The Other Cut

Abstract

Third paper in the Not Less, But Other series. This paper asks whether a structure-first approach to other minds can produce positive, measurable results without converting structural evidence into a claim about experience. It states the distinction between detection and recognition through controlled, design-matched comparisons whose form depends on the experimental geometry. The paper reads a small set of comparative-cognition studies through that distinction. In a well-controlled chimpanzee gaze-following case, responses continue to track a human experimenter’s observable orientation when simpler salience-based explanations are constrained, and the method returns recognition at group level. In a shelter-dog object-choice study, performance on silent distal pointing cues does not survive removal of the proximity advantage, and the method returns detection; a macaque study is treated as supporting background rather than as a second clean negative case. The result is deliberately limited. The paper presents the method as reconnaissance rather than a validated instrument and claims only that observable orientation can be shown, under suitable controls, to make a measurable difference to behavior. It makes no claim about what the subject experiences or about recognition across species generally. Its contribution to the series is to show that declining an inference to presence does not leave structural inquiry empty: the structure-first posture can yield a positive empirical verdict while remaining within the limits of what the evidence supports.