I'd love to reply, but I have no idea what you are talking about. I can't see what you are doing right now. But assuming I could understand you, I do wonder how you grokked this beetle in a box argument. Did Wittgenstein dance like a bee to communicate it? And I thought he had left us long since.

(I'm joking with you, but maybe you see my concern. )

I'd love to reply, but I have no idea what you are talking about. I can't see what you are doing right now. But assuming I could understand you, I do wonder how you grokked this beetle in a box argument. Did Wittgenstein dance like a bee to communicate it? — macrosoft

Yes! It's almost as if I have to break down the puzzle and reassemble it in my own way to be able to understand what you mean. What do you think about this 'breaking down "process"'?

Yes! It's almost as if I have to break down the puzzle and reassemble it in my own way to be able to understand what you mean. What do you think about this 'breaking down "process"'? — Posty McPostface

That does sound more like it. But why breaking down? Why not building up? We somehow assemble a sequence of words and end up with a complete thought. In most cases (away from philosophy, right) it is as easy as breathing.

Plato called it noesis, or intelligibility. Bertrand Russell called it the Principle of Acquaintance.

I think it's our ability to "reproduce" it in our own way.

Yeah, I like that. Noesis seems to be pointing at that dark place from where we listen. It makes sense that the brain is doing some kind of assembly. And that supports the non-instantaneous nature of meaning. It also supports the 'time' of meaning. Our eyes scan from left to right, with memory and expectation. There are spaces between the words, but I don't think reading-for-us is actually jagged like that. Meaning is continuous. A sentence is a musical whole.

Noesis seems to be pointing at that dark place from where we listen. — macrosoft

No, "noesis" is indicative of illuminating light (originating from the sun) according to Plato.

No, "noesis" is indicative of illuminating light (originating from the sun) according to Plato. — Posty McPostface

Surely not the literal sun. The question is what is this thing that illuminates everything else and yet itself recedes? I can't speak for Plato's intentions, but the sun reveals things. The sun comes up and the landscape is there in all its detail.

Meaning is continuous. A sentence is a musical whole. — macrosoft

Since you edited your post, I'll address it:

The world is the totality of facts, not things. What do "facts" mean to you? There's nothing dark or mysterious about 'facts' is there?

I can't speak for Plato's intentions, but the sun reveals things. The sun comes up and the landscape is there in all its detail. — macrosoft

I'm deviating; but, are intents hidden from the sunlight?

If a behavioural solipsist were to come along and tell us s/he known intent inferred from behaviour, how could we prove s/he wrong?

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others. -Goethe

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others. -Goethe — Brianna Whitney

What do you mean?!

The world is the totality of facts, not things. What do "facts" mean to you? There's nothing dark or mysterious about 'facts' is there? — Posty McPostface

I think so. Facts are intelligible.The mystery is meaning itself. What facts versus things gets right is a nexus of relations, the world as a kind of object-networked field of meaning. I'd say just look at the world as you live in it. Remember how it is for you when you weren't thinking of yourself as a philosopher.

I'm deviating; but, are intents hidden from the sunlight? — Posty McPostface

I'm saying that language-as-a-hole or the 'operating system' lies coiled in the dark place from which we listen and speak. Since the operating system is purring in the background, doing its job, what you speak and hear makes since to you. These words make some kind of sense. What is hidden from the sunlight is the sun itself. That which makes visible/intelligible is itself in darkness. The thought of mind is not the mind itself, and 'mind' is a misleading word that already over-specifies by neglecting the essential sharedness of language. Or we can say that mind is surprisingly social, given our air-gapped skulls. On the other hand, the whole point of meaning would seem to be for humans to work together. We are so deeply social that we live in a kind of sense-making 'fluid' that we can only imperfectly make sense of. What whatever we say about this 'fluid' is said 'by' or 'within' this 'fluid.'

It may sound mystical, but it's just phenomenological. It's just this space we share as we converse. We tend to take it for granted, use it without looking at it.

f a behavioural solipsist were to come along and tell us s/he known intent inferred from behaviour, how could we prove s/he wrong? — Posty McPostface

The amount of invalid inferences this behaviorist would make. Think about all the times we try to tell whether someone is lying, or fail to tell. Take a jury trying to decide if a defendant acts guilty during a trial. Or how often in true crime people's opinions will split over whether someone sounded suspicious on a 911 call.

So, what happens to concepts like "subjectivity", "pains", and "intentionality"? Do we just throw them away or are they indicative that logical behaviourism is not all-encompassing in describing the affective aspect of the mind? — Posty McPostface

Do you experience pains and mean things? If so, then why would you throw them away because of some philosophical argument?

If the beetle in the box entails logical behaviorism, then it's flat out wrong.

we can only infer intent from behaviour, — Posty McPostface

Yes, when we're talking about third-person observing other people.

there is nothing more to intent than the sum total of all behaviour displayed by any individual.

No, not at all. That's conflating the third-person observation problem with the first-person phenomenon. Not the same thing.

So, what happens to concepts like "subjectivity", "pains", and "intentionality"? — Posty McPostface

What happens is we say that Wittgenstein apparently doesn't understand the phenomena in question.

Yes! It's almost as if I have to break down the puzzle and reassemble it in my own way to be able to understand what you mean. — Posty McPostface

Of course. That's obviously how meaning works.

That does sound more like it. But why breaking down? Why not building up? — macrosoft

Probably don't be so literal about the phrase "break down."