We are born into a world already formed by the perceptions and judgements, evolved over eons in a community of embodied perceivers, and enacted within ever-changing culture and language. — Janus

I agree with that, I think. Not eons, though -- spoken language is much sooner than biological timescales. It seems like eons.

I guess to bring this back to the original question -- to what extent is the brain involved in any of that? Or is it just an organ, like the heart, which is needed but knowledge of it will not shed light on conscious experience?

So how exactly would they be different? — Banno

Good question.

They would not stand in certain relations to you, sure. Relate that to the word "real" - what will you say, that only what you perceive is real? But that's not right.

Yup, that's not right. I think the first sentence gets close to what I'm thinking. As soon as we allow English, then it's always-already interpreted and there's no "origin" of all thought or justification or whatever.

And all distinction which allow an origin are always-already interpreted, being that they are distinctions.


Maybe we can't say how they'd be different just because of that.

More like, from the perspective of an embodied brain, my notions came from whatever I was taught and grew up with. Given that's true, I'm sure they were -- but at the time, going along the route of describing experience -- I couldn't tell.

Sure, we can say all of this would be real in some way without us, but we have no idea what that could mean, since the notion real has its genesis in perception. To say all of this would be real without us is to project our perceptually embodied based notion of reality onto an imagined situation where there is no perception or embodiment: I think that qualifies well as "language on holiday". — Janus

No idea?

I don't think that's quite right, because we are born into a world which has already been formed. Our notions come from our elders, in various forms, rather than from our perception.

Perception comes after.

They wouldn't be real without the perceiving body; at least not in the same way. No reality to speak of without bodies, and no speaking either. — Janus

They'd be ... whatever they are... without me.

Without our bodies the things which exist would not be real in the same way.

Yup!

But would they be real at all?

I think so.

I think about the world I'm in and how it seems bounded by whatever happened before me, how I wasn't there, and it's not even hard to realize that the real is modified by forces outside of my body. Without all of us this wouldn't be real in the same way.

Heh. Fair enough. There are times when it's not the right time.

Crowley and Aziraphale. Stop being so bloody nice to everyone. They really don't deserve it. — Banno

*shrugs* I'm a nihilist. Deserts are for the moralists :D

Thumper's mom knew what she was talking about -- and not just morally speaking. Rabbits being a social species too.

(EDIT: Realized that was a very American reference after the fact, and linked to the quote I had in mind "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all")

:D I have!

Naturally that means I have to agree here ;) -- and I do. But especially with the mix that you say -- our blend of disagreement with and agreement with seems to bring out things that I wouldn't have thought of on my own, and it's always a pleasure.

Poor old Sartre clearly had a bad trip, which usually arises from a resistance to the dissolution of self. Shame he had to make a philosophy out of it and impose it on us, though. — unenlightened

So this is interesting to me, because in conjunction with the notion that the mind is what limits, as opposed to what generates, my mind makes the connection to the sense of self counting as part of this filter. In this interpretation then, paths to decrease one's sense of self, one's identity, are paths which lead a person -- as opposed to their identity -- to let go of filters.

I wonder about this notion of "filters" too -- is it filtered, or is it created in interaction between a body-envatted brain representing itself and its representation of the "outside" world? Which as we lose a sense of self we naturally lose the distinction between "inside" and "outside", that being a direct result of the various ways we predicate and enact our identity.

So whether or not the contents of consciousness are "real" or "not real" is down to the functioning of the wet-ware robot in daily life. But it's still all a brain process, no? So the real life VR that serves as reference to the metaphorical VR are on different levels: Real world VR is computer generated sensory input for biological perception systems (sensory organs, nerves, brains...). The metaphorical VR is neither input nor output it's just... a flow? It's this disjunction that makes the question hard to answer. — Dawnstorm

Makes perfect sense to me.

Maybe we try to reduce the metaphorical VR to inputs-outputs, and consider that an explanation, but that's exactly what's wrong -- the entire metaphor of a virtual reality, since there are no input-outputs (like real world VR, where the programmer creates an input for our wet-ware, which we're trying to talk about through this metaphor), is wrong since what we experience is more of a flow.

The VR is meant to replicate this feeling of a flow while creating something virtual. (and, actually, in relation to dreams, it's interesting to note how dreams really feel very different from both the real world VR and this experience of "flow" which the real world VR is trying to emulate, but with an imagined reality instead)

So whether or not the contents of consciousness are "real" or "not real" is down to the functioning of the wet-ware robot in daily life. But it's still all a brain process, no? — Dawnstorm

That's the question I'm trying to parse :). The brain is clearly involved, because as the brain undergoes physical changes so does the sense of flow change. But is that sense of flow a result of brain processes?

I certainly don't think that brain provides VR as output for a disembodied consciouness. Or at least, I wouldn't know how to make sense of it. This is why I'm with Chalmers: I have no idea how to connect that "experiential flow" with the physical processes. — Dawnstorm

Me either. Or, even more so, I wonder if that "experiential flow" is being related to the correct physical processes? Suppose we learn most of our mental habits from our social environment. Then, it'd make sense, in various experiments, to not just measure the electronic structures of a person undergoing some test, but also to measure the electronic structures of the scientists performing the test, and also you'd want to ensure that people underwent similar experiences prior to measuring everyone because the associations we make depends upon what had happened to us, what we are attached to before the experiment begins.

The only reason I know what we're talking about is that I have that sort of flow myself. So, yeah, there's this brain process, "consciousness", and it's part of the total functioning of the wet-ware robot; and there's this first-person experience on top of it.

Cool. We're in a similar wheel-house for puzzling, then. Because I think these two things make sense, too.

So to the extent that we can call that VR, it doesn't make sense to differentiate between illusions and reality for the VR status; it's *all* generated. We'd be talking about types of input, rather than the process. But types of input matter, too. Does it travel along the nervous system? Is it generated somewhere else in the brain? People with more insight into the brain might be better fit to talk about this (say, Isaac). But the process itself shouldn't be all that different.

Right! And I think you've tripped across a good distinction between the real world VR, where inputs from a digital machine are programmed such that our wet-ware gets a sense of reality within an imagined world, and the actual flow which VR is built around to emulate.

The VR machine is mimicking how we sense things in the world to be able to create a fantasy that seems real. So "virtual reality" isn't quite the right metaphor.

To proffer what I think is a less loaded locution: I'd say the body is a reality-generator. — Janus

I'm good with that. Basically brain-in-a-vat where the vat is actually a meaty, mucousy, bio-breathing thing developed by the mad scientist, natural selection.

Does Sartre make perfect sense, too? Both are interpretations, albeit in opposing directions. What is to be avoided is the mistake of thinking that an experience brings one somehow closer to reality "in the flesh"; using mescaline or existentialism or phenomenology remains an interpretation, just different to our more common or functional interpretations.
. — Banno

Sartre also makes perfect sense there -- I'd say Sartre and Huxley are expressing themselves in a similar modality(philosophical methodology? similar linguistic-function, but employed by different people?), but feel different things (at least in these contrasting expressions). In a way we might say they are like the parable of the blind men touching an elephant -- they are attending to their experience, interpreting it, and expressing that interpretation. But that's too many metaphors at once to keep things clear. (is "reality" like an object we cannot see perfectly? At this level of abstraction "elephant" seems too concrete to count as a good metaphor... and invoking "imperfect senses" already assumes a lot of mental-goings-on...)

So i don't see it helping with the mind-body problem or the hard problem, except perhaps to show how what we deal with is always already filtered through our neural networks, even when they are behaving unconventionally

I think that's a win :). Though it could go down some rabbit holes.

At the very least, I'd hope that with such a realization that we might be tempted to at least listen to the great multiplicity of people expressing their interpretations of experience, unless we believe there's some other path -- and I believe I've been arguing against those pretentions of phenomenology, at least. I very much doubt anyone can, through introspection alone, come across a linguistic incantation that will summon some sort of universal experience or whatever which makes everything "click" into place (but it can still be beautiful)

From there, if everything one deals with (and not just everything, an important distinction I think) is interpreted, then that already shifts the mind-body problem to what is and how to distinguish between better or worse interpretations. At least, philosophically, given its preference for using words to express itself -- in activity it's usually not as hard to distinguish between body/mind, because it's always relative to what we're trying to do together, and usually we're not trying to distinguish the verbal relationship between the body and the mind.

Truth still emphasized as an element that's important for philosophy, even with this multiplicity, we throw out false interpretations, first, but then see there's more to it all than an obvious falsity or truth. Such as Sartre and Huxley's emotionally opposite interpretations of reality.

But even so, given they're interpretations (rather than universal statements about experience), they both make sense, upon imagining our own emotional state in different ways. I've felt both, at different times -- also interesting to note how the passages explicit reference to objects isn't even what's important to what the author is expressing, but were just the objects around them at the time. The feelings are far more important.

Though, perhaps this line of thinking just muddles the original question. More straightforward -- would we predict Sartre and Huxley's brain to be in a similar relationship to their respective experiences, or not? Does the human nervous system have anything to do with how Sartre or Huxley are expressing themselves, or even more generally, with their experience? Or, would we say that "experience" here is not related to brains as much as it's related to the environment, and the brain is just putting an emotional "twist" on what we call "experience", which itself is just a catch-all word for "the real, as I see it" as opposed to an epiphenomenal film of the brain's creation?

So, yes? ;)

It looks like you're still thinking through things. I should say "I don't know" is exactly the answer I'd give to the question, at the moment.

People make moral decisions all the time with terrible consequences. The odds of getting it wrong are high and the consequences dire. — Andrew4Handel

That's the terror of responsibility -- what you choose will matter. What you choose matters even if you don't want it to. "People" includes you -- and that's the only person you have control over anyways.

So, knowing that making bad choices matters -- it has consequences which are dire -- you make a choice.

By all means, make a considered choice. Think about it until it feels right.

But that's how you resolve a moral dilemma.

But moral issues can never be resolved — Andrew4Handel

I can make a choice. That resolves it. I might regret it later, but if choice isn't part of a moral issue, it's a kind of illusion.

Oh yeh. I think we're close enough that we agree there on the bad sides of phenomenology, too -- including ethical abuses, and such.

I feel differently about the other phenomenologists, though. And Sartre kind of qualifies, I think, in the Cartesian sense, though his focus isn't that, and he is creative enough to be read on his own. But really I think it's Merleau-Ponty and Levinas which have won me over, making me realize I need to dig into Husserl for realzies.

Take your time. I'm slow, but I do come back around to things eventually.

I waited until we hit the 1k mark, out of an attempt at respect to @jgill -- but now we going to really figure out this ineffable thang at 2k posts. heeeelllll yeah. :D

Somehow sensations are supposed to occupy some middle (@Moliere) ground, private, ineffable, yet somehow despite that, the foundation of our understanding (@Constance).

You clever folk all agree, but can't explain it. I call bullshit. — Banno

Must be. . . incommensurable?

I think I'm still on the naturalist side. I'm on team disappointment, at least, however that leads us ;)

Hrm.

I'd say that morality is important.

And we live in a world without a designer.

I'm mostly in favor of moral error-theory, though I understand it effects people differently.

But the way I look at it is -- I don't care if it's true or false, I care about it. So morality survives, even in a purely physical, design free world.

Even the most veridical perceptions or experiences, I think, are virtual insofar as apprehension of the world is mediated. Illusions, biases, and other misperceptions result from the limitations of meta/cognition, the impacts of which can be reduced or offset by intellectual and experiential disciplines. :chin: — 180 Proof

I think I'd put this somewhere in-between the minimalism I described above to @bongo fury and Transcendental Idealism. And, probably, that's where most of the consciousness-categories are going to sit, too, I just wanted to give a full lay of the land of possibilities.

Do you agree with that?

Cool.

I should have replied separately, and if you're still thinking on it no worries -- but if you have an answer, I'd like to hear it: is the brain a virtual reality machine?

Psyche is disrupted by psychoactive substances, but never quite transcended. It seems to me that even a materialist or rationalist understanding can see theoretically that the sense of self is derived from the limitations of the senses; My boundaries are the eyes that I can see with, the body I can touch with and so on. — unenlightened

I agree. (hrm, looking back -- typed that in response to your second sentence, but the first one makes sense)

Actually, materially, something that's interesting is how psychoactive substances have similar effects on people, to believe word of mouth at least. (also, something I always like to bring up from the materialist side is -- psychoactive substances have effects! :) )

And I don't think it's even theoretical, from a materialist standpoint. The sense of self -- arises? -- from the interaction between mind and body. Or however we'd like to parse these things.

I am not you because I cannot see through your eyes walk in your shoes, feel your pain and joy. Identity is thus a mere blindness and insensitivity, opposed to awareness. As if we were all flat-Earthers, we mistake the horizon for the end of the vital world

Yup

One lives one's normal life in service to that blindness, and makes awareness subservient to it. In this way one makes oneself absent from one's life, and projects oneself through time as nostalgia and fear/desire. It is thus only through the disruption of the discounted normality of awareness as self identity with drug induced sensory confusion, that one begins to become aware of reality at all. Otherwise, there is just a vague feeling of something missing, a loss of 'meaning'.
See also, The Bird of Paradise, by RD Laing. (Not seemingly available online for free).

Haven't read, and while I can't put it on the homework list at the moment for fear of never completing anything, I'll have it in this thread now to go back to.

One thing I like to note is how this is something commonly felt. Right? So, that's very interesting to me because it seems like people talk about this sort of stuff successfully frequently enough that there's something to it.

But then, error-theory looms.

Maybe the way to get over that is to simply note that it doesn't matter that it's false, in the error-theorist's sense.

Oh, I should also mention, you can just say "No" :D

And I'd be interested in those reasonings too.

Kant's transcendental subject is simply a formal "I think "X"" -- a subject only formally there as a condition of thought. He doesn't think of the mind in terms of a small human being inside the mind, ala the homuncular fallacy (and, for that matter, Descartes doesn't either -- that's Dennet's preferred nomenclature for certain ways some people think about their own mind -- they explain it in terms of another mind, so it's really just a special case of begging the question)

The notion of a film I'm trying to invoke is more like a bubble-film -- something generated by the mind, and so not just a movie, but the wholeness of experience. The notion would have it that we are in some way in a virtual simulation of the mind's creation, with varying degrees of naturalism. Chalmer's would call that the qualitative aspect of experience -- what it feels like, what-it-is-like.

Basically like a virtual reality of some kind, be it minimal (almost everything we feel is real in the naive realist sense, and only sometimes our mind plays tricks on us), or total (transcendental idealism where we all live within some kind of meta-mind that structures our minds) or even approaching solipsistic (the illusion of the mind is generated by the electric structures within our brain firing, so we can infer that everyone is in a world of their own creation)

I should note, that I'm not holding people to yes and no. I'm more interested in the why part. The yes/no is just meant to make people commit to something, even if its nascent and only being considered rather than truly believed.

I mean, I'm just giving a hypothetical there to clarify the question and say one can make variations however they like for purposes of answering the question. It's a purposefully unclear question so that people of differing views can answer it.

So, yes or no?

Well, that'd be proposing a kind of mechanism that I listed, yes. Though I chose the unclear "virtual reality machine" to sum up a large collection of distinctions, too. So, for instance, we may say that only dreams are us experiencing the virtual part of the virtual-reality -- there's a contact between mind and world (a kind of realism of both, while describing the realism of the mind) as much more subdued version of the Cartesian theatre that is more plausible to current thinking.

A bit of a stretch wouldn't you say? Even what is happening in one's own body is largely below the thresholds of consciousness. — jgill

Yes, definitely a stretch. Part of my fascination with such things is simply trying to understand what brings a rational person to sincerely believe these things, because I'm used to these claims being from the not-rational side.

Bold! :D

I suppose the next part is -- ok, can we identify which parts of the virtual reality are confabulations and which aren't?

For instance I could separate out my perceptions of objects, or even just separate out my senses, and name some parts of my mentals-goings-ons as virtual, and other parts of it as real. I suspect that emergence would lead one to believe this to be the case, where because of our scientific knowledge of the brain we can infer that everyone is somewhat in an experiential dome of their own making, and it's only habituation that leads us to believe otherwise, ala Hume.

But I suspect if we are illusionists, then we could reduce the virtual reality to something like dysfunctions, or improper functioning. So only our errors are the illusions, while for the most part we're pretty much in contact with a world, rather than living in an experiential-film island.



So, yes or no?

But those important ideas of family solidarity are incidental to God as a concept. It could be sort of thing that works like this that holds people together. The idea here is, is it an idea that is defensible when brought before inquiry. This is an important question, as, for one thing, religions have a great deal of influence on how we deal with our general affairs, and foolish beliefs can engender prejudice and impaired judgment in social issues. For another, clear thinking about religion can actually bring about startling insights.

I am in a minority position in holding that there actually IS a Truth with a capital T, so to speak, notwithstanding how this sits with modern thinking. — Constance

Yeah :) -- though, to be honest, there are others here who believe in such things, too. And, I have to note, I've been absolutely loving this conversation. But I think we've probably reached the last stop, and we're a far cry from the opening (not that I mind such things, but I try my best to not go too far down my various rabbit holes that are easy to distract me into)

My criticisms are meant as encouragements for a more developed line of thinking and warnings to ward off disappointment -- hopefully they weren't too discouraging, because you got something to say, and while I sit on the anthropological side of religion (rather than the practitioner's side), I do actually enjoy the project of "religion within the bounds of reason alone" -- so hopefully we'll get to touch on these ideas throughout the threads.

But for now, I think it best to leave things here, and think the thoughts that come.

But God in the "household" meaning of the term is instantly assailable. — Constance

Are you sure?

The household meaning is the important meaning -- not the philosophers meaning. It's the household meaning that holds the house together, that connects the family to the community, that provides consolation and guidance and a means for talking about and to one another so that the family can live its life in economic productivity and safety.

Or, at least, that'd be one way to put it. And reason feels cold in relation to such luxuries.

I don't think it's the same for all subjects; if learning a subject is a matter of learning a bunch of facts or formulas, then there is a definite process of teaching which will definitely yield results if the student is willing and has the necessary intellectual capacity. Of course, being creative in any subject is another matter and is more akin to the arts and cannot be reliably taught. — Janus

I agree with this.

Also, probably shows some of the shortcomings of my proposal of using teaching as a stand-in for the ineffable. It was just an honest answer to the original bike question, i.e., why I would not count riding a bike as ineffable. My answer being, because it's teachable, so it just seems like not a very interesting case for philosophers.

Well, that's what it says on the label: The Philosophy Forum. — Banno

Hawt damn, I managed to stay on topic for once! :D

Having been an art student myself and having been involved in the arts for many years, I find myself disagreeing with this. — Janus

Cool.

I see the tough cases as ones of motivation. You can lead a horse to water, but if they don't want to drink they won't.

That's true of teaching any subject, though. Students will be students, in the end.

And yes, I'm not interested in trivial cases, either, where it comes down to a definition. Interesting cases only.

Personally, I find it incredible that some (not you, Moliere) want to deny that there is any aspect of private experience which cannot be made public, and seem to have some weird, politically correct fetish for making everything public,and insisting on their dogmatic, and even worse insuufferably boring, version of correctness in all matters philosophical, which to me is objectionable and raises the horrible spectre of Groupthink and universal ennui. — Janus

I think it's more a matter of trying to figure it out philosophically than anything. The demands of reason, and such. Maybe there's something private, but it might be outside the bounds of philosophy at that point. Also, given that philosophy seeks agreement -- at least I think it does, else why talk at all when you could just live? -- those are the sorts of appeals one makes in looking for agreement, or at least understanding.

Also, while it may be weird, I think it worth noting if something is private by way of a groups decision vs. something being private in some sort of universal sense. At least, from the philosopher's vantage. I can understand that sacred things may be kept out of the hands of philosophers (by choice, because it's inappropriate, or because all the philosophers disagree with one another anyways ;) ) -- it's not that everything is public, but philosophy is public just because of the rubric of reason. (though, of course, philosophers play with that, but generally speaking... naw)

The mystical cannot be true or false because this is a feature of propositions, not states of mind or existential encounters. It is what is said about these that can be true or false. So what if God actually appeared before me and intimated HER eternal grandeur and power? — Constance

Then that'd be between you and God, yeah? And whomever else saw her.

Maybe what you say of her is true. And, if I believe you, in the same vein, I'd have to believe others who say otherwise if I'm going to remain consistent (i.e., reasonable, like the practice of philosophy would have me do). And then it's pretty easy to see how people experience these things differently, upon listening to them. In some way I'd have to accommodate the apparent inconsistency. God is feminine, God is masculine, God has no gender -- since the purpose is guidance and consolation, it depends on the speaker's conviction of God rather than some fact of the matter. In fact, for someone who wants a person like themselves to be in charge of existence, it's better to think of God in that way.

But it's not consistent. And so it seems we've left the standards of reason behind in seeking to speak truth about the mystical, when the mystical is neither true nor false.

Language does not prohibit this; it is the content of language that prohibits this, that is, what is familiar and usual. Language is entirely open and even the Wittgensteinian Tractatusian prohibitions are not categorical. They rest on intuitions about logic, and these are, in Heidegger's terms, taking up the world AS: When logic speaks of logic's own delimitations, this is an imposition that occurs within the finitude of logic's application. — Constance

I think it's the familiar and usual which enables one to speak at all -- though we are free to re-tool language as we see fit (insofar that we are, in fact, free at least). There's not a strict prohibition on creative uses of language. That's the only way that it could be worthwhile -- because as the world changes, so does language, and vice-versa.

Really, the familiar or the exotic are a matter of perspective. If you're born in a Morman household, now, evolution isn't exotic. When I was growing up, however, it was. It was a strange thing that should be shunned because it conflicted with faith. Exoticism or everydayness is just a pattern of difference and habit.

And, for the most part, people are creatures of habit.

I'd hazard that in learning how to live habits are what are passed on. Rituals. That sort of thing.

Things which people hold dear.

But if a philosopher wants to call them true, then there's some work cut out for them in trying to resolve the various inconsistencies -- the Euthyphro, the naturalistic question, the mind-body problem, God's existence (and, thereby, all existential claims). . . it's kind of a huge project. And you wouldn't be the first philosopher to try. And, as it turns out, the philosophers -- even with the best of intentions -- sincerely disagree with one another in their attempts to apply reason to the problem.

And, for the most part, no one actually cares about "Religion within the bounds of reason alone" -- they want something beyond reason. Reason is seen as somehow not supplying a person with what they need. They need something beyond reason, something beyond language, something greater than themself.

So one wonders what the point is if you'll just be left there with your cathedral in the sky that makes sense to you, but that's about it.

For me, I still like to think about the anthropology of religion, and why it is so compelling. The idea that it will just fall away is simply naive, though. I'm pretty sure the traditions and practices will be preferentially selected among the religious over a philosophical product.

I do disagree here: Philosophy does have its grounding, which is firmly there before inquiry. — Constance

Heh, that might be a agree-to-disagree. We can mark our departure, at least. If philosophy has a grounding, I do not see it. Maybe it's firm. But I think it just goes back to an individual's convictions and desires (themself a social product of the process of life).

Hmmm, true. But just because it is not a popular issue doesn't help here. All that we know and accept as true was once not popular. — Constance

Yeh, but here I'm saying -- bury the hatchet. This distinction will be forgotten because it's just a blip in the history of philosophy.

You know, it really does take the reading. Consider that empirical science was there at the beginning of our acculturation and we were, in those early years, exposed to nothing but, through high school and beyond. — Constance

This probably goes some way to our disagreement, too, and goes some way to elucidate what I mean by everyday/exotic experience.

I was raised in a very religious household. I figured out science later. The arguments from experience and all that were my bread and butter, and I've seen how people in communities react to and use such arguments "in the wild", outside of the philosophers concerns. My skepticism in such things is based in experience -- hence my doubts about phenomenology leading one to God, but rather, from my story, it leads one to nature.

Oh, hell yeah. :D

Something that's weighty about teaching, and it's much the same with any position of authority. You just have power over other people's lives, if you're in a position of authority, whether you like it or not.

While learning to play a piano we develop an ethics of practice (hence my lamenting my lack of character)

While learning to read the Bible, there are many more ethical teachings which are about developing character to be a certain way.

And it's interesting to note, here, I think -- each discipline has a certain boundary of what's appropriate to say. A kind of ineffability, but only by way of collective practice. So it'd be inappropriate to develop much more than an ethics of practice when teaching the piano, it'd be inappropriate to develop an ethics of selfishness in teaching someone how to operate in a union, it'd be inappropriate to not address concerns about living life in a church (well, depending on the faith group -- it varies greatly, but is still developing people's ability to live their life)


But, also, I want to note how it's only because I care about others being free that I think a person should be developed to flourish on in their own way. It's an ethical commitment.

I don't believe that what can only be shown, not said, is effable, because I understand the word to denote that which can be clearly explained. — Janus

Sure, I'm on board. Interesting cases only.

Think of a culinary recipe, for example. If it is exhaustively set out and followed rigorously, results are guaranteed. To my way of thinking that would be an example of effability. No such definite instructions can be given for how to paint a picture, compose a musical piece or write a poem, because the requirement there is analogous to creating your own unique culinary dish.

I think we can't be taught a unique thing, but that character is developed in such a way that a person is set up to be creative.

To teach how to paint a picture we begin with the elements and principles of art, and those are similar enough rules that both masters and students use. And one's aesthetic sensibilities are developed by attending to the history of the art, both in terms of technique and in terms of movements.

So, yes -- it's an interesting case, but I think creativity can be taught. An uncreative person can be shown how to be creative. Or, at least, more creative than they were. So, we probably couldn't come up with a regimen which will be guaranteed to develop a Picasso, but we can teach people to be creative in the art for all that.

Don't look at me. I tried to discourage the reams of babble that emerged early on, to no avail. — jgill

:D -- I just embrace it. It's somewhat beautiful that we can babble on.

Not transferred, as nothing moves from brain to brain; the ability is developed, perhaps? — Banno

Yup, that works for me too. The ability is developed.

Notice the metaphor. It easily becomes reified.

What is transferred? In teaching someone to play, they become able to move their fingers in a certain way. In teaching someone to add, they become able to participate in a group of language games such as sharing, bookkeeping, calculating change. It's the action that counts, after all. — Banno

Upon learning how to play a person should be able to play, and able to judge, and set on a path where the student doesn't need the teacher but can progress in their own way.

So, yes, it's the action that counts. And it's public. "Behaviors" just has a connotation from psychology I'm not so sure about. Abilities might go better for me. I agree that one teaches others to be able. But part of that isn't just an ability, but just because of the way we are, part of it is how to live. A teacher rubs off on their students. So not only is ability transferred, but so is some ethical component.

Sure we can make distinctions. I just thought we were discussing the possibility of ineffability according to its common definition, rather than your “special” definition. — Luke

Well, I think that explains our collective confusion. :D

It would be wrong to treat teaching as moving something from one mind to another. It is better thought of as bringing about certain behaviours in one's students. Hence it is a public exercise.

Improving is a public enterprise. It can be seen, or it amounts to nothing. — Banno

I'm not sure what I'd want to construe teaching as, but it's what comes to mind when thinking about if something counts as ineffable -- if it can be taught, then it's not ineffable.

Institutionally, I'd say that the transfer isn't between minds as much as generations. Knowledge is transferred on to enough people that they can continue doing things together -- itself defined by the knowledge. In this sense, for what @Constance mentioned earlier, churches and such could count as store-houses of knowledge in the same way that universities are since they are institutions which transfer that knowledge down from one generation to the next. But then I'd say it's not ineffable -- strange, perhaps, to a naturalistic worldview, but not ineffable.

I think I'm hesitant with things like "behaviors" more than "public" -- I agree that it's public. But what counts as public may not always be behaviors.