I second that, and I also read OC somewhat in terms of trying to free errant philosophers from a 'picture' of inquiry and language. This picture is so dominant, so 'obvious', that criticisms of the picture tend to be understood by the enthralled in terms of that same picture that's being criticized. The toy skeptic takes a notion of language and the world for granted (as does all intelligible discourse, it seems.) — T H E

You've expressed it much better than I could. Thank you.

I've been pointing out that these basic mathematical propositions are hinges, so that generally we don't say that they're true or false, except in particular contexts. — Sam26

This contradicts what Witt says at OC 10. As you quoted: “'2x2=4' is a true proposition of arithmetic--not 'on particular occasions' nor 'always,'"
Moore’s proposition is not a mathematical proposition, obviously.

Is there somewhere in the text where Witt states that hinge propositions, or indubitable propositions, are neither true nor false?

Consider the negation of what?

Sorry to be a dull boy but I don’t recall the movie well enough, so I’m probably lacking some context. Maybe you could start another discussion about it in more general terms?

It’s a bit off topic. My guess would be that Jack’s doubts about the existence of the bartender is not a language game.

Just noticed this at OC 10:

''2 x 2 = 4" is a true proposition of arithmetic

:smile:

It seems to me that Grayling wants hinge propositions to be 'grammatical' distinguishable from distinguishable from contingent and thus dubitable propositions. And this is to miss the point completely. — unenlightened

Exactly. The entire point of OC (as I read it) is that some empirical or contingent propositions (hinge propositions) occasionally have the same indubitable status as do mathematical or grammatical propositions. Yet Grayling accuses W. of "muddling" them together.

I also find it ironic that Grayling views OC as "Wittgenstein's acceptance, at last, of philosophy's legitimacy as an enterprise". This also misses the point. I think it more likely W. begins his treatment with Moore's proposition of "This is a hand", for much the same reason that he begins PI with Augustine's view of language: because they are paradigm examples of errors made exclusively by philosophers.

406. What I am aiming at is also found in the difference between the casual observation "I know that that's a . . .", as it might be used in ordinary life, and the same utterance when a philosopher makes it.

Actualists still use the language of “possible worlds”, and did so before modal realism existed; the novel thing about modal realism is taking that kind of talk literally instead of just metaphorically. — Pfhorrest

Right, and actualists use the language of possible worlds metaphorically to talk about the possibilities of this world only, as I’ve been saying. If the possibility that this world gets permanently annihilated were to be realised, then there would no longer be “a world”, or logical possibility, or logic.

A "world" is just some state of affairs, whether you're a modal realist or an actualist — Pfhorrest

I don’t think so. It’s not “a world” for the actualist, because there isn’t more than one; there’s only this actual world.

...even in a future state of this world where everything is annihilated, it is still logically possible for something to exist. — Pfhorrest

What “world” would remain for something to exist in? It’s not that everything in this world would be annihilated, but the world itself.

Why is it logically impossible for a world to be permanently annihilated?

You said "The possibility (now) of there coming to be no possibilities (at some future time)". If there are no possibilities, then there is no possibility of something existing -- it is impossible for something to exist. If that was just misspeaking on your part, then nevermind. — Pfhorrest

If this world were annihilated, then there would be no possibilities. I probably should not have said in my last post: "It would remain logically possible for this world to exist again after its annihilation," I was just trying to be even-handed, but I actually don't see how this could be possible. It is possible there could be a big crunch where even the singularity gets annihilated. It's hard to see how there could be any possibilities left in that scenario, or anything left to call a "world".

If there could come to be a state where nothing exists, it would still remain (logically) possible for something to exist — Pfhorrest

I’m not saying it’s impossible that something exists - that would be absurd. Im saying it’s possible that nothing could exist, or that there could be “no world”.

It may be a possibility for the actual world to become empty, devoid of things. But that possibility is still the possibility of an empty world, not of some kind of non-world. — Pfhorrest

There is only one world for the actualist: this one. The realisation of the possible annihilation of this world would make it a non-world. It would remain logically possible for this world to exist again after its annihilation, but it would also remain logically possible for this world not to exist again after its annihilation; to remain a non-world.

How is that analogous? The possibility (now) of there coming to be no possibilities (at some future time) is not illogical.

Nope, because that's like saying "before there was time...". — Pfhorrest

I don't think that's analogous.

The realised empty possible world of the modal realist is equivalent to the actualist's unrealised possibility that this world could cease to exist.

You could talk about a time in which nothing existed though, or a possible world in which nothing exists. But that's still a time, or a possible world, respectively. — Pfhorrest

There is no realised and pre-existing possible world for the actualist like there is for the modal realist. No other worlds exist for the actualist but this one. A "possible world" for the actualist is just an unrealised possibility of this world. That's why it makes logical sense for the actualist to say "there's a possible world where there is no world". It's not some other world; it would be this one, if the possibility of this world's extincton were to be realised.

The presentist is like the actualist, while the eternalist is like the modal realist, just regarding time instead of possible worlds. — Pfhorrest

Yes, I get the analogy. The actual world is the one we inhabit, and all the possible worlds which exclude us cannot be realised for us. But, as with the static world of eternalism, it is not as though we could ever "switch" from one possible world to another, or change, anyway. The fix is in, and all possibilities are already realised. But I digress...

Does this mean you concede that it does make logical sense for an actualist to say "there's a possible world where there is no world"?

The modal realist says that other possible worlds exist in the same way that the actual world exists, but not that they are actual, — Pfhorrest

If "possible worlds" is just another name for "possibilities", then it seems uncontroversial that modal realists and actualists alike believe in the existence of possibilities.

The difference seems to be that modal realists consider those possibilities to be actualised (as other possible worlds), whereas actualists considers those possibilities to be unactualised (except in this world).

Both an actualist and a modal realist can use the language of possible worlds the same, they just take it to mean different things ontologically speaking. — Pfhorrest

Isn't the difference that an actualist considers what exists in this world to be all of the (i.e. the only) actualised possibilities, whereas a modal realist considers what exists in all possible worlds to be all of the actualised possibilities? Otherwise, what is the ontological difference between them? As you said, according to the modal realist, our world and other possible worlds "both exist the same way".

In that language of possible worlds, under either interpretation, it makes no logical sense to say "there's a possible world where there is no world". So in either case, it's not logically possible that there be no world at all. — Pfhorrest

This highlights the difference between actualists and modal realists, since modal realists view the possibilities (aka possible worlds) as already actualised, whereas actualists view the possibilities as what could become actualised, or how things might otherwise be in this world. Possible worlds are unactualised, unrealised possibilities for the actualist, who can conceive of the possible non-existence of this one and only world. For the actualist, there is no difference between "no world" and an empty possible world, because that possibility can exist only for this world, and that possibility has not yet been (or is not presently) actualised.

Not a contradiction? Or, at least, a reification fallacy? — 180 Proof

If the (i.e. our, this) universe ceased to exist, then nothing would exist. In other words, there would be “no world”, as it has been otherwise expressed here. Do you think that this cannot be expressed without contradiction?

In so far as "nothing" denotes not-exist, your statement is doubly self-contradictory. — 180 Proof

I admit it was very poorly written, but where’s the contradiction?

To clarify, it is logically possible (for an actualist) that there could exist nothing or “no world”.

Which sounds like Luke is asking not about an empty world, but about there being no world ("a non-existent world"). Maybe he is confusing the two? — Pfhorrest

As I understand it, modal realists consider what is possible (i.e. possible worlds) to be actual, unlike actualists who draw a distinction between what is actual and what is possible.

For modal realists, what is possible necessarily exists (as possible worlds).
For actualists, what is possible does not necessarily exist (and only what is actual exists).

This is why modal realists cannot admit the existence of nothing ("no world"): because the existence of something is possible, i.e. because possible worlds necessarily exist.

But for actualists, what is possible does not equate to what is actual (possible worlds are not actual), so the existence of nothing ("no world") is merely possible without being actual. For the actualist it is not logically impossible that nothing might exist, whereas for the modal realist it is logically impossible that nothing might exist.

As for your own version of modal realism where "actual" is indexical, presumably this means that the "actual" world is the one in which one (currently) resides/inhabits. This seems to imply that a possible world requires someone to inhabit it in order for it to be "actual". If so, then how can there actually be an empty possible world? Moreover, can there exist an actual possible world without inhabitants?

There could be no non-existent world even if modal realism were false — Pfhorrest

Sorry, I overlooked this. Why couldn’t there be a non-existent world (i.e. why couldn’t there be nothing) even if modal realism were false?

Then the reason you have offered for why there is something instead of nothing amounts to little more than: because there is something. But I don’t wish to suggest there’s a better response.

No, the building is just an illustration, a metaphor. — Pfhorrest

It seems to be much more than that given that it’s the reason you have offered for why it is logically impossible for there to be no world. The existence of possible worlds is why you say there cannot be nothing, even if one (or more) of those possible worlds is empty.

Imagine a building with infinite rooms (a Hilbert Hotel if you will) representing the set of all possible worlds. — Pfhorrest

So there is something rather than nothing because of the postulated existence of this building with infinite rooms...

An empty possible world is represented by a room with nothing in it. An absence of any possible world is not represented; there is no room for it. — Pfhorrest

So the absence of a possible world is impossible, even if that possible world is absent... :chin:

Why are there discussions on this topic instead of not discussions on this topic?

There is no possible world at which there is no world, therefore the existence of something is logically necessary. — Pfhorrest

From a modal realist perspective like mine, "actual" is indexical, so that question in turn becomes "why aren't we in the empty possibly world?" — Pfhorrest

What’s the difference between an empty possible world and “no world”?

There are possible worlds without me in them, and possible worlds with some alternate version of me in them but not this me. Those are not the actual world to me, though they are actual to anyone in them. Just like there were times when I didn't exist, and times with some earlier version of me in them but not this me, and those are not the present to me, but they are present to anyone in them. — Pfhorrest

A “possible world” is therefore a spacetime snapshot of this or some other (possible) world?

I agree you don’t know how it looks to me, but if we are talking about the usefulness of the concept of qualia, the relevant question here is whether I know how it looks to me. That is, whether there is a such a thing as an interpretation and context-independent fact of privately felt sensation. — Joshs

You can't convey the subjective character of "how it looks/feels to me" in language (such that others can know, e.g., how red looks to you), so there's no point in trying. Does this make the concept of qualia useless? It apparently finds its use in philosophical discussions.

Yes, and I’m sure I could spell the word ‘book’ when asked, but that doesn’t tell us very much about what the word means for me, how I’m using it, whether the color red is smooth or textured, whether it feels warm or hot or neutral, what shape or tone or saturation it appears within, whether it is still my favorite color. — Joshs

You can say all that publicly, like you just did. But I still don't know how the colour red looks to you.

Yes, but perception is itself a kind of ‘private’ language game. That is to say , what you want to call the felt sensation of red is not a stable primitive of experiencing but a bodily mediated interpretation. One can no more isolate a reproducible scenario of red that one can duplicate an expression of emotion. In both cases you have a complex interpretive activity that is context-dependent. How something looks or tastes in any instant of time cannot be separated from a larger whole of attitudes, perceptions and conceptions which are always transforming themselves. — Joshs

Maybe, but I'm sure you could pick out a red object if required.

What you are doing is inventing a use of the word qualia to refer to something that drops out of consideration as irrelevant. — Banno

I obviously didn't invent the word "Qualia".

That looks like naming a nothing. — Banno

"It’s not a Something, but not a Nothing either!"

It is as unhelpful as "Last night I saw upon the stair, a little man who wasn't there". — Banno

Depends what you deem to be "helpful". It seems relevant to the OP.

You might now say: "I have sensation S".

What is it that has been left out? — Banno

The character or quality of sensation 'S'; what it feels like. In Wittgenstein's argument, it is the private sensation itself, or what each person's beetle looks like.

In conversation - and there have been many on this topic, even here in this forum - these advocates seem to equivocate, talking as if qualia were just "red", "sweet" or "loud" on the one hand, and next telling us that there is something here that cannot be shared. — Banno

Wittgenstein's brilliant insight was that the character or quality of sensation 'S' is inessential to the use of the name ('S'). It does not matter how red looks to you or to me in order for us to competently use the word "red", because the word does not take its meaning from how red looks to you or to me, i.e. from some subjective character of the sensation. But, just because this character or quality "drops out of consideration as irrelevant" to the language game, this does not mean that there is no character or quality of how red looks to each of us. Given that we are human, red probably looks the same or similar to most of us, but this cannot be verified. Additionally, there is the randomness of evolution and biology to consider.

Nothing is left out, since "S" is the name of that sensation, so it includes everything about it...

As if names were somehow short descriptions. — Banno

As if the character/quality of qualia and subjectivity were somehow necessarily linguistic or communicable.

That's just a repeat of the same assertion. Why is it logically impossible for you to have another's experiences? — Isaac

Because I'd have to be that person in order to have their experiences. I can only have my own experiences.

You want to deny that the experiences you have are the ones in your head, you want to detach experiences from any physical origin, so you've no similar anchor. — Isaac

I've never said that.

You can perceive someone else's behaviours, but you cannot perceive someone else's sensations.
— Luke

Then where are these 'sensations' such that I cannot see them by any means. How do you detect them, but I can't? — Isaac

I can't perceive other people's sensations, either. I can only detect my own.

How do you know that "behavioural consequence is a property of your sensations"?
— Luke

So you're now positing that sensations have no consequence? — Isaac

I'm not positing anything. I asked you a question.

Yes, and we can verify the associated behaviours, speech and neural activity of sensations just by looking at them. — Isaac

But we cannot verify the sensations just by looking at them. That's the whole point.

We can either verify the phone by looking at the make and model or we can verify the make and model by looking at the phone, so it's not analogous.

I bet you if I looked at an fMRI scan of your brain I could tell you how you feel 75% of the time, and the technology is still in its infancy. Will it ever reach 100%? No, I don't believe that's possible — Isaac

If you can verify sensations "just by looking" at the associated behaviours, then why can you tell me how I feel only 75% of the time? Why will it never reach 100%? Can you only determine the make and model of someone else's phone 75% of the time? The difference is not a matter of technology. The difference is that you cannot perceive someone else's sensations.

I don't have pains unless I am consciously aware of them, or unless they hurt. I don't see how I've equivocated on this.
— Luke

There is no 'them' to be ware of. — Isaac

There are no pain sensations?

There's no 'pain' sitting somewhere in your brain fro your conscious to rummage around and find. — Isaac

That's the point I was making: I don't consciously look around in my brain for them.

You don't become aware of pain, you infer pain. — Isaac

Infer it from what? On the basis of what evidence or reasoning do I make this inference?

It is a model created from the the various physiological and environmental inputs that neural cluster receives. — Isaac

Pain sensations are an illusion?

If I'm not consciously introspecting and 'seeking out' pain signals, then I'm not the one doing it.
— Luke

Which is itself a contradiction. What is the 'I' in the first part. There's something you referred to as 'I' there which is not consciously introspecting. Then you say that there is no 'I' apart from that which is consciously introspecting. — Isaac

If it's not me (my conscious mind) doing the introspecting, then it's not me (my conscious mind) doing it. How is that contradictory?

Under the first model, the more reasonable presumption about experiences is that the same external causes acting on the same basic physiology in roughly the same social environment would yield roughly the same experience. — Isaac

Why say "presumption" if you can verify sensations "just by looking"?

To assume otherwise is to either impute a completely hidden cause — Isaac

All the causes and effects that you can measure are behavioural. How do you measure the sensations? How do you even know that the behaviours are associated with any sensations?

It's private because I've never known or experienced anyone else's sensations except my own.
— Luke

You might have done. You've not given an account of the origin or nature of 'sensations' under your model — Isaac

It's not a model. I'm telling you what I haven't experienced. As far as I know, it is logically impossible to experience such a thing, because I cannot have anybody else's experiences.

Perhaps there's not such thing as 'your own' sensations at all, by your definition. — Isaac

Perhaps there's no such thing as 'your own' brain at all, by your definition.

There are the inner sensations and the outer expressions, and you can never see or experience or verify what other people's sensations feel/are like.
— Luke

Again, that is the matter under discussion, so it doesn't help to pull it in as evidence for a conclusion therein. — Isaac

Then please explain how you can see or experience or verify what other people's sensations feel/are like.

In what way is the verbal behaviour not a form of access to their sensations? Is a ruler not a form of access to a thing's height? — Isaac

Because that's the distinction between behaviours and sensations. You can perceive someone else's behaviours, but you cannot perceive someone else's sensations. Therefore, you cannot perceive someone else's sensations by perceiving their (verbal) behaviours.

Since you can perceive both a ruler and a thing's height, these are not analagous to sensations and behaviours.

I thought I explained that. There's this equivocation over what constitutes 'your feelings of pain'. On the one hand they're some immutable private thing embedded in your body (and so inaccessible to others), but on the other they're whatever you currently think they are, which seems easily communicated. — Isaac

If I tell you how I feel, all you will perceive are my behaviours, not my sensations. If you could perceive my sensations, then I wouldn't need to tell you how I feel.

People generally use the term 'my feelings, or my memories, or my opinion...' to refer to some fixed object as if it were stored in their brain somewhere. That model is wrong. Those things are created in real time, not retrieved from some mental filing cabinet. If you don't have that model, such that when you refer to 'my pain' you mean 'whatever feeling, or memory of a feeling I happen to be creating at this very moment', then my description of your lack of access to it does not apply to you. The consequence, however, of that model is that it's a chimera, which you can never talk about because it changes in the very act of doing so. — Isaac

But I can still talk about having pains. "Whatever feeling, or memory of a feeling I happen to be creating having at this very moment" isn't a model.

But behavioural consequence is a property of your sensations - the behaviour they cause, the language used, the neural activity associated... These are not only real properties of your experience, but they're the only properties we have to measure. — Isaac

How do you know that "behavioural consequence is a property of your sensations"? That behaviours (or "behavioural consequence") are "the only properties we have to measure" is precisely my point. You can only measure behaviours; you cannot measure sensations. That makes sensations private and not publicly knowable.

Just like we look to make and model to determine if you and I have 'the same' phone. We look to behavioural consequence, associated neural activity etc to see that you and I have 'the same' experience. — Isaac

Again, this is not analagous. We can verify the makes and models of our phones as easily as we can verify the phones themselves: simply by looking at them. All the information required to verify whether our phones are the same make and model can be measured and/or perceived (in principle). The same cannot be said for our (i.e. other people's) sensations, however. You can only make inferences about other people's sensations by looking at the "behavioural consequence"; the sensations themselves cannot be measured or perceived.

You can only know of your pain sensations by being conscious of them
— Luke

See here you equivocate. Previously you assume direct access to your 'pain' by denying my model of inference. Now you're again describing your pain sensations as if they were some fact of the matter that you become aware of. Which is it to be? — Isaac

I don't have pains unless I am consciously aware of them, or unless they hurt. I don't see how I've equivocated on this.

And again here. If you're going to talk about your 'pain' as being just exactly that which you feel at some given time, and not that which is inferred from some other physiological trigger, then there is no 'access' at all. You make it up at the time, you're not 'accessing' anything. The only sense in which 'access' is coherent is a model where 'pain sensations' are a physiological thing which you 'seek out' by introspection. — Isaac

I don't think it's me doing this introspection; although it might be my brain. The problem here, again, is that you speak of my brain functions as if I were consciously performing them. That is, you conflate my conscious mental thinking with my brain's unconscious physical activity and refer to them both as "me" (or "you"). If I'm not consciously introspecting and 'seeking out' pain signals, then I'm not the one doing it. Just as, if I'm not conscious of my physiological "pain" signals, then I'm not having any pain sensations; I'm not in pain.

All of this of course assumes that, identical bodies produce identical experiences. — khaled

So it's no more than an assumption, right? Why can it not be anything stronger than an assumption?

Also, does this imply that near-identical bodies produce (only) near-identical experiences? Perhaps this is what @Isaac is getting at with his talk about 'sameness'.

If you were talking only about your conscious experience of pain, that which is in your mind as being an experience (regardless of it's origins, or historical accuracy) you would have absolutely no ground at all to say that such an experience was unique, or intrinsically private. How on earth would you know? — Isaac

That's my question to you: how do you know that it isn't?

There might be a set of only a dozen such experiences identical in all humans which we consciously experience one of on each occasion. If you are solely talking about your personal experience, uninvestigated, and unsubstantiated, then on what grounds would you even suspect it to be unique, private...? — Isaac

It's private because I've never known or experienced anyone else's sensations except my own. I've known and experienced lots of other people's behaviour, though.

Your argument about privacy relies on an assumption about the causes of experience, an assumption that those causes are so multifarious that their rendering must be unique, that those causes obtain inside you and so are not accessible to others, hence private. — Isaac

My argument for privacy is that you cannot have other people's experiences/sensations; you can only have your own. Therefore, there is no way to compare your sensations with other people's sensations in order to verify whether or not they are alike.

Presumably, the reason for these expressions of pain are (consciously experienced) pain sensations.
— Luke

Why 'presume'? — Isaac

In accordance with my argument that you cannot access other people's sensations in order to compare and verify whether they are alike.

I've cited a dozen papers now in our various discussion on the topic. I've done my best to explain the current theories of active inference, yet without any contrary citation at all you just 'presume' that what I've said and what all the collected neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists I've cited have said, is wrong — Isaac

Sorry, I must have missed them. You haven't cited any of them in your posts addressed to me.

and that there are such things as 'pain sensations' which cause expressions of pain. — Isaac

Maybe "cause" is not the right word. But it's irrelevant. There are the inner sensations and the outer expressions, and you can never see or experience or verify what other people's sensations feel/are like.

People's heights are not private. You can see and measure how tall someone is. You cannot see or measure someone's pain sensations which are private.
— Luke

You can ask. — Isaac

All you will get is a (verbal) behaviour. You still won't be able to see or access their sensations. You saying "it looks red to me" doesn't help if we have inverted qualia.

But more to the point you don't have access to that particular set of signals either.
— Isaac

What particular set of signals?
— Luke

Whichever signals you're interpreting as your being 'in pain'. — Isaac

How can I not have access to my own feelings of pain? But if, instead, you mean my brain signals instead of my feelings of pain, then why did you say earlier that neither of us can have access to those?

FMRI scans can measure pain sensations. — Isaac

Sensations or behaviours? How does it measure the sensations?

The point here is disputing your claim that it's not about how we use 'sameness'. — Isaac

That wasn't my claim; that's a claim you've attributed to me. I have conceded that we could all have the same experiences. That wasn't my point. As I said: "We could all have the same experiences, but do we? Probably, but who knows? How can we know?"

The point of Wittgenstein's Eiffel Tower example is — Isaac

I'm not familiar with that example. Do you have a reference?

1) the exact range of sensations are like the exact scratches on your phone, or the dimensions to the nanometre, we don't use those properties to talk of 'sameness' when it comes to phones. Why should we use them to talk of 'sameness' when it comes to experiences? — Isaac

Accuracy is irrelevant to my argument. It's the fact that we cannot access other people's sensations in order to compare them. You can access their "neural regions involved, behaviours produced, words used to describe it...etc", but whether these are associated with the same sensations seems like little more than an assumption. How can you prove it?

Your conclusion that experience is radically unique and private is hooked into a model of it being caused by these unique and private 'pain sensations'. that is a) a psychological model and b) wrong. — Isaac

Pain sensations are necessarily psychological. This is what I don't understand about your neuroscientific explanations. You can only know of your pain sensations by being conscious of them, yet you talk about unconscious brain activity instead and claim that what is presented to consciousness provides us with an inferior knowledge of pain compared to our neuroscientific models. But you wouldn't even know pain sensations without consciousness. Therefore, you're not actually talking about pain sensations at all.

Hence, accessible to no-one would not count as private. — Isaac

You still haven't explained how pain sensations are hidden or indirect or inaccessible to us both. I have direct access to my pains when I feel them. Where do you think pain sensations are really hidden?

But you would talk of private sensations:

246. In what sense are my sensations private? Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it. In one way this is false, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word “know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know if I’m in pain. Yes, but all the same, not with the certainty with which I know it myself! It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What is it supposed to mean a except perhaps that I am in pain?

Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.


In one way talk of private sensations is false, and in another nonsense.

You would perhaps talk of private subjective stuff; and speak either falsehood or nonsense. — Banno

What do you take all of this to mean?

I think it could be argued that, on the one hand, Wittgenstein says it is nonsensical to make knowledge claims about one's own sensations or the sensations of others. On the other hand, he also says that it makes sense to doubt (and, hence, to make knowledge claims about) the sensations of others.

However, I agree with Wittgenstein that it does not make sense to doubt or to know one's own sensations. But you should try telling that to @Isaac.

I assumed you would disagree with this: "Wittgenstein is not making the case that we do not have private sensations, only that we cannot talk about them". That is, I assumed your position to be that the private language argument implies the impossibility of private sensations. Otherwise, why were you complaining that we should be discussing the private language argument instead of the privacy of subjective experiences?

Also, I'm still curious: How is "private subjective stuff" an outcome of our language?

The term "intersubjective" suggests that somehow these private sensations can be recognises in someone else, such that we can speak of "shared" experiences. — Banno

How do we recognise private sensations or how are our experiences shared? By seeing other people's behaviours, not their sensations. We can only assume that other people have the same sensations when they behave the same way. We cannot verify the sensations. This is the point of Wittgenstein's beetle and the private language argument: our sensation terms refer to our behaviours/expressions (e.g. of pain), not to our private sensations.

"If we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and name’, the object [i.e. the private sensation] drops out of consideration as irrelevant."

However, the private sensation is only irrelevant to the use of language (i.e. to the language game); it is not irrelevant to us. Our private sensations are very important to each of us, subjectively. Wittgenstein is not making the case that we do not have private sensations, only that we cannot talk about them. We can refer to them or point to them, using the name "sensation", but the we cannot talk about or describe the sensation "object" that drops out of consideration as irrelevant to the language game. Moreover, private sensations are not language, and the impossibility of a private language need not imply the impossibility of a private sensation.

281. “But doesn’t what you say amount to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behaviour?” — It amounts to this: that only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious. [my bolding] — Wittgenstein

The dissolution of this apparent contradiction comes about by recognising that what was taken to be private subjective stuff is instead an outcome of our shared language — Banno

How is "private subjective stuff" an outcome of our language?

Well, I thought I did, in the very bit you quote — Banno

I see no mention of language use in that quote; only a very specific mention of subjectivity.

You are trying to make it about the privacy of subjective experience again, instead of the way we use language. — Banno

Uhh, yeah? We've been discussing subjectivity. If the topic of discussion was intended to be the private language argument, then you should have made that clearer in your OP:

If there is a private subjective world, then by definition you cannot see into mine, nor I into yours. and it would not be possible to confirm any commonality.

How can subjectivity be shared? — Banno

Also, you've barely participated in the discussion for the last 20 pages, so why should we change the discussion to suit you?

Why do we need to "predict" what pain is? Why does someone who is in pain, after stubbing their toe, need to make any predictions?
— Luke

Evolution. Why do we 'need' to have camera eyes and not compound eyes? Why do we 'need' to have legs and not wheels? We just do predict the causes of sensations, it's how our brains work. The cognitive scientists who develop these theories don't just make this stuff up on a coffee break you know. — Isaac

You misunderstand. I mean that most people simply have pain without needing to make any predictions. But this highlights our differences in talking about the issue. You're talking about our brains making predictions, which happens unconsciously, whereas I'm talking about our conscious experiences of having pain sensations. I'm not aware of my brain making "predictions" and I find it a strange way to talk about prediction. I only understand making predictions consciously, like if I say I think it will rain tomorrow. Do our brains have pain sensations? This is why I mentioned a category error before.

Children feel all sorts of things and respond to them. That some of those thing should be labelled 'pain' is obviously something children only learn when they learn a language. That some of these things fall into on group and not another is something they might learn pre-linguistically by observing others in their social group. The idea that they have some kind of 'natural grouping' of some of these sensations which they're just waiting for a label for has been quite soundly refuted by the evidence from psychological studies. It's not, of course, universally held. There's disagreements, but if you want to discuss those disagreements you'll need to cite the studies proposing them so we've got something to discuss. — Isaac

You want me to cite the studies proposing the disagreements that you're referring to? I don't know these studies. I had in mind something along the lines of Wittgenstein:

244. ...How does a human being learn the meaning of names of sensations? For example, of the word “pain”. Here is one possibility: words are connected with the primitive, natural, expressions of sensation and used in their place. A child has hurt himself and he cries; then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behaviour.

257. “What would it be like if human beings did not manifest their pains (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word ‘toothache’.”

Presumably, the reason for these expressions of pain are (consciously experienced) pain sensations.

Did you even read the whole section I wrote after this? Two people's heights are radically different too at the nanometre scale. so now we can't ever say two people are the same height. I don't have a nanometre calibrated ruler, so now I can't say I 'know' what height a person is? — Isaac

This misses the point. People's heights are not private. You can see and measure how tall someone is. You cannot see or measure someone's pain sensations which are private. You can only see and measure someone's pain behaviours which are public.

Every single instance of every single object, property or event is a fuzzy categorisation based on similarities and ignoring certain differences, otherwise we would simply have a billion nouns and be inventing new ones all the time. It's normal to group things by similarity at some scale. — Isaac

You're trying to make this about language again, here, instead of the privacy of subjective experience. It's a given that we use the same words to refer to the same sets of behaviours.

But more to the point you don't have access to that particular set of signals either. — Isaac

What particular set of signals?

It's not private (in the sense that you have access and I don't) it's hidden, in the sense that neither of us have access. — Isaac

What is hidden from us both?

I have indirect access to it via your self-reports, your behaviour, fMRI scans etc. — Isaac

What "it" are you talking about here? My pain sensations?

You have access to it via your working memory, your sematic centres, your somatosensory feedback systems. — Isaac

Are these supposed to represent (my conscious awareness of) the pain sensations that I feel?

Neither is more direct than the other, neither is privileged, neither more accurate. — Isaac

I don't understand. My pain sensations are not accurate? Do I not have the exclusive privilege of having my own pain sensations?

Why can't you be sure about this? Is it due to the privacy and inaccessibility of knowing the subjective experiences of other people?
— Luke

Inaccessibility, yes. Privacy, no. As above, you don't have access either. — Isaac

I don't have access to my own subjective experiences?

So far the best access is from computational neuroscience, but even that is limited by it's own models. Nonetheless, it's better than your own guesswork based on what we know for a fact to be flawed memories and socially mediated self-reports. — Isaac

I still have no idea what "it" you're referring to here. I'm talking about conscious experiences of pain sensations. I don't understand how that can be inaccurate or guesswork. Does someone in pain need to guess whether they're in pain?

fMRI scans, conversation, behavioural observations... — Isaac

These can only measure pain behaviours, not pain sensations.

If these aren't enough for you to know we have the same experiences, then it is a question of 'sameness'. — Isaac

They're not enough, because there is no way to verify the sensations themselves. It is assumed that the same behaviours are caused by the same sensations, and they probably are. But it cannot be verified.

If they have the same neural signature, the same behavioural response, if we understand each other when we talk about them, even in intricate detail, then we've just as good a reason to call them 'the same' as we have to say you and I have 'the same' phone. — Isaac

We can compare and look at each other's phones, though. That's the difference.

Private does not simply mean 'not publicly known' to me. There's a difference between unclaimed property and common land, though neither is privately owned. — Isaac

I don't follow why 'not publicly known' is an insufficient definition. It would be clearer if you could define what 'private' does mean, instead of what it does not mean.

When you stub your toe, thousands of neurological events take place, and probably hundreds of mental events...

Of these thousands, some of them we infer as 'pain'. How do we decide? The answer is that we decide by applying predictive models of what sensations are likely to be caused by, — Isaac

Why do we need to "predict" what pain is? Why does someone who is in pain, after stubbing their toe, need to make any predictions?

The mere existence and use of the word 'pain' in association with behavioural cues goes into making up those models by which we interpret the thousands of signals rushing around at the time of stubbing our toe. — Isaac

You talk of pain as though it is something that requires discovery or deduction. How does a child infer and predict their own pain without knowing the word for it? Do children not feel any pain before they learn how to use the word 'pain'?

Pain is the model, not the signals the model infers from. The signals might be radically different (in their entirety), but the model is not. — Isaac

Yes, that's my point (assuming by 'signals' you mean pain sensations). Once again, I'm talking about the privacy of subjective experience, not the privacy of language or the privacy of the use of the word/model "pain". The pain sensations might be radically different. Indeed.

Is it different at all? Yes, probably. — Isaac

Why can't you be sure about this? Is it due to the privacy and inaccessibility of knowing the subjective experiences of other people?

But this causes us no linguistic problems normally. — Isaac

I'm not arguing for the privacy of language.

None of this usually affects our talk of 'sameness', and for good reason. — Isaac

It's not a question of 'sameness', either; it's a question of privacy. We could all have the same experiences, but do we? Probably, but who knows? How can we know?

Spell it out then. What does Luke mean by 'private' that I've thus far misunderstood. — Isaac

Nothing special. In this context, I'm using 'private' to mean 'not publicly known'.