You keep putting your situation in the context of your choices alone. Actual life involves the collision of your choices with others. You are not in a bunker weighing the outcome of choices. What you imagine as possible for yourself is what everyone else is doing at the same time.

When you describe how other people are dealing with trust and betrayal, it could be accurate or not by a selected criterion but you and I can never be the witness of that. The limits of our judgement should follow the limits of our perception.

Consider when people rely upon you. Sometimes that works out for them. Other times it does not.

Illusion, in that scenario, has to do with capability, but also bad faith versus sincere effort. It is something to sort out while weighing your intentions as much as those of others.

The second is their role in language-learning, working up from simple games to more complicated ones. How far the idea has taken off in empirical psychology, I could not say. But it seems a not implausible idea to me. — Ludwig V

I think Josh has been trying to talk about that. There are psychological models that develop some of those ideas about learning language. But the sharp put down of the scientific method as a part of what W is doing is an unconformity with adjacent layers, to borrow a phrase from geology.

I remember Chomsky saying something like, if W stays away from science, then science will have to return the favor.

Is the writing, Must We Mean What We Say, where Cavell introduces the central role of the skeptic in his reading of Wittgenstein? Or is that asserted somewhere else? I am getting curious about the man behind the curtain here.

If there must be a further explanation that all of us can give examples of what anyone would say when X, and the logic of that, then I’ll leave it to someone else: — Antony Nickles

Is that to say it is a sort of last word for you even if it does not satisfy others?

I heard Penner to be saying that Kierkegaard was not imagining that his rivals were outside the Christian community. So, if he did understand that they were outside, he would have responded differently. I will avoid such a bank shot and just look for what Kierkegaard has said about worldliness.

I don't think rights are a function of the Enlightenment. For example, Aristotelian approaches to justice involve rights (which are the correlative of duties), and they surely precede the Enlightenment. — Leontiskos

What one does see in the writings of the Enlightenment is an attempt to separate the "Natural" from what has been imposed upon it, whether through human or divine authority. I am not sure that would have even been an idea for Aristotle.

Kierkegaard claims that views of "nature" have been changed because of "Christianity." Such a view both affirms and questions the separations drawn in the City of God by Augustine.

I read that a long time ago. I remember an emphasis upon distinguishing creed, what a person believes, and generations of a community struggling with itself. That does suggest a classification of types applicable to other religions but won't capture the bitterness felt by Buber reading the Letter to the Hebrews.

As promised before, I will leave off from challenging the role you have assigned the skeptic. But I will point out that Wittgenstein is unambiguously "stepping into the ring" when advancing a method that does not accept many of the premises Kant was working with:

If we say thinking is essentially operating with signs, the first question you might ask is: “What are signs?” – Instead of giving any kind of general answer to this question, I shall propose to you to look closely at particular cases which we should call “operating with signs”. Let us look at a simple example of operating with words. I give someone the order: “fetch me six apples from the grocer”, and I will describe a way of making use of such an order: The words “six apples” are written on a bit of paper, the paper is handed to the grocer, the grocer compares the word “apple” with labels on different shelves. He finds it to agree with one of the labels, counts from 1 to the number written on the slip of paper, and for every number counted takes a fruit off the shelf and puts it in a bag. – And here you have one use of words. I shall in the future again and again draw your attention to what I shall call language games. These are processes of using signs simpler than those which usually occur in the use of our highly complicated everyday language. Language games are the forms of language with which a child begins to make use of words. The study of language-games is the study of primitive forms of language or primitive languages. If we want to study the problems of truth and falsehood, of the agreement and disagreement of propositions with reality, of the nature of assertion, assumption, and question, we shall with great advantage look at primitive forms of language in which these forms of thinking appear without the confusing background of highly complicated processes of thought. When we look at such simple forms of language, the mental mist which seems to enshroud our ordinary use of language disappears. We see activities, reactions, which are clear-cut and transparent. On the other hand we recognize in these simple processes forms of language not separated by a break from our more complicated ones. We see that we can build up the complicated forms from the primitive ones by gradually adding new forms.

Now what makes it difficult for us to take this line of investigation is our craving for generality. — BB, page 27

This has Wittgenstein looking like the skeptic, dissolving the verities of his opponents. That he separates his method from the scientific at page 29 demonstrates that he intends to maintain the distance from the "psychological" he established in the Tractatus. To go forward with his method, he has chosen to walk on a narrow tightrope.

I hadn't thought of it like that. On the other hand, once scepticism has become a dogma, it smothers everything in its path. It's a balance. — Ludwig V

As the Professor says:

This method of watching or even occasioning a contest between assertions, not in order to decide it to the advantage of one party or the other, but to investigate whether the object of the dispute is not perhaps a mere mirage at which each would snatch in vain without being able to gain anything even if he met with no resistance - this procedure, I say, can be called the skeptical method. It is entirely different from skepticism, a principle of artful and scientific ignorance that undermines the foundations of all cognition, in order, if possible, to leave no reliability or certainty anywhere. For the skeptical method aims at certainty, seeking to discover the point of misunderstanding in disputes that are honestly intended and conducted with intelligence by both sides, in order to do as wise legislators do when from the embarrassment of judges in cases of litigation they draw instruction concerning that which is defective and imprecisely determined in their laws. — CPR, B451

I guess I agree with Kant that the "skeptic" is not opinion but an energy that keeps us alive.
Otherwise, thinking merely mirrors a reflecting of thinking.

That difference is interesting to me as well. Will ponder.

I think there are other ways to look at the table of possibilities being presented here. I will be more cautious about talking about it in the future.

Your description does capture a number of ways the solipsist may be operating. The solipsist could be me, after all, and my M.O. could be one of those listed.

The peculiar way that W lays out the options does support a reading that an "imposition of logic" can make sense of what is happening. But W does not say it is the only sense possible. That recurrent theme is the soundtrack of this book if it were a movie.

I read Wayfarer to be saying that emergence of new life came from someplace rather than nothing. That demands a different response than the constant refresh of the world required for the opposing view counting upon an unknown agency.

Since we are poorly positioned as a species to sort this out as a matter of fact, the difference in question becomes a collapse into a tautology where the opposite ends fail to be a contrary for the other.

There are plenty of examples where Kierkegaard expresses dissatisfaction with fellow Christians. It is fair to say that his opposition to Hegel, for instance, is an objection to an expression of modernity. But a fair amount of that objection is based upon "rational" grounds as much as upon religious ones.

When discussing the psychological, Kierkegaard uses "modern" ideas of development. He argues that they become inadequate after a certain level of explanation.

Penner is basing his interpretation on this differential:

Some of Kierkegaard’s favorite targets, such as Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, attempt to rescue Christian theology rather than deny or destroy it, and Kierkegaard regularly assumes that the edifice he refers to as “modern speculation” understands itself to be explicitly “Christian.” — Penner, 380-1

That makes it sound like Kierkegaard was fooled by various apologetic speech. It seems fair to me to ask for evidence of that in Kierkegaard's actual writings rather than rely upon Penner's inference.

If we are going to speak of the Enlightenment, should that not also include the issue of rights as discussed by Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, etcetera? The more "Christian" life Kierkegaard is calling for does not cancel the "individual" depicted in those places.

Of course signs co-exist with their objects. — Ludwig V

That works for highway signs but does not explain why Wittgenstein calls it a mistake (without qualification) when reflecting upon learning language and the experience of meaning.

By pointing out when W speaks of "us" versus "them" in the above quotes, I did not mean to say he is always doing that. On the contrary, he explicitly draws such a line in the sand only in specific places over specific practices. The constant appeal to common sense and ordinary language gives the background of how perplexity appears. When W draws the line in the sand, it is over the method of philosophy. The scrum is happening on a shared field of discourse.

I read through the OP from the beginning last night and see that I have challenged your view of "the skeptic" many times. I will stop arguing in that vein. I will only point out that the opposition regarding the use of signs in this book's discussion of the real versus the empirical is applied to Augustine just as heartily in the Philosophical Investigations.

I think that's a misunderstanding. The requirement that the solipsist's claim cannot be understood by anyone else follows from the solipsist's doctrine. The solipsist misunderstands their own doctrine if they do not understand that it is logically impossible for anyone else to understand it. IMO. — Ludwig V

The bit I quoted leaves out where the solipsist just moments before was attempting to speak meaningfully of his condition. It is the conflict of motives that seems to make W impatient rather than him judging all who explain themselves a certain way to be deliberately obscure.

The use of "occult" is pejorative. In view of the consistency with which Wittgenstein employs the term, a replacement would have to name what is thinking that "signs co-exist with their objects."

If it is true that the

brain [is] acting as a receiver for consciousness. — Gnomon

is that not another instance of "forms" activating "matter?"

In that case, not an inversion of the Wayfarer thread.

The role of "use" is underlined in the previous paragraph beginning where W is playing a role with: "Then I can still express my solipsism by saying,"

I could also express my claim by saying: “I am the vessel of life”; but mark, it is essential that everyone to whom I say this should be unable to understand me. It is essential that the other should not be able to understand “what I really mean”, though in practice he might do what I wish by conceding to me an exceptional position in his notation. But I wish it to be logically impossible that he should understand me, that is to say, it should be meaningless, not false, to say that he understands me. Thus my expression is one of the many which is used on various occasions by philosophers and supposed to convey something to the person who says it, though essentially incapable of conveying anything to anyone else — BB, page 65 (or 97 internet edition)

The intention to not be understood is an interesting charge to make against the solipsist and other philosophers. This shows that what troubles the solipsist is a condition other thinkers share. This encounter with a more general problem leads to a more general response:

The meaning of a phrase for us is characterised by the use we make of it. The meaning is not a mental accompaniment to the expression. Therefore the phrase “I think I mean something by it”, or “I’m sure I mean something by it”, which we so often hear in philosophical discussions to justify the use of an expression is for us no justification at all. We ask: “What do you mean?”, i.e., “How do you use this expression?” — ibid. page 65 (or 98 internet edition)

Note the "us" and "We" being used here.

If the cause were a deep-seated fear, simply showing the proper use of 'know' wouldn't eliminate the fear. It eliminates the problem, thus proving the problem was linguistic, not psychological. — Joshs

This is confusing. I understand why someone would not be satisfied by a correction of speech.

In the context of this book, however, the problems of the "linguistic" are taken to be separate and logically prior to the problems of psychology.

That seems to me to be a push against explanation. The different bits keep getting further apart.

I am talking about the interests/desires (and feelings, as reasons) of the skeptic, but that is also a possibility in every one of us (including Witt), and so the “situation” is our situation as humans (the human condition). — Antony Nickles

I understand that you are concentrating on your writing now so I will wait as long as you like to respond or not, but I am compelled to say this now:

I don't follow your framing of Wittgenstein primarily intending to quell the qualms of the skeptic. What W is putting forth is provocative and has pissed a lot of people off.

The primary reason W puts forth for the "mistakes" he has outlined is the "craving for generality." He plasters the wall with Plato as the poster child for this desire. That is not to say that he "refutes" Plato.

The 'human condition' is the only game in town but is difficult to locate. As Wittgenstein has said elsewhere, he does not want to make that easier for anyone.

That is, do you agree with W that it is a mistake to look for the use of a sign as though it were an object co-existing with the sign. Again, since the word "occult" doesn't occur in the quoted passage, I'm not clear how it establishes how W uses it. — Ludwig V

I am not sure that I agree but accept that such a judgement is critical to Wittgenstein's enterprise.

"Occult" appears in the preceding paragraph:

But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we should have to say that it was its use.

If the meaning of the sign (roughly, that which is of importance about the sign) is an image built up in our minds when we see or hear the sign, then first let us adopt the method we just described of replacing this mental image by seeing some sort of outward object, e.g. a painted or modelled image. Then why should the written sign plus this painted image be alive if the written sign alone was dead? – In fact, as soon as you think of replacing the mental image by, say, a painted one, and as soon as the image thereby loses its occult character, it ceases to seem to impart any life to the sentence at all. (It was in fact just the occult character of the mental process which you needed for your purposes.) — BB, page 9

The comment: (One of the reasons for this mistake is again that we are looking for a “thing corresponding to a substantive.”) is developed further at page 11, 48, and 72.

The "occult" is what Wittgenstein is militating against. Note the use of "us" in the following:

The sign (the sentence) gets its significance from the system of signs, from the language to which it belongs. Roughly: understanding a sentence means understanding a language.

As a part of the system of language, one may say “the sentence has life”. But one is tempted to imagine that which gives the sentence life as something in an occult sphere, accompanying the sentence. But whatever would accompany it would for us just be another sign. — ibid. page 9

In the penultimate paragraph of the book there is the following:

Let’s not imagine the meaning as an occult connection the mind makes between a word and a thing, and that this connection contains the whole usage of a word as the seed might be said to contain the tree. — ibid. page 110

I will ponder how to express my comments regarding Kant more cogently.

Thank you for the link. I was not aware of it.

There is one available from archive.org, but the document is protected and cannot be OCRed, so I'm not sure where that quote would reside inside of it. Maybe you know? — Leontiskos

The passage starts on page 57 and goes to page 61.

The beginning is really the preceding paragraph saying: "Love for the neighbor has the perfections of eternity--. Kierkegaard uses this formula to begin many different topics in the book.

The beginning of the section II C at page 51 gives the context of the passage within the larger argument.

Thinking and Being by Irad Kimhi.

I think we can agree that this inference you are relying upon is fallacious, can't we? "X is not of little value" does not imply "X is the most important thing." — Leontiskos

My statement was a reaction to hearing that there were those for whom "there is little of value in the explicitly Christian character of Søren Kierkegaard’s thinking." Perhaps I was over broad in my response, but I wanted to signal that such a view is very far from own. I don't have the problem Penner is addressing.

It is true that I question:

Kierkegaard wishes to stand athwart the Enlightenment rationalism notion of self-authority, preferring instead a Socratic approach that does not wield authority through the instrument of reason. — Leontiskos

But it is not an argument against it as a thesis because Penner is pushing back against a problem I don't have. Considering how Kierkegaard may be teaching in a Socratic fashion does not subtract from the role of Socrates as the most worthy pagan in K's works. I will have to ponder how that relates to Penner's view but don't present it as an argument in itself. That is why I am trying to approach the question of the Enlightenment beyond the context of Philosophical Fragments.

Now, Kierkegaard has many different forms of address as evidenced by the different pseudonyms. The psychological considerations in The Concept of Anxiety are very far from the straight up preaching in Works of Love. Note that the latter is published under his own name.

I will take a look at your link to find the passages I referred to.

I, too, find the OP lacking because it does not specify the text being read. There is no way to know if it has the problem Penner objects to or not.

I can't see that there is any hope of consistency here, except in solipsism. So I think that idealism collapses into solipsism. — Ludwig V

I think W is looking at Kant as the champion of idealism rather than Berkeley. The erosion of Kant's foundation is the work of the Blue Book from its beginning. While introducing the life of signs as use, the following mistake is made:

The mistake we are liable to make could be expressed thus: We are looking for the use of a sign, but we look for it as though it were an object co-existing with the sign. (One of the reasons for this mistake is again that we are looking for a “thing corresponding to a substantive.”) — BB, 9, internet edition

That establishes how W uses "occult" but also points to how objects co-exist with their representations in Kant.

While seeking how the rules for signs emerge, two scenarios are depicted:

In so far as the teaching brings about the association, feeling of recognition, etc. etc., it is the cause of the phenomena of understanding, obeying, etc.; and it is a hypothesis that the process of teaching should be needed in order to bring about these effects. It is conceivable, in this sense, that all the processes of understanding, obeying, etc. should have happened without the person ever having been taught the language. (This, just now, seems extremely paradoxical).

B. The teaching may have supplied us with a rule which is itself involved in the processes of understanding, obeying, etc.; “involved”, however, meaning that the expression of this rule forms
part of these processes.
We must distinguish between what one might call a “process being in accordance with a rule”, and, “a process involving a rule” (in the above sense). — ibid. page 21

The language of "possibility of experience" cannot be cleanly divided between sensibility and understanding in this scenario. The way we speak of reason as our capacity is a model rather than an experience itself.

The proposition, that your action has such-and-such a cause, is a hypothesis. The hypothesis is well-founded if one has had a number of experiences which, roughly speaking, agree in showing that your action is the regular sequel of certain conditions which we then call causes of the action. In order to know the reason which you had for making a certain statement, for acting in a particular way, etc., no number of agreeing experiences is necessary, and the statement of your reason is not a hypothesis. The difference between the grammars of “reason” and “cause” is quite similar to that between the grammars of “motive” and “cause”. Of the cause one can say that one can’t know it but one can only conjecture it. On the other hand one often says: “Surely I must know why I did it” talking of the motive. When I say: “we can only conjecture the cause but we know the motive” this statement will be seen later on to be a grammatical one. The “can” refers to a logical possibility.

The double use of the word “why”, asking for the cause and asking for the motive, together with the idea that we can know, and not only conjecture, our motives, gives rise to the confusion that a motive is a cause of which we are immediately aware, a cause “seen from the inside”, or a cause experienced. Giving a reason is like giving a calculation by which you have arrived at a certain result. — ibid. 25

This is a real thumb in the eye to Kant's Refutation of Idealism:

The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me. — CPR, B275

The difference between private experience and shared experience is not a demarcation of outer and inner. Since the Refutation is an argument against solipsism, it maintains its status as a particular model adjacent to the others.

We want to understand “the source of his puzzlement”(p.59), in order to “have answered his difficulty” (p.58). — Antony Nickles

In considering the solipsist, I think it is important to keep the "realist" and
"idealist" within shooting range.

Does a realist pity me more than an idealist or a solipsist? – In fact the solipsist asks: “How can we believe that the other has pain; what does it mean to believe this? How can the expression of such a supposition make sense? — Blue Book, page 74, internet edition

They each are found to "draw some misleading analogy" of the kind discussed on page 73. The discussion down through page 75 has the realists lacking what solipsist does not have. They hold up opposite ends of the same "grammatical difficulty."

The same group is assembled again a few pages later:

I shall try to elucidate the problem discussed by realists, idealists, and solipsists by showing you a problem closely related to it. — ibid 86

The point of the example is to demonstrate:

To say that a word is used in two (or more) different ways does in itself not yet give us any idea about its use. It only specifies a way of looking at this usage. — ibid 87

A condensed version of the above can be found at PI 402.

The problems of talking about "the world as resting upon personal experience" at page 73 began this comparison of theories, but the problems go back to the beginning of how to understand thinking as being in a location. The solipsist "not stating an opinion" goes back to different ways a reason is given:

Let us go back to the statement that thinking essentially consists in operating with signs. My point was that it is liable to mislead us if we say thinking is a mental activity. The question what kind of an activity thinking is is analogous to this: “Where does thinking take place?” We can answer: on paper, in our head, in the mind. None of these statements of locality gives the locality of thinking. The use of all these specifications is correct but we must not be misled by the similarity of their linguistic forms into a false conception of their grammar. As, e.g., when you say: “Surely, the real place of thought is in our head”. The same applies to the idea of thinking as an activity. It is correct to say that thinking is an activity of our writing hand, of our larynx, of our head, and of our mind, so long as we understand the grammar of these statements. And it is, furthermore, extremely important to realize how by misunderstanding the grammar of our expressions, we are led to think of one in particular of these statements as giving the real seat of the activity of thinking. — ibid. page 26

If the solipsist was stating an opinion, the other views would be conceivable, which he denies.

I will make my comments about TLP in a reply to

I would give reading that a shot. I like that it involves a text without making it a part of other texts, even as it is written in the context of other authors in that vein.

Are you asking me to not comment with references to earlier and later work by W until you finish going through the text?

My focus has been on the discussion of solipsism in the Blue Book and why W says it is not an opinion. I don't see the issue of certainty as germane to my observations.

But I will refrain if that is your preference.

Kierkegaard does see Christianity and Worldliness as essentially different. But he does recognize a "well intentioned worldliness. It is too much for me to type in but I refer you to pages 69 to 73 of this preview of Works of Love, starting with: "Even the one who is not inclined to praise God or Christianity..."

In all the books I have read of Kierkegaard, Socrates is a wise observer of the world but is forever a resident of Dante's lobby of worthy pagans. The preview I linked to above does not include page 406 so I will type it in:

Only a wretched and worldly conception of the dialectic of power holds that it is greater and greater in proportion to its ability to compel and to make dependent. No, Socrates had a sounder understanding; he knew that the art of power lies precisely in making another free. But in the relationship between individuals this can never be done, even though it needs to be emphasized again and again that this is the highest; only omnipotence can succeed in this. Therefore if a human being had the slightest independent existence over against God (with regard to materia [substance]) then God could not make him free. Creation out of nothing is once again the Omnipotent One's expression for being able to make [a being] independent. He to whom I owe absolutely everything, although he still absolutely controls everything, has in fact made me independent. If in creating man God himself lost a little of his power, then precisely what he could not do would be to make a human independent. — JP 111251

Kierkegaard does oppose the modernity of many of his contemporaries. I disagree with Penner's implication that Kierkegaard shares Penner's view of the Enlightenment. Kierkegaard draws from ancient and modern psychologies. They both encounter the same limit regarding the life of the single individual. Kierkegaard composes his own psychology when he distinguishes the anxiety of the pagan from anxiety as the consequence of sin. The first kind is demonstrated in his consideration of genius and fate beginning with:

Within Christianity, the anxiety of paganism in relation to sin is found wherever spirit is indeed present but is not essentially posited as spirit. The phenomenon appears most clearly in a genius. Immediately considered, the genius is predominately subjectivity. At that point, he is not yet posited as spirit, for as such he can be posited only by spirit. — The Concept of Anxiety, IV, 368, translated by Reidar Thomte

The Anxiety of Sin involves the demonic which finds expression in ancient and modern presentations. For example:

If one wants to clarify in a different way how the demonic is the sudden, the question of how the demonic can best be presented may be considered from a purely esthetic point of view. If a Mephistopheles is to be presented, he might well be furnished with speech if he is to be used as a force in the dramatic action rather than to be grasped in his essence. But in that case Mephistopheles himself is not really represented but reduced to an evil, witty, intriguing mind. This is a vaporization, whereas a legend has already represented him correctly. It relates to the devil for 3,000 years sat and speculated on how to destroy to destroy man--finally he did discover it. Here the emphasis upon the 3,000 years, and the idea that this brings forth is precisely that of the brooding, inclosing reserve of the demonic. If one were to vaporize Mephistopheles in the way suggested above, another form of representation might be chosen. In this case, it will appear that Mephistopheles is essentially mime. The most terrible word that sound from the abyss of evil would not be able to produce an effect like that of the suddenness of the leap that lies within the confines of the mimical. Even though the word were terrible, even though it were a Shakespeare, Byron, or a Shelley who breaks the silence, the word always retains its redeeming power, because all the despair and all the horror of evil expressed in a word are not as terrible as silence. Without being the sudden as such, the mimical may express the sudden. In this respect the ballet master, Bournonville, deserves great credit for his representation of Mephistopheles. The horror that seizes one upon seeing Mephistopheles leap in through the window and remain stationary in the position of the leap! — ibid. IV, 397

I am getting blisters on my fingers, to quote John Lennon.

When not permitted the move, one cannot judge objectivity from a separate space. — Paine

I can envisage an argument that solipsism might provide opportunities for understanding those limits that are not available without playing with nonsense. — Ludwig V

I was giving a reading of what the "ending of the world" might mean in Wittgenstein's argument. not arguing for it on my own behalf.

One stubborn perception among philosophers is that there is little of value in the explicitly Christian character of Søren Kierkegaard’s thinking. — Myron Penner, Kierkegaard’s Critique of Secular Reason, 372-3

If one accepts that such a Christian character is the most important question throughout all of his work, Penner playing off one camp against another looks like a made-up problem.

I will have to think about how Penner's use of "secular" relates to what Kierkegaard has said in his words in other works.

I was surprised by the depiction of what is said to be "Socratic" in your account of the Penner article. I will try to read it and maybe respond.

If I do try to reply, it would be good to know if you have studied Philosophical Fragments as a whole or only portions as references to other arguments.

Your summary of Berkeley and his reception is helpful and germane.

I would only add that the "world ending" in 6.431 is a recognition of the solitary that reveals the Berkeleyan move to be a giving oneself a world before retreating from it. When not permitted the move, one cannot judge objectivity from a separate space. That is an echo of PI 251:

These words are a defence against something whose form makes it look like an empirical proposition but which is really a grammatical one.

Kierkegaard wishes to stand athwart the Enlightenment rationalism notion of self-authority, preferring instead a Socratic approach that does not wield authority through the instrument of reason. — Leontiskos

The Philosophical Fragments juxtaposes the Socratic idea of self-knowledge to learning the truth in some other way. That is an exact description of his argument in the text.

Some bridge is needed to get that text to mean what you describe.

In the OP I mentioned a few objections, but not aesthetics. From what you and others have said, it's clear that the strongest objection is aesthetic. — Banno

I would like to challenge that but am presently more interested in the Bongo response.

Perhaps an instance of Hegel noting where a change of quantity is a change of quality.

I really do not see the difference here. Following Wittgenstein, all that "saying something" is, is arranging words as if you were saying something. Meaning (as in what is meant, by intention) is not a separate requirement for "saying something", because meaning is assumed to be inherent within "arranging words as if you were saying something". — Metaphysician Undercover

That reading of Wittgenstein assumes "meaning" is an arbitrary convention. That is precisely what he militates against in Philosophical Investigations. There is a passage that is amusing to read in this conversation about interlocuters being actual or not.

A human being can encourage himself, give himself orders, obey, blame and punish himself; he can ask himself a question and answer it. We could even imagine human beings who spoke only in monologue; who accompanied their activities by talking to themselves.—An explorer who watched them and listened to their talk might succeed in translating their language into ours. (This would enable him to predict these people's actions correctly, for he also hears them making resolutions and decisions.)

But could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences—his feelings, moods, and the rest—for his private use?——Well, can't we do so in our ordinary language?—But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language. — PI, 243

As it relates to this OP, Wittgenstein's statement throws the issue of pretense of AI into sharp relief. It is a pretend form of monologue when talking to oneself and a pretend form of dialogue when directed at others, whether admitted or not.

As a camper on the colline de Molière, my observation more properly belongs on the other OP.

My pup tent is located somewhere on your hill. Kafka must also be nearby:

He eats the droppings from his own table; thus he manages to stuff himself fuller than the others for a little, but meanwhile he forgets how to eat from the table; thus in time even the droppings cease to fall. — Kafka, Reflections, 69, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

I appreciate the explanation of sandbagging. The adaptive process seems parallel to marketing feedback to customer selections: An algorithm of mirrors inducts future novelty.

That adds another wrinkle to "when is the interlocutor not an interlocutor" question discussed previously.