If you can make any sounds you want, then understanding isn't part of the language game. You just make sounds. If there is a language "game" then there are rules to follow when referring to certain things. When people use language incorrectly, or in the wrong contexts, like talking as if you were Elvis Presley and claiming that you are, and acting like you are, then we typically think those people delusional or insane.Communicating doesn't consist of making "the right sounds", it consists of understanding. The fact is that in every different situation there are many different words, or sounds, which could be used for the specific purpose, so there is no such thing as "the right sound".
Don't get me wrong, I'm not ruling out similarity, as playing an essential role. I am just trying to induce the proper distinction between "similar" which implies different, from "same" which implies not different. In this way we won't be inclined to say that similar things are the same, and we'll have some rigorous logical principles to approach the issue.. — Metaphysician Undercover
Why wouldn't we see the same colors if we are members of the same species? It would be surprising for someone to say that we are so different that some humans might have experiences more like bats or beetles. How many varieties of experience of the world are there? Does the type of brain have some influence on how you experience the world? Do different types of brains have different types of experiences? What reason would we have to posit that the same type of being, human-beings, have different experiences? What is the scope of the difference? If we can't realize whether or not we have the same quale, when using "green", how do we know if we even are referring to the same quale when we use, "colors"?We can never know if we see the same colors. It's intuitively plausible, and an argument can be made for it, but it's unnecessary. Generations come and go without knowing whether they use 'green' to refer to the same quale. Or whether anyone ever has the same signified for 'toothache.' — jjAmEs
If you can make any sounds you want, then understanding isn't part of the language game. You just make sounds. If there is a language "game" then there are rules to follow when referring to certain things. — Harry Hindu
If our experiences are so different, then how is it that we can communicate and understand each other? — Harry Hindu
How could we learn to use words the same way and then use them the same way if we are so different? — Harry Hindu
We at least seem to agree that we both experience colors and sounds, but not the same colors and sounds? Why that distinction? — Harry Hindu
How would we know that we both experience colors and what those are and that we are both talking about the same thing when we write the scribble, "colors" on a screen? — Harry Hindu
Wouldn't the idea that we are both similar beings, as in human-beings, lead one to believe that we have similar experiences, at least more similar than you would with a dog or goat? — Harry Hindu
If we can't say that what everyone experiences is different or not, then it can be safely said that we each have or own private language. — Harry Hindu
If there is a language "game" then there are rules to follow when referring to certain things. When people use language incorrectly, or in the wrong contexts, like talking as if you were Elvis Presley and claiming that you are, and acting like you are, then we typically think those people delusional or insane. — Harry Hindu
I suggest that it makes as much sense to ground the subject/consciousness in language as it does to ground language in the subject/consciousness. The whole philosophical discourse of consciousness occurs within public sign-systems. The subject is an effect of language, not as a body, of course, but as a concept, as one more sign that only makes sense in a system of signs. — jjAmEs
Though not new to me, I find this to be an interesting take. — javra
More specifically, in your view, is it a valid position to affirm that the English linguistic percept of "awareness" is in itself what manifests the occurrence of awareness - such that the term does not reference anything that can occur in the term's absence?
If yes, this would naturally entail that language-less beings are devoid of sentience due to their lacking of awareness - to include not only lesser animals but young toddlers as well - for none such hold a linguistically framed concept of "awareness". — javra
BTW, I in part ask because a) the concept of "awareness" can of course only be linguistically conveyed and because, b) given the wide array of possible denotations that can be applied to the term "consciousness" - while it is conceivable given some such denotations that awareness can occur sans consciousness (e.g., an ant can be so claimed to be devoid of a consciousness while yet aware of stimuli) - denoting consciousness as something that can occur in the absence of awareness makes the term "consciousness" utterly nonsensical. And our own awareness - via which we perceive just as much as we cognize intuitions and introspections - seems to me to be the pivotal "beetle".
So, to sum: in your view, is it a valid possibility that awareness cannot occur in the absence of language? — javra
I hope my answer is somehow helpful or at least not boring. — jjAmEs
Myself, I however am also of the general opinion that most concepts - or, at least, those which are most important - do however reference concrete existents, for lack of better terms, this in reference to what's going on within (again, as I term it, in reference to each of our own intra-subjective reality). — javra
It's also a given to me that language is inter-subjective, rather than what I'd term intra-subjective (as would be one's private awareness of a flashing insight, for example) - and, hence, that linguistic meaning is largely social and historical. — javra
Thank you for the candid reply. — javra
Oh, yes. Meta's misguided reading has been pointed out before. — Banno
I gotta link to this, in case you're interested: http://lab404.com/misc/ltdinc.pdf — jjAmEs
Have to ask, have you ever experienced concepts that are not communicable via the language(s) you speak? — javra
Since I'm Romanian-American, as example, in Romanian there is no translation of "awareness" - as there is, for example, of "cat" ("pisica"). There is "conștință" - which stands for both consciousness and conscience - as well as "cognizență", which is fluidly translated into "cognizance" - but there's no term for "awareness". — javra
These are my general musings on the subject, here given for disclosure. — javra
Now that I think of it, to me many art forms are just this: the attempted communication of experiences, sometimes conceptual, that are not communicable via language. — javra
Different languages have different ways of breaking up or articulating reality. I find that fascinating. — jjAmEs
But I'd like to add the notion of the artist discovering experiences by experimenting with the medium. I've worked in various media (music and visual art, for example) and personally I did not in general know where I was going or wanted to say. Instead I experienced a 'reactive' critical faculty that was or was not satisfied as I tried this or that, starting perhaps with vague general ideas. If all went well, I'd end up with shapes or sounds that felt good. — jjAmEs
For me the artist would share with others in the experience of the art afterward. But he or she would never know for sure that the experience/beetle was the same. — jjAmEs
Though I yet maintain that there is some underlying reality that is signified. In a way it reminds me of a ruby metaphor: the same gem gets expressed, and conceptualized, via one of its many faces. — javra
Still, I've also often had a general image, or feeling, that I wanted to make tangible - not a picture perfect imagination, but a clear awareness of the impact I wanted the subject matter to convey. — javra
Seems as though this goes without saying. Agreed. Then there's the case to be made of the artwork holding the artist as its principle audience. One knows, senses, when it came out at its best. The pleasure then is intrinsic, rather than being obtained from other's reaction.
Hmm, notice this is changing the thread's topic a bit - possibly a bit too much. But its good to relate about these things. — javra
when i say that an object is spatially extended, I mean that it has volume, and when i say that an object is not spatially extended, I mean that it does not have volume. According to my understanding, volume is contingent upon perception; meaning that there is no independently existing spatial reality — TheGreatArcanum
One such insight is that we never know exactly what we mean. — jjAmEs
Meta's misguided reading has been pointed out before. — Banno
What would strengthen your case from my point of view is some chain of signs that demonstrates to me that you've actually absorbed the critics I have in mind. I have the sense that you are more or less shutting out ahead of time what could change your mind. — jjAmEs
I wasn't trying to make a distinction between an "external" game and "internal" understanding. It seems to me that if there is no "internal" understanding, there is no "external" game. It requires at least two people to understand the rules for there to be an external game, and there requires external parts for there to be an understanding about - different pieces have different rules.I don't dispute that the external "game" is separate from the internal "understanding". — Metaphysician Undercover
MU, experiences and thoughts are about things. If you and I have a visual experience of a hamburger, are our experiences not about the same thing? If they are about the same thing, or causally related to the same thing, then how is it that our experiences of it aren't the same, or at least similar? If they aren't about the same thing, then we would just be talking past each other or living in different realities.We are clearly not talking about "the same thing" in this situation, so I don't know why you keep coming back to this, talking as if you think that we are talking about the same thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
That isn't what I was trying to do. Language is just visual scribbles and sounds, like mostly everything else in consciousness - that is about things that aren't the scribbles and sounds. If we can adopt various sounds and scribbles in our experience to mean certain things, then how is it that we can't just use the visuals and sounds that we already experience prior to learning any language to be about some other experience? We don't need language to have a narrative. We simply need categories, which are basically the same thing as concepts. Animals can establish causal relationships (explanations) without having any language. A deer passing through the forest scents the ground and detects a certain odor. A sequence of ideas is generated in the mind of the deer. Nothing in the deer's experience can produce that odor but a wolf; therefore the scientific inference is drawn that wolves have passed that way. But it is a part of the deer's scientific knowledge, based on previous experience, individual and racial; that wolves are dangerous beasts, and so, combining direct observation in the present with the application of a general principle based on past experience, the deer reaches the very logical conclusion that it may wisely turn about and run in another direction. All this implies, essentially, a comprehension and use of scientific principles; and, strange as it seems to speak of a deer as possessing scientific knowledge, yet there is really no absurdity in the statement. The deer does possess scientific knowledge; knowledge differing in degree only, not in kind, from the knowledge of a Newton. Nor is the animal, within the range of its intelligence, less logical, less scientific in the application of that knowledge, than is the human. The animal that could not make accurate scientific observations of its surroundings, and deduce accurate scientific conclusions from them, would soon pay the penalty of its lack of logic.I think that inference only makes sense if one clings to consciousness-grounded paradigm that is exploded by the beetle-in-the-box example. The whole habit of trying to ground everything in consciousness deserves rethinking when it comes to language. As I see it, there are certain biases or prejudices that are so automatic that we don't even notice them and find the questioning of them absurd at first. I suggest that it makes as much sense to ground the subject/consciousness in language as it does to ground language in the subject/consciousness. The whole philosophical discourse of consciousness occurs within public sign-systems. The subject is an effect of language, not as a body, of course, but as a concept, as one more sign that only makes sense in a system of signs. — jjAmEs
I wasn't trying to make a distinction between an "external" game and "internal" understanding. — Harry Hindu
Since, by assumption, the private inside is inaccessible, it 'obviously' can play no role in grounding a 'meaning' that must be public and external to be a code, a language that one can learn and participate in. — jjAmEs
It seems to me that if there is no "internal" understanding, there is no "external" game. It requires at least two people to understand the rules for there to be an external game, and there requires external parts for there to be an understanding about - different pieces have different rules. — Harry Hindu
MU, experiences and thoughts are about things. If you and I have a visual experience of a hamburger, are our experiences not about the same thing? If they are about the same thing, or causally related to the same thing, then how is it that our experiences of it aren't the same, or at least similar? If they aren't about the same thing, then we would just be talking past each other or living in different realities. — Harry Hindu
This led to a contradiction in the reading of Wittgenstein. The premise of the example is that everyone has something in the box, but Wittgenstein later says "the box might even be empty". Clearly we have a contradiction here. "Everyone has something in the box", and "the box might be empty", are incompatible. — Metaphysician Undercover
This doesn't make any sense. You want to conclude that if our thoughts are about the same thing, then the thoughts themselves are the same. To think about something is to create a relationship with that thing. It's illogical, that I, being a thing, would have the same relationship as you, being a second thing, to a third thing. In order for you and I to have the same relationship with another thing, we'd have to both be the same thing. You and I would be one thing. Therefore we should conclude that yours and my experiences of that third thing are not the same.
The other option you propose is that the experiences of you and I are similar. That they are similar would need to be demonstrated. I think we demonstrate the similarities, along with the differences, through communication. — Metaphysician Undercover
I offer this not to be contrary but only to keep things interesting by defending an opposing view. It's not for me about destroying the concept of consciousness but instead in recontextualizing it. The idea is (as I understand it) that we have certain conventions that give concepts identity. — jjAmEs
Feel free to link to any art you have online. I'll check it out. — jjAmEs
What does it mean to say that our what our thoughts are about are the same, but the thoughts themselves aren't? If you only know about something by your thoughts, and they are different than mine then how do we know that we are thinking about the same thing? — Harry Hindu
What would you be communicating - your thoughts or the thing your thoughts are about? — Harry Hindu
We don't need to communicate with each other to understand that we are both looking at the same thing. — Harry Hindu
I’ll expand my views on this a little in reference to consciousness. As I was previously implying, consciousness as an abstract conceptual noun has no meaning in the absence of awareness. Although “awareness” and “cognizance” can hold different spectrums of meaning, “to be aware” and “to cognize” do not - this at least when applied to the first-person point of view (rather than a total mind): to be aware of X is to cognize X and vice versa. Here we have multiple abstract conceptual nouns that convey somewhat different concepts that, nevertheless, reference the same exact beetle that is in everybody’s box. Though we’re all uniquely informed as first-person points-of-view by information at large, this being in part what makes us all uniquely different, we all nevertheless hold an identical beetle in that we are all endowed with (else are) a first-person point of view. Granting that an ant is a sentient being and not an automaton, so too does an ant hold the same beetle in its box: that of having, else being, a first-person point-of-view. For emphasis, all first-person points-of-view will be different in form - again, partly due to the differing information they are informed by, also by biological predispositions that are genetically inherited, etc.; nevertheless, all first-person points of view will be the same, by which I mean qualitatively identical, in their one property of so being first-person points-of-view – differently worded, in being a first-person nexus of awareness. — javra
That's the way we use words, they indicate a type of thing, yet we also use them to refer to particulars. — Metaphysician Undercover
So the conclusion, that the thing in the box has no role in the language game is not valid, because it does not account for that role, in which the person uses the word to refer to the thing in their own box, or to the thing in someone else's box. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's not necessarily the way we use words. — Luke
So how does a person know that what they mean by "beetle" is the same as what anyone else means by it? — Luke
How can the word be used in this way? — Luke
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.