we don’t tend to consider being on Earth orbiting the Sun. We are, yet now that I’ve drawn attention to this our ‘intentionality’ shifts. As soon as the question of ‘existence’ is brought into play then our ‘intentionality’ shifts to phenomenon as existing ‘objects’. — I like sushi

OK, that makes sense. In my terminology, that would be the active variance reduction seeking if the system relating to the model currently in focus. Our models of the world are utility based, they don't necessarily join up, nor even fail to contradict one another, so focus needs to be confined to the model at hand in order to gain more confirming data for it. Maybe that's still too 'sciency', but I can see some common ground there.

The phenomenon is the subjective regard. — I like sushi

This is the bit I hit a wall with. We 'regard' a phenomena, yes? So having regarded it, we presumably then want to say something about it? Otherwise the activity is simply silent meditation. So when it comes to saying something about it, the words we use must have some effect on the community to whom we're speaking, which means they must either already know, or be able to gather by your actions, what to do with the word you've used. (more simply, what the word refers to, but I'm trying to be accurate here and words do not always refer).

So I kind of get how introspection might allow us to recognise a focus on different models (intentionality?), I get how we could conduct thought experiments on such modes to find out more about them. I'm stuck on how we could ever communicate the results to anyone without invoking community-held (objective) definitions for the words we're using, which means the referrents for those words have to be objectively verifiable to some loose extent.

Alright, so have you ever found out someone was feeling discomfort when you didn't realize it, or vice versa? — Marchesk

Yes. My not noticing the signs and there not being any signs to notice are two different things.

@Marchesk

Also, you haven't tried to answer my questions. How would you know that what you're experiencing is called 'pain'? How do you know you're using the word correctly?

Yes. My not noticing the signs and there not being any signs to notice are two different things. — Isaac

Yes, but we also don't have any method that will allow us to always read the signs.

Also, you haven't tried to answer my questions. How would you know that what you're experiencing is called 'pain'? How do you know you're using the word correctly? — Isaac

The sensation correlates with other human behavior enough of the time in situations that are often painful to use that word for it. There's probably edge cases where I wouldn't be sure whether to call it pain.

Yes, but we also don't have any method that will allow us to always read the signs. — Marchesk

What reason have you got to think this?

The sensation correlates with other human behavior enough of the time in situations that are often painful to use that word for it. — Marchesk

But how would you know that? The sensation which allows you to continue without displaying any signs cannot be the same as the one which does not. Or are you claiming that we are voluntarily in control of all our external behaviors, even the micro expressions, galvanic skin responses, recoil defence etc which experts use to detect things like pain?

If we're not in control of all those autosomic responses, then a sensation which does not cause them must be a different sensation to one which causes them, no?

Even if we were to simply assume the two sensations were similar enough, you'd be positing a mental sensation which had absolutely no effect on you whatsoever. Where would the signal go? Or are you perhaps a dualist?

What reason have you got to think this? — Isaac

Because it would be used by courts and doctors.

Even if we were to simply assume the two sensations were similar enough, you'd be positing a mental sensation which had absolutely no effect on you whatsoever.

I didn't say there was no effect, just that we can't always know what it is in other people. Of course at minimum there is neural activity. But it's not like we have super accurate brain scanners. We don't have anything that's good enough for court to determine truthfulness. Lie detector tests aren't terribly accurate, and neither are juries, police or even shrinks when it comes to reading people.

Again, how would we know? Without any external signs, how do the judges, jurors, doctors etc know that there is some feeling in the subject which they have misidentified (or missed entirely) for you to form this judgement that they regularly do this? I can see how they might temporarily make this mistake, but later find out they were in error. But this later updating of their assessment would be the result of some behavior. Absent of any behaviour at all, they'd have no way to know they were ever wrong and so you'd have no way to know that they regularly get these things wrong.

Also, you haven't tried to answer my questions. How would you know that what you're experiencing is called 'pain'? How do you know you're using the word correctly? — Isaac

You can't use words correctly or incorrectly. If you're asking how do you know that you're using the word the "same way" as someone else (where we're ignoring that "someone elses" are only creations of your own mind in your view), you don't, but what does that matter for anything?

People can feel some way that no external behavior gives a clue to, regardless of what anyone calls the feeling in question.

The way you know that the person had the feeling that no external behavior gave a clue to is that they tell you at some later time. This happens frequently.

Could they be using the term they use in a way that's not at all like how you use the term? Sure. But there's no need to worry about that until it becomes apparent that they must be using the term differently, and there's a communication breakdown.

And could they be lying? Sure. But you can't know this better than what they're telling you. So again, until there's something that makes no sense supposing that they're being honest, and in inverse proportion to potential upshots of trusting them (the more significant the upshots, the more skepticism warranted), normally you just don't worry about whether they're being truthful, and we don't assume that someone isn't truthful.

The way you know that the person had the feeling that no external behavior gave a clue to is that they tell you at some later time. — Terrapin Station

And telling you at some later time isn't a behaviour? Or, if you want to say "well we didn't know at time X", then surely that applies equally to all data. Everything has some delay, even things we observe; we see them move, say, shortly after they actually have moved. We don't start saying that external world movements are mysteriously unknowable to us because there's some period of time where the knowledge was inaccessible. We're just happy to find out when we do.

And telling you at some later time isn't a behaviour? Or, if you want to say "well we didn't know at time X", then surely that applies equally to all data. Everything has some delay, even things we observe; we see them move, say, shortly after they actually have moved. We don't start saying that external world movements are mysteriously unknowable to us because there's some period of time where the knowledge was inaccessible. We're just happy to find out when we do. — Isaac

What the hell are you talking about?

The idea is clearly about someone feeling some way at an earlier time, where there was no behavioral clue that they felt that way at the time, and it's clearly not saying something about there being a nervous system delay in response time.

You're arguing about this and now it turns out that you don't even understand what the topic was. lol

The idea is clearly about someone feeling some way at an earlier time, where there was no behavioral clue that they felt that way at the time — Terrapin Station

Right, and I'm obviously not disputing that fact. I'm disputing the implication drawn earlier in the argument that this means we should accept 'experiences vlike pain as being subjective, inaccessible to third parties.

If this were the case purely because there is a time delay between the experience initiating and us, the third party, being aware of it, then we could apply that logic to every single form of knowledge. There is a delay between an object moving and us being aware of it, we don't use that delay to claim that the movement of objects is mysteriously unavailable to third parties. It is unavailable, for the short time it takes for light to reach our eyes, but we find out eventually, and that's satisfactory, we count that as 'knowable' information.

The situation with feelings is the same. They manifest eventually as behaviours and are therefore knowable to third parties.

Right, and I'm obviously not disputing that fact. I'm disputing the implication drawn earlier in the argument that this means we should accept 'experiences vlike pain as being subjective, inaccessible — Isaac

The reason it's subjective is because it's a mental phenomenon, and the reason it's inaccessible is that the mental phenomenon is not identical to any third-person observable behavior.

Of course, when you don't even really think that there are other people aside from your own model of them, this doesn't pan out so well, because you don't really believe that there are minds other than your own, etc.

the mental phenomenon is not identical to any third-person observable behavior. — Terrapin Station

No, but the mental phenomenon is a disposition towards some behaviour, so it is accessible in exactly the same way all other phenomena of the world are accessible, by their effects.

No, but the mental phenomenon is a disposition towards some behaviour, so it is accessible in exactly the same way all other phenomena of the world are accessible, by their effects. — Isaac

So first, the effects are phenomena. If you only access those phenomena by their effects, you'd never access any phenomena.

So first, the effects are phenomena. If you only access those phenomena by their effects, you'd never access any phenomena. — Terrapin Station

I didn't say that no phenomena weren't directly accessible though. I just said that all phenomena 'of the world' were accessed (in terms of us knowing about them) by other phenomena that they cause. At no point does the phenomena we imagine as being the real object (in your terminology this might be the noumena, the 'real thing'), at no point does that just enter our minds directly, it is some effect it has by which we know of it.

Now for you, the thing we thereby know is some property of reality, for me it's just another phenomena (an imagined object in a speculative model), but this distinction isn't even relevant here. The point here is that whatever 'it' is, we know it by some effect it is having, yet this doesn't cause us to label such knowledge as 'inaccessible to third parties'. The movement of a stone isn't known only to the stone by virtue of the fact that we only see the effect of that movement on our retinas. So why is the disposition of some brain known only to that brain just on the same grounds that we only see the effects of that disposition?

I didn't say that no phenomena weren't directly accessible though. I just said that all phenomena 'of the world' were accessed (in terms of us knowing about them) by other phenomena that they cause. At no point does the phenomena we imagine as being the real object (in your terminology this might be the noumena, the 'real thing'), at no point does that just enter our minds directly, it is some effect it has by which we know of it. — Isaac

Objects are processes, and we can talk about processes that are not normally thought of as objects just as well, because they're phenomena just as well.

Properties of reality are phenomena. "Phenomena" does not refer to "imagined objects . . "

Representationalism is wrong re philosophy of perception.

You know something like light waves by looking at them. Light waves are phenomena. You don't only know them via effects they have on something else.

Objects are processes, and we can talk about processes that are not normally thought of as objects just as well, because they're phenomena just as well. — Terrapin Station

I have no clue how this relates to what I said.

As to the rest of your post...

Yeah, I'm aware of the fact that you have a different opinion, so simply restating it is not contributing anything.

I disagree that phenomena does not refer to imagined objects (in the sense I was using in context) because of my beliefs about how the brain works (all apparent phenomena are imagined objects, models created and tested for efficacy against reality which is not directly accessed).

I disagree that representationalism is wrong re the philosophy of perception. You don't make it so simply by declaring it is.

I disagree that you know light waves by looking at them for the masses of neuroscientific reasons I've been outlining in this thread. Again, simply saying something is the case does not make it so.

If we've now come to the usual point where you just declare whatever seems to you to be the case to actually be the case, then I'm done. All that's left is for you to call me a moron (or a child, or uneducated, whatever is your preferred term de jour) and then tell me my reading comprehension is to blame, then we can call it a day.

I have no clue how this relates to what I said. — Isaac

You wrote, "At no point does the phenomena we imagine as being the real object . . . " I wanted to point out, not just for your sake, but for anyone's sake who might be reading this at any time, that phenomena aren't limited to objects per se.

I disagree that phenomena does not refer to imagined objects — Isaac

I wasn't saying that it can't refer to that. Just that it isn't limited to that. It's not an exhaustive identity or necessary implication for the term in other words.

You don't make it so simply by declaring it is. — Isaac

And no one said as much.

It would be like if I said, "You don't make it so that it's not wrong simply by declaring that one doesn't make it wrong simply by declaring it is." Of course, you weren't saying as much. I could write that, anyway, but it would be kind of dumb to, because I know you weren't saying as much.

for the masses of neuroscientific reasons I've been outlining in this thread. — Isaac

You mean per the model you've created, right?

Thanks for that link. Impressive considerations and precautions taken by the scientists involved to minimize mistaken accounting practices.

Based upon those experiments, I am quite certain that there is some sort of sensitivity to equitable resource distribution(in some non human primates). I am quite certain that there is empathy at work(in some non human primates more-so than others). I am quite certain that there is some sort of expectation at work(in all non human primates). I'm not as certain that there is enough evidence to conclude a sense of fairness at work in the thought and belief of any particular candidate. However, it's quite interesting that some dominant individuals will voluntarily share.

Again, you've simply asserted that language use is required for these things, I'd like to hear your full argument for how you link the two. At the moment, as I see it, you seem to be saying that gestures, facial expressions, arrangements of neurons in any way...none of these are capable of carrying the content you're looking for, but making a particular shape with my mouth and voice box magically carries this other world of content. I just don't see how at all. — Isaac

It's not so much as making a particular shape with one's mouth and voice box carries content. In fact, on my view, talking about carrying content doesn't make much sense at all. The content of thought and belief is not some monolithic structure capable of being carried.

More later...

Right, and I'm obviously not disputing that fact. I'm disputing the implication drawn earlier in the argument that this means we should accept 'experiences like pain as being subjective, inaccessible to third parties. — Isaac

The experience itself is inaccessible, because you don't have someone else's pain. But you might very well find out someone is or was in pain, and have empathy or recall a similar painful experience. So yes, the mental phenomena has related effects. But we can't always know what they are, or infer the correct mental states.

Luckily we share a similar biology with other humans, so often enough we can understand other people's mental states. But not always. Men can't know exactly what it's like to give birth. And we never know fully what it is to be someone else. Everyone has their own subjective experience of themselves and the world.

This goes back to a dispute over meaning. You seemed to be arguing for a behavioral view that pain is understood as something objective and not the experience of pain itself, because otherwise how could have learned to identify pain? To which I say hogwash, pain without the experience is meaningless.

Therefore, we understood pain to be something experienced that often but not always has observable effects, like hopping around and yelling. And it's something that can be faked.

Keep in mind that he doesn't even think there are any objective properties. And he believes that the world he experiences is simply a model of his own creation. So he doesn't really believe there are other minds per se.

If so, I guess he's arguing with himself to sharpen up the model? I didn't get to read through the entire thread so I'm not sure where that part of the arguments took place.

I'm just happy to be part of someone's world.

I don't recall if it was in this thread. But yeah, he's basically said that he posts on here to work on his own model.

...he's basically said that he posts on here to work on his own model. — Terrapin Station

How else?

:smile:

There are a bunch of other things we could be doing. For one, imagine if folks were interested in others persons' views simply because they find other people and their differences interesting.

This is the bit I hit a wall with. We 'regard' a phenomena, yes? So having regarded it, we presumably then want to say something about it? Otherwise the activity is simply silent meditation. So when it comes to saying something about it, the words we use must have some effect on the community to whom we're speaking, which means they must either already know, or be able to gather by your actions, what to do with the word you've used. (more simply, what the word refers to, but I'm trying to be accurate here and words do not always refer).

So I kind of get how introspection might allow us to recognise a focus on different models (intentionality?), I get how we could conduct thought experiments on such modes to find out more about them. I'm stuck on how we could ever communicate the results to anyone without invoking community-held (objective) definitions for the words we're using, which means the referrents for those words have to be objectively verifiable to some loose extent. — Isaac

I admit that the use of ‘regard’ has to be taken in a broad and abstract manner here. I am not talking about my ‘regard’ for an object anymore than I mean my ‘intention’ when talking about ‘Intentionality’. The ‘regard’ is the ‘mode’ in the sense I meant it.

Phenomenon is what is ‘apparent’ and Phenomenology is the investigation into the ‘modes’ (intentionality) that ‘give aboutness’.

The phenomenon is the subjective regard. — I like sushi

That sentence was more of an afterthought. Probably better to put a line through it as an attempt to explain my understanding of Phenomenology rather than as a certified exemplar of what phenomenology is about.

I am puzzled by how so many people see Heidegger and/or Gadamer as doing something different than what Husserl set out. From my reading they have helped elucidate certain aspects of phenomenology, but that is exactly the problem as well - meaning they appear, to me at least, to have taken a part as the whole (note: please ignore this paragraph if you want. Just voicing a point that has bothered me for a while.)

Based upon those experiments, I am quite certain that there is some sort of sensitivity to equitable resource distribution(in some non human primates). I am quite certain that there is empathy at work(in some non human primates more-so than others). I am quite certain that there is some sort of expectation at work(in all non human primates). I'm not as certain that there is enough evidence to conclude a sense of fairness at work in the thought and belief of any particular candidate. However, it's quite interesting that some dominant individuals will voluntarily share. — creativesoul

Yes. I think that's a pretty good summary of where the current evidence is at, in terms of what we can be fairly sure of and what there remains some considerable doubt over. I'm basically at the same place as you, only I'm presuming they do have a sense of fairness and waiting to see if I'm proven wrong by further experiments, you're presuming they don't and waiting to see if you're proven wrong by further experiments. Possibly this is because of other philosophical commitments we both have about the nature of mental phenomena.

you don't have someone else's pain. — Marchesk

What would "someone else's pain" mean here? I don't have you're chair either but it doesn't prevent me from both understanding what a chair is and talking coherently about chairs.

we can't always know what they are, or infer the correct mental states. — Marchesk

But we've been through this without you answering my questions, but you're just circling back to the same assertion. If there are times when we can't know what they are ('can't', not just 'don't happen to on that particular occasion'), then how would we ever know what word to use to describe it?

Men can't know exactly what it's like to give birth. — Marchesk

This just presumes there's 'something it's like' to give birth, which is the whole matter under contention here. If you're talking about that exact set of feelings, then no one can know what it's like to give birth, not even the person who's just given birth. Our memories absolutely demonstrably do not provide us with an accurate account of the feelings we experienced even seconds ago. In order for anyone to know what anything 'is like' by that token we have to generalise. In which case a detailed verbal description gives a perfectly good account of 'what it's like'.

Everyone has their own subjective experience of themselves and the world. — Marchesk

How would you know this? There are 7 billion people on the planet right now, about 10 billion ever. Are there 10 billion combinations of feelings anyone can have at any moment? What if there were 100 billion people, would there still be enough variety for everyone to have a unique set? Will we run out at some time? What is the mechanism which prevents two people from having the same set?

To which I say hogwash, pain without the experience is meaningless. — Marchesk

What is 'the experience' if not the behaviours?

And it's something that can be faked. — Marchesk

Again, how would you know this unless you found out they were faking by some eventual difference between their behaviour and the behaviour of someone who is genuinely in pain?

If so, I guess he's arguing with himself — Marchesk

This doesn't follow. A belief that the distinction of another mind is just a model is not the same as saying that only I exist. I'm quite convinced the external world exists (I actually think it is impossible to genuinely doubt that), I just don't agree that the distinctions we draw are real outside of our minds. It's like star signs, all there really are is just stars, we drew lines between some of them to make lions, bears, hunters etc, but those aren't real properties of those stars, we just looked at them that way.

(note - an reasonable alternative, to my mind, would be to say that the similarity to a bear was a property of that cluster of stars, but everything else it could possibly be is also a property, leaving everything with a potentially infinite set of properties. I think this makes sense, but is far less elegant)