YOu seem to be thinking of privacy in terms of ownership — Banno

Yep. Ownership of the car, possession of the sensation. Same principle.

You continue in the belief that there is a meaning for each word, to be found in one's private subconscious. — Banno

Not believe. Logically speculate.
Not in subconscious. In understanding.
Not meaning of each word. Meaning of each representation, expressible by a word.

My objection is not that each person does not have a sensation of the moon; it is that this sensation is private. — Banno

Each person. Ownership/possession. ‘Nuff said.

In so far as it is of the moon, it is public. — Banno

Moon-object-public; sensation of the moon-representation-not public.

In so far as it is private, it is not a sensation of anything. — Banno

It is a sensation of a yet undetermined something.

The Kantian analysis is outdated. — Banno

Yet the paradigm shift in human thought that it was, has not itself been shifted.

but the judge wasn't going to look at the pictures. — Banno

Little bit of that kinda judge in all of us, ne c’est pas?

There would be no nervous input within the brain? — Banno

Ironically the brain isn't innervated, so no, you can't feel your brain.

Not even half a question.

Yep. Ownership of the car, possession of the sensation. Same principle. — Mww

Ah, so is it a deed or title that establishes ownership of your sensations?

Not even half a question. — frank

Certainly not a conversation.

The common view is that pain and pleasure are representations of nervous input. We don't know how awareness and representation work. This view goes back to Descartes with the plucked strings.

There's a contradiction at the base of this view, though, so it's probably a good idea to take it with a grain of salt. — frank

What would be this contradiction?

So there aren't unpleasant sensations until we create words for them? That makes no evolutionary sense. — Marchesk

Why not? What's evolution got to do with the judgement of sensations? Evolution requires that appropriate behaviours are produced in response to environmental circumstances. It has no preference at all for how.

Conversely, it is impossible for science to distinguish the functions of reason with respect to components of the brain. That is to say, imagination is not to be found in the region containing this component, understanding in that region, moral constitution thataway, aesthetics over yonder. Cognition....aisle three right; opinion....level ten left. — Mww

True to a point, but not entirely. I mean simple lesion studies can isolate broad parts of the brain associated with those things. Remove a section of the brain and find people incapable of such activity and you have your culprit. With the more general functions you list, it's much more difficult, but it can be done to a degree. The main point was that there's a temporal aspect in both models - A follows B - it's somewhere both agree of terms (what it means for something to follow something else). That means that without getting into the other areas of dispute, when one model says "I feel the switch and then I recognise the light turned on" It can justifiably be countered with the other by saying " We both agree what A follows B means, right? Well your A does not follow your B".

does the exact same region of my brain respond to my understanding of race riots, as it does to my understanding of internal combustion engines? — Mww

In all likelihood, you literally have a neuron (or neural cluster) which will respond to 'race riots' and only to race riots, likewise with 'internal combustion engines'. Is the same region involved in the whole production of response?...It depends on what you mean by 'the same'. As per my discussion with Luke - 'the same' is not an exact measure, never can be. so yeah, it is roughly the same regions that deal with the same types of thing. They become very specialised.

Everydayman will the more readily accept that he thinks by means and ends of reason, than he will accept mathematical algorithms and natural law as necessary for how he thinks. — Mww

So I'm finding...

One does not think the pain he is in, one does not report anything whatsoever to himself — Mww

Exactly. There is no 'your pain' for me to know in that sense - unless we use the term technically (which I reserve the necessary right to do). A doctor must try to eliminate their patient's pain, and they must do so by treating 'their pain' as if it were the sum of the activity of their nociceptor system and the various brain regions responding to it. One does not want to open a packet of painkillers to find nothing but a note saying "What is pain anyway, man", one wants to find chemical which interferes with prostaglandin release, or prevents activity at synaptic clefts within the nervous system by binding opioids there.

And the upshot of that is that it is improper to talk of representing our own pains and pleasures. "I have a pain in my hand" is not like "I have an iPhone in my hand"; it is more like "Ouch!" — Banno

True. It seems to me this is at the heart of the problem here. As above, I think there is a language game in which pain is a thing, it's a technical game between doctors, or research scientists where pain is necessarily treated as the sum of certain activity in a particular region of the central nervous system. One might, in this game, say "I have a pain in my body" and mean exactly the same thing as "I have an iPhone in my hand". The problem we find here is that some want to take that technical definition to show that 'pain' is inherently private (happens inside a closed physiological system), and then apply it outside of it's proper game, to say that the experience must therefore be private. We keep crossing over games and seeing words used outside of the context in which they mean anything.

It's not a model. I'm telling you what I haven't experienced. As far as I know, it is logically impossible to experience such a thing, because I cannot have anybody else's experiences. — Luke

That's just a repeat of the same assertion. Why is it logically impossible for you to have another's experiences?

Perhaps there's not such thing as 'your own' sensations at all, by your definition. — Isaac


Perhaps there's no such thing as 'your own' brain at all, by your definition. — Luke

Well no, my definition of 'your brain' is quite simple. It's the one in your head. You want to deny that the experiences you have are the ones in your head, you want to detach experiences from any physical origin, so you've no similar anchor.

Then please explain how you can see or experience or verify what other people's sensations feel/are like. — Luke

I have been doing so for the last 36 pages.

You can perceive someone else's behaviours, but you cannot perceive someone else's sensations. — Luke

Then where are these 'sensations' such that I cannot see them by any means. How do you detect them, but I can't? What is the mechanism by which they interact with the physical world, but only for you? Is there a keypass you're given at birth or something?

If I tell you how I feel, all you will perceive are my behaviours, not my sensations. If you could perceive my sensations, then I wouldn't need to tell you how I feel. — Luke

I bet you if I looked at an fMRI scan of your brain I could tell you how you feel 75% of the time, and the technology is still in its infancy. Will it ever reach 100%? No, I don't believe that's possible because of the inherent complexity in a systems with as many nodes as a brain. But likewise no thermometer will ever read the temperature that accurately either, it doesn't prevent us from talking about the temperature of the room.

How do you know that "behavioural consequence is a property of your sensations"? — Luke

So you're now positing that sensations have no consequence? Earlier you posited they have no cause. Have I really just wasted 37 pages of discussion with you about a phenomena which you believe has neither cause nor consequence? We might as well have been talking about the teapot orbiting Mars.

Again, this is not analagous. We can verify the makes and models of our phones as easily as we can verify the phones themselves: simply by looking at them. — Luke

Yes, and we can verify the associated behaviours, speech and neural activity of sensations just by looking at them. Those with the same behaviours, speech, neural activity etc... are 'the same' sensations, in exactly the same manner in which two phones of the same make and model are 'the same' phone. Make and model are properties of phone (though not the only properties). Associated behaviours, speech and neural activity are properties of sensations (though not the only properties).

I don't have pains unless I am consciously aware of them, or unless they hurt. I don't see how I've equivocated on this. — Luke

There is no 'them' to be ware of. It's just not how your brain works. There's no 'pain' sitting somewhere in your brain fro your conscious to rummage around and find. You don't become aware of pain, you infer pain. It is a model created from the the various physiological and environmental inputs that neural cluster receives. You learn this model. That learning (typically) takes place in a social environment.

If I'm not consciously introspecting and 'seeking out' pain signals, then I'm not the one doing it. — Luke

Which is itself a contradiction. What is the 'I' in the first part. There's something you referred to as 'I' there which is not consciously introspecting. Then you say that there is no 'I' apart from that which is consciously introspecting.

Also, does this imply that near-identical bodies produce (only) near-identical experiences? Perhaps this is what Isaac is getting at with his talk about 'sameness'. — Luke


I think so. — khaled

Yes. That's right.

Whether we adopt a purely physicalist model or a social language development model it doesn't matter. We either have some idea that things are caused (in which case the same set of causes will result in roughly the same thing. Or we adopt the idea that things are uncaused, in which case anything goes and there's no matter here to discuss.

Under the first model, the more reasonable presumption about experiences is that the same external causes acting on the same basic physiology in roughly the same social environment would yield roughly the same experience.

To assume otherwise is to either impute a completely hidden cause (one that has defied all our attempts to investigate it) for no reason at all, or to suggest that experiences are not caused by anything at all but rather reside in some alternate realm detached form ours (in which case how do we know about them?)

It all comes down, to me, to (correct example this time!) Wittgenstein's 'stand roughly there' in PI88. For me the model is neurological, so that's the one I'll use, but linguistically it's the same. We can see a cascade of neural activity preceding a person's report of some experience. That cascade is like the water pouting from a tap. There are splashes and micro-droplets all over the place in a (basically) chaotic, unpredictable distribution, but that does not in any way prevent us from describing the course of the water from the spout to the plughole.

Moon-object-public; sensation of the moon-representation-not public. — Mww

Fixed it.

Ah, so is it a deed or title that establishes ownership of your sensations? — Banno

Wow. None but the most daring intellectual acuity could excavate that from what I wrote.

Moon-object-public; sensation of the moon-representation-not public.
— Mww

Fixed it. — Isaac

Neither sensation of the-representation-not public, nor, sensation of the representation-not public, is a fix.

Sensation of the....is empty; sensation of the representation.....is backwards.

Moon-object-public; sensation of -representation-not public. — Mww


Fixed it. — Isaac

I'm going to have to declare victory here. :party:

What would be this contradiction? — Olivier5

That we rely on so-called representations to learn about evidence of ID (indirect realism) when the theory itself implies that doing this is unwarranted.

Moon-object-public; sensation of -representation-not public. — Mww
Fixed it.
— Isaac
I'm going to have to declare victory here. :party: — frank

Victory....over what?

Victory....over what? — Mww

The forces of evil?

sensation of the representation.....is backwards. — Mww

Backwards? How so?

With the more general functions you list, it's much more difficult, but it can be done to a degree. — Isaac

To a degree, yes, limited by technology and natural law. Metaphysics is limited only by logic, so as long as the logic holds, what metaphysics does, can be complete. On the other hand, Whatever degree science attains necessarily conforms to states-of affairs, while metaphysics can only conform to possible states of affairs. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
—————

One does not think the pain he is in, one does not report anything whatsoever to himself
— Mww

Exactly. There is no 'your pain' for me to know in that sense - unless we use the term technically (which I reserve the necessary right to do). — Isaac

Cool. You use the term technically, I’ll use it conceptually. We’ll end up in the same place.
————-

Everydayman will the more readily accept that he thinks by means and ends of reason, than he will accept mathematical algorithms and natural law as necessary for how he thinks.
— Mww

So I'm finding... — Isaac

But not admitting to being included? What are you when you close your reference manuals and take off your lab coat? I admit that sometimes I flash on which network path might be energized for whatever I’m doing at the time, but when it comes down to reading the expiration date on that primo, over-priced Italian mozzarella......Campania, not Florence, I’ll have you know......nary a single neurotransmitter nor any differential equation, enters my attention.
—————

I think there is a language game in which pain is a thing, it's a technical game between doctors, or research scientists where pain is necessarily treated as the sum of certain activity in a particular region of the central nervous system. One might, in this game, say "I have a pain in my body" and mean exactly the same thing as "I have an iPhone in my hand". — Isaac

This implies doctors or research scientists play the technical language game in treating pain as a thing. No proper metaphysician, while agreeing with the antecedent (the sum of certain activity), would make the mistake implied by the consequent (the one means the same as the other).

The problem we find here is that some want to take that technical definition to show that 'pain' is inherently private (happens inside a closed physiological system), — Isaac

If doctors treat pain as a thing, in that it is the sum of certain activity in (...) the central nervous system, and the central nervous system is a closed physiological system, and a closed physiological systems implies containment in a single environment......then how is it a problem that some (presumably not doctors), want to call pain inherently private, while rejecting the notion that pain is a thing?

I’m not sure you’re actually claiming doctors treat pain as a thing. I rather think doctors want me to treat pain as a thing, when one asks me to grade it on a scale of one-to-ten. I reallyreallyreally detest such language games as these, and by association, the attempted philosophy that is manufactured in conjunction with them.

Just between you and me, I would never trust a doctor that asks me to scale my pain from 1-10, over a doctor that asks me to describe what my pain feels like and where it feels like it is located.

sensation of the representation.....is backwards.
— Mww

Backwards? How so? — Isaac

Sensation of the representation implies representation comes before the sensation, which is backwards.

Sensation is a physical event; representation of it is a subconscious event which necessarily follows from the physical event, and is called phenomenon. From your point of view, perhaps, that which happens along nerves between the incident and registration in the brain. Subconscious physical information transfer for you, metaphysical subconscious ground of empirical knowledge for me.

Yep. Ownership of the car, possession of the sensation. Same principle. — Mww

Weird. It's what you said. You can I presume show documentation for ownership of your car. Can you show documentation for ownership of your sensations? If, as you say, the ownership follows the same principle.

Hey, It's your theory. I'm just following up on the consequences.

That we rely on so-called representations to learn about evidence of ID (indirect realism) when the theory itself implies that doing this is unwarranted. — frank

The theory does not say that our trust in our observations is unwarranted, only that it has to be assumed. We have to trust our senses, at least until proven otherwise.

The theory does not say that our trust in our observations is unwarranted, only that it has to be assumed — Olivier5

Right. Bare assumptions are unwarranted. That's not to say you shouldn't have them. it just means you can't account for your confidence.

We have to trust our senses, at least until proven otherwise. — Olivier5

Isaac appeared to be starting from ID and concluding that we shouldn't trust introspection. That's why I brought it up.

Right. Bare assumptions are unwarranted. That's not to say you shouldn't have them. it just means you can't account for your confidence. — frank

Right, in the non-pejorative meaning of 'unwarranred' (without evidence).

Isaac appeared to be starting from ID and concluding that we shouldn't trust introspection. That's why I brought it up. — frank

Ahah. True that in an ID perspective, any attentive perception involves some introspection, in at least two ways: 1) passively, the mechanics of perception in an ID model involve a "mental picture" that one looks at; 2) actively, the ID observer must guard against possible errors or biases by checking things from different angles, and with different senses (a plastic replica of an apple may looks very much like an apple but if I hold it and smell it, not so much), so the ID observer actively directs her senses and to do that effectively she needs to "looks at herself looking", which involves active introspection.

I think so, yes. But since it says we never see the world unmediated, it just invites us to ask how close the world is to our models, or if we just think we're modelling something when the real situation is Berkeley style idealism.

There are various ways we could deal with the problem. I don't think one way is really any better than the others, but then I don't have any attachment to any particular ontology.

. But since it says we never see the world unmediated, it just invites us to ask how close the world is to our models — frank

It also invites us to examine the mediation itself and try to understand how it works, which is literally what Isaac is working on.

:up:

What, you have documentation for everything you own?

It also invites us to examine the mediation itself and try to understand how it works, which is literally what Isaac is working on. — Olivier5

Problem is if mediation is a general problem for our understanding, then our understanding of the mediation is no less mediated, and hence no less problematic, than any other understanding.

So what....I played fast and loose with “same principle”. I still see no evidence that you grasped the intention of the paragraph, but rather, misdirected it where it was never meant to go.

Anyway....old news. Once missed, twice gone.

That's just a repeat of the same assertion. Why is it logically impossible for you to have another's experiences? — Isaac

Because I'd have to be that person in order to have their experiences. I can only have my own experiences.

You want to deny that the experiences you have are the ones in your head, you want to detach experiences from any physical origin, so you've no similar anchor. — Isaac

I've never said that.

You can perceive someone else's behaviours, but you cannot perceive someone else's sensations.
— Luke

Then where are these 'sensations' such that I cannot see them by any means. How do you detect them, but I can't? — Isaac

I can't perceive other people's sensations, either. I can only detect my own.

How do you know that "behavioural consequence is a property of your sensations"?
— Luke

So you're now positing that sensations have no consequence? — Isaac

I'm not positing anything. I asked you a question.

Yes, and we can verify the associated behaviours, speech and neural activity of sensations just by looking at them. — Isaac

But we cannot verify the sensations just by looking at them. That's the whole point.

We can either verify the phone by looking at the make and model or we can verify the make and model by looking at the phone, so it's not analogous.

I bet you if I looked at an fMRI scan of your brain I could tell you how you feel 75% of the time, and the technology is still in its infancy. Will it ever reach 100%? No, I don't believe that's possible — Isaac

If you can verify sensations "just by looking" at the associated behaviours, then why can you tell me how I feel only 75% of the time? Why will it never reach 100%? Can you only determine the make and model of someone else's phone 75% of the time? The difference is not a matter of technology. The difference is that you cannot perceive someone else's sensations.

I don't have pains unless I am consciously aware of them, or unless they hurt. I don't see how I've equivocated on this.
— Luke

There is no 'them' to be ware of. — Isaac

There are no pain sensations?

There's no 'pain' sitting somewhere in your brain fro your conscious to rummage around and find. — Isaac

That's the point I was making: I don't consciously look around in my brain for them.

You don't become aware of pain, you infer pain. — Isaac

Infer it from what? On the basis of what evidence or reasoning do I make this inference?

It is a model created from the the various physiological and environmental inputs that neural cluster receives. — Isaac

Pain sensations are an illusion?

If I'm not consciously introspecting and 'seeking out' pain signals, then I'm not the one doing it.
— Luke

Which is itself a contradiction. What is the 'I' in the first part. There's something you referred to as 'I' there which is not consciously introspecting. Then you say that there is no 'I' apart from that which is consciously introspecting. — Isaac

If it's not me (my conscious mind) doing the introspecting, then it's not me (my conscious mind) doing it. How is that contradictory?

Under the first model, the more reasonable presumption about experiences is that the same external causes acting on the same basic physiology in roughly the same social environment would yield roughly the same experience. — Isaac

Why say "presumption" if you can verify sensations "just by looking"?

To assume otherwise is to either impute a completely hidden cause — Isaac

All the causes and effects that you can measure are behavioural. How do you measure the sensations? How do you even know that the behaviours are associated with any sensations?

Why not? What's evolution got to do with the judgement of sensations? Evolution requires that appropriate behaviours are produced in response to environmental circumstances. It has no preference at all for how. — Isaac

How do you suppose behaviors are produced in response to environmental circumstances? The brain must be doing something with the manifold of raw sensation. Something like cognition.

Intersubjectivity is simply the convergence of, sharing, broadly speaking, mental content shaped by particular worldviews that paint the world as of a certain character or being of a particular nature.

I was initially puzzled by the fact that intersubjectivity is based on multiple "observers" and the agreement of their thoughts and that's precisely how objectivity is defined.

How then can intersubjectivity be something different from objectivity?

I have overlooked a simple truth: people may simply agree on an issue without subjecting the issue to rigorous examination. A consensus can be arrived at in the complete absence of analysis. Ergo, the need to isolate this particular variety of agreement between people as an entity in its own right - intersubjectivity as distinct from objectivity.