Maybe a human being won’t have the brainpower to actually do all the low-level modeling to understand why humans do things in terms of quantum mechanical systems, and even if they could that might not be the most efficient thing to do, but so long as you can in principle model the reasons humans do things in terms of some high-level brain functions that can be modeled in turn on low-level brain functions that can in turn be modeled on cellular functions that can in turn be modeled on chemical functions that can in turn be modeled on atomic functions that can in turn be modeled on quantum mechanical functions—or any similar such chain of reductions/abstractions—then in principle the reasons for human behavior can be modeled in terms of quantum mechanical systems.

I was actually going to bring up something like that as an example of what I meant, how just because you can in principle reduce a phenomenon to a complex of simpler phenomena doesn’t mean you have to or would want to forego that abstraction. Nobody who thinks biology reduces to physics thinks we should therefore only do physics, any more than someone who thinks (as hopefully everyone does) that a website can be reduced in principle to a bunch of boolean logic gates thinks we should forego CSS and Javascript etc.

You're talking about carving up our experiences into meaningful categories. That would be true of the world outside the body as well. — Marchesk

Yes.

With public epiphenomena we have the arbitrary (and loose) linguistic boundaries, with their 'props' of set membership. — Isaac


But animals can perform color and other sensory discriminations without language. — Marchesk

Indeed. I'm not disputing that different wavelengths can have different causal effects within the brain. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Animals know when they're in pain. Pain would be a useless sensation if an organism couldn't recognize that something was causing potential damage. — Marchesk

An organism only need to respond appropriately to stimuli. It need not group aspects of that response. Fighting for a mate involves pain, but the animal continues nonetheless, standing on a sharp thorn involves pain but the animal desists immediately. 'Pain' doesn't cause some pre-programmed response. The entire set of environmental stimuli at the time does.

The problem is that human language is relatively recent ability added onto much older nuerological abilities that handle experiencing things like pain so that the organism can respond appropriates. — Marchesk

As above, the organism responds to the entire set of environmental stimuli, not just a single delineated aspect of it.

But what if someone's neurology is atypical? Can I know what it's like to be Hellen Keller? — Marchesk

No, because "knowing what it's like" doesn't make any sense. But lets' not open that can of worms again.

Will science tell us exactly when someone lies? — Marchesk

It's possible, yes.

Perhaps we'll get a printout of their inner dialog, or hear them in our earbuds. — Marchesk

Possible too.

the right chemicals will be released in our brains so we can have their feelings. — Marchesk

Feelings are not generated by chemicals so I don't see this working. To have someone else's feeling in a neurological sense, you'd have to have a sufficiently similar set of neurons firing during the time period of assessment. This would certainly require the same availability of neurotransmitters in the same proportions, but it would also require the same set of axon potentials prior to the assessment period.

And all objects you can refer to with the word "red" do not share anything at all in your experience? Not even a vague resemblance? I find that hard to believe. — khaled

No, they share the experience of me thinking 'red' is the right word to use to describe the colour.

Would you be able to guess its color? I find that likely. Even though you never heard the color of that object being uttered before. — khaled

How could I possibly guess it's colour if I didn't know the name of it's colour? What would my answer consist of?

Although those are also commonalities of red things, they are not the commonalities we use to distinguish them in everyday life. — khaled

Why not? We have cell capable of making such a distinction, those cells are linked to cells in language centres. Why on earth wouldn't we use wavelength? We might not be epiphenomenologically aware of doing so, post hoc, but I don't see how that impacts on matters.

When I ask you what the color of something you've never seen before is, you don't pull out an optic wavelength meter. You can just tell by looking at it. You don't need to know the wavelength emitted. — khaled

Looking at it is pulling out a wavelength meter. They're called cone cells and they're situated in my retina.

So the thing common to red things that you use to tell them apart must be in the experience produced when we look at them. — khaled

You're undermining your own position on epiphenomenology. Just because the experience accompanies the physical activity in the brain, doesn't mean it is the cause of it. The experience might not include a readout of the wavelength in nm, but that's just post hoc narrative. The actual process of telling them apart almost certainly is carried out (in part) by assessing the wavelength, that's why we have cells capable of doing so.

the way we tell is by finding common aspects in our experience as I show above. But the contents of the experience need not be the same. — khaled

I was asking you about the nature of that content, but you seem to have avoided the question.

How do you know that the experiences you have when you injure yourself are the same as everyone else's experiences when they use the word "pain"? — Luke

Visual behavioural similarities.

Again, how are you distinguishing 'pain' from the entire milieu of experience at any given time without the public definitions? — Isaac


I acknowledged in my last post that pain is defined by the public concept. I'm talking about the associated feeling that goes along with it. The same associated feeling that you acknowledge is the study of neurology. — Luke

Right. Well, the same question to that then. How do you know which of your thousands of responses/feelings are the ones associated with 'pain' and which are associated with the room you happen to be standing in, or your mood, or some fleeting memory, or...

Witt actually says: "It’s not a Something, but not a Nothing either! The conclusion was only that a Nothing would render the same service as a Something about which nothing could be said." — Luke

I think that still makes the same point.

Isn't your position that the public concept completely defines the experience? If so, then why do you agree that we need neuroscience "to tell us exactly what feeling(s) corresponds to what set of neuronal activity"? If the public concept completely defines the experience, then shouldn't we already know which experiences map to which behaviours - and shouldn't it be the same for everyone who uses the word? — Luke

Here, you're equivocating on your use of 'behaviours' Previously you'd said that neural activity counted as a behaviour. If so then it's not true to say that "we already know which experiences map to which behaviours". We only know some of which experiences map to some macro-scale bodily behaviours.

What is the purpose of further research and how can Richard be colour-blind if he uses the word "red" correctly? — Luke

He doesn't consistently use the word 'red' correctly. There are shades which can't be distinguished even from the intensity of saturation, and edge cases will have poorer contrast. If this were not the case, then how would we ever know anyone was colourblind? How would we ever have found out the function of cone cells if no public language could distinguish their proper functioning from their restricted one?

Right. Well, the same question to that then. How do you know which of your thousands of responses/feelings are the ones associated with 'pain' and which are associated with the room you happen to be standing in, or your mood, or some fleeting memory, or... — Isaac

I know which feelings are associated with 'pain' because I was taught the language and the use of the word. But I can't be sure that other people have an identical feeling to mine, just as I can't know whether the colour red looks the same to me as it does to other people.

Here, you're equivocating on your use of 'behaviours' Previously you'd said that neural activity counted as a behaviour. If so then it's not true to say that "we already know which experiences map to which behaviours". — Isaac

I'm not equivocating; I'm questioning your claims. It seems to be your claim that the use of the word defines the experience/feeling. For example you said: "I have experiences when I injure myself, but which of them are 'pain' I wouldn't know how to distinguish privately." This implies that the experience/feeling is defined by the meaning/use the word. That is, if you know how to use the word, then the experience/feeling should already be defined. So why does it require any further research/definition? Perhaps the use of the word does not define the feeling after all. Perhaps the feeling drops out of consideration as irrelevant to the language-game.

He doesn't consistently use the word 'red' correctly. There are shades which can't be distinguished even from the intensity of saturation, and edge cases will have poorer contrast. If this were not the case, then how would we ever know anyone was colourblind? How would we ever have found out the function of cone cells if no public language could distinguish their proper functioning from their restricted one? — Isaac

It doesn't get discovered by being able to see how red looks to Richard. It gets discovered from his behaviour, including his inconsistent use of the word. How red looks to Richard is private and subjective.

No, because "knowing what it's like" doesn't make any sense. But lets' not open that can of worms again. — Isaac

It makes sense to some of us. Those of us who think there's something to being conscious, and not all conscious experiences are the same across sensations, people and organisms.

To have someone else's feeling in a neurological sense, you'd have to have a sufficiently similar set of neurons firing during the time period of assessment. This would certainly require the same availability of neurotransmitters in the same proportions, but it would also require the same set of axon potentials prior to the assessment period. — Isaac

So the answer is science cannot completely show us the conscious experiences of other people. Or bats for that matter.

An organism only need to respond appropriately to stimuli. It need not group aspects of that response. Fighting for a mate involves pain, but the animal continues nonetheless, standing on a sharp thorn involves pain but the animal desists immediately. 'Pain' doesn't cause some pre-programmed response. The entire set of environmental stimuli at the time does. — Isaac

Yes, but the animal knows what a mate smells like, what food tastes like, and what kind of brightly colored pattern a poisonous animal is likely to have. They don't need language to make these discriminations. Of course it's usually in the form of object recognition like mate or foe, so there is complex cognition going on for many animals that combines sensations into things in an environment.

The point is other animals carve up the world successfully without language.

I can't be sure that other people have an identical feeling to mine, — Luke

I talk a lot of folk misappropriating language; it's something that Wittgenstein pointed out, and well worth paying some attention to. But consider again:"It’s not a Something, but not a Nothing either! The conclusion was only that a Nothing would render the same service as a Something about which nothing could be said."

The casual thing to do is to take talk of pain and other feelings as talk of things, and to treat it in the same way as talk of noses and mobile phones and such.

But feelings are not exactly like noses.

Asking if someone else has the very same feeling as I do is treating feelings as if they were noses or mobile phones. It's taking that language and misapplying it; feelings are not a something, and not a nothing, either.

"Are your feelings exactly the same as mine?" is less like "Do you have the same mobile phone as I do?" and more like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?".

feelings are not a something, and not a nothing, either. — Banno

More accurately, private sensations (represented by Wittgenstein’s beetle) are “not a Something, but not a Nothing either.”

"Are your feelings exactly the same as mine?" is less like "Do you have the same mobile phone as I do?" and more like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". — Banno

Yeah, I don’t see how. To start with, in order to be a loaded question, I would need to have phrased it as a question.

"Are your feelings exactly the same as mine?" is not a question?

The load is treating the beetle as a subject when it ain't.

"Are your feelings exactly the same as mine?" is not a question? — Banno

It’s a question, but I didn’t ask it, you did.

"Are your feelings exactly the same as mine?" is less like "Do you have the same mobile phone as I do?" and more like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". — Banno

Is the issue with trying to pin down exactness for feelings as opposed to noting that we know what it's like to feel fear or happiness or pain?

If you tell me you enjoyed a song, I know that's not the same thing as feeling outraged, although admittedly, people do tend to like feeling outraged at times.

Avoidance.

We understand what it is to ask if your phone is the same as mine. We can bring the phones out and compare them and make a decision one way or the other. We have a process that we can use to decide the issue.

Grammatical similarities tempt us to do the same with pain. But you cannot pull out your pain to compare it to mine.

The grammar is misleading.

I've no clear idea what you are asking.

I've no clear idea what you are asking. — Banno

I'm asking if you think we can't exactly compare feelings/sensations.

There's that odd word "exactly" in there.

We can compare feelings.

We understand what it is to ask if your phone is the same as mine. We can bring the phones out and compare them and make a decision one way or the other. — Banno

If one were to be pedantic, as one often is in these sorts of discussions, no two phones are identical, but they might be the same brand and model.

Avoidance — Banno

Not avoidance, clarification. You accuse me of a loaded question. I never posed the question. Get your facts straight.

We understand what it is to ask if your phone is the same as mine. We can bring the phones out and compare them and make a decision one way or the other.

Grammatical similarities tempt us to do the same with pain. But you cannot pull out your pain to compare it to mine. — Banno

Then sensations are private?

Otherwise, how should we be talking about sensations, according to you?

And..?

...accuse... — Luke

Hm.

...how should we be talking about sensations... — Luke

...the way we usually do. The notion that feelings must be either public or private takes form from the erroneous idea that comparing feelings is like comparing phones and noses.

As if "I have a pain in my foot" were like "I have an iPhone" - the similarity is superficial, and disappears as soon as you ask for proof.

It's a private iPhone. I can't show it to you.

Hm — Banno

?

...the way we usually do. The notion that feelings must be either public or private takes form from the erroneous idea that comparing feelings is like comparing phones and noses.

As if "I have a pain in my foot" were like "I have an iPhone" - the similarity is superficial, and disappears as soon as you ask for proof. — Banno

None of this explains why it’s wrong to talk about the privacy or publicity of sensations. The issue here is not about the different senses of the word “have”, which can mean either “to possess” or “to experience”. We’re all talking about “have” (having feelings) in the sense of “to experience” I assume. Is there a problem with talking about the privacy or publicity of sensations/feelings? Isn’t that something Wittgenstein did?

It's a private iPhone. I can't show it to you. — Banno

Just as I can’t show you my sensations. Privacy and publicity each have the same meaning regardless of whether we’re talking about a possession or an experience.

But feelings are not exactly like noses.

Asking if someone else has the very same feeling as I do is treating feelings as if they were noses or mobile phones. It's taking that language and misapplying it; feelings are not a something, and not a nothing, either.

"Are your feelings exactly the same as mine?" is less like "Do you have the same mobile phone as I do?" and more like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". — Banno

I really don't see the problem with talking about feelings as things. This allows us to compare our feelings, and understand each other. In fact, if we did not describe our feelings as things, we would not be able to understand our feelings at all, because that is how they appear to us, as things which we can describe, talk about. Then we'd have no way of knowing whether our feelings were exactly the same as each other, because we cannot see them to judge the differences, as we can see all the different noses. Therefore it is essential that we talk about our feelings as things which can be described, so that we can understand the differences between us.

Those who insist that feelings are not things which we can talk about, like noses or cell phones, are just creating a problem where there ought not be a problem. We should all be encouraged to talk about these things which we call feelings.

How could I possibly guess it's colour if I didn't know the name of it's colour? What would my answer consist of? — Isaac

That’s not what I said. You know what each color word means. You know what “blue” and “red” and “purple”.... mean. You are shown a new object. How do you know which word to apply?

Your answer seems to be “because the cone cells can tell”. I’m not disagreeing with that. The point is: When the cone cells process the same wavelength don’t they produce the same epiphenomena? Can’t that be the commonality between red things?

That was one of your oldest points wasn’t it? If the physical conditions are the same then how do you explain having different epiphenomena? If a 600nm wavelength light hits your eye, you’d expect to have a similar experience. Otherwise you’d have to introduce another cause for epiphenomena that is not physical to account for the dissimilarity.

You're undermining your own position on epiphenomenology. Just because the experience accompanies the physical activity in the brain, doesn't mean it is the cause of it. — Isaac

Nor did I claim it did. But I wasn’t being clear.

The fact that we have a similar epiphenomena when looking at red things is caused by the fact that the physical reaction to red things is similar (same wavelength getting processed). And I don’t understand why you push the ridiculous claim that experiences of red have nothing in similar. If the physical conditions are similar, why would the epiphenomena not be similar?

I was asking you about the nature of that content, but you seem to have avoided the question. — Isaac

If that’s what you were asking then it’s the same as unenlightened’s question: “What does red look like”. I can’t answer that. Neither can you.

Just look at a bunch of red things and find the commonality. There definitely is one. And it’s not just you wanting to use the same word.

If that was the ONLY commonality, again, you wouldn’t be able to tell the color of new things. But if I show you a chair you’ve never seen before you would definitely be able to guess its color. Because the cone cells would be able to tell. Which is also to say that they’ll produce a similar experience in exposure to similar wavelengths.

I know which feelings are associated with 'pain' because I was taught the language and the use of the word. — Luke

How would that work, if your feelings are private?

I can't be sure that other people have an identical feeling to mine — Luke

Then how do you know those non-identical aspects have anything to do with the public concept 'pain'?

if you know how to use the word, then the experience/feeling should already be defined. So why does it require any further research/definition? — Luke

To establish the neural correlates of those feelings, so that therapies can be devised for those suffering from pathologies in those areas.

It doesn't get discovered by being able to see how red looks to Richard. It gets discovered from his behaviour, including his inconsistent use of the word. — Luke

Yes, that's what I said.

How red looks to Richard is private and subjective. — Luke

It doesn't get more convincing by repetition.

no two phones are identical, — Marchesk

Indeed, and people personalize their phones and treat them as private. That's why they put passwords on them...

I know which feelings are associated with 'pain' because I was taught the language and the use of the word.
— Luke

How would that work, if your feelings are private? — Isaac

Sorry, I was unclear. I meant: I know which of my feelings/sensations are associated with 'pain' because I was taught the language and the use of the word. I make my own association between this feeling and the concept. Which is why I went on to say:

I can't be sure that other people have an identical feeling to mine
— Luke

Then how do you know those non-identical aspects have anything to do with the public concept 'pain'? — Isaac

I didn't say they were non-identical; I said I can't know if they are identical. But the private aspect has nothing to do with the public concept anyway, which is why I made the distinction earlier between the unshareable and shareable aspects of a feeling/sensation. The expression of the feeling is shareable/public; the way it feels is unshareable.

It makes sense to some of us. Those of us who think there's something to being conscious, and not all conscious experiences are the same across sensations, people and organisms. — Marchesk

Well, as I said, I don't want to open that can of worms again, but I think it's obvious from the length of that conversation last time that it's not as simple as it making sense to some and not others.

So the answer is science cannot completely show us the conscious experiences of other people. Or bats for that matter. — Marchesk

Why not? I don't get that from what I just said. Science can't show us now. But nothing in what I said precludes science from showing us in principle - which is what we're talking about here.

Yes, but the animal knows what a mate smells like, what food tastes like, and what kind of brightly colored pattern a poisonous animal is likely to have. — Marchesk

You have some evidence for this?

Of course it's usually in the form of object recognition like mate or foe, so there is complex cognition going on for many animals that combines sensations into things in an environment. — Marchesk

Right. Which undermines what you just said. They need not know "what a mate smells like, what food tastes like, and what kind of brightly colored pattern a poisonous animal is likely to have" What they evidently 'know' is what to do in a range of circumstances.

The point is other animals carve up the world successfully without language. — Marchesk

As you admit above, it is far from evident that they do this in any way other than a holistic assessment of the entire set of signals at any given time.

The point is: When the cone cells process the same wavelength don’t they produce the same epiphenomena? Can’t that be the commonality between red things? — khaled

Yep.

The fact that we have a similar epiphenomena when looking at red things is caused by the fact that the physical reaction to red things is similar (same wavelength getting processed). — khaled

Agreed.

they’ll produce a similar experience in exposure to similar wavelengths. — khaled

Yep.


So the content of that experience (the one just caused by your cone cells responding to 600nm wavelengths) can't have anything whatsoever to do with your big toe can it? No signals resulting from your cone cells responding to 600nm wavelengths were sent to your big toe and we're carving up the relevant experience as being {the one which results from your cone cells responding to 600nm wavelengths}. You may well have a signal sent from your big toe at the same time, which may well form part of your holistic experience. It may well be common to both the red post box and the red letter A, but if it were it would be because my shoe happened to be too tight on both occasions, or something like that.

We know exactly what physiological conditions relate to the experience of 'red' because the only way we're dividing the experience of 'red' from everything else going on at the time is by restricting it to that which is caused by your cone cells responding to 600nm wavelengths.

I know which of my feelings/sensations are associated with 'pain' because I was taught the language and the use of the word. I make my own association between this feeling and the concept. — Luke

You have a whole range of constantly varying feelings at any given time. How did you know which ones were associated with the public concept 'pain' and which ones were unrelated feelings you just happened to be having?

You have a whole range of constantly varying feelings at any given time. How did you know which ones were associated with the public concept 'pain' and which ones were unrelated feelings you just happened to be having? — Isaac

I've already answered that: I was taught the use of the word. But I don't see the point of your question. I'm not talking about the privacy of language, but the privacy of sensations.

I was taught the use of the word. But I don't see the point of your question. I'm not talking about the privacy of language, but the privacy of sensations. — Luke

OK, you stub your toe...

Also, at the same time, the room is quite bright, your heart is beating faster, your arm is stiff from hammering yesterday, your socks are a little too tight, there's a dog barking in the background...and these are just the macro interpretations...

Every hair on your body is signalling it's movement, you're processing three saccades per second of visual data from your retinas, you're processing signals from eight different types of nerve sensor for every square millimetre of your body...

Which of those are your private sensation of 'pain'? How does the, let's say couple of hundred, occasions where you see the word 'pain' being used tell you which of those several million sensations are your 'pain', and which are unrelated?