X is the set of experiences that are similar enough to be called "red" by me. Y is the set of experiences that are similar enough to be called "red" by you. When I say "You had X" (or Y) I mean you had an experience that belongs to that set. Better?

The argument then still stands. The contents of X and Y do not need to be the same at all for communication to happen. — khaled

epiphenomena — Isaac

are a hoax. They do not exist.

a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing

- a family resemblance.

So with your posited epiphenomena, by focussing on the similarity in the features relating to colour, we know that those features change in correlation mainly with changes in lightwaves hitting the retina. — Isaac

No, we don't. What we know is that which lightwave hits your retina determines the set of "similar experiences" to which your experience will belong. So a 600 nm lightwave hitting your retina will cause you to have an experience within the range of experiences you would talk about using the word "red".

We cannot go from this to saying that lightwaves have anything to do with the contents of that range.

If I was to use an analogy, imagine having a continuous color wheel with certain parts of it dubbed "red", "yellow", "orange", etc. The lightwave determines which part of the color wheel you experience. So a certain lightwave would cause the color wheel to land in the region dubbed "red" so you say "red".

However the lightwave does not at all determine the contents of the color wheel. The region dubbed "red" does not need to be the same for me and you. So long as the same wave causes us both to say "red" in the end.

And the difference in the content of the color wheel, can be caused by a difference in toe size for all we know. Because we cannot detect when such a difference is present. So we cannot narrow down what physical difference causes it.

The contents of X and Y do not need to be the same at all for communication to happen. — khaled

...isn't that my argument? Are we now agreeing?

...isn't that my argument? — Banno

As I understand it, your argument is that there is no X and Y. Because X and Y are the dreaded qualia. Or sets of them.

Are we now agreeing? — Banno

Idk I can't tell what you're saying half the time.

I can't tell what you're saying half the time. — khaled

Me either, sometimes. I’m updating the system on the laptop I use, cooking dinner and watching a Steeleye Span concert, so concentration is laps.

Anyway, I’m thinking there is a common ground there somewhere.

You've misunderstood the point I was making - which is understandable, as reading back, it was terribly written.

You're proposing one has experience X in response to something red, but another might have experience Y, yes?

I said that there's nothing about 'experience X' which intrinsically makes it recurrent the next time you are exposed to something red. Without some categorisation, all we really have is a long continuous, experience of our entire environment (and body). To call anything 'experience X' requires us to both artificially divide our experience into chunks, artificially relate one of those chunks to one aspect of the environment at the time (in this case colour) and artificially group differing recurrent chunks on the basis of some arbitrary points of similarity (as any two experiences of red - however we determine them to be 'of red' - are going to be the same).

To say that your X and my Y are similar (same reason for division, same relation to environmental features, same features we're focussing on to group such chunks of experience) - we have to know something about the relationship between X (or Y) and the environment. If we didn't, then on what grounds are we saying that your X and my Y are even similar?

Edit - for further clarity (I hope). I look at a red box and get experience Y, you look at a red box and get experience X. How do we know that my Y-ness is not caused by the box and not the red? If I could (and I'm not saying we could here, just following your line of thought) separate out the 'red' bit of the experience by focussing on similarities in 'red box', 'red train', 'red cup' - I would be relating some detail of my experience to the environment. I don't see how you can then go on to say that we've no way of knowing what environmental difference relates to the subset of my experiences. Why can't I do the same thing? Whenever I stub my toe the quality of my experience of 'redness' changes - aha! something about my experience of 'redness' must be related to my toe.

Probably.

I said that there's nothing about 'experience X' which intrinsically makes it recurrent the next time you are exposed to something red. Without some categorisation, all we really have is a long continuous, experience of our entire environment (and body). To call anything 'experience X' requires us to both artificially divide our experience into chunks, artificially relate one of those chunks to one aspect of the environment at the time (in this case colour) and artificially group differing recurrent chunks on the basis of some arbitrary points of similarity (as any two experiences of red - however we determine them to be 'of red' - are going to be the same). — Isaac

Yes!

To say that your X and my Y are similar (same reason for division, same relation to environmental features, same features we're focussing on to group such chunks of experience) - we have to know something about the relationship between X (or Y) and the environment. If we didn't, then on what grounds are we saying that your X and my Y are even similar? — Isaac

That we use the same words.

When we both call something "red" that's good reason to believe we have cut up our experiences similarly. Or else one of use would say "That's red" and the other would reply "No, that's a circle".

But that we use the same words does not indicate that we are having the same experience, or even a similar one, in terms of content, only in terms of structure. We're "cutting it up" the same way. But the "it" that is being cut up need not be the same.

I'm not sure I'm understanding you. First off, what are you trying to argue? Assuming everything you just commented is true... now what?

I just read the edit, and I understand what you're saying less now.

I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying now, thanks. It seems an odd theory, but valid. I just disagree about one point, but I think it's more a matter of personal judgement than logic or empirical fact

There is just as much reason to assume they are the same as to assume they are different. The model doesn't become any more or any less complex by assuming either.
— khaled

I maintain that creating subdivision where there need be none, creating alternate options where one would suffice - that is making a model more complex. — Isaac

What happened to this? I thought the only disagreement was over whether or not my model is more complex. Now, I don't get what you're disagreeing with.

A note about Richard and other partially colourblind philosophers.

It is not strictly the case that Richard cannot see red, he can see it just fine, but he cannot distinguish red from green. So with one of those test things with blobs of colour, he cannot read the numbers, but he doesn't find that ripe strawberries become invisible; he can pick them out easily because they are *scare quotes* "darker" or "bluer", or as he himself would say "red" . And this is why his experience and his talk are problematic.

We have to say of him, not that he has no experience of red (I am correcting myself here), but that his experience of red and his experience of green are 'the same'. So what I would like to suggest, is that this is a general principle of experience, that one does not experience light, but one experiences the distinction -it's a clunky way of expressing it - between light and darkness.Thus if one is blind, one cannot detect the dark or the light equally. One does not experience sweetness, but distinguishes sweetness from blandness - and so on.

This means that it is inappropriate to ask what the experience of red is like for you or for Richard; rather one should ask what it is unlike.

This means that it is inappropriate to ask what the experience of red is like for you or for Richard; rather one should ask what it is unlike. — unenlightened

Which is exactly what I said.

We have to say of him, not that he has no experience of red (I am correcting myself here), but that his experience of red and his experience of green are 'the same'. — unenlightened

So the difference is structural. If you put a strawberry, a green leaf and a red apple next to each other Richard would have experiences RRR, respectively, in response (I’m only focusing on color). While the rest of us will have ABA or XYX or LOL or what have you.

The contents of the experience are not what Richard is missing, strawberries aren’t invisible for him, but they have the same color as grass. What Richard is missing is the correct structure.

Gotcha. Nice smack down. So you'd agree that society is a prerequisite for individuality, that the subjective narrative is influenced by society, if only because such narratives are frequently directed at others, but the ego (I) itself can't be reduced to social interaction because that's just retarded. Is that your view? — frank

I don't agree that society is a prerequisite for an individual. I think that this is a faulty form of holism which is demonstrably illogical. The fact that the fallacy of composition is a fallacy is the first indicator that the properties of one's individuality cannot be accounted by the society. And there is much evidence for this, especially in evolutionary theory whereby individualized properties are derived from genetic alteration, rather than from the social group. Biological evidence indicates that the individual with X properties is prior to the society with X properties. In general, I believe the idea that a human individual derives one's properties from one's position within a group, as a whole, is a misguided form of holism.

In reality, it is evident that the individual is a free willing soul, who creates one's own position in society through one's own intentional acts. This is not to say that the human being is absolutely free to choose whatever position one wants in society, because we know that the physical world imposes restrictions on our freedom. But we can consider that the restrictions imposed on us, by other human beings, are just an extension to the restrictions imposed on us by the physical world. This is because another human being's intent to impose restrictions on me is equally restricted by the physical world, as my will is restricted by the physical world. This means that the capacity of others to impose restrictions on me is mitigated by the restrictions imposed by the world on them, which are equal to the restrictions imposed by the world on me. This justifies a true and objective equality between us.

We have to say of him, not that he has no experience of red (I am correcting myself here), but that his experience of red and his experience of green are 'the same'. So what I would like to suggest, is that this is a general principle of experience, — unenlightened

:up:

.

Is it just me, or oughtn't everyone here (and on similar threads) to clarify which of these two related but separable questions they are addressing?

is my external red the same as your external red?
is my internal red the same as your internal red? — bongo fury

Now I know, from my own experience that I cannot feel other's pain. — Janus

Agreed, but not just from experience. I know I will never feel another’s pain merely from sheer logistics, in that the source of pain in another in not resident in me. And if it should be the case that some common event is the source of pain in both of us, it is my brain that registers my physiological malevolence, and his pain is entirely his own. It’s actually quite absurd to suppose otherwise, for then it must be explained why I never feel my brother’s hypoglycemia, and, what’s worse, it gives the impression that human nature arbitrarily/circumstantially invites pain such nature aesthetically makes every effort to avoid, in contradiction with itself.

A quick perusal of “mirror-touch synesthesia for dummies”.......you know, Wikipedia.....shows such theoretical hysterics has barely anything practical to do with generally natural conditions. For good measure, upon deeper investigation, is found a fancy-assed exposition of plain, run-of-the-mill, our ol’ buddy.......mere experience. Or, to be more metaphysically accurate, intuition:

“....We have recently demonstrated that neurons in medial temporal lobe are reactivated during spontaneous recall of episodic memory. The action observation/execution matching neurons in the medial temporal lobe may match the sight of actions of others with the memory of those same actions performed by the observer. Thus during action-execution, a memory of the executed action is formed, and during action-observation this memory trace is reactivated. This interpretation is in line with the hypothesis of multiple mirroring mechanisms in the primate brain, a hypothesis that can easily account for the presence of mirroring cells in many cortical areas.....”
(Mukamel, et.al., 2010, in https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(10)00233-2)
————-

Food for thought, and only addressed to you because I’m too lazy to open another post, regarding psychologically-inclined science that does absolutely nothing for Everydayman.....

“....We recorded extracellular activity from 1177 cells in human medial frontal and temporal cortices while patients executed or observed hand grasping actions and facial emotional expressions....”
(Ibid

“....Many original articles, reviews and textbooks affirm that we have 100 billion neurons and 10 times more glial cells (Kandel et al., 2000; Ullian et al., 2001; Doetsch, 2003; Nishiyama et al., 2005; Noctor et al., 2007; Allen and Barres, 2009)....”
(Herculano-Houze, et.al., 2009, in https://sites.oxy.edu/clint/evolution/articles/humanbraininnumbers.pdf

.......compared to science that does, say, wherein a telescope irrevocably renders ten thousand years of human thought regarding the cosmos obsolete, it is found that the ratio of ~1 in ~100,00,000 neurons in the human brain sufficient to render the claim we do not feel another’s pain.....

questionable — Banno

I don't agree that society is a prerequisite for an individual. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it is, in the sense I'm using "individual"

In order to think of yourself as a particular person, you need others to compare yourself to.

Cannot something be accurately described in more than one way? — creativesoul

Exactly. Although it's hardly a big deal if the different ways are in no kind of conflict or competition. (E.g. if they are, at least, all accurate.) And then each different way seems bound to shrink in significance, or degree of informativeness. The aspiration to describe or otherwise represent an object "as it is" seems to react against that impression of relativism or subjectivity.

Goodman is (I think) objecting (there) to the notion that some pictures succeed in that aspiration and are intrinsically more realistic or informative than others.

Fair point. Cannot something be accurately described in more than one way? — creativesoul

I trust you’re not considering something so mundane as.....describing a horse in French is just as accurate a description of horses as describing a horse in Japanese.

It seems your question merely adds to “all the ways the object is”, without addressing “the way the object is”. Just between you and me ‘n’ the fence post, from dialectical precedent doncha know, we both surmise the key here is “none of these constitute the object as it is”, which implies your accurately describing in different ways doesn’t have anything to do with such constituency.

If the original quote contained the fair point, and the main of the fair point was constituency given by “none are the way the object is”, why does it appear that your question is tending to undermine it?

Exactly. Although it's hardly a big deal if the different ways are in no kind of conflict or competition. (E.g. if they are, at least, all accurate.) And then each different way seems bound to shrink in significance, or degree of informativeness. The aspiration to describe or otherwise represent an object "as it is" seems to react against that impression of relativism or subjectivity.

Goodman is (I think) objecting (there) to the notion that some pictures succeed in that aspiration and are intrinsically more realistic or informative than others. — bongo fury

I find no reason to say that all of the different ways are on equal footing aside from being about the same thing. The significance of each description is slightly different than the rest, again... with the same thing being talked about. I mean, that's what makes them different ways, assuming the language remains the same(say English). So, I'm not inclined to agree that each different way is bound to shrink in it's significance. Rather, it would sharpen the significance of each by comparison to the others, and some may rise above others in terms of importance. I'm not sure what being "more realistic" or "more informative" amounts to here. I suppose there would need to be something more added to the notion of "as it is"...

The thing before me is a man, a swarm of atoms, a complex of cells, a fiddler, and a fool simply because we've agreed to call it such. None of these descriptions exhaust the thing before me. None, when isolated from the rest, pick out the thing before me to the exclusion of all else aside from "the thing before me". However, prior to becoming a man, the thing before me was already a swarm of atoms and a complex of cells. Prior to becoming a fiddler or a fool the thing must have already become a man. So, perhaps here we can begin to see some semblance of existential dependency along a timeline.

...your accurately describing in different ways doesn’t have anything to do with such constituency. — Mww

Indeed. Elemental constituency doesn't seem to be considered... yet.

The inability to feel someone else's pain, in the strong sense which would be just like feeling one's own pain, and would not be mere empathy, has nothing to do with grammar. — Janus

As if the linguistic turn never happened. — Banno

OK, explain how you think the linguistic turn is relevant to the question as to whether our ability to feel another's pain is just a matter of empathy.

Food for thought, and only addressed to you because I’m too lazy to open another post, regarding psychologically-inclined science that does absolutely nothing for Everydayman..... — Mww

:up: Yes, the scientifically dogmatic undermining of confidence in the human experience of freedom and responsibility, seems to me not only pernicious, but completely unfounded, no less a matter of faith than any religion.

All modes of activity would seem to be relational. — Janus

:chin: Google not much help... de Beauvoir?

No idea what you're getting at.

I assumed "modes of activity" was a thing, with which I was unacquainted. Nvm. Just "activity is relational"?

Oh, I think I get it now. I could have said "kinds of activity" I just happened to choose the word "modes". Or I could have just said "all activity is relational".

The contention is that another person cannot feel your pain.



A video - even easier to understand than the Children's Encyclopaedia, Wiki.

Notice that title: "A doctor who literally feels your pain". Note the way Salinas talks of feeling the pain in "both his chest... and mine".

Now here is the philosophical point: Salinas describes himself as feeling the pain of other people.

@Janus, this is a direct contradiction fo the contention that another person cannot feel your pain. Salinus describes feeling the pain in the other person's chest. Further, this is not mere empathy.

the source of pain in another in not resident in me. — Mww

@Mww, you made a vague argument that one cannot feel another's pain because the source of pain in another in not resident in me. The example shows that this is irrelevant. Salinger feels pain that is not "resident" in his body - however "resident" is supposed to be understood.

Be clear as to the philosophical point here; The way in which Salinas talks about feeling another's pain is self-consistent. There is no logical problem with speaking in this way. THe language game has a purpose.

The ad hoc comeback, as @Luke set out, is that such talk can only be metaphorical; to insist that there is something about pain that is such that it can only be felt by one person, and that any talk suggesting otherwise is mere art or folly. (This is where the linguistic turn is helpful, @Janus - the tools provided by Austin, Wittgenstein, Ryle - they help make apparent such rhetorical defences).

And yet the language game is played. Nothing so far, no evidence, no account, has been put on the table to support the contention that necessarily, one cannot feel the pain of another.

What we do have is dogmatic insistence. And this in the face of the fact that at least prima facie, there are people who feel the pain of others.

Why is the opposition so insistent? As I pointed out earlier, pain is taken by some as the archetype of phenomenon understood intersubjectively. On that account pain is private, unshared, only understood intersubjective.

So if pain is not in its essence subjective, the edifice of intersubjectivity that is foundational to the accounts provided by the objectors is in danger. SO we have

...the scientifically dogmatic undermining of confidence in the human experience of freedom and responsibility, — Janus

Janus sees this as undermining the very moral fibre of humanity, to the extent that he will deny the science.

No wonder he can't see the argument.

Why those quotes? They don't say anything relevant.

Just to be clear, the contention is not that Salinus does feel another's pain; it is that he might; that it is possible. It is enough to show that it is possible for another person to feel your pain.

If it is possible, then the notion that pain is necessarily private collapses.

this is a direct contradiction fo the contention that another person cannot feel your pain. Salinus describes feeling the pain in the other person's chest. Further, this is not mere empathy. — Banno

That's funny, Salinas himself refers to it as a "heightened state of empathy". If Salinas was with someone in pain, but who didn't show they were in pain in any way, he would not feel this heightened state of empathy, unless he is also psychic, which he has not claimed to be.

...the scientifically dogmatic undermining of confidence in the human experience of freedom and responsibility, — Janus

Janus sees this as undermining the very moral fibre of humanity, to the extent that he will deny the science. — Banno

I was referring specifically to the dogma of determinism as an example, and agreeing in general with the comment made by @Mww that the so-called scientific knowledge that seeks to undermine so-called "folk psychology", does "absolutely nothing for the Everydayman".

Just to be clear, the contention is not that Salinus does feel another's pain; it is that he might; that it is possible. It is enough to show that it is possible for another person to feel your pain.

If it is possible, then the notion that pain is necessarily private collapses. — Banno

Yes, it is possible that some people might be psychic (which would be the only way that one could truly feel another's pain). For a psychic the pains, pleasures, emotions and thoughts of others would not be private, but for the rest of us they would remain so. In any case, this is a strawman, since I have nowhere said that pain is necessarily private, just that the evidence points to it being so, certainly in the majority of cases.