What I think Wittgenstein is interested in blocking, as a sort of catastrophic misunderstanding, is taking a word as it used in one language-game, and bringing it into a another language-game where it is expected to play that same role, to have the same usage. — Srap Tasmaner

It's not just catastrophic misunderstandings, but also subtle misunderstandings, so subtle that much of the time they're missed.

Again, I agree.

The part where you're relaying a completely private experience, i.e., your experience is private. Of course if you're doing more than just saying your in pain, for e.g., screaming in pain, then it's completely appropriate.

Every time you post something, I don't see where we disagree. I'm just guessing as to where that disagreement is. I see where there is possible disagreement, but that's about it.

No, the referent in my private use is not what establishes meaning. I thought I made this clear.

it's actually very clear when I refer to 'my feelings' outside of Wittgensteinian ordinary language analysis, you mean how you feel about things. Or, with a philosophical veneer, you mean something which you take as equivalent to your feelings (not identical). So when I say my piles are a 'sharp, throbbing' pain, you have a very good idea of how I feel if you have the prerequisite experiences and are familiar with the words. 'sharp, throbbing' is my formative transposition of the feeling into language, just like these posts are a formative transposition of how I see us philosophically at odds. — fdrake

I don't see how what I've said differs from this quote. Of course you mean how you feel about things. I'm not saying it's senseless to refer to inner experiences. I think you're misinterpreting my analysis. I'm saying it's senseless if there is no social way of latching on to your inner experiences. I thought we were in agreement on this issue.

Maybe this is where the disagreement arises. We both seem to agree that language is social and that meaning is established socially. So let's suppose that after learning what it means to have a pain, i.e., I've learned how to correctly use the word pain in a variety of contexts, I then go on to tell you that I have a pain in my foot; and as I tell you this, I show no outward signs of pain. So your talking about pain in a very subjective way, i.e., I'm relying on what you mean by pain as you express some inner experience. There is nothing in what I'm saying that poses a problem here.

So according to your interpretation of what I claiming, it wouldn't make sense, or have a sense/meaning to make such a statement. However, this is not what I'm claiming. My claim is that we learn the correct use of the word pain socially as we understand the objective physical cries, moans, complaints, etc. All of us learn the use of the word in this way. After we learn the correct use of the word we can reliably associate it with our inner experiences, and since this is true, generally it's also true that when we talk about inner experiences, even though there is no outward signs, I can be reasonably sure that you're using the word correctly. However, the sense of the word is learned by the outward signs.

I tried pointing this out when I talked about having a private language, and doing mathematics privately. It's very similar, i.e., it's true that having a private language is not linguistically possible. However, this doesn't mean that I can't do mathematics privately, once I've learned mathematics. The same is true of words having a sense when talking about private experiences. Once I've learned how to use the words correctly, I can refer to my private experiences even though you may not see any outward signs of my inner goings on.

Note two things about this: First, you've already learned the correct use of the word within a social context; and second, correction is done in a social context. So if you were referring to the pain in your foot, but later I find out that you weren't using the word to refer to pain, but to a feeling of joy, then of course there was no sense to what you were saying. But generally people use such words correctly to refer to their inner experiences, but only after learning how to do it in the social context.

True, but not all uses of words that you think make sense, do make sense.

You may decide that the soul is not immortal. If Plato, for instance, asserts that it is immortal, his usage of the word is correct though you think his assertion is not. — frank

My point is whether the use of the word soul has sense, not whether there is something immortal that goes on after death. Besides even Plato can be wrong, and has been wrong about some ideas, even though I believe he is right up there with the greatest of philosophers.

Ah, I understand 'use' differently from you I think; all the cases of 'pain' I briefly profiled count as 'uses', and none of them are either 'correct' or 'incorrect': they are simply uses simpliciter. One can speak of the 'correct use' of a word of course, but this is not how I understand Wittgenstein's own deployment of the term (in the context of 'meaning is use in a langauge-game'). The contrast-space of 'use' here would simply be 'not a use in a langauge-game, rather than 'incorrect use'. — StreetlightX

One of the purposes of Wittgenstein's language-games is to show how it is that we mean something by our words, and how this comes about, this has been true since the Tractatus. This is important as we traverse this topic.

In his notes on On Certainty Wittgenstein is pointing out, as I understand it, that Moore's use of the word know is senseless, and it follows from this, I believe, that it's incorrect. Now I'm not saying that all senseless uses of words are incorrect, or that all language-games involving senseless words are incorrect uses, but that one of the features of incorrect usage is that the word is senseless. There are certain language-games where it makes perfect sense to talk in a senseless way, maybe to emphasize the senseless nature of a word, or to be funny. However, in some language-games using senseless words simply misleads us, especially in philosophical language-games. It's important to make a distinction between what's nonsensical and what's senseless. Without getting into a discussion of the differences between these words, suffice it to say that nonsensical tends to be a more radical misuse of a word than something senseless. A piece of nonsense tends to be completely devoid of meaning, whereas something senseless can appear to have sense, like the beetle example. The differences between these two words can be a bit vague, but I think you get my drift.

One more thing about correct and incorrect usage, since language is by it's very nature rule-based, it would seem to follow necessarily that one can speak of correct and incorrect uses of words; and of course in terms of Wittgenstein we see this especially true, I believe, in On Certainty. That said, not all language-games lend themselves to this view.

If someone was to compare the language-games of a primitive culture, where their knowledge was based on the movement of the stars, would it be correct to say that their use of the word know was incorrect? Note that in this example, the whole language is based around this notion, so it's not as though we could compare the use of the word know against other language-games within that language. All of the uses of know is this primitive language-game would revolve around understanding the stars and their movements.

Finally, there's more to Wittgenstein's language-games than meaning is just "not a use in a language-game," because the notion of meaning, which is at the core of Wittgenstein's philosophy, has to do with words having a sense. This gets back to my talk above about the word soul having no sense in much of the discourse of Christians. A language-game in itself may or may not have a sense, and that's one of the reasons I make the claim that one is being incorrect in terms of the use of a word or words.

It might be incumbent on you to demonstrate this. But seriously, how do Christians use this word incorrectly, or how is it like Wittgenstein's beetle? It has an established usage among Christians, AFAIK. — Luke

Yes, it's an established use among Christians, but just because something is part of a language-game, that doesn't mean it's correct usage, or more importantly that it has sense. My contention is that it has no sense, however, I'm open to another way of looking at it.

My point is that the way Christians use the word is exactly like the beetle analogy. They refer to this thing that's a soul, but what is it that they're referring too? Let's assume the beetle analogy for a minute. I can say many things about it in the abstraction, it's that part of me that continues after my death, or that it's this or that, but there's no way to confirm it. When I use the word pain there are outward signs that confirm that inner experience or thing, but there is nothing that can be associated with the word soul as used by Christians. Meaning is established as a rule-based agreement amongst people, and along with that, is the idea of being correct or incorrect. How do we know if we're even referring to the same thing?

If you trace the use of the word soul, and the way it's been used historically (outside of religion), it refers to the animation of the living body; and the animation of a body doesn't necessarily mean that there's something that survives the death of the body.

Am I saying there is nothing that survives death, no, I'm just saying that the use of the word soul in the Christian context has no sense.

I think that's a fair appraisal of it. What do you think the differences in our viewpoints are? — fdrake

I'm going to turn the question around, since it's you who had the bone to pick. :razz:

I agree with this absolutely. One of the motivations I had with picking a bone with Sam26 was to draw attention to the undercurrents of language. There's a lot of expressive, delicious and vital parts of language use that are pulled along by them. — fdrake

I actually agree with much of what you're saying. However, maybe what you're observing about my concentration on particular Wittgensteinian ideas, is not that I, or anyone else, is neglecting other important aspects of language, but that this emphasis is important to our understanding of philosophy. There are always other things that can be pointed out as important, and one should point them out.

I'm sure if we continue, we will find areas of disagreement as you probably have already. That's what makes the sharing of these ideas fun, and sometimes ego crushing. I know it pushes me up against the limits of what I think I know.

I'm not sure what 'correctly' means in this context. All the uses of 'pain' I sketched could be said to be 'correct' if generalizable ('publicizable'). — StreetlightX

I'm not necessarily criticizing your post, but only pointing out that use is not always a good indicator of the correct use of a word. Some people who read Wittgenstein necessarily equate meaning with use when it's not always the case. This same problem arises when we say that meaning has to be seen in context; and while it's true that both of these play an important role, we don't want to be absolutist about it.

The word correct has it's own problems, but generally we know if someone is using the word pain correctly or incorrectly. If for e.g., I'm learning English words and I confuse the use of the word pain with being happy, then it's clearly incorrect. This of course doesn't always mean that it's clear that a word is used correctly, sometimes people are just confused about the use of a word. Moreover, if I make a claim that a word is not used correctly, it's incumbent on me to demonstrate how it's incorrect. I've been making the claim that Christians generally use the word soul incorrectly, because much of the time it's exactly like Wittgenstein's beetle-in-the-box.

That's why how one uses a word doesn't always mean that one is using it correctly. It's also true of groups of people, for e.g., if certain religious groups use a word in a particular way, that doesn't mean they're using it correctly. People forget that although language-games tell us a lot about correct usage, they're are not necessarily good indicators.

What I'm trying to say is that if I express a feeling and its concomitant behavioral tendencies, that expression can be taken as the expressed feeling with no additional linguistic constraints. You either can or cannot see the aspects put forth in linguistic acts. — fdrake

If you express a feeling and its accompanying behavioral acts, then it is necessarily rule-governed, so it may or may not need other linguistic modifiers in order for meaning to be conveyed. Whether I "...can see or cannot see the aspects put forth [as] linguistic acts," is dependent on many things.

The privacy of feelings; that all feelings which are felt in my lifeworld are mine; can make it difficult to express the private thing, to guide the possible interpretations with the right words so that the other can cotton on to how that feeling is for me. The same goes for ideas that we have or opinions that we hold; it is always difficult to take the amorphous and half-formed and codify it into our shared canon of experience and language use. — fdrake

I agree, although I wonder about the use of mine, i.e., these feelings I have are mine. I think this may generate confusion, viz., the tendency to associate meaning with my feeling, as opposed to the shared social construct of language. There is a tension here that seems to force us to acknowledge that there is a private world, but this private world doesn't give meaning to our linguistic expressions, but it's necessary. We also don't want to restrict language to the point that we don't allow for novel thinking and expression. So sense is not a fixed or contrived border, but moves and expands, but ever so slowly around the fixed point (fixed point may not be the best choice of words) of what we already know or believe.

There is a struggle against the trappings of what is shared to express what is novel and singular; what is not already a habit or established permutation of language use. The private/public distinction paints the borders of sense as something demarcated beforehand; as a necessary condition for language use the beetle is not allowed out of the box. — fdrake

Yes, as I mentioned above, we have to be careful that we don't let the border between sense and nonsense become so fixed that we stifle creativity. Sometimes the beetle gets out of the box, as our expressions become clearer and more precise, and other times our words remain senseless because there is no sense to be had. However, it may be necessary for this to take place in order for language to grow and expand. It's like being in a maze, some paths lead to nowhere, other paths take us to new places, expanding our knowledge. Wittgenstein did this with his idea of language-games, and his method of inquiry.

Really, all I have is a suspicion that as uses of language are dynamic, languages evolve, uses are introduced for novel phenomena, and the box the beetle is in shrinks. Just as much as use is a contingent and yet constitutive activity of language, just as much as language is enmeshed in cultural norms, use frames language as the collection of the codified already sensible. Forgetting that use is as much the codification of the new as the reference of the established. — fdrake

I agree, but I'm not sure the box shrinks, the beetle sometimes escapes though, into the world of sense.

That's not an example. So Bob couldn't look at a person who is screaming and correctly use the word pain, viz., he couldn't tell someone else that Sue is in pain based on observation? That would be strange.

What use of the word pain would be beyond Bob's grasp?

To see if we're disagreeing or not, do you think that the public criterion is a necessary feature of language use? If it is necessary, why is it a necessity? — fdrake

I do believe that public criterion is a necessary feature of language use, so I don't think it's possible to have a private language. However, this is different from having a language and putting it to private use.

It's necessary because of the nature of language and following rules, i.e., since language necessitates rule-following, and rule-following is not a private endeavor, then it follows that having a language is not private but public. Sounds a bit circular, so let me give a deductive argument.

(1) If it's not possible to follow a rule privately, then a private language is not possible.
(2) It's not possible to follow a rule privately.
(3) Therefore, it's not possible to have a private language.

Of course then the challenge is show that premise 1 is true. What does it mean to follow a rule privately in this context. This doesn't mean that I can't do mathematics in a private setting, but to know that I've done it correctly needs to be shown objectively, i.e., publicly. In this case many mathematicians have their work checked by other mathematicians to validate correct use of the rules.

If it was completely private, then whatever I think is correct, is correct. Following a rule is by its very nature is public, and not private. Much more can obviously be said.

True, but the sense of the word isn't dependent on your private experience anyway.

Mary, prior to leaving Mary's Room, has never had the experience of seeing red.

Where John is talking about that experience, Mary does not understand.

Whether or not Mary can satisfy anyone with her usage of "red" is irrelevant. — frank

It's true in this example that Mary doesn't understand the sense of the word, there is nothing public here, so Mary has no sense of the word. I don't see in this example how Mary would be able to use the word. However, in my example of the use of the word pain, it's quite different. Bob doesn't feel pain, but he is able to observe along with everyone else the outward signs of pain, for e.g., moaning, crying, pleading, etc., so Bob is able to see how the word is used, and apply it correctly. Mary is not able to partake of anything public.

If someone has never experienced childbirth does that mean they can't use the word correctly? We don't always have to experience the same thing others do in order to understand the correct use of a word or concept.

I see. An expression of pain will be understandable to everyone except that rare person who has never felt pain, even if that person is a neurologist. — frank

I don't think you need to feel pain in order to understand the sense of the word. Surely I could understand the sense by observation, and thereby use the word correctly, giving it sense.

I don't follow. "Soul" under the langauge game model would be sensical. It would mean that non-existent entity to which Christians believe a person's essence resides. That their internal thought varies from their public use (I.e. they believe it existent) would mean that meaning really isn't use only if you're willing to delve into the phenomenal state of Christians, something I thought you wouldn't do. — Hanover

What I would say here is that just because we use a word in a language-game, as in the Christian use of the word soul, that that in itself doesn't mean it has sense. Consider Wittgenstein's beetle-in-the-box example, let's suppose that we develop language-games to refer to what's in each of our boxes - does it follow that the word beetle has a sense? No. The tendency is for people to take Wittgenstein's example of language-games and use, to be, the be all and end all of meaning, but it's not, and Wittgenstein never meant it to be.

The problem with saying that the soul is where the person's essence resides is that there is nothing public about such a thing. I could say for example, that what's in my box (beetle thing again) is where the soul resides, but it would be senseless because there is nothing public here. The same is true of Christians who point to the inner thing in reference to soul. There isn't anything public - as Wittgenstein points out - what we think we are referring to may be something quite different, it may be nothing, or it may be something changing all the time. The sense of the word soul has nothing to latch onto, which is the same with the beetle example.

Meaning isn't always use, we often use words incorrectly. Meaning isn't always driven by context either, and meaning isn't always driven by a language-game. Use has to be looked at in a much broader sense, and that takes place in everyday language. By everyday I don't mean that the man on the street is the one who decides meaning, but that meaning is derived across a wide linguistic swath. One also has to look at the original home of words in conjunction with language-games. It's not an easy thing to do.

Finally, it's not a matter of looking into the phenomenal states of Christians, quite the opposite.

By epistemic access I imagine a relation between a person and thing such that the person can come to know the nature of the thing. Which is a bit of a fuzzy idea. What I'm trying to say with reference to epistemic access is that what is 'private' is beyond our reach - epistemically inaccessible - and what is public is not. — fdrake

When it comes to what we know there are a variety of language-games in which we can make claims to knowledge. So in science we would appeal to inductive and deductive arguments (mostly inductive), but there are other ways of knowing such as: Linguistic training, I know that that is a cup, because that is what we mean by cup in English; knowledge through sensory experience, I know the orange juice is sweet because I tasted it; testimonial knowledge, I believe that X is true, because the testimony is reliable (most of our knowledge comes in this way); and pure reason or pure logic (tautologies). So there are a variety of language-games that use the word knowledge, and each of these is a correct use of the word, and each use is public. I say all this just to give some background of where I'm coming from.

Since each of these uses of the word know is public, i.e., that's where knowledge gets its sense, it's senseless to make a claim to knowledge outside this public use. So it's not, to my understanding, that knowledge of the private is inaccessible, it's that knowing makes no sense in this arena. Maybe that's what you're saying, I guess I didn't like the word inaccessible, but maybe it works.

Also I view these first-person events, like, "I am in pain," "I feel..." as very basic kinds of beliefs, or bedrock beliefs quite apart from epistemic considerations.

I would also say that what is private is accessible, but only in a public way (a slight variation on what you're saying), viz., what's going on privately has meaning as it's exposed publicly through our use of language.

Then I'm trying to say that this is a bit weird, as that each sensation, disposition or emotion can be made equivalent to a series of expressive linguistic acts. The privation associated with any sensation is only the privation of the event of feeling only ever happening to one person, but absolutely nothing to do with the sense of speech acts about it. This works in the real use of language as if the privation can be circumvented by the use of language (which pace the Wittgensteinian background we're working in is language simpliciter) to treat my pain event as equivalent in another's pain event within a language game. — fdrake

I'm not sure you can say, "...that each sensation, disposition or emotion can be made equivalent to a series of expressive linguistic acts." My understanding is that our pain is not equivalent to the speech act, but gets its meaning through the outward public expression. What you're saying reminds me of the idea that the word's meaning is associated with the thing, but it depends on what you mean by equivalent.

I agree that the private event, say, of pain, is only happening to one person, but I'm not sure I agree that it has nothing to do with the sense of the word pain. It has everything to do with the sense of the word, but only as it can be made public. So I can't point to my private sensation and think it will acquire sense without the public expression of the pain (beetle-in-the-box PI 293). The private experience isn't circumvented, it's only that meaning of the private sensation must be shown in the public arena of language use.

You seem to be using equivalent in a strange way, i.e., you say, "...to treat my pain event as equivalent to someone else's pain event within a language-game," but is this what we mean when we compare pains? If I say, "I have the same pain," do we mean that it's equivalent to a similar pain event that I might have, or is it akin, for e.g., to saying, "Stand here," where we don't need to have an exact point in mind, but rather a rough idea.

Which is fine, mostly. We don't feel particular dispositions, emotions or sensations from others, even if two people, A and B, are subjected to the same pin prick, A does not feel the pain that B feels and vice versa. But why should this entail that A's pain and B's pain cannot be part of the language game? Contrast this to A's pain event and B's pain event, which will never be the sense of the words about them. My point is that A's pain event and B's pain event can still be part of a language game, because a comparisons can be made. — fdrake

If someone says, "I've experienced the same pain," referring to a lumbar puncture, we understand what they mean, it's not as though we think that our pain experiences are different; so we can say it, and A's pain and B's pain is part of the same language-game. And what is A's pain event, and B's pain event, other than A and B's pain? It's true that the private experience itself doesn't give sense to the word, but that doesn't mean we can't speak about private sensations. The only point I would want to make is that the only way we can speak about these private sensations, is that we have something that's not private. Once we have the sense, then it follows that the language-games about private experiences do make sense. I'm not sure we are disagreeing.

So, what problem do I have with epistemic access being used as a criterion to demarcate that which may be a sense of a word (its use) and that which may not be the sense of a word (the invisible or maybe impossible referent of pain)? Just that epistemic access itself is part of a language game of knowing, philosophically transposed into the realm of language use simpliciter. — fdrake

I think I answered this already.

If we pay attention to the words people use when describing private sensations, emotions, states of mind, we can establish a kind of equivalence between them. Like two alcoholics on TV describing addiction unfelt by the audience. Establishing equivalence between things is something we do with words. — fdrake

No, argument here.

During the language game of pain comparison, people can offer a lot of adjectives to describe qualities of the pain. Some common ones are; sharp, stabbing, throbbing, blinding, maddening, dull, intense. There are words which connote different intensities of the sensation; like agony and discomfort. Those intensities can clearly be part of the language game, so why not something which is equivalent to the pains themselves within the language game? — fdrake

I think I've answered what you getting at above, but maybe not.

Long story short: epistemic access and establishing equivalence are both part of word use, rather than a transcendental precondition of them. — fdrake

Is this what you think I'm saying, i.e., that there is some transcendental precondition to word use? Because I definitely don't believe this.

Well, I tried to answer, and/or add to what you were saying.

Well, you have to look at the argument, which I give on the first page of this thread about half way down. What you're doing is giving an opinion, which is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't address the argument. Read the posts between me and Fdrake.

Another important point to make is that just because people are using a word or words in a particular language-game, that doesn't mean that those words have sense. This is also true of context. There are language-games that are used in philosophy and theology that are senseless. For example, the use of the word soul by Christians. The way they use the word in their language-games, the word's meaning would be completely derived by the inner thing, something that's equivalent to the beetle-in-the-box. Note though that they're using the word/s in a particular context, and within their particular language-game, and yet they are using in incorrectly, i.e., it has no sense. This is not how the word soul is used outside their context or language-game; so language-games and context are definitely not absolute. It's much more nuanced than this. One has to look at the birth of the word among other things.

Another way to think of some of this is the following: First the public (in terms of language and meaning), then the private. We can use words to refer to the private, but only if they have a public use, and that we understand that public use/meaning. The problem is that we want to reverse the process, and we do it without realizing we're doing it. We may even acknowledge the public meaning of words, but we end up falling back into ascribing a private meaning without realizing it.

For example, I might say that I understand what thoughts are based on our shared meaning of the word, i.e., the language-games that give meaning to the word. However, I might then think that because I understand this - that I can go on to say that I understand thinking or thoughts by thinking about my own thought, i.e., by introspection. It's here that we can easily go astray.

Your welcome.

But I don't think this goes far enough. The inner/outer or public/private schema is driven, or perhaps haunted, by a personal criterion of epistemic access. What I mean here is that because it isn't possible to feel another's pain, the language cannot be about, or be have the meaning of, particular instances of pain, only pain insofar as it plays a part in language games. — fdrake

I'm not sure of your point here. Are you saying that we have knowledge of private experiences, i.e., "I know I'm in pain?" Let's clear this up first. Much of what your saying I agree with, but this isn't clear to me. I'm specifically referring to your use of the phrase "epistemic access."

If experiences are inner, how could thoughts about them not be inner? And do I not experience my thoughts regarding my experiences? Would anyone think it odd to say "I remember I was thinking about my experience. . ."

I am puzzled as to why my experiences would be inner while my thoughts about them would be not. — Arne

That's a fair question, and one that can be confusing. I'm going to be repeating myself for emphasis, and to word it slightly different for clarity (hopefully).

Our inner experiences must be separated from how we talk about inner experiences, viz., what we mean by saying we have thoughts. So what we mean by a thought or thoughts is not connected with my having a thought/s. Again, experiences, or what we mean by experiences, is not dependent (in terms of meaning) on something inner. This is not to say that the inner experience isn't real, but only that what we mean by experience isn't dependent on inner awareness. So both words, and many others, thought and experience get their meaning from what we observe in each other; and these observations occur in the open. It's not like Wittgenstein's beetle-in-the-box where we can't observe what's in the box, i.e., we can see what it is for someone to mean something by their words, because we all can observe the thing in the box.

Your question is: "If experiences are inner, how could thoughts about them not be inner?" Again, good question, but I'm not saying that there isn't something inner happening, or that we're not expressing something inner. And yes, you do experience thoughts about your experiences. Again, what we mean by these words is not dependent on what's inner in terms of meaning, so if what I mean by these words is strictly based on something completely subjective, then the words have no foothold, thus no sense.

It really comes down to how we are using these terms, so if someone thinks that they're going to understand what a thought is, or what an experience is by observing what's inner, then they're confusing how it is that we come to mean something by these words.

Introspection reveals to someone that some of their thoughts can be expressed in words. Not that all such thoughts can be expressed in words. It isn't as if Mr Chomsky can assess all possible thoughts through introspection, even though he is quite smart. — fdrake

I'll just add some things to these comments.

The question, it seems to me, is, what does it mean to have a thought? How do we learn to apply the word thought? This is similar to the thread on beliefs, there are thoughts and beliefs that are expressed in actions, and it's the actions of a person that give rise to what we mean by thought, and what we mean by belief. Just as the word pain gets its meaning from observing the actions (moaning and screams for e.g.), so the inner experience is expressed as we act in the world. These actions then provide the backdrop for language and meaning.

I believe Chomsky goes wrong by thinking that thoughts are these inner private experiences, i.e., that accessing thoughts is a matter of introspection. For a belief, thought, or pain to have meaning there must be the outward manifestation, otherwise we could claim that rocks have thoughts.

What also seems clear is that for my thoughts to mean anything to you, there must be something in common, i.e., there must be something in common with my inner experiences and yours that is expressed in such a way that we all see that common thing. Language then grabs this outward commonality and calls it pain, thought, belief, intent, etc.

It could be that one's body takes up far greater space than the visible one which appears enclosed in the skin. — raza

I'm not sure what it would mean for our bodies to take up a greater space than what's visible. There's no evidence that that's the case. If you're using NDEs as examples I don't see it. One reason is that people are seeing their bodies from a 3rd person perspective - they're looking at their bodies from a place in space quite separate from their bodies. Also, even if the bodies energy extends further out from the body than is commonly thought, how is it that people having an NDE seem to move much much further than what you're speculating about? People have had NDEs where they're looking at Earth from a place in space, your idea wouldn't account for such an experience. For your account to be reasonable we would need some evidence that the body is larger than what we observe, and even if it is, it still wouldn't discredit these experiences.

Based on my studies of NDEs, I would say that the probability that we're living in a kind of simulation is high. My metaphysics include living out lives in many different possible realities, created by a single or multiple minds. I contend that consciousness lies at the bottom of all reality, and anything that exists is a product of consciousness.

You really don't need to study logic to have a good understanding of what the Tractatus is saying.

Since no one is responding to your thread Posty, I'll post a few things. First, one must keep in mind that the analysis in the Tractatus is an apriori analysis, and that logic is very important to this analysis. In the Preface to the Tractatus Wittgentein tells us that the book deals with the problems of philosophy, and if one correctly understood the "logic of our language," then these problems wouldn't be problems at all. "For there seemed to pertain to logic a peculiar depth--a universal significance. Logic lay, it seemed, at the bottom of all sciences.--For logical investigation explores the nature of all things (PI 89)."

So the purpose of the Tractatus is to put an end to philosophizing. How does Wittgenstein expect to achieve this? One must remember that Wittgenstein is still under the influence of the idea that words refer to things, so there is a logical identity between signs (e.g., names, but not names in the sense you might think), and what is signified by the signs (for e.g., objects, but objects aren't what you may suppose). So Wittgenstein wants to achieve clarity, and he sets out to do this first with his picture theory of language.

The point of giving the examples is simply to show that there is an objective component to harm, it's not just relative. In terms of justice one needs to show objectively that the harm done while administering justice is not out of proportion with the immoral act. Besides my only point is to show that all immoral acts involve harm, that's how we know it's immoral. How justice is administered is a matter of law, and that's a separate issue, but not completely separate.

My point above about facing a choice of harms is to show that in certain cases, like the drug case, where we are faced with two harms, we have to choose the lesser of the harms. Do I want to die, or do I want to take the drug with potential side effects. Generally with drugs one decides that the harm done by taking the drug is much less than the harm done by not taking the drug. The principle of harm is that one wants to always choose the lesser harm based on what is known at the time. In limited cases one might die by taking the drug, but the overall good is that the drug causes less harm to society, at least in theory.

Again, it always gets down to the harm done, and it's not always an easy decision, but generally it is.

Maybe in court you may need to quantify the harm to properly meet out justice, but in our everyday lives I don't see the need to measure the harm, whatever that means. In most cases we can see the difference in the amount of harm done, i.e., I can see that cutting someone's arm off without good reason causes more harm than lying to your parents about where you were at 1 am. So generally I don't see the need to measure the harm, unless there is some context where that needs to be done. Moreover, I'm not sure that measure is the right word.

My view of immorality is very straight forward and easy to understand. Everything that is immoral, i.e., all immorality involves harm in some fashion or form. That doesn't mean that it's always easy to see the harm, because some harmful affects can be very subtle, which is why we often disagree about what's immoral. I don't often use the word all when describing referring to things, but in this case I do; and while it's true that all immorality involves harm, not all harm is immoral. In fact, sometimes doing harm is the right thing to do, especially if you're faced with two choices, in which both will cause harm. In such a case, one should choose the action which causes the least amount of harm.

My view also includes the idea that what's immoral is objective, i.e., we simply look to see the harm done. If no harm, then no immorality. Again, though, it can be very difficult in some cases to see the harm, but in most cases it's clear. For example, in most cases of lying we can objectively see that there is harm done to marriages, businesses, friendships, and to our own character.

I can do that, I'll stop in from time-to-time to check on direction.

What do you want me to do exactly? It's going to be difficult to get people interested enough to actually read the Tractatus. Do you want me to keep an eye on the direction?

I have somewhat, though if you can re-point me in the right direction, I would gladly re-read them. — Posty McPostface

It's called a Wittgenstein Commentary, under philosophy of language. I start with the Tractatus.

I understand, it's a very difficult work. Have you read any of my analysis of the Tractatus?