Why are “scientists” unable to provide definite answers to all these questions?
Let’s assume you’re interested in such questions – what could you do to find an “answer”?
Well, you could do precisely what “scientists” do – first, you could make detailed observations. Let’s say you observe your animal during the day and at night, recording each of its movements. You train your microscope and your binoculars on it, and eventually you even put wires into its head to measure “electrical potential” or place it under a CT scanner.
In short, you observe and measure everything and anything that can be observed and measured until, for the sake of argument, you know everything that can be “known” about your cat (or your dog, etc.). Yet –
– you still don't know whether or not your cat “dreams”, what she is “thinking” about or whether she “thinks” at all.
But why not???
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Describing the Invisible
- 1...and what are other humans thinking?
- 2Not at all!
- The meaning of the word
- 3But how do “noises” and “sounds” acquire their “meaning”?
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This text explores the limitations of empirical research when it comes to understanding internal states like thoughts, emotions, and dreams. It challenges the idea that scientific methods, including observation and measurement, can fully capture the subjective experiences of humans or animals.
- The limits of scientific understanding of internal states.
- The role of subjective meaning in interpreting "noise" as "words."
- The concept of "meaning" as a subjective element added to objective stimuli.
- The complexities of human language and communication.
- The challenges of understanding another person's thoughts and emotions.
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
The text begins by posing questions about the internal lives of animals, questioning whether we can truly know what they are thinking or feeling. It then shifts to human beings, acknowledging the difficulty of understanding human thought and emotion even with tools like speech and scientific methods.
The author argues that despite the presence of speech, humans remain complex "objects of research," just like animals or inanimate objects. This is because the meaning of words is not inherent but is subjectively assigned by individuals. The text examines how "noise" becomes a "word" by exploring the differences between objective sounds and the subjective meaning we attach to them.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
This text centers around the concepts of subjective experience, empirical research, language, meaning, and the limitations of scientific understanding when it comes to analyzing internal states. It explores the challenges of interpreting human behavior and communication, highlighting the role of subjective meaning in understanding words and actions.
- Quote paper
- Reinhard Blew (Author), 2013, Describing the invisible. On the limits of empirical research, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/212591
