Always a good argument> if you disagree with me you must be mad! — unenlightened

That wasn't my argument. I suggested that a mental health professional might disagree with you if, as you stated, you were to think that you didn't have your own pains and Banno was to think that my pains were his. That was intended as a lighthearted remark because those are abnormal views to hold. But if you wish to take that as my argument and ignore the rest, then...nice chatting with you.

That was intended as a lighthearted remark because those are abnormal views to hold. — Luke

Alas, you miss the point again. How can you say what is normal or abnormal without comparing subjectivities? You cannot have normal and abnormal private worlds - they have to be public so we can compare. Whether your heart is light or heavy as compared to mine is something you need to be positing as unknowable.

But excuse me for taking what you say seriously; I'll try and remember not to in future.

No mental stuff here. — Banno

You don't say?

How can you say what is normal or abnormal without comparing subjectivities? — unenlightened

How can we "compare subjectivities" if, as per you original claim "Subjectivity is a social construct; subjectivity is intersubjective"? If subjectivity is already intersubjective and no more than a social construct, then what's to compare? How can we compare what is already intersubjective, and what are we comparing it to?

You cannot have normal and abnormal private worlds — unenlightened

Again, not my argument. You seem to be making the same conflation as Banno between "subjective" and "private". My whole point here is that these are not the same.

Since chess is a social construct, playing chess by yourself is also a social construct... — Banno

Playing chess would be analogous to using language?

If using language by yourself is a social construct, then all language use is socially constructed.

Science is language use. Science is a social construct. The conclusion is that we never leave the land of discourse.

Again, I'm not expecting you to address this, I'm just interested in where the paths lead.

Banno is a denier of the mental world. That's where his fear of certain words come from, and he cannot really say it out loud because he knows how ridiculous it may sound. Hence his timid questions and evasive answers. — Olivier5

I agree that introducing jargon should only be done when there's a really good reason for it.

You seem to be making the same conflation as Banno between "subjective" and "private". My whole point here is that these are not the same. — Luke

your thoughts would be subjective insofar as they occur individually to you and to Banno. I suppose they would remain private to each of you until or unless they were expressed in some way (not necessarily linguistically). — Luke

I consider subjectivity to be somewhat synonymous with personhood and its traits, such as conscious awareness, rational thought, sensory perception, and the ability to feel pain. — Luke

And is this your subjective feeling about things, or is it the way things are? This is the problem: if awareness, senses, feelings, and thoughts are all subjective, there doesn't seem much left to be objective except some hypothetical noumenon, which no one has access to. And thus the subjective becomes necessarily private, because one only has one's own subjective perceptions of the expressions of another's subjective feelings. There is no point of contact.

I can't have your (subjective) pains because you and I are different people, but that doesn't mean your pains are necessarily private.

This is the problem: if awareness, senses, feelings, and thoughts are all subjective, there doesn't seem much left to be objective except some hypothetical noumenon — unenlightened

The structure of the thoughts senses and feelings can be the same.

Public language can’t talk about private/subjective events, only their structure. And that’s all you need for communication. See my replies to Isaac for details. Or the original comment of mine you replied to.

The “point of contact” is the similar structure of our experiences.

The “point of contact” is the similar structure of our experiences. — khaled

And is that your subjective feeling, or do you have access to the structure of other people's experiences? Folks are so keen to explain to my mere subjectivity just why n the one hand my feelings are abnormal and wrong, and on the other that they know what they are because they have the access I somehow lack.

I maintain that we all inhabit the same world, but I am called naive.

or do you have access to the structure of other people's experiences? — unenlightened

I can infer it yes.

Let’s call experience you are subjectively having when looking at a red apple X. And let’s call the experience I am subjectively having when looking at a red apple Y.

We both communicate our respective experience by saying “that’s red”

If we both look at blood, again you will have X and I will have Y. We will again say, that’s red.

But if you look at grass and have X, and so say “That’s red” then we have a different structure. You’re probably colorblind, as you can’t recognize green things.

I on the other hand properly have a different experience from Y when looking at grass (let’s call it Z) and so I say “that’s green”

Now, importantly: Whether or not X and Y are the same experience makes absolutely no difference. What matters is the structure. If the same objects consistently produce the same experience (X for you Y for me) we can talk.

X and Y do not have to be the same at all.

A public language, based on private experiences.

Now, importantly: Whether or not X and Y are the same experience makes absolutely no difference. What matters is the structure. — khaled

I find this an entirely agreeable explanation, except that I take it one step further, and say that things that make absolutely no difference should be treated as non-existent. So I never speak of X or Y at all, but only of red apples and blood and green grass and colourblindness and such. Subjectivity disappears from the conversation, because there are no words for X or Y and can be none. There are apples and grass and colours, and blindness, and we agree abut that.

Oh look! It's the private language argument again.

except that I take it one step further, and say that things that make absolutely no difference should be treated as non-existent. — unenlightened

Nah.

If there was an app on your phone that repeatedly printed “Please don’t close me or I’ll be in terrible pain” would you be under obligation not to close it? I would say no. Because the app doesn’t have Xs and Ys. Even though it is clearly using the shared language and you know exactly what it’s saying.

Xs and Ys matter a lot. I would say they’re the basis of ethics. If we have good reason to believe that something doesn’t have Xs and Ys we don’t feel morally obligated towards it. Which is why I don’t say they don’t exist, even though they make no difference.

And even if they didn’t, I don’t see a reason to say something doesn’t exist when it merely makes no difference. All that does is be confusing. Just say “Xs and Ys make no difference”. It’s not much longer.

We all know what happened the last time someone started a thread about a bearded man talking about how Xs and Ys don’t exist. Interminable discussion.

So I never speak of X or Y at all — unenlightened

Nor can you. How you would you even start to do so? The difference has no perceivable effect. Only differences in experience structure have perceivable effects.

Subjectivity disappears from the conversation — unenlightened

It never entered. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Could anyone active in the thread summarize the findings so far in this thread? — Ansiktsburk

Some thread participants like the concept of intersubjectivity, while others are suspicious about it. The latter tend to be the 'non-selfers' ie people who don't actually agree that they are, well, people with minds (they often think of themselves as predetermined puppets instead). The former tend to be folks who are comfortable with the concept of "mind".

Different 'levels' or 'depth' of intersubjectivity have been mentioned. That's where it's interesting to me.

At the simplest level, intersubjectivity was presented as the bridge between subjectivity and objectivity, ie the process by which we progressively build a more and more objective account of events by aggregating, comparing, contrasting different subjective accounts. This is the Popperian view of it: intersubjectivity as a tool for science. It's pretty evident, almost trite at this level.

At a more complex level (call it the Husserlian view), some have pointed out that intersubjectivity also impacts on individual subjectivity. Therefore, it is not just a way to build objectivity from subjectivity, as in the Popperian view: exchanging with others also helps us conceptualise and understand our own subjectivity. There are feedback loops between the subjective self and the social, intersubjective cultural environment. It's a two-way street between them. This is important for a host of reasons, if only because it shows that the Popperian view underestimated the risk of echo chambers: like-minded people agreeing incorrectly about something.

How does your view about private language flow into your ontology? I'm guessing you're a realist. — frank

The easy part, and.....good guess. An empirical realist, certainly, insofar as to deny spacetime reality independent of me, yet necessarily causal in itself, is both contradictory and dangerous. At the same time, there seems to be some sort of internal reality that is very different. And from that seeming.......let the games begin.

Somewhat less easy, is the doctrine of ontology.....taken to reference the science of the nature of being. Ehhhhh.......whatever is, is whatever it is, the nature of its being given immediately to me upon my knowledge of it, which follows seemingly from my own internal reality. In general, epistemology holds the more fundamental metaphysical domain, than ontology. Doesn’t matter what the ontology of a thing is, if a valid methodology for knowledge doesn’t precede. Plus....I prefer to keep my -ologies and -isms as plain and simple and few as possible.

So.....because I know from experience what “language” entails, and I know I can assemble the representations of my conceptions into an organized composition, which is exactly what experience informs me is “language”, I am authorized to think “talking to myself” is a legitimate rational exercise, which is logically the same as having a language contained in, and used by, me alone. Hence, an ontology of private language in the logical sense, is given.

This is, of course, thoroughly refuted by merely changing the prioritization inherent in concept of language itself, from its altogether necessary internal construction by a subject, to its altogether contingent external employment by some other subject, which is exactly what post-Enlightenment analytic philosophers did.
————-

In context.....

So would you argue that the set of things we declare to be real is largely produced intersubjectively and has the stamp of culture on it? — frank

No - I would not use that word; nor the notion of reality that seems implicit. — Banno

I think Mww will say whether he thinks reality is a social construct. — frank

OK. You do see that the question you asked Mww is different to the question you asked me..? — Banno

......it appears Frank equates “the set of things we declare to be real” spoken to Banno, with “reality” asked of me. I’m OK with that part, at least as it pertains herein. It then appears Frank equates “produced intersubjectively and has the stamp of culture” spoken to Banno, with “a social construct” asked of me. I’m OK with that, too, in context herein.

I disagree with Banno in that he claims it is a different question. On the other hand, I agree with Banno, in that I wouldn’t use the term “intersubjectivity”, and I would thereby reject the implication the term carries, with respect to reality, specifically, insofar as I disagree with the notion that reality is a social construct.

The really cool part is, those “Kantian oddities” Banno tosses about in such cavalier fashion, offer the perfect logical exposition for the ambiguity and general logical vagaries contained in the term “intersubjectivity”, justifying its epistemological exclusion. Which, ironically enough, does nothing to exclude it from psychological doctrines, where ambiguity and logical vagaries prosper.

Ehhhhh.......whatever is, is whatever it is, the nature of its being given immediately to me upon my knowledge of it, which follows seemingly from my own internal reality. I — Mww

So you're a soft ontological anti-realist, which means you don't put much stock in metaphysics.

Reality, or whatever may be the case, impresses itself on your internal workings and from there, you say things about it using a preformulated language, but the picture you paint with your language-use is not a social construct. It's the way things are as far as you are able to know given your floppy fins and your well-endowed bobble head.

That's what I expected you to say.

Soft ontologist I can live with, but you can’t get “anti-realist” from my “empirical realist, certainly”.

For me to require “some sort of internal reality”, presupposes some sort of speculative metaphysics, because that’s the only means to it.

And I’ll have you know my fins are no more floppy than anybody else’s, thank you very much.

I find this an entirely agreeable explanation, except that I take it one step further, and say that things that make absolutely no difference should be treated as non-existent. So I never speak of X or Y at all, but only of red apples and blood and green grass and colourblindness and such. Subjectivity disappears from the conversation, because there are no words for X or Y and can be none. There are apples and grass and colours, and blindness, and we agree abut that.

Oh look! It's the private language argument again. — unenlightened

:rofl:

I am authorized to think “talking to myself” is a legitimate rational exercise, which is logically the same as having a language contained in, and used by, me alone. Hence, an ontology of private language in the logical sense, is given. — Mww

Do you play chess against yourself? Does that make Chess a one-player game?

What you call a private language seems to be quite different to the sort of thing that is the subject of philosophical discussion. I'm not surprised.

The latter tend to be the 'non-selfers' ie people who don't actually agree that they are, well, people with minds (they often think of themselves as predetermined puppets instead). — Olivier5

That's rubbish, of course. No one is denying that we have minds. What is denied is a particular model of the mind.

Here's a neat summary of the key point:

The point at which I disagree is that these are intrinsically private. They're different brain states. They may be accessible to introspection, in which case we can (and probably have) come up with words for them that way, or they may be accessible only to neuroscience or cognitive psychology, in which case we can come up with technical terms for them. — Isaac

If this is the case, then the term "intersubjective" is an unworthy replacement for "objective", because implicit in its use is the vague notion of intrinsically private mental goings-on of some unspecified sort.

That's about it. Most of the discussion is simply triangulating different notions and terms.

implicit in its use is the vague notion of intrinsically private mental goings-on of some unspecified sort. — Banno

May I ask, what does "intrinsically private" mean in this context? Can anyone try and define it? And what is the connection with public discourse? It would seem that something "intrinsinctly private" would be the opposite of intersubjectivity, rather than entailed by it.

I agree private language is entirely impractical for intelligible communication, which is language’s only purpose, but do not agree it is impossible to create. I gave two examples of it. — Mww

As I understand it the crux of the idea of the impossibility of a private language is that, if you decided to create one, you would not be able to understand any of its non-ostensive terms except by translating them into your native, public language; which means it would not really be a private language at all.

So, I agree with Banno that there can be no private language, but I disagree with him and Isaac insofar as I think there obviously are private experiences.

Soft ontologist I can live with, but you can’t get “anti-realist” from my “empirical realist, certainly”. — Mww

Ontological anti-realism is just some level of skepticism about ontology in general.

As I understand it the crux of the idea of the impossibility of a private language is that, if you decided to create one, you would not be able to understand any of its non-ostensive terms except by translating them into your native, public language; which means it would not really be a private language at all. — Janus

No, I don't think so. It's about rules that only you know about.

May I ask, what does "intrinsically private" mean in this context? — Olivier5

Good question. There's a thread about it.

I disagree with him and Isaac insofar as I think there obviously are private experiences. — Janus

...ones that we seem to be able to talk about pretty readily. So the question is, in what useful sense are they private?

Good question. There's a thread about it. — Banno

Which brings only confusion.

By definition, private means "not shared". What is "not shared" is not "intersubjective". Intersubjectivity cannot imply it's negation. You're just obfuscating.

No, I don't think so. It's about rules that only you know about. — frank

What do you mean?

My point was, to give an example, you make up novel words (sounds and a script to represent them) for objects, and be able to determine their meaning by visualizing the objects, but how would you determine the meanings of your new terms for words like 'and' 'the' 'this' 'that' 'how' 'why' 'what' etc, etc without referring to those words in your native, public language? If you cannot do without referring to your native language, then your made up language does not qualify as fully private.

...ones that we seem to be able to talk about pretty readily. So the question is, in what useful sense are they private? — Banno

You seem to be failing to understand that there are also experiences which cannot be described, and that even in the case of those experiences which can be described; the description is public (in the sense of being given in a public language), but the description is not the experience, so its public face will not be adequate to the private nature of the experience in any case.

By definition, private means "not shared". What is "not shared" is not "intersubjective". Intersubjectivity cannot imply it's negation. You're just obfuscating. — Olivier5

If, as you say, there are intrinsically private mental phenomena, all you need do to prove their existence is to list them.

Off you go, then.

I'm not surprised. — Banno

Excellent. I haven’t exceeded my intentions.