Language games do not involve only words. They are locked into the world by what we do. So fortunately or unfortunately, you are not mere words. — Banno

What we do is "debate." What debating is how we use the term. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Hanover is ""Hanover" iff Hanover is "Hanover." What be Hanover without "Hanover"?

Silence!

Who are you talking to? I'm just a perception. — Banno

Don't ask me. I'm just a word in your game, constructed from usage without metaphysical composition.

I do thank you for speaking my name so that I come into existence.

Everything is the product of the brain. The question is what stimulates the brain to cause that perception
— Hanover
If everything is the product of the brain, then what simulates the brain is the product of the brain. Your narrative leaves you unable to interact with the world. But of course for you the world is just a product of the brain.

You built yourself a self-consistent self deception. Solipsism. — Banno

Yeah, and I think it's clear that my use of the term "everything" references perceptions, which is all you experience, not all that there is , as it's clear I've distinguished between the brain and the stimulus, which means I've admitted to something other than the brain, thus denying solipsism.

I'm not a mind monist. There are bodies. Yours and mine.

Speaking of deception and all things Descartes, which many blame for this whole mess anyway. You are aware that the positing of the great evil deceiver did not lead Descartes to solipsism?

Everything is the product of the brain. The question is what stimulates the brain to cause that perception. The stimulus is not the perception, but just the cause of it. All I know is that I see a pen. If you want to call the pen the stimulus, you can, but you can't say the pen looks like the stimulus anymore than you can say the pain feels like the blade.

Maybe that's true, but I'm more arguing against those who seem to be saying that because we say such things as "the box is red" then it must be that the colour red is a property of the box and not a property of our bodies. — Michael

That's my issue as well.

What I actually think linguistic philosophy holds is simply that "the box is red" means the "box" is "red." That is, they're never actually talking about boxes or redness as a metaphysical entity, but they're instead just talking about how we define words and use words. Under this framework, when @Banno says the box is red, his comment is deflationary, meaning to claim "the box is red is true" is meaningfully indistinct from saying "the box is red." All you can do is define your terms and agree on usage.

When you say the box is red and that it's a product of the mind, that attempts to establish a subjective metaphysical reality to the redness, whereas, from the best I follow, Banno attempts to say "the box is red" just means the box is red as defined and distinguishing which part is subjective and which is objective is folly.

The correspondence theory of truth holds no value in this way of thinking, and so the talking around each other follows.

If this weren't the case, then the obviousness of the brain's role in determining perceptions would be conceeded, but the fact it isn't means there's a larger refusal to even consider the underlying metaphysical structure of objects.

All we have are words in this world, which is an interesting puzzle to construct and sort of admire, but it's largely horseshit as far as it is true.

We see a red box and a blue box. The colour is the relevant visual difference between the two. I don't think that this visual difference has anything to do with language. The difference is entirely in how the boxes reflect light and then how our body responds to that light. — Michael

Specifically it would be our neuronal response to the stimulus that determines how we see the color. I'm trying to understand why it matters in this discussion whether our neuronal response to light is altered by our language skills. I admit that it is doubtful the language bone is connected to the seeing bone, but what would the philosophical import be if it was?

As with hearing, for example, I hear someone say "hello" and I would expect that would elicit my language skills despite the word being just air waves. Whether my mind is so constructed to reduce visual inputs into symbols or representations as well so that they're in some way linguistic in the most general sense, I don't know or see what it matters here. That is, maybe I see red and it makes me mad, or happy, or it reminds me of the time I cut my finger and its visualization is imbued with subjective representations.

Or maybe I'm overthinking this and the point of this discussion is just to tell the Wittgensteinians that their assumptions regarding language are non-scientific horseshit?

Sure, but I don't think all that other stuff has anything to do with the colour, and the discussion is about colour. — Michael

But I don't think phenomenal states of a single ingredient exist. The perception is complex, but to the extent you want to hypothesize a perception of red devoid of any other mental activity, then I guess it could exist without language, although I don't think such a thing could exist at all.

All I am saying is that a deaf illiterate mute can see the difference between a red box and a blue box. That visual distinction has nothing to do with language and everything to do with what the brain does (in response to what the eyes do in response to what the light does in response to what the box does). — Michael

I agree with that, but whether I'd foreclose the role of language in the perception of all things, I don't know I'd go so far and I don't know it matters for the purposes of the OP.

My hesitation is in defining the phenomenal state in terms of just raw images in one's brain. It's not like I just see red in a vacuum, but there are all other sorts of things going on in mind, many of which I'm interpreting as I see the thing.

That is, if I see a cardinal, I don't just see the red of the bird, but I see the whole bird and I also have all sorts of thoughts about what that thing can do and what it is at the same time. I don't just get a raw feed of red.

But to say that I must have language to see a bird is equally wrong. Babies see birds. Why the fetish with language as a particular influencer of reality, I don't really know.

It's 'percepts not 'precepts'. Michael has been arguing that colour is nothing but "mental percepts". I formed the impression you were supporting this claim. If I am mistaken then my bad. — Janus

As @Michael argues, color is not within the external object, but it is within brain. That I am agreeing with. If you limit the term percept (which was what I was trying to understand by asking for a definition) to those perceptions you receive solely from your senses, then I suppose I do disagree with Michael to the extent that I allow that some of my interpretation of the external data might arise from language (and all sorts of other mental processes).

That Michael might allow interpretation of the external object by the sense organs alone and not allow it to also be interpreted by language just seems an odd limitation (if that's at all what he's even saying, as that doesn't seem correct). I see no need to limit how the interpretation occurs, whether it be by language or otherwise.

That is, what seems critical here in response to the OP (and we can't lose sight of the fact that the OP asks the question in this thread, regardless of how meandering the conversation might have become) which is:

Does the color “red” exist outside of the subjective mind that conceptually designates the concept of “red?” — Mp202020

To that question, the answer is that the color red does NOT exist outside the subjective mind if the color is entirely caused by the senses OR if it is caused by language. An admission therefore that language causes us to perceive red in a way peculiar to our language lands red as a subjective entity.

That was the question, not whether red is in its entirety mitigated only by the sense organs. It can be affected by language as well, and that would result in the same answer to the OP.

Okay, well I have no idea how (2) is supposed to follow from (1). — Leontiskos

You are not following what I've said. My point is only that perception is a mental construct.

At this point it seems like you are trying to continue agreeing with Michael despite not agreeing with him on much of anything. — Leontiskos

When did I adopt Michael's position? It seems you're conflating my position with his.

We specifically disagreed regarding the relevance of this discussion, with him clarifying his sole objective was in identifying the scientific position on perception.

Then red is more than merely percepts. — Janus

Define "precepts" how you're using it here. That's not a term I've used or argued for.

Fair interpretation, which is why I then said, "Is what you're saying simply that sometimes language affects our perception and sometimes it doesn't?"

Is the dispute just over the word "necessary" in conclusion #2?

If it is, then that's sort of obvious. Why would I demand that language not be a factor in how we interpret the world? My position has always been that perceptions are indirect interpretations of reality, which would include how we rationally assess them. It's obvious sometimes we think linguistically. It's also obvious sometimes we don't.

This past 30 minutes of conversation arose from this comment of Banno's:

'Things in the word, and the people around us, also have a say in what colours we see."

You made an argument, I pointed out why it was a bad argument, and then instead of responding you asked a question. Was your argument a good argument or a bad argument? Does your conclusion follow? — Leontiskos

You indicated language was a necessary element in the formulation of a perception and I offered an example of perception occurring without language.

You didn't relent with my example, so I asked why my example was inapplicable, and you said "whatever."

Is what you're saying simply that sometimes language affects our perception and sometimes it doesn't?

I just asked a question.

It does not follow from this that babies do not see. — Leontiskos

Do they see red?

Do cats see red even without words?

How would you know the image contains no red if red were nothing more than a percept? — Janus

Because red was defined in the example as certain wavelengths.

You tell me. I'm not arguing about the physiology. — Banno

I assume babies can't see color because "Things in the word, and the people around us, also have a say in what colours we see." Since babies don't know words and words determine what we see, babies can't see, color or otherwise.

Things in the word, and the people around us, also have a say in what colours we see. The brain is not the sole determiner colour. — Banno

Does a baby see color?

To understand the difference between the two is to understand why sight and hearing are not reducible to the brain. If they were reducible to the brain then everyone with a brain would be able to see and hear. — Leontiskos

No one is arguing brains can hear without input of any sort. The argument is that no can hear without a brain.

This is equivocation on "seeing." For example, a blind person does not see when they dream, as your verbiage would have it. — Leontiskos

The question isn't whether seeing via an electrode, through glasses, through your screen window, or through your naked eye are different. They all obviously are. The question is whether there is an ontological difference that impacts the truth value of the judgment that requires differing descriptive words.

What distinguishes the dream with the electrode example is the claim "there is a chair" does not correspond with reality in the dream, but it does with the electrode.

If you wish to preserve the term "see" only for those instances where it is visualized through the naked eye, then why stop there, but instead create 1000s of gradients of the word "see" to preserve each type of corrective lens or optic surgery someone might have?

That is, to say "I 'see' the chair" with my thick eyeglasses and you to say you "see" the same through your cataracts, then that too would equivocate the term "see" as you're arguing it.

Stimulating a brain with some of the methods indicated is just an artificial way to illicit some of the biological effects of an actual, natural stimulus, but is in fact not the same act. — NOS4A2

If I have a cochlear implant and perceive you say "hello" through my "artificial" means, and I say "Nos said 'hello,'" my statement is true under both correspondence and coherence theories of truth. That is, my saying you said hello corresponds to what actually happened and my use of language is consistent with your own.

We would have a different result if I hallucinated you saying "hello. "

None of this demands a direct realism. To demand a direct realism forces a definition of "artificial" to simply mean "other than typically human, " which in no way can be assumed to be more accurate than other methods. To call one method artificial assumes there is an otherwise natural and correct way, but that assumption is the entirety of this debate. That is, what is contested is whether the world as it appears is as it is or whether it has been artificially manipulated by the internal processes.

My position is that all perception is "artificial" if that term means it is an unaltered representation of reality.

That's also false. The blind can't see anything no matter what their brains are doing. — jkop

The blind can see if their brains are directly stimulated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphene

Similarly, the profoundly deaf can hear using direct stimulation methods.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant

This is due to the uncontroversial scientific fact that perception is created by the brain regardless of whether the stimulus enters the brain through the normal means of sensory organs or whether it is hot wired directly through a probe.

@Michael@Banno

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=8066898573347962

Given that the "empirical proving" is itself an experience, according to Hanover we cannot conclude anything from this experience. His conclusion is self-defeating. — Leontiskos

If solipsism is the only logical conclusion of recognizing some amount of difference between the object and the perception and naive realism is the only practical solution to avoid that slippery slope, then I choose solipsism because at least it is logical.

Naive realism suffers from the same logical failure you assign to indirect realism in that it demands that objects are as they appear, but empirical studies (i.e. the study of things as they appear) prove soundly that objects are not in fact as they appear. In fact, what naive realism teaches us is often we have perceptions that do not correlate with reality, as in hallucinations, direct stimulation of brain cells, and and damage to various nerves and anatomical structures. That is, the system you use to prove that things are as they appear proves that things aren't as they appear. This seems a nice matching bookend to your criticism that indirect realism can't prove things aren't as the are if indirect realism demands the evidence received is inherently flawed.

What we learn is that there is no fully satisfactory answer, which is obvious, as if there were, this would be a physics class and not a philosophy class where there are no answers.

If you scroll up somewhere above, I long ago acknowledged that the difficulty with transcendetal idealism is that it creates an irrelevant sort of realism, where we can only assert an external reality, but we can't ascribe much to that reality. The alternative, which is to just say WYSIWYG suffers from another host of problems.

What does seem clear to me is that the pen is whatever it is, but its redness is not part of the pen, but is part of the person. That is the conclusion demanded of direct realism.

But this is only half of the conversation, the larger part circling around Wittgenstein, words, and beetles, none of which sheds a whole lot of light on the topic, and much of which was so unconvincing I have to believe that it's been poorly presented here because it's so facially invalid I can't see how it can be taken seriously.

How do you know, if a person may ask? — tim wood

I'm circumcised, so I just assume someone had good reason.

As to who gets to call themselves a Christian, as the whole topic is based in nonsense, who cares?! — tim wood

But this was the subject of the OP. It asks what a Christian would do if he were to learn that Jesus was but an ordinary man. If we are convinced that a Christian must accept the divinity of Jesus, then the answer is that person would necessarily cease being a Christian.

I think there's room for the counter-argument, which is that the person could remain very much a Christian because Christianity isn't defined in the brittle way that many demand it be. A common attack on theism by atheists is to point to the most unworkable parts of specific theistic theological systems and then to declare there is no God.

I'm not Christian, but should I one day consider it, it won't be based upon a literal belief that a woman bore God so he could be sacrificed in order to forgive the world of sinfulness, but it would be instead because I might find the primacy that that belief system places upon forgiveness worthwhile of believing in.

But I am pretty sure that insistence on His actual, real material existence, and especially with regard to the consequences of that claim, would be a heresy that might have got up a barbecue, these days an excommunication. — tim wood

" [LDS] Church members believe that "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Mormonism#:~:text=LDS%20Church,-Latter%2Dday%20Saints&text=Church%20members%20believe%20that%20%22The,is%20a%20personage%20of%20Spirit.%22

On the other extreme:

Maimonides’ conception of God (the Jewish view of extreme monotheism):

"That also means that, in Aristotelian terms, one cannot actually say “God is . . .” and proceed to enumerate God’s attributes. To describe the Eternal One in such a sentence is to admit of a division between subject and predicate, in other words, a plurality. (Maimonides writes in Chapter 50 of the Guide, “Those who believe that God is One and that He has many attributes declare the Unity with their lips and assume the plurality in their thoughts.”) Therefore, he concludes, one cannot discuss God in terms of positive attributes.

On the other hand, one can describe what God is not. God is not corporeal, does not occupy space, experiences neither generation nor corruption (in the Aristotelian sense of birth, decay, and death). For obvious reasons, Mai­monides’ conception of the Supreme Being is usually characterized as “negative theology,” that is, defining by the accumulation of negatives. Maimonides writes, “All we understand is the fact that [God] exists, that [God] is a being to whom none of Adonai’s creatures is similar, who has nothing in common with them, who does not include plurality, who is never too feeble to produce other beings and whose relation to the universe is that of a steersman to a boat; and even this is not a real relation, a real simile, but serves only to convey to us the idea that God rules the universe, that it is [God] that gives it duration and preserves its necessary arrangement.”

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/maimonides-conception-of-god/#:~:text=God%20is%20not%20corporeal%2C%20does,by%20the%20accumulation%20of%20negatives.

And then there is the Catholic notion of the God head, which, candidly, I don't understand:

"In Catholic theology, we understand the persons of the Blessed Trinity subsisting within the inner life of God to be truly distinct relationally, but not as a matter of essence, or nature. Each of the three persons in the godhead possesses the same eternal and infinite divine nature; thus, they are the one, true God in essence or nature, not “three Gods.” Yet, they are truly distinct in their relations to each other.

In order to understand the concept of person in God, we have to understand its foundation in the processions and relations within the inner life of God. And the Council of Florence, AD 1338-1445, can help us in this regard.

The Council’s definitions concerning the Trinity are really as easy as one, two, three… four. It taught there is one nature in God, and that there are two processions, three persons, and four relations that constitute the Blessed Trinity. The Son “proceeds” from the Father, and the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” These are the two processions in God. And these are foundational to the four relations that constitute the three persons in God."

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/explaining-the-trinity

IIRC Mormons hold that JC is the literal son of god and not god himself placing him outside of the nicean-creed understanding of christianity. — BitconnectCarlos

I know the Mormon view of the trinity is distinct in that they believe it to be 3 separate beings, making it a polytheism. It can be argued that the triunity of other denominations ultimately fails and is actually a polytheism anyway.

As to the rejection of the Nicean Creed,

"Non-Trinitarian groups, such as the Church of the New Jerusalem, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Jehovah's Witnesses, explicitly reject some of the statements in the Nicene Creed."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed#:~:text=Non%2DTrinitarian%20groups%2C%20such%20as,statements%20in%20the%20Nicene%20Creed.

The schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church relates to the addition of "and the son" to the Creed:

As the Creed states:

"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets."

This makes Jesus co-equal to the Father, which is not universally accepted. In addition to Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism also questions the "and the Son" language.

This is the filoque controversy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque

Anyway, the point being that "Christianity" describes a wide range of views and even the the Church's early efforts to crystallize the faith into a concise summary isn't universally accepted.

Just read "How to Start a Worm Bin" by Henry Owen. I ordered 500 red wigglers and I feel I now know enough to start some composting and to build a good supply of fishing bait.

I'll be able to say I raised the worm that caught the fish that fed the family. That's how self-sufficient I'll be.

also feels vulgar to include Mormonism into Christianity. The latter has centuries of sophisticated and curated thought building its tradition, the former is dumb as soon as you bat an eye on it — Lionino

There are literally hundreds of Christian denominations, if not thousands. You'd be hard pressed to explain why Mormonism fails to fit the general definition yet continue to hold the others do.

Your reference also to "Christianity" as a single monolithic belief system that has marched forward for the past 2024 years references no actual religion or belief system.

Denominations split to this day

For a list of denominations:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

Mormonism began in 1830, but it's not as if the other Christian traditions all trace back 2000 years and have held consistently throughout. Fundamentalism, for example, traces back to the early 1900s.

For a list of 62 denominations that began in the 19th century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Christian_denominations_established_in_the_19th_century

Christianity is not immutable and the relative antiquity of one denomination over another doesn't afford it greater legitimacy.

Protestantism generally relies upon a restorationist theology where they claim their views restore the true beliefs of the church lost by the Catholics (of which there are varying movements within that tradition as well). The point being that it is well accepted among Christians that the church does change, leaving the various denominations to argue what it truly ought to be.

But, sure, a Catholic can deny a Baptist is a Christian and insist upon his prescriptive definitions, but that would serve no purpose other than provocation, as it's not like the terminology usage will change among the traditions nor will the belief systems

It seems not. — Banno

Seemed that way too me too

Was that post intended to say something — Banno

Was this one?

The tomato is red" is true only when someone is looking at it? — Banno

Does the mildew smell nauseating when no one is smelling it?

[

there are no red tomatoes in a box, unobserved? One can never order a box of red tomatoes without threatening metaphysical collapse? — Banno

There is no nauseating mildew in a box unsmelled? One can never order a box of nauseating mildew without threatening metaphysical collapse?

You haven't thought this through. — Banno

Someone hasn't. That's for sure.

But making me feel nauseous isn't like making me see red!

Yes it is.

If there is no color in light, and the visible spectrum is light, then it only follows that there is no color in the visible spectrum. — creativesoul

Light exposure influences the biological machinery to do different things... mindlessly. This includes the eyes, when looking at the infamous image of the dress. — creativesoul

These comments are inconsistent. The first states the visible spectrum is light. The second states the visible spectrum is biologically created. The first is a direct realism claim. The second is an indirect realism claim.

An internal experience of light can be experienced without there being any external light source. These are called phosphenes and they can be created predictably with electrodes in the brain, so much so that they can assist those with damaged optic nerves to "see."

https://www.pennmedicine.org/departments-and-centers/ophthalmology/about-us/news/department-news/vision-scientist

The point of this is that it is empirically proven that an internal, subjective experience can be evoked by direct brain stimulation. This means that you cannot conclude anything about the constitution of the stimulus from the experience. The smell you smell is the product of stimuli upon the brain, so the perception is entirely the creation of the brain.

You can no more say the electrode is a dot of light than you can say the tree is green.

Notice that the shades of red are red? Do you suppose that the shades of pain are painful? No; the items in the first are red, the items in the second are not pain. — Banno

If I want you to understand red, I show you a red card. If I want you to understand sweet, i give you a piece of candy. If I want you to understand massage, I rub your shoulder.

If I want to cross categories and let you understand pleasure through vision, I create a visual scale with smiley faces. I suppose I could correlate tastes to sounds and smells to taps on the shoulder and make all sorts of scales.

None of this makes pain special.

This is so i basic I find it hard to believe it is where dispute lies, but I suspect the role of pain to Wittgenstein is being misunderstood. I'd love to think myself so clever that I pierced this complex philosophy, but I find that hard to believe.

The beetle analog was written about pain, not colour. While to some extent there is an overlap, one can produce samples of colour and chat about whether these are red, and what shade of red. One cannot do the came with pain; what one sees is the manifestation of pain, the groaning and grimacing. One cannot see into the box. — Banno

This strikes me as special pleading and a category error, holding a special rule to the sense of sight as opposed to touch and then asking why we can't publicly see the pain in the object. It's just such a confused statement. If we insist the red is in the pen (which is your thesis), the we must insist the pain is in the knife (which would avoid the special pleading). We then need to publicly experience that pain, which would be performed by each of us touching the blade of the knife and feeling the pain as a group. To demand that we must experience the pain distantly like we do color just makes a category error. Touch doesn't require photons for perception.

And note that the above doesn't suggest the color or the pain was in the mind. I'm keeping this consistent with the thesis that the object contains the attributes, not the mind. The fact that we have to reach out and touch the knife for the pain in the knife to be known to us doesn't anymore suggest the pain is an object of the mind than is color because you also must open your eyes to see the color. That is, with regard to any sense, you must make your perceptions available to the object to experience it, whether that be looking at it across the room or touching it with your finger.

I recognize this is a criticism and not a recitation of Wittgenstein which I've otherwise been delighting you with, but it just makes so little sense to me how you can concede to pain all the indirect realism concerns, but then just decree that the same things don't apply to color. For the sake of this academic experiment, I'm willing to consider the idea that we are compelled to limit our understanding of the world to that which can be spoken of, but I have to apply this game we're playing consistently. That is, if the pen has color we can point to and it remains something beyond just subjective experience, then I can't suddenly stop playing your game and then worry about pain being in its own special class that is just subjective experience.

That is, let's pick a model: Either we have these qualitative states of red and pain we can speak of and we have this world of phenomena and noumena or we just have our community of words. I'm saying pain is no different than red. Either they're both phenomenal states or neither is.

The point is, colour is not a beetle. Lionino cannot see your beetle, by definition, but you both see the red pen. You both see red. — Banno

This strikes me as incorrect. What we both see is the beetle, which would include its properties, including its redness. I speak of my beetle and you of yours, but it becomes irrelevant as to what it actually is. All that is relevant is we speak consistently enough to play our word game. That is, don't speak of what I see.

It's when you ask what actually we see you run into problems. You can point to the pen as evidence of what is being seen, but you can't then in turn say the beetle is X in an ontological way. All you can say is that red is defined as that pen we both see, but not suggest you have any idea what we both see.

Indeed. And if colour is only in your head, then how is it that Lionino is able to use the word in a way that is consistent with what is in your head? Could it be because there is a shared pen that is red? — Banno

If I say that color is entirely in my head, you can't disagree with this, else you fall into metaphysics. You've committed to a linguistic model, so you violate your principle to suggest to know what my beetle is. Your position is that the beetle is irrelevant for our conversation and so you'd ask I remain silent about it

So, assuming your linguistic model true, Lionino and I have no knowledge of redness or pens in an ontological way. We have words and only words. I see you do things and hear sounds associated with that and from that I figure out what game you must be playing, and from that, I join in and we word play.

The pen is just the thing we hang a word on. Saying it "is" red must be kept clear. "Is" is being used to state a definition, not an empirical fact here. As is in "the bachelor is unmarried" versus "bob is unmarried."

Where I find this unsatisfactory is that if you ask what this pen is in an empirical sense, not a definitional sense, you get no response. Literally, silence. And I'd like to know what a pen is other than that indescribable thing we've labeled "pen."

That exploration is worth having even if you've figured out how to communicate without it.

It leads to silly, solipsistic statements such as
The definition of "red pen" is that thing that is out there that appears in my head as red.
— Hanover — Banno

It's not solipsistic at all. My comment referenced an external object. Solipsism says I only know my own mind.

How does Lionino know how the pen appears in your head? Your definition doesn't even get to stand up, let alone take a step forward. — Banno

He can't know my beetle, so we don't talk about that. What he can know is what I say and so long as we use the words in a consistent way, we get to play our language game together.

Maybe we have the same beetle, maybe we don't. We must realize it's irrelevant so we remain silent about it.

What is important is that we have a commonality of usage, so when I say my pen looks red you compare it to the other times you've heard the word and you assume a consistency. All that is important is that our language interaction work.

If you ask what's behind the curtain, as in, what is the meaning in the mind and what are the phenomenal states, you go hopelessly down the road of asking what precedes language and what exists independently of it.

Such is linguistic philosophy.

I am aware of the strained argument that an external object must exist to remind us of our prior usage. That seems ad hoc and wrong, designed perhaps to avoid my conclusion that the external is irrelevant for the playing of the word game. I say there's a red pen and you agree and so we speak together, regardless of whether we have a metaphysical underpinning.

This is about words. If the red reaaly is out there or really is just imposed by the brain doesn't matter. All that matters is that when i explain my view, you understand it and I speak it consistently.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word is God. And that's that. Sentences can mean very different things in very different contexts.

Anywat, I don't buy into the above, but I can recite if having to sit for an exam.

My own view is a dualistic theism where there are hearts and minds and an entire inner and external world of mystery and purpose, where every blade of grass sits exactly where it does for a specific reason, including there being a higher purpose for our having this conversation.

I say that just to avoid any confusion that i buy nto what I recited above.

You say you use words in some way other than saying them?
— Hanover

This seems telling. Yes, we all use words in ways other than to simply make statements. You know that. We use them to do all manner of things, from making promises to declaring war. — Banno

You changed what I said to salvage what you said.

I didn't make any claim about types of statements, performative or otherwise. I said it odd to suggest that words could be used in ways other than saying them. Whether I report of your marriage or pronounce you married, in either case I say it.

In any event, you said "Use is determined by... well, what we do. Not by what we say we do."

What we do with words is say them (or write them). Their usage after spoken is another thing. And so we can go back to what we were talking about, and that is definitions because that's all we're limited to.

The definition of "red pen" is that thing that is out there that appears in my head as red. You disagree, but that disagreement is not philosophical. It's that you think I don't speak English like I ought to. You think I use my words inconsistent with the way my community of speakers does. I disagree, so now we are in some sort of sociological investigation, where we go out into our respective communities and figure out how it is we arrive at the words we do and then we can debate who's correctly identified the way we're to talk.

And that is the whole thing of it. You've argued consistently that this whole metaphysical debate is off limits and that the proper way to go about knowing about the world is to figure out how we use words. So let's put that to the test now that you've got full buy in from me. "The pen is red" means we have a pen object and a red subjective state because my community relies upon neuroscientists to tell me what my brain does and that's how I use my words.

We're now just in a contest as to who can write the best dictionary for the task at hand.