That's a misunderstanding of what is being said.

You would perhaps talk of private subjective stuff; and speak either falsehood or nonsense. — Banno

"If you've never had a child, you can't know what it's like."

Private stuff has been talked about. No falsehood. No nonsense.

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.


In one way talk of private sensations is false, and in another nonsense. — Banno

This is itself a nonsense conclusion: if it makes sense to doubt whether others are in pain, then that means that we do not know with certainty that they are in pain. Of course it doesn't make sense to doubt whether I am in pain, because if I am in pain I know it with certainty, just as I know with certainty what I am looking at out the window as I type this; what I see out the window is private to me as I am alone right now, which means that unless I choose to tell, no one could have any idea what I am looking at.

Of course, to anticipate an objection I am not equating the kind of thing pain is with the kind of thing what I see outside my window is, since the latter, (that tree, bird, landscape or whatever) being extra-somatic could be known to others if they were here, whereas the former (that pain) being intra-somatic can never be experienced by another.

If we followed what you are suggesting, then there is something that is private to parents alone; they can discuss it. But that's not the point of the argument. Rather, is there something that is private to Frank alone? And yet, it can be the topic of discussion?

That's a misunderstanding of what is being said. — Banno

A useless comment without explanation.

The explanation is now 34 pages long.

If we followed what you are suggesting, then there is something that is private to parents alone; they can discuss it. But that's not the point of the argument. Rather, is there something that is private to Frank alone? And yet, it can be the topic of discussion? — Banno

Why not?

I've read pretty much the entire thread and have seen no cogent explanation. Can you point to a post with an explanation that you think would explain this to me in such a way as to show that my comment is a misunderstanding?

33 pages and you claim you still haven't seen an argument? Disingenuous. — Banno

...so... the bit about being able to talk about private stuff... you know, the stuff that cannot be talked about...?

so... the bit about being able to talk about private stuff... you know, the stuff that cannot be talked about...? — Banno

It's the same as sky diving or having children, except it's unique.

I'm the first guy to go through a wormhole. The reporter asks what it's like. I say I can't explain it. You'll just have to go through it yourself.

A unique, private experience has been talked about.

I've seen purported arguments, nothing cogent or convincing. The way you are defending this seems to be like the way the religious defend their faiths; all assertion and deflection, but no substance.

But you would talk of private sensations:

246. In what sense are my sensations private? Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it. In one way this is false, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word “know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know if I’m in pain. Yes, but all the same, not with the certainty with which I know it myself! It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What is it supposed to mean a except perhaps that I am in pain?

Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.


In one way talk of private sensations is false, and in another nonsense.

You would perhaps talk of private subjective stuff; and speak either falsehood or nonsense. — Banno

What do you take all of this to mean?

I think it could be argued that, on the one hand, Wittgenstein says it is nonsensical to make knowledge claims about one's own sensations or the sensations of others. On the other hand, he also says that it makes sense to doubt (and, hence, to make knowledge claims about) the sensations of others.

However, I agree with Wittgenstein that it does not make sense to doubt or to know one's own sensations. But you should try telling that to @Isaac.

most people simply have pain without needing to make any predictions. But this highlights our differences in talking about the issue. You're talking about our brains making predictions, which happens unconsciously, whereas I'm talking about our conscious experiences of having pain sensations. — Luke

Only you're not. That's the point. Despite seemingly wide opinion to the contrary, I don't think neuroscience or cognitive psychology has the answer here, it's a useful adjunct only. The reason I've written so extensively about it is because empirical claims about neurological processes keep being imputed in the counter-arguments, as they are here.

If you were talking only about your conscious experience of pain, that which is in your mind as being an experience (regardless of it's origins, or historical accuracy) you would have absolutely no ground at all to say that such an experience was unique, or intrinsically private. How on earth would you know? There might be a set of only a dozen such experiences identical in all humans which we consciously experience one of on each occasion. If you are solely talking about your personal experience, uninvestigated, and unsubstantiated, then on what grounds would you even suspect it to be unique, private...? Perhaps we're only capable of twelve different experiences, perhaps whatever causes experiences spits out the identical ones in every person....

No. Your argument about privacy relies on an assumption about the causes of experience, an assumption that those causes are so multifarious that their rendering must be unique, that those causes obtain inside you and so are not accessible to others, hence private. Otherwise, how can you say I don't know what it's like for you to stub your toe? Maybe just by thinking about it, I know exactly what it's like, maybe, I replicate the exact experience, just by imagining it, maybe I detect the 'aura of pain-generating particles' which surround you and cause your experience and so know exactly what experience you're having... You refute such models by invoking a model of how physiological functions result in mental features. You necessarily bring in physiology. Your model is, however, wrong.

You want me to cite the studies proposing the disagreements that you're referring to? I don't know these studies. I had in mind something along the lines of Wittgenstein:

244. ...How does a human being learn the meaning of names of sensations? For example, of the word “pain”. Here is one possibility: words are connected with the primitive, natural, expressions of sensation and used in their place. A child has hurt himself and he cries; then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behaviour.

257. “What would it be like if human beings did not manifest their pains (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word ‘toothache’.”


Presumably, the reason for these expressions of pain are (consciously experienced) pain sensations. — Luke

Why 'presume'? I've cited a dozen papers now in our various discussion on the topic. I've done my best to explain the current theories of active inference, yet without any contrary citation at all you just 'presume' that what I've said and what all the collected neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists I've cited have said, is wrong and that there are such things as 'pain sensations' which cause expressions of pain. So I don't think it's unreasonable of me, given your insistence, to ask fo the studies on which you base this recalcitrance.

People's heights are not private. You can see and measure how tall someone is. You cannot see or measure someone's pain sensations which are private. — Luke

You can ask.

You're trying to make this about language again, here, instead of the privacy of subjective experience. It's a given that we use the same words to refer to the same sets of behaviours. — Luke

We don't 'refer' using words. To say "John is in pain" is not 'referring' to a set of behaviours. It's getting help for John.

But more to the point you don't have access to that particular set of signals either. — Isaac


What particular set of signals? — Luke

Whichever signals you're interpreting as your being 'in pain'.

fMRI scans, conversation, behavioural observations... — Isaac


These can only measure pain behaviours, not pain sensations. — Luke

FMRI scans can measure pain sensations. But the other two can't. That's not the point. The point here is disputing your claim that it's not about how we use 'sameness'. You and I might have 'the same' phone based on a agreed set of properties (make and model) we ignore that yours has a scratch on one side. Likewise 'sameness' in experience can be, perfectly reasonably, determined by the properties {neural regions involved, behaviours produced, words used to describe it...etc}. We might reasonably ignore, in our use of the word 'same' the property of {exact spatial location of neurons involved, precise range of mental events associated...} just like we ignored the scratch on one side in determining that you and I have 'the same' phone.

The point of Wittgenstein's Eiffel Tower example is to reveal that we not only choose to do this sometimes, but that we must do this all the time, in order to speak of 'sameness' at all.

If these aren't enough for you to know we have the same experiences, then it is a question of 'sameness'. — Isaac


They're not enough, because there is no way to verify the sensations themselves. — Luke

Exactly. So

1) the exact range of sensations are like the exact scratches on your phone, or the dimensions to the nanometre, we don't use those properties to talk of 'sameness' when it comes to phones. Why should we use them to talk of 'sameness' when it comes to experiences?

2) you're amply demonstrating here exactly what I've argued at the opening of this post. Your conclusion that experience is radically unique and private is hooked into a model of it being caused by these unique and private 'pain sensations'. that is a) a psychological model and b) wrong.

We can compare and look at each other's phones, though. That's the difference. — Luke

We cannot look at them to the nanometre though. We cannot inspect their exact atomic structure. We cannot draw up an account of their histories atom-by-atom. Yet these failings do not prevent us from declaring them 'the same' phone. We pick the level of accuracy we want to use.

It would be clearer if you could define what 'private' does mean, instead of what it does not mean. — Luke

In this context - accessible only to the person concerned. Hence, accessible to no-one would not count as private. Like Private land. It has to be legally accessible by the person concerned and not by others. Land legally accessible by no-one at all is not private land, it's just unclaimed. Likewise private experience would be experience you can access but others can't. Experience which no-one can access is not 'private' it's just unknowable.

Indirect realism"s weakness is about the trustworthiness of representations. How do you confirm that they're accurate? — frank

Pragmatism.

But you grant that people can have experiences that aren't publicly know — frank

Yes, of course. If you lived and died a hermit you would have experiences that weren't publicly known. That's not the same as saying they're not publicly knowable.

That's a misunderstanding of what is being said. — Banno


A useless comment without explanation. — Janus

Whereas...

I've read pretty much the entire thread and have seen no cogent explanation. — Janus

...is not?

We have the same experiences because we're both human. We each have private pains because you don't have access to my nociceptors. — frank

As with Luke, if you invoke physiology to support privacy you need to have an accurate model of the way on which physiology causes experience. If you don't, then you'll have to abandon physiology as support. Your model is wrong. Neither do 'you' have unfiltered access to your nociceptors, no more so than a neuroscientist does.

The reporter asks what it's like. I say I can't explain it. You'll just have to go through it yourself.

A unique, private experience has been talked about. — frank

It evidently hasn't - "I can't explain it."

One can understand. Hmmmm. Does that mean one has to calculate? Or might he....you know....introspect? — Mww

and by your own admission, this science is itself speculative, so all that’s happened is we’ve substituted an older speculative system for a newer one, which is nonetheless speculative for it. — Mww

Yes, indeed. A common objection it seems. I remain unconvinced by this idea that since the science is only 'modelling' models it's somehow open season and anything goes. Models can be more or less coherent with each other, more or less useful, more or less parsimonious.

We've replaced the older speculative system for the newer one, not on a whim, but because it works better.

for all intents and purposes, why not just say we simply reason to the prevention of cause? — Mww

You could, but 'reason' has typically been reserved for conscious processing, and much of the modelling that brain regions have been shown to do is subconscious. It 'acts like' reason. In fact one really good study compared people subconsciously updating their expectations in the face of contrary sensory data, with a mathematician doing the calculations using Bayesian probability. The results were compared and found to be statistically correlated. I don't think that means that the occipital brain regions being studied actually carried out Bayesian analysis though. It's just that the algorithm programmed into the neural structure of those regions is similar enough to the one the mathematician carries out that the results of each are correlated.

humans can reason to prevention, then proceed to ignore it. — Mww

I don't believe they can. 'Reason' is usually a post hoc construction to rationalise a decision that has been made anyway further back in the subconscious. The fact that some particular thought method leads to one conclusion and another leads to another tells us almost nothing at all about how we actually arrived at the choice.

One thing I noticed: the paper recognizes the human cognitive system as representational; there are eleven instances of that conception therein. Always a good first step, methinks. — Mww

Nice to know there's cross-over even on hotly contested topics.

But you grant that people can have experiences that aren't publicly known — frank


Yes, of course. — Isaac

Cool. One problem solved.

A unique, private experience has been talked about. — frank


It evidently hasn't - "I can't explain it." — Isaac

It's the object of "can't explain.".

why not just say we simply reason to the prevention of cause?
— Mww

You could, but 'reason' has typically been reserved for conscious processing, and much of the modelling that brain regions have been shown to do is subconscious. It 'acts like' reason. — Isaac

Does this not contradict itself? If reason is reserved for conscious processing, which is granted, and if much of the modeling is unconscious, how can such modeling be said to be acting like reason?

What is the special attention you give to “reason” and “acts like” meant to indicate? What would you use to substitute for those, for which no special attention is necessary?
—————-

this science is itself speculative (....), substituted an older speculative system for a newer one (...),
— Mww

Yes, indeed. A common objection it seems. I remain unconvinced by this idea that since the science is only 'modelling' models it's somehow open season and anything goes. Models can be more or less coherent with each other, more or less useful, more or less parsimonious. — Isaac

Absolutely; permitting open season and anything goes permits all sorts of irrationalities. And models can be coherent with each other, but only within their respective domains and iff the conditions for them are given from the domain in which the model resides. If may indeed be the case that brain mechanics adhere to physical law, and follow mathematical algorithms, but that modeling is utterly irrelevant to a separate system that models itself absent all those terms in its purpose, even while operating in conjunction with it.

We've replaced the older speculative system for the newer one, not on a whim, but because it works better. — Isaac

Who’s we? The teeny-tiny fraction of intellectually specialized humanity that even considers the new system a better explanatory device? So, technically, you’ve replaced nothing, but only attacked a common opponent.....ignorance.....from a different direction, and with a much smaller hence potentially less effective force, using experimental weapons.

And works better than what? Whatever system model that can’t present itself to being measured? So quality is determined by measure? I’m wondering if you see that any experiment intending to demonstrate a result via any kind of measurement, is entirely predicated on the very speculative system the new speculative system is attempting to replace.
—————-

humans can reason to prevention, then proceed to ignore it.
— Mww

I don't believe they can. — Isaac

I suspect there to be many senior firefighters, soldiers, and these days, nurses’ aides,
boldly scoffing at that. A few of ‘em.....the more senior.....rolling on the ground, even. The most insulted, the most senior, would look at you with that, “what....you wouldn’t do your damn job???” expression, and immediately proceed to ignore, if not regret, your very existence.

'Reason' is usually a post hoc construction to rationalise a decision that has been made anyway further back in the subconscious. — Isaac

That’s actually a pretty decent rendering, except the “further back in the subconscious” part, insofar as no decision of reason is ever made in the subconscious domain. Some preliminary conditions for reason are subconscious, but these are not decisions.

Who’s we? — Mww

The Illuminati.

Guess we’ll never know. Sworn to secrecy and all.

So we have two kinds of privacy. One means unshareable even in principle. The other just means unshared, but potentially shareable to some degree.

The absence of Wittgensteinian privacy doesn't undermine the idea of subjectivity or intersubjectivity, and I think we've all agreed that the second kind is unproblematic.

So we're all on the same page.

If you were talking only about your conscious experience of pain, that which is in your mind as being an experience (regardless of it's origins, or historical accuracy) you would have absolutely no ground at all to say that such an experience was unique, or intrinsically private. How on earth would you know? — Isaac

That's my question to you: how do you know that it isn't?

There might be a set of only a dozen such experiences identical in all humans which we consciously experience one of on each occasion. If you are solely talking about your personal experience, uninvestigated, and unsubstantiated, then on what grounds would you even suspect it to be unique, private...? — Isaac

It's private because I've never known or experienced anyone else's sensations except my own. I've known and experienced lots of other people's behaviour, though.

Your argument about privacy relies on an assumption about the causes of experience, an assumption that those causes are so multifarious that their rendering must be unique, that those causes obtain inside you and so are not accessible to others, hence private. — Isaac

My argument for privacy is that you cannot have other people's experiences/sensations; you can only have your own. Therefore, there is no way to compare your sensations with other people's sensations in order to verify whether or not they are alike.

Presumably, the reason for these expressions of pain are (consciously experienced) pain sensations.
— Luke

Why 'presume'? — Isaac

In accordance with my argument that you cannot access other people's sensations in order to compare and verify whether they are alike.

I've cited a dozen papers now in our various discussion on the topic. I've done my best to explain the current theories of active inference, yet without any contrary citation at all you just 'presume' that what I've said and what all the collected neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists I've cited have said, is wrong — Isaac

Sorry, I must have missed them. You haven't cited any of them in your posts addressed to me.

and that there are such things as 'pain sensations' which cause expressions of pain. — Isaac

Maybe "cause" is not the right word. But it's irrelevant. There are the inner sensations and the outer expressions, and you can never see or experience or verify what other people's sensations feel/are like.

People's heights are not private. You can see and measure how tall someone is. You cannot see or measure someone's pain sensations which are private.
— Luke

You can ask. — Isaac

All you will get is a (verbal) behaviour. You still won't be able to see or access their sensations. You saying "it looks red to me" doesn't help if we have inverted qualia.

But more to the point you don't have access to that particular set of signals either.
— Isaac

What particular set of signals?
— Luke

Whichever signals you're interpreting as your being 'in pain'. — Isaac

How can I not have access to my own feelings of pain? But if, instead, you mean my brain signals instead of my feelings of pain, then why did you say earlier that neither of us can have access to those?

FMRI scans can measure pain sensations. — Isaac

Sensations or behaviours? How does it measure the sensations?

The point here is disputing your claim that it's not about how we use 'sameness'. — Isaac

That wasn't my claim; that's a claim you've attributed to me. I have conceded that we could all have the same experiences. That wasn't my point. As I said: "We could all have the same experiences, but do we? Probably, but who knows? How can we know?"

The point of Wittgenstein's Eiffel Tower example is — Isaac

I'm not familiar with that example. Do you have a reference?

1) the exact range of sensations are like the exact scratches on your phone, or the dimensions to the nanometre, we don't use those properties to talk of 'sameness' when it comes to phones. Why should we use them to talk of 'sameness' when it comes to experiences? — Isaac

Accuracy is irrelevant to my argument. It's the fact that we cannot access other people's sensations in order to compare them. You can access their "neural regions involved, behaviours produced, words used to describe it...etc", but whether these are associated with the same sensations seems like little more than an assumption. How can you prove it?

Your conclusion that experience is radically unique and private is hooked into a model of it being caused by these unique and private 'pain sensations'. that is a) a psychological model and b) wrong. — Isaac

Pain sensations are necessarily psychological. This is what I don't understand about your neuroscientific explanations. You can only know of your pain sensations by being conscious of them, yet you talk about unconscious brain activity instead and claim that what is presented to consciousness provides us with an inferior knowledge of pain compared to our neuroscientific models. But you wouldn't even know pain sensations without consciousness. Therefore, you're not actually talking about pain sensations at all.

Hence, accessible to no-one would not count as private. — Isaac

You still haven't explained how pain sensations are hidden or indirect or inaccessible to us both. I have direct access to my pains when I feel them. Where do you think pain sensations are really hidden?

Guess we’ll never know. Sworn to secrecy and all. — Mww

They could tell us but then they'd have to turn us into mindless zombies like themselves.

You can access their "neural regions involved, behaviours produced, words used to describe it...etc", but whether these are associated with the same sensations seems like little more than an assumption. How can you prove it? — Luke

By changing variables around to see if the affect the sensations and the reports. There will be some physical differences which result in different sensations. For example: When I step on a lego I am in pain, whereas if the lego isn't there I'm not. The physical difference in this case is the lego. You can deduce that that is the case by having my walk on a lego then not walk on a lego. In once case I'll be in pain, and in the other I won't be.

If we change a physical aspect and the experience doesn't change, then we can conclude that that physical aspect is not responsible for changing the experience. For instance: We can know that toe size does not affect your perception of color. Or else we'd expect that when your toes are swollen that you would report that your perceptions of color changed (similar to putting on color inverting glasses for example). That doesn't happen, so we can conclude that toe size doesn't affect your perception of color.

Incidentally, this is what neurologists do. They mess with your brain and see how your reports of your experience change (due to your experience changing). Based on this we can narrow down the important physical factors for any sensation. Such that we can tell, decisively, that if we cloned Luke and gave his clone slightly bigger toes, the Luke clone will still be having the exact same experience of color as the original Luke.

Similarly, by narrowing down the variables sufficiently we can get to a point where we can tell exactly what Luke is feeling at time X by measuring all the relevant variables.

All of this of course assumes that, identical bodies produce identical experiences.

It's the fact that we cannot access other people's sensations in order to compare them. — Luke

Sure but we can access their reports. And assuming that they aren't lying that should be good enough no? If they're not lying a change in reports should indicate a change in sensations.

All of this of course assumes that, identical bodies produce identical experiences. — khaled

So it's no more than an assumption, right? Why can it not be anything stronger than an assumption?

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

No, sensations are biological, 'Pain' is a concept created by a socially communicating group collecting some of those sensations and naming them. — Isaac

Semantics. What difference does it make if we lump all the sensations which hurt into one general category? The matter at hand is the subjective nature of the sensations.

Well, if that's all there is to it, what do you think of

Semantics. What difference does it make if we lump all the sensations which hurt into one general category? The matter at hand is the subjective nature of the sensations. — Marchesk

??

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

I think so.

All of this of course assumes that, identical bodies produce identical experiences.
— khaled

So it's no more than an assumption, right? — Luke

You don't share this assumption? You think that you can have the exact same physical state at two different times and have different experiences? I find that the way less likely hypothesis. Cheddar cheese tastes similar every time I eat it. And if cheddar cheese suddenly tastes like chocolate ice cream the first thing I suspect is that there is something physically different from the last time I ate cheddar cheese. It seems that when the physical conditions are the same or similar that the experience is the same or similar.

Otherwise what can account for a difference in experience? Do you often find yourself in the exact same physical situations but with different sensations?

But yes. It is no more than an assumption. But then so are all the alternatives. Point is it is the assumption that seems to match our experience the most. When the same things happen (stepping on a lego), we feel the same way (ouch).

Why can it not be anything stronger than an assumption? — Luke

I'm interested in an example of something "stronger than an assumption" for you.