Is Language Useless in Philosophical Discussions?

[zk4586]

Important for what?

I give up.

 

[Fliption]

I give up.

Generally when you say something is unimportant, you are referring to something as it relates to something else or to some goal/objective. For example, if you need an automobile to get you from point A to point B, then it isn't important what color the automobile is. You are claiming subjective experience isn't important. It isn't important for what? I don't understand the context of this statement.

 

[zk4586]

Generally when you say something is unimportant, you are referring to something as it relates to something else or to some goal/objective. For example, if you need an automobile to get you from point A to point B, then it isn't important what color the automobile is.

Try telling that to my girlfriend.

You are claiming subjective experience isn't important. It isn't important for what? I don't understand the context of this statement.

Essentially, unimportant when it comes to understanding (or constructing a theory of) consciousness. Isn't that what we've been arguing about for seven pages worth of posts now?

 

[confutatis]

Confutatis, not only do I understand what you're saying here, I can agree with it too. But what you're describing is no different than the situation with color that everyone here has already acknowledged. None of us know whether our experience of "blueness" is really the same. But you have to be careful when you make statements like "You have no idea what blue is."

But I made no such statement. Of course a lot of people have a pretty good idea what blue is. I'm fully aware of why I'm not being understood, but I don't know how to explain it. I'll try once more.

Imagine a word, any word. Let's choose 'cat'. So there is the word 'cat', which is made of the letters 'c', 'a', 't', and there is something which the word is supposed to invoke in your mind when it's being used. Now how do you call that something which the word 'cat' invokes in your mind when you read or hear it? I bet you call it... 'cat'!

Now leave aside the fact that you know there's a difference between 'cat' and 'cat', and think of how nonsensical it seems to say that 'cat' and 'cat' are not the same thing. It is nonsense, but you have to understand why I'm saying it's nonsense. The fact of the matter is that human beings have an awesome ability: we have the ability to understand nonsense. And that is nothing short of a miracle.

People who claim computers will one day be conscious don't understand that fact; they don't understand that it's impossible to build a machine that makes sense of nonsense, a machine that doesn't do what it would be logical for it to do.

You can experience anything. You just can't know whether what you're experiencing would be considered the same thing by another.

Exactly. But if you don't know if your experience would be considered the same thing by another, then you don't know what you're experiencing. No man is an island, knowledge does not belong to an individual alone but to the whole human race. Knowledge can be shared, subjective experience cannot.

From that perspective, it's clear to me you can't know if you ever experienced blue if you don't know what the word 'blue' means. But what does 'blue' really mean? What if what I see as 'blue' is what the rest of the world sees as 'yellow'? Clearly I have no way to know if I ever experienced 'blue', yet that fact doesn't prevent me from talking about 'blue'. And that means whatever it is that I mean when I talk about 'blue', it can't possibly be my subjective experience of it.

At this point I know why you still don't understand the argument, so let me introduce you another question: do you think I'm conscious? I hope you do. Why is that? Is it because you think I know, for instance, what the subjective experience of 'blue' is? I clearly don't, I just stated that. The reason you think I'm conscious is far more trivial: I talk as if I'm conscious. So your subjective knowledge of my subjective consciousness is all based on my ability to talk in a particular way. From your perspective, whether I have subjective experiences or not is completely beside the point, so long as I act as if I do.

This doesn't mean that the subjective experience cannot exist.

I hope I was able to show that whether subjective experience exists or not is completely irrelevant to understand consciousness. That's what I'm trying to say.

And while I understand your point in the last post, it is not at all what was being said earlier. Earlier, the view was that experience cannot exists without some conceptual understanding. This is what I've disagreed with from the start. I'm still not sure how to relate this latest view with those "the physical world is just a blur until you learn some words" posts.

I'm talking nonsense, which is a good sign I'm conscious. Since you're conscious too, you can make sense of the nonsense. All you have to do is try, but don't try too hard if it's not worth it.

 

[Fliption]

Try telling that to my girlfriend.

Ok, give me her number and I'll give it a try.

Essentially, unimportant when it comes to understanding (or constructing a theory of) consciousness. Isn't that what we've been arguing about for seven pages worth of posts now?

Sorry I made you restate it. I just want to be clear. What you're saying clearly depends on how you define consciousness. If you define it the way it is defined in philosophical discussions, then obviously what you're saying isn't true.

 

[Fliption]

But I made no such statement. Of course a lot of people have a pretty good idea what blue is. I'm fully aware of why I'm not being understood, but I don't know how to explain it. I'll try once more.

But you did make this statement. You said...

"But I don't think I can call those experiences "enlightenment", because I don't know what "enlightenment" means."

This is the exact same situation with color and not knowing what blue is. As a matter of fact, you say the very same thing about "blue" later in this last post.

I have to admit, I've read this last post of yours at least 5 times and some sentences more than than that. And I still don't have a clue what you're talking about. It seems as if you really think you have a legitimate view so I am trying very hard to understand it. I thought I had it but now I'm not so sure.

Imagine a word, any word. Let's choose 'cat'. So there is the word 'cat', which is made of the letters 'c', 'a', 't', and there is something which the word is supposed to invoke in your mind when it's being used. Now how do you call that something which the word 'cat' invokes in your mind when you read or hear it? I bet you call it... 'cat'!

Now leave aside the fact that you know there's a difference between 'cat' and 'cat', and think of how nonsensical it seems to say that 'cat' and 'cat' are not the same thing. It is nonsense, but you have to understand why I'm saying it's nonsense. The fact of the matter is that human beings have an awesome ability: we have the ability to understand nonsense. And that is nothing short of a miracle.

This cat example did nothing to help. I still don't have a clue what your point is.

People who claim computers will one day be conscious don't understand that fact; they don't understand that it's impossible to build a machine that makes sense of nonsense, a machine that doesn't do what it would be logical for it to do.

If I had to bet money on it, I bet money you're right about computers in general but that doesn't help me understand you're reasoning. I don't understand any of this "nonsense" stuff.

Exactly. But if you don't know if your experience would be considered the same thing by another, then you don't know what you're experiencing. No man is an island, knowledge does not belong to an individual alone but to the whole human race. Knowledge can be shared, subjective experience cannot.

Now here, you are acknowleding what I said as if I understood you. And you say "then you don't know what you're experiencing". But I say to this "who cares?" You seem to be defining "knowledge" as something that I can effectively communicate. And since I can't communicate subjective experiences then it has nothing to do with knowledge. Who cares if I know what to call something and communicate it to others? All that matters is that I experience it and I can distinguish that experience from other experiences. Knowledge can belong to an individual.

From that perspective, it's clear to me you can't know if you ever experienced blue if you don't know what the word 'blue' means. But what does 'blue' really mean? What if what I see as 'blue' is what the rest of the world sees as 'yellow'? Clearly I have no way to know if I ever experienced 'blue', yet that fact doesn't prevent me from talking about 'blue'.

All of this is true, but none of it precludes me from subjectively experiencing color.

And that means whatever it is that I mean when I talk about 'blue', it can't possibly be my subjective experience of it.

And this sentence doesn't make sense to me. Whenever I talk about blue it means exactly my subjective experience of it. Someone listening to my words and not relating those words to the same experience is irrelevant.

At this point I know why you still don't understand the argument, so let me introduce you another question: do you think I'm conscious? I hope you do. Why is that? Is it because you think I know, for instance, what the subjective experience of 'blue' is? I clearly don't, I just stated that. The reason you think I'm conscious is far more trivial: I talk as if I'm conscious. So your subjective knowledge of my subjective consciousness is all based on my ability to talk in a particular way. From your perspective, whether I have subjective experiences or not is completely beside the point, so long as I act as if I do.

Again, this analogy doesn't help. I don't understand how it relates to what you're saying.

I hope I was able to show that whether subjective experience exists or not is completely irrelevant to understand consciousness. That's what I'm trying to say.

Then you aren't defining consciousness the way many people involved in this discussion do. Consciousness is subjective experience. If you leave that out then you aren't understanding consciousness.

I'm talking nonsense, which is a good sign I'm conscious. Since you're conscious too, you can make sense of the nonsense. All you have to do is try, but don't try too hard if it's not worth it.

Don't understand any of this "nonsense" stuff. I don't even know why you think it is nonsense. You just said it was. You didn't really explain why.

 

[hypnagogue]

That is way beside my point. All I said was that we can assume for sure that if there is something about yourself which you think only you have, then you have no word for it. As a consequence, everything you talk about, absolutely everything, must consist of concepts that are shared.

Let me get your position straight before I share my view of it. You seem to be advocating the position that words, as shared concepts, must necessarily address the same referrents, and therefore the idea that the same word (eg, green) can refer to two different things (eg, this color[/color] as experienced by A and that color[/color] as experienced by B) is nonsense. Therefore, 'green' cannot possibly refer to a subjective experience of this color or that color, but must refer to something else which is shown to be a common, consistent referrent across different people. Correct?

Men have noses and women also have noses. Whatever it is that men share with women, I can assure you it is not part of what makes women "women", if you think of "women" as oppose to "men".

Womanhood vis a vis manhood is defined on an objective, physiological level, and therefore need not have any direct ties with subjective experience. In particular, the fact that women demonstrably have a different physiology than men does not in itself imply that women subjectively experience something which men cannot experience even in principle.

Listen to yourself! Are you able to construct a reasonable facsimile of what it is like to experience visual consciousness? Are you saying a blind man cannot know he is blind? It seems so, as one needs to understand what vision is before one knows one doesn't have it.

I don't have to construct a reasonable facsimile of visual consciousness to try to understand what it is like to experience it, since I already experience it directly.

A man blind from birth can know he is blind in an abstract sense, in virtue of what is communicated to him by other people, but he cannot know precisely what it is that he is lacking that constitutes this blindness. He could probably construct a nice analogy for himself, however, by imagining that a man deaf from birth faces a similar sort of predicament.

No, it does not. That's not what I said. What I said is that if JS does feel like a woman, he has absolutely no way to know it.

And I would agree with you. But we must be careful here. What JS cannot know is if what he thinks of as 'feeling like a woman' is the same sort of experience that other women call 'feeling like a woman.' This does not imply that JS does not have or cannot know that feeling that he describes as 'feeling like a woman.' He has perfect knowledge of the feeling as it exists in himself; what he cannot know is if others feel the same sort of thing when they use the same language. The problem is of one of other minds, and it does not apply to JS's own mind.

That's not a correct analogy. Adults know how it feels to be a child. It's perfectly correct for an adult to say "I'm feeling like a child today". I certainly feel like a child when I'm completely free of worries and just enjoying myself. But the reverse is not true; no child can claim to feel like an adult because a child doesn't know how an adult feels. As a child I often felt adult-like feelings, but I never thought of them as "adult-like feelings" until I grew up and learned what an "adult-like feeling" is.

Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Yes, and I agree, at least with this little piece of text taken on its own. I find some of your other claims dubious though.

That's not what I said. What I said is that you need this "process" in order to describe you own subjective experience in linguistic terms, to others and even to yourself.

That's fine, but again, what that implies is not knowing if one's own subjective experience is shared by others. It does not raise any doubt as to the existence or nature of one's subjective experience, taken on its own terms.

For instane, I have never felt "enlightened". Maybe I did a few moments in my life, I have recollections of experiences which I could not understand at the time they happened. So those experiences happened, I'm not questioning that. But I don't think I can call those experiences "enlightenment", because I don't know what "enlightenment" means.

Now you tell me: how do I know if I ever experienced "enlightenment"? Is it enough for me to look at people who did? Certainly not, as according to them you can't tell the difference from the outside. Is it enough for me to listen to people explaining what "enlightenment" is? Again not, for they all tell me that "enlightenment" can't be explained. Now that leads me to conclude, from my perspective, that "enlightenment" can't be experienced, and that people who claim to have experienced it don't know what they are talking about.

I think you are confusing linguistic representations of phenomena with the phenomena themselves.

Say for argument's sake that Harry was the first guy to ever experience a peculiar set of feelings, and that Harry decided to call this set of feelings 'enlightenment.' How can others be sure that they are experiencing the same set of feelings that Harry was when they are tempted to describe their experience as 'enlightened'? Well, they can't be sure. But this epistemic doubt in the linguistic labeling of their experience is not relevant to their ability to actually have this experience. It could be the case Jane experiences the same thing as Harry, but doubts that this is so, or that John is convinced that he has experienced the same thing as Harry when in fact he hasn't.

 

[hypnagogue]

Essentially, [subjective experience is] unimportant when it comes to understanding (or constructing a theory of) consciousness. Isn't that what we've been arguing about for seven pages worth of posts now?

What is there left to understand after ignoring subjective experience? Unconscious mental processes. So you are a proponent of a theory of consciousness that describes unconscious mental processes. Sounds good.

I honestly don't see how you could hold this position. To understand consciousness, we need to understand subjective experience; not to mention that in order to come to a full understanding of reality (something that could reasonably called a 'theory of everything'), we need to understand subjective experience.

 

[confutatis]

But you did make this statement. You said...

"But I don't think I can call those experiences "enlightenment", because I don't know what "enlightenment" means."

This is the exact same situation with color and not knowing what blue is.

Not for me. I have an experience I can correlate with 'blue', even though I have no way to know the kind of experience they correlate with 'blue'. But in the case of 'enlightenment', I have no experience that I can correlate with the word, for the simple reason that I don't know what the word means.

This cat example did nothing to help. I still don't have a clue what your point is.

And I thought it was the best example I have come up with so far...

I don't understand any of this "nonsense" stuff.

Different people have different experiences, and as a consequence come to see things in different ways. I once came across a person who told me something like this (speaking of himself):

"Whenever I hear people talking, it seems to me most of what they talk about makes no sense; they speak in ambiguous terms, contradict themselves all the time, and apparently see nothing wrong with it. But when I try to talk to them that way, they complain to me that what I'm saying makes no sense! How can I possibly deal with a situation like that?"

This was of course not an ordinary guy, but by no means was he stupid or crazy. He was in fact quite intelligent, far above the average, with an awesome understanding of logic, mathematics, and physics.

Nevermind what I said about "nonsense", I was speaking in terms of what I learned from this person. I learned a lot, and I can't possibly explain all of it in a few posts.

Whenever I talk about blue it means exactly my subjective experience of it. Someone listening to my words and not relating those words to the same experience is irrelevant.

Sure, so why not take the next natural step and apply the same reasoning for 'consciousness'? Isn't 'consciousness' as subjective as 'blue'? Isn't it irrelevant what other people relate to when they hear you talk about it?

Think about that for a while.

Then you aren't defining consciousness the way many people involved in this discussion do. Consciousness is subjective experience. If you leave that out then you aren't understanding consciousness.

At a minimum, I think you should be able to see that even though you think of consciousness as something completely subjective, you also think other people are conscious the same way you are. Can you see the contradiction? If there's nothing to consciousness but subjective experience, then you can't tell whether other people are conscious or not. Since you know other people are conscious, then there must be more to consciousness than subjective experience.

If you understand that, then there's just one more step to see what ZK and I are saying. I'll save that for later.

 

[confutatis]

Let me get your position straight before I share my view of it. You seem to be advocating the position that words, as shared concepts, must necessarily address the same referrents, and therefore the idea that the same word (eg, green) can refer to two different things (eg, this color[/color] as experienced by A and that color[/color] as experienced by B) is nonsense. Therefore, 'green' cannot possibly refer to a subjective experience of this color or that color, but must refer to something else which is shown to be a common, consistent referrent across different people. Correct?

Almost. What I think is nonsense is the idea that you can understand consciousness to the point where you can discover that what A sees as this color[/color] is experienced by B as that color[/color]. Anyone pursuing to understand consciousness from that perspective is wasting his time.

All the same, it's not correct to say we don't understand consciousness at all. We do enough to come to a judgement of whether people are conscious or not. And that judgement, you must agree, is arrived at through observation of the physical world, not through magically peeking into their subjectivity.

So it's not only perfectly possible to understand consciousness from a purely objective standpoint, but we actually do it all the time. What you said above, I take it to mean we can't do what we've been doing quite successfully for quite some time.

I don't have to construct a reasonable facsimile of visual consciousness to try to understand what it is like to experience it, since I already experience it directly.

Sure, but do you really understand how it is you 'see' things? I for one don't.

A man blind from birth can know he is blind in an abstract sense, in virtue of what is communicated to him by other people, but he cannot know precisely what it is that he is lacking that constitutes this blindness. He could probably construct a nice analogy for himself, however, by imagining that a man deaf from birth faces a similar sort of predicament.

So how would a man unconscious from birth knows what he lacks? Can he construct a nice analogy to understand his predicament?

Notice you didn't know you could see until you learned what vision is. And you certainly don't learn what vision is by experiencing vision, you learn it by communicating with other people. Likewise, you can't know if you're conscious until you learn, from other people, what consciousness is. Which means all you know and understand about vision and consciousness is what you learn from other people. Subjective experience plays no role in gathering knowledge, just as knowledge plays no role in gathering facts about the world.

(I'll leave that last sentence unexplained)

I find some of your other claims dubious though.

I'm not preaching here, I'd like to hear different views and learn from them, but I can only take criticism from people with whom I share some common ground. Sleeth, for instance, does not understand my perspective, so even though I acknowledge his skepticism I can't possibly refute it until we learn more about each other.

That's fine, but again, what that implies is not knowing if one's own subjective experience is shared by others. It does not raise any doubt as to the existence or nature of one's subjective experience, taken on its own terms.

The doubts are not regarding the existence of subjective experience, but with claims made about it. You must agree with me that even something as subjective as "subjective experience" must have an objective counterpart, otherwise we would never know it exists for we would not be able to talk about it. The point that is difficult to get across is that when we talk about "subjective experience", we are actually talking about something quite objective. There's nothing subjective to "subjective experience" that can be talked about, the best we can do is discuss its objective aspects.

I can understand why someone would be tricked into thinking that "subjective experience" is not objective. Langauge is very deceptive in that sense, because it allows us to talk about the subjective in a purely objective way. But it's easy to become confused in the process, and I'm sure I'm not immune to confusion myself. All I know is that I'm less confused than I used to be before I understood some things, but I don't know if I'm less confused than you or anyone else.

I think you are confusing linguistic representations of phenomena with the phenomena themselves.

There you go :)

Say for argument's sake that Harry was the first guy to ever experience a peculiar set of feelings, and that Harry decided to call this set of feelings 'enlightenment.' How can others be sure that they are experiencing the same set of feelings that Harry was when they are tempted to describe their experience as 'enlightened'? Well, they can't be sure.

Actually, they can. We do that all the time. All Harry has to do is find physical correlates of 'enlightenment' in his body or his behaviour.

However, I dispute the notion that anyone can have a new experience and come up with a new word for our vocabulary. Experiences are not so neatly categorized; in a sense each experience is new and unique. We can only label experiences because we learn a way to ignore the differences between them. That subjective way of ignoring differences between experiences has an objective counterpart - it's called language.

Perhaps this would make sense, perhaps not: the reason language is important for experience is that without language you can't experience the same thing twice. Moreover, if you can't experience the same "thing" twice, then the only "thing" in your universe that you can possibly experience is a meaningless mess of something we don't have a word for.

What is there left to understand after ignoring subjective experience? Unconscious mental processes. So you are a proponent of a theory of consciousness that describes unconscious mental processes

What's unconscious about a smile?

 

[Canute]

Almost. What I think is nonsense is the idea that you can understand consciousness to the point where you can discover that what A sees as this color[/color] is experienced by B as that color[/color]. Anyone pursuing to understand consciousness from that perspective is wasting his time.

Half right - but colour blindness can be diagnosed.

All the same, it's not correct to say we don't understand consciousness at all. We do enough to come to a judgement of whether people are conscious or not. And that judgement, you must agree, is arrived at through observation of the physical world, not through magically peeking into their subjectivity.

Not right at all. There is no possible way of knowing whether someone else is conscious. We just assume it.

So it's not only perfectly possible to understand consciousness from a purely objective standpoint, but we actually do it all the time.

The 'other minds' problem cannot be solved. Therefore we cannot know if someone else is conscious. Therefore we cannot study experiences objectively. We have to rely on first-person reports, which originate in subjective experience. All these arguments were settled a long time ago.

So how would a man unconscious from birth knows what he lacks? Can he construct a nice analogy to understand his predicament?

Someone who is unconscious cannot know anything.

Notice you didn't know you could see until you learned what vision is. And you certainly don't learn what vision is by experiencing vision, you learn it by communicating with other people.

Oh c'mon, this is getting silly. It must be completely obvious to you that this cannot possibly be true.

Likewise, you can't know if you're conscious until you learn, from other people, what consciousness is.

LoL

Which means all you know and understand about vision and consciousness is what you learn from other people. Subjective experience plays no role in gathering knowledge, just as knowledge plays no role in gathering facts about the world.

Every philosopher who ever lived, as far as I'm aware, agrees that allknowledge derives ultimately from experience.

The doubts are not regarding the existence of subjective experience, but with claims made about it. You must agree with me that even something as subjective as "subjective experience" must have an objective counterpart, otherwise we would never know it exists for we would not be able to talk about it.

So when you are not talking you are unconscious I suppose. We talk about 'nothing', 'electrons', superstrings', 'pain', etc. None of these have 'objective counterparts'. These terms are all theoretical, theories of things and not things in themselves. Words point at things, they are not replacements for them.

The point that is difficult to get across is that when we talk about "subjective experience", we are actually talking about something quite objective.

We might as well scrub the term 'subjective' from the dictionary then.

There's nothing subjective to "subjective experience" that can be talked about, the best we can do is discuss its objective aspects.

No, the best we can do is assume that the other person feels 'pain' and 'heat' and 'colour' and so on and talk about it as best we can. How can we talk about rainbows? They don't exist outside of conscious experience.

I can understand why someone would be tricked into thinking that "subjective experience" is not objective.

So can I. It's probably because it isn't. I think you're just having us on. You can't really believe what you're saying. Why do you suppose that the term 'subjective experience' is used by people when they might as well say 'objective non-experience'.

Langauge is very deceptive in that sense, because it allows us to talk about the subjective in a purely objective way.

That's very true, and I would say it's the source of your confusion. Heidegger felt it was the problem at the root of western metaphysics.

But it's easy to become confused in the process, and I'm sure I'm not immune to confusion myself. All I know is that I'm less confused than I used to be before I understood some things, but I don't know if I'm less confused than you or anyone else.

If you do not have subjective experiences that are incommunicable to other people then you are not confused, you are just not a normal human being.

Actually, they can. We do that all the time. All Harry has to do is find physical correlates of 'enlightenment' in his body or his behaviour.

A correlate is a correlate, not the thing itself. This is why it's called a correlate.

However, I dispute the notion that anyone can have a new experience and come up with a new word for our vocabulary.

That's odd, I just had an experience that was truly uncespenarious.

Experiences are not so neatly categorized; in a sense each experience is new and unique. We can only label experiences because we learn a way to ignore the differences between them.

Agreed. Ignoring differences is what makes categorisation (of anything) possible.

Perhaps this would make sense, perhaps not: the reason language is important for experience is that without language you can't experience the same thing twice.

You cannot experience the same thing twice full stop. Some details will always be different, as you said above.

Moreover, if you can't experience the same "thing" twice, then the only "thing" in your universe that you can possibly experience is a meaningless mess of something we don't have a word for.

Yes. This is known as the 'incommenurability' of experiences. They cannot be communicated. Therefore a priori they cannot be caused by the means of communicating them.

 

[confutatis]

Half right - but colour blindness can be diagnosed.

That's only because there's something objective about color-blindness. If there weren't, you would never know such a thing as color-blindness existed. As far as I know, we know a person is color-blind by the way they talk, not by the way they experience the world. Color-blindness - the concept, not the experience - can only exist because we can talk about it.

Not right at all. There is no possible way of knowing whether someone else is conscious. We just assume it.

This is a misconception. Believe me, I used to think the same way myself.

Oh c'mon, this is getting silly. It must be completely obvious to you that this cannot possibly be true.

It's not silly, but I know why you think it is. You are looking at things from a certain perspective, I'm looking at the same things using a mirror. I know that what you see is the reverse of what I see, but I can also see things the way you see if I want it. You think I'm trying to convince you that the mirrored image is what matters, and you think you have to convince me to look at things directly rather than through the mirror. But that is not what I'm talking about. What I'm trying to explain is this: "look, you see things one way, and you think I see things the wrong way, but that is only because there is a mirror in the room". Ultimately I don't want you to understand what you think is my perspective, I want you to see the mirror. Then it will all make as much sense for you as it does for me, and it's not silly at all, it's quite interesting.

I say a word, and that word conjures up hundreds, perhaps thousands of ideas in my mind. I'm often tempted to think the word itself carries with it all the ideas it conjures in my mind, but when I seriously think about it I realize that is far from being the case. When the word leaves my mouth, or my keyboard, all that enormous wealth of ideas is gone and reduced to a small set of sounds or images.The ideas have to be reconstructed on the other side, on the mind of the person I'm talking to. I have no control over that process, the person will make of my words whatever it is that sounds more sensible to them. Some might interpret what I say as great wisdom, others may interpret it as silliness. I have no control over that process.

That's one side of the story, but there's another side we seldom look at: you can put yourself on the reverse side of the process; you can use a mirror to see something about yourself that is otherwise completely invisible to you. When I use that mirror, I can clearly see that what I have in mind when people say the things they say is not necessarily what they have in mind. I have to reconstruct the meaning of words and sentences just like everyone else, and the speaker's mind is not something I can use to do that job. Let's call that reconstruction process "language", for lack of a better word. It turns out then that all I know about the world and about other people are things that can be expressed through language. And that knowledge includes the knowledge that I am conscious!

Now some people will insist that what "consciousness" really is cannot be expressed through language. But if that were really the case, then it would be as impossible to know if I am conscious as they say it's impossible to know if other people are conscious, for the simple reason that I don't know what the word "conscious" really means.

Tell me, how do you know you are conscious? Forget about all those ideas and feelings the word "conscious" conjures in your mind when you think of it - I have no way to know if those ideas and feelings of yours are the same as mine. To put it another way, can you know if you are conscious according to everybody else's understanding of consciousness?

I think you're just having us on. You can't really believe what you're saying.

I'm sorry you feel that way, it was not my intention. I'm trying to see if I can get other people to contemplate things from an original, and just as valid perspective.

 

[Fliption]

Not for me. I have an experience I can correlate with 'blue', even though I have no way to know the kind of experience they correlate with 'blue'. But in the case of 'enlightenment', I have no experience that I can correlate with the word, for the simple reason that I don't know what the word means.

But you don't have an experience that correlates with blue. All you have is an object that someone else has told you is blue and you therefore assume that you are experiencing blue when you see the object. Enlightenment isn't much different. If you perform and practice all the functions of meditation then you can assume the distinctive feeling that arises is what others call "enlightenment" when they perform those same things. I don't see the difference at all. You have no more knowledge in one than you do in the other.

And I thought it was the best example I have come up with so far...

Just so you know how far off I am...I don't even see what the cat example has to do with the topic.

This was of course not an ordinary guy, but by no means was he stupid or crazy. He was in fact quite intelligent, far above the average, with an awesome understanding of logic, mathematics, and physics.

Maybe he was just socially disfunctional and ackward.

Sure, so why not take the next natural step and apply the same reasoning for 'consciousness'? Isn't 'consciousness' as subjective as 'blue'? Isn't it irrelevant what other people relate to when they hear you talk about it?

Think about that for a while.

Ok. I thought about it. So what?

At a minimum, I think you should be able to see that even though you think of consciousness as something completely subjective, you also think other people are conscious the same way you are. Can you see the contradiction? If there's nothing to consciousness but subjective experience, then you can't tell whether other people are conscious or not. Since you know other people are conscious, then there must be more to consciousness than subjective experience.

But I don't know that other people are conscious. This is a known philosophical issue called the other minds problem. I just assume you're conscious.

If you understand that, then there's just one more step to see what ZK and I are saying. I'll save that for later.

Not sure what this last step is but I'm not sure it matters because I don't believe I know anything about other people being conscious.

 

[Fliption]

After reading the last few response from you Confutatis, it seems where our views diverge are that you seem to think that we cannot "know" anything unless we have a word to assign to it. And I don't believe this to be the case at all.

From my perspective, this semantic web that you are tangling yourself up in is the type of thing that philosophers have to be very careful of doing. Many were unsuccessful. I remember going over the established criticisms of these semantic mistakes back when I studied different philosophers. Even in this forum I see it all the time. People fool themselves into thinking they have a legitmate view when all they really have is equivocation and circular definitions.

 

[Canute]

Confutatis - I'm carrying on only because you play the piano, which means you deserve the benefit of the doubt.

That's only because there's something objective about color-blindness. If there weren't, you would never know such a thing as color-blindness existed.

Absolutely right. However because other people talk about colour someone who is colour blind can know that they are not experiencing something that they are.

As far as I know, we know a person is color-blind by the way they talk, not by the way they experience the world. Color-blindness - the concept, not the experience - can only exist because we can talk about it.

So we can banish colour blindness to medical history by not talking about it? I think not. Some people do not experience all colours as 'normal'. Talking about it or not doesn't change a thing.

This is a misconception. Believe me, I used to think the same way myself.

Argh. Please read some philosophy. This is basic stuff.

It turns out then that all I know about the world and about other people are things that can be expressed through language. And that knowledge includes the knowledge that I am conscious!

You're lucky someone told you that you're conscious then, otherwise you would never have been able to enjoy music. Langauge let's you know that there is common term for consciousness. But consciousness is a term not a thing, the thing existed before there was a word for it, otherwise we wouldn't have a word for it, which must be obvious.

Now some people will insist that what "consciousness" really is cannot be expressed through language.

We can easily agree what consciousness is, in fact peple generally do (outside of internet fora anyway). What we cannot do is convey what it feels like to someone else, or vice versa.

But if that were really the case, then it would be as impossible to know if I am conscious as they say it's impossible to know if other people are conscious, for the simple reason that I don't know what the word "conscious" really means.

You are confusing 'consciousness', a generic term for 'what it is like' with things that are only contingent ststaes of it, like colour and so on. It is SELF-EVIDENT (sorry to raise my voice) to you that you are conscious, as it is to me, but I cannot prove it to someone else and neither can you. You seem to be confusing knowledge with proof. There are loads of things that we can know but cannot prove. Just as well since we cannot prove anything.

, how do you know you are conscious?

By noticing that I feel annoyed on being asked daft questions.

Forget about all those ideas and feelings the word "conscious" conjures in your mind when you think of it - I have no way to know if those ideas and feelings of yours are the same as mine. To put it another way, can you know if you are conscious according to everybody else's understanding of consciousness?

It doesn't matter how you feel or I feel, whether red is blue or pain is pleasure. If you feel anything at all then you are conscious. That's all there is to it. You don't even have to tell anybody.

I'm sorry you feel that way, it was not my intention. I'm trying to see if I can get other people to contemplate things from an original, and just as valid perspective.

I'm all for exploring different perspectives, but only valid ones. I'm going to try to make this my last post on this issue. You are in disagreement with everybody who has ever expressed an opinion on this issue.

 

[confutatis]

But you don't have an experience that correlates with blue. All you have is an object that someone else has told you is blue and you therefore assume that you are experiencing blue when you see the object. Enlightenment isn't much different. If you perform and practice all the functions of meditation then you can assume the distinctive feeling that arises is what others call "enlightenment" when they perform those same things. I don't see the difference at all. You have no more knowledge in one than you do in the other.

Good point. But can't we say the same thing about consciousness? That is, as individuals we have no more knowledge of what being conscious is, other than the fact that a conscious person talks and behaves in a certain way. Therefore, the knowledge that I am conscious derives from my observation that I talk and behave as if I'm conscious, therefore I must be. The problem of knowing if I'm conscious is exactly the same as the problem of knowing if I'm enlightened.

Just so you know how far off I am...I don't even see what the cat example has to do with the topic.

The point was that there is a high degree of isomorphism between reality and language, between 'cat' the animal and 'cat' the word. If there were not, the word would be useless. Likewise the word 'conscious' must have a counterpart in objective reality for it to have meaning.

This is a known philosophical issue called the other minds problem. I just assume you're conscious.

And then...

From my perspective, this semantic web that you are tangling yourself up in is the type of thing that philosophers have to be very careful of doing.

The problem here is that it's all semantics and nothing else. If the "other minds" problem were anything but a problem of semantics, then it could be solved with some observation of the world, which is not the case.

People fool themselves into thinking they have a legitmate view when all they really have is equivocation and circular definitions.

So do you know if the "other minds" problem comes from a legitimate view or is it the result of equivocations and circular definitions? How do you tell one kind of scenario from the other?

 

[confutatis]

Confutatis - I'm carrying on only because you play the piano, which means you deserve the benefit of the doubt.

I think we've covered as much as can be covered for now. It's been fun but I think it's time to change channels.

There are loads of things that we can know but cannot prove. Just as well since we cannot prove anything.

And since we cannot prove anything, "the problem of consciousness" is as impossible as any other. Nothing special about it.

You are in disagreement with everybody who has ever expressed an opinion on this issue.

I believe I'm in agreement with zk4586. It was he in fact who made me understand this. I was on your side before, but now I see where I was wrong. Which doesn't mean you're wrong, because for all I know you may be talking about something entirely different. You may be talking about blue[/color] while I'm talking about blue[/color], and we'll never understand why we can't agree.

Now let's talk about something else.

 

[hypnagogue]

I still find myself in disagreement with your position, though I am content to leave the main line of discussion alone for now. However I would like to remark on one outstanding claim you made in response to Canute:

Not right at all. There is no possible way of knowing whether someone else is conscious. We just assume it.

This is a misconception. Believe me, I used to think the same way myself.

If you truly have solved the problem of other minds, you should publish a paper right now, because you have made one of the momentous discoveries in the history of humanity. As it stands, though, I think your position here only serves to discredit the rest of your reasoning (assuming this statement is tied into your other positions on language and such). If someone on an internet forum has devised a new way of thinking about physics such that his theory unifies gravity and the other forces-- well, the burden of proof lays squarely on him and in all probability he is wrong. Likewise, if your position leads you to make a statement to the effect that you have solved the problem of other minds-- well, in all probability your position is wrong. This is not a trivial criterion. You have the entire history of philosophy going against you now.

 

[Fliption]

Good point. But can't we say the same thing about consciousness? That is, as individuals we have no more knowledge of what being conscious is, other than the fact that a conscious person talks and behaves in a certain way. Therefore, the knowledge that I am conscious derives from my observation that I talk and behave as if I'm conscious, therefore I must be. The problem of knowing if I'm conscious is exactly the same as the problem of knowing if I'm enlightened.

I don't think consciousness is the same thing. If you think it is then you can demonstrate it and I'll try to understand. But here's why I think it's different. The words "blue" and "enlightenment" are like this because they are assigned to subjective experiences. And since we cannot experience each other's subjective experiences then obviously there is a possibility that we aren't on the same page when we speak of blue and enlightenment. But consciousness is not assigned to a specific subjective experience. To be conscious is to have subjective experiences. It's not a question of a color gradient. It is yes or no. It is on or off. If there is anything I am certain of, it is that I have experiences. Of course, your view can simply continue to ask this "how do I know" question about every word I continue to use, picking apart the fact that I have to use language to communicate to you but the fact is I know I have something that I will never find an explanation for in the current scientific paradigm. Whether anyone else knows what it is or not isn't relevant.

Likewise the word 'conscious' must have a counterpart in objective reality for it to have meaning.

Perhaps the counterpart begins in the unquestionable assumption "something exists"? We know this is true. I also know that I am aware of this assumption. And I'm aware that I'm aware of this assumption leading to...self awareness. This is consciousness.

Of course you can continue your fun and ask me about the word "awareness". At some point, the game gets to be unreasonable and non-productive. The materialists started to ask the same sort of "dumb" questions in another thread and I eventaully left that one. Eventually it became obvious their agenda was dictating the dialogue and not their reasoning ability.

The problem here is that it's all semantics and nothing else. If the "other minds" problem were anything but a problem of semantics, then it could be solved with some observation of the world, which is not the case.

The only reason I can think of why you have this view is because you haven't defined the problem for yourself. There is nothing about your own existence that requires explanation to you. It sounds as if all problems have to be dictated to you by someone else. And of course you can always blame the language for those problems.

So do you know if the "other minds" problem comes from a legitimate view or is it the result of equivocations and circular definitions? How do you tell one kind of scenario from the other?

I can tell using logic. I don't believe all words carry the same problem as blue and enlightenment. And good arguments shouldn't be based on subjective statements. Here's a good example for you. A materialist claims that nothing non-material can exists. When asked what being material means he says "having the abilty to exists". You don't even have to know what the words mean to be able to build a logical construct of this view and see that it assumes it's conclusion and is circular. And believe it or not, this very example did and does happen in this forum.

 

[confutatis]

I still find myself in disagreement with your position, though I am content to leave the main line of discussion alone for now.

Well, I just want to drop the subject because I'm afraid of being misinterpreted as an arrogant fool insisting on the same idea over and over, completely deaf to criticism. But I'll be glad to repeat myself over and over until someone understands, if it's OK with everyone else.

If you truly have solved the problem of other minds, you should publish a paper right now, because you have made one of the momentous discoveries in the history of humanity.

No. If I were claiming to have solved the problem of other minds, this thread should be moved to... what's the name of that 'crackpot ideas' forum again?

What I'm saying is that the 'other minds' problem is unsolvable. And if it is unsolvable, let's not waste time trying to solve it. Furthermore, if the problem is unsolvable, that means nothing we can possibly know about anything depends on that problem being solved. So, besides being unsolvable, the problem is irrelevant to solving 'solvable' problems.

Is that really hard to understand? I'm afraid it is.

Let me show you an unsolvable problem. I will give you a fact and a problem:

fact: a + b = 5

problem: determine the values of 'a' and 'b'

You must agree with me that proposing a solution to such a problem is nonsense, right? There just aren't enough facts to solve it. Yet that doesn't prevent anyone from learning a lot more facts about 'a' and 'b' without ever knowing what their values are. For instance:

fact: a = 5 - b
fact: b = 5 - a
fact: a + b - 5 = 0
fact: (a + b)/5 = 1

And so on and on and on.

But please, don't try to relate that to anything I said about consciousness, unless the relationship becomes as clear to you as it is to me. All I expect is that you understand what makes a problem unsolvable, and what can be done about it.

 

[hypnagogue]

Well I'm glad you do not pretend to have solved the problem of other minds. Still, I'm not sure how one should read the following interchange without presuming that you think the problem has been solved:

Canute: Not right at all. There is no possible way of knowing whether someone else is conscious. We just assume it.

confutatis: This is a misconception. Believe me, I used to think the same way myself.

It has happened several other times in this thread where you retreat from a position implicated by the phrasings you have used. Nothing wrong with changing your position of course, and not to sound as if I'm lecturing, but if anything you should try to be more careful about what wordings you use.

 

[Fliption]

I have found myself getting confused as to exactly what it is we are disagreeing on. So in fairness to confutatis I did go back and re-read this entire thread so that I can put the current conversation back in the proper context. What I found is that the positions have shifted several times. The overall conclusion seems to have drifted. I actually think I do understand the examples and problems about words being discussed here. But my question remains "So what?". I can't connect these issues to any conclusion. Perhaps it is because the conclusion has shifted. We know that confutatis' view has changed on this since the thead started. It is likely that his view continues to evolve as we discuss it.

Confutatis, I would suggest taking a little more time to get your thoughts together and come back and present your view from start to finish. If you can do this in a logical way it would be very helpful. Start with assumptions and then one by one build on your arguments and then finally to a conclusion. None of this has been real clear to me. I do not feel that you have an agenda your trying to push (which is rare in these forums). I think you actually have a reasoned view and I would like to understand it. Once I understand the form of the argument I may still disagree but I don't know if I disagree with you right now because I'm not clear on exactly what the conclusion is and how it connects to any of the issues we've discussed.

It also doesn't help that you have been abandoned by the original proponents of this idea. I haven't seen them comment on whether what you are saying makes sense to them either.

 

[confutatis]

I don't think consciousness is the same thing. If you think it is then you can demonstrate it and I'll try to understand. But here's why I think it's different. The words "blue" and "enlightenment" are like this because they are assigned to subjective experiences. And since we cannot experience each other's subjective experiences then obviously there is a possibility that we aren't on the same page when we speak of blue and enlightenment. But consciousness is not assigned to a specific subjective experience. To be conscious is to have subjective experiences. It's not a question of a color gradient. It is yes or no. It is on or off.

What you are proposing above is a definition of consciousness. All I can say is that, if you define consciousness that way, then you will never be able to say anything at all about consciousness. So tell me, why should we define a thing in a way that prevents us from saying anything at all about that thing, other than tautological restatements of the definition?

If there is anything I am certain of, it is that I have experiences.

That is not true since you can't prove that you have experiences, not even to yourself. But I know everytime I say that, people interpret the opposite of what I actually mean. They think the impossibility of proving that one has experiences has tremendous philosophical consequences and implies a pessimistic, ugly "vision for humanity", as someone put it. All I can say is that it's a mistake to think that way.

Of course, your view can simply continue to ask this "how do I know" question about every word I continue to use, picking apart the fact that I have to use language to communicate to you but the fact is I know I have something that I will never find an explanation for in the current scientific paradigm.

Do not try to change the scientific paradigm, try to understand why any paradigm, scientific or otherwise, is irrelevant for the issue you have in mind.

Perhaps the counterpart begins in the unquestionable assumption "something exists"? We know this is true.

I don't know that "something exists". I only know that, if "something exists", then a lot of stuff can be said about "something", and a lot of stuff can be said about "exists". That's the best you can possibly get.

Stop trying to find the foundation of your knowledge because you won't find it and you don't need it.

The materialists started to ask the same sort of "dumb" questions in another thread and I eventaully left that one. Eventually it became obvious their agenda was dictating the dialogue and not their reasoning ability.

If that helps anything, I'm not a materialist. I'm something of a Catholic mystic, that's the best way I can put it. The only difference, perhaps, is that I don't think materialists are intellectually inferior to me. I'm sure we can learn from them just as they could learn from us.

There is nothing about your own existence that requires explanation to you. It sounds as if all problems have to be dictated to you by someone else. And of course you can always blame the language for those problems.

That is exactly the case. Notice how children are not bothered by those existential questions. Also, notice how most posters on this forum are male.

Have you ever tried to have these kinds of discussion with a woman? I'm always impressed as they so quickly write me off as a fool with nothing better to worry about. My wife is specially good at making me feel like an idiot.

Here's a good example for you. A materialist claims that nothing non-material can exists. When asked what being material means he says "having the abilty to exists". You don't even have to know what the words mean to be able to build a logical construct of this view and see that it assumes it's conclusion and is circular.

Actually, the main reason why you would build a logical construct of any view is if you don't understand what the words mean. Don't you think it's likely the materialists don't see the circularity in their view precisely because they see meaning to it which eludes you? That is, when they try to explain the rich ideas they have in their minds, all that gets to you are logical relationships between words. No wonder you don't like it, but that's only because you don't understand it.

There's another side to it. Instead of being circular, a certain view can be criticized for not being consistent, for implying contradictions. Even though the symptoms are different, the cause is exactly the same: the listener does not fully understand the meaning of the words, reduces everything to a chain of logical relationships, and finds missing links in the chain. Again, it's nothing but a problem of communication, it has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of a certain view.

If you knew everything the materialists know, you would agree with their views as much as they agree amongst themselves. Likewise, if materialists knew everything non-materialists know, they would agree with them. But more important, if everyone knew everything everyone else knows, we would never disagree, yet even then it would still be just a view.

Deep, eh?


(PS: I haven't read the last two posts by Fliption and Hypnagogue before I wrote this. I wish I had, but now it's too late, so I'll just leave these ideas for the record. Fliption is right, I did change my mind on a few things since the beginning. If I don't do that, people call me close-minded, if I do, people get confused. Oh well...)

 

[Fliption]

What you are proposing above is a definition of consciousness. All I can say is that, if you define consciousness that way, then you will never be able to say anything at all about consciousness. So tell me, why should we define a thing in a way that prevents us from saying anything at all about that thing, other than tautological restatements of the definition?

Please explain what you mean. You've just stated that it is tautological and that nothing can be said about it. But you haven't explained why.

That is not true since you can't prove that you have experiences, not even to yourself. But I know everytime I say that, people interpret the opposite of what I actually mean. They think the impossibility of proving that one has experiences has tremendous philosophical consequences and implies a pessimistic, ugly "vision for humanity", as someone put it. All I can say is that it's a mistake to think that way.

You will need to define what you think proof is. If I cannot know that I have experiences, then nothing can be known (or proven)and both terms become useless concepts. Which means this thread is a useless thread.

Do not try to change the scientific paradigm, try to understand why any paradigm, scientific or otherwise, is irrelevant for the issue you have in mind.

Too broad. Don't know what this means.

I don't know that "something exists". I only know that, if "something exists", then a lot of stuff can be said about "something", and a lot of stuff can be said about "exists". That's the best you can possibly get.

It's hard to argue against "something exists". No one else in this forum has ever bothered to try.

Stop trying to find the foundation of your knowledge because you won't find it and you don't need it.

I'm not looking for this foundation. I mentioned this because you insisted that there needed to be one. So who is looking for a foundation? I was only trying to show that you don't need to re-invent common sense to find the thing you're looking for.

If that helps anything, I'm not a materialist. I'm something of a Catholic mystic, that's the best way I can put it. The only difference, perhaps, is that I don't think materialists are intellectually inferior to me. I'm sure we can learn from them just as they could learn from us.

I don't believe I am intellectually superior to materialists. Far from it. But it has become obvious to me that my goals(to learn) in particpating in this forum is different from many of their goals.

That is exactly the case. Notice how children are not bothered by those existential questions. Also, notice how most posters on this forum are male.

Children also run out in the street without looking both ways. Does that imply that it is a worthless endeaver to look both ways? Children don't do the things they do because of a lack of language or conceptual ability. The lack of language abilties in children is present for the same reason they don't look both ways before crossing the street. Thought development produces the ability to do things like look both ways and use concepts. It isn't the other way around. You seem to be claiming that the ability to use concepts facilitates the ability to think about the concepts.

Have you ever tried to have these kinds of discussion with a woman? I'm always impressed as they so quickly write me off as a fool with nothing better to worry about. My wife is specially good at making me feel like an idiot.

Yes I have. I've also tried having these discussions with men as well. Honestly, most people give the same reaction. The reaction you mentioned is pretty standard. It's a lonely world for those of us tortured to understand.

Actually, the main reason why you would build a logical construct of any view is if you don't understand what the words mean. Don't you think it's likely the materialists don't see the circularity in their view precisely because they see meaning to it which eludes you? That is, when they try to explain the rich ideas they have in their minds, all that gets to you are logical relationships between words. No wonder you don't like it, but that's only because you don't understand it.

Well all that may be valid in some cases but in the case I mentioned, the materialists openly admitted it was circular and thought that materialism was the exception to logic because it was obviously the correct view. LOL! I understand your point about confusion and semantics but it's hard not to see the circularity in this case. No matter what planet your from.

There's another side to it. Instead of being circular, a certain view can be criticized for not being consistent, for implying contradictions. Even though the symptoms are different, the cause is exactly the same: the listener does not fully understand the meaning of the words, reduces everything to a chain of logical relationships, and finds missing links in the chain. Again, it's nothing but a problem of communication, it has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of a certain view.

If you knew everything the materialists know, you would agree with their views as much as they agree amongst themselves. Likewise, if materialists knew everything non-materialists know, they would agree with them. But more important, if everyone knew everything everyone else knows, we would never disagree, yet even then it would still be just a view.

Deep, eh?

You can't possibly know just how much I understand and agree with everything you've said above. If you were following me around in various discussions in PF you would see just how many times I have boiled a disagreement down to a problem of semantics. People think they are involved in a discussion of substance, but they are really just talking past one another due to semantic differences. I've said it so many times I'm sure some people are tired of reading it. As a matter of fact, you have only reinforced what my original point was. The only difference I think we have is that I do think that a productive conversation can be had. In some cases, the lack of logic is obvious (like in example above). I do not believe in this semantic anarchy you seem to be proposing.

Also,a side note. I understood the point of saying that If everyone knew everything we would all agree. But saying this seems deterministic and may leave something out that cannot be easily identified in a world where we do have semantic differences.

(PS: I haven't read the last two posts by Fliption and Hypnagogue before I wrote this. I wish I had, but now it's too late, so I'll just leave these ideas for the record. Fliption is right, I did change my mind on a few things since the beginning. If I don't do that, people call me close-minded, if I do, people get confused. Oh well...)

I think it's great to develop your view as you participate. If you are here to learn then that's what happens. It happens to me all the time. But since it can be confusing I try to acknowledge where I have shifted and why. Otherwise people will think the inconsistent statements are supposed to be consistent.

 

[confutatis]

Please explain what you mean. You've just stated that it is tautological and that nothing can be said about it. But you haven't explained why.

I was in the middle of a reply to this post, when I realized we are getting off topic. Even though you pose interesting questions, I've had trouble enough with what I consider one simple issue. I hope we can come back to those later, for now I need to get some stuff done.

What caught my attention on this thread was this comment, way back close to the beginning:

Even hypnagogue would have to admit that we could never describe “what it is like” to see the color blue. He believes that seeing blue is intrinsic and ineffable. This is why we holists view hypnagogue and those who side with him as mystics tilting at windmills.

When I read that I couldn't make much sense of it; now it makes perfect sense, and it was quite a thrill to discover why. And it's not difficult at all, it's almost trivial. Anyone who wants can easily understand it, but those who don't want to understand can't be forced to see it. They have to see it for themselves.

 

[Fliption]

What caught my attention on this thread was this comment, way back close to the beginning:

Even hypnagogue would have to admit that we could never describe “what it is like” to see the color blue. He believes that seeing blue is intrinsic and ineffable. This is why we holists view hypnagogue and those who side with him as mystics tilting at windmills.

When I read that I couldn't make much sense of it; now it makes perfect sense, and it was quite a thrill to discover why. And it's not difficult at all, it's almost trivial. Anyone who wants can easily understand it, but those who don't want to understand can't be forced to see it. They have to see it for themselves.

You realize that you can say this about anything don't you? I hope you aren't implying that anyone here doesn't want to understand. Because I think there has certainly been an effort to. It could be that what you are talking about is indeed so trivial, as you say, that not only do I understand it but I don't see it as the impacting revelation that you do. I won't have a chance to prove that to anyone because I can't be certain I understand the position. There are too many disconnected dots and, as you noted, remarks that are off topic. But I can't be certain what exactly is and what isn't on topic.

I actually do understand the quote you pulled out. I just don't think it's all that relevant to the philosphical issues of consciousness. The only thing mysterious about that quote is when he calls himself a holist. Now there's some semantic confusion!

 

[confutatis]

You realize that you can say this about anything don't you? I hope you aren't implying that anyone here doesn't want to understand.

No, I think it's rather that some people can't see any relevance to it. You even stated that in your reply.

It could be that what you are talking about is indeed so trivial, as you say, that not only do I understand it but I don't see it as the impacting revelation that you do.

That is because we have different interests. You seem to be trying to understand consciousness; I'm just trying to understand what the word 'consciousness' means. I can't understand a thing before I understand what the word used to represent the thing means, and I haven't reached that stage yet.

I actually do understand the quote you pulled out. I just don't think it's all that relevant to the philosphical issues of consciousness.

I consider it extremely relevant, since I can't understand what the philosophical issues of consciousness are before I understand what the word 'consciousness' means. But if you already know what the word means, then you really have nothing to learn.

However, I have a strong suspicion that nobody really understands what the word means. That would explain my difficulty figuring it out for myself.

The only thing mysterious about that quote is when he calls himself a holist. Now there's some semantic confusion!

I suppose he doesn't fully understand what 'consciousness' means. I can sympathize with that.

 

[Canute]

“The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. When can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him? “

Chuang Tsu.

 

[Fliption]

But if you already know what the word means, then you really have nothing to learn.

As I said before. I don't care what anyone else means by the word consciousness. All that matters is that I know I have a very specific trait that I am calling consciousness. In my attempt to understand how such a feature can come from a box full of rocks, I have stumbled on all the philosophical evidence that suggest it indeed does not originate from a box full of rocks. The box needs more ingredients. It is not necessary for me to communicate with anyone to go through this process.

I just don't understand it when someone claims that they don't know what consciousness is. All you're saying is that you don't know what other people mean when they use the word. But I can't believe that you have no problem explaining every feature of your existence with known scientific principles. Forget about calling it consciousness. Forget about attaching any word to it. Can you scientifically explain every feature of your existence? To say you don't know which feature of your own existence we are referring to when we talk of all the philosophical issues, leads me to believe you are either being difficult or you are a zombie.

Read Canute's last post carefully. It is a very important message. So many people get lost in their egocentric, linguistic world that they need to hear that quote over and over. People participating in philosophy especially are at risk of losing the forest for all the trees.

 

[confutatis]

As I said before. I don't care what anyone else means by the word consciousness.

So many people get lost in their egocentric, linguistic world ...

Wait a minute! Who's being egocentric here? How can I decide to attach some private meaning to a word, disregard what other people think of my decision, and then not see myself as egocentric?

We are really looking at the same problem from opposite angles.

All that matters is that I know I have a very specific trait that I am calling consciousness.

Whatever that specific trait is, nobody cares what you say about it if you don't care to express your ideas in terms that other people can understand. If you're just talking to yourself, why should anyone listen?

I just don't understand it when someone claims that they don't know what consciousness is. All you're saying is that you don't know what other people mean when they use the word.

What is the difference? Do you understand what supercalifragialisticexpialiadocious is? If you don't care what anyone else means by the word supercalifragialisticexpialiadocious how can you understand anything about it?

People participating in philosophy especially are at risk of losing the forest for all the trees.

Nobody can see a forest if they can't see the trees. First you must understand what a word means, then you can find out what is true about it. Canute's quote is right, once you grasp the meaning you can do away with words. But not before.

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

I will start another thread called The Problem of Other Minds. It will hopefully help elucidate my main point.

 

[Fliption]

Wait a minute! Who's being egocentric here? How can I decide to attach some private meaning to a word, disregard what other people think of my decision, and then not see myself as egocentric?

Egocentric does not mean "only concerning the self". It's meaning implies that you are leaving out relevant points because they aren't on your radar screen due to being self focused or dwelling only on you're own experiences. If there is nothing beyond yourself that is relevant then it isn't egocentric to only focus on those relevant things. This is my point. What someone else thinks a word means isn't relevant to establishe the existence of distinctions and issues about those distinctions.

But this view of yours I think is egocentric because language is the way you now distinguish your experiences. You cannot think about anything without thinking about words. But it could have been very different. An egocentric view naturally thinks it's own experience is the only possible way for things to be. Resulting in this view of semantic problems being the root of all evil.

Whatever that specific trait is, nobody cares what you say about it if you don't care to express your ideas in terms that other people can understand. If you're just talking to yourself, why should anyone listen?

You aren't following me. I'm not suggesting that communication isn't important. What I am trying to do is show that you don't need communication to establish the existence and issues of some feature of your existence. Call this feature whatever you want for now. Of course, if we then want to communicate about this thing, we now have all the semantic issues you are bringing up. But you can't then use these semantic issues to suggest that there is no philosophical problem to begin with other than the communication /semantic issues. I am trying to show that the problem is not semantic because you don't need anyone else to establish that you have features of your existence that you cannot find a scientific explanation for.

What is the difference? Do you understand what supercalifragialisticexpialiadocious is? If you don't care what anyone else means by the word supercalifragialisticexpialiadocious how can you understand anything about it?

You are really confusing yourself with words. There is way too much emphasis on them.

Nobody can see a forest if they can't see the trees. First you must understand what a word means, then you can find out what is true about it. Canute's quote is right, once you grasp the meaning you can do away with words. But not before.

It is true a forest is made up of trees. But concepts and problems are not made up of words. Words are labels we attach to distinctions that have developed through experience, for the purposes of communication. You have meaning first, THEN you attach a word to it.

 

[confutatis]

Egocentric does not mean "only concerning the self". It's meaning implies that you are leaving out relevant points because they aren't on your radar screen due to being self focused or dwelling only on you're own experiences. If there is nothing beyond yourself that is relevant then it isn't egocentric to only focus on those relevant things. This is my point. What someone else thinks a word means isn't relevant to establishe the existence of distinctions and issues about those distinctions.

If definitions are not important, why are you trying to define "egocentric"? Why not accept that "you are egocentric" is true from my perspective, because I don't care what anyone else thinks "egocentric" means?

But this view of yours I think is egocentric because language is the way you now distinguish your experiences.

You may well be right, but I am not sure. Since I already understand this view of mine, I can only say for sure if it's egocentric if I understand what you mean by egocentric. Because, from my personal understanding, it's not egocentric at all.

You cannot think about anything without thinking about words.

I can think about a lot of things, but I can only understand relationships, between words or anything else. Something that does not relate to something else lies beyond my ability to understand. But I don't have words for those things, for if I did I would know a relationship. So I can't talk about them, and neither can anyone else.

But it could have been very different. An egocentric view naturally thinks it's own experience is the only possible way for things to be. Resulting in this view of semantic problems being the root of all evil.

I find it really amusing when people start seeing things in my statements which simply are not there. I'm not proposing a worldview, and I certainly don't understand what the root of all evil is. To the best of my knowledge, it all comes from the devil, who is an inferior being who considers himself the equal of God. But don't ask me to explain that.

What I am trying to do is show that you don't need communication to establish the existence and issues of some feature of your existence. Call this feature whatever you want for now. Of course, if we then want to communicate about this thing, we now have all the semantic issues you are bringing up. But you can't then use these semantic issues to suggest that there is no philosophical problem to begin with other than the communication /semantic issues. I am trying to show that the problem is not semantic because you don't need anyone else to establish that you have features of your existence that you cannot find a scientific explanation for.

I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain myself better. I have tried and failed. All I can say is that the comment above is a huge misinterpretation of what I said.

Hopefully the new thread will improve things.

 

[Fliption]

If definitions are not important, why are you trying to define "egocentric"? Why not accept that "you are egocentric" is true from my perspective, because I don't care what anyone else thinks "egocentric" means?

We have acknowledged and discussed all the problems with language. To follow this thinking to an extreme, we could say that language is pretty much useless. But in order for us to have this discussion we have to make an assumption not to go to that extreme. Otherwise there is no need for us to even have this discussion. You let me know what you want to do.

Because, from my personal understanding, it's not egocentric at all.

I'm pretty sure my cat would disagree. Because he doesn't know a single word and yet it is reasonable to assume that he isn't a zombie cat.

I can think about a lot of things, but I can only understand relationships, between words or anything else. Something that does not relate to something else lies beyond my ability to understand. But I don't have words for those things, for if I did I would know a relationship. So I can't talk about them, and neither can anyone else.

Not sure how this is relevant. All I'm saying is that you and I don't have to understand a word to be the same thing in order for us to legitimately experience the things we do.

I find it really amusing when people start seeing things in my statements which simply are not there. I'm not proposing a worldview, and I certainly don't understand what the root of all evil is. To the best of my knowledge, it all comes from the devil, who is an inferior being who considers himself the equal of God. But don't ask me to explain that.

Root of all evil is just an expression. In a previous thread, you clearly claimed that all the issues of consciousness were semantic. So my claim that you are blaming semantics for all the philsophical issues of consciousness is not so far off.

I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain myself better. I have tried and failed. All I can say is that the comment above is a huge misinterpretation of what I said.

Hopefully the new thread will improve things.

I will concede that I may not be clear on what your conclusion is. The reasons for that have already been stated. Also, I've read your new thread. I haven't responded because I don't know how to respond. I'm not sure how it relates to this.

 

[confutatis]

To follow this thinking to an extreme, we could say that language is pretty much useless.

Langauge is not useless! Whenever I go to McDonald's and ask for a Big Mac, small fries, and a Coke, I get exactly what I ask. Philosophical problems notwithstanding.

But in order for us to have this discussion we have to make an assumption not to go to that extreme. Otherwise there is no need for us to even have this discussion. You let me know what you want to do.

I want you to try to answer the challenge I posed on the other thread.

I've read your new thread. I haven't responded because I don't know how to respond. I'm not sure how it relates to this.

I've said too much on this thread and I'm not sure everything is true, but I'm sure a small portion of it is absolutely correct. If you understand that small portion then we can discusss what follows from it and what doesn't.

Do you at least understand the argument? I think it's pretty logical, and to me it implies that the position that it is not possible to know if other people have visual experiences cannot be defended. You may find that trivial, but I don't think so.

 

[Fliption]

Langauge is not useless! Whenever I go to McDonald's and ask for a Big Mac, small fries, and a Coke, I get exactly what I ask. Philosophical problems notwithstanding.

But we aren't ordering dinner here. We're talking philosophy. So either it is worth talking about or it isn't.

Do you at least understand the argument? I think it's pretty logical, and to me it implies that the position that it is not possible to know if other people have visual experiences cannot be defended. You may find that trivial, but I don't think so.

Yes, I understand it. But what does it have to do with language? I'm more interested in what your conclusion is. (I no longer think it resembles anything that this thread started out talking about, btw.) That other thread doesn't lay out the main point or conclusion. It's just asking a leading hypothetical question. I'm usually careful about jumping into things like that because I can't keep my answer from be used out of context to contnue the argument. But I will try to participate.