So what is missing, what form must an answer take in order to constitute one here? — Isaac

Pain doesn't come from language, it's biological. We wouldn't have language for sensations or feelings if we didn't already have them. That's why there's no words for sonar sensation, or colors outside the three primary color mixes we see. We only create words for sensations/feelings we have as human beings. But homo sapiens don't exhaust the range of possible conscious experiences, given that animal biology can differ in all sorts of ways from our own.

The form an answer needs to take is to show how a scientific explanation of the relevant biology results in conscious experiences. Certain pattens of neurons fire and we experience color. How do neurons firing result in color sensations? There's no answer to this as of yet.

Instead, there's a bunch of philosophical arguments ranging over all the various positions on consciousness. I have no idea what an answer will look like. That's why we endlessly argue over it.

How do neurons firing result in color sensations? There's no answer to this as of yet. — Marchesk

:up:

When you stub your toe, thousands of neurological events take place, and probably hundreds of mental events...

Of these thousands, some of them we infer as 'pain'. How do we decide? The answer is that we decide by applying predictive models of what sensations are likely to be caused by, — Isaac

Why do we need to "predict" what pain is? Why does someone who is in pain, after stubbing their toe, need to make any predictions?

The mere existence and use of the word 'pain' in association with behavioural cues goes into making up those models by which we interpret the thousands of signals rushing around at the time of stubbing our toe. — Isaac

You talk of pain as though it is something that requires discovery or deduction. How does a child infer and predict their own pain without knowing the word for it? Do children not feel any pain before they learn how to use the word 'pain'?

Pain is the model, not the signals the model infers from. The signals might be radically different (in their entirety), but the model is not. — Isaac

Yes, that's my point (assuming by 'signals' you mean pain sensations). Once again, I'm talking about the privacy of subjective experience, not the privacy of language or the privacy of the use of the word/model "pain". The pain sensations might be radically different. Indeed.

Is it different at all? Yes, probably. — Isaac

Why can't you be sure about this? Is it due to the privacy and inaccessibility of knowing the subjective experiences of other people?

But this causes us no linguistic problems normally. — Isaac

I'm not arguing for the privacy of language.

None of this usually affects our talk of 'sameness', and for good reason. — Isaac

It's not a question of 'sameness', either; it's a question of privacy. We could all have the same experiences, but do we? Probably, but who knows? How can we know?

Spell it out then. What does Luke mean by 'private' that I've thus far misunderstood. — Isaac

Nothing special. In this context, I'm using 'private' to mean 'not publicly known'.

Create our own new....

What better inkling of “private” could there be? “Create our own new” is merely speechifying synonyms for inventive, individual, personal, and time-successive, all necessary ingredients in the recipe for “private”. — Mww

Yep. Beetles are private. That was the point of Wittgenstein's argument, I think.

Nahhh....nothing so dramatic. — Mww

It is. Unless you have some study to the contrary, I don't see the advantage in throwing out good quality research in favour of your introspection. What reason do have have for believing you have access to the mechanisms your brain uses?

Pain speaks to dangerous effect; reason speaks to the quantity and quality of the cause of it. The one is immediate and not a cognition, the latter is mediate and is always a cognition. — Mww

Correct, but irrelevant. I'm not denying cognition is involved in locating and mediating pain.

What ta hell is a hidden state anyway? — Mww

https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/The%20free-energy%20principle%20-%20a%20rough%20guide%20to%20the%20brain.pdf

which for you means taking all the unknowns of experience and squashing them into a little guy in the closet who does something with a representation or model. He's got a second pair of closet eyes with which he does that, and so forth. You need to explain that away as well. — frank

I felt like I already had. Perhaps you could try highlighting the parts you didn't understand.

If you're naming the various neural clusters responsible for modelling the cause of hidden states as 'homunculi', then yes, we have several. What is your concern here? That we'll run out of brain?

We've a model which models models. Can that model model itself? Sure, why not? IT has outputs which can be stored and re-iterated as inputs. Computationally there's no barrier there. But even if there were, What's to stop the models in other people's brains from modelling by 'model of models'. It's not self-referential even in that case.

You seem, though it's not clear, to be worried about some infinite regress of models (homunculi), but you've not made clear why you think that's a problem. Obviously it mean we cannot infinitely model models, but so what. This discussion is only three layers in, we could get a million layers in and still have enough brain capacity to handle the results. I don't think we need anywhere near infinite layers to have a pragmatic understanding of how the brain works, three or four will do.

Pain doesn't come from language, it's biological. — Marchesk

No, sensations are biological, 'Pain' is a concept created by a socially communicating group collecting some of those sensations and naming them.

We wouldn't have language for sensations or feelings if we didn't already have them. — Marchesk

No-one is denying that you have sensations.

Certain pattens of neurons fire and we experience color. How do neurons firing result in color sensations? There's no answer to this as of yet. — Marchesk

That's just repeating the question. I asked you what form an answer should take. specifically why an answer in the form I've already given does not suffice when answers in that exact form suffice for other questions starting 'How does...'

I have no idea what an answer will look like. — Marchesk

Then how do you know that the answers I've provided are not answers. If you don't know what an answer would look like, you can't say what isn't one. I'm just asking you what's missing.

Why do we need to "predict" what pain is? Why does someone who is in pain, after stubbing their toe, need to make any predictions? — Luke

Evolution. Why do we 'need' to have camera eyes and not compound eyes? Why do we 'need' to have legs and not wheels? We just do predict the causes of sensations, it's how our brains work. The cognitive scientists who develop these theories don't just make this stuff up on a coffee break you know. Over the course of our various discussions on this topic I've probably posted more than half a dozen studies demonstrating that the brain uses Bayesian-like inference models to handle sensation modelling. I've twenty-four such studies in my bibliography database alone, I could list them all here if it's needed to convince you.

How does a child infer and predict their own pain without knowing the word for it? Do children not feel any pain before they learn how to use the word 'pain'? — Luke

Children feel all sorts of things and respond to them. That some of those thing should be labelled 'pain' is obviously something children only learn when they learn a language. That some of these things fall into on group and not another is something they might learn pre-linguistically by observing others in their social group. The idea that they have some kind of 'natural grouping' of some of these sensations which they're just waiting for a label for has been quite soundly refuted by the evidence from psychological studies. It's not, of course, universally held. There's disagreements, but if you want to discuss those disagreements you'll need to cite the studies proposing them so we've got something to discuss. You just 'reckoning' there might be such natural groups is all very well, but it's not really something we can discuss beyond the fact that you think that way.

Yes, that's my point (assuming by 'signals' you mean pain sensations). Once again, I'm talking about the privacy of subjective experience, not the privacy of language or the privacy of the use of the word/model "pain". The pain sensations might be radically different. Indeed. — Luke

Did you even read the whole section I wrote after this? Two people's heights are radically different too at the nanometre scale. so now we can't ever say two people are the same height. I don't have a nanometre calibrated ruler, so now I can't say I 'know' what height a person is?

Every single instance of every single object, property or event is a fuzzy categorisation based on similarities and ignoring certain differences, otherwise we would simply have a billion nouns and be inventing new ones all the time. It's normal to group things by similarity at some scale.

But more to the point you don't have access to that particular set of signals either. It's not private (in the sense that you have access and I don't) it's hidden, in the sense that neither of us have access. I have indirect access to it via your self-reports, your behaviour, fMRI scans etc. You have access to it via your working memory, your sematic centres, your somatosensory feedback systems. Neither is more direct than the other, neither is privileged, neither more accurate.

Why can't you be sure about this? Is it due to the privacy and inaccessibility of knowing the subjective experiences of other people? — Luke

Inaccessibility, yes. Privacy, no. As above, you don't have access either. So far the best access is from computational neuroscience, but even that is limited by it's own models. Nonetheless, it's better than your own guesswork based on what we know for a fact to be flawed memories and socially mediated self-reports.

We could all have the same experiences, but do we? Probably, but who knows? How can we know? — Luke

fMRI scans, conversation, behavioural observations... If these aren't enough for you to know we have the same experiences, then it is a question of 'sameness'. You're setting the bar unreasonably high for judging two experiences to be 'the same'. If they have the same neural signature, the same behavioural response, if we understand each other when we talk about them, even in intricate detail, then we've just as good a reason to call them 'the same' as we have to say you and I have 'the same' phone.

Spell it out then. What does Luke mean by 'private' that I've thus far misunderstood. — Isaac


Nothing special. In this context, I'm using 'private' to mean 'not publicly known'. — Luke

Well then we might have been talking past one another all along. Private does not simply mean 'not publicly known' to me. There's a difference between unclaimed property and common land, though neither is privately owned.

Why do we need to "predict" what pain is? Why does someone who is in pain, after stubbing their toe, need to make any predictions?
— Luke

Evolution. Why do we 'need' to have camera eyes and not compound eyes? Why do we 'need' to have legs and not wheels? We just do predict the causes of sensations, it's how our brains work. The cognitive scientists who develop these theories don't just make this stuff up on a coffee break you know. — Isaac

You misunderstand. I mean that most people simply have pain without needing to make any predictions. But this highlights our differences in talking about the issue. You're talking about our brains making predictions, which happens unconsciously, whereas I'm talking about our conscious experiences of having pain sensations. I'm not aware of my brain making "predictions" and I find it a strange way to talk about prediction. I only understand making predictions consciously, like if I say I think it will rain tomorrow. Do our brains have pain sensations? This is why I mentioned a category error before.

Children feel all sorts of things and respond to them. That some of those thing should be labelled 'pain' is obviously something children only learn when they learn a language. That some of these things fall into on group and not another is something they might learn pre-linguistically by observing others in their social group. The idea that they have some kind of 'natural grouping' of some of these sensations which they're just waiting for a label for has been quite soundly refuted by the evidence from psychological studies. It's not, of course, universally held. There's disagreements, but if you want to discuss those disagreements you'll need to cite the studies proposing them so we've got something to discuss. — Isaac

You want me to cite the studies proposing the disagreements that you're referring to? I don't know these studies. I had in mind something along the lines of Wittgenstein:

244. ...How does a human being learn the meaning of names of sensations? For example, of the word “pain”. Here is one possibility: words are connected with the primitive, natural, expressions of sensation and used in their place. A child has hurt himself and he cries; then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behaviour.

257. “What would it be like if human beings did not manifest their pains (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word ‘toothache’.”

Presumably, the reason for these expressions of pain are (consciously experienced) pain sensations.

Did you even read the whole section I wrote after this? Two people's heights are radically different too at the nanometre scale. so now we can't ever say two people are the same height. I don't have a nanometre calibrated ruler, so now I can't say I 'know' what height a person is? — Isaac

This misses the point. People's heights are not private. You can see and measure how tall someone is. You cannot see or measure someone's pain sensations which are private. You can only see and measure someone's pain behaviours which are public.

Every single instance of every single object, property or event is a fuzzy categorisation based on similarities and ignoring certain differences, otherwise we would simply have a billion nouns and be inventing new ones all the time. It's normal to group things by similarity at some scale. — Isaac

You're trying to make this about language again, here, instead of the privacy of subjective experience. It's a given that we use the same words to refer to the same sets of behaviours.

But more to the point you don't have access to that particular set of signals either. — Isaac

What particular set of signals?

It's not private (in the sense that you have access and I don't) it's hidden, in the sense that neither of us have access. — Isaac

What is hidden from us both?

I have indirect access to it via your self-reports, your behaviour, fMRI scans etc. — Isaac

What "it" are you talking about here? My pain sensations?

You have access to it via your working memory, your sematic centres, your somatosensory feedback systems. — Isaac

Are these supposed to represent (my conscious awareness of) the pain sensations that I feel?

Neither is more direct than the other, neither is privileged, neither more accurate. — Isaac

I don't understand. My pain sensations are not accurate? Do I not have the exclusive privilege of having my own pain sensations?

Why can't you be sure about this? Is it due to the privacy and inaccessibility of knowing the subjective experiences of other people?
— Luke

Inaccessibility, yes. Privacy, no. As above, you don't have access either. — Isaac

I don't have access to my own subjective experiences?

So far the best access is from computational neuroscience, but even that is limited by it's own models. Nonetheless, it's better than your own guesswork based on what we know for a fact to be flawed memories and socially mediated self-reports. — Isaac

I still have no idea what "it" you're referring to here. I'm talking about conscious experiences of pain sensations. I don't understand how that can be inaccurate or guesswork. Does someone in pain need to guess whether they're in pain?

fMRI scans, conversation, behavioural observations... — Isaac

These can only measure pain behaviours, not pain sensations.

If these aren't enough for you to know we have the same experiences, then it is a question of 'sameness'. — Isaac

They're not enough, because there is no way to verify the sensations themselves. It is assumed that the same behaviours are caused by the same sensations, and they probably are. But it cannot be verified.

If they have the same neural signature, the same behavioural response, if we understand each other when we talk about them, even in intricate detail, then we've just as good a reason to call them 'the same' as we have to say you and I have 'the same' phone. — Isaac

We can compare and look at each other's phones, though. That's the difference.

Private does not simply mean 'not publicly known' to me. There's a difference between unclaimed property and common land, though neither is privately owned. — Isaac

I don't follow why 'not publicly known' is an insufficient definition. It would be clearer if you could define what 'private' does mean, instead of what it does not mean.

I felt like I already had. Perhaps you could try highlighting the parts you didn't understand. — Isaac

Indirect realism"s weakness is about the trustworthiness of representations. How do you confirm that they're accurate?

I don't see the advantage in throwing out good quality research in favour of your introspection. — Isaac

“...Furthermore, it provides a mathematical specification of ‘what’ the brain is doing; it is suppressing free-energy. If this uses gradient descent, one can derive differential equations that prescribe recognition dynamics that specify ‘how’ the brain might operate....”
(Your link, conclusion)

.....that’s the advantage. The brain does what it does, and it makes no difference to me how it does it. And don’t throw out anything just because of my introspections. Do it for your own, if the occassions arise. It’s called learning, doncha know. Also called mysticism, which ain’t so good. Or good in a strange way, maybe. Dunno, don’t care.
——————

“....one can understand the hierarchical deployment of cortical areas and the nature of message passing among cortical levels in terms of minimising prediction error under hierarchical dynamic models of the world....”

One can understand. Hmmmm. Does that mean one has to calculate? Or might he....you know....introspect?
——————

What ta hell is a hidden state anyway?
— Mww

(reference) — Isaac

“...Causal states link levels, whereas hidden states link dynamics over time and endow the model with memory. (....) In short; a hierarchical form allows models to construct their own priors. This feature is central to many inference procedures....”

....including human reason, in which the construction of priors, is just plain, good ol’ experience. FYI, I can present the same system....without the use of differential equations....which says basically the exact same thing. All that’s happened here, is neuroscience has taken the human subject into the personally inaccessible and generally useless. But that’s ok, really, for, as Kant says....

“...This can never become popular and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for finespun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation....”

.....and by your own admission, this science is itself speculative, so all that’s happened is we’ve substituted an older speculative system for a newer one, which is nonetheless speculative for it.
—————-

An exercise for Occam’s Razor:

“.....For example, we cannot avoid pain unless we remove the noxious stimulus....
(Sound familiar?)

.....In short, we sample the world to ensure our predictions become a self-fulfilling prophecy and surprises are avoided. In this view, perception is enslaved by action to provide veridical predictions (more formally, to make the free- energy a tight bound on surprise) that guides active sampling of the sensorium....”

Or...for all intents and purposes, why not just say we simply reason to the prevention of cause? What the science doesn’t allow for, insofar as differential equations, because they are equalities that “perscribe recognition dynamics” thereby permitting no self-negation, is the fact humans can reason to prevention, then proceed to ignore it. Of course, the proper scientist is well aware of this, so makes allowances for it with “hidden states”, which I take to indicate what the author terms “observation noise” and such-like random stuff.

One thing I noticed: the paper recognizes the human cognitive system as representational; there are eleven instances of that conception therein. Always a good first step, methinks.

Interesting paper nonetheless. Thanks for the exposure.

Private does not simply mean 'not publicly known' to me. — Isaac

But you grant that people can have experiences that aren't publicly know. :up:

No, sensations are biological, 'Pain' is a concept created by a socially communicating group collecting some of those sensations and naming them. — Isaac

Yep.

I had in mind something along the lines of Wittgenstein: — Luke

We might do well to read these in context; especially the missing part of §257:

“What would it be like if human beings did not manifest their pains (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word ‘toothache’.” a Well, let’s assume that the child is a genius and invents a name for the sensation by himself! But then, of course, he couldn’t make himself understood when he used the word. So does he understand the name, without being able to explain its meaning to anyone? But what does it mean to say that he has ‘named his pain’? How has he managed this naming of pain? And whatever he did, what was its purpose? When one says “He gave a name to his sensation”, one forgets that much must be prepared in the language for mere naming to make sense. And if we speak of someone’s giving a name to a pain, the grammar of the word “pain” is what has been prepared here; it indicates the post where the new word is stationed.

And we might add:

248. The sentence “Sensations are private” is comparable to “One plays patience by oneself”.

You're trying to make this about language again, here, instead of the privacy of subjective experience. — Luke

You are trying to make it about the privacy of subjective experience again, instead of the way we use language.

You are trying to make it about the privacy of subjective experience again, instead of the way we use language. — Banno

Uhh, yeah? We've been discussing subjectivity. If the topic of discussion was intended to be the private language argument, then you should have made that clearer in your OP:

If there is a private subjective world, then by definition you cannot see into mine, nor I into yours. and it would not be possible to confirm any commonality.

How can subjectivity be shared? — Banno

Also, you've barely participated in the discussion for the last 20 pages, so why should we change the discussion to suit you?

If the topic of discussion was intended to be the private language argument, then you should have made that clearer in your OP: — Luke

Well, I thought I did, in the very bit you quote, which is a presentation of the private language argument.

I haven't much participated because there has been so little progress, but instead just a churning of the same arguments.

I'm thinking that we've reached the end of what is doable here. — Banno

...but I'll keep one eye on proceedings, just in case.

Well, I thought I did, in the very bit you quote — Banno

I see no mention of language use in that quote; only a very specific mention of subjectivity.

Hm. That you did not recognise this as invoking the private language argument may be a large part of the problem.

Perhaps I should try to set out the objection I have to "intersubjectivity", step by step...

Advocates of the privacy of subjective stuff hold that there is something that is in essence not shareable; they say things like "you cannot feel my pain"

The term "intersubjective" suggests that somehow these private sensations can be recognises in someone else, such that we can speak of "shared" experiences.

Hence we have the prima facie contradiction of shared, yet private, phenomena.

The dissolution of this apparent contradiction comes about by recognising that what was taken to be private subjective stuff is instead an outcome of our shared language -

'Pain' is a concept created by a socially communicating group collecting some of those sensations and naming them. — Isaac

The dissolution of this apparent contradiction comes about by recognising that what was taken to be private subjective stuff is instead an outcome of our shared language - — Banno

The notion that we're in all telepathic isn't likely to gain traction any time soon, but you may be right and we're just all deluded. :up:

This just shows that you have not followed the conversation.

This just shows that you have not followed the conversation. — Banno

I really have. Your assertion is just ridiculous.

Which assertion?

that what was taken to be private subjective stuff is instead an outcome of our shared language - — Banno

This.

OK: now, why is it ridiculous?

OK: now, why is it ridiculous? — Banno

If you've never been sky diving, no amount of communication will convey the experience. If you have, we can easily understand one another.

Sure, language influences us, but it's power is dependent on our similarities: biologically, psychologically, and culturally.

We have the same experiences because we're both human. We each have private pains because you don't have access to my nociceptors. You can only guess how I feel.

The term "intersubjective" suggests that somehow these private sensations can be recognises in someone else, such that we can speak of "shared" experiences. — Banno

How do we recognise private sensations or how are our experiences shared? By seeing other people's behaviours, not their sensations. We can only assume that other people have the same sensations when they behave the same way. We cannot verify the sensations. This is the point of Wittgenstein's beetle and the private language argument: our sensation terms refer to our behaviours/expressions (e.g. of pain), not to our private sensations.

"If we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and name’, the object [i.e. the private sensation] drops out of consideration as irrelevant."

However, the private sensation is only irrelevant to the use of language (i.e. to the language game); it is not irrelevant to us. Our private sensations are very important to each of us, subjectively. Wittgenstein is not making the case that we do not have private sensations, only that we cannot talk about them. We can refer to them or point to them, using the name "sensation", but the we cannot talk about or describe the sensation "object" that drops out of consideration as irrelevant to the language game. Moreover, private sensations are not language, and the impossibility of a private language need not imply the impossibility of a private sensation.

281. “But doesn’t what you say amount to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behaviour?” — It amounts to this: that only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious. [my bolding] — Wittgenstein

The dissolution of this apparent contradiction comes about by recognising that what was taken to be private subjective stuff is instead an outcome of our shared language — Banno

How is "private subjective stuff" an outcome of our language?

...?

...you seem here to be agreeing with me. What is it in your post that you think I would find problematic, if anything?

I assumed you would disagree with this: "Wittgenstein is not making the case that we do not have private sensations, only that we cannot talk about them". That is, I assumed your position to be that the private language argument implies the impossibility of private sensations. Otherwise, why were you complaining that we should be discussing the private language argument instead of the privacy of subjective experiences?

Also, I'm still curious: How is "private subjective stuff" an outcome of our language?

Ah. Wittgenstein is not making the case that we do not have sensations. We might agree to that. Note the absence of "private".

But you would talk of private sensations:

246. In what sense are my sensations private? Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it. In one way this is false, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word “know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know if I’m in pain. Yes, but all the same, not with the certainty with which I know it myself! It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What is it supposed to mean a except perhaps that I am in pain?

Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.

In one way talk of private sensations is false, and in another nonsense.

You would perhaps talk of private subjective stuff; and speak either falsehood or nonsense.

So that we cannot do so is an outcome of language. Language has no place for private subjective stuff. It cannot gain any traction, and hence has no meaning.

The absurdity of the argument, it's non-entity even as a cogent argument, that pain is socially constructed, linguistically mediated and public, that there can be no private experiences of pain, is shown when the question of animals feeling pain is considered.