E.g. à la Witty's "private language argument", etc. — 180 Proof

Indeed, that's what I had in mind. Also Derrida's related take:

Could we maintain that, following the death of the receiver, or even of both partners, the mark left by one of them is still writing? Yes, to the extent that, organized by a code, even an unknown and nonlinguistic one, it is constituted in its identity as mark by its iterability, in the absence of such and such a person, and hence ultimately of every empirically determined "subject." This implies that there is no such thing as a code-organon of iterability-which could be structurally secret. The possibility of repeating and thus of identifying the marks is implicit in every code, making it into a network [une grille] that is communicable, transmittable, decipherable, iterable for a third, and hence for every possible user in general. To be what it is, all writing must, therefore, be capable of functioning in the radical absence of every empirically determined receiver in general. — Derrida

http://lab404.com/misc/ltdinc.pdf

What all the 'private spiritual substance' perspectives tend to ignore is the radical dependence of this 'foundational' subject on convention or the social. Dreyfus might call it the 'who of everyday dasein.' But Saussure was on to it before that. Feuerbach wrote his dissertation on it (or something close.) And so on.

Others have made excellent points already. The main idea is that thought is external-social-alien and not internal-private-familiar. Or (at least) that thought or mind is more like the first and less like the second than we tend to suppose. Wittgenstein's beetle is a powerful indicator of this, but the idea goes back further. In Feuerbach it's already emphasized, albeit in a jargon appropriate to the spirit of the time.

This criticism, he argued, presupposes a conception of reason as a cognitive faculty of the individual thinking subject that is employed as an instrument for apprehending truths. He aimed to show that this view of the nature of reason is mistaken, that reason is one and the same in all thinking subjects, that it is universal and infinite, and that thinking (Denken) is not an activity performed by the individual, but rather by “the species” acting through the individual. “In thinking”, Feuerbach wrote, “I am bound together with, or rather, I am one with—indeed, I myself am—all human beings” (GW I:18). — link

Along with this is the idea that the notion of self doesn't make sense without the notion of others in a shared world. It's all of a piece, the entire system of distinctions. This system makes all questioning possible in the first place. Don't questions and answers presuppose a reality shared with others that make them meaningful?

The main idea is that thought is external-social-alien and not internal-private-familiar. Or (at least) that thought or mind is more like the first and less like the second than we tend to suppose. Wittgenstein's beetle is a powerful indicator of this, but the idea goes back further. — jjAmEs

Huh? I take Wittgenstein's "beetle" as an indication of the exact opposite to what you say. The only thing external, social, is the word "beetle". The important thing, what matters, is what's in the box, and this is internal, private.

Huh? I take Wittgenstein's "beetle" as an indication of the exact opposite to what you say. The only thing external, social, is the word "beetle". The important thing, what matters, is what's in the box, and this is internal, private. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, MU, words are just visual scribbles and sounds. The hearing or seeing the word, "beetle" would be just as "internal" as any other experience of some visual or sound. If we all have different "beetles", then how we hear and see any word would be different for each of us as well. How would we be able to communicate if we actually do have different beetles in each of our boxes? It must be that we all have similar beetles if we are able to communicate.

Our inner sensations are themselves a langage informing us of the state of our bodies relative to the state of the world. We only need a public language to communicate to others our inner sensations. We translate our private sensations to a particular sound or scribble, which are themselves seen or heard internally.

It seems to me that we all have the same beetle in our boxes if we understand when someone is using language and when they aren't. When a sound that we hear is language use as opposed to a glass breaking, waves crashing, the wind blowing, etc., how do we make the distinction if we needed a public language to make that distinction first? If language can only be public, then how does one come to make the distinction between sounds that are language-use and sounds that aren't if we'd need a public language to make that distinction? We would all need to understand prior to learning a public language that languages are different than other sounds. In this sense we all have the same beetle in our boxes.

Actually, MU, words are just visual scribbles and sounds. The hearing or seeing the word, "beetle" would be just as "internal" as any other experience of some visual or sound. If we all have different "beetles", then how we hear and see any word would be different for each of us as well. How would we be able to communicate if we actually do have different beetles in each of our boxes? It must be that we all have similar beetles if we are able to communicate. — Harry Hindu

Let me remind you that similar does not mean the same, it means different with similarities. So even if we have similar things under the title "beetle", they are not the same, and contrary to your claim, they actually are different.

It seems to me that we all have the same beetle in our boxes if we understand when someone is using language and when they aren't. — Harry Hindu

Above you said "similar". Now you say "the same". Which do you really believe? Clearly, under the terms of Wittgenstein's example, the thing in my box is not the same thing which is in your box.

Huh? I take Wittgenstein's "beetle" as an indication of the exact opposite to what you say. The only thing external, social, is the word "beetle". The important thing, what matters, is what's in the box, and this is internal, private. — Metaphysician Undercover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86hLtOkou8

To me that's a radical misreading. The sign functions independently of what's in the box. That word 'beetle' is one fragment of a massive system of conventions that are as much about non-speech actions as speech actions. Since, by assumption, the private inside is inaccessible, it 'obviously' can play no role in grounding a 'meaning' that must be public and external to be a code, a language that one can learn and participate in.

How would we be able to communicate if we actually do have different beetles in each of our boxes? It must be that we all have similar beetles if we are able to communicate. — Harry Hindu

I think we can be more radical and forget the beetle. Even if we have a strong intuitive sense of 'the same beetle,' all that reality matters is the synchronization of practical activities. IMV, we don't even ever know exactly what we mean by the strings of marks and noises that we have been trained to employ. Of course we have some fuzzy experience of 'meaning,' but we are primarily coordinating social activity with such signs --and we only have to do that well enough to survive and reproduce. Metaphorically we are cyborgs. Linguistic conventions make us fully human, yet they belong to no individual. And they more external than internal, it seems, despite our useful notion of the soul or psyche.

This seems useful here.

A social organism of any sort whatever, large or small, is what it is because each member proceeds to his own duty with a trust that the other members will simultaneously do theirs. Wherever a desired result is achieved by the co-operation of many independent persons, its existence as a fact is a pure consequence of the precursive faith in one another of those immediately concerned. A government, an army, a commercial system, a ship, a college, an athletic team, all exist on this condition, without which not only is nothing achieved, but nothing is even attempted. — James

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism

We can narrow this insight to just language. How much trust is built in to our asking of a question? We assume (not explicitly) that we are potentially overheard. The intelligibility of our discourse is radically taken for granted. It is automatic and not usually left to the conscious mind. It is like breathing. It is our form of life, or pre-theoretical and even deeply tacit understanding of being and the world. It is what we have already 'recklessly' assumed in our supposedly radically skeptical questioning.

The sign functions independently of what's in the box. — jjAmEs

No it doesn't, obviously, because then the sign wouldn't refer to anything. If we're telling everyone that there is something in the box named "beetle", and we really don't have anything in the box, then language is just a huge deception. In order that it's not deception there must be something in the box, and the sign refers to that thing. Therefore the sign does not function independently of what's in the box unless you characterize language as deception.

The parable shows what's wrong with the common-sense paradigm. Wittgenstein is trying to show the fly the way out of the bottle. Basically the internal meaning versus external vehicle paradigm is useful for certain purposes but problematic when taken as absolute / foundational.

Perhaps the basic 'sin' of metaphysics is mistaking a useful but imperfect piece of social software as a magic foundation on which everything else can be supported. Instead the foundation is a swamp, an entire form of life that is ground by no particular piece of that form of life.

Therefore the sign does not function independently of what's in the box unless you characterize language as deception. — Metaphysician Undercover

You might find Derrida's treatment of Saussure fascinating on this issue. The concept of the sign itself breaks down upon close examination. It's one more potent but perishable tool that works well enough but won't function as some perfect center or foundation.

Also, here's W:

If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means - must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?

Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! --Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.
— Wittgenstein

This suggests that your interpretation of W is a bad reading. Of course we have uses for words that refer to some interior. But it all falls apart on close examination. It's already there, the whole collapse, in positing some distinct interior that is radically other. This interior could not interact with the complementary exterior. Dualism as a first approximation is not ridiculous, but taking a serviceable but rough and imperfect distinction as absolute just doesn't work. The fantasy of a divine geometry (constructing existence from a system of words deductively) is only that, a fantasy. And it scratches a religious itch. Self-caused. Self-justified. Self-known. Etc. A continuation of monotheism in another register.

:up:

A thought: idealism, or the role of the mental in constructing (our?) reality, seems inevitable once you spend enough time philosophizing.

On the other hand, that mind is intrinsic and underlies everything, is exactly what creatures with minds would say. Especially after they spend a lot of time thinking.

"I am the center of the universe, and everything else moves around me." - how am I to disprove this to myself? — Pneumenon

I don't know why some posters are under the impression that idealism is completely bogus because the very idea that it is is a mind-state. Plus, we all know that at any given moment we're more mental creatures than physical. Think of it; we can imagine ourselves as disembodied minds but I have never met someone say that fae thinks faerself as a body without a mind i.e. if materialism is true, the idea of a zombie doesn't make sense.

Let me remind you that similar does not mean the same, it means different with similarities. So even if we have similar things under the title "beetle", they are not the same, and contrary to your claim, they actually are different. — Metaphysician Undercover

Above you said "similar". Now you say "the same". Which do you really believe? Clearly, under the terms of Wittgenstein's example, the thing in my box is not the same thing which is in your box. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your explanation of "similar" is circular.

Similar: resembling without being identical.

The way our beetles are different is that they are in different spatial-temporal locations. Your beetle is not my beetle and they are separate. However we are looking at the exact same beetle - the color black, the shape of the letter W, the sound of the letter W, are all the same for each of us, or else how would we be able to communicate? If I said, "beetle" and you hear, "bottle", then how are we going to ever be able to communicate our beetles?

Even if you experience purple when I experience blue, we both experience those colors consistently when there is a particular wavelength of light interacting with our eyes. Because the experience (the effect) is consistent with the cause, we would both never know what that our inner experience is different, but we would both be talking about the same thing - that particular wavelength of light, just as if we spoke different languages, we use different symbols to refer to the same thing. Our inner language of sensory data (colors, sounds, texture, etc,) make speak to use differently, but we translate our inner language to a public one in order to communicate with each other. If we didn't have similar beetles, we would never understand what we are talking about.

This suggests that your interpretation of W is a bad reading. Of course we have uses for words that refer to some interior. But it all falls apart on close examination. It's already there, the whole collapse, in positing some distinct interior that is radically other. This interior could not interact with the complementary exterior. Dualism as a first approximation is not ridiculous, but taking a serviceable but rough and imperfect distinction as absolute just doesn't work. The fantasy of a divine geometry (constructing existence from a system of words deductively) is only that, a fantasy. And it scratches a religious itch. Self-caused. Self-justified. Self-known. Etc. A continuation of monotheism in another register. — jjAmEs

Considering W was a bad writer, it's no surprise there are bad readings of his writings.

It seems to me that if we all have different beetles in our box, then how do we communicate, how do we even begin to consider what is in W's box? He seems to say that we don't have the same beetle and could never understand each other's beetle, let alone explaining the causes that lead us to have different beetles rather than similar beetles considering that we are all members of the same species with similar sensory organs, yet goes about explaining his beetle as if everyone else can understand his beetle. Is W saying that he got his ideas from someone else? Where did his ideas come from?

Natural selection would be the explanation as to how we all have the same beetles in our box. Natural selections "selected" the beetles (colors, sounds, etc,) that the brain uses to interpret the world. So what would cause us to become separated? There needs to be a causal explanation as to why we would all have different beetles.

"I am the center of the universe, and everything else moves around me." — Pneumenon

But you are the center of your universe. You cannot define "I" as extrinsic to "your" mind. It is tautologically true.

Natural selection would be the explanation as to how we all have the same beetles in our box. Natural selections "selected" the beetles (colors, sounds, etc,) that the brain uses to interpret the world. So what would cause us to become separated? There needs to be a causal explanation as to why we would all have different beetles. — Harry Hindu

I think we probably do see the same colors, etc., for reasons you've mentioned. But I think it misses the point of Wittgenstein in the passage quoted. Language can't depend on what is radically private. The most obvious thing to consider is how our actions are synchronized.

To work what is radically private by assumption into causal explanations seems like a bad way to go. It's inaccessible and uncheckable by definition. Whatever it is, it can't play an important role.

Your beetle is not my beetle and they are separate. However we are looking at the exact same beetle - the color black, the shape of the letter W, the sound of the letter W, are all the same for each of us, or else how would we be able to communicate? — Harry Hindu

Sorry Harry, but there is a law of identity for a reason. The fact that your beetle is not my beetle, and that they are separate, is sufficient to prove that they are not the exact same beetle. Your claim that they are is utter nonsense.

the color black, the shape of the letter W, the sound of the letter W, are all the same for each of us, or else how would we be able to communicate? If I said, "beetle" and you hear, "bottle", then how are we going to ever be able to communicate our beetles? — Harry Hindu

Clearly these things are not the same, yet we are able to communicate. Therefore communication is not prerequisite on them being the same.

Even if you experience purple when I experience blue, we both experience those colors consistently when there is a particular wavelength of light interacting with our eyes. Because the experience (the effect) is consistent with the cause, we would both never know what that our inner experience is different, but we would both be talking about the same thing - that particular wavelength of light, just as if we spoke different languages, we use different symbols to refer to the same thing. — Harry Hindu

Colour does not consist of "a particular wavelength of light", it's far more complex than that, so we can't even start on this analogy.

If we didn't have similar beetles, we would never understand what we are talking about. — Harry Hindu

As I said, "similar" does not mean "the same", it means different. Your post is just a big contradiction. You start out by saying that our beetles must be "the same" in order for their to be communication, and you end up by saying that they must be similar (different) in order for there to be communication. Which do you really believe is the case, must they be the same, or different?

I think we probably do see the same colors, etc., for reasons you've mentioned. But I think it misses the point of Wittgenstein in the passage quoted. Language can't depend on what is radically private. The most obvious thing to consider is how our actions are synchronized.

To work what is radically private by assumption into causal explanations seems like a bad way to go. It's inaccessible and uncheckable by definition. Whatever it is, it can't play an important role. — jjAmEs

If you're agreeing that we all experience the same colors, then I don't understand why you disagree with me about a "private" language. If we all experience the same colors, then it seems to me that we all share the same language of the mind. It seems that we are all informed of the state of the world in the same way. Being informed is part of what communication is, and we are all informed the same way.

How does one even come to understand language-use without first understanding the concept of communication? It seems to me that you need to be able to understand communication for you to understand when some sound you hear is someone is communicating with you as opposed to a glass breaking, a wave crashing or the wind blowing. You'd have to understand communication for you to be able to make the distinction between language-use and other sounds. How do you do that if you need language to synchronize our actions - distinguishing between different sounds prior to learning a language. How can you learn a language if you don't already understand the concept of communication, or aboutness prior to learning a language?

In order to learn a language, you have to already understand the concept of object permanence, (ie realism) - that there are things in the world that are outside of your experience and that language can be about those things. Language about things that are already in your experience is redundant information. Seeing that it is raining and being told it is raining is redundant because the sound, "It is raining" is about it raining, just as seeing it raining is about it raining. "It" means "the state-of-affairs". If a public language was only about synchronizing actions, then how can language-use be redundant to observing the state-of-affairs the language-use is about?

The only time it wouldn't be redundant is if one person is trying to teach the symbols to use when it is raining to inform others that are not privy to the same information. We seem to understand that using language to report what is already seen is redundant. And you'd need to be able to make the distinction, prior to learning any language, between the sound of rain falling and the sound of someone speaking, and to make the connection that the sound of someone speaking is about the sound of the rain falling, not trying to synchronize actions other than how some state-of-affairs is represented and reported to others that are not privy to that information, like telling a friend on the phone in another city that it is raining in your city. If your friend already knew it was raining, what would be the purpose in telling them? The synchronization of our actions (knowing that it is raining; knowing is an action) happened independent of language use. It seems to me that one has to privately make the distinction between the sounds of language-use and other sounds in order to understand when language is being used as opposed to some other sound.

When you injure your leg and you experience pain, is the pain about the injury? Is the pain caused by the injury? If there is no causal relationship then why does the doctor try to remove your experience of pain by attending to your leg?

What does "private" vs "public" language even mean when we are share the same world and are participants in the causal relationships that make up the world. Language-use is a causal sequence. Effects are about their causes. Hearing someone speak (the effect) is about the contents of the speaker's mind. The sound you experience isn't the speakers mind, it is about it. So, what is "private" is the cause. We can only get at the cause through it's subsequent effects. Effects are not their causes, hence the "private" vs. "public" distinction. We can only experience the private, or the effect, but it is public in that it is connected causally with the rest of the world, hence effects are about their causes, or the private experience is about the public, shared world.

As I said, "similar" does not mean "the same", it means different. Your post is just a big contradiction. You start out by saying that our beetles must be "the same" in order for their to be communication, and you end up by saying that they must be similar (different) in order for there to be communication. Which do you really believe is the case, must they be the same, or different? — Metaphysician Undercover

As I said, they are the same independent of the difference of being in different spatial-temporal locations. You see the word, "Wittgenstein" the same as I do, just from a different location in space. We are looking at the same thing - the word on the screen. Our experiences are about the same thing. If not then we're not talking about the same thing when we talk.

Colour does not consist of "a particular wavelength of light", it's far more complex than that, so we can't even start on this analogy. — Metaphysician Undercover

I didn't say that color consists of a particular wavelength of light. I said that we both experience the same color when the same wavelength of light interacts with our eyes. Colors are properties of minds. Wavelengths are properties of EM energy. The former is about the latter.

Why do philosophers seem to shun this notion of "aboutness". Our minds have this defining property of being about the world, while at the same time being part of the world. It seems to me that minds inherently understand aboutness - that sounds are about what is making the sound, not the thing itself - that pee and poo is about the health of another organism, that the sound of grass and brush rustling is about something moving in the brush, etc. So it seems to me that the "private" language is really a shared language of the world communicating with minds about it's state-of-affairs. It even informs you when someone is using language as opposed to not. How can you learn a language if you don't already understand the concept of communication, or aboutness prior to learning a language? The type of brain and sensory organs one has seems to be the difference in the complexity of this "private" language.

It seems to me that the private vs public distinction is incoherent in a shared world with causal relationships, where effects are not their causes, but are about their causes.

The stuff about Wittgenstein's beetle is amusing. I think that Wittgenstein would have found people's arguments over how to interpret that example quite funny, or perhaps frustrating.

This suggests that your interpretation of W is a bad reading. — jjAmEs

I don't see how you make this conclusion. What I said is supported. We each have something different in our boxes which we call a "beetle". The "language-game" might be entirely external, as Wittgenstein implies, but this does not indicate that it's not the case that what's important is what's in the box. What's external is just a game, what's internal is what's important.

As I said, they are the same independent of the difference of being in different spatial-temporal locations. — Harry Hindu

In other words they are not the same, they are different. Shall we proceed with the true premise, that they are not the same, they are different?

You see the word, "Wittgenstein" the same as I do, just from a different location in space. We are looking at the same thing - the word on the screen. Our experiences are about the same thing. If not then we're not talking about the same thing when we talk. — Harry Hindu

We might be seeing the same thing, but each of our respective experiencing of that is different. And that's what we're talking about, what's inside each of our minds, and that is different. My experiences involved with that word are different from yours.

I said that we both experience the same color when the same wavelength of light interacts with our eyes. — Harry Hindu

I don't agree with this. I disagree with people about the colour of things quite frequently. Sometimes I see as a green what others see as a blue, or I see as a purple what others see as a pink, etc.. We clearly do not see the same colour when the same wavelengths interact with our eyes. What colour it is, is a judgement made, based on training and habit, which varies from one to the other.

Why do philosophers seem to shun this notion of "aboutness". Our minds have this defining property of being about the world, while at the same time being part of the world. It seems to me that minds inherently understand aboutness - that sounds are about what is making the sound, not the thing itself - that pee and poo is about the health of another organism, that the sound of grass and brush rustling is about something moving in the brush, etc. So it seems to me that the "private" language is really a shared language of the world communicating with minds about it's state-of-affairs. It even informs you when someone is using language as opposed to not. How can you learn a language if you don't already understand the concept of communication, or aboutness prior to learning a language? The type of brain and sensory organs one has seems to be the difference in the complexity of this "private" language. — Harry Hindu

This, I can't see as relevant to what we're talking about. But I really don't understand any point being made here, if there is a point being made here, so maybe that's why. We were talking about whether what's in my mind is the same as what's in your mind. And I really don't see how they could be the same or else I would know what you are thinking.

We might be seeing the same thing, but each of our respective experiencing of that is different. And that's what we're talking about, what's inside each of our minds, and that is different. My experiences involved with that word are different from yours. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't agree with this. I disagree with people about the colour of things quite frequently. Sometimes I see as a green what others see as a blue, or I see as a purple what others see as a pink, etc.. We clearly do not see the same colour when the same wavelengths interact with our eyes. What colour it is, is a judgement made, based on training and habit, which varies from one to the other. — Metaphysician Undercover

This, I can't see as relevant to what we're talking about. But I really don't understand any point being made here, if there is a point being made here, so maybe that's why. We were talking about whether what's in my mind is the same as what's in your mind. And I really don't see how they could be the same or else I would know what you are thinking. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is critically relevant to what we are talking about, MU. Think about about it. When someone experiences a particular color and they use a word to refer to that color, the color you're experiencing (whether it is different or not) will be associated with that word. That is the word you'd use for that color experience. How would you ever know that what you see is different than what someone else is if you are both using the same word to refer to a particular color experience? So you could never actually know that when someone sees blue, you see green, because that is the word you learned to associate with that color experience. You would know what beetle is another's box if you know that your beetle is different. In other words, the beetle is no longer private.

If you claim to have different color experience, how do you know that you don't have different auditory experiences? How do you know you don't hear a different sound when hearing people speak? Wouldn't you make the wrong sounds if you heard the wrong sounds when someone spoke? Speaking requires control over your lips and tongue and emulating the movements of other's mouths when learning how to say a word, so your visual experience of their mouth and the auditory experience of the sound would be different than what they hear themselves say. How would you learn to communicate and make the right sounds if you didn't have an accurate experience of someone else speaking? It must be that we do experience the world similarly so that we all make the same sounds with our mouths, or scribbles on a screen, when speaking or writing.

How would you ever know that what you see is different than what someone else is if you are both using the same word to refer to a particular color experience? — Harry Hindu

We know that they are different, by what I said above. You are not in my mind experiencing what I see, and I am not in your mind experiencing what you see. So, by that principle, which is called the law of identity, I know that what you see is not the same, and therefore, is different from what I see.

It's quite simple really, if we adhere to fundamental principles like the law of identity.

If you claim to have different color experience, how do you know that you don't have different auditory experiences? — Harry Hindu

To the contrary, we know that they are different. by the same fundamental principle.

How would you learn to communicate and make the right sounds if you didn't have an accurate experience of someone else speaking? It must be that we do experience the world similarly so that we all make the same sounds with our mouths, or scribbles on a screen, when speaking or writing. — Harry Hindu

Communicating doesn't consist of making "the right sounds", it consists of understanding. The fact is that in every different situation there are many different words, or sounds, which could be used for the specific purpose, so there is no such thing as "the right sound".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ruling out similarity, as playing an essential role. I am just trying to induce the proper distinction between "similar" which implies different, from "same" which implies not different. In this way we won't be inclined to say that similar things are the same, and we'll have some rigorous logical principles to approach the issue..

Communicating doesn't consist of making "the right sounds", it consists of understanding.... In this way we won't be inclined to say that similar things are the same, and we'll have some rigorous logical principles to approach the issue.. — Metaphysician Undercover

To me this is a default view that some of the more recent philosophers have successfully challenged. Our so-called 'rigorous logical principles' are perhaps reducible to making the right sounds and simply conforming to norms that are mostly tacit.

We each have something different in our boxes which we call a "beetle". The "language-game" might be entirely external, as Wittgenstein implies, but this does not indicate that it's not the case that what's important is what's in the box. — Metaphysician Undercover

The quote is explicit about what's in the box cancelling out. But W's view is of course less important than the issue itself. Perhaps most of us would grant that the beetle is what's important. But upon close examination the whole idea of the inside opposed to an outside comes apart.

--We never know exactly what we mean.
--What exactly do you mean when you say we never know exactly what we mean?
--I'll never know, but I can come up with more phrases for the same vague insight.

If you're agreeing that we all experience the same colors, then I don't understand why you disagree with me about a "private" language. If we all experience the same colors, then it seems to me that we all share the same language of the mind. — Harry Hindu

We can never know if we see the same colors. It's intuitively plausible, and an argument can be made for it, but it's unnecessary. Generations come and go without knowing whether they use 'green' to refer to the same quale. Or whether anyone ever has the same signified for 'toothache.'

In order to learn a language, you have to already understand the concept of object permanence, (ie realism) - that there are things in the world that are outside of your experience and that language can be about those things. — Harry Hindu

How does one even come to understand language-use without first understanding the concept of communication? It seems to me that you need to be able to understand communication for you to understand when some sound you hear is someone is communicating with you as opposed to a glass breaking, a wave crashing or the wind blowing. — Harry Hindu

I see what you mean, but I just approach it differently. Instead of dwelling on the understanding of an individual subject (which is inaccessible by definition), I think it's better to focus on individuals being trained into a form of life. By the time we can reason about such things, we are already deeply enmeshed in a world shared with others. We 'understand' some language as a whole. We know our way around a certain way of life. We say and do the right things within the social order. To be sure we have something we call private experience.

But (and I think we agree) speech is directed at a shared world. You like the language of causality for this. I like to think of a shared software that makes the reasoning individual possible. We know that we have separate brains, so we can worry about reducing this 'virtuality software' to the scientific image. At the same time the scientific image we construct is part of the virtuality of language. The individual thinks via an inherited system of signs, and IMV there is no sharp separation between thought and action. 'How are you?' is as much like raising a paw as it is asking a question. And words like 'physical' and 'mental' have no deep and final meaning out of all contexts, tho philosophers do what they can to establish one.

Another Wittgenstein quote to add to @jjAmEs' comments:

307. "Are you not really a behaviourist in disguise? Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction?"—If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.

308. [...] And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don't want to deny them.

Great addition!

To me this is a default view that some of the more recent philosophers have successfully challenged. Our so-called 'rigorous logical principles' are perhaps reducible to making the right sounds and simply conforming to norms that are mostly tacit. — jjAmEs

The problem is that it doesn't work that way around. As I said, in any situation there are numerous possibilities which are acceptable to serve the purpose, so there is not such thing as "the right sounds", there are numerous acceptable possibilities. Therefore rigorous logical principles cannot be reduced to "the right sounds". However, the inverse is possible, "the right sounds" can be reduced to rigorous logical principles. In other words, rigorous logical principles are what makes "the right sounds" a coherent concept, but "the right sounds" is arbitrary, subject to any intention, without rigorous logical principles.

The quote is explicit about what's in the box cancelling out. — jjAmEs

I covered this already. If there is nothing in the box, then communication and language is pure deception. If you still do not see that this leads us down a path of nonsensical interpretation, look at it this way:

Wittgenstein's premise clearly states "Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a 'beetle'." If there is nothing in the box, then the premise of the example, which states that everyone has a box with something in it, is contradicted. We'd have to start over with a new premise, everyone has a box, and claims that there is something in it, when there may not be something in it. But that's a completely different scenario from the one presented, everyone has a box with something in it. Therefore we cannot "cancel out" what's in the box, as irrelevant, without significantly changing the scenario of Wittgenstein's example, in a way which contradicts the described situation.

But upon close examination the whole idea of the inside opposed to an outside comes apart. — jjAmEs

Again, you have things backwards. Upon close examination, the idea that "the whole idea of the inside opposed to an outside comes apart" comes apart. It is only when an undisciplined mind reads such examples without adhering to rigorous principles of logic, that the illusion you see is created. I think that the illusion is created to demonstrate that language can be used to deceive, as a possibility, and so "the right sounds" may involve contradiction when that is the intent.