Potentially yes. And I don't know how I'd believe that there are things that I can't describe. I don't know how to make any sense of that. What would I believe, after all?.Some vague I don't-know-what? — Terrapin Station

...such as, to use my example, the smell of mint.

And what I said about dictionaries shows that description is a questionable thing anyway.

I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions." I don't know what that would be referring to. What makes a description "comploete" versus "incomplete"? — Terrapin Station

How about this: "A description is complete if it describes every aspect of what it describes."

You can't even describe every perceived aspect of the smell of mint.(...but I guess all of a smell consists of some thing or things perceived.)

So how about the question I asked. Do you believe things exist that you can't describe? — Terrapin Station

Of course. I'm not qualified to describe the things of all subjects.

But if you mean are there things that are indescribable in principle, then of course not, because describability in principle is part of my definition of "things".

Is there what's not (even partly) describable and unknowable even in principle? How would I know? I don't claim to know about such things.

Must mail this before the Internet-connection freezes-up. More later if Ii missed replying to anything. (Usually I write replies in Word instead of directly in this reply-space.)

Michael Ossipoff.

How about this: "A description is complete if it describes every aspect of what it describes." — Michael Ossipoff

Vacuous because there's no way to quantify "aspects."

Why aren't you answering the question I asked you, by the way?

Vacuous because there's no way to quantify "aspects." — Terrapin Station

If so, then there are no reliably, meaningfully, complete descriptions. Okay.

Why aren't you answering the question I asked you, by the way?

...about whether there's what can't be even partly known and described by humans, about which absolutely nothing can be said or known by humans, even in principle? I admitted that I don't know.

Michael Ossipoff

But there could also be what one can only minimally speak of. ...can only say one or a few things about, with those statements being necessarily incomplete. But I don't claim to speak authoritatively about that either..

Michael Ossipoff

...and I've said that I don't assert about the character or nature of Reality as a whole.

I don't claim that authority. I only assert about describable metaphysics.

Michael Ossipoff

Yeah, "complete description" just seems like a nonsensical phrase to me (hence why I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions").

What I was asking you wasn't as broad as what you paraphrased. I asked if you personally believe in anything you can't describe.

I only assert about describable metaphysics. — Michael Ossipoff

So that would suggest the answer to my question is "no."

Would you say there is a describable metaphysics of nonphysicals?

Yeah, "complete description" just seems like a nonsensical phrase to me (hence why I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions"). — Terrapin Station

I don't think that it's unmeaningful to speak of what can defined, and referred to, and can be, in principle, described in all their aspects. (even if those aspects can't always be counted or enumerated.)

What I was asking you wasn't as broad as what you paraphrased. I asked if you personally believe in anything you can't describe. — Terrapin Station

Of course. I'm modest enough to admit that there are all sorts of topics with things that I'm not qualified to describe. For example, I'm pretty much entirely ignorant of gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar.

Additionally I don't claim to be able to describe Reality itself (which of course isn't a thing).

So that would suggest the answer to my question is "no."

I wouldn't say that. See above.
— Terrapin Station

Would you say there is a describable metaphysics of nonphysicals?

Just as there are the abstract facts of your hypothetical life-exerience-story,in a physical world, there are likewise other abstract facts that aren't part of anyone's life-experience possibility-story, but which are nonetheless abstract facts not unlike those comprising your experience-story.

Their relevance is admittedly questionable, but I feel that it would be animal-chauvinist to deny that there are such.

But, my metaphysics, Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism is only about the experience-stories, of which the experiencer, the protagonist, is central and primary.

As I say, you're in a life because you're a protagonist in such a story. First it was the Will-To-Life, and the fact that there'd be the experiences you needed or wanted, if... and away it went, a story of "If" set in a world of "If".

That's the meaningful subset of the abstract facts.

I don't usually talk about abstract facts that aren't part of such experience-stories, but, now that you bring it up, of course there are such.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd like to answer this again:

Yeah, "complete description" just seems like a nonsensical phrase to me (hence why I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions"). — Terrapin Station

What's completely describable is what doesn't have anything about it that can't, in principle, be known and described by humans.

As for the smell of mint, it's obvious that any description you could give wouldn't just be "partial". It would be completely inadequate, and, other than crudely and roughly likening it to something else that's really quite different, wouldn't convey what it's like, to someone who hadn't smelled mint.

Michael Ossipoff

You leave out what to me is the most plausible response, which is that the question itself is flawed. It lives back in the time of pre-critical metaphysics, where just because we had word always meant that we had some kind of entity referred to by that word.

And then we can act as if we are launching super-scientific hypotheses about the relationship between these entities. But what do we really mean by 'mind' and 'body' in the first place? Of course we have some rough sense of what we mean, but the problem is that this sense is way too coarse to do any real work with. As others have said, the LCD of 20th century philosophy is an attention paid to language and how that changes philosophy's conception of itself.

If you're an identity theorist as I am, those two are not contradictory. Not that I share the view. I think that only some physical "stuff" is mental stuff, I'm not a property dualist, etc. — Terrapin Station

I'm curious, would an identity theorist have to reject Chalmers p-zombie world as being conceivable?

I don't think that it's unmeaningful to speak of what can defined, and referred to, and can be, in principle, described in all their aspects. (even if those aspects can't always be counted or enumerated.) — Michael Ossipoff

I wouldn't say that it ever makes sense to talk about "all aspects" of anything.

Of course. I'm modest enough to admit that there are all sorts of topics with things that I'm not qualified to describe. For example, I'm pretty much entirely ignorant of gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar. — Michael Ossipoff

But you just described "gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar," so that would be something you believe in that you can describe.

Just as there are the abstract facts — Michael Ossipoff

The only "abstract facts" there are are things like "Joe has formulated an abstraction (in other words, he's done something mentally, his brain has been in process in particular ways) re a concept of 'love'."

I'm curious, would an identity theorist have to reject Chalmers p-zombie world as being conceivable? — Marchesk

Well, it depends on what someone would mean by "conceivable."

Basically, the p-zombie idea involves pretending that the physical properties of some substance aren't actually the physical properties of that substance. So, for example, take slippery ice, frozen water that under certain conditions is slippery --it has a top layer that's melting, etc. (I don't know what all of the temperature, atmospheric pressure, etc. requirements are, but whatever they are). We could say, "It's conceivable that everything is identical re the ice, temperature, etc. yet the ice wouldn't be slippery." P-zombies are "conceivable" in the same way as that.

wouldn't convey what it's like, to someone who hadn't smelled mint. — Michael Ossipoff

It's a truism about descriptions that they never convey what anything is like, experientially, to someone who hasn't experienced the thing in question. That's not a flaw of descriptions, it's a property of them. After all, they're just sets of words that people assign whatever personal meanings and concepts etc to. That's not going to amount to what any experience is like to anyone. Experiences aren't like words, or meanings, or concepts (especially not those formulated on other experiences) or other, different experiences that someone has had in general.

We could say, "It's conceivable that everything is identical re the ice, temperature, etc. yet the ice wouldn't be slippery." P-zombies are "conceivable" in the same way as that. — Terrapin Station

I don't think that's a fair analogy. Perhaps Chalmers would suggest this as a better analogy: It is conceivable that something looks and feels exactly like slippery ice, and yet it is not ice. (Which, of course, is easily conceivable and even plausible.) But I am not sure that this is a fair analogy either.

I don't think that's a fair analogy. Perhaps Chalmers would suggest this as a better analogy: It is conceivable that something looks and feels exactly like slippery ice, and yet it is not ice. (Which, of course, is easily conceivable and even plausible.) But I am not sure that this is a fair analogy either. — SophistiCat

The reason it's a fair analogy is that we're saying that:

(a) The physical make-up of x is exactly the same
and yet
(b) The properties of physical stuff x are different

Of course, Chalmers wouldn't agree with (b), but the reason the thought experiment doesn't work is that to physicalists, (b) is exactly what's being proposed. So to physicalists, (a) and (b) are only conceivable in the sense of us being able to pretend for any physical stuff that it's identical in two instances, yet it has different properties in those different instances. (And we might just as well add in the ice analogy that "it's some mysterious 'nonphysical' stuff that makes ice slippery" (and we could say that some mysterious "nonphysical" stuff is the source of all properties for that matter--that makes just as much sense as what's being proposed in the p-zombie argument)).

The p-zombie argument doesn't propose that the properties are identical yet the physical stuff behind it is different (as you're suggesting). It instead proposes that the physical stuff is identical, yet the properties that obtain are different ("is conscious" in one case versus "is not conscious" in the p-zombie case).

”I don't think that it's unmeaningful to speak of what can defined, and referred to, and can be, in principle, described in all their aspects. (even if those aspects can't always be counted or enumerated.)” — Michael Ossipoff
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I wouldn't say that it ever makes sense to talk about "all aspects" of anything.
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…and, to avoid that objection, I later said:
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What's completely describable is what doesn't have anything about it that can't, in principle, be known and described by humans.
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”Of course. I'm modest enough to admit that there are all sorts of topics with things that I'm not qualified to describe. For example, I'm pretty much entirely ignorant of gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar.” — Michael Ossipoff
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But you just described "gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar,"

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I named a topic. I only said one thing about "gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascars”. I said only I don’t know anything about it.
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If you call that a description, that certainly expands the number of things you can “describe”. :D
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…so that would be something you believe in that you can describe.

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So, according to you, even by saying that you can’t describe something, you’re saying something about it, and thereby describing it. You know that that makes nonsense out of the word “describe”.
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”Just as there are the abstract facts” — Michael Ossipoff
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The only "abstract facts" there are are things like "Joe has formulated an abstraction (in other words, he's done something mentally, his brain has been in process in particular ways) re a concept of 'love'."

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Say it how you want. You seem to just be saying what I said. (…when I said that there are abstract facts at least in the limited sense that they can be mentioned and referred to).
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But I also said that I make no claim for “existence” or “reality” (whatever that would mean) of abstract facts, or for anything else describable. (…unless you call what I referred to in the paragraph before this one “existence”.)
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Reply to your next posting:
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”…wouldn't convey what it's like, to someone who hadn't smelled mint.” — Michael Ossipoff
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It's a truism about descriptions that they never convey what anything is like, experientially, to someone who hasn't experienced the thing in question. That's not a flaw of descriptions, it's a property of them. After all, they're just sets of words that people assign whatever personal meanings and concepts etc to. That's not going to amount to what any experience is like to anyone. Experiences aren't like words, or meanings, or concepts (especially not those formulated on other experiences) or other, different experiences that someone has had in general.

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Yes, a wordier way of saying what I said.
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Yes, you can say something about the smell of mint. For example, you can “describe” it by saying that you like it, or that it’s present in a mint-leaf, or that you notice it in the air. …or even by saying that you can’t describe it.
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You can’t fully describe it, for the reason that you talk about in the paragraph of yours that I quoted above.
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Because you can’t fully tell someone else what an experience, such as the smell of mint, is like, it’s fair to say that you can’t fully describe it. That’s a fair meaning for “fully describe”: To fully describe something is to tell about it without leaving out anything about it.
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There are things that can, in principle, be fully described, as defined immediately above. I call them describable things. (Of course they don’t include experiences, but they include aspects of one’s surroundings, the logic-governed consistent physical world that we experience.)
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All this reminds us of the limitations of definitions. As I said, no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words. …making nonsense of any claim that words can describe Reality, or even everyday local experiential reality. (…as you agreed in the above-quoted paragraph.) Things can be said, but it’s questionable to put faith in the completely objective validity or meaning of what’s said.
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…all the more reason why it’s better to not claim “objective existence” or “objective reality” for describable” things.
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Michael Ossipoff

So, according to you, even by saying that you can’t describe something, you’re saying something about it, and thereby describing it. You know that that makes nonsense out of the word “describe”. — Michael Ossipoff

"Gardening practices" isn't a description of something?

"Gardening practices" isn't a description of something? — Terrapin Station

No. It's the name of a topic, not a description of one.

Michael Ossipoff

No. It's the name of a topic, not a description of one. — Michael Ossipoff

"Those folks are engaged in practices"

"What sort of practices?"

"Gardening practices"

--you just described something.

The reason it's a fair analogy is that we're saying that:

(a) The physical make-up of x is exactly the same
and yet
(b) The properties of physical stuff x are different — Terrapin Station

I was wrong, and your (a) is right. But your (b) is not quite right: Chalmers (following Kripke) stipulates that zombies are identical to humans in all physical respects. But since slipperiness is a physical property, just as being made up of water molecules is, your analogy does not work either. It would be hard to come up with an analogy of the zombie argument for something like ice, because after you take away everything that is physical about it, it seems that nothing is left over. Chalmers wants you to believe that it is at least conceivable that phenomenal consciousness is an optional extra to all the physical stuff. I don't buy his argument, but I think it's not so obvious that you can just shrug it off.

I was wrong, and your (a) is right. But your (b) is not quite right: Chalmers (following Kripke) stipulates that zombies are identical to humans in all physical respects. But since slipperiness is a physical property, just as being made up of water molecules is, your analogy does not work either. It would be hard to come up with an analogy of the zombie argument for something like ice, because after you take away everything that is physical about it, it seems that nothing is left over. Chalmers wants you to believe that it is at least conceivable that phenomenal consciousness is an optional extra to all the physical stuff. I don't buy his argument, but I think it's not so obvious that you can just shrug it off. — SophistiCat

As I said, Chalmers wouldn't agree with my (b). The problem is that to physicalists, mentality is a physical property, as obvious to us as the slipperiness of ice is a physical property.

So again, saying to a physicalist that it is conceivable that the physical aspects are identical, but that mentality doesn't obtain, is just like saying that the physical aspects of ice are identical, but that slipperiness doesn't obtain.

And again, we could just as well vaguely pretend that the slipperiness of ice isn't physical in some mysterious way. We could say the same thing about any properties--pretend that any given properties of anything aren't physical, but are some mysterious nonphysical whatever. To physicalists, that's what the p-zombie argument is doing.

I think it was T. H. Huxley (though I cannot find the quote), while critiquing vitalism, compared it to the belief that there is some essential "traininess" in a steam locomotive, which comes in addition to all of its manifest physical features - its gleaming steel body, the steam, the whistle... He also mockingly compared it to "aquosity" - a hypothetical property or mechanism that is responsible for the essence of water, quite apart from its chemical composition.

However, I think that "phenomenal consciousness" or "qualia" is a harder nut to crack than vitalism. Again, I am not agreeing with Chalmers et al., I just don't think that it is as obvious, as you say. There is something odd about consciousness that calls for a careful conceptual analysis.

However, I think that "phenomenal consciousness" or "qualia" is a harder nut to crack than vitalism. Again, I am not agreeing with Chalmers et al., I just don't think that it is as obvious, as you say. There is something odd about consciousness that calls for a careful conceptual analysis. — SophistiCat

That's for sure. And Chalmers does discuss the difference between vitalism and consciousness. Vitalism was tenable before biology could fully explain the behavior of life. But there is something odd about consciousness in a different way that requires us to think carefully about it. Knowing the science of how our bodies or the world works doesn't resolve the riddle.

We could say, "It's conceivable that everything is identical re the ice, temperature, etc. yet the ice wouldn't be slippery." P-zombies are "conceivable" in the same way as that. — Terrapin Station

Problem here is that the slipperiness of ice is logically entailed by knowing the physics and chemistry. to imagine a physically identical world without the slipperiness is to fail to imagine an identical world. Nobody has succeeded so far in showing how this is the case for consciousness.

Identity theorists say that consciousness is identical to certain mental states. But for sake of argument, I can image a physically identical world lacking that identity. It's called all the other theories of consciousness.

I'm not sure exactly what an identity is supposed to be. Is it the neurons firing a certain way? Is it their function? Is it the information they compute? Chalmers himself proposes a theory based on informationally rich processes, but it's a property dualism, not an identity.

If physicists and computer scientists developed a consciousness chip that computed conscious states, would we say the electrons moving through the silicon are identical to having a conscious experience? I don't know how to make sense of that.

Identity theorists say that consciousness is identical to certain mental states. But for sake of argument, I can image a physically identical world lacking that identity. It's called all the other theories of consciousness. — Marchesk

One problem with that line of argument is that we can easily imagine states of affairs that are nomologically and even logically impossible. Being able to imagine something doesn't really tell us much.

I think it was T. H. Huxley (though I cannot find the quote), while critiquing vitalism, compared it to the belief that there is some essential "traininess" in a steam locomotive — SophistiCat

I'm fairly sure you're talking about his "on the hypothesis that animals are automata" essay, and it's comparing it to a steam whistle having no effect on its machinery. While it's talking specifically about animals the steam whistle comparison grew traction beyond it. A curious thing about "steam whistles" though is that they are seen as part of the appeal of the steam train and is part of the reason many of them are still in service. So using them to show that consciousness is epiphenomenal is problematic.
The problem with identity theory (other than classical type physicalism - mental state corresponding to specific brain states- was left in the dust years ago and even Churchland's eliminativism gets more hits) is that consciousness does not appear as a series of neurons firing. There is a holistic phenomenal story that seems like a series of things "binded together" which is unlike the description of anything in nature.
This is why Dennett tends to use eliminativist explanations for consciousness. And tries to show the "bindedness" is an illusion through change blindness ect.

I'm fairly sure you're talking about his "on the hypothesis that animals are automata" essay, and it's comparing it to a steam whistle having no effect on its machinery. — JupiterJess

I looked that up, and no, I was thinking of something else. Not Huxley then. Too bad, it was a lovely passage, but I can no longer locate it.

As for epiphenomenalism, I think it's a misguided idea.

"Those folks are engaged in practices"

"What sort of practices?"

"Gardening practices"

--you just described something. — Terrapin Station

Yes, and, if "describing" something merely means saying at least one thing about it, that's why I said that, by "describable things", I mean "things that humans can, in principle, describe without leaving out anything about them."

Michael Ossipoff

Maybe I should call that "completely describable" and "completely describable thing". Something is completely describable if, at least in principle, humans could describe it without leaving out anything about it.

The smell of mint isn't completely describable, and, in fact, no experience is.

But there are limitedly-defined completely describable aspects of our surroundings and experiences.

It would be presumptuous in the extreme to say that Reality itself is or might be completely describable, when even everyday experiential reality isn't completely describable.

Michael Ossipoff