Is Language Useless in Philosophical Discussions?

[zk4586]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
http://journalofvision.org/3/9/712/ demonstrates that infants only 16 weeks old can discriminate between colors, long before linguistic capabilities begin to develop in the average child. Are these infants conscious? Well, we can't be sure. But what seems apparent is that however we go about dividing up and categorizing the world, it can occur without language (unless you believe that the mothers' baby talk was necessary for their ability to discriminate colors).

If newborn turtles have the wherewithal to discriminate ocean from non-ocean, I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose that human infants have a natural ability to discriminate red from blue, regardless of a linguistic understanding of those concepts. How does descrimination arise if the initial state is one marked by a complete lack of discrimination? A good question, perhaps impossible to answer. Perhaps the assumption that experience begins as a completely incomprehensible jumble is simply false.

But what if we assume that there are certain built-in features of language that allow for a kind of rough discrimination? Hmm, where'd I put my copy of Chomsky's, On Language?

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by zk4586
But what if we assume that there are certain built-in features of language that allow for a kind of rough discrimination? Hmm, where'd I put my copy of Chomsky's, On Language?

Now you're talking about features of language and not language itself. I think Fliption was correct to say that you are thinking more in terms of the more basic functions of categorization and the like. If you are talking only of language, then your argument should not be able to generalize to animals that do not have advanced, abstract language. But it appears that they do.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Canute
I think you misinterpreted. I agree that experience is a different matter entirely. That was pretty much much what I was saying, that the experience of seeing preceeds the conceptualisation of the images.

Therefore if (as was being argued) we cannot see at all until we have learned to conceptualise properly then one can feel the pain of stubbing one's toe while being unable to see what you stubbed it on. This assumes that pain is a direct experience and not a conception (or only a conception at a much deeper level), and on that we maybe disagree.

Actually, I knew what your opinion was I think. The first sentence was really the only one directed at you. I agree with where you were going. I just thought that the contant use of vision by confutatis and others as an example had trapped us into thinking that their claim of "concepts coming before experience" only applied to vision. When they actually mean ALL experience(including stubbing ones toe) does not exists until it is conceptualized. This view of theirs appears much more absurd to me when you leave the realm of vision and and start thinking about other experiences. I can only guess this is why my example of fire has not been directly responded to.

Some would find that self-contradictory.

Lol. Yep. I knew that when I wrote it. But I decided to stick with what is generally meant by the term god.

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I remember wondering when I first saw the handle you chose if it was a play on the name Confucious, or on the word confusion.

Sorry about the confusion. I should limit the size of my posts, but conciseness is not one of my virtues.

By the way, 'confutatis' is meant to tell an important fact about me: I'm nuts about a particular kind of music.

I think some of us are saying in this debate that you can have consciousness without thinking, but you cannot have consciousness without experience. Another little test: when we think, that necessarily is an experience, but when we experience, it isn't necessarily thinking.

All of that really depends on how you define "think" and "experience". But the central problem is that ultimately everything is defined in terms of everything else. There's no starting point.

The competition is which gets priority in a performance, feeling or technical performance. Which does the average listener prefer, and which is the most enjoyable to perform for the musician?

Ha! That's easy. A pianist who has technique but 0% feeling is not worth hearing. But a pianist who has feeling but 0% technique cannot be heard at all! He can only play in his head.

It's not a matter of competition, it's a matter of acknowledging that you can't give primacy to one over the other.

[/b]Here is that competition again. I am not trying to put down reason. I am asking which is more basic to the existence of consciousness, experience or reason.[/b]

I say neither and both. That probably confuses you, but I'm also confused by your assertion that you don't want a competition, you only want to know who comes first.

I admit it might be me having a bad understanding day.

It's more like both of us are having a bad understading life...

Bad understanding day or not, here I am pretty sure your reasoning doesn't follow. If consciousness does come from an unconscious process, it doesn't mean consciousness cannot now figure out what those unconscious processes were and replicate them (after all, consciousness is now smarter than the dumb unconscious processes we are speculating created it).

I rushed through my argument and I don't have time to elaborate for now. Sorry. But I'd like to point out that your "dumb unconscious processes" are not dumb at all. For one thing, they can play the piano far better than your "smart conscious processes". You look at a face and you instantly recognize it without even having to think about it. Try to do that consciously and tell me what "dumb" really means.

 

[Jeebus]

Originally posted by Canute
Hang on, where did 'truth' come from? You say here that first we experience, then we categorise, then we explain. It seems to follow that that experience is not semantics.

Some people (notably Wittgenstein) think language is crucual to consciousness but all we can say is that language is important to everyday human consciousness. There is no evidence that language is necessary for consciousness and, if it is, no explanation for how we became able to use language before we had an experience.

You mentioned truth being the opposite of what confutatis said. So, yeah, I got confused. Semantics is developed from experience after the 'experience' happened, that's what I said.

You are right. I went off on a tangent there. Just a mishap, that's all. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by zk4586
But what if we assume that there are certain built-in features of language that allow for a kind of rough discrimination? Hmm, where'd I put my copy of Chomsky's, On Language?

Actually, I don't see how language would be possible so soon and so readily unless there were built-in features. But there are a lot of things the body seem's designed to do, and which are undeveloped in the infant. We are not debating the predispositions of our physiology, but rather what is most basic about consciousness.

 

[zk4586]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Now you're talking about features of language and not language itself. I think Fliption was correct to say that you are thinking more in terms of the more basic functions of categorization and the like. If you are talking only of language, then your argument should not be able to generalize to animals that do not have advanced, abstract language. But it appears that they do.

You said, "How does descrimination arise if the initial state is one marked by a complete lack of discrimination?" I simply suggested that built-in features of language could allow for rapid development of language, and thus we could do away with the idea that one begins in a state "marked by a complete lack of discrimination." I don't see how this really changes anything I've been saying.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by confutatis
But the central problem is that ultimately everything is defined in terms of everything else. There's no starting point.

This an area of thought that is quite undecided. I am someone who can't agree with your overall statement.

What I could agree with is there is a whole class of things which are defined in terms of their relation to other things. That class gives us relative understanding, and in that class is included many things which are important to us, such as rational thought and language.

However, to say "there's no starting point" is only to say that you either haven't found one, can't imagine one, or see no need for one in order to understand the nature of reality. Personally, I cannot figure out how the relative aspects of existence ultimately make sense unless there is a starting point.

Actually, I think the two sides of the debate in this thread really boils down to the relativists and the "foundationalists." Dennett claims his model of consciousness gets around the problem of infinite regress that always plagues any relativist position attempting to circumvent an absolute principle (of course, the irony is that in the process any relativist position must eventually become the absolute!). The much simpler solution is to accept there is an absolute foundation at the base of all existence.

 

[Canute]

by LWSleeth - But your representation of the two sides as mentalists and materialistst doesn't represent the "side" I am on. To me, everyone who is trying to figure out existence relying primarily on the mind is a mentalist; and then there are materialistic-oriented mentalists, and idealistically-oriented mentalists. My "side" is the experientialist. I believe one can never know or understand the whole of reality very well until one gives top priority to personally experiencing that which one thinks might be true.

This raises one of the main points of misunderstanding. Many people treat 'consciousness' (experience) as synonymous with 'mind' (computation/thinking). This happens all the time in the literature. I sometimes wonder if we're all conscious in the same way given the arguments on this point. Perhaps one has to live in country with some space to expand into, some sense of nature and natural complexity, and star-lit nights to walk into appreciate the difference, as you suggested.

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by zk4586
You said, "How does descrimination arise if the initial state is one marked by a complete lack of discrimination?" I simply suggested that built-in features of language could allow for rapid development of language, and thus we could do away with the idea that one begins in a state "marked by a complete lack of discrimination." I don't see how this really changes anything I've been saying.

Why does it have to be linguistic in nature? I bet the same kind of color discrimination that can be done by a 16 week old infant could also be done by, say, a 16 week old cat. Langauge is a type of conceptual tool for categorization, but it's not the only one.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
This an area of thought that is quite undecided. I am someone who can't agree with your overall statement.

What I could agree with is there is a whole class of things which are defined in terms of their relation to other things. That class gives us relative understanding, and in that class is included many things which are important to us, such as rational thought and language.

However, to say "there's no starting point" is only to say that you either haven't found one, can't imagine one, or see no need for one in order to understand the nature of reality. Personally, I cannot figure out how the relative aspects of existence ultimately make sense unless there is a starting point.

Actually, I think the two sides of the debate in this thread really boils down to the relativists and the "foundationalists." Dennett claims his model of consciousness gets around the problem of infinite regress that always plagues any relativist position attempting to circumvent an absolute principle (of course, the irony is that in the process any relativist position must eventually become the absolute!). The much simpler solution is to accept there is an absolute foundation at the base of all existence.

Great post. This is where the link is between epistemology and ontology. A priori the 'absolute' in ontological terms (what lies outside of Plato's cave) cannot be a relative phenomenon and cannot have a scientific existence (so we are chained to our benches). This seems to be generally accepted by philosphers.

But in an epistemological sense the 'absolute' is the starting point for discrimination (categorisation, defining, conceiving etc). This starting point, if all knowledge derives from experience, can only be an 'absolute' experience.

Hence in Advaita, Taoism etc. epistemology and ontology are the same thing in the end. All IMHO of course, but we seem to agree on this.

 

[Canute]

"By the way, 'confutatis' is meant to tell an important fact about me: I'm nuts about a particular kind of music."

Ok I'll have a stab. You like Bach and especially the 48 P's and F's. On the mechanics of playing the piano Rubenstein (I think) said - it's not the notes that are difficult to play, it's the silences between them.

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
This an area of thought that is quite undecided. I am someone who can't agree with your overall statement.

That is only because you don't understand what I said. It's not easy to explain this, but it's quite clear once you understand it.

to say "there's no starting point" is only to say that you either haven't found one, can't imagine one, or see no need for one in order to understand the nature of reality.

It's neither. The issue is that knowledge, as a whole, does not have a starting point, a foundation, because such a foundation can't possibly exist.

Personally, I cannot figure out how the relative aspects of existence ultimately make sense unless there is a starting point.

Well, there was a time people could not understand why the world was not falling if it had no foundation. That left them confused, because they couldn't possibly imagine a foundation, other than an infinite chain of turtles. It was only when astronomy revealed that the world can't possibly fall, because there's nothing for it to fall into, that people understood how their intuition betrayed them.

Knowledge is no different. It has no foundation, no starting point, because such a foundation can't possibly exist. There's nothing outside what you know that can convince you that what you know to be true is actually false. (and notice that you can only be proven wrong on something because you accept that something else is true; there's no way to prove that everything you know to be true is false - some of it perhaps, but not everything)

The much simpler solution is to accept there is an absolute foundation at the base of all existence.

The "absolute foundation at the base of all existence" can't possibly exist. If it did, then it would need a foundation for itself. Turtles all the way...

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by Canute
Ok I'll have a stab. You like Bach and especially the 48 P's and F's.

That too.

On the mechanics of playing the piano Rubenstein (I think) said - it's not the notes that are difficult to play, it's the silences between them.

Great quote. As for my experience, I found that playing what's written in the score is trivial, so trivial even a computer can do it. The real challenge is to play what is not written - that takes genius.

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by confutatis
Great quote. As for my experience, I found that playing what's written in the score is trivial, so trivial even a computer can do it. The real challenge is to play what is not written - that takes genius.

This is somewhat of a tangent, but computer programs have been written to play musical scores taking things such as natural biological timing fluctuations and such into account, and the result is judged by experimentally blind human judges to sound decidedly emotive and 'human.' There's more to it than just the biological timing fluctuations but that's what I can remember off the top of my head.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Canute
This raises one of the main points of misunderstanding. Many people treat 'consciousness' (experience) as synonymous with 'mind' (computation/thinking). This happens all the time in the literature. I sometimes wonder if we're all conscious in the same way given the arguments on this point. Perhaps one has to live in country with some space to expand into, some sense of nature and natural complexity, and star-lit nights to walk into appreciate the difference, as you suggested.

I am convinced we are not all conscious in the same way. Your comment about notes and the "silences" between notes is exactly the difference I see between the two main ways people are conscious. In this world, of course one needs to pay attention to thinking ("notes") as well as what might lie hidden in the silence. One extreme gives the computer mind, the other extreme leaves behind the spaced out mind. My goal is to develop both the ability to be silent inside, and develop my ability to reason.


I wanted to add that I've been working on a thread for the last few days to examine this contrast in types of consciousness.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by confutatis
That is only because you don't understand what I said. It's not easy to explain this, but it's quite clear once you understand it. . . . The issue is that knowledge, as a whole, does not have a starting point, a foundation, because such a foundation can't possibly exist.

Just saying so doesn't make it so. I'll assume your next sentences are your arguments, so let's see if you have justified your statement "knowledge, as a whole, does not have a starting point, a foundation, because such a foundation can't possibly exist."

Originally posted by confutatis There's nothing outside what you know that can convince you that what you know to be true is actually false. (and notice that you can only be proven wrong on something because you accept that something else is true; there's no way to prove that everything you know to be true is false - some of it perhaps, but not everything)

I understand there are things which are better (or even only) understood by studying their relationships to other things. There is no argument about that. But you are describing the workings of what you believe from within the context of what you believe. It is not a proof to say there is nothing but relativeness because relative things always work in a relative way.

Originally posted by confutatis . . . there was a time people could not understand why the world was not falling if it had no foundation. That left them confused, because they couldn't possibly imagine a foundation, other than an infinite chain of turtles. . . .Knowledge is no different. It has no foundation, no starting point, because . . . the "absolute foundation at the base of all existence" can't possibly exist. If it did, then it would need a foundation for itself. Turtles all the way...

When you say there is no starting point, and then talk about "Turtles all the way," actually you are describing exactly what must happen if things are only relative. Nothing you say solves the problem of endless regress.

An absolute foundation, on the other hand, is the most basic principle/cause/existence possible. It needs nothing to hold it up, it is the basis of everything. If such a "ground state" exists, all beginings and regress start and end there respectively.


So, you have not yet made your case that all is relative because "knowledge, as a whole, does not have a starting point, a foundation, because such a foundation can't possibly exist." Instead you've given reason to suspect all is not relative.

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I understand there are things which are better (or even only) understood by studying their relationships to other things.

No, things can only be understood by studying their relationships to other things. That's what "understanding" means. You can't understand a thing if it relates to nothing else. That's why nobody understands "reality", "consciousness", "space", "time", "beauty", and so many other mysteries.

But once again you are describing the workings of what you believe from within the context of what you believe.

I'm describing things as I see them.

It is not a proof to say there is nothing but relativeness because relative things always work in a relative way.

What do you mean by proof? Philosophy is thousands of years old and, if you exclude mathematicians, no one was ever able to come with a philosophical proof of anything. You know why? Because language is to philosophers what wood is to a carpenter. Just like a carpenter's imagination must be restrained by the limitations of wood, a philosopher can only do what his language allows him to do. And "proof" is definitely not allowed.

When you say there is no starting point, and then talk about "Turtles all the way," actually you are describing exactly what must happen if things are only relative.

Nope.

Nothing you say solves the problem of endless regress.

Think of a dictionary. Anything you can possibly talk about is described there. How does the dictionary define words if not by describing one word in terms of others? Are you saying that can't be done? Nonsense!

Now does a dictionary really describe anything? Of course not. A dictionary only describes a language. But you are mistaken if you think any description of anything is fundamentally different from a dictionary. It isn't. It's exactly the same thing. All these posts, all those philosophy books, they are mere attempts at definitions of the way we talk. Watch it closely and you will see.

An absolute foundation, on the other hand, is the most basic principle/cause/existence possible.

Right there! You just described "an absolute foundation" in terms of something else! Your absolute foundation is anything but absolute!

It needs nothing to hold it up, it is the basis of everything. If such a "ground state" exists, all beginings and regress start and end there respectively.

So that's the (relative) definition of your absolute foundation? Thanks for making my point for me

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by confutatis
No, things can only be understood by studying their relationships to other things.

Are you going to be another one of those here who argues one's case by restating over and over again what one believes?

Originally posted by confutatis
I'm describing things as I see them.

Hmmmm, looks like it . . .

Originally posted by confutatis
That's what "understanding" means. You can't understand a thing if it relates to nothing else. That's why nobody understands "reality", "consciousness", "space", "time", "beauty", and so many other mysteries.

. . . .and again.

Originally posted by confutatis
What do you mean by proof? Philosophy is thousands of years old and, if you exclude mathematicians, no one was ever able to come with a philosophical proof of anything. You know why? Because language is to philosophers what wood is to a carpenter. Just like a carpenter's imagination must be restrained by the limitations of wood, a philosopher can only do what his language allows him to do. And "proof" is definitely not allowed.

Relax, I didn't mean a formal proof, I meant with evidence and reason to build a case that so thoroughly accounts for how reality works I must, if I am being reasonable, accede to your model. So far all you are doing is repeating what you believe, you are not addressing the exceptions and counterpoints I bring up other than to say "No, things can only be understood by studying their relationships to other things," as you are about to do again . . .

Originally posted by confutatis Think of a dictionary. Anything you can possibly talk about is described there. How does the dictionary define words if not by describing one word in terms of others?

[zz)]

Originally posted by confutatis Are you saying that can't be done? Nonsense!

The classic strawman . . . I have never once said any of the things are arguing against.

Originally posted by confutatis Now does a dictionary really describe anything? Of course not. A dictionary only describes a language. But you are mistaken if you think any description of anything is fundamentally different from a dictionary. It isn't. It's exactly the same thing. All these posts, all those philosophy books, they are mere attempts at definitions of the way we talk. Watch it closely and you will see.

Who's arguing? You are doing exactly what I said you were doing in my last post.

You are also doing what your above argument was supposed to refute about what I said, which was, ". . . you are describing the workings of what you believe from within the context of what you believe. It is not a proof [substitute: sound argument] to say there is nothing but relativeness because relative things always work in a relative way."

Originally posted by confutatis
Right there! You just described "an absolute foundation" in terms of something else! Your absolute foundation is anything but absolute! . . . So that's the (relative) definition of your absolute foundation? Thanks for making my point for me

We are using language to represent what we are talking about. Langauge and thought are exactly what you represent them to be: tools for communicating about what is relative. I have NEVER disputed that. If they are as such, and if there is something absolute, then tools which only operate in relative terms can never adequately express this absolute.

All that is understood by half-way informed philosophers when it comes this area of metaphysics. So being sarcastic about that rather elementary point doesn't tell us anything.

As an "experientialist" the only thing I consider a "proof" is that which has been experienced somewhere, at sometime, by someone (excluding tautalogies and such, of course). I have been telling you that your model of consciousness doesn't account for experiences I have had, and I believe others have had. I freely admit language cannot express that experience, but guess what, language can never be equivalent to any experience other than the experience of participating in language.

If you are hungry, will your hunger get satisfied by talking about eating, or do you need to experience eating? Obviously the language "food" is not the experience food. Period. You know that, I know that.

If that is the case, then the experience of the absolute (if possible) would also not be the language of the absolute. We know if it exits we can't get at it through the language of philosophy. What we are trying to do therefore is infer from the way reality "works" if an absolute is a logical hypothesis, or maybe even a necessary hypothesis.

That is why when you argue for the absoluteness of relativity , I bring up logical problems I have with it, such as infinite regress. Your answer is to come back and tell me about all the relative stuff in the universe, which I already know and don't dispute. It seems more appropriate to first address people's counterarguments so that your answers reflect you have taken into account the points that have been made.

 

[hypnagogue]

LW, how exactly are you using the term 'experience'? From what I gather you have been using it primarily to mean conscious, subjective experience, but you've also used it a couple of times (or so it seems) to refer to objective actions/activities. For instance, you say the way to satisfy hunger is to experience eating. But if I were to have the conscious experience of eating induced in me by a mad scientist, I imagine it would not have a completely overriding effect on my hunger, which is ultimately satisfied by the ingestion of sugars and such by my objective body. (If you have ever been hooked up to one of those nutrtition transport systems in a hospital-- whatever they're called-- you'll find that you don't get terribly hungry despite not eating for long periods.)

 

[Les Sleeth]

LW, how exactly are you using the term 'experience'? From what I gather you have been using it primarily to mean conscious, subjective experience, but you've also used it a couple of times (or so it seems) to refer to objective actions/activities. For instance, you say the way to satisfy hunger is to experience eating. But if I were to have the conscious experience of eating induced in me by a mad scientist, I imagine it would not have a completely overriding effect on my hunger, which is ultimately satisfied by the ingestion of sugars and such by my objective body. (If you have ever been hooked up to one of those nutrtition transport systems in a hospital-- whatever they're called-- you'll find that you don't get terribly hungry despite not eating for long periods.)

I have been using the term "experience" to refer to that aspect of consciousness that is aware of what it senses. I use the word "senses" in the broadest possible way so that it includes the physical senses, intuition, or any other way we detect information. In other words, we sense/feel and we know we sense/feel; both aspects together is what I consider experience.

The hunger analogy probably wasn't the best, but it is one I like because we all know what it is like to be hungry. My point was that there is a big difference between thinking or talking about eating, and actually eating. For the general meaning of experience I do not distinguish between information that comes from the outside, or that which comes from within. So it wouldn't matter to the basic nature of experience if the information I become aware of is regarding my objective actions/activities. And if you were to have the conscious experience of eating induced by a mad scientist, that would be the experience of eating induced by a mad scientist, and not the experience of eating. You might not be able to properly interpret the situation until you were starving to death, but that doesn't change the nature of experience, which is really my overall point. Experience is one thing, thinking and language are another.

 

[Canute]

No, things can only be understood by studying their relationships to other things. That's what "understanding" means. You can't understand a thing if it relates to nothing else. That's why nobody understands "reality", "consciousness", "space", "time", "beauty", and so many other mysteries. SNIP

What do you mean by proof? Philosophy is thousands of years old and, if you exclude mathematicians, no one was ever able to come with a philosophical proof of anything. You know why? Because language is to philosophers what wood is to a carpenter. Just like a carpenter's imagination must be restrained by the limitations of wood, a philosopher can only do what his language allows him to do. And "proof" is definitely not allowed.

All this seems pretty much true, but only in a way.

You are right that science and 'analytical' philososophy is restricted to the study of relative phenomena, and that neither is capable of absolute proofs. However experience is not reasoning. Reasoning has limits (Plato's cave again) but experience transcends those limits. We know this from mathematics among other things.

Experience must preceed perceptual or conceptual knowledge. Therefore experience (or not all experience) is not this kind of knowledge. This is why direct knowledge (apperception) can, in theory at least, bring certain knowledge but reasoning, as you say, cannot.

You can't say that nobody understands ultimate reality and so on, because there are many people who claim they do. They may be wrong but you'd have to show this.

Think of a dictionary. Anything you can possibly talk about is described there. How does the dictionary define words if not by describing one word in terms of others? Are you saying that can't be done? Nonsense!

Words in dictionaries are relative phenomena as you say. However dictionaries exist so clearly not all the words in a dictionary are relative, otherwise they could not exist. There is at least one undefined term in every dictionary and in every mathematical theory and in any 'theory of everything'.

The universe consists entirely of relative phenomona. There is therefore soemthing that is not relative that underlies these phenomena, and on which all these relative phenomena are epiphenomenal. This must be something absolute.

Now does a dictionary really describe anything? Of course not. A dictionary only describes a language. But you are mistaken if you think any description of anything is fundamentally different from a dictionary. It isn't. It's exactly the same thing. All these posts, all those philosophy books, they are mere attempts at definitions of the way we talk. Watch it closely and you will see.

Half right again I'd say. Sleeth was not talking about 'describing'. He was talking about experiencing. Experiencing, at the limit, does not require words, categories, conceptions, perceptions, sensory data, or relative phenomena of any kind. For the reasons you give this must be the case since realtive phenomena cannot exist unless something that is not relative underlies them.

Right there! You just described "an absolute foundation" in terms of something else! Your absolute foundation is anything but absolute!

It is not possible to describe something that is absolute except in relative terms. This is why in non-dual cosmologies it is asserted that nothing true can be said about the absolute. To describe it is to 'relativise' it. Hence it is not correct to say that the absolute exists or not-exists, they are incorrect terms. However luckily to have an experience it is not necessary to describe it so absolute knowledge is theoretically possible.

It is the experience that Sleeth is talking about, and the words are necessary. "The Tao must be talked" in Chuang Tsu's words. However the experience is not the words.

BTW this is worth reading in this context
from ( http://www.dieoff.org/page126.htm)

Your point about philosophy is a good one. Analytical philosophy hasn't made any progress in two thousand years. The reason is that this tradition of philosophy does not acknowledge the limits to reasoning, even though we know what they are. Martin Heidegger is brilliant on this issue. Here's an extract from 'What is Metaphysics', his inaugural lecture at U of Frieberg. The whole text is worth reading. The guy is my all time hero-genius.


"Metaphysics, however, speaks continually and in the most various ways of Being. Metaphysics gives, and seems to confirm, the appearance that it asks and answers the question concerning Being. In fact, metaphysics never answers the question concerning the truth of Being, for it never asks this question. Metaphysics does not ask this question because it thinks of Being only by representing beings as beings. It means all beings as a whole, although it speaks of Being. It refers to Being and means beings as beings. From its beginning to its completion, the propositions of metaphysics have been strangely involved in a persistent confusion of beings and Being. This confusion, to be sure, must be considered an event and not a mere mistake. It cannot by any means be charged to a mere negligence of thought or a carelessness of expression. Owing to this persistent confusion, the claim that metaphysics poses the question of Being lands us in utter error."

 

[zk4586]

...if I were to have the conscious experience of eating induced in me by a mad scientist, I imagine it would not have a completely overriding effect on my hunger, which is ultimately satisfied by the ingestion of sugars and such by my objective body.

Geez, you have a real hypothetical-scenario-involving-a-mad-scientist fetish, don't you?

 

[hypnagogue]

Geez, you have a real hypothetical-scenario-involving-a-mad-scientist fetish, don't you?

No more than you have a fetish for language. I just think the mad scientist thing is a useful device to demonstrate a realistically plausible scenario where experience is shown to be dissociated from the objective referrents to which it usually is taken to refer. This is an important distinction to make.

 

[hypnagogue]

And if you were to have the conscious experience of eating induced by a mad scientist, that would be the experience of eating induced by a mad scientist, and not the experience of eating. You might not be able to properly interpret the situation until you were starving to death, but that doesn't change the nature of experience, which is really my overall point.

I agree with your second statement here, which is why I think you shouldn't make the distinction that you make in the first. From the 1st person perspective, for at least some nonnegligible duration of time, the experience of eating is identical whether it arises from actually eating, or from being fooled into thinking that you are eating by proper stimulation of your brain. The upshot of this is that there is no direct tie from subjective experience to objective referrents. Your distinction between the two arises from a 3rd person perspective, but is not apparent from the 1st person. So, in fact, I would say that it is more proper to say that experientially the two are identical. If we do not say this then we introduce an objective term into our notion of experience and so we are no longer referring exclusively to subjective experience, or 'awareness of sensation' as you put it.

This is a side-issue to your main point, but I think it is important to talk about it so we remain as precise as possible on what we mean by 'experience.'

Experience is one thing, thinking and language are another.

Absolutely agree.

 

[confutatis]

All this seems pretty much true, but only in a way.

Yes, but in a very interesting way.

Reasoning has limits (Plato's cave again) but experience transcends those limits. We know this from mathematics among other things.

It works both ways. Reason can transcend experience, experience can transcend reasoning, and the interplay between the two is what allows us to acquire knowledge. As a result of that, the way you reason shapes the way you experience, and vice-versa. Then, talking about "reason" is equivalent to talking about "experience". They are two sides of the same coin.

You can't say that nobody understands ultimate reality and so on, because there are many people who claim they do. They may be wrong but you'd have to show this.

I mean "understand" in a rational way, in the sense of being able to describe it to others.

Sleeth was not talking about 'describing'. He was talking about experiencing.

To talk about experience is to describe experience. You can't talk about anything without describing that thing.

Experiencing, at the limit, does not require words, categories, conceptions, perceptions, sensory data, or relative phenomena of any kind.

Sure, but that kind of experience can't be understood or talked about, except in extremely elusive terms.

It is not possible to describe something that is absolute except in relative terms. This is why in non-dual cosmologies it is asserted that nothing true can be said about the absolute.

Why is it that you can't see that the statement "nothing true can be said about the absolute" is nonsense? For one thing, it can't possibly be true as it is a statement about the absolute.

To describe it is to 'relativise' it. Hence it is not correct to say that the absolute exists or not-exists, they are incorrect terms.

Exactly! We can't think of reality as being a "thing", and we can't think of consciousness as being a "process". Thinking about things that way lead to all sorts of nonsense.

Analytical philosophy hasn't made any progress in two thousand years.

Actually they did, they achieved quite a progress, only not in the area where they expected it. The greatest contribution of philosophy to mankind is an elaborate vocabulary. This discussion about 'consciousness' would not be possible if philosophers had not invented the concept. The mistake is to think that any philosophical discussion about 'consciousness' consists of anything other than an attempt to define what the word 'consciousness' means. That's what I think some people don't get, but it's not their fault, it's not easy to see through the deceptive aspects of language.

That applies to all my posts, by the way. I'm not trying to prove or demonstrate anything about consciousness, philosophy is not capable of that. All I'm saying is that the concept 'experience' does not need to be invoked in order to provide a clear definition of the concept 'consciousness', except perhaps in a tautological way.

 

[Canute]

It works both ways. Reason can transcend experience, experience can transcend reasoning, and the interplay between the two is what allows us to acquire knowledge. As a result of that, the way you reason shapes the way you experience, and vice-versa. Then, talking about "reason" is equivalent to talking about "experience". They are two sides of the same coin.

This is not the case. Try reading Russell or Popper for instance.

I mean "understand" in a rational way, in the sense of being able to describe it to others.

Understanding has got nothing to with describing to others. Experiences are indescribable in principle. In philophy this is known as 'incommensurability.

To talk about experience is to describe experience. You can't talk about anything without describing that thing.

Ok

Sure, but that kind of experience can't be understood or talked about, except in extremely elusive terms.

No kind of experience can be talked about except in 'elusive terms'.

Why is it that you can't see that the statement "nothing true can be said about the absolute" is nonsense? For one thing, it can't possibly be true as it is a statement about the absolute.

That isn't quite right. The statement is saying that 'the absolute' (let's say 'essence or 'ultimate reality') has no attributes. Therefore any statement like 'it exists' is untrue, but not entirely untrue.

Depending on how much philosophy you know you may find this a strange claim. However it can be shown logically.

Exactly! We can't think of reality as being a "thing", and we can't think of consciousness as being a "process". Thinking about things that way lead to all sorts of nonsense.

Hmm. Don't know what you mean there.

Actually they did, they achieved quite a progress, only not in the area where they expected it. The greatest contribution of philosophy to mankind is an elaborate vocabulary. This discussion about 'consciousness' would not be possible if philosophers had not invented the concept. The mistake is to think that any philosophical discussion about 'consciousness' consists of anything other than an attempt to define what the word 'consciousness' means. That's what I think some people don't get, but it's not their fault, it's not easy to see through the deceptive aspects of language.

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that philosophy was a waste of time. I meant that the questions which were unanswerable to Plato are still unanswerable today. That is why one philosopher (can't remember but could check) remarked that Western philosophy 'consists of a series of footnotes to Plato'. In this context it's intersting that you cite 'an elaborate vocabulary' as a success.

That applies to all my posts, by the way. I'm not trying to prove or demonstrate anything about consciousness, philosophy is not capable of that. All I'm saying is that the concept 'experience' does not need to be invoked in order to provide a clear definition of the concept 'consciousness', except perhaps in a tautological way.

The only agreed defintion of consciousness is 'what it is like'. Whether that invokes the concept of consciousness depends on whether you think the words are the thing, or the thing is something that the words point at.

 

[Les Sleeth]

It works both ways. Reason can transcend experience, experience can transcend reasoning, and the interplay between the two is what allows us to acquire knowledge. As a result of that, the way you reason shapes the way you experience, and vice-versa. Then, talking about "reason" is equivalent to talking about "experience". They are two sides of the same coin.

Sometimes it seems like you believe arbitrariness is a compelling line of reasoning. Why don't you feel the need to justify statements you offer that are in dispute among us? Just saying things are true without logical and/or evidential support gives me no way to either accept your point, or understand how you came to your conclusion.

For example, you say "the interplay between the two [reason and experience] is what allows us to acquire knowledge." If that is so, then how do you explain rats that can learn how to negotiate a maze or feed themselves from a mechanical feeding device? Did they require reason to know, or was experience enough to give them knowledge?

When you debate, mostly what I see you do is state your point of view; you don't adequately respond to others' legitimate counterpoints, and you don't seem particularly bothered by exceptions to your statements. Are you trading ideas with an openness to learn, or are you lecturing?

That applies to all my posts, by the way. I'm not trying to prove or demonstrate anything about consciousness, philosophy is not capable of that. All I'm saying is that the concept 'experience' does not need to be invoked in order to provide a clear definition of the concept 'consciousness', except perhaps in a tautological way.

First you say you aren't trying to prove anything about consciousness, and then you say " 'experience' does not need to be invoked in order to provide a clear definition of the concept 'consciousness'." You might not have noticed but you are participating in a discussion about the nature of consciousness. Some of us disagreed with a basic assumption of Rorty (and Dennett) that language and thought are the defining aspects of consciousness. We are not talking about "defining" consciousness as a dictionary would! But in any case, I'd love to see how you get rid of experience in your definition. Are you going to show us that, are or you going to just keep making arbitrary statements.

Exactly! We can't think of reality as being a "thing", and we can't think of consciousness as being a "process". Thinking about things that way lead to all sorts of nonsense. . . .

. . . The mistake is to think that any philosophical discussion about 'consciousness' consists of anything other than an attempt to define what the word 'consciousness' means. That's what I think some people don't get, but it's not their fault, it's not easy to see through the deceptive aspects of language.

I say, you are the one who doesn't get it. You don't even know what discusssion you are in. Here's how I see what you are saying in relation to what the rest of us are talking about.

I say the word "green" represents a certain wavelength of light. You say, green is only a word. I say, I know green is a word, but what does that have to do with whether or not there is a certain EM wavelength? You say, even EM and wavelengths are just words. I say, yes but so what, who said they weren't words? Well, you say, even a word is just a word. I say, the discussion is not about words, we are trying to talk about what a certain words represent in objective reality. You say, there is nothing but words, and, and all else is nonesense! Okay, I say, if that is so, then make your case. You say, I just state the obvious facts, it's up to you to figure out what I'm talking about, although its not your fault you don't understand me 'cause what I'm talking about is over most people's heads.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I agree with your second statement here, which is why I think you shouldn't make the distinction that you make in the first. From the 1st person perspective, for at least some nonnegligible duration of time, the experience of eating is identical whether it arises from actually eating, or from being fooled into thinking that you are eating by proper stimulation of your brain. The upshot of this is that there is no direct tie from subjective experience to objective referrents. Your distinction between the two arises from a 3rd person perspective, but is not apparent from the 1st person. So, in fact, I would say that it is more proper to say that experientially the two are identical. If we do not say this then we introduce an objective term into our notion of experience and so we are no longer referring exclusively to subjective experience, or 'awareness of sensation' as you put it.

This is a side-issue to your main point, but I think it is important to talk about it so we remain as precise as possible on what we mean by 'experience.'

Yep, you caught me there. As I generalized about experience, I knew something was inaccurate about lumping internal and external experience together. Let me see if I can say it better.

That experience which comes from within my consciousness has only me as its source. If there is anything truly unique about consciousness, then I don't see how anything "outer" can indentically simulate an experience of that uniqueness. But that which comes from without is usually information reaching me from my senses and brain. There's no reason I can think of that outer information, registering mostly as vibratory analogs of physical events in my consciousness, couldn't (in theory) be simulated perfectly. So I agree, with the right tools a mad scientist could give me the "experience" of eating. However, I do not think he could give me an experience of the most basic nature of consciousness since (I believe) that can only come from within consciousness itself.

 

[confutatis]

I meant that the questions which were unanswerable to Plato are still unanswerable today.

We don't have more answers than Plato, but we do have a lot more questions. That was my point. Philosophy gives us something to talk about. Without philosophy we could not have cocktail parties. Or this forum, for that matter.

The only agreed defintion of consciousness is 'what it is like'. Whether that invokes the concept of consciousness depends on whether you think the words are the thing, or the thing is something that the words point at.

That can't possibly be an agreed definition of consciousness because I don't agree with it :)

I was actually wondering about that this morning. According to that line of thinking, there must be something that "it is like" to be a woman which only women know, right? After all, you have to be a woman to know what it is like to be a woman. Even though I kind of grasp the idea behind the argument, I think putting things that way is silly. The idea may be valid, but the expression of it is pure nonsense. Let's see if I can explain it.

What is a woman? A woman is certainly not defined by "what it feels like to be a woman"; if things were that way no one could know that something as "being a woman" existed, for no one can know what a person feels inside. So a woman must be defined in a different way. Let's say we define a woman by her appearance. So as far as everyone is concerned, if it looks like a woman then it is a woman. That sounds like a more sensible definition. But what about the "what it feels..." stuff? Can someone have the appearance of a woman and "feel like" a man? And here's where the nonsense becomes clear, at least for me.

If "looking like a woman" and "feeling like a woman" are exactly the same thing, then no one who "looks like a woman" could possibly "feel like" anything except a woman. Any difference between "how it looks like" and "how it feels like" would be simply a matter of perspective, different language to describe the same phenomenon. But people are saying this is wrong, there is a difference, so let's examine it.

Someone named 'JS' claims to "feel like" a woman. Even though JS looks like a man, behaves exactly as a man, is sexually attracted to women, and exhibits any known characteristic of a man, JS insists the "feeling inside" is that of a woman. What do we make of JS? We are tempted to call him a fool, right? But the problem is, how can we be sure that JS doesn't really feel like a woman? After all, only JS knows about his/her subjective feelings, so we have to give JS the benefit of the doubt, right? Wrong! Just as we don't know "what it feels like to be JS", likewise JS doesn't know "what it feels like to be a woman". His claim is bogus, he's a man, period.

If you understood that, you should be able to see what's wrong with the "what it feels like" argument. The reason we know we are conscious is not because we "feel" anything, it's simply because we notice that our appearnce and behaviour is very similar to other people who claim to be conscious, just like women know they are women because they notice their similarity to other people known as "women". Subjective experience has nothing to do with it.