The world our language does map onto is the cognitively, linguistically modeled intersubjectively shared world we refer to as "the everyday world" which includes everything we know, including science. — Janus

:up:

If we understand metaphysics to be confined by phenomenology, as Heidegger does, t — Janus

Can you just clarify what you mean by 'confined by' here?

if we think of metaphysics as dealing with the precognitive "world", then I think it is a fact that we have no ability to communicate successfully about metaphysics. — Janus

Hmmm...

Any talk or claim about the precognitive "world" is literally senseless. — Janus

I can see this.

So, we know what we mean when we say that the world we share is a physical world, because we all experience the tangibility and measurability of that world, the tangibility and measurability which just are the characteristics that our notion of physicality consists, and is grounded, in. It seems to me that we do not know what we mean if we claim that the everyday world is mental, because that is simply not a part of our basic common experience. — Janus

This seems to be a rich source for further exploration. I like that you describe the physical world as a grounding characteristic that has meaning to us but is not necessarily the truth about a reality 'outside' of this experience.

The idea we do not know what we mean if we claim that - the everyday world is mental, because that is simply not a part of our basic common experience - is interesting. Does this mean to you that we cannot effectively describe models of idealism because we have no way of doing so outside of, perhaps, some kind of mystical experience?

Our differences are perhaps of greater interest than our agreements, and so tend to grab our attention. But the things on which we agree overwhelm those disagreements.

So I reject the suggestion that we live in different worlds. Rather it seems that we have different descriptions, and that these descriptions can be translated or interpreted, one into the other. — Banno

Doesn’t our judgement that someone agrees with us on some matter depend on how well we can anticipate their verbal or behavioral response to our own actions or utterances? On that score, our anticipative efforts are quite successful in social situations that require only a superficial level of engagement, which pertains to most gatherings of strangers in public. We dont need to know very much about each other in order to share the highway with them.

But how effectively do we translate descriptions between individuals or groups in situations of severe political polarization, or in crises of trust between friends or lovers, or in daily examples of anger or righteous indignation toward people we encounter? What if we agree the cat is on the mat but can’t agree on whether the cat should have been put on the mat, or whether the car is happy to be on the mat? Are these just subjective affective colorations that have nothing to do with the facts of the matter?

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They agree that there is someone who did certain things on the internet and that as a result folk found out a lot of stuff which other folk thought they should not have. They agree on the overwhelming picture of a world with people, cities, computers, networks, nations and all the other paraphernalia within which this drama can take place. And I suppose most folk would agree that Assange's ability to move from place to place has been somewhat curtailed over the last few years. — Banno

Why was it decided in the first place that this was newsworthy, and who decided it? Isnt the perceived relevance of the story constructed into the very facts contained in it? Hard-core supporters of Assange will agree only on the most superficial concepts contained in the piece, and disagree about everything else, including much of what is alleged to be factual. So if we are to say that the things on which people are likely to agree in this news story overwhelm their disagreements, we would have to add that from the point of view of the purpose of the story, on those fact that MATTER to readers of different political persuasions there may be overwhelming disagreement, and translation of descriptions will fail to overcome this mutual unintelligibilty

Two dogs fighting over a bone agree that there is a bone.

That you read, understood and replied to my post puts the lie to our disagreement being overwhelming.

This seems to be a rich source for further exploration. I like that you describe the physical world as a grounding characteristic that has meaning to us but is not necessarily the truth about a reality 'outside' of this experience.

The idea we do not know what we mean if we claim that - the everyday world is mental, because that is simply not a part of our basic common experience - is interesting. Does this mean to you that we cannot effectively describe models of idealism because we have no way of doing so outside of, perhaps, some kind of mystical experience? — Tom Storm

:up: I like that you say "not necessarily", as we don't know whether the physicality of things is or isn't a truth beyond our experience.

Also, I agree that we cannot really have any idea what we are talking about in making claims that the fundamental nature of things is mental or is consciousness. Are mystical experience not bodily experiences, consisting in powerful feelings of connection with everything that cannot be adequately articulated? Are our bodies not "of a piece" with things when we drop the egoic ideations of separation? If fundamental particles or fields are "immortal" then it is the body which consists of those which we could say is immortal, even though the bodily form itself is obviously not.

I like that you describe the physical world as a grounding characteristic that has meaning to us but is not necessarily the truth about a reality 'outside' of this experience. — Tom Storm

we don't know whether the physicality of things is or isn't a truth beyond our experience. — Janus

This is like trying to win a chess game by insisting that one cannot be certain that the Queen is a chess piece.

This is like trying to win a chess game by insisting that one cannot be certain that the Queen is a chess piece. — Banno

That seems to be a ridiculous analogy on the face of it; perhaps I'm not getting your point, or what seems more likely is you're not getting mine.

I knew you would say something like that.

If you are not sure the cup is physical, then you are using the word "physical" in a very odd way.

Same as

If the cat is on the mat, yet someone insists that the cat is not on the mat, then there are a few possibilities. They may be using "cat" or "mat " in some alternate way; or they may just be wrong. — Banno

If you are not sure the cup is physical, then you are using the word "physical" in a very odd way. — Banno

I have never said, nor implied, that I am not sure cups are physical. They are tangible, can be picked up, drunk from, moved around. measured, so of course they are physical.

...we don't know whether the physicality of things is or isn't a truth beyond our experience. — Janus

I have never said, nor implied, that I am not sure cups are physical. — Janus

Yeah, being physical is made-up pretendies, like the Queen being able to move in any direction. The cup might well cease to have a handle when "beyond our experience".

Best leave you to it.

You're talking gibberish, meaning I have nothing to base a response on, so effectively you have done nothing other than to "leave me to it".

What do you think, ? Is the cup still physical when unobserved? Does it still have a handle?

That's where your misunderstanding lies: I haven't said the cup isn't physical when not being observed.

i haven't said the cup isn't physical when not being observed. — Janus

Then how are we to apply "we don't know whether the physicality of things is or isn't a truth beyond our experience" to the cup, if not "we don't know whether the physicality of the cup is or isn't a truth beyond our experience"??

Why not just say that the cup, and other physical things, remain physical, observed or not?

I don't think it's me "talking gibberish"...

Cups, whether observed or not, are a part of our experience. Not knowing of "things" whether or not they are physical "in themselves" is really not an epistemic matter, but a semantic one: our talk about things and their attributes is relevant only within the context of human experience. To assert a metaphysics, whether materialist, physicalist, idealist or anti-realist of what is outside of human experience is to speak inaptly, and that is what I meant by "we don't know". We just don't know how to speak of things that our not a part of our experience.

What do you think, ↪Tom Storm? Is the cup still physical when unobserved? Does it still have a handle? — Banno

I take it as a given that the cup and handle still exist when we don't see them.

A bit of a challenge to @Banno's idea that agreement is overwhelming --

I don't even think about it after I put it in the cupboard. I go off and do other things. Them beliefs are long gone the moment I put it where I want it.

Cool. SO now to draw this back to our conversation from yesterday. Seems to me that "the cup and handle still exist when we don't see them" amounts to "it is true that there is a cup with a handle, in the cupboard, unobserved". That's realism. Whereas idealism (antirealism) says "If the cup is in the cupboard, unobserved, then there is no truth as to whether or not it has a handle" - hence introducing a third evaluation, neither true nor false.

I think idealism would have something to say about the reality of the cupboard too.

Have you heard any arguments for antirealism that you think are more persuasive than others?

Cups, whether observed or not, are a part of our experience. Not knowing of "things" whether or not they are physical "in themselves" is really not an epistemic matter, but a semantic one: our talk about things and their attributes is relevant only within the context of human experience. To assert a metaphysics, whether materialist, physicalist, idealist or anti-realist of what is outside of human experience is to speak inaptly, and that is what I meant by "we don't know". — Janus

Nice. I was about to put up something along these lines myself - about the semantic nature of this discussion and the scope of the word 'reality'.

My tentative conclusion is that there is a reality available to humans which we seem to share and actions taken in it may have significant consequences (war, climate change, death, etc). But we are unable to step outside this reality, even if there are reasons to believe that it is contingent and partial. (can you improve on this frame?)

I think @Banno might ask us do we have any good reason to posit a reality outside of our experience? Even using the word reality is problematic. I suspect 'lifeworld' is better but if one is not a fan of phenomenology this too might be problematic.

But we are unable to step outside this reality, even if there are reasons to believe that it is contingent and partial. (can you improve on this frame?) — Tom Storm

No, I can't improve on that; I think what you said expresses the pragmatic truth of our situation.

I think Banno might ask us do we have any good reason to posit a reality outside of our experience? Even using the word reality is problematic. I suspect 'lifeworld' is better but if one is not a fan of phenomenology this too might be problematic. — Tom Storm

I'm guessing Banno would say the word 'reality' derives from a contrast between the things we can experience in common as features of the phenomenal world and imaginary things.

But we cannot help imagining that there is an absolute reality apart from the relative reality of human experience, conception and judgement, in fact it seems unthinkable that there would not be, even though we cannot give a coherent voice to that.

There is nothing to stop us conjecturing about an absolute reality but we have nothing to compare our conjectures with.

And if I asked where the cup is, your answer, I hope, would be "It's in the cupboard", not some obtuse construct like "I don't know, but if you were to open the cupboard you might experience cup-ish-ly".

That repeated centering of "experience" is misleading. It gives the impression that one starts with oneself and works one's way "outwards" to the world. But that's not right. The world is already, from your first days, broken down for you into the bits and pieces we can manipulate with hands and with language, and so we are each already embedded in a shared world and a community.

Nice — Tom Storm

It's not enough to say that we don't know "what is outside of human experience". We each are constantly facing things which were previously outside our individual experience - opening a box, driving down a new road. Such things are easily spoken of. To talk of something outside of human experience in some collective way is dealt with in the same way - finding out that Greenland was ice free around 400,000 ago is not something outside of our comprehension. And if we were to consider something outside our comprehension, we would by that very fact not be able to say anything about it, not even that we don't know what it is.

I'm guessing Banno would say the word 'reality' derives from a contrast between the things we can experience in common as features of the phenomenal world and imaginary things. — Janus

Not really. I would not put such emphasis on experience.

That repeated centering of "experience" is misleading. It gives the impression that one starts with oneself and works one's way "outwards" to the world. But that's not right — Banno

We come to know things via experience, how else? Experience does not consist in "working outwards to the world" (whatever that little bit of nonsense could even mean) but rather precisely the opposite: the world working its way into us via the senses.

It's not enough to say that we don't know "what is outside of human experience". We each are constantly facing things which were previously outside our individual experience - opening a box, driving down a new road. Such things are easily spoken of. — Banno

This is philosophy by caricature. I find it hard to believe that you didn't realize I was referring to what is beyond the possibility of human experience. Time to take off the blinkers, mate!

And if I asked where the cup is, your answer, I hope, would be "It's in the cupboard", not some obtuse construct like "I don't know, but if you were to open the cupboard you might experience cup-ish-ly". — Banno

More caricature. When I put the cup in the cupboard I can be more or less confident (depending on how long ago I put it there) that it will be there when I open the cupboard. So, the answer I would give to the question about where the cup that I just put in the cupboard is, would be "I have no reason to doubt that it is in the cupboard, and if I open the cupboard, I expect to see the cup". That the cup has been there the whole time is the inference to the best explanation as to why I find the cup there when I open the cupboard.

We are not passive absorbers of sense data. We interact with the world around us, not just knowing but doing. We don't just observe cups, we fill them, drain them, clean them, pass them around and smash them. Only in forgetting this could someone come up with "we don't know whether the physicality of things is or isn't a truth beyond our experience".

This is philosophy by caricature. — Janus

I'd say satire rather than caricature.

We are not passive absorbers of sense data. We interact with the world around us, not just knowing but doing. We don't just observe cups, we fill them, drain them, clean them, pass them around and smash them.. — Banno

Nothing I've said contradicts any of that.

Only in forgetting this could someone come up with "we don't know whether the physicality of things is or isn't a truth beyond our experience". — Banno

I haven't forgotten any of that and yet I say it, and my saying it is not inconsistent with my not forgetting any of that either. If you think it is then please lay out your argument and show me the purported inconsistency.

Nothing I've said contradicts any of that. — Janus

Perhaps, but nor does it emphasis it.

The target here is not you, but the notion that what language is for is "mapping" the world. We do far more than just that. As if a map were the same as a bushwalk.

The target here is not you, but the notion that what language is for is "mapping" the world. We do far more than just that. As if a map were the same as a bushwalk. — Banno

Maybe that's my fault for the tentative title of my OP. I wasn't sure at the time how else to put my question, which I guess amounts to trying to understand a little of what philosophy has posited about the relationship language has to the world. I didn't have a map in mind, that was just the word I typed when I posed the question.

The target here is not you, but the notion that what language is for is "mapping" the world. We do far more than just that. As if a map were the same as a bushwalk. — Banno

Leaving aside all the other things language may do like commanding, promising, imploring, implying, coercing, coaxing, consoling, belittling, berating, alluding, evoking, invoking and so on, what is its propositional relation to our common experience?

Mapping, modelling, denoting, depicting, describing, representing, referring? What is it that is mapped, modeled, denoted, depicted, described, represented or referred to if not what is commonly experienced?

Mapping, modelling, denoting, depicting, describing, representing, referring? What is it that is mapped, modeled, denoted, depicted, described, represented or referred to if not what is commonly experienced? — Janus

Experiencing is "mapping, modelling, denoting, depicting, describing, representing, referring", it is not subject of it.

Experiencing the world is to model it. That which is modelled therefore cannot be the experience.

Experiencing is "mapping, modelling, denoting, depicting, describing, representing, referring", it is not subject of it.

Experiencing the world is to model it. That which is modelled therefore cannot be the experience. — Isaac

Firstly I agree that experiencing is modeling, but I was referring to linguistic judgements which do map, model, denote etc what is experienced as well as what is considered to be experienceable. It's the difference between first order unconscious modeling and second order conscious modeling. And since we are talking about the relation between language and the world ('world' denoting what is experienced, as well as what can be experienced, but may or may not be) we are dealing with the latter.

And if I asked where the cup is, your answer, I hope, would be "It's in the cupboard", not some obtuse construct like "I don't know, but if you were to open the cupboard you might experience cup-ish-ly". — Banno

Oh yes. Complete without any sort of fancy theory of re-interpretation which says "what you really mean is" or some such.

I'm uncertain about the justification coming from an overwhelming set of beliefs we agree upon. How many beliefs does one mind hold? That we can come up, in a conversation, with beliefs we agree upon doesn't indicate that we have overwhelming agreement. If there are few beliefs that a mind can hold then overwhelming agreement comes from us agreeing upon statements within a conversation -- here's the set of beliefs we agree upon. But then we do not have a basis for inferring that our beliefs overwhelmingly agree -- we've just agreed to a base for disagreement to take place, rather than compared how many beliefs we have and judge whether there is overwhelming agreement or not. Instead we've agreed to a set of beliefs that can serve as a background for disagreement.