Human experience is not the sort of thing that can be stepped into and/or out of to begin with, so it makes no sense at all to claim that doing so is needed for anything else at all. — creativesoul

I'd say it this way, to head off a tendency to think we're pointing our telescopes at curious entities:

Human experience is (contingently but significantly) not the sort of thing of concept that <is compatible with talk about > can be <being> stepped into and/or out of to begin with... <not when humans are doing the talking, anyway.>

I think what you've written is sophistic nonsense. Saying "thought requires words" means that thinking is impossible without words. Saying some thought requires words means that there are some thoughts which are impossible without using words. My claim was the latter, where "complex" substitutes for and specifies the "some".

Not seeing the relevance.

“Only feeling” is the very core of abstract meaning. It is an impressionistic kind of verbiage. Rather than describing feeling as indeterminate, I would say that the word puts into sharper focus what feeling already locates in a general way. Is feeling non-representational? Is music non-representational? Did you know that if you put a group of people in a room and ask them to draw images that are evoked by a piece of instrumental music played to the group, many would draw similar images? That sounds representational to me. Is a Haiku representational in the way that an instruction manual is? Are there not forms of modern poetry that are abstract in the way that abstract art is? Does metaphorical language represent or invent? — Joshs

I don't think feeling is essential to abstract meaning; abstract meaning consists in generalization. 'Tree" refers to whole class of concrete objects, whereas a class is an abstract object; a concept.

I didn't know that about people drawing similar images after listening to instrumental music. Can you cite references for that study? Does it work with all instrumental music or just some, like for example Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony?

In any case music is gentle, calm, slow, racing, violent, aggressive, chaotic, ordered, happy, sad, eerie, dark, light, and so on and these are all feeling tones, it seems to me. So, if the similarity in the drawings is on account of the feeling tones in them which echo the feeling tones in the music, that would not surprise me.

Haiku is a very "pictorial" genre of poetry; generally it evokes concrete images, the classic being Basho's best know haiku:

The ancient pond

A frog leaps in.

The sound of water.

I am not aware of poetry which is abstract like abstract art is. The Abstract Expressionists aimed to dispense with any representational associations with things of the world such as human figures or landscapes, under the influence of Clement Greenberg, they wanted to produce paintings emphasizing the two-dimensionality of the surface, which were to be judged in purely formal, compositional terms. Yet of course some of these paintings seem to evoke landscape such as Jackson Pollock's Autumn, Blue Poles and Lavender Mist.

So they skirt the edges between representing recognizable objects and evoking the feeling of natural textures: patterns of moss on walls, or the general fractal forms of foliage, rock-faces, clouds and so on. I suppose you could say that evoking generalized forms, as opposed to clearly representing particular objects, is a kind of abstraction, so maybe I'll rethink what I said earlier about "abstract" being an inappropriate label. But then maybe not, because again I think it comes down to evoking the feeling tones, and even representing or at resembling the patterns of these natural forms.

In any case, none of this changes my mind about whether it is possible to think complex discursive ideas without using language. As I said earlier my belief that it is not possible is based only on my own experience and the reports of some others I have put the question to. so I am not totally ruling out the possibility, but find it hard to see how I could be convinced, since any counterargument could only come in the form of reports by others who claim they can do it. So far only @Mww is the only one to have claimed to be able to do anything like this, and going by his descriptions I'm not sure we are even talking about the same thing.

Is there an external material world?

If by "external" we mean not within the physical bounds of our skin, and by "material" we mean detectable stuff, then all we're asking is whether or not any detectable stuff not within the bounds of our skin exists.

Such questions are the bane of philosophy. — creativesoul

Here's my version. At some point in the philosophical tradition (Locke or Kant or implicitly in Democritus even), it made sense to think of human experience as $f(X)$ where $X$ is reality in the nude or raw or completely apart from us and $f$ is the universal structure or mediation of human cognition. The important bits of this insane but charming theory are that $X$ is impossible to access directly and that $f(X)$ is private experience (plausible initially because we each have our own sense organs and brain, according to our sense organs anyway, which are in that sense their own product ? And the brain is the dream of the brain is the dream of the brain ? But we must carry on...).

It's a small step to let $Y = f(X)$ and then wonder whether $f$ and $X$ aren't just unproven hypotheses, mere pieces of $Y'$, solipsism's divine blob. Yet this whole system seems to be a corruption of something far more reasonable and practical, which is simply a tracking of the reliability or authority of the claims of a member of a linguistic community as a function of that member's status and prior behavior, etc. For instance, 'it seems to me like X' is a mitigation of the responsibility for consequences implicit in 'I know that X.' But this 'seems operator' can inspire oceans of confusion.

"14th century humans had cells."

That's my answer.
— creativesoul

Good. Now what about the phagocytised or excreted proteins in the cell vacuole. Were they part of what makes up these 14th C cells or not? — Isaac

I've no clear idea whether or not those terms pick out things that existed in their entirety prior to being picked out. If so, then those things were part of what made up 14th Century human cells. If not, then they were not.

I've no clear idea whether or not those terms pick out things that existed in their entirety prior to being picked out. If so, then those things were part of what made up 14th Century human cells. If not, then they were not. — creativesoul

So something existing is sufficient criteria for it being part of a cell?

If what is being picked out by the name exists in its entirety prior to being picked out then it does not matter one bit if those different uses conflict with one another. My point remains. — creativesoul

There is nothing being "picked out" by the name, like I said originally. I just went along with that notion to show you the fault in it. As I said, the name refers to a concept. And, we can use the concept in a variety of different ways. Whether or not a person uses the concept to pick out things, or believes oneself to be using the concept to pick out things, or simply believes oneself to be using the word to pick out things, is another issue altogether.

What we pick out with "cell" is up to us. Whether or not what we're picking out existed in its entirety prior to being picked out is not. If those things mentioned are now considered parts of cells, and they are parts of all cells, then I see no reason to deny that 14th Century humans cells included those things.

What we pick out with "cell" is up to us. — creativesoul

Right. That's the point @Janus and I have been trying to communicate.

What 'experience' picks out depends on how one uses the word. Could be internal, external, or both.

Just like the word 'cell' could pick out all the phagocytised proteins in the cell vacuole, some or them, of none of them. It all depends how we use the word.

I think what you've written is sophistic nonsense. Saying "thought requires words" means that thinking is impossible without words. — Janus

You don't seem to have had any introductory level instruction on logic. Saying "thought does not need words" (which is the proposition being discussed) means that the type of thing which "thought" refers to, is not a type of think which requires words for its existence. In no way does this exclude the possibility that some forms of thought do require words.

Saying some thought requires words means that there are some thoughts which are impossible without using words. My claim was the latter, where "complex" substitutes for and specifies the "some". — Janus

This is what has been contested, as explicitly wrong. We cannot substitute "complex" for "some" here, because there are instances of complex thought which do not require words.

So we're right back to the same place. "Complex thought does not need words" is true, because there is complex thought which operates without words. However, "some complex thought needs words" is also true because there are some instances which require words.

I am very surprised that these simple inductive principles are so very difficult for you to understand, so much so that you are inclined to call it "sophistic nonsense". It's just basic induction.

Using a word changes us at the same time that it changes something in our environment.

We are in our environment. Word use changes us. How exactly does using the word "tree" as a means to pick out the thing in my front yard change the thing in my front yard?

Perhaps you have an example of a situation when language use changes something in our environment. I mean, I agree with that. At least when I take it at face value. Word use helps to create many different parts of our environment.


Words only exist in their use , and their use reveals new aspects of things.

I'm struggling to see the relevance. — creativesoul

Are you familiar with the later Wittgenstein? He argues that words do not refer to already existing objects. Strictly speaking , they do not refer at all. They enact relationships by altering prior relationships. If I see a tree, I am not passively observing hat appears to me, I am deconstructing it. And what I am deconstructing is not an object , it is a way of relating to something,- me that way of relating never repeats itself identically from
context to context. When I use a word in front of someone else, their response establishes a fresh sense of meaning of that word. ‘Tree’ has an infinity of senses that depend exquisitely on the context of a shared situation. In a situation of usage of the word ‘tree’ I am not creating a new physical object , I am enacting a new pattern of relationship with it. No object simply exists for us as what it is outside of changing contextual relationships of sense.

Don’t we need to include the concept of ‘x’ itself as what is involved in naming.?
— Joshs

Possibly, but X here simply stands for something and the spaces between them stand for some boundary. I don't doubt you could make an argument that both concept (an external world matrix, and 'boundaries') are constructed concepts, but I haven't seen the evidence for that. All I've seen indicates that such fundamental concepts are present in very young babies and so seem likely to be hard-wired. — Isaac

We wouldn’t say , though, that the hard-wiring is itself hard-wired. That is, ‘hard-wired’ is not a metaphysical a priori like a Kantian category, but an adaptation under selective pressure, and since we can grasp the nature of this ‘categorical’ adaption as a contingent product of a non-categorical process, aren’t we capable of reducing a physiological a priori like ‘boundary’ to something more original? Might hard-wired capacities be better thought of as sources of conditioning among others rather than as irreducible determinants of meaning?
More importantly, isn’t there a danger that the myriad senses of a concept like ‘boundary’ be lost as a result of a pre-emptively reductive understanding of ‘hard-wiring’? Is this way of understanding the innate the result of science or the unintended reliance on a philosophical presupposition guiding a certain kind of naturalistic stance?

. I think the differences between us might be the foundation on which this activity acts. You might have it have nk foundation at all, I believe there are physical and biological building blocks from which these senses are constructed.

We can’t then say the x’s existed prior to our naming of them as a jabberwocky , because the meaning of ‘x’ points to a specific way of causally interacting with aspects of the world.
— Joshs

As I say, I can see how you might theorise that, but the evidence I've seen seems to contradict it. — Isaac

But if we belong causally to nature rather than standing outside of it observing it, must not the physical and biological building blocks be reconstructed from our immersion within that world? This immersion isn’t as spectators or mere modelers , but , though our practices and invention and use of instruments, as constructors of niches that reveal new and better ways of seeing and interacting with our surrounds, precisely because of the way they material change those surrounds. I suggest that in order for science to progress, the farther away from its origins it moves via its construction of the world, the better it understands those origins. Making progress in understanding the earliest and simplest building blocks of nature is a process of materially altering the world scientists and the rest of us inhabit, in ways that change the world we interact with profoundly relative to those beginnings.
To assume we are attempting to capture non-contingent intrinsic features of that world through our science may be a dream we inherited from theological notions of the world.

“I think a more basic trace of a theological conception remains in many philosophical accounts of science and nature. A theological conception of God as creator places God outside of nature. God's understanding of nature is also external to the world. Such a God could understand his language and his thoughts about the world, apart from any interaction with the world. Naturalists long ago removed God from scientific conceptions of the world. Yet many naturalists still implicitly understand science as aiming to take God's place. They interpret science as trying to represent nature from a standpoint outside of nature. The language in which science represents the world could then be understood apart from the causal interactions it articulates. A philosophy of scientific practices denies that such an otherworldly understanding of nature is possible. Scientific concepts and scientific understanding are situated in the midst of ongoing causal interaction with the world. That is why I talk about conceptual articulation in science rather than theoretical representation. We understand scientific concepts only by understanding the phenomena they articulate. We find ourselves in the midst of the world, and cannot understand it except from within. That is the radical vision of a naturalistic philosophy of science expressed in my “concluding scientific postscript“.

(Joseph Rouse, Naturalism and Scientific Practices: A Concluding Scientific Postscript(2007)

Might hard-wired capacities be better thought of as sources of conditioning among others rather than as irreducible determinants of meaning? — Joshs

Yes, I think so.

isn’t there a danger that the myriad senses of a concept like ‘boundary’ be lost as a result of a pre-emptively reductive understanding of ‘hard-wiring’? — Joshs

Not so sure here. I don't really see other senses of boundary being at risk of being lost (like they were some endangered species), I think it's unproblematic that they compete with hardwired concepts 'no holds barred' style. I don't feel I owe alternative world-views anything. If they can complete in the marketplace of ideas same as any other.

Is this way of understanding the innate the result of science or the unintended reliance on a philosophical presupposition guiding the naturalistic stance? — Joshs

I think the idea of 'innate' is quite clearly delineated, it's that mental activity (regardless of how you measure it) that is likely to take place regardless of cultural influence. It's usually inferred from the actions of very young children.

You could certainly pick holes in that methodological assumption, many have, including myself. But the concept itself seems clear enough.

Of course, the value or importance you attach to something being innate is up to you. For me it's a good foundation from which to understand why we think the way we do. For you it might be an irrelevant distinction among many potential sources of conditioning.

My point is merely that the background concept of there being an external world matrix (without specifying the simples), and the idea of there being boundaries (not everything is one homogeneous mass) seem sufficiently innate to me to be premises from which we might find common ground with our fellow humans. One who has a sufficiently open mind may be an exception, but I don't expect there's many such people.

My point is merely that the background concept of there being an external world matrix (without specifying the simples), and the idea of there being boundaries (not everything is one homogeneous mass) seem sufficiently innate to me to be premises from which we might find common ground with our fellow humans. O — Isaac

What makes the matrix we interact with ‘external’ to us? The evidence coming from the world or our starting presuppositions? What a fess do we have to a world external to our space of reasons? And isnt that space of reasons in direct and continual contact with a world whose behavior it predicts and anticipates? In other words, what is at stake and at issue within the space of reasons for a scientist is under question and subject to modification in applying it to the world , because the world speaks back to us. But it responds differently to different conceptions. So the world’s ‘externality’ can only challenge a system of conceptions relative not the nature of those conceptions.

(Not sure my last edit of the previous post came though
so I’m duplicating it here:)

If we belong causally to nature rather than standing outside of it observing it, must not the physical and biological building blocks be reconstructed from our immersion within that world? This immersion isn’t as spectators or mere modelers , but , though our practices and invention and use of instruments, as constructors of niches that reveal new and better ways of seeing and interacting with our surrounds, precisely because of the way they material change those surrounds. I suggest that in order for science to progress, the farther away from its origins it moves via its construction of the world, the better it understands those origins. Making progress in understanding the earliest and simplest building blocks of nature is a process of materially altering the world scientists and the rest of us inhabit, in ways that change the world we interact with profoundly relative to those beginnings.
To assume we are attempting to capture non-contingent intrinsic features of that world through our science may be a dream we inherited from theological notions of the world.

“I think a more basic trace of a theological conception remains in many philosophical accounts of science and nature. A theological conception of God as creator places God outside of nature. God's understanding of nature is also external to the world. Such a God could understand his language and his thoughts about the world, apart from any interaction with the world. Naturalists long ago removed God from scientific conceptions of the world. Yet many naturalists still implicitly understand science as aiming to take God's place. They interpret science as trying to represent nature from a standpoint outside of nature. The language in which science represents the world could then be understood apart from the causal interactions it articulates. A philosophy of scientific practices denies that such an otherworldly understanding of nature is possible. Scientific concepts and scientific understanding are situated in the midst of ongoing causal interaction with the world. That is why I talk about conceptual articulation in science rather than theoretical representation. We understand scientific concepts only by understanding the phenomena they articulate. We find ourselves in the midst of the world, and cannot understand it except from within. That is the radical vision of a naturalistic philosophy of science expressed in my “concluding scientific postscript“.

(Joseph Rouse, Naturalism and Scientific Practices: A Concluding Scientific Postscript(2007)
1h[/quote]

What makes the matrix we interact with ‘external’ to us? — Joshs

I don't think anything 'makes' it external. We assume it is.

isnt that space of reasons in direct and continual contact with a world whose behavior it predicts and anticipates? — Joshs

Yes, that's the way I see it.

the world’s ‘externality’ can only challenge a system of conceptions relative not the nature of those conceptions. — Joshs

I can't make sense of this.

If we belong causally to nature rather than standing outside of it observing it, must not the physical and biological building blocks be reconstructed from our immersion within that world? — Joshs

I'm not seeing why. I mean, they could be, and we've good evidence they are, bug I'm not seeing the argument that they must be.

I suggest that in order for science to progress, the farther away from its origins it moves via its construction of the world, the better it understands those origins. Making progress in understanding the earliest and simplest building blocks of nature is a process of materially altering the world scientists and the rest of us inhabit, in ways that change the world we interact with profoundly relative to those beginnings. — Joshs

I agree with the latter, but I don't see how it relates to the former. The fact that science makes assumptions doesn't make those assumptions bad ones to make. I'm sure there are scientists who will deny the assumption-laden nature of the work we do. I'm not one of them. But I do deny the automatic assumption that because we have presuppositions, those presuppositions need exposing/replacing/examining. There mere existence is not evidence any of those things need to happen.

To assume we are attempting to capture non-contingent intrinsic features of that world through our science may be a dream we inherited from theological notions of the world. — Joshs

Yep. Likely.

The fact that science makes assumptions doesn't make those assumptions bad ones to make. I'm sure there are scientists who will deny the assumption-laden nature of the work we do. I'm not one of them. But I do deny the automatic assumption that because we have presuppositions, those presuppositions need exposing/replacing/examining. There mere existence is not evidence any of those things need to happen. — Isaac

What many postmodern approaches to science have in common is a radically temporal, self-reflexive point of view. In Rouse’s case , he likens assumptions to the normatively organized interactive cycling between organism and environment. Piaget said that this cycling shows the organism to be assimilating elements of its world to its kind of functioning, but at the same time must always accommodate and adjust this normativity to the novel aspects of what it incorporates. In like fashion, an assumption , rule or norm only exists in practice , that is in its actual performative interaction with the world. Assumptions doesn’t simply assimilate the world, they accommodate themselves to that world at the same time.
Just as an organism, in order to continue to exist , must maintain its normative functioning in the face of changing circumstances , so must empirical conceptions continually adapt and and re-affirm. It’s not that we SHOULD examine and question them , its that we always already do this even while maintaining them as stable assumptions. We simply don’t often notice this continual accommodation.

For these writers, the mere existence of assumptions IS evidence that adaptation and accommodation is always already happening every time we instantiate and use them, just as this is the case every time an organism assimilates material into its functioning.

Assumptions, like organisms, are kinds of relatively but dynamically stable ongoing self-transformations

:up:

Is there an external material world?

If by "external" we mean not within the physical bounds of our skin, and by "material" we mean detectable stuff, then all we're asking is whether or not any detectable stuff not within the bounds of our skin exists.

Such questions are the bane of philosophy.
— creativesoul

Here's my version. At some point in the philosophical tradition (Locke or Kant or implicitly in Democritus even), it made sense to think of human experience as f(X)f(X) where XX is reality in the nude or raw or completely apart from us and ff is the universal structure or mediation of human cognition. The important bits of this insane but charming theory are that XX is impossible to access directly and that f(X)f(X) is private experience (plausible initially because we each have our own sense organs and brain, according to our sense organs anyway, which are in that sense their own product ? And the brain is the dream of the brain is the dream of the brain ? But we must carry on...). — Pie

The quote function did not transfer the symbols correctly...

I am in agreement. The framework treats human thought and belief(human experience) as though they(it) are(is) completely independent and/or separate from the world. They(It) are(is) not. You've also noted how the framework treats human experience as private. It is not, and cannot be given what we now know about how language effects/affects human thought and belief. The idea that all we have access to is our perception of the tree, and not the tree("Stove's Gem", it is often called) pervades academia to this day.

About three years ago, I received a phone call from my better half's youngest child who as an undergrad took Introduction To Philosophy as a means to meet his curriculum humanity course standards. Stove's Gem was the beginning of course! So, because he knew how much philosophy I've studied and done in my spare time, he calls me up and says something like "Hey, uncle <snip my name>, can you help me to understand what in the hell this is supposed to mean?" Then, he goes on to read the typical lines that lead to saying the same stuff we're talking about in this exchange. A few phone calls and he maintained his perfect grade history. Very bright, practical, driven, and considerate young man. Great kid! I digress...

Dennett's paper "Quining Qualia" is the most convincing piece of writing I've been fortunate enough to have read with regard to the purportedly private parts of human experience. His approach is admirable as well as his attitude, even towards people whose approaches and attitudes are anything but.

What we pick out with "cell" is up to us.
— creativesoul

Right. That's the point Janus and I have been trying to communicate.

What 'experience' picks out depends on how one uses the word. Could be internal, external, or both.

Just like the word 'cell' could pick out all the phagocytised proteins in the cell vacuole, some or them, of none of them. It all depends how we use the word. — Isaac

There's never been disagreement regarding that much. It comes as a surprise to know that you thought I did not agree with that much.

What made no sense was to deny the existence of what was being picked out before being picked out. 14th Century humans had glial cells, because glial cells existed before the 1800's, despite their not having yet been picked out by name. To deny that they did, because the term had not been coined, is to confuse our language use with what is being picked out. Glial cells are biological structures picked out by the term "glial cells". Glial cells do not consist of words. "Glial cells" does.

The consideration I've been trying to coax some kind of agreement upon is that humans had experiences long before the term "experience" was coined.

...the name refers to a concept... — Metaphysician Undercover

Could be an interesting endeavor. Earlier you wrote the following...

A "cell" as commonly defined can be either a complete living organism, or a part of a living organism. How is it, that in some cases an entire living organism is "picked out" as a cell, and in other cases, a part of a living organism is picked out, and called by the same name.

The same way two different people may share the same name.

One is an entire living organism, the other is not, yet they are both said to be the same independent thing, a cell.

They are both called by the same name. They are not said to be the same thing. You've already said as much directly above. One is an entire living organism, and the other is but a part thereof. Sometimes "cell" is used to pick out an entire organism, sometimes it is used to pick out parts of an organism.

Obviously, the term "cell"... ...is used to pick out two completely different types of things, one being a whole living organism, the other being a part of a living organism.

Exactly.

.

To deny that they did, because the term had not been coined, is to confuse our language use with what is being picked out. — creativesoul

I don't disagree, but it makes sense to me to understand this as a debate about which usage (both allowed by the apathetic gods) is preferable.

It'd be fine if we decided to say that cells didn't 'really' exist until we could talk about them. And it's fine to object to such a convention, calling it a confusion of name and object...or as just not very useful or graceful.

Words mean whatever a community takes them to mean, that's the gist.

Are you familiar with the later Wittgenstein? He argues that words do not refer to already existing objects. Strictly speaking , they do not refer at all. They enact relationships by altering prior relationships. If I see a tree, I am not passively observing hat appears to me, I am deconstructing it. And what I am deconstructing is not an object , it is a way of relating to something,- me that way of relating never repeats itself identically from
context to context. When I use a word in front of someone else, their response establishes a fresh sense of meaning of that word. ‘Tree’ has an infinity of senses that depend exquisitely on the context of a shared situation. In a situation of usage of the word ‘tree’ I am not creating a new physical object , I am enacting a new pattern of relationship with it. No object simply exists for us as what it is outside of changing contextual relationships of sense. — Joshs

While I do appreciate some of the changes Witt helped to get going, as well as some of his simple approaches, overall I'm not all that impressed. After having skimmed through "Cambridge Letters", which I took to be correctly translated copies of the original correspondence between him and others, one of whom was Bertrand Russell, my opinion of Witt changed remarkably. It was the conversations with Bertrand Russell that interested me most. All that being said...

What you say above reminds me of Heiddegger, Derrida, Saussure, or something along those lines, much moreso than anything I've taken away from my limited readings of Witt. My personal library includes probably four or five posthumous books, still unread. I've read four to five different publications including Tractacus, Remarks on Color, Brown Book, Blue Book, On Certainty, Philosophical Investigations(about half anyway) and others that were more about Witt rather than writings of Witt.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding the claims made above by you...

A bit of that stuff - as written - is false on it's face. However...

Some of it looks to speak towards how worldviews evolve as a result of how meaning does.<-----That part is interesting... to me.

Words mean whatever a community takes them to mean, that's the gist. — Pie

I agree.

When a community uses words in certain ways, it can be detrimental to the community knowledge base. It can lead to big problems.

Word use can be both sensible(in the way we're talking about here) and dead wrong.

This is particularly the case when discussing that which exists in its entirety prior to our awareness of it.

it makes sense to me to understand this as a debate about which usage is preferable. — Pie

Folks, that is what philosophy amounts to - finding a good way to say tricky things.

Someone once told me long ago, a decade maybe, that what I wrote was "too tricky".

:razz:

As I see it, this is a language trap. That it is impossible for one to step out of subjective experience is not an empirical hypothesis. It's just a lesson in metaphysical English, an articulation of how concepts tend to be used together by a particular, eccentric community (us), often mistaken for facts about immaterial entities like consciousness and knowledge and sensations. — Pie

:up:

Unfortunately, philosophy must be done within the limits of our concepts and language, so we’re going to have to be content with this, at least for now.

If I see a tree, I am not passively observing hat appears to me, I am deconstructing it. And what I am deconstructing is not an object , — Joshs

What appears to you is not a tree, or trees are not objects, or you're not seeing what appeared to you?

Colorful regardless of exactly what you mean. If I forego intense criticism and grant poetic license...

That makes total sense if we're talking about someone so steeped in such language use that they've come to think like that. It makes no sense whatsoever however if we're talking about a young child whose crib is in the shade under the tree. Whatever that child is doing, whatever is going on in that young mind, if that child is thinking about the tree, then we must be able to take proper account of that child's thought.

It's not doing what you're doing.

...it is a way of relating to something,- me that way of relating never repeats itself identically from context to context.

Okay.

When I use a word in front of someone else, their response establishes a fresh sense of meaning of that word. ‘Tree’ has an infinity of senses that depend exquisitely on the context of a shared situation. In a situation of usage of the word ‘tree’ I am not creating a new physical object , I am enacting a new pattern of relationship with it.

Colorful.

No object simply exists for us as what it is outside of changing contextual relationships of sense.

Key words being "for us"... Does that include the toddler in the crib under the tree?

When a community uses words in certain ways, it can be detrimental to the community knowledge base. It can lead to big problems. — creativesoul

:up:

Folks, that is what philosophy amounts to - finding a good way to say tricky things. — Banno

:up:

philosophy must be done within the limits of our concepts and language, — Hello Human

One of my big philosophical realizations was that we often don't know what we are talking about. We can argue passionately about whether X is real...without noticing that we don't really know what we mean by 'real,' at least away from our ordinary, tacit skill with the word in practical life. And so on and so on.

Human experience is not the sort of thing that can be stepped into and/or out of to begin with — creativesoul

Yes, and it seems to me it is because we’re trapped in it.

so it makes no sense at all to claim that doing so is needed for anything else at all. — creativesoul

What do you mean exactly by “it makes no sense” ?

Understanding how language creation and/or acquisition happens leaves no room at all for serious well founded doubt regarding whether or not an external world exists. — creativesoul

I think it does leave room though. I think people acquire langage by noticing patterns in the way others use words to refer to concepts or objects. But those patterns are patterns in their experience. Whether or not this experience is representative of an external material world, that is the issue.

Of course, you might ask “then how come we refer to the same things, with the same words ? Wouldn’t that mean we all have a common experience, which would be at the very least sufficient proof of a an external material world ?” This argument can be answered to in multiple ways, some more skeptic than others, but the answer I’d give is: assuming that we do indeed use the same words to refer to the same patterns in experience, all we can know from that fact is that there are patterns existing across all of human experience, we can go a step further and induce that assuming there are systems causing all those different experiences such that they are not random, those systems most likely are similar, and we can go a step further again with induction and say that the input of those systems are likely similar too, and that that input is information from a common, shared external world. But notice we have arrived to this conclusion with inductive reasoning, so each step further is more risky than the last one.

Language creation seems to me to be much more of a historical and linguistic than a philosophical issue, so I’m going to sit this one out.