Well, at least, I don't know how.

Correlations I think I'd say is Relations. Except maybe with a phenomenological twist. A relation from a certain point of view. At least right now I remember you noting how correlations are central, I think that's how I'd interpret that now. Some actor/thinker has a belief about a relation between two names is equal to an association.

But that doesn't tell me why all these marks we're making mean anything. Meaning feels both ephemeral and shared. You and I count these characters made through our keyboards as English, and are able to communicate because of that. In some way this goes towards @Banno and @Dawnstorm 's points about language being an institution. And I think that the internet makes these features easier to observe. How else could we relate to one another? I still believe I've had the face-to-face encounter on this forum, yet they are both right in noting that we couldn't have that encounter without the institution of English. Well, with my quibble, I might say that we couldn't have that encounter without the institution of philosophy.

Hrm. I'll wait to see, but that might be a good point of difference to jump from.

Only way to find out is at 800 more posts.

I am a strict phenomenologist. (at least I like to joke that way)

I think it's sort of like taking the limit. The more you talk about it the closer you approach the ineffable. At 2k posts we'll be certain to at least glimpse an asymptote.

I don;t have any strong opinion here. I suppose that if alienation is not compatible with the broader notion of institutions, we could re-think alienation. But it's not clear to me that this is needed. — Banno

Cool.

I was saying alienation couldn't be represented in Searle's language of institutions but... more specific to the thread on Searle you pointed out I'm realizing, and therefore absolutely necessary to cover in figuring out ineffabillity ;)

The broader notion I agree with, here:

as a rule of thumb, sociology considers any suriving regular social behaviour an institution. — Dawnstorm

and here:

the difference between a grunt and an utterance is exactly that the utterance makes use of an institution... it counts as a warning or an admonition or some such. It has a normative role. — Banno

I think I was getting stuck on the nitty gritty within the Searle thread.

Heh, even in seeking disagreement... :D

Though one thing that occurs to me that might still be an object of disagreement is group size.

To me, I'd be inclined to say two people who use a joke twice, or who have noticed whose "spot" it is on the bus, have created an institution, by our understandings provided. It may not be a long lasting or massively significant one, but I'd say it fits.

And I think the Searle thread got me thinking.... there's no way that fits. Plus the part I already mentioned about trying to distinguish the mental from the social in a particular way.

Language itself is an institution (at least in sociology). I'm not sure I remember how Marx used the word, but I doubt modern Marxist sociologist would find the idea that language is an institution surprising. There are many different theories, but as a rule of thumb, sociology considers any suriving regular social behaviour an institution. When you speak of linguistic institutions above do you mean stuff like dictionaries, linguistics, crossword puzzles...? Or the organisations that make them? — Dawnstorm

I think some of what I replied to @Banno makes this clearer. I'm on board with language being an institution in this very broad rule of thumb you put here. I'm quibbling with Searle's notion, which relates to language because that's how it's situated in the thread.

Yeah, the utterance makes the institution: without the utterance, no language. But, generally, people draw on their expectations of the institution to make those utterances. Chicken-egg situation, at that point. — Dawnstorm

Yeah. But there is no "the" institution, at that point, right? The groups are so many...

Hmmm. I read Searle as claiming that the difference between a grunt and an utterance is exactly that the utterance makes use of an institution... it counts as a warning or an admonition or some such. It has a normative role. — Banno

So far so good on this phrasing. I went through the thread on Searle you linked so I'm sort of responding to all the ideas that were in it at once.

If "institution" is just what counts as according to any group then I'm picking on Searle's account of institution more than I am the notion that language is enacted by a group which counts certain marks as meanings. Separately I also doubt that counting-as must be rule-bound (and, further, I wouldn't say that makes language ineffable, regardless of the status of its rule-boundedness). To that end I was trying to use Marx's notion of alienation as a contrast to Searle's notion of institution as status-functions which arise from we-intentions to show how his notion of we-intentions wouldn't be able to handle alienation, which should count as an institution by this rule of thumb:

There are many different theories, but as a rule of thumb, sociology considers any suriving regular social behaviour an institution. — Dawnstorm

So if language is an institution which arises from we-intentions of a group counting marks as meaningful then it seems to me alienation isn't really possible.

That is, there are different positions within a group, and how counting-as works.

Well, I'm not sure what "mental" entails. Do we agree that social intent is not private? "mental" stuff tends to be regarded as private. I would like to avoid seeing, say, buying a pizza as a mental activity. — Banno

Social intent is not private. And if we're talking the private language argument, mental is not private either.

"buying a pizza" is a social activity. I bet, however we count mental, the mental will be involved in some sense, but not in the sense of the ineffable or anything.

Much of my thoughts on the ineffable is how I think people prefer to think of the social in mental terms, and then claim that it is somehow private (and, therefore, cannot be criticized). So there's some of my interest in these distinctions.

That certain noises or marks count as utterances, while others do not, shows that language is institutional. — Banno

I'm not sure.

Just looking at linguistic institutions, it seems to me that all linguistic institutions do the opposite of making certain marks count as utterances. They categorize what happened to work before, but it wasn't the institution that made the utterance, but the other way around. Language pre-dates institutions, after all.

We don't know why certain noises or marks count as utterances.

Far as Searle's account is from Marx, they do agree in that the social is not reducible to the mental. In Searle's analysis we-intent is not reducible to I-intent.

And I think he is correct here.

I agree that I-intent does not reduce to we-intent, but I'm not sure I'm following how Searle escapes the charge of reducing the social to the mental. We-intentions are mental, yeah? And status-functions arise out of we-intentions. So maybe not reducible, but still arises out of -- unless I'm completely misunderstanding.

That's pretty much it. — Banno

Cool.

Language allows us to construct institutional facts; see the thread on Searle I presented earlier. These institutional facts are manifestations of collective intentionality; yet they can appear quite tangible - things such as property or incorporation... or word "meaning".

I think the meaning encoded institutionally is always after the fact. But that doesn't mean the words we use right now don't have meaning.

Language enables, and language is social -- but not institutional. Not even as a status-function derived from we-intentions.

Much of my interest in Searle is his clear case of the social being reducible to the mental, and my desire to make the case that the social is independent of the mental.

I'd say the Marxist account of the social treats the social as a distinct entity that is not reducible to the mental, nor does it arise out of a collective will. A monopoly on violence is closer -- only it'd include liberal democracies within that scope. Rather than collectively enacted rules, the social organism behaves in accord with its own patterns which, in turn, shape individuals to follow rules. A proletarian knows the consequences of falling out of line. This creates the status of alienation which goes directly against we-intentions. The worker has a two-fold identity: the world of rules from the boss that he must dance to, and the knowledge that the rules are just excuses for violence if he doesn't behave.

Knowing the rules like this is simply not a deontic relationship. One follows the rules, in deontology, for the value of the rule itself, because it is what is worthy, and you respect that rule -- and as a freely acting person you choose to obey its strictures.

But workers are not free, in the bosses' language, complete with its deontic promises.

And having a need to be able to express that condition, from time to time -- they don't just break rules, rules aren't even useful. Rules are for bosses and lawyers and people who make a living by parsing written things. Workers aren't trained in that, and so it is to their disadvantage to give into the world of reasons and procedures. Power is at the point of production, and if you can stop that it doesn't matter how you say it. (but note how the very world is different now -- a rule without deontic commitments)

And after the strike, win or lose, the boss won't understand it.

Perhaps, although I don't think so. I agree with much of what you are saying here. — Banno

Heh. Mostly just looking for something that might differentiate us.

We agree that there are rules for language use, and that these rules are regularly broken.

There are two ways of expressing a rule. One way is to set it out explicitly in words. The other is to enact it. Both "stop at the red light" and stopping at the red light express a rule.

Cool. I agree so far.

Well, stating the rule might come after the fact, but it might also come before it, when teaching someone to follow the rule, or when stipulating a new rule - consider the Académie Française. Neither is logically prior to the other. — Banno

Good point. I agree neither is logically prior to the other.

I guess the counter-example would have to be -- a usage that is not state-able in a rule.

That doesn't seem to be possible, to me. We can always append more clauses -- there is no rule limiting how many clauses fit into a sentence, and rules can consist of many sentences on top of that. And even if there was a rule, I would break it :D

We can even invent meanings ex nihilo, so gavagai might fit, or phi, or F of x.

I guess that's the conflict I'm thinking of -- between invented meanings and rules. Is novelty a rule being expressed non-verbally? Is there a difference between meaning and rules at all? I think I was thinking of them as different... but if language is purely a system of grunts for getting things done, then the meaning could "float away".

It just seems a bit too much to me because it seems like words do mean things.

Of course, I might have this all wrong too :D -- but this is where my thoughts are taking me at the moment.

Language is constructed by recursively applying a finite number of rules to a finite vocabulary. — Banno

There might be our difference.

How language is constructed is unknown. The rules come after the fact as explanations for our usage, but even those rules are broken over time -- and whether it's a diversion or an invention I'd posit is more a historical story than a scientific one. Just meaning I'm uncertain that there's a strict functional relationship between some finite set of rules and a vocabulary. Not that we don't follow such rules, we do -- but we also invent things too. Even on the spot. Most vocabulary that's recorded "drifts up" from vernacular, where people invent terms on the spot on the regular.

Yet:

Language consists of units - words and phrases and phonemes and letters- that are re-usable and can be put into novel structures that are nevertheless meaningful. — Banno

That's true.

What I'm not seeing is what this has to do with nonduality. In seeing something as something, it would seem the whole dualistic conditioning of subjects seeing objects, of self and other, is involved. — Janus

I think that's a point under contention :D

As @Banno put it, the subject is a Cartesian hangover which is better gotten rid of. (or, metaphysically, between mental-stuff and physical-stuff) (EDIT: At least, ala this notion that analytic philosophy is anti-dualistic. I still think on it because I think the subject has a way of creeping back up even if dissolved)

The sense-datum theory, as I understand it, is one which is still structured around the subject. A subject doesn't see mountains as mountains (except naively), rather a subject interprets the basics of experience (the sense-datum) which it has learned to call a mountain.

Dissolve the subject, though, and there's not really a place for sense-datum. Or, vice versa, dissolve sense-datum (or the raw experience, or experience as it is, or a film of subjectivity), then what is left of a subject with respect to perception? (since that was the focus of the book)

I mean, it's been a minute since I've read that too, it was just an example that comes to mind of analytic philosophers eschewing dualism, especially of the subject-object variety.

Oh I wouldn't be that harsh on yourself. I was saying, here's the OP! You got there! I found something I could say and respond to in it, at least.

:) Thanks.

One day, I'll be strong enough to do the third reading, where-upon the true and secret meaning I've been seeking will reveal itself to me. :D

I finally realized that if I wanted to go down the route of making sensible claims about what Kant really meant then I'd have to actually become an academic, and I decided against that.

So, a medal? Sure. "The medal of loving the critique of pure reason" :D

It's being made of H₂O is essential to water. — Banno

This is a notion that still mystifies me.

And such a good writer! A lot of philosophy is downright miserable to read- have you ever tried to read Kan't CPR, for instance? As in, reading it cover to cover? Pure torture! :vomit: — busycuttingcrap

:D

I understand what you mean, but I actually love reading Kant. It's not literary at all, so that's why I say I understand. But I sort of enjoy the rhythms of a mind expressing itself in the most explicit manner.

To answer your question directly, and humble-brag, I've read the CPR 2 times :D -- first translation by Norman Kemp Smith, the latter read on Pluhar's

I'm not sure...

But, just generically speaking, OLP includes Sense and Sensibilia -- a book I read some time ago on @Banno's mention, and that seems to be a book about a non-dual awareness that isn't mystical, is non-dualistic, and is both analytic philosophy and OLP.

I see that!

At the very least, that makes sense of his various contradictions, and aphoristic style of speaking, and his stance on truth...

I feel you when you describe your fascination with Nietzsche. Love him or hate him, he can't be ignored. He was an incredibly original thinker that also knew how to think.

But then, on the other hand, there are many other passages where he seems to be advancing an anti-realist critique of these things, often in the same work — busycuttingcrap

This was an insight for me, way back when, upon reading Nietzsche -- he contradicts himself, even in the same work.

Maybe it's wrong, but I interpret those contradictions as purposeful.

If it's a dualism, it's a dualism of views, not of substance. My experience has been that when in a non-dual state of awareness, dualistic views are still comprehensible, but their relativivty, their illusionistic nature, is understood.

I don't claim to have attained non-dual consciousness as a permanent state, but I don't deny the possibility. The permanent state of non-dual awareness would be what Eastern philosophers, Advaita Vedantists and Buddhists refer to as "enlightenment". — Janus

Cool.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "philosophically". From the point of view of AP and OLP non-dual awareness and the realization that empirical reality is a dualistic collective representation would presumably not be of much use, because analyses and descriptions are always going to be dualistic in character. From the perspective of, for example, Pierre Hadot's 'philosophy as a way of life', practices aimed at realizing non-dual awareness, since it is an incomparably richer form of life, might be advocated — Janus

I don't think I meant any particular philosophy.

Actually, I'd say one of the things I've been pushing against in this thread is the notion that AP and OLP are necessarily opposed to these notions. I believe that's a false belief. I can see, on the surface, how they seem opposed, but I'd say the "seeming" only covers many cases -- but not all.

Yeh, but to be fair -- I like that about this place. I like that it sits in-between, so I don't feel so bad about exploring odd thoughts or things I know will land me in fallacious positions as I think through them.

It's one of the reasons, when I feel I'm able, I like fielding the re-occurring questions that pop up. I, too, make these mistakes, and so it's something nice to be able to point out to those who are wanting to not make them.

That's a big "if" tho :D

Sure.

"functioning", though, isn't the question being asked. I'm wondering about "after enlightenment".

"in tandem" suggests to me the dualism you're denying, but I suspect you'd say more on that upon questioning since you've expressed anti-dualist sentiments.

This seems to me to be the thought that began this thread:

the propositional character of empirical reality is a dualistic collective representation — Janus

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that @Banno and I agree with that. Or, from what I'm reading in the exchanges, that seems to be something we agree upon, in a rough sense. We'll all get particular down the line in our own ways, but roughly this is right.

So, upon recognition that empirical reality is a dualistic collective representation -- what now? Not in a grand sense, just philosophically.

What happens to words?

“Everything matters” is also a harsh truth. — Mikie

Yup.

Almost like "ultimate meaning" is a ruse.

But when you realize your actions matter -- maybe not on the scale of "everything" -- but matter none-the-less, it's a much harsher truth.

:D

OK, yeh, so maybe (and only maybe) "carry water" was metaphoric.

Given my Marxist bent --

After enlightenment, carry water, chop firewood

You only get the bloody nose if you are stupid, and as I say I've never seen or heard of anyone so stupid. — Janus

Just going to note that "what come's next?" is a question for after the trip, when you have to... well, do the things. work, or whatever it is.

What comes next after realizing the world is not dualistic, and propositions are a collective representation?

Gonna do my thing here and say these aren't at odds, and in fact, are favorable to one another.

Perception's role is not truth or a veridical recovery of reality.

What you do certainly counts. More and most. Given my existentialist bent.

But, throwing a wrench in all the thoughts, philosophy is that which disrupts perception, or language-use, such that our behavior becomes interested in the veridical.


And, then, bringing up an end to all that -- the ineffable -- if you've been bitten by the bug, that's a big disappointment.

(EDIT: Thinking here “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” )

I'm still following. I've just been reading along now in an attempt to untangle thoughts. And scratch the itch.

I'm thinking that you're close, but also that @Constance here :

Ineffability is what is there on the horizon of the openness of language possibilities as inquiry stands in the midst of a world. — Constance

Lays out how she'd like to talk about ineffability, which isn't really the same thing as I was indicating with "the ineffable" either, and I think is different from what you've intimated at least, given that we cannot say such things without falling into the liar's paradox. Especially thinking this contrasts with your focus on activity as the mechanism of elucidation.

Going along with -- I'm thinking something along the lines of where your focus is on tasks that elucidate meaning (even if unsayable), but if I'm understanding @Constance at least, then the unsayable is something which is always beyond language but perceptible to all of us -- something I've been calling not quite ineffable, but the phenomenologist, I think, could claim that "the ineffable" is a feature of our construction of experience -- the unfolding of experience is the ineffable becoming, but at the vagaries of thought or language it will always remain. (or, something like that -- just to put some sense to the notion, not arguing for it)

Something more along the lines of we don't know what tomorrow will bring. And, tomorrow is always tomorrow, and never today.

Maybe. But maybe I've got it all wrong and I'm going to draw ire from both sides, as I usually do. :D

But again, is this all there is to life? existence? It still feels pointless, in the end, in the grand scheme of things. — niki wonoto

So it's understandable that...

People of course will always try to rationalize this, all in a hope to convince themselves basically that life, especially their own lives, have meaning & purpose. And that each individual matters; each person matters. — niki wonoto

For you, though --

Everything we do will eventually just crumbles to the dust. So why bother? — niki wonoto

One reason to bother would be that it's pleasant to bother. But for you that's a mere rationalization in light of the harsh truth that everything we are and build will turn to dust and drift across a cold and dead universe. Death, dissolution, crumbling, loss -- these are the grand schemes of the universe. And they are opposed to everything we want.


One thing to realize is that this line of thinking comes about from a desire for the thing it denies -- purpose, order, life. It's the presence of a harsh grand scheme that's distressing. Life feels pointless because we want, and everything we try and want will eventually dissolve.

But if only eternal life makes life have a point, then life will forever remain pointless. You are right that you will die and things fall apart.

But the reason to bother is -- because it feels good. Or, at least, better.

And would you believe that on the other side the people say -- it doesn't matter that you'll die? It doesn't matter that things are ephemeral? That life is change? Today isn't all that bad.

Happiness, then, has nothing to do with feelings of pleasure or joy, or a good time. It's a life-long pursuit, and we can't determine whether one has lived a happy life until it's completed. — Mikie

You should have started with the ending post. :)

There is something to the notion that happiness is not ephemeral. Happiness is achieved through the day-to-day, not within a single day. I can have a bad day and continue to be happy. I can feel sad about a particular thing and still continue to be happy.

However, I think I'd say that a notion of happiness that requires us to live the entirety of life isn't very useful for those of us who want to be happy. We're not going to be around at the end of it all to make a judgment -- that would be a judgment for the historians or philosophers.

Feelings, I think, are an important part of happiness, though, while pleasure isn't simple. "Joy" I think gets much closer to happiness than our lexical "pleasure" or "good time". The pleasure of happiness is consistent between various pleasures and pains -- it's more of an overall satisfaction with the way things are for oneself than immediate pleasure and pain. And satisfaction is at least partially dependent upon what a person wants.

So if you want something aside from basic pleasures and pains -- say, goodness, or justice, or power -- and you don't have those things, you will be unhappy. Even if your basic needs are met your mind will gravitate towards the things you want and the opposite of happiness will occur. It's not exactly displeasure, but frustration.

I still don't know how to differentiate fiction from philosophy — god must be atheist

I think there's something to Iris Murdoch's "dogged insistence" as a defining feature of philosophy with respect to fiction, as highlighted by @180 Proof and @Banno

Returning to the same questions again and again is a pretty good distinguisher. Not that novels cannot return to a question (I often view Brave New World and The Island as companion novels), but there's no dogged insistence of getting just the right answer as much as a reflection upon themes.

And even if philosophy uses fiction, I'd say that philosophy is more straightforward than novels tend to be. We want philosophy to speak as plainly as possible, given the difficulty, but we don't necessarily want that from a novel.

The place within a culture that a script sits also distinguishes it from novels, I think. Novels can be philosophical, and mimic philosophy, and the distinguisher isn't clear-cut, but part of what makes the difference just is how we treat the scripts. We read the novel for our pleasure, and we read philosophy for...

Well, many things. But even if pleasure be the measure, I'd say that the pleasure of philosophy is different from the pleasure of reading a story to get lost in the art of the story.

But a distinguisher is simply the place the script sits within a culture. If it's read for wisdom, then it's at least philosophy-adjacent. I think the other thing that makes philosophy, philosophy, is also the appeal to reason. And a novel which would try to appeal to my reason would be a very strange read, indeed.

But with the caveat that "the appeal to reason" is multifarious, at least by my estimation.

Perhaps, or they may be deluded. — Janus

"Delusion" is exactly what an account would be. To be able to determine if someone is deluded, you sort of already have to have a notion about determining both the minds of others, and the truth about the world. It's not exactly a one-off explanation as much as a name for a complicated explanation.

I don't discount the possibility, and yet I see little reason to believe it. Wittgenstein's statement never made much sense to me. — Janus

Since it's in the PI making sense of it will be difficult no matter what. :D

For me, here, I'm using it as a springboard to ask about brains in philosophy. I'm committed to the strange belief that the lion speaking would mean I understand the lion on the basis that I'm committed to the same strange belief with respect to human beings (if, for whatever reason, a human being had a different brain shape and was able to communicate with me, then I'd say they are speaking). Or, at least, I'm calling this a strange belief in light of the mind-body problem (or maybe, here, the mind-brain problem)

While the way we talk about animals and humans is set by this cultural milieu such that crab-whisperers are deluded, I'm not so sure we have a reason or an account which accepts that human beings are more able to talk than crabs. Why is it that when you talk I'm able to deduce things about your beliefs, and when someone hears the crab talk they aren't?

Note that not having a reason isn't the same as things being true or false. It may just be that there is no reason at all. The reason unmarried men are bachelors is because that's the relationship between those locutions. The reason crabs can't talk is because they are not in the class of talking animals.

As far as I know there is no conceivable way of blending accounts given in causal, physical terms with accounts given in terms of subjective reasons. — Janus

Well, yeah. Exactly why I claimed to be out of my depth -- the mind-body problem has been around for awhile specifically because it's a quagmire of a problem.

I'm not sure what would qualify one to not be out of depth with the mind-body problem.

At any rate, I am curious what others would say is the difference between fiction and philosophy and whether one is a proper subset of the other, on they are independent units, with some common domain. (Think of Venn diagrams: one circle representing one of the two, the other circle, representing the other; is one circle completely inside the other, or they only have a common area, intersecting each other?) — god must be atheist

I tend to think of philosophy as wisdom literature. The literature is intended to educate -- sort of like the various religious scripts. But it's not quite right to say philosophy is the same as religious writing. Many communities who like both make a distinction. So I say it's "wisdom literature", in that it's intended to educate people.

But some novels are also intended for that purpose.

Also sometimes philosophy spins fictions, and part of the challenge of reading it is in figuring out which is what -- sometimes the fictions aren't even intentional, it's just that the subject matter is hard and we make mistakes. Sometimes the fictions seem real. And sometimes the fictions are intentionally and carefully crafted by a philosopher to dig out a difficult belief. For me, I think it's a blast. It's done for the pleasure of thinking. Making it even harder to differentiate from a novel, given that these are also written for the pleasure of thinking through fictions.

Another distinction may be that literature is in some sense for the lessers and philosophy is for the betters. Literature is easier than philosophy, and dwells on similar things, so it's for the people who are still growing. The difference is in the difficulty, not in the function. But novelists have managed to write as obscurely as philosophers, with perhaps just as much idiosyncratic flare, so difficulty, too, is not the difference.

Maybe the difference is in what we want them to be?

Yeh, that's apt for me.

I'm surprised no one asked "What do you mean by happiness?" So I'll ask it of all of you who so far responded. If it a feeling, like joy and pleasure, or something else? — Mikie

I think it's complicated, and somewhat relative. There's enough overlap between people who seem happy and what they say about it that there's something worthwhile in thinking about it. But I'm not sure the path after meaning would help as much as hinder -- I basically know what happiness is, even if it's not just joy or even if it doesn't follow a particular regimen prescribed for happiness. So I said "Yup"

Take for example the forum we are posting on. Every time I write something, even out of habit or mistake, I'm being creative.

Wouldn't it depend upon the venue we're being creative in, to evaluate to what extent creativity is important?

If we want a traditional meal from our childhood, we wouldn't value creativity as much as sameness. It's the habit, rather than the novel creation, that is attractive.

But if we want something novel, for whatever reason (I can think of too many), we'd value creativity.

I hope to respond in other ways but will start with this. My take on what Chalmers is presenting is something like: "can the world we touch through our awareness be caused entirely by agents outside of that experience?" The call for a completely objective account is a kind of mapping more than a finding about the 'body.' The scientific method is an exclusion of certain experiences in order to pin down facts. Can this process, which is designed to avoid the vagaries of consciousness, also completely explain it? — Paine

See, I think we're beginning on opposite sides here. Also, I disagree with your take on Chalmers, but that might be better for another thread. (as a hint, I think of his The Conscious Mind as all happening within what he calls "the ontology room")

But I think I agree with I am inspired by you here:

The call for a completely objective account is a kind of mapping more than a finding about the 'body.'

At least, that's where my thoughts are directed at the moment.

Another way to put the question might be akin to Mary's Room -- but that's what I'm trying to avoid. I don't like the frame which pits propositions/sentences/utterances against experience or vice-versa. Mapping counts as finding out about the body.

Banno got it right. Digging through the historical record to find scientists who agree with you isn't as hard as you might imagine. Scientists often believe false things.

That's why science is done collectively. It's easy to believe false things all on your lonesome.

Yup.

The notion that creativity is limited to a certain group of activities is wrong. People are creative all the time, no matter what they are doing.

Yup.