More as ‘unbiased, fair in appreciating the available evidence.’ — Olivier5

That makes sense.

Tx. I'm trying.

Perhaps, there's a difference, subtle or not, you be the judge, between observation and belief — TheMadFool

Yep, on my account that is the important difference; and analogously on the moral side of things too. The difference between experiencing something, which is not propositional, not about any particular state of affairs, it's just data by which to judge propositional opinions; and thinking something, which is propositional, which puts forth a particular state of affairs. The latter can come into intrinsically irreconcilable conflict, while the former can only at worst be difficult to figure out how to reconcile. Aiming for objectivity doesn't mean taking a vote on what people think; it means reconciling all the things that people experience.

Aiming for objectivity doesn't mean taking a vote on what people think; it means reconciling all the things that people experience. — Pfhorrest

Why must all the things that people experience be reconcilable? What makes you believe things are so tidy? Also what one may consider a reconciliation may not be such for another.

Why must all the things that people experience be reconcilable? — Janus

Because it's always possible to fit some curve to any data, it's just a question of how complicated a formula it takes to do so.

I'm talking about experiences and judgements, not curves and data, though.

Even to sufficiently advanced neuroscience? — Isaac


Neuroscience, like language, cannot get at the feeling itself; it can only work with the behaviours. — Luke

Neuroscience doesn't work with behaviours, it works with neural activity, but that aside, what is 'the feeling itself'. Are we talking dualism, epiphenomenalism...?

You'll argue that it's not 'your' pain because it's not taking place in your body, but that makes 'pain' into the set of physiological activities (being the only part fixed to your body). — Isaac


I don't see how this follows. — Luke

Your body is made up of cells (and some fluids etc). Even as an epiphenomena, something like pain would have to have a physical cause in the action of these components. Full blown dualism is the only way you could have something like a pain, distinguished by being in your body, but not correlated with properties of your body.

The sufficiently advanced neurologist would see only the behaviours, not the feelings. The feelings are not directly accessible; in other words, private. The idea of a "sufficiently advanced neurologist" begs the question. — Luke

The sufficiently advanced neurologist would see the neural activity, not the behaviours. If 'pain' is not defined by the public concept (and so private that way) then it's only refuge is neurological activity. Otherwise you have private language.

I appreciate the effort, but I still don't see anything in there that's more than just saying there is such a distinction, rather than explaining how it manifests.

The wiki article you directed me to says "In various areas of mathematics, isomorphisms have received specialized names, depending on the type of structure under consideration". Which seems to confirm my previous (very superficial) understanding of isomorphism, which is that it is preservation of some particular structure, not just structure sensu lato. To have isomorphism the objects at hand have to have relational properties which can be kept constant. So, in the example given, isometry preserves the distance between elements, in homeomorphism it is the topology, geometric isomorphisms might preserve angle, vertex number, function between vertices...

In physiological isomorphic experiences, the property being preserved is (for colour) relational retinal cone stimulation in a sequence of perception events - say red, red, red for the colourblind, as opposed to red, red, green for the normally sighted

I'm asking, in your epiphenomenological experience isomorphisms, what is the property being preserved over what sequence?

Because it's always possible to fit some curve to any data, it's just a question of how complicated a formula it takes to do so. — Pfhorrest

Not if the data is dynamic. Then it's impossible to fit a curve to it.

I still don't see anything in there that's more than just saying there is such a distinction — Isaac

I’m not saying there is such a distinction. I’m saying there could be.

rather than explaining how it manifests. — Isaac

As I’ve said before, if there was such a distinction, we would never be able to narrow down what causes it.

what is the property being preserved over what sequence? — Isaac

Experience had over a sequence of perception events.

X is an experience that makes you communicate by saying “red”.

So it boils down to this:

the property being preserved is (for colour) relational retinal cone stimulation in a sequence of perception events - say red, red, red for the colourblind, as opposed to red, red, green for the normally sighted — Isaac

The point is, the experience that you communicate by saying “Red” need not be the same for everyone. If I have X and say “red” and you have Y and say “red” and when we look at an apple we have X and Y respectively each time, there will be no issue of communication.

X is an experience that makes you communicate by saying “red”. — khaled

Experiences as epiphenomena can't 'make' us say red, only neural activity can do that.

The point is, the experience that you communicate by saying “Red” need not be the same for everyone. — khaled

No, but the point I'm making is that no 'experience' causes you to say 'red'. You simply say 'red' as a result of the sum total of all your experience to date. the only reason we can chop it up in anyway at a neurological level is by setting artificial boundaries around signal strength emanating from the detector of choice (in this case retinal cone cells). Without the cone cells, we've no reason at all to follow one line of neural activity and not any of the billion other lines. With public epiphenomena we have the arbitrary (and loose) linguistic boundaries, with their 'props' of set membership.

Unless you can propose such a boundary for these private epiphenomena, there's no way of distinguishing the 'slice' of epiphenomena associated with red, form the entire epiphenomena of existence to date.

Experiences as epiphenomena can't 'make' us say red, only neural activity can do that. — Isaac

Sure but epiphenomena X is the one always preceding saying red. That’s what I meant.

public epiphenomena — Isaac

?

there's no way of distinguishing the 'slice' of epiphenomena associated with red — Isaac

If I hear “red” a hundred times I can deduce where the slice is. It’s the bit that’s always there every time someone uses the word “red” correctly. It’s vague but it’ll do.

Sure but epiphenomena X is the one always preceding saying red. That’s what I meant. — khaled

There's no pre-identified slice that always precedes saying 'red'. Your entire life thus far precedes saying 'red'.

There's no pre-identified slice that always precedes saying 'red'. — Isaac

That’s just false. No clue where you got that.

Is there nothing at all similar in your experience each time you want to describe something you see as red? You might want to get checked out for color blindness.

Neuroscience doesn't work with behaviours, it works with neural activity, — Isaac

Isn't neural activity some set of physical behaviour(s) of the human body?

but that aside, what is 'the feeling itself'. Are we talking dualism, epiphenomenalism...? — Isaac

I'm hoping to avoid putting a label on the mind-body relationship, if possible. You know what the feeling of pain is, don't you?

The sufficiently advanced neurologist would see the neural activity, not the behaviours — Isaac

What distinction are you making here?

If 'pain' is not defined by the public concept (and so private that way) then it's only refuge is neurological activity. — Isaac

Pain is defined by the public concept, but the public concept has no need for 'the feeling that hurts', i.e. the subjective aspect of pain, even though this is largely what we consider to be what is important about pain. This is the point of Wittgenstein's beetle and the private language argument:

293 ...The thing in the box doesn’t belong to 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. That is to say, if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and name’, the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.

296. “Right; but there is a Something there all the same, which accompanies my cry of pain! And it is on account of this that I utter it. And this Something is what is important — and frightful.” — Only to whom are we telling this? And on what occasion? — Wittgenstein

Otherwise you have private language. — Isaac

Not a private language; a private sensation - or the sensation object which "drops out of consideration as irrelevant" to the language-game. This is what's private: how pain feels, how the colour red looks to a colourblind person, how the colour red looks to a normal person, 'what it is like' to have perceptions and thoughts, qualia, etc.

Why do you need to introduce to the discussion the concept of a "sufficiently advanced neurologist"? Presumably, their knowledge must be "sufficiently advanced" regarding the relationship between the behaviour of neurons and our corresponding feelings. Maybe a neurologist that is "sufficiently advanced" will be able to tell us exactly what feeling(s) corresponds to what set of neuronal activity, closing the gap and eliminating the possibility that any feeling can remain truly private to the person who has it. But I take it that we are not yet this sufficiently advanced. I think you are begging the question if you assume that all feelings can in principle be publicly known like this. For the time being, at least, you must admit that there is an element of privacy to our sensations. This is the private aspect of our subjectivity.

Is there nothing at all similar in your experience each time you want to describe something you see as red? — khaled

Not that I can distinguish, no. The experience of seeing a red postbox seems very distinct from the one of seeing a red letter 'A', but no distinguishable components.

If you ask someone what colour the word 'RED' is (when printed in blue ink), they'll usually say 'red'.

If you ask someone what colour the word 'RED' is (when printed in blue ink), they'll usually say 'red'. — Isaac

No they won’t they’ll just be delayed in saying blue. I did some stroop test research 1st year undergrad. It’s very rare that participants straight up make a mistake.

but no distinguishable components. — Isaac

Hint: There may be something similar about the post box and the red letter “A”.

I’m more curious what you meant by this though:

With public epiphenomena we have the arbitrary (and loose) linguistic boundaries, with their 'props' of set membership. — Isaac

What is a public epiphenomena?

Regardless I have to go now. That’s enough philosophizing for me for a while.

No they won’t they’ll just be delayed in saying blue. I did some stroop test research 1st year undergrad. It’s very rare that participants straight up make a mistake. — khaled

See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/%28SICI%291097-0193%281998%296%3A4%3C270%3A%3AAID-HBM6%3E3.0.CO%3B2-0

I'm talking from a neurological perspective here.

but no distinguishable components. — Isaac


Hint: There may be something similar about the post box and the red letter “A”. — khaled

Yes, they're both objects I can refer to the colour of with the word 'red'.

I’m more curious what you meant by this though:

With public epiphenomena we have the arbitrary (and loose) linguistic boundaries, with their 'props' of set membership. — Isaac


What is a public epiphenomena? — khaled

One whose boundaries are created by public criteria. The reason for the 'slice' is public.

Neuroscience doesn't work with behaviours, it works with neural activity, — Isaac


Isn't neural activity some set of physical behaviour(s) of the human body? — Luke

Yes, fair enough, I didn't think that's what you meant.

but that aside, what is 'the feeling itself'. Are we talking dualism, epiphenomenalism...? — Isaac


I'm hoping to avoid putting a label on the mind-body relationship, if possible. You know what the feeling of pain is, don't you? — Luke

No. Not by any means other than the public language. I have experiences when I injure myself, but which of them are 'pain' I wouldn't know how to distinguish privately.

The sufficiently advanced neurologist would see the neural activity, not the behaviours — Isaac


What distinction are you making here? — Luke

An unnecessary one given my misunderstanding above.

the subjective aspect of pain, even though this is largely what we consider to be what is important about pain. — Luke

Again, how are you distinguishing 'pain' from the entire milieu of experience at any given time without the public definitions?

the sensation object which "drops out of consideration as irrelevant" to the language-game. This is what's private: how pain feels, how the colour red looks to a colourblind person, how the colour red looks to a normal person, 'what it is like' to have perceptions and thoughts, qualia, etc. — Luke

None of this is distinguishable from the general milieu of experience by private means. That's what I take to be Wittgenstein's point. That's why he calls it a 'something'.

Why do you need to introduce to the discussion the concept of a "sufficiently advanced neurologist"? Presumably, their knowledge must be "sufficiently advanced" regarding the relationship between the behaviour of neurons and our corresponding feelings. Maybe a neurologist that is "sufficiently advanced" will be able to tell us exactly what feeling(s) corresponds to what set of neuronal activity, closing the gap and eliminating the possibility that any feeling can remain truly private to the person who has it. But I take it that we are not yet this sufficiently advanced. — Luke

Yes, that's exactly the point.

I think you are begging the question if you assume that all feelings can in principle be publicly known like this. — Luke

How so? Our current models would suggest so. I don't think adhering to successful models until they're contradicted by evidence constitutes begging the question. It's a standard scientific approach.

For the time being, at least, you must admit that there is an element of privacy to our sensations. — Luke

I do, yes.

Unless you can propose such a boundary for these private epiphenomena, there's no way of distinguishing the 'slice' of epiphenomena associated with red, form the entire epiphenomena of existence to date. — Isaac

You're talking about carving up our experiences into meaningful categories. That would be true of the world outside the body as well.

With public epiphenomena we have the arbitrary (and loose) linguistic boundaries, with their 'props' of set membership. — Isaac

But animals can perform color and other sensory discriminations without language.

No. Not by any means other than the public language. I have experiences when I injure myself, but which of them are 'pain' I wouldn't know how to distinguish privately. — Isaac

Animals know when they're in pain. Pain would be a useless sensation if an organism couldn't recognize that something was causing potential damage.

None of this is distinguishable from the general milieu of experience by private means. That's what I take to be Wittgenstein's point. That's why he calls it a 'something'. — Isaac

The problem is that human language is relatively recent ability added onto much older nuerological abilities that handle experiencing things like pain so that the organism can respond appropriates. Words are not needed for this. Humans are the exception, not the rule.

Wittgenstein isn't taken into account evolution. Lions don't talk, but they do understand pain. Again, pain wouldn't be of much use if most animals couldn't distinguish it from other sensations and act upon that.

How so? Our current models would suggest so. I don't think adhering to successful models until they're contradicted by evidence constitutes begging the question. It's a standard scientific approach. — Isaac

So what does it "look like" for neuroscience to someday make all experience public? We can imagine people watching dreams on a tv monitor, assuming anyone's neural activity while dreaming can be 100% mapped for audo-visual outputs. What about the other senses? Do we make use of something like Neuralink and stimulate other people's brain in a way that gives them the same experience?

But what if someone's neurology is atypical? Can I know what it's like to be Hellen Keller? Maybe someone with incredible visualization skills? Or simply the other gender? Can I really know exactly what it's like to give birth as a man?

Will science tell us exactly when someone lies? Maybe a red dot appears in our visual field through our AR glasses. Perhaps we'll get a printout of their inner dialog, or hear them in our earbuds. Or the right chemicals will be released in our brains so we can have their feelings.

Yes, they're both objects I can refer to the colour of with the word 'red'. — Isaac

The experience of seeing a red postbox seems very distinct from the one of seeing a red letter 'A', but no distinguishable components. — Isaac

And all objects you can refer to with the word "red" do not share anything at all in your experience? Not even a vague resemblance? I find that hard to believe.

To demonstrate: If I were to show a completely new object. Something you've never seen before. Would you be able to guess its color? I find that likely. Even though you never heard the color of that object being uttered before.

So there must be something common to red things other than the word use. Or else we would never be able to guess the colors of things without knowing the answer previously. We would need to be told that each object is this or that color, if the only commonality is word use. Like studying a language. I can't guess what "Economics" means in German, I would have to be told the word.

Additionally, that something cannot simply be that they emit the same wavelength or any such scientific measure. Although those are also commonalities of red things, they are not the commonalities we use to distinguish them in everyday life. When I ask you what the color of something you've never seen before is, you don't pull out an optic wavelength meter. You can just tell by looking at it. You don't need to know the wavelength emitted.

So the thing common to red things that you use to tell them apart must be in the experience produced when we look at them. That is the only source which can account for our uncanny ability to guess the color of things for which we never heard the proper color said before and for which we lack a scientific measure of properties.

@Banno made the same argument and frankly I find it ridiculous. There is clearly more in common between a red letter "A" and a red post box other than the word use, as if that was the only commonality, we would have to be told what color each object is on a case by case basis and would never be able to guess the colors of new objects. And it is not merely the wavelength emitted, as if it was, we wouldn't be able to tell what color things are without an optic wavelength meter, and we wouldn't have come up with words such as "red" before discovering how lightwaves work, but that's clearly false.

One whose boundaries are created by public criteria. The reason for the 'slice' is public. — Isaac

Sure. And so the postbox and the red letter A would be such "public phenomena" no? The boundary of where the post box starts and ends is public. That is the common factor across all post boxes. They share a single purpose and a general shape of a container for one.

Knowing what the public criteria is, is precisely being able to recognize whether or not something is a post box, or red, or the letter A or what have you.

Point is the thing being cut up, the "raw material" need not be the same. As long as you can tell the difference between red and the other colors, that's all that's required for communication. And the way we tell is by finding common aspects in our experience as I show above. But the contents of the experience need not be the same.

I'm talking about experiences and judgements, not curves and data, though. — Janus

The gist of the difference between experiences and judgements (e.g. observations and beliefs) that I was agreeing with @TheMadFool about is the same as the difference between data and curves, and that difference is answer to your question about how experiences can always be reconciled.

The cheap and easy ultimate fallback explanation for why everyone has the experiences they have, regardless of what experiences those are, is "we're all in different simulations" or anything along those lines. There's always some possible model that would predict that people have the experiences they have. The question is just how contorted and unwieldy a model do we have to turn to to do that.

No. Not by any means other than the public language. I have experiences when I injure myself, but which of them are 'pain' I wouldn't know how to distinguish privately. — Isaac

How do you know that the experiences you have when you injure yourself are the same as everyone else's experiences when they use the word "pain"?

Again, how are you distinguishing 'pain' from the entire milieu of experience at any given time without the public definitions? — Isaac

I acknowledged in my last post that pain is defined by the public concept. I'm talking about the associated feeling that goes along with it. The same associated feeling that you acknowledge is the study of neurology.

That's why he calls it a 'something'. — Isaac

Witt actually says: "It’s not a Something, but not a Nothing either! The conclusion was only that a Nothing would render the same service as a Something about which nothing could be said."

Yes, that's exactly the point. — Isaac

Isn't your position that the public concept completely defines the experience? If so, then why do you agree that we need neuroscience "to tell us exactly what feeling(s) corresponds to what set of neuronal activity"? If the public concept completely defines the experience, then shouldn't we already know which experiences map to which behaviours - and shouldn't it be the same for everyone who uses the word? What is the purpose of further research and how can Richard be colour-blind if he uses the word "red" correctly? His correct use of the public concept should imply that he has the same experience as everyone else, right?

The question is just how contorted and unwieldy a model do we have to turn to to do that. — Pfhorrest

My question amounted to 'why do we have to have an overarching model to reconcile all experiences'? Such models are inevitably reductive and eliminative.

Increasingly, many seem to operate under the preconceived demand that all kinds of enquiry must be unified under a TOE, or a master methodological regime, and anything which can't be reconciled with those is not a "proper" science or field of inquiry and must be eliminated.

Such models are inevitably reductive and eliminative. — Janus

If it’s eliminative, then it’s not actually incorporating all experiences into it as I advocate.

“Reductive” OTOH is just a pejorative way of saying “unifying”: where all those experiences can be accounted for under the same model, instead of a patchwork of them. If we didn’t care about unified models we could just take every experience as its own thing unrelated to anything else, but that wouldn’t be very useful. It’s precisely the unification of phenomena, the “reduction” of them all to one common model, that we’re aiming for to begin with.

If it’s eliminative, then it’s not actually incorporating all experiences into it as I advocate. — Pfhorrest

Yes, that's the self-contradiction at the heart of such projects in my view.

It’s precisely the unification of phenomena, the “reduction” of them all to one common model, that we’re aiming for to begin with. — Pfhorrest

That may be what you (and many others) are aiming at. It's very far from what I'm interested in. Those who have this inevitably reductive and eliminative aim tend to project that aim onto others or insist that it's the only worthy aim and that all should agree with it.

That may be what you (and many others) are aiming at. It's very far from what I'm interested in. Those who have this inevitably reductive and eliminative aim tend to project that aim onto others or insist that it's the only worthy aim and that all should agree with it. — Janus

If you just don't care to understand one kind of phenomenon's relationship to another kind of phenomenon -- in a unified way, not just "here are two phenomena" -- that's fine, but that doesn't mean that they cannot be understood together.

Sure, but it doesn't mean they necessarily can be understood together either. For example you won't be able to understand the reasons for human behavior in terms of quantum mechanics or even neurology.