You mean preferences?
— Posty McPostface

Yes, but, there are things that we like, and that stronger word is appropriate too. And I suggest that likes are what our life is really about and for..

I mean, there's a tale in the realm of economics that asserts that diamonds are more valuable than water; but, not at all times.

Quite so.

Michael Ossipoff

Are you a Tractarian by any chance? The world is the totality of facts not things. Therefore, we must analyze the state space we both inhabit. This can only be done through perfect asymmetrical information sharing. — Posty McPostface

I love the later Wittgenstein, though the aesthetic/ethical thrust of the TLP is great. To me it's not particularly useful to say that the world is the totality of facts. Or it's useful for only one particular kind of purpose. I think roughly that Wittgenstein was annoyed at people being scientistic about religion and art, and that that was part of his goal, to reveal the mystery by clearing out the confusion.

To me it's not particularly useful to say that the world is the totality of facts. Or its useful for one particular purpose. I think roughly that Wittgenstein was annoyed at people being scientistic about religion and art, and that that was part of his goal, to reveal the mystery by clearing out the confusion. — macrosoft

Indeed. But, what's wrong with stating that the world is the totality of facts and not things? This seems elementary to me.

I mean "preferences" is true, but it doesn't sound like as much fun as "likes".

Michael Ossipoff

Ideas are mental phenomena. As such, they occur "in persons' heads." They're literally brain states that the person has--it's what it's like to BE that brain (or rather those parts of that brain), in those dynamic states. — Terrapin Station

I don't think this does justice to what we mean and experience. I can totally relate, though, to relating our experiences of being a brain to measurable aspects of the brain as an object. I know that I can swallow certain pills and make pain go away. But really we don't talk about our thoughts and feelings in the same way that we talk about objects. We can say that thoughts and feelings are 'really' just objects, but this seems to add too much to the uncontroversial relationship of thoughts/feelings and brains.

Indeed. But, what's wrong with stating that the world is the totality of facts and not things? This seems elementary to me. — Posty McPostface

I'm not even saying I disagree, but what is a fact for you? Merely offering the phrase out of context doesn't say much. This is my tedious meaning holism. To figure out what that sentence means to you, I have to get to know you. By all means, tell me how it exists for you in context.

I mean "preferences" is true, but it doesn't sound like as much fun. — Michael Ossipoff

What do you mean by this?

I'm not even saying I disagree, but what is a fact for you? Merely offering the phrase out of context doesn't say much. This is my tedious meaning holism. To figure out what that sentence means to you, I have to get to know you. By all means, tell me how it exists for you in context. — macrosoft

But, I have expressed holism by stating that the totality of the world are facts.

Sounds that people can make with their mouths, things they can type or handwrite, body motions they can make, etc. are not at all the same as ideas they have. Those things are correlated to ideas, but they're not the same as them. — Terrapin Station

Agreed, and the light that hits are eyes is not the tree. But one can say that we see the tree, that the light reveals the tree to us through our eyes. So the marks and noises communicate something we call meaning. On the level of preferences, I lean this way.

But, I have expressed holism by stating that the totality of the world are facts. — Posty McPostface

If you mean that all the facts are entangled in a system, then that is my cup of tea. If you mean that the world is 'primordially' intelligible, then I agree. If you mean that the world is made up of sharp and clear propositions that are the case, then I don't agree.

If you mean that all the facts are entangled in a system, then that is my cup of tea. — macrosoft

Glad we're on the same page, then. I mean to assert that things are really just facts that we can agree on. There are also bedrock beliefs we can agree on.

I mean to assert that things are really just facts that we can agree on. There are also bedrock beliefs we can agree on. — Posty McPostface

Oh, OK. Then yes. I like that. I would just add that we don't have to 'have them in mind.' They are there like a dark background for the most part. Just think about how much we take for granted as we glide around the furniture on the way to the fridge.

They are there like a dark background for the most part. — macrosoft

Yeah, or the stuff we can all agree on that we stand upon.

Yeah, or the stuff we can all agree on that we stand upon. — Posty McPostface

Right. And for me this is the real ground. And it's not an exact ground. It is a fuzzy darkness, though we can always shine a light here or there when necessary. I don't check to see if I have hands before I reach for my coffee.

Firstly, unless we have possessive desires, there are too many apostrophes in the title.

Secondly, if @Terrapin Station is right, how do we understand what he meant?

Firstly, unless we have possessive desires, there are too many apostrophes in the title. — Banno

Oh, understood. I meant to imply that want's are just out there hanging around, not doing anything useful with language.

I don't check to see if I have hands before I reach for my coffee. — macrosoft

Hmm, this is ambiguous. Don't you agree that because I have two hands (fortunately) that the external world exists?

Hmm, this is ambiguous. Don't you agree that because I have two hands (fortunately) that the external world exists? — Posty McPostface

Yeah, I'd say that of course the external world exists. My point is maybe that it doesn't exist as a theoretical object. It's not like we have complicated metaphysical theses tucked in our 'subconscious.' No. I'd say that we start with a blurry or rough sense of the shared world as well as a shared language and then we build our spiderwebs to 'prove'(absurdly) the things we have to take for granted in order to build these webs in the first place. It's something like methodological stupidity (or methodological skepticism, more generously.)

Kind of like proofs of God. Usually they are constructed by believers who don't need proof but would like to scratch a peculiar intellectual itch.

*I'm also out of time for now, so I'll just add a methodological comment. Note that I am not trying to 'prove' my statements. Why not? Because my claim is that I am only pointing out what we already know but mostly don't notice. What gets in the way of this noticing is lots of inherited baggage, seductive images of what things 'must' be. The 'cure' is introspection and just looking at how 'you' (my skeptical reader in general) experience ordinary meaning in ordinary life, the 'external world,' the presence of others, etc. Non-theoretical living made visible to a theorizing that often only looks to itself as an exhaustive image of life.

Banno, unenlightened, what do you chaps think? — Posty McPostface

You may want my input, but you don't need it.

You may want my input, but you don't need it. — unenlightened

But, your input is highly valued. :)

I just mean that though likes can be called preferences, that word sounds unnecessarily neutral. "Likes" more fully expresses their positive nature.

Michael Ossipoff

I just mean that though likes can be called preferences, that word sounds unnecessarily neutral. "Likes" more fully expresses their positive nature. — Michael Ossipoff

But, water is important to me regardless of however much I like or dislike it.

I don't think this does justice to what we mean and experience. I can totally relate, though, to relating our experiences of being a brain to measurable aspects of the brain as an object. I know that I can swallow certain pills and make pain go away. But really we don't talk about our thoughts and feelings in the same way that we talk about objects. We can say that thoughts and feelings are 'really' just objects, but this seems to add too much to the uncontroversial relationship of thoughts/feelings and brains. — macrosoft

Why do you think that it's important for philosophizing to be consistent with the way that most people talk about something? What if the way that those people talk about something is based on incorrect beliefs?

Agreed, and the light that hits are eyes is not the tree. But one can say that we see the tree, that the light reveals the tree to us through our eyes. So the marks and noises communicate something we call meaning. On the level of preferences, I lean this way. — macrosoft

The sound/meaning relationship is very abstract, though, and there's no way for anyone else to check just what the correlations are.

Secondly, if Terrapin Station is right, how do we understand what he meant? — Banno

By the fact that understanding and communication do not at all work via literally sharing meanings.

Then how do they work?

Why do you think that it's important for philosophizing to be consistent with the way that most people talk about something? What if the way that those people talk about something is based on incorrect beliefs — Terrapin Station

IMO, it's very tempting to understand an 'ordinary language' position in terms of an ought. And in some cases an ought may come along for the ride. But for me any kind of ought is secondary. I'm trying to describe what is, as I experience it. The 'way most people talk about something' is the metalanguage withing which we construct our ideal object languages (AKA says what counts as real). For the most part, these object languages are the concern of a few experts, academics or in-their-free-time, who largely see themselves as talking about what is really real and yet don't change their actions in the world significantly with the rise or the fall of a thesis. Do I see the tree? Or do I see my seeing of the tree? Either way I swerve my car to miss it, or I swerve my seeing of the car to miss the seeing of the tree. (My tiny ought sneaks in here as a preference for the simpler expression, but I understand why others emphasize mediation at the expense of style.)

Don't get me wrong. I think meanings are important, even if they don't change our actions. Maybe they make us happier to do the things we were going to do anyway. The 'value' of life is maybe mostly in the so-called subjective realm. A person might be happy in a clam living in a single-wide trailer, smoking weed, and misreading Hegel on the typewriter. (That's not me, but I can think of far worse fates.)

By the fact that understanding and communication do not at all work via literally sharing meanings. — Terrapin Station

But why add this 'literally'? Doesn't this assume that uses of 'sharing meanings' are employing some kind of fancy metaphysical machinery that you object to? But I don't think they are. We have a kind of pre-theoretical familiarity and skill with language. That is what I'm aiming at, not an ought but the natural consequences of the perception of an is. To grasp language in a new way is to rethink what you have been asking it to do. An architect draws up plans for a house made of bricks, say, and then discoverers that the only material available is flesh, living flesh.

I don't know what to make out of that superficial distinctions you have made. Thoughts?

I don't know what to make out of that superficial distinctions you have made. Thoughts — Posty McPostface

Could you go into detail, and say what you think is the same? (What is the illusion of difference that I am laboring under?)

How about this: if I point down the road at truck coming over the hill, then I'm not telling you to not lie down in the road, but you are less likely to lie in the road just then. Similarly, I see language in a way that doesn't match up with the way people tend to talk about it theoretically as they try to do philosophy with it, in this context of the vision of language that I find questionable.