To continue with this thought, if I ask someone “do you know how to ride a bike”, and she proceeds to repeat the manual on how to ride a bike. Does she have knowledge, or just demonstrated recall of a manual? I give her a bike and she cannot ride it, she does not know how to ride a bike. — Richard B

Do you believe it's impossible for someone to learn something only by telling them how? If I tell you how to turn the television on by saying "press the big red button on the remote control", do you think it impossible to know how to turn the television on?

Seems that Luke may have been distracted by the word "know". — Banno

Yeah, I get "distracted" when you make contradictory claims.

Here's were that is from:
Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. But that's not something it makes sense to add to the list!
— Banno
Suppose I had instead said,
"suppose someone had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would they then be a bike rider? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. But that's not something it makes sense to add to the list!" — Banno

Why are you asking me to suppose this? How about you reply to my previous post instead? But fine, I'll play along.

Firstly, what counts as a "bike rider"? Is it someone who knows how to ride a bike or is it someone who is riding a bike? Presumably it's the latter since you are now trying to distance yourself from your contradictory claim regarding knowledge.

So your question then becomes: "suppose someone had a list of the instructions of riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would they then be riding a bike?"

No. Obviously, it doesn't follow that a person with a list of instructions is riding a bike.

Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. But that's not something it makes sense to add to the list!" — Banno

So, in conclusion, riding a bike is not something to add to the list of instructions. So, what was your original point supposed to be? I can't make sense of the quote if it isn't about knowledge.

What would you make of that? — Banno

I would wonder why you asked whether a person with a list of instructions is riding a bike. I would also wonder what that has to do with the present discussion on ineffability.

Furthermore, I now wonder why you are trying to pretend as though your point was not about knowledge when it clearly was.

For example, prior to the above quote, in your second post to this discussion, you said:

If what we know is believed, justified and true, it is propositional, and hence statable. But can one put into words how one rides a bike or play guitar? Tacit knowledge is a candidate for the ineffable. — Banno

The only reason I can see for you now backpedalling on this knowledge issue is because you have finally realised that the original quote (at the top of this post) is indefensible and inconsistent with your beliefs about ineffability.

Allow me to try a different tack which may clarify the issue. Let's say I agree with you and @Banno that nothing is ineffable. Firstly, let's define "ineffable":

Dictionary.com defines "ineffable" as: "incapable of being expressed or described in words."

This is the sense with which I have been using the term.

Now, I agree that nothing is ineffable, including knowledge. However, I disagree with you and Banno in your shared claim that a list of instructions cannot give one knowledge-how, no matter how detailed the list. I find this to be inconsistent with the view that nothing is ineffable.

I will attempt to demonstrate this in response to your post.

Here attempting to lay out more against the case that know-how is ineffable (at least in some absolute sense, though I've granted the relative sense when someone hasn't learned something yet, but could) — Moliere

It's unclear to me what you are granting "in the relative sense" here. If someone hasn't learned something yet, then they don't have the knowledge (or know how) yet. Are you granting that their lack of knowledge is ineffable? They can't say what they don't know?? That's a bit trivial...

Still going along my materialist thought line . . . — Moliere

What is effable (or what is effed) is that which is said or written down in a public language - in the world - among a community of language speakers. What could be more materialist than that? I have no qualms with that.

If that be the case, then statements, all unto themselves, are never knowledge. — Moliere

"Statements, all unto themselves" is a strawman that you have attributed to those opposing your view. I don't recall anybody saying that nobody would be using the list of instructions. My criticism has been wholly in response to Banno's claim that an exhaustive list of instructions will not give one knowledge of how to ride a bike. I don't believe that Banno meant or implied that such a list of instructions is supposed to exist independently of any language users. I had assumed that an expert on bike riding would write them, and someone who didn't know how to ride would read them and attempt to learn how to ride using them.

In the toy model of knowledge they roughly correspond to "beliefs" — Moliere

That's why I have tried to restrict the preceding discussion to knowledge. It's mainly because Banno's original claim was about knowledge, viz. that a list of instructions cannot give one know-how. But it's also because knowledge has a close relation to beliefs, statements and therefore to effability; to what can be stated. For some reason, you and Banno tend to shy away from talking about knowledge when it comes to effability.

...but given that we don't need to believe the statements to know-how that's not quite right (because knowledge is in the body, rather than a set of true statements/propositions... — Moliere

You are supposed to be making a case for effability, or against ineffability. A set of statements/propositions - i.e. explicit knowledge - is something that is clearly effable (or effed). Unspoken knowledge which may or may not be "in the body" is not clearly effable.

So why doesn't this count as ineffable, if we aren't even tied to the words really, but just use them to enable? — Moliere

As you appear to recognise, you are making a case for the opposition, for ineffability, instead of making a case that all knowledge is effable.

I think it's because these things can be taught to others. I can refer to my knowledge, and show it to someone, and they can learn. So, at least, there's a connection of some kind between us in the transfer of knowledge. — Moliere

You appear to imply that some knowledge can only be shown and can't be said. The part of the instruction which needs to be shown is unspoken; uneffed. I believe this was Wittgenstein's distinction between showing and saying in the Tractatus. If it is necessary to show it to someone, because it can't be said, then it is ineffable.

And while transferring knowledge to others, at least, I cannot do it without words. — Moliere

Saying that you "cannot do it without words" is vastly different from saying that you can or can't do it entirely with words; which is the point I've been disputing with Banno, and which is relevant to establishing whether any knowledge is ineffable.

Even in teaching someone to ride a bike, which is primarily a know-how with scant words, I'd still use words to transfer that knowledge to someone else. I could, as an exercise, attempt to teach without any words whatsoever, but it'd be much harder than if I'd just communicate while showing. — Moliere

I don't see how this supports the argument that no knowledge is ineffable. You say here that you might be able to provide instruction without language, but I don't see how that helps since effability requires language.

Now, if riding a bike were ineffable, I couldn't teach it to someone... — Moliere

This is why I'd prefer to restrict it to knowledge. I don't understand what "riding a bike is ineffable" means. However, I clearly understand what "knowing how to ride a bike is ineffable" means. It means that the knowledge of how to ride a bike cannot be put entirely into words or into verbal/written instructions, such that another person can learn how to ride a bike from those instructions alone. And that's precisely Banno's claim - he is claiming that knowing how to ride a bike is ineffable.

And, given that knowledge is in the body it's also relative to the body, so for some it is ineffable. — Moliere

Yep. Why do you say it isn't?

...for most creatures like myself it's only ineffable prior to the doing. — Moliere

Are you saying that the knowledge of how to ride a bike is ineffable prior to learning how to ride a bike? Or - assuming that you have already learned how to ride a bike - are you saying that you don't know how to ride a bike while you aren't riding it?

The former makes some sense, I suppose, since you don't have the knowledge in order to verbalise it. The latter, however, makes no sense at all - you have learned how but you don't know how.

Is riding a bike really the same as mystical or metaphysical claims? — Moliere

Meh, the specific argument I'm making in relation to knowledge doesn't require any mystical or metaphysical claims. My argument is against Banno's contradiction, not for either prong of that contradiction (i.e. neither for ineffability nor for a completely effed list of instructions).

Until this point, I realise that I have not addressed the issue of actually riding the bike. The exhaustive list of instructions purportedly contains all the knowledge of how to ride the bike but does not provide one with the knowledge of how to ride. That extra piece of knowledge can only come from the actual riding of the bike. But wait. Does that mean that the list of instructions does not contain all the knowledge of how to ride? Is there some knowledge missing from the instructions that one gains from riding the bike? That can't be right because Banno said that riding the bike neither adds nor is knowledge. I wish one of you could tell me what knowledge is missing from the list of instructions or why one cannot learn how to ride from the list of instructions alone. Perhaps the part that you are unable to tell me is ineffable?

What's missing is the riding of the bike.

That was my point way back on page one. — Banno

Why not simply retract the claim that you made about incomplete knowledge back on page one (which I've quoted ad nauseum) since I've demonstrated it to be inconsistent with your claims about effability?

1. If no knowledge is ineffable, then all the knowledge required to know how to play/ride can be made explicit and included in a list of instructions. That is, a list of instructions can be completed.
2. However, you claim that a list of instructions cannot give one knowledge of how to play/ride, no matter the level of detail. That is, a list of instructions cannot be completed.

Contradiction.

None.

What's missing is the riding of the bike.

That was my point way back on page one. — Banno

That has nothing to do with KNOWLEDGE. You made a KNOWLEDGE claim. You said that the KNOWLEDGE (know how) provided by the instructions is incomplete no matter the level of detail.

I'm sorry you are finding this so hard.

I'm not surprised you don't read me very closely, but I am surprised you don't read yourself very closely:

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. — Banno

The experience [of riding a bike] neither adds to, nor is, one's knowledge of riding a bike. — Banno

Now remember, the riding of the bike has nothing to do with knowledge. And your claim was about knowledge.

The question I've put to you numerous times now is why that knowledge is not included in the instructions.
— Luke

And i've answered you, repeatedly, with examples, that it can be, and that's what makes the tacit knowledge explicit. — Banno

Then why can we not know how to ride a bike despite having a list of instructions to whatever detail we desire? As you said yourself:

The experience [of riding a bike] neither adds to, nor is, one's knowledge of riding a bike. — Banno

You say that no matter what level of detail we have in the instructions we still wouldn't know how to ride, but you also say that riding a bike adds no knowledge. So what knowledge is missing from the instructions?

Hence that which is tacit is not thereby ineffable. — Banno

You seem to keep forgetting that we are discussing tacit knowledge. I have never denied that tacit knowledge can be made explicit. The question I've put to you numerous times now is why that knowledge is not included in the instructions.

You made the dubious claim on page 1 of this discussion that the explicit knowledge given by the list of instructions could be "to whatever detail we desire" and yet we still wouldn't know how to ride/play:

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. — Banno

An argument later considered and dismissed, since it is a simple issue to state things that have hitherto been unstated.

What appeared to be the ineffable bit is just the doing, the getting on the bike and riding it. — Banno

This has nothing to do with knowledge. The "riding of the bike" is not knowledge. As I said in my last post:

Bear in mind that the act of riding or playing is not knowledge. You might say this demonstrates knowledge. Okay, then what knowledge does it demonstrate that cannot be made explicit and included in the instructions on how to play/ride? — Luke

Again, if it can be included in the instructions, and we can have those instructions "to whatever detail we desire", then why wasn't it included in the instructions in the first place? If it can't be included in the instructions then it's ineffable. Your dubious assertion implies that not everything can be included in the instructions, because the instructions are insufficient for knowing how to play/ride. There is some knowledge missing from the instructions, otherwise they would be sufficient for knowing how.

indeed, which is it? The position of the knob or the timing of a note are tacit yet stateable. — Banno

First explain in what sense either of them are tacit knowledge.

These seem like things which - if known - could be included in the explicit instructions of how to play. So why wouldn’t they be?

If it can be stated, then it can be included in the explicit instructions on how to play.
If it can’t be stated, then it’s ineffable.
Recall you asserted that the explicit instructions alone are insufficient for one to know how to ride/play.
Therefore, there is something that cannot be stated, in principle, according to you.
Otherwise, everything necessary to know how to play could be made explicit and included in the instructions and the instructions would therefore be sufficient for one to know how to play.

So why do you assert that the explicit instructions alone are insufficient to know how to play? What knowledge is missing?

Bear in mind that the act of riding or playing is not knowledge. You might say this demonstrates knowledge. Okay, then what knowledge does it demonstrate that cannot be made explicit and included in the instructions on how to play/ride?

But tacit know-how is, if not stateable then demonstrable. — Banno

Not stateable = ineffable.

LOL. I must not understand my question because you don’t?

Yes, what you described does not answer my question. The reason is because I asked about tacit knowledge and you described a situation in which you lack knowledge. Did you think that “tacit knowledge” meant a lack of knowledge?

And I can go back to insults? That’s rich. I’m not the one telling people to “fuck off” as a substitute for an argument, Banno. That’s you.

Sounds more like a lack of knowledge than any tacit knowledge. :roll:

Unstated or unstateable? — Banno

That can be determined by finally answering my question: if tacit knowledge is effable, then why is it not included in the explicit instructions in the first place?

Is there something about the lick that cannot be said? — Banno

This does not at all answer my question.

What does the lick have to do with your tacit knowledge of how to play?

I asked you about your tacit knowledge, which you distinguished from the knowledge contained in the explicit instructions. I did not ask you about any tacit knowledge that the lick somehow possesses.

Telling me that you don’t possess knowledge of how to play a lick or - worse - of how to perfect a sound, is a poor attempt at distraction.

Tacit vs. explicit. — Banno

Tacit means unstated; not effed.

If this tacit knowledge is effable, then why is it not included in the explicit instructions? Will you ever answer this question?

Edit: Furthermore, you’ve told us that the explicit instructions alone are insufficient to know how to play and that no knowledge is gained from playing, so how does one gain this tacit knowledge?

But the difference is that Betty can play the guitar. — Banno

The difference between KG1 and KG2 is also a difference in knowledge (hence the ‘K’ in KG).

Why is KG2 not included in the instructions in the first place, especially since you say that we can list the instructions “to whatever detail we desire”?

It’s not just that Betty can play guitar; it’s that Betty knows how to play guitar. And you say she does not know how to play guitar from the instructions (KG1) alone.

Something which is known but which cannot be stated is ineffable. — Luke

Indeed. :wink: — Banno

Yes indeed! You are arguing FOR ineffable knowledge. On the other hand, you claim nothing is ineffable. That's the contradiction.

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. — Banno

Your argument applies to any kinesthetic skill: who would claim to know how to play the guitar after reading "How To Play the Guitar", even if the last instruction were: "Now, go play the guitar!"
The problem is that even when you have the skill, you don't know how you do it, you just do it. Or rather, you don't know how to verbalize it. — hypericin

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Except that it's not my argument, it's @Banno's. He's the one who asserted that an exhaustive list of instructions won't give one the knowledge of how to ride a bike. The trouble is, he also says that no knowledge is gained from riding a bike. One can't know how to ride only from the written instructions and yet riding a bike adds no knowledge. It therefore makes you wonder how anyone knows how to ride a bike at all. However, the fact that people do know how to ride a bike shows that we don't need a completed list of instructions. Despite the insufficiency of the instructions, and the zero knowledge gained from riding, people somehow magically know how to ride.

The difficulty is that, despite making knowledge claims, Banno then refuses to talk about knowledge. He will only talk about performance/demonstration:

Here's a complete list of what you need to do in order to ride a bike:

Ride the bike. — Banno

And then he pretends that I'm somehow at fault for talking about knowledge instead of demonstration. He forgets that his original claim was about knowing how to ride a bike, not about "what you need to do in order to ride a bike".

He has a talent! — hypericin

Yep. Moreover, he seems to think that dodging the argument, or telling us to "eff off", is his argument.

Thank you — Banno

Dodging the argument again.

Then I suppose the list of instructions isn't, as you stated, "to whatever detail we desire". — Luke

Thanks for the chat. — Banno

One last try. A list of "how to ride a bike" can never be completed.
— Banno

Why not?
— Luke

I stand corrected.

Now fuck eff off, both of you — Banno

Great argument. Then I suppose the list of instructions isn't, as you stated, "to whatever detail we desire".

One last try. A list of "how to ride a bike" can never be completed. — Banno

Why not?

Any tacit knowledge can be made explicit. — Banno

Then why isn't this knowledge included in the exhaustive list of instructions?

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. — Banno

Why wouldn't we know how to ride after reading a list of instructions "to whatever detail we desire"? Unless there is some knowledge gained from riding the bike. But you say that there isn't.

Can "whatever detail we desire" include all the tacit knowledge (made explicit)? Then we would know how to ride a bike only from the instructions.

Cheers, Luke. This is going nowhere. — Banno

Yeah, because you do not address the argument:

There is therefore a gap between the knowledge one can gain from reading the instructions and the knowledge required to ride the bike. — Luke

This gap in knowledge is not just "riding the bike". Riding the bike is what you can do after you read the instructions and after you learn...some additional ineffable knowledge that cannot be included in the instructions.

But you obviously want to ignore the argument.

Someone who memorised everything that one does in riding a bike, given a bike, would still have to take time to practice getting their balance and movement correct. There is more to riding a bike than just memorising the motions.
— Banno

Wouldn't you include this in knowledge of how to ride? If one couldn't do these things then they wouldn't know how to ride, despite having read all the instructions. — Luke

Knowing things such as "getting their balance and movement correct" adds knowledge over and above the knowledge included in the instructions. One could not ride a bike without knowing them.

There is therefore a gap between the knowledge one can gain from reading the instructions and the knowledge required to ride the bike. Why is this additional knowledge not stated and included in the instructions? Because it is ineffable. Otherwise, it would be included in the instructions.

Let's not forget that it is your assertion that the written instructions do not give one all the knowledge required to know how to ride.

Someone might memorise everything that one does in riding a bike, and yet not be able to ride a bike - they are missing the needed balance, or their legs, or some such. — Banno

Wouldn't you include "the needed balance, or their legs, or some such" in knowledge of how to ride?

They cannot demonstrate that they can ride a bike. One might phrase this as that they "know how to ride a bike" but can't; but there is no way to show that "they know how to ride a bike" in such a case. — Banno

This conflates knowledge with demonstration. We had this argument earlier. As I said then, Magnus Carlssen still knows how to play chess even while he is not playing chess. I know how to ride a bike even though I'm not riding a bike right now. Having "no way to show" that one knows how does not imply that one does not know how.

Someone who memorised everything that one does in riding a bike, given a bike, would still have to take time to practice getting their balance and movement correct. There is more to riding a bike than just memorising the motions. — Banno

Wouldn't you include this in knowledge of how to ride? If one couldn't do these things then they wouldn't know how to ride, despite having read all the instructions. Therefore, there is something missing from the instructions - something known (by the authors) which cannot be stated. Something ineffable.

This contradicts what you said earlier in the discussion.
— Luke

I don't see how. Yes, you have quoted it but not explained any contradiction. — Banno

You said (earlier) that a person with an exhaustive list of instructions would still not know how to ride.
You also say (now) that no knowledge is added from riding the bike.

That is, one cannot know only from the instructions and no knowledge is gained from riding.

Therefore, no one can ever know how to ride.

You have yet to explain why a person with an exhaustive list of instructions does not know how to ride. Is there something missing from the instructions?

"The experience of riding a bike is/adds to one's knowledge of how to ride a bike."

No, it doesn't. The experience neither adds to, nor is, one's knowledge of riding a bike. — Banno

This contradicts what you said earlier in the discussion. I've quoted this a number of times now:

...suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. — Banno

Despite having a highly detailed list of instructions on how to ride, you say we still wouldn't know how to ride. Why wouldn't we know? You clearly indicate here that "the riding of the bike" adds knowledge.

It doesn't help that your posts do not show in mentions. — Banno

How can I change that? I quoted you here. Did you not receive a notification?

For me, the fact that all I have to do is experience something in order to talk about it means that it's only ineffable at a certain time (in the sense that I couldn't speak the experience into myself, I'd have to get off my butt and go do something), rather than in principle. I guess I'm thinking, no matter what conditions you might put out there it will always be something that cannot be spoken of, whereas experience doesn't meet that criteria -- all you need do is experience something, then you can talk about it. — Moliere

This is not the same "gap" between knowledge and experience that you and @Banno spoke about earlier in the discussion. (I set out that gap/contradiction here. Banno has not yet addressed it, despite saying that he would.)

It is not merely that you can't talk about something before you experience it - you can. It is that, at least in some cases, you cannot put part of an experience into a set of instructions so that another can know how to do something from those instructions alone.

This is just a variation of Mary's Room. Does Mary learn all there is to know about colour perception from reading all the facts on the subject prior to her seeing colour? According to the Ability Hypothesis, what Mary learns when she sees red is not a new fact (knowledge-that), but an ability (knowledge-how) - she learns how to pick out red from other colours by sight. This is the same as what you and Banno are claiming: that the knowledge (how) that one learns from an experience cannot be entirely stated and recorded in every possible book on the subject (written by those who have had the experience); it cannot be included in "all the facts". Therefore, that part of knowledge is ineffable.

You and Banno did not specify that it is necessarily knowledge-how that cannot be included in "all the facts", or in the most detailed possible list of instructions of how to do something, but you have both previously implied, if not stated, that there is some ineffability in the knowledge that one gains from undergoing an experience.

Let's just grant this "gap", as you call it, between what we can say and what is known. It strikes me as being somewhat prosaic -- we all know that there's more to the world than speech, and there's more to knowledge than speech too. So what does this calling attention to a gap do for us? — Moliere

In a discussion on ineffability, with some folks asserting that nothing is ineffable, calling attention to this gap shows that some things are ineffable.

Further, having called attention to the gap, now we can talk about it. So we might introduce a distinction between, say, theoretical and practical knowledge. Now here we have two categories, one of which refers to speech, and one of which refers to action. And we can predicate things of action in general. So, we can talk about it. That doesn't convert activity into speech, only goes some way to making the case for effability -- let's call this kind of effabilty the ineffably effable. — Moliere

Saying that some things are ineffable doesn't make those ineffable things effable. I think that's like saying that the concept of 'nothing' is substantive, where 'nothing' is a something.

So I could even grant your ineffability, but then I want to note -- there's more. Such as beliefs in the soul, or that we live in the best of all possible worlds, or that everything has a cause. Those are the sorts of things I have in mind when I think of the ineffable: that which cannot be spoken of, no matter how much experience I acquire, no matter what evidence I bring to bear, no matter how clever I am -- God himself wouldn't be able to speak on these things, because to speak on them would be to destroy them. — Moliere

As a non-religious type, it's not really what I had in mind (and I don't understand why God's speaking of such things would destroy them). But if you accept that some things are ineffable, then we at least agree on that.

Yes, but as far as showing me your experience has any meaning at all, it means just the same as showing me the experience, which is why I put it that way and why I made the point. — Jamal

Casting it in terms of "the" experience, as though there is only one to be had, seems little more than a stipulation that two people cannot each have different experiences or different feelings in relation to undergoing the same experience.

There is little that is more certain than that we share lots of things, so I wouldn't want to characterize it as merely an assumption. (Obviously though, I could have lost the feeling in my finger, so we're not always right). — Jamal

Sharing lots of things is not the same as sharing everything. It is in those unshared differences that I claim ineffability may reside. Also, in what sense would you be "wrong" if you lost feeling in your finger?

My point was that this is tantamount to saying what I said. — Jamal

Returning to what you said, how are you not arguing for total qualitative identity (e.g. wrt the pin prick)? I actually don't follow why total qualitative identity entails numerical identity. I imagine it might be possible for two people to have total qualitative identity in relation to a particular experience (e.g. seeing a red patch) while remaining separate people. Perhaps I've misunderstood what you mean by "total qualitative identity"?

But this is going around in circles and I don't think you're reading me charitably, even though I'm being pretty clear. — Jamal

I'm sorry that you feel I'm being uncharitable. I'm only trying to get my point across, but I'm probably not doing a great job of it.

I think the main difference is that I can show you an apple, but I can't show you my experience. I can show you my expression of pain, but not the pain itself.
— Luke

First, I think you can show me the experience. If you prick your finger with a pin, you can show me the experience by pricking me with a pin. — Jamal

I didn't say I can't show you "the" experience. I said I can't show you "my" experience.

Are the experiences the same? Well, there’s no numerical identity, but there’s some level of qualitative identity. — Jamal

How do you know that "there's some level of qualitative identity"? Can that ever be anything more than an assumption?

There can’t be total qualitative identity because that would be equivalent to numerical identity, and that would require that I experience the pinprick as you, which is just to be you. I don’t think it’s right to describe this as ineffability. — Jamal

I have not described this as ineffability. I have said that language may not be able to communicate one person's experience such that another can "fully" understand their experience only from the language.

I see this kind of how I see perception. Some around here will say that perception is deficient or distorted because we perceive in a particular way which is determined or conditioned by our anatomy and physiology and our behaviour in our environment. This view presumes that perfect, undistorted perception would be a view from nowhere or, in Kant’s terms, an intellectual intuition. This is a bad account of perception. — Jamal

I don't presume or have any sympathy for an undistorted view from nowhere.

...he was contradicting himself.
— Luke

So set out the contradiction. I'll address it. — Banno

Write another considered post so that you can dismiss it again in three words? I already set out the contradiction in my previous posts and you did not respond.

...suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. — Banno

Here is the contradiction:

The most exhaustive list of instructions on how to ride a bike will not give one knowledge of how to ride a bike.
The experience of riding a bike is/adds to one's knowledge of how to ride a bike.
[Therefore] The experience of riding a bike is/contains knowledge that cannot be stated or included in the list of instructions on how to ride a bike.
Something which is known but which cannot be stated is ineffable.
However, (according to you) nothing is ineffable.

We can no more expect to convey an exprience in this way than we can expect to convey an object: we can talk about an experience, but there is always something beyond the talk, namely the experience itself; similarly, we can talk about an apple, but there is always something beyond the talk, namely the apple itself. But we don't say that apples are ineffable. — Jamal

I think the main difference is that I can show you an apple, but I can't show you my experience. I can show you my expression of pain, but not the pain itself. You might describe your pain to a doctor as "sharp" or "dull" or "throbbing" or some such, and maybe that's enough for the doctor to make an accurate diagnosis or to prescribe some meds, but these are somewhat vague descriptions. Likewise, I might describe the taste of sea urchin as comparable to chicken (I really don't know; I've never tried it), and this might give you some idea of what it's like, but it's not the same as having the experience for yourself. Then there are people who perceive the world differently to ourselves, such as those with exotic medical conditions or abnormal bodies, or just those of the opposite sex. I know how pain feels in my body, but I don't know the pain of childbirth. Pain is pain, sure, but can a man understand the experience of childbirth via words alone?

Even if some technological machinery allowed one to have the experience of another, someone would need to program it to identify the full range of one person's experience in order to allow another to have the same experience, which I only imagine would be dependent on an existing public language and its available (limited) descriptions of an individual's experience. A public language possibly can describe common shared experiences, but what about putative experiences which may be unique to only one individual?

Luke has a firm grip on the wrong end of the stick. — Banno

The self-appointed oracle has delivered his verdict from on high. As Wittgenstein once said:

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.

The irony here is that the self-appointed oracle, while pretending to be a faithful follower of Dennett and/or illusionism, contradicts himself by advocating a "what-it's-like" to have subjective experiences such as riding a bike or seeing red. Moreover, that this "what-it's-like" (e.g. to ride a bike) adds to one's knowledge, over and above what can be said or what can be included in any instructions.

At least, that's what I gather from his scant remarks. Since he doesn't actually offer any substantial response, it's difficult to say.

Perhaps I should have made it more clear in my earlier posts that he was contradicting himself.

This is disanalogous.
— Luke

No, it's spot on, but you insist on misunderstanding, again. — Banno

If your analogy holds, then you should have no difficulty in explaining what knowledge is gained from pressing play on a CD player.

I don't "insist" on misunderstanding. You simply offer no argument.

That question doesn't follow from what I've said. It should have been "Since a detailed list of instructions won't give us knowledge of how to ride a bike, then perhaps you could tell us what else is required to riding the bike?". And the answer is getting on the bike and riding it. — Banno

The question does follow; you're simply avoiding it.

You've said that the detailed list of instructions won't give us the knowledge of how to ride a bike. So what gives us the knowledge? If riding the bike gives us the knowledge, then you ought to be able to spell out what that knowledge is. I don't see what knowledge is gained from the act of riding which is missing from the instructions on how to ride.

It's a bit like the difference between compiling a computer program and executing it. Or having a CD in the player and pressing "play" so you can hear it. The difference is in what is done, not what is said. — Banno

This is disanalogous. A CD is not a set of instructions on how to press "play" or how to hear a CD, and a computer program is not a set of instructions on how to execute it. Even if they were, you are claiming that these instructions are insufficient to provide one with such knowledge.

What you've failed to address is this: you've previously said it's a difference in knowledge. So, what is the difference in knowledge between what is said and what is done? What is unknown after reading the instructions on how to ride a bike that is known after riding the bike? Or can you not say?

If the most detailed possible list of instructions for riding a bike does not give one the knowledge of how to ride, then there is a gap between saying how to ride a bike (via a detailed list of instructions) and knowing how to ride a bike, which means that there is something about riding a bike which is known but which cannot be stated and included in the instructions. Which is just to say that there is something ineffable.
— Luke

Yep. And it is exactly riding the bike. Which is not something that can be said, but has to be done. Hence it is not a something that remains unsaid.

It's unclear if you have grasped this point, and are trying to articulate it, or if you remain benighted. Either way, I don't think adding more will be of help to you. — Banno

Since you've said that a detailed list of instructions won't give us knowledge of how to ride a bike, then perhaps you could tell us what additional knowledge one gains from riding the bike? Alternatively, could you explain why a detailed list of instructions for how to ride a bike does not give us knowledge of how to ride a bike?

I was following Banno's reasoning and his conflation of knowing how to do something with doing it.
— Luke

Of course I'm doing no such thing. — Banno

What do you call this:

...there is no difference between "knowing how to ride a bike" and "riding a bike"; we don't have two things here, one being bike riding and the other being knowing how to ride a bike. — Banno

But now you say that your point is not that there is no difference between knowledge and experience; now you say that your point is that there is a difference between knowledge and effability:

The point made is, that one is able to ride a bike is proven not by being able to say what is involved, but in the act of riding. — Banno

Your position here is that there is a gap between knowing how to ride and saying it, which is a gap between knowledge and effability. If you know it but can't say it, then how is it not ineffable?

Maybe you will claim that I've mischaracterised your position and that you are not asserting any gap between knowledge and effability here. However, this was your position earlier:

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever [effable] detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. — Banno

If the most detailed possible list of instructions for riding a bike does not give one the knowledge of how to ride, then there is a gap between saying how to ride a bike (via a detailed list of instructions) and knowing how to ride a bike, which means that there is something about riding a bike which is known but which cannot be stated and included in the instructions. Which is just to say that there is something ineffable.

If I'm reading you correctly Luke, I think you and I and @Jamal and @Banno are thinking in terms of two different ways we can talk about "ineffable" -- Ineffable, as in unable to be spoken of in principle, and ineffable, as in different from linguistic competence. I think I'm thinking in the former, and you're thinking in the latter. — Moliere

I am also thinking of "ineffable" in the former sense. At least, I think that if the ineffable were ever to be eliminated, then it would require some sort of "perfect" language which is capable of communicating every possible nuance of any individual's experience. I don't think that our language is presently of this sort, but I also doubt that it ever will or can be.

There's an element to knowledge that includes experience. I'm just not sure I'd say that makes it ineffable in the former sense, though I'd agree with you that Mary learns something and we learn something by experiencing that isn't the same as words, nor could it be conveyed by words alone. They'd also have to experience the sound of a clarinet, the taste of salt, the love of God, or the color red to say they had experienced these things, and no amount of textual familiarity would give them the experience, and they even learn something from experiencing. — Moliere

If knowledge is something that can be communicated via language, and if there is nothing which is not able to be communicated via language (because nothing is ineffable), then there should be no "gap" between what can be known/taught and what can be said. However, you and Banno say that there is such a gap. You both keep writing this off as a mere gap between knowledge and experience - where all that's missing is having the experience - instead of acknowledging the gap that you have both asserted between knowledge and effability.

I'm with Moliere on this, because I thought of the same objection. To say that in talking about an experience, something is left unsaid--because it doesn't convey what it's like to have that experience--seems to imply an expectation that is too high, namely that my words can give you the experience. — Jamal

I addressed this in my post preceding yours:

I don't believe that "conveying the full experience" implies making another person have that experience; only that another person can fully understand what it is like to have that experience. Can you convey the full experience of seeing red, or being synaesthetic, or being the opposite sex, or being a lion, via language alone, or are there at least some parts of those experiences that language is unable to convey in order that another can fully understand how it feels to have those experiences? — Luke

Maybe an experience can only be "fully" known or understood by having it, as you seem to indicate. In that case, some aspect(s) of an experience cannot be communicated to another and "fully" known or understood only via language. If your words cannot give me the experience, or cannot fully communicate what it is like to undergo the experience, then this seems to imply that there is some aspect of the experience which cannot be communicated via language alone; which is ineffable. You say that my expectation is too high, where my expectation is that one's words can give another the experience. But this is not my expectation. I don't believe that one's words can give another the (full) experience. That's why some experiences cannot be fully communicated in words. That's what makes them at least partly ineffable. If you agree that some experiences cannot be fully communicated in words, then why do you disagree that they are at least partly ineffable?

Note my preceding discussion with @Banno comparing doing something with knowing how to do it, what Mary cannot learn/know within her black-and-white room, and whether teaching someone how to do something only via language communicates all the required information. You and Banno appear to advocate that some knowledge/information is missing unless one undergoes the experience for themselves. As I see it, that is not a rejection of the ineffable, but an endorsement.

Do you advocate the same for objects? Is some knowledge/information missing unless one undergoes(?) an object for themselves? I'm not sure what "undergoing" an object would mean other than sensing or experiencing it.

Nothing is not said here... but something is not done: the riding of the bike. — Banno

Do you acknowledge that knowing how to ride a bike is different from riding a bike? The difference is that you don't need to be riding a bike in order to know how to ride a bike. Likewise, Magnus Carlsen knows how to play chess even while he is not playing chess. The knowledge-how is the ability-to, but this does not require or imply that one is doing the riding, only that one can. Riding a bike demonstrates having the ability or know-how but having the ability or know-how does not necessarily demonstrate riding a bike. Therefore, with regard to this:

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. But that's not something it makes sense to add to the list! — Banno

As you must surely acknowledge, riding a bike and knowing how to ride a bike are not the same. So, if we had a list of instructions for how to ride a bike that was presented in the greatest possible detail, then why should we not know how to ride a bike after reading those instructions? It cannot be because riding a bike and knowing how to ride a bike are the same thing. So, is there another reason; something ineffable that cannot be included in the instructions which prevents us from knowing how to ride a bike after reading them?

In all honesty, I don't know whether there is anything missing from the bike riding instructions. I was merely following your lead in saying that there is something missing. However, I think if we examine the example of Mary's Room then it becomes more clear that there is something ineffable which is not included in Mary's "instructions" on everything there is to know about colour perception. This missing element is what (e.g.) red looks like or how to identify coloured objects by sight. If there is an analogy to riding a bike here, it could be how to balance oneself so as to not consistently fall off the bike. This ability to maintain balance on a bike is something that is difficult to convey via language alone, without experiencing/practising it for oneself. Anyhow, Mary's Room is a clearer example. Furthermore:

What is there that cannot be said? "...it hardly conveys the full experience" - of course not! That has to be experienced! — Banno

I don't believe that "conveying the full experience" implies making another person have that experience; only that another person can fully understand what it is like to have that experience. Can you convey the full experience of seeing red, or being synaesthetic, or being the opposite sex, or being a lion, via language alone, or are there at least some parts of those experiences that language is unable to convey in order that another can fully understand how it feels to have those experiences?