We've all heard of the question where my ''blue'' could be enitrely different from your version of ''blue''. Yet, we somehow (miraculously) agree on the proposition: the sky is ''blue''. — TheMadFool

It's not miraculous. We agree on that proposition because we were taught to use the word "blue" to name the colour we see the sky to be. It would only become problematic if I see two things as being the same colour but you see those two things as being two different colours.

Taking this line of thought only a little further how do we know we're all thinking the same way? — TheMadFool

I'd say that I know we're not thinking the same way, because numerically distinct things (such as one, my thinking, and two, your thinking) cannot literally be the same. That doesn't mean that our thinking cannot be similar, but it's not going to be the same.

You're right, in a way? I was going to ask ''do you think it's that simple?'' But realized the counter-question ''do you think it's that complex?''

In your case if I were to agree with you wouldn't it be considered ''same'' thinking?

You could say that in a very loose manner of speaking, with the quotation marks, sure, and certainly that's a common way of talking about it.

But how do we know that that is the case? I don't have access to your mind and vice versa. Limited as such how do we know we're thinking the ''same'' thing or for that matter, ''differently''?

On my view we know that we're not literally thinking the same thing because it's incoherent that two numerically distinct things are identical.

We know that people do not think the same way, as we can have two people who are epistemic peers (have same evidence and same rational ability about a given subject) can reach two radically different conclusions on a problem.

Yes, we all think the same way, but what we think and the quality of our thinking is obviously different.

We know that people do not think the same way, as we can have two people who are epistemic peers (have same evidence and same rational ability about a given subject) can reach two radically different conclusions on a problem. — Chany

That I'm afraid is impossible. The same evidence AND the same rational ability should take everyone to the same conlusion. That however, is beside the point I'm making.

I'll try and give you an analogy. Imagine two people A and B. A is wearing red filter glasses (i.e. allows only red light to pass through) and B is wearing blue filter glasses. Both of them are now shown a white object. As is expected A would see the object as red but would call this white while B would see it as blue and would only know it as white. In this case A's white is different from B's white and yet they'd both agree that the object is white.

Can you now extrapolate that to mental functions too?

Please read my reply to Chany

In your example, cognition isn't operating any differently, it's just that the results of said cognition are not the same.

...it's just that the results of said cognition are not the same. — Thorongil

Is this difference consequential or not?

For what?

In your example, cognition isn't operating any differently, it's just that the results of said cognition are not the same. — Thorongil

How do you know this?

Because, from an empirical perspective, the same underlying brain processes involved in the perception of color are at work in both A and B. They do not change. Similarly, putting lower octane fuel in one car and higher octane fuel in another doesn't change the processes of the same internal combustion engine in both, even though the results of putting in different fuel might cause one to run more efficiently than the other.

I'll try and give you an analogy. Imagine two people A and B. A is wearing red filter glasses (i.e. allows only red light to pass through) and B is wearing blue filter glasses. Both of them are now shown a white object. As is expected A would see the object as red but would call this white while B would see it as blue and would only know it as white. In this case A's white is different from B's white and yet they'd both agree that the object is white.

What distinguishes a red-red object from a red-white object? Isn't the red-white object redundant? Or?

The difference in you see is based in what is referred to qualia. We know that different people have different perceptions of the quality of color, for example. However, there would be no difference in the physical light waves that are orginally on the object. At best, you can argue qualia is different.

Depending on the subject in question, it becomes harder and harder to see how different indviduals responding to the same external, mind-independent reality could reach the same conclusion and have radically different internal thought processes whose differences are impossible to detect.

Yes, everyone is different and thinks and senses differently. However, there are enough simalarities so that in many instances we can negotiate agreements. Sometimes, maybe often, external agreements only serve to hide internal disagreements. Relationships are tough.

That I'm afraid is impossible. The same evidence AND the same rational ability should take everyone to the same conlusion. That however, is beside the point I'm making. — TheMadFool

But it doesn't. What you really mean is that if everyone with the same evidence and rational ability started off with the same premises, then they would reach the same conclusion. But even that isn't the case, because there's often debate over whether a step in an argument is committing a fallacy or not.

No, people don't see precisely the same colours, their eyes vary, there is environmental saturation, and other factors. What's important is not that we see the precise same thing, but simply that we can discern it. We can continually reference, and consistently discern it independently.

This discernment is also demonstrably cultural. The Greeks referred to gold as red, and the ocean yellow. Some African tribes call the sky black even during the day, and have a great green discernment, far better than ours but can't distinguish light blues from greens where it's obvious to us. Russians don't have a single word for blue, but have two, one for light blue and the other dark blue and correspondingly have a better blue discernment than English speakers. Beyond that, there are even niche examples of experts, or people that have simply studied, and spend more time discerning colours, like an orchestra sounds different to a composer than a layman. On top of that, the genes for colour vision are on the X chromosome, so women have two sets, and are far less likely to be colour blind, and have a richer orange red discernment than men.

The forms of not only our thoughts, but our very perceptions are culturally structured to a shocking degree.

In that case, we could all be living in our idiosynratic private ''worlds'' - completely different from each other. In this case how do we find common ground? I know that logic appears to be universal in that it applies consistently to all people however could this not also be an illusion - a far far more sophisticated one?

There are many things in which there is an undeniable constancy of reference. If you ask me for recipe for chocolate cake, and I give it to you, and you bake a chocolate cake, then I wouldn't expect that you would produce a roast duck. There are many concrete and goal-oriented tasks of that kind; they have an external reference. I think that is why science has become 'the arbiter of reality' for us; real things are nowadays supposedly 'objective'.

The difficulties become much more apparent with philosophy. I think that traditionally, this is why there was an emphasis on rote learning, the Classics, and the basic curriculum - the 'three R's'. Part of the aim of that was to facilitate a common 'domain of discourse' within which meanings could be expressed consistently.

But that's gone. It's part of what modernity has lost. 'Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world'.

I think that is why science has become 'the arbiter of reality' for us; real things are nowadays supposedly 'objective'. — Wayfarer

I may be wrong but it appears to me that scientific objectivity rests on multiple experiments showing the same result. This is puzzling. Each experiment is subjective - why else would science require multiple measurements? I fail to understand how a bunch of experiments, each individually subjective, add up to objectivity.

The above point I'm making is just another variation of my original question - how do we know we're same or different in our thoughts?

"Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power... Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners [in the Flood]; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion..."

What's important is not that we see the precise same thing, but simply that we can discern it. We can continually reference, and consistently discern it independently. — Wosret

Can you explain yourself? Your last post seems to suggest that there's no hope for us and we'redoomed toconfusion. Yet in the quote above you say we only need to ''discern'' as in a silver lining of a cloud.

Each experiment is subjective - why else would science require multiple measurements? I fail to understand how a bunch of experiments, each individually subjective, add up to objectivity. — TheMadFool

That doesn't strike me as a difficult question in the least. Imagine asking a person to describe something - say, a photograph with lots of objects in it - which you yourself haven't seen. Obviously, the report of a single person will be dependent on that person's mnemonic ability. And the odds are, it won't be very good. But get 10 people to describe it, or 20, or 100, and then you can average all the observations, screen out the subjectivities - the one or two who reported 'elephant' - and arrive at an 'averaged' picture of the result.

Besides, the whole point of scientific method is to bracket out the subjective elements. Philosophically, you can take issue with that - I do - but methodologically, there's no doubt scientific method does this very well.

(Incidentally, that well-chosen quote from Wosret is not of his own devising, but a timely allusion to traditional literature, to whit , 'the Tower of Bable'.)

Wayfarer's comment just reminded me of that. See, if we aren't speaking the same narrative, then we aren't speaking the same language, even if we're using the same words. There is an important sense in which our global narrative has never been more universal, but also the more universal it is, the less distinct it can be. Unfortunately what the details are when talking about people are the real people themselves. We've developed a highly abstract and universal language, but with no sense of who each other really are. What kind of character do they see themselves as, aspiring to, and those around them paralleling. Who are the villains and who are the heroes, and why? What's important, and why? How is it that we transcend these physical manifestations, and exist as anything we agree to in our collective narrative?

In the sense of what kind of story is the story of our lives, we've never been more confused.

In the sense of what kind of story is the story of our lives, we've never been more confused. — Wosret

(Y)

In this case how do we find common ground? — TheMadFool

By saying things like, "Is that Stratocaster blue?" and the other person going, "Yeah, that's blue."

The fact that both people don't have exactly the same mental content doesn't matter for any practical purpose.