I only half agree; even there, there is for the most part an allergy to build anything that looks much like cognitive level representation or algorithm.
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At what point do you see 'symbol manipulation' arising in biology? Is this a capability that is solely available for present-day humans? What about humans prior to literature? Humans prior to civilization? Humans prior to language?
i see some evidence for limited forms in bees, primates, perhaps other animals ; presumably all humans
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I think it's almost impossible to understand even something as “simple” as navigation in insects without positing rich representations, which might be undestood as symbols, but not in the human sense. Enactivists have a different non-representational approach for this behavior.
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It sounds like you're saying that positing symbols is more about helping us understand or think about animal behavioural complexity, than something really "there" in the the creatures. Otherwise how to square "almost impossible" with the mention of enactivists doing fine without?
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There is a huge difference between an intelligence manipulating or using symbols (a behavior) and an intelligence being built with symbols. The latter is what you're proposing. A symbol requires 2 things, the symbol itself and the object being symbolized. 1/2
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