The experience of pain is private" can only be understood by ignoring most of what we know about pain! — Banno

That it hurts?

What would Banno say about this? — Banno

I earnestly don't know. With pain, it's not an attitude to a proposition, so how does one place it in the public domain?

Ok, replace meaning with use...

"Convention says I know your pain by thinking of my own";

Instead, to learn what pain is, is just learning how to use the word "pain".

Ok?

Yep. With you so far.

It’s brown. But I can’t get the image out of my mind of you responding with an entire essay about how there is no “one experience of brown” when asked what the color of a table is :rofl:

As if there is only one real "knowing what red is". — Banno

There is a range. And he will experience none of it. Because he’s blind.

...now learning how to use the word "pain" involves seeing people in pain and hearing folk talk of pain and Mummy saying "oh, Frank, that must hurt, you have to be brave" as she puts on the bandaid... it is finding out about all the things in the language game surrounding the use of "pain".

Very little, if any, of that involves reflecting on one's own pain.

Ok?

And he will experience none of it. Because he’s blind. — khaled

I have a blind friend who is an excellent photographer.

Ok. And he doesn’t know what red is. Because he hasn’t experienced anything within the range. In the same way that Unenlightened’s friend can go on without knowing what red is.

Rather, blue the qualia is a sign that signifies 470nm light.
— hypericin

But ok, perhaps that doesn't describe yours or @Luke's or @khaled's or @Olivier5's position?
— bongo fury

Yes, I interpret colors as biological signs (like the genetic code is a set of biological signs). — Olivier5

Fair enough. I expect all of you assume some sort of correlation between a variety of internal qualia in any sensory modality and some corresponding variety of external properties in that modality. You probably disagree with each other as well as with people like me about symbolism, and about how your various conceptions of the correlation relate to that topic. For example, I think that the correspondence between codons and amino acids is mechanical or syntactic, and not semantic, except within human discourse about the correspondence. And @Marchesk says he doesn't agree that qualia are symbols. But you probably all agree about the internal-external correlation, which you in particular go on to describe in helpful detail in the case of colour.

I invite you to consider the possibility of conceiving much the same, fuzzy and delicate correlation: but between the same physical properties as mediated by our sensory machinery with its wired-in biases, and - instead of internal qualia - classes or sets of stimuli. E.g., between whatever weird disjunction of wavelengths and contextual cues makes us see red and - instead of an internal red sample - the set of all red things (or more precisely and less derivatively the set of all red illumination events). Seeing an object as red is thus a matter not of comparing it with an internal sample (or representation) but of associating it with red things in general. Seeing red differently is associating or assimilating or equating a somewhat different range of objects.

I anticipate various kinds of reaction against such a proposal, which I expect would be related to its origin in so-called "nominalism", and perhaps also behaviourism. One advantage which I think worth advertising for it is the fun of "de-naturing": of noticing how differently different individuals and different cultures "carve things up". This might be related to a likely sceptical reaction: that association with "red things in general" is mere fantasy. But hence the interesting connection with reference as a specifically (or largely) human skill.

Seeing an object as red is thus a matter not of comparing it with an internal sample (or representation) but of associating it with red things in general. — bongo fury

Depends what is meant by “comparing it with an internal sample”. If it means no more than remembering what red looks like (to you), or remembering how to use the word “red”, then I’m okay with that. In that case it’s no different to “associating it with red things in general”.

he doesn’t know what red is. — khaled

As if "knowing" were a boolean variable.

Very little, if any, of that involves reflecting on one's own pain. — Banno

So it's possible for a toddler to learn to use "pain" with no reflection on her own pain. Probably, toddlers do a lot of parroting.

So then what?

So then what? — frank

So then what do you make of:

Convention says I know your pain by thinking of my own. — frank

Is convention right?


See @khaled's claim that a blind person "does not know what red is". Is he correct?

Look at the use of the word "know" - does Khaled have a justified true belief of what red is, that is unavailable to a blind person?

Or is Khaled misusing a few words?

So you're saying I know about your pain by virtue of being able to use "pain" correctly, not because I have reflected on my own pain.

“Know” has more uses than “Justified true belief”. For instance “Know programming”. Which means be competent at it.

I meant it in the colloquial sense. When a veteran tells you “You don’t know what war is” for example. Although you clearly know how to use the word (or else he wouldn’t have used it when talking to you as you wouldn’t understand)

It means you never had the experience. Or anything within the range of experiences we would describe as “red” or what have you.

Something like that.

Yeah. So your phrase was far too strong. When you say a blind person can't know what red is, you just mean that a blind person cannot see red. Not that they know nothing about red.

Something like that. — Banno

Still, the more pain you've experienced, the more you understand what others are experiencing. Any theory that can't accommodate that fact needs work.

And Marchesk says he doesn't agree that qualia are symbols. — bongo fury

I am not saying they are man-made symbols but biological signs.

We can also perform all of the pain behaviors without being in pain, depending on how good of an actor one is. — Marchesk

No we can't. That's the point. If what you say here is true you'd have to concede that there are people who appear to be in pain whom we could never, ever discover were actually faking it, no matter how hard we looked, not matter how long we observed them for. I even gave you examples - micro-expressions and auto-defensive recoil - as two behaviours associated with pain that it would be impossible to fake for any period of time. You cannot fake being in pain. You can fake some aspects of it, some of the time. That that's often enough to convince others is irrelevant to the argument about pain being a family resemblance definition of a range of behaviours.

If 'pain' were actually the experience, how would we ever learn how to use the word. "John's in pain" would make no sense, how do I know what experience he's having. "I was in pain yesterday" would make no sense, my 'pain' might not be your 'pain' so my use of the term does nothing.

I'm genuinely at a loss to understand what exactly it is that you're wanting to claim as the referent for the word 'pain'.

which can still be undermined by identifying your 'neural underpinnings', as you put it). — Isaac


That only works we can correlate with experiences we already have. — Marchesk

No. The neuroscientist is not correlating with experiences he has. He's correlating with the spoken words the subject is reporting, on the assumption that these refer to something shared - the public concept of pain.

When you say a blind person can't know what red is, you just mean that a blind person cannot see red. Not that they know nothing about red. — Banno

Of course! Anyone can know the wavelength for one.

I’m beginning to think this whole thread is a disagreement over nothing for the most part. We just seem to be using different words but meaning largely the same things upon closer inspection.

Yeah, you keep saying things wrong... :razz:

a feeling that represents what you think of as your response to red, right now. — Isaac


If you're making the argument that what comes to mind when we think of "red" is not constant, sure, no disagreement there. From anyone I think. But it is largely similar. — khaled

One of the biggest misunderstanding here I think is generated by this equivocation about what constitutes 'similar'.

In order to justify that you do, in fact, know your own pain/red experience, you're (quite fairly) invoking the idea that there's some broad similarity across the many different experiences you have involving nocicpetor activation or 600nm wavelengths, whatever. Fine. But then when it comes to an argument that pain/red experiences are not private, similarity becomes insufficient. The minute detail of difference renders your experience private.

Either we're defining two experiences as 'the same' on the basis of a broad similarity, or we're not. If we are then your experience of the red post box and your later experience of the red letter A can be justifiably described as both containing an experience 'of red'. The 'red' bit being broadly similar across both events. But if we're to do that, then we have absolutely no lesser grounds to say that my experience of the red post box and your experience of the red box box both contain 'the same' elemental experience 'of red'. The broad similarities on which we grouped your two temporally separated experiences are no greater than the broad similarities on which we grouped yours and my experiences of the same event.

You reached for the word 'red' on both occasions - so too did we both reach for the word 'red'
You associated with other 'red' things on both occasions - so too did we both consequent to the same event.
You had perhaps some vaguely similar emotional response (red=exiting, blue=calming) on both occasions - so too did we both at the same event.

The point is that all you have are two experiences - two separate epiphenomena. In one case they occur in the same person, but across two times. In the other case they occurred in across two people but at the same time. There's nothing special about the first which makes grouping them by loose affiliation OK but the second not.

The minute detail of difference renders your experience private. — Isaac

Yea I thought it was clear I dropped that.

There's nothing special about the first which makes grouping them by loose affiliation OK but the second not. — Isaac

Yup.

Sort of feel bad that this is all I say after you wrote all that :rofl:

“You don’t know hardship” or “You don’t know heartbreak” and other such (melodramatic?) uses are common.

In other words: No u :joke:

All knowledge is inferred. — Isaac


How are your own pain sensations inferred? From what are they inferred? — Luke

They're inferred by models in the primary somatosensory cortex. They're inferred from signals sent by from the thalamus (via nociceptor endings and transfer neurons in the spinal cord). These are then modulated, filtered and suppressed in turn by models in the frontal cortex which is where cultural mediation, semantics, other somatosensory feedback and environmental cues come in to play.

I'm simplifying a great deal, but I'm not sure what your question is getting at so I don't know what detail you're after.

The minute detail of difference renders your experience private. — Isaac


Yea I thought it was clear I dropped that.

There's nothing special about the first which makes grouping them by loose affiliation OK but the second not. — Isaac


Yup.

Sort of feel bad that this is all I say after you wrote all that — khaled

Ha! Don't worry about it. Lucky for us both I spared everyone the even longer version!

Here's the thing i would guard against: those who have, either explicitly or implicitly, a theory of the meaning of "red" or "pain" such that these words refer to something in one's mind.

They're inferred by models in the primary somatosensory cortex. They're inferred from signals sent by from the thalamus (via nociceptor endings and transfer neurons in the spinal cord). These are then modulated, filtered and suppressed in turn by models in the frontal cortex which is where cultural mediation, semantics, other somatosensory feedback and environmental cues come in to play. — Isaac

Who is making these inferences? Not you. That is, not the same ‘you’ that is the subject of pain sensations, so I think this is a category error of sorts.

Who is making these inferences? Not you. That is, not the same ‘you’ that is the subject of pain sensations, so I think this is a category error of sorts. — Luke

Not following you (see what I did there - not following 'you'). How are you defining 'you' and why is the part making the inferences left out?