Is Language Useless in Philosophical Discussions?

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Canute
Sorry, my mistake. I should have said 'unless you are a practitioner of Taoism' or some such. As the Kuan Tsu says:

"What all people desire to know is that (meaning the external world).

But our means of knowing that is by this" (our self, our mind).

How can we know that?" (the external world)?

Only by perfecting this."

You're quite right to pick me on this. But I hadn't connected 'non-dual' with 'non-theory-laden' before. Thanks for pointing it out. It's obvious that the truth must come non-theory-laden now you've mentioned it.

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
I would agree that consciousness is necessary to form experiential memories, but not that it is sufficient for it. That is, the proposition "If you have the capability to form experiential memories, then you must have been conscious at some point" is true, but not the reverse, as you seem to indicate: "If you are conscious, then you must have the ability to form long term experiential memories."

That is not what I meant. All I said was that the fact that we have no memory of a particular event may be an indication that we did not consciously experience the event. Or maybe not. My point is that we can't be sure that newborn children are conscious of anything.

I see what you are getting at, but I still believe you are talking about categorization of experience and not experience itself.

I think you are overlooking the possibility that 'experience' is just another category with nothing special to it that can serve as a foundation to a solid theory of mind.

I see no reason why categorization should be taken a priori as a necessary condition for experience itself.

I didn't say categorization must be taken a priori, even though I see how you could understand it that way. I told you this is difficult to explain. The way I see it, both categorization and experience emerge from something else. From a certain perspective, you can say one creates the other and the whole system is self-created.

You agree with me to the extent that you characterize your interaction with the Russian language before you have begun to decipher it as "experiencing a meaningless jumble of sounds."

My analogy can't possibly get to the real issue, it was meant only as a rough guide to what I'm thinking about. Of course by the time one experiences "a meaningless jumble of sounds" one's mind is already filled with concepts. So the example can't possibly capture how one would respond to stimuli that cannot be categorized in any way, not even as "meaningless" or "stimuli". If you know nothing, then you are also ignorant of the fact that you know nothing and you would see no need to conceptualize anything.

conscious experience is not characterized by semantic content alone; it also contains phenomenal content. My linguistic and conceptual understanding of blueness is an example of the former, and my direct visual experience of blueness is an example of the latter.

All I'm saying is that your direct visual experience of blueness may not be as "direct" as you think. It may be that vision itself is an illusion created by your subconscious mind so that your conscious mind can make sense of raw sensory data. An abstraction of an abstraction, if you can possibly comprehend what I mean by that.

it is a category error to treat phenomenal content as if it were semantic content.

I said so myself a few posts back. But I still think that what you call 'phenomenal' has a structure that is very similar, if not perfectly isomorphic, to what you call 'semantic'. And I will offer strong evidence of that: everything that you experience as 'phenomenal' can be expressed through 'semantic'. But that doesn't mean they are the same thing.

Think of it as a room in which one of the walls is a mirror. So there's the room and there's the reflection. You walk inside the room and notice that the reflection is a perfect copy of the room except for one detail: you perceive yourself to be in one side only rather than in both at the same time. Even so, your reflection in the mirror looks as conscious as you are, even though "you" are not in it. That is, in a nutshell, the Chalmers vs. Dennett debate. Chalmers says "no matter how good is your explanation of the behaviour of the guy in the mirror, you can't explain why he isn't conscious". Dennett says "we have no reason to assume your reflection is not conscious anymore than we have a reason to assume you are not". I think both are approaching the problem the wrong way, but I have to go now.

 

[Canute]

I don't want to interrupt but when you say "everything that you experience as 'phenomenal' can be expressed through 'semantic'" that is the precise opposite of the truth.

 

[Jeebus]

Originally posted by Canute
I don't want to interrupt but when you say "everything that you experience as 'phenomenal' can be expressed through 'semantic'" that is the precise opposite of the truth.

I don't want to speak for confutatis, but how is semantics different from truth—if they both derive from meaning? If you experience something you categorize it through data, then in order to explain the "phenomena" you use meaning to describe the relationships of intentionality and then, by adverting to special operations, or sources, or contents, tells us the bendable truths through qualia.

 

[zk4586]

Okay, here goes:

First of all, let me try to clarify what I've been proposing: 1) Possible differences in "internal conscious perception" between two people aren't worth considering, because all that matters is that agreement can be reached, allowing the two people to achieve some kind of end. 2) The most important (and informative) aspect of consciousness is language. 3) Langauge is necessary for nearly all other aspects of consciousness to function.

I'll try to advance these claims as I deal with the following criticisms:

Originally posted by confutatis
Sometimes I have the feeling that people who deny the ineffable aspect of experience are not really conscious, they just behave as if they were.

A blind man knows quite a lot about the color blue. Does that mean you have to be a mystic tilting at windmills to believe that vision tells you something you can't possibly learn with language?

Since I originally misunderstood what you were saying, let me try my hand at this again: Of course, vision facilitates one’s understanding of certain concepts, such as color. No one would deny that. But, ultimately, I see language as being the way that the one makes sense of such concepts. So, for instance, it is not so much the fact that one experiences the color blue, but that one identifies the color blue (and goes on to achieve some end). This goes back to my first post in this thread.

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Being able to recognize color and then apply that information to achieve some end does not necessitate linguistic representations. Or does every animal that can discriminate and act on the basis of light wavelength information have some sort of linguistic representation of it?

But when dealing with human beings, whose lives are so dependent on language, I contend that language is necessary for such a process to take place. An animal that could make such a distinction would be acting in large part on conditioning, but I don't see how this could be true for human beings using language in complex scenarios.

Originally posted by hypnagogue
What does it mean exactly for there to be no qualitative difference between the two? I think it is obvious that there are rather considerable qualitative differences. If I hear someone utter the word 'blue,' it is qualitatively nothing like what I experience when I look at a cloudless afternoon sky. I can visually experience blueness without being aware of the linguistic token 'blue,' and likewise I can think of the concept of blueness in linguistic terms without visually experiencing it.

Are there really such differences? If language is really the foundation of consciousness, and if elements of a language have no intrinsic character, then hearing the word blue and seeing something that is blue are understood in the same fashion.

Originally posted by hypnagogue
The only way the distinction vanishes is if we look at things from a purely objective view, without allowing a subjective, 1st person view. But why should we so artificially limit ourselves? Just because the 1st person view seems incommensurate with our established understanding of the 3rd person view thus far? I see no compelling reason to disallow subjective experience from our account of the world, other than in the interest of maintaining a certain worldview. But theory should not contradict observation.

I guess we just find different things to be of primary importantance when thinking about the nature of consciousness.

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Langauge places limits (rather tautologically) on how we describe our experience of the world.

Yes, and such description (whether it be to ourselves or to others) is, as I see it, how we make sense of the world around us.

Originally posted by hypnagogue
But description of a phenomenon is not the same thing as the phenomenon itself. If some mad scientist added a new kind of photoreceptor in my retina and then altered my visual cortex such that I then saw a totally novel kind of color, what would happen? Would I say 'hmm, there is some unknown color in my field of vision' before I actually visually experienced the color? Or would I visually experience this new color first, and then try to create a linguistic account of it?

All I’ve been saying is that your linguistic account of the color is the important part here. How would you make sense of this color without language? How would you help someone else to make sense of this color without language? Understanding depends on a context within the language.

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I have to say that this concept completely escapes me. Now, if it weren't for this thread, I'd not tell you what I am about to, which is . . .

I live in a very beautiful place, 60 miles north of San Francisco a few miles inland from the Pacific in the middle of a vineyard. A great pleasure of my life is experiencing the misty presence of the ocean on the land. The land is primarily very steep hills, covered with various evergreen trees and other vineyards. In the morning and evening the moist air can be seen lingering in valleys and around vegetation, and when the sun filters through it -- whew! -- for some reason it really gets to me.

However, my point is that I spend a lot of time alone, and I seldom say anything to anyone about this place other than it is beautiful. But do you think because I don't talk or think about it I don't know it? Or, do you think the simple "application" as you put it, of me enjoying it isn't enough to make the experience useful?

Again, maybe it dominates for you, but that isn't necessarily so for everyone. When I experience the morning mist here, I am not talking to myself or trying to find words for it. My experience is to join in the moment, be present, feel it . . . I don't need or want my mentality to be involved at all, to tell you truth. There are times when I want to use my intellect or when I appreciate language, and there are times when I don't. It's hard for me to understand someone wanting to live in his mind all the time.

Let me just say again that your enjoyment of such experiences depends on language, because as I see it, language shapes the very way that we understand such experiences. Langauge is the fundamental aspect of our consciousness. Let’s say that when you looked out on the beautiful hills surrounding your house, you couldn’t make out any distinct shapes, just a blur of color. You wouldn’t be able to classify (linguistically) anything that you saw, so you wouldn’t be able to make any kind of aesthetic judgments. I hope this makes sense, I’m tired.

 

[Fliption]

Just to add my 2 cents... The relationship between language and my conscious perceptions is a learned one. This doesn't mean that it is a necessary relationship. I've been thinking hard on this one and I can't begin to understand what zk4586 is talking about. To hold such a view seems extremely egocentric. But I will concede I may not fully understand.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Jeebus
I don't want to speak for confutatis, but how is semantics different from truth—if they both derive from meaning? If you experience something you categorize it through data, then in order to explain the "phenomena" you use meaning to describe the relationships of intentionality and then, by adverting to special operations, or sources, or contents, tells us the bendable truths through qualia. [/B]

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.

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by Fliption
Just to add my 2 cents... The relationship between language and my conscious perceptions is a learned one. This doesn't mean that it is a necessary relationship. I've been thinking hard on this one and I can't begin to understand what zk4586 is talking about. To hold such a view seems extremely egocentric. But I will concede I may not fully understand.

I think you do not fully understand. I had a very negative opinion of that view myself, but zk4586 said something that was like flipping a light switch for me. Suddenly I understood what he was talking about, and it does make a lot of sense, because it's not what I thought it was. It's definitely not extremely egocentric.

The difficult thing is to visualize how we would experience the world if we had no concept of anything. Hypnagogue et al seem to think you are born, open your eyes, see a loving woman, then two years later learn that the loving woman is called "mom". It can't possibly work that way. If you have no concept of anything you see nothing, because you can't tell the difference between mom, the wall behind her face, the toy in front of it, the ceiling above, the floor below, and so on. You only learn to see "mom" once you learn there's such a thing as "mom".

I guess the main point is that we need to learn to see as much as we learn to speak. This much is a fact: if a you keep a child's eyes covered for the first years of her life, she will not learn to see after you unconver them. If hypnagogue were right, upon uncovering her eyes such a child would look at something blue and say "ah, that is blue". But we all know it doesn't work that way.

Try to look at the world around you as a meaningless blob of colour that keeps changing. It's hard to do, but that's how the world really is. In reality the world is not neatly divided between "computer", "desk", "wall", and so on. Those concepts are simply a somewhat artificial perspective, a way of looking at things. Everything is the same "thing", and the process that drives us to divide our perceptions into neat categories is exactly the same process that allows us to communicate those categorized perceptions to other people. What rationale do we have to believe the two processes are not the same?

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by zk4586
First of all, let me try to clarify what I've been proposing: 1) Possible differences in "internal conscious perception" between two people aren't worth considering, because all that matters is that agreement can be reached, allowing the two people to achieve some kind of end.

Now that I understood you better, this is the only point I still have a problem with. If you do not consider what differences may exist in internal conscious perception, you will never understand why agreement can never be reached. You seem to think that issue is irrelevant, I think it's more fundamental than anything else. It's the issue, period.

All wars are fought because of differences in people's internal conscious perception. If Bush could understand Osama, and vice-versa; if Sharon could understand Arafat, and vice-versa; if Dennett could understand Chalmers, and vice-versa... then the only problems left in the world would be the ones only God (or nobody) can solve.

(I added this as an afterthought: if we accept that differences in internal conscious perception may exist, then it's perfectly possible to talk about it, as we're doing now! It's a problem just like any other; difficult perhaps but not "hard" in the way Chalmers puts it. If the "hard" problem were really that hard, not even Chalmers would be able to talk about it)

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by confutatis
I think you do not fully understand. I had a very negative opinion of that view myself, but zk4586 said something that was like flipping a light switch for me. Suddenly I understood what he was talking about, and it does make a lot of sense, because it's not what I thought it was. It's definitely not extremely egocentric.

After I posted that I continued to think about this. I did finally arrive at an understanding of what the point may be but I'm not sure. If I assume for now that my understanding is consistent with zk's point, then I think people are talking past one another a bit in this thread. I think the words "semantics", and "language" are throwing people off because it certainly threw me off. To say a person must know what the word "mom" means before one can see this loving women is nonsense. But that isn't what you mean. It isn't about language at all. It's about distinction. How the brain (or any other hardware for that matter) chooses to store the distinctions isn't relevant. So I don't think this is about language per se.

The difficult thing is to visualize how we would experience the world if we had no concept of anything. Hypnagogue et al seem to think you are born, open your eyes, see a loving woman, then two years later learn that the loving woman is called "mom". It can't possibly work that way. If you have no concept of anything you see nothing, because you can't tell the difference between mom, the wall behind her face, the toy in front of it, the ceiling above, the floor below, and so on. You only learn to see "mom" once you learn there's such a thing as "mom".

Even if I look at this the way I have described it above and not place so much emphasis on semantics and knowing what the "concept of mom" is, I still don't buy it. If this were true, you'd be opening up a chicken and egg scenario. It seems obvious to me that concepts are developed as distinctions are experienced. The feel of something hot and something cold is different. The physics of how these things impact the physical body is different so it follows that they would feel different. This difference necessarily causes the brain to make distinctions and develop concepts. And then language is an even more delayed development of simply assigning verbal labels as an effective way to communicate about the distinctions. This seems obvious to me so maybe I still don't get it.

If hypnagogue were right, upon uncovering her eyes such a child would look at something blue and say "ah, that is blue". But we all know it doesn't work that way.

We do? I don't think we all know this which is why we're talking about it. The only thing not so obvious here is whether this person would know to say "ahhh, that is blue". But it seems completely obvious to me that they would experience blueness(assuming the eyes were not damaged)

Try to look at the world around you as a meaningless blob of colour that keeps changing. It's hard to do, but that's how the world really is. In reality the world is not neatly divided between "computer", "desk", "wall", and so on. Those concepts are simply a somewhat artificial perspective, a way of looking at things. Everything is the same "thing", and the process that drives us to divide our perceptions into neat categories is exactly the same process that allows us to communicate those categorized perceptions to other people. What rationale do we have to believe the two processes are not the same?

Experience isn't all visual. So you're also claiming that putting your hand in a fire wouldn't feel any different than putting your hand in your pocket. If what you're saying is true, we would be able to create any reality we wanted simple by influencing our concepts and making the distinctions however they suit us. It is obvious to me that there is some external influence on the distinctions that we have. This external influence has to be experienced initially since there is no other way for it to be communciated.

So which came first, the chicken or the egg?

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by confutatis

If you have no concept of anything you see nothing, because you can't tell the difference between mom, the wall behind her face, the toy in front of it, the ceiling above, the floor below, and so on. You only learn to see "mom" once you learn there's such a thing as "mom".

I'm not sure how you arrive at this conclusion. Are you saying that we can see something without forming a concept of it. Surely to see involves simply opening one's eyes. 'Learning to see', in other words to do it in a normal adult human way, takes time, but seeing doesn't require learning. This is why babies don't like bright lights.

I guess the main point is that we need to learn to see as much as we learn to speak. This much is a fact: if a you keep a child's eyes covered for the first years of her life, she will not learn to see after you unconver them.

This is not born out by studies of adults blind from birth who for some reason gain their sight. 'Gaining their sight' means 'seeing'.

If hypnagogue were right, upon uncovering her eyes such a child would look at something blue and say "ah, that is blue". But we all know it doesn't work that way.

I think that this misrepresents Hypnogues position. He is not suggesting the child would know it was called 'blue', but just that the child would see what we call blue.

Try to look at the world around you as a meaningless blob of colour that keeps changing. It's hard to do, but that's how the world really is. In reality the world is not neatly divided between "computer", "desk", "wall", and so on. Those concepts are simply a somewhat artificial perspective, a way of looking at things. Everything is the same "thing", and the process that drives us to divide our perceptions into neat categories is exactly the same process that allows us to communicate those categorized perceptions to other people. What rationale do we have to believe the two processes are not the same? [/B]

I sort of agree but consider what you said here. A 'meaningless blob of colour' implies something that can be seen prior to the conceptualising and categorisation that follows.

If one cannot see a thing before one conceptualises it then what happens when you stub your toe on something you didn't see because you hadn't conceptualised it yet? Wouldn't this sort of thing happen all the time.

Still, you have a point. Studies with people blind from birth regaining their sight show that it takes a long time for them to learn to sort out their visual world, and many never get very far, being unable to judge distance from relative size of objects seems to be one problem. However these people get their sight back before they start learning to categorise etc, not afterwards.

Mind you, if you argue that a core of concepts and categories is inherited from parents then your argument might still hold.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Canute
If one cannot see a thing before one conceptualises it then what happens when you stub your toe on something you didn't see because you hadn't conceptualised it yet? Wouldn't this sort of thing happen all the time.

Canute,

Experience is more than just seeing. This scenario could not happen because if one has no concepts then they cannot experience stubbing their toes either. There is no concept of toe or pain. So if you follow this view to it's logical conclusion, then nothing would ever happen. No one would be alive today. Nothing can be experienced with concepts and concepts cannot be developed without experience. Again I ask, which came first the chicken or the egg?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Fliption
So if you follow this view to it's logical conclusion, then nothing would ever happen. No one would be alive today. Nothing can be experienced with concepts and concepts cannot be developed without experience. Again I ask, which came first the chicken or the egg?

That's what I think too, which is why I said earlier, "If consciousness is linguistic/concept dependent, I wonder too how conscious development in an infant would ever get started in the first place."

It seems to me we are discussing what is most basic or necessary to consciousness. Those who claim concepts and the language that derives from it are what most define consciousness, then how do they explain an infant learning before they have any concepts or language?

No, it cannot possibly be that concepts and language are most necessary to being conscious, but rather it is our sensivity to input, the ability to retain input, and self awareness of that input that then allows us to begin the admittedly advanced skill of developing concepts and language to represent what we've already sensed, retained and are now aware of.

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by Fliption
Nothing can be experienced with concepts and concepts cannot be developed without experience. Again I ask, which came first the chicken or the egg?

That's what I've been trying to get at: it is a chicken and egg problem! Or perhaps a "how to lift yourself up by pulling your shoestrings" problem, or "turtles all the way" problem. It's definitely not the usual "A follows B" problem, which is what I think some people are claiming.

The thing that must be understood is that at some point, either in our personal history, or the history of our species, or the history of organisms, everything we know and experience today consisted of nothing more than a collection of completely undefined "stuff". The challenge then is (was), how do you define anything at all if you can only define things in terms of other things? It's not valid to appeal to anything outside the collection of undefined data, to define things in terms of something which has been mysteriously predefined by some unknowable entity.

The above is, in essence and as far as I can tell, the best statement of the problem of consciousness.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by confutatis
That's what I've been trying to get at: it is a chicken and egg problem! Or perhaps a "how to lift yourself up by pulling your shoestrings" problem, or "turtles all the way" problem. It's definitely not the usual "A follows B" problem, which is what I think some people are claiming.

But why create such a problem when you don't have to? The other way is more obvious, logical and doesn't end up in a chicken/egg problem. Perhaps I've missed the argument for why this must be the case? Is there some sort of evidence or argument(other than it just is) that I've missed?

The thing that must be understood is that at some point, either in our personal history, or the history of our species, or the history of organisms, everything we know and experience today consisted of nothing more than a collection of completely undefined "stuff". The challenge then is (was), how do you define anything at all if you can only define things in terms of other things? It's not valid to appeal to anything outside the collection of undefined data, to define things in terms of something which has been mysteriously predefined by some unknowable entity.

Definition comes from experience. Where else could it possibly come from? With your theory, there is no answer to this question unless we invoke god or something like that. I say it's experience. Put your hand in a fire and tell me you couldn't establish a distinction between that feeling and typing on your keyboard.

The above is, in essence and as far as I can tell, the best statement of the problem of consciousness.

I agree that there is a problem of consciousness but I don't believe this is it.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by zk4586
Let me just say again that your enjoyment of such experiences depends on language, because as I see it, language shapes the very way that we understand such experiences. Langauge is the fundamental aspect of our consciousness. Let’s say that when you looked out on the beautiful hills surrounding your house, you couldn’t make out any distinct shapes, just a blur of color. You wouldn’t be able to classify (linguistically) anything that you saw, so you wouldn’t be able to make any kind of aesthetic judgments. I hope this makes sense, I’m tired.

If you cannot stop your mentality -- internal dialogue, problem solving, imagination, etc. -- to the point that it dominates every waking moment (and jumps in while you are sleeping too), then I can understand why you believe what you do. In such a case you would be describing what concepts and language mean to you.

However, we are talking here not about what only you know, but what is true about consciousness in general, so you cannot accurately generalize from what only you know and/or those others who also cannot assuage the dominance of their mentality. If there are people who can actually be conscious of reality without concepts and language, then that has to be explained by your model, and it isn't.

Once I saw a film of a woman having a baby underwater. They also did it by candle light so when the baby came out bright lights wouldn't hurt his eyes. The mother was a very relaxed sort, and so this birth was very easy for everyone. I was impressed to see that once the baby was out of the womb, but still underwater and connected umbilically, it broke into the biggest smile you can imagine. Was that a conscious smile? By your theory, it was not because the baby couldn't explain to anyone how or why he smiled. But I say the baby didn't need language or concepts to be conscious that he felt good and found things pleasing.

When I am out walking here, enjoying a misty sunset evening, I can tell you for fact that language and concepts make no difference to what I am doing. I am not looking at a sun, trees, red-shouldered hawks overhead, rolling hills, perfect rows of grapevines . . .

I am experiencing. What? I don't care what. I just am interested in experiencing a yellow warm orb, greenness, pink and purple fluffy things in the sky, symmetry (of the rows), moist air . . .

See, at that time it is an experience to be felt, not to be defined. It is a unified experience, not one broken up by thought processes. You could take me to a new universe, where nothing was as it is here, and I wouid still be able to enjoy it experientially without knowing a thing about how it worked or what to call it (as long as I felt safe of course). On the other hand, if I wanted to talk about it or if I wanted to figure out what made this new universe function the way it does, then I would need language and concepts.

So, to reinterate my point, I am suggesting that you and others who claim concepts and language are the basis of consciousness may believe so because you aren't paying much attention to the potential for pure experience that consciousness is capable of. If so, then when it's time for us to enter into a discussion about the nature of consciousness, you might be generalizing from too narrow a sampling (your limited experiences), which your model reflects.

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by Fliption
But why create such a problem when you don't have to?

Actually, we don't have to create any problems. Even the chicken-and-egg problem is not a real problem, at least not as far as chicken and eggs are concerned. The issue here is understanding. Does it do any good to say "experience is a given" and leave it at that? That explains nothing.

Perhaps I've missed the argument for why this must be the case? Is there some sort of evidence or argument(other than it just is) that I've missed?

Unfortunately this is not a clear-cut issue, otherwise there wouldn't be so much debate. The best I can offer by way of argument is this:

1: uwouaslkwnxhelalwiefshefowehlwoui
2: kjeisbnxgwyuerbnsepouwhsncjeugsb

A: "pain in the toe"
B: "clear blue summer sky"

At some basic level, 1 an 2 are what people are calling "experiences". So are A and B. You think it's obvious how one becomes the other, but that is only because you don't think something as clear as a blue summer sky could be experienced as anything other than the way you experience it.

Definition comes from experience

So how does "pain in the toe" comes from "uwouaslkwnxhelalwiefshefowehlwoui"? How does something defined come from something undefined?

Where else could it possibly come from?

Mysterious? Eternal? Self-created? Through an evolutive process?

I bet 'evolutive' has more power of explanation than the other three, but power of explanation has little to do with truth.

With your theory, there is no answer to this question unless we invoke god or something like that. I say it's experience.

Exactly how does "experience" differ from "God"? Both are undefined concepts.

And I didn't say the question can only be answered by invoking God.

Put your hand in a fire and tell me you couldn't establish a distinction between that feeling and typing on your keyboard.

If I have no concept of "hand" and "fire", putting my hand in a fire will cause me to feel something I don't understand. Which, I suspect, is what babies feel when they put their hands in the fire: they feel something they don't like and don't understand.

I also suspect that when you feel something you don't like and don't understand, it's because you're not experiencing it other than as a vague, undefined sensation you have no power to control. "I don't know why but I don't like this place"; "I don't know why but that person makes me feel uncomfortable". You get the idea.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by confutatis
Actually, we don't have to create any problems. Even the chicken-and-egg problem is not a real problem, at least not as far as chicken and eggs are concerned. The issue here is understanding. Does it do any good to say "experience is a given" and leave it at that? That explains nothing.

Yes but so what? We are talking about how existence is, not whether or not the way it is explains things for us. The speed of light is constant in a vacuum, it is a given. Gravity shows up where there is mass or acceleration, it is a given. Photons radiate quantumly, it is a given.

Just because we can't explain why something is so is not a reason to discount that it may be as it seems.

Originally posted by confutatis
So how does "pain in the toe" comes from "uwouaslkwnxhelalwiefshefowehlwoui"? How does something defined come from something undefined?

I think the above statement shows you are confused. You seem unable to separate two very distinct potentials of consciousness: the ability to experience, and the ability to think.

Somehow I think you must already know what you are saying doesn't make sense. If you look at what defines empiricism, for instance, it is two very distinct processes: experience and logical thinking. It is not just thinking and language. Those days when human investigation into existence was only thinking and language represent the dark days of rationalism. It was the addition of experience to reason that birthed the scientific method.

Once you acknowledge thinking and experience both are elements of consciousness, then you can ask if their proportions can be altered. If you are now thinking 99% of the time and experiencing 1%, can you alter it to 95%/5%? How about 80/20? What about 60/40? What about 20/80? Oh my God, what would happen if someone could actually do (however temporarily) 0/100?

I don't know if you are athletic, but to be successful there one must learn to lean more toward experiential. Yes, sound principles of the sport must be learned, but once learned, the best athletic moments occur when you get ultra-experiential. It is as though all the tactics and skills you have learned just get done without thinking, almost like through some kind of elevated "seeing." The best musicians can tell you it is the same for them as they "feel" their way while playing music. Another simple example is learning to ride a bike . . . try to do it primarily by thinking and you'll never learn.

Originally posted by confutatis
If I have no concept of "hand" and "fire", putting my hand in a fire will cause me to feel something I don't understand. Which, I suspect, is what babies feel when they put their hands in the fire: they feel something they don't like and don't understand.

I also suspect that when you feel something you don't like and don't understand, it's because you're not experiencing it other than as a vague, undefined sensation you have no power to control. "I don't know why but I don't like this place"; "I don't know why but that person makes me feel uncomfortable". You get the idea.

It doesn't seem like you appreciate babies much. I am not saying they don't learn to distinguish by defining, and that language doesn't play an important role in that.

But a most (THE most to me) delightful thing about a baby is that he/she doesn't have a bunch of stuff his his/her head. They are very natural, and I say that's because they are so experiential. The more concepts clutter up their heads, the more they lose that beautiful naturalness.

You know, there are a lot of people who work hard at returning to that experiential place. Hmmmm, could it be what Jesus was recommending when he said "you must become as children again"?

Anyway, I disagree with trying to model human consciousness like a computer. No matter how much AI enthusiasts are convinced they will achieve consciousness, I don't believe they will because they will never get a computer to experience (if experience is defined as the ability to sense/feel events, know one has sensed/felt an event, and retain knowledge of that sensed/felt event). I see the attempt by some thinkers (not necessarily you) to eliminate the primacy of experience in consciouness as a step toward being able to call a non-experiencing computer conscious.

 

[Fliption]

After reading this response I'm not sure what we exactly disagree on.

Originally posted by confutatis
Actually, we don't have to create any problems. Even the chicken-and-egg problem is not a real problem, at least not as far as chicken and eggs are concerned. The issue here is understanding. Does it do any good to say "experience is a given" and leave it at that? That explains nothing.

Exactly what is it you are trying to explain? Experience is not necessarily just a "given". It should be studied just like everything else. This study could conclude it is a given but it isn't my starting assumption. But asserting that it doesn't exists without language not only does not explain anything, it also opens up numerous other questions. And for no apparent reason as it seem to add nothing.

Unfortunately this is not a clear-cut issue, otherwise there wouldn't be so much debate.

To be honest, I haven't seen any reason why it shouldn't be a clear cut issue.

The best I can offer by way of argument is this:

1: uwouaslkwnxhelalwiefshefowehlwoui
2: kjeisbnxgwyuerbnsepouwhsncjeugsb

A: "pain in the toe"
B: "clear blue summer sky"

At some basic level, 1 an 2 are what people are calling "experiences". So are A and B. You think it's obvious how one becomes the other, but that is only because you don't think something as clear as a blue summer sky could be experienced as anything other than the way you experience it.

How else could a blue sky be experienced? Are you suggesting that a fire is anything other than hot?(I keep bringing up the fire example to draw away from all the "vision" analogies.)

So how does "pain in the toe" comes from "uwouaslkwnxhelalwiefshefowehlwoui"? How does something defined come from something undefined?

I don't know what you mean by "pain in the toes" nor do I know what you mean by "undefined". My only claim is that there is an input, called experience. I thought you were claiming there isn't any such input without concepts, but now it seems you are arguring that there is at least something experienced called "uwouaslkwnxhela..." Whether I have "defined" this thing as a pain in the toe or not doesn't seem relevant to the fact that the experience DOES exists.

Mysterious? Eternal? Self-created? Through an evolutive process?

Mysterious? What does that mean. Does that explain anything? Eternal? What does that mean? None of these mean anything to me. They certainly aren't any more valid than just asserting experience as a given. At least I know what that means.

Exactly how does "experience" differ from "God"? Both are undefined concepts.

Are you serious? If there is anything that I am certain of, it is my own experience. I know nothing of god. The fact that I can't define experience in such a way for you to objectively prove that I have it doesn't impact my knowledge of it at all.

And I didn't say the question can only be answered by invoking God.

Yes I know you didn't. But there was no answer before your last post and mysterious, eternal, and self creating are no better. They could be if I understood what they mean but currently I don't.

If I have no concept of "hand" and "fire", putting my hand in a fire will cause me to feel something I don't understand. Which, I suspect, is what babies feel when they put their hands in the fire: they feel something they don't like and don't understand.

Now we completely agree. Here you are claiming that there is an experience. I was under the impression that you didn't believe experiences existed without concepts. I don't have a problem at all with what you have written above.

I also suspect that when you feel something you don't like and don't understand, it's because you're not experiencing it other than as a vague, undefined sensation you have no power to control. "I don't know why but I don't like this place"; "I don't know why but that person makes me feel uncomfortable". You get the idea.

Again, I agree with this. But I could care less whether something is "vague and undefined". That doesn't mean it doesn't exists. It looks as if you concede this.

 

[zk4586]

Originally posted by confutatis
Now that I understood you better, this is the only point I still have a problem with. If you do not consider what differences may exist in internal conscious perception, you will never understand why agreement can never be reached. You seem to think that issue is irrelevant, I think it's more fundamental than anything else. It's the issue, period.

All wars are fought because of differences in people's internal conscious perception. If Bush could understand Osama, and vice-versa; if Sharon could understand Arafat, and vice-versa; if Dennett could understand Chalmers, and vice-versa... then the only problems left in the world would be the ones only God (or nobody) can solve.

(I added this as an afterthought: if we accept that differences in internal conscious perception may exist, then it's perfectly possible to talk about it, as we're doing now! It's a problem just like any other; difficult perhaps but not "hard" in the way Chalmers puts it. If the "hard" problem were really that hard, not even Chalmers would be able to talk about it)

I'm sorry. The confusion here is my fault. When I say that such differences hardly seem to matter, the differences I'm referring to deal with concrete concepts (like color). Two people may possibly experience different internal conscious perceptions when looking at a particular color (Person #1 really does see blue, whereas Person #2 sees green but simply calls it blue because that's what he has been told to call it). I don't think I worded that very well but everyone knows the philosophical problem I'm talking about. I wouldn't say, however, that differences in internal conscious perceptions are unimportant if we're talking about more abstract concepts, such as beliefs, as you mentioned. The difference here, as I see it, is that conflicting conscious perceptions of concrete concepts can be buried by language (so that even the person holding these conflicting conscious perceptions does not know it). I don't see how this is possible when dealing with abstract concepts or even with complex concrete concepts (that is, a concept consisting of many different concrete concepts, such as shape or color). I've been using the word concept a lot. I hope I haven't confused you even more.

 

[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.

 

[confutatis]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
We are talking about how existence is, not whether or not the way it is explains things for us.

A few days ago I was having a conversation with Marcus on the "Science and Mathematics" forum. I said, and he enthusiastically agreed with me, that the best way to understand metaphysics is to listen to great music. I'm not coming from where you think I'm coming.

You seem unable to separate two very distinct potentials of consciousness: the ability to experience, and the ability to think.

I can see it from another perspective: I have the ability to think about sensations, and I have the ability to think about language.

I can see it from yet another perspective: I have the ability to experience sensations, and I have the ability to experience language.

Which perspective is right, yours, my first, my second, or some other? It doesn't matter. Think of a building - the view from inside is completely different from the view from the outside, yet it's the same building. If the exterior walls are painted gray, and the interior walls are painted green, is the building gray or green? Can you really understand why some people think it's gray and others think it's green?

It's the same with the human mind. There are two currents, the "mentalists" and the "materialists" - the "insiders" and the "outsiders". Both think the other is wrong; both are right from their own perspective, and wrong for not acknowledging that the other perspective is just as valid. I lean more to the mentalist/insider side, but I'm trying to get a glimpse of the outside.

Somehow I think you must already know what you are saying doesn't make sense.

It's really hard to explain to people inside that the building looks gray from the outside. They expect it to look just as green.

The best musicians can tell you it is the same for them as they "feel" their way while playing music.

I am an amateur pianist, and I can tell you this: no matter how much "feeling" you put into the music, eventually it's all a matter of pressing the right keys with the right pressure for the right amount of time. There's absolutely nothing more to it. A piano can't understand feelings, a human can't understand what makes Vladimir Horowitz such a great pianist. While it's true that you will never play the piano well if you think in terms of mechanics, it's also true that you will never be able to play the piano at all if you ignore mechanics. It's not wise to ignore one perspective just because you don't like it.

But a most (THE most to me) delightful thing about a baby is that he/she doesn't have a bunch of stuff his his/her head. They are very natural, and I say that's because they are so experiential. The more concepts clutter up their heads, the more they lose that beautiful naturalness.

Do you have kids? I do. I have a beautiful girl and a beautiful boy. I like to watch the smile on their faces when I tell them they are angels from heaven. They smile, I suspect, for two reasos: because they know I truly believe that, and because they know it's true. But even angels from heaven can be studied, analyzed, discussed. It doesn't detract from their beauty and it doesn't take away the mystery of their existence. It's a mistake to think otherwise. Reason does not have the power to diminish the grandeur of the world; at worst it can hide some of it, at best it makes it even grander.

Anyway, I disagree with trying to model human consciousness like a computer. No matter how much AI enthusiasts are convinced they will achieve consciousness, I don't believe they will because they will never get a computer to experience

Why do you disagree with me then? If the perspective I'm offering is correct, then it implies one thing: computers will never be conscious because we will never know how to emulate consciousness. We may have some theories about it, but our theories will imply that consciousness must necessarily arises from an unconscious process - meaning must necessarily come from meaninglessness. Since we, the creators of computers, are already conscious, we're no longer capable of doing it. It's too late.

Notice that we have already built conscious computers: our brains! But it was a one-shot thing, no second chance at it, Dennett et al notwithstanding.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Fliption
Canute,

Experience is more than just seeing. This scenario could not happen because if one has no concepts then they cannot experience stubbing their toes either. There is no concept of toe or pain. So if you follow this view to it's logical conclusion, then nothing would ever happen. No one would be alive today. Nothing can be experienced with concepts and concepts cannot be developed without experience. Again I ask, which came first the chicken or the egg? [/B]

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.

BTW

Are you serious? If there is anything that I am certain of, it is my own experience. I know nothing of god.

Some would find that self-contradictory.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by confutatis

The thing that must be understood is that at some point, either in our personal history, or the history of our species, or the history of organisms, everything we know and experience today consisted of nothing more than a collection of completely undefined "stuff". The challenge then is (was), how do you define anything at all if you can only define things in terms of other things? It's not valid to appeal to anything outside the collection of undefined data, to define things in terms of something which has been mysteriously predefined by some unknowable entity.

The above is, in essence and as far as I can tell, the best statement of the problem of consciousness. [/B]

It would be a bit Buddhist for a scientific statement of the problem, but as a deep one I reckon it's pretty good.

Defining must always begin with an undefined term, as for any dictionary or mathematical system. Perhaps consciousness (experience, Being) is it, after all it appears to be indefinable. Also it would naturally be the first thing to be defined, the first thing of which we are aware.

Equivalently 'defining' begins with knowledge and knowledge begins with experience and experience begins with an awareness of 'self'. Once we've defined 'self' we can define 'not-self' and all the rest follows.

As time goes by we start defining and categorising in more and more detail, and forget that our undefined term is actually outside of all those our systems of definitions, undefined in all of them, and wonder why we cannot define it.

Sorry, that's a muddle. If it makes no sense ignore it.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by confutatis
A few days ago I was having a conversation with Marcus on the "Science and Mathematics" forum. I said, and he enthusiastically agreed with me, that the best way to understand metaphysics is to listen to great music. I'm not coming from where you think I'm coming.

I will admit that I have trouble understanding you. No one with whom I've interacted here at PF has so successfully kept me in the dark (or, have I been so confused about ). 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.

From my perspective, you are not consistant, but I am open to being convinced I simply don't understand the way you are putting things.

Originally posted by confutatis
I can see it from another perspective: I have the ability to think about sensations, and I have the ability to think about language.
I can see it from yet another perspective: I have the ability to experience sensations, and I have the ability to experience language. Which perspective is right, yours, my first, my second, or some other? It doesn't matter.

But then, you go and say something like the above. What do you mean "which perspective is right"? I have never suggested either were wrong. What I have said is, experience is one thing, thinking is another. They are not in conflict. The question we are debating is, which is more basic, fundamental, necessary to the existence of consciousness: experience or thinking?

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.

Originally posted by confutatis
Think of a building - the view from inside is completely different from the view from the outside, yet it's the same building. If the exterior walls are painted gray, and the interior walls are painted green, is the building gray or green? Can you really understand why some people think it's gray and others think it's green?

No, I can't understand it at all in an intellegent person. A proper answer is that it is green inside and gray outside. What is difficult about looking (i.e. experiencing) both inside AND outside?

Originally posted by confutatis
It's the same with the human mind. There are two currents, the "mentalists" and the "materialists" - the "insiders" and the "outsiders". Both think the other is wrong; both are right from their own perspective, and wrong for not acknowledging that the other perspective is just as valid. I lean more to the mentalist/insider side, but I'm trying to get a glimpse of the outside.

That maybe true in general, but we shouldn't we expect more from a philosopher? Here aren't we trying to represent objective reality, and not the egocentric view?

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.

Originally posted by confutatis
I am an amateur pianist, and I can tell you this: no matter how much "feeling" you put into the music, eventually it's all a matter of pressing the right keys with the right pressure for the right amount of time. There's absolutely nothing more to it.

If you play the piano that way, remind me never to show up for one of your recitals. [zz)]

Originally posted by confutatis
While it's true that you will never play the piano well if you think in terms of mechanics, it's also true that you will never be able to play the piano at all if you ignore mechanics. It's not wise to ignore one perspective just because you don't like it.

Yes, but who is making it a competition that is either-or? The technical aspect MUST BE LEARNED. No dispute! 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?

Originally posted by confutatis
Do you have kids? I do. I have a beautiful girl and a beautiful boy. I like to watch the smile on their faces when I tell them they are angels from heaven. They smile, I suspect, for two reasos: because they know I truly believe that, and because they know it's true. But even angels from heaven can be studied, analyzed, discussed. It doesn't detract from their beauty and it doesn't take away the mystery of their existence. It's a mistake to think otherwise. Reason does not have the power to diminish the grandeur of the world; at worst it can hide some of it, at best it makes it even grander.

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.

Originally posted by confutatis
Why do you disagree with me then? If the perspective I'm offering is correct, then it implies one thing: computers will never be conscious because we will never know how to emulate consciousness.

I think I disagree with you because you are not clear about what your position is. But I admit it might be me having a bad understanding day. I cannot see how what you have said implies "computers will never be conscious because we will never know how to emulate consciousness."

Originally posted by confutatis
We may have some theories about it, but our theories will imply that consciousness must necessarily arises from an unconscious process - meaning must necessarily come from meaninglessness. Since we, the creators of computers, are already conscious, we're no longer capable of doing it. It's too late. . . . Notice that we have already built conscious computers: our brains! But it was a one-shot thing, no second chance at it, Dennett et al notwithstanding.

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).

 

[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.