No; he's using "certain" in the attributive sense, as about a specific sensation. — Banno

I agree he uses "certain sensation" in the way of "specific sensation", or "particular sensation". The point being that any time he has an instance of a sensation, which he is inclined to label with "S", as the specific sensation, that it is the specific sensation cannot be justified. Therefore he can never be certain that the sensation he has, is that specific sensation. And his attempts to justify it reveal in the end, that he is not even justified in saying that "S" refers to a "particular sensation", or even "a sensation", according to the quote I provided.

I would say an explanation does not show something's significance. Or that a definition imposes itself over anything else of consequence. What I was getting at is that the model of meaning based on a word's definition, imagines it as particular and certain; which creates the picture that I cause or intend something particular and/or use rules for a certain outcome. Wittgenstein is taking apart that explanation to see how each thing is important to us (all). — Antony Nickles

Doesn't what you've written here have a meaning that is "particular and certain"?

3) That a word can be defined (which we do call: its "meaning") does not reflect the way language works, e.g., a sentence cannot be defined. Meaning is not an action (a cause/our "use") or a thing (internally, like, intention; or externally, like rules for a practice); it is what is meaningful to us as a culture, what is essential to us, expressed in the implications (grammar) of our expressions and actions. — Antony Nickles

How does this relate back to the private language argument? I don't view the PLA as being about what is meaningful or essential to us as a culture.

it seems to me that Isaac is really adding a new language-game to the mix based on new information. It could be that the example (not sure at this point) of pain and doubting that one is in pain, is generally senseless, but that there are exceptions. — Sam26

Yes, that's exactly it. @Banno and I have been here before. When we talk about cognition, in the scientific sense, we need a language-game to talk about what we find, but that's often not the folk psychology that gives us many of the terms we use day-to-day.

So ↪Isaac
presents an example of someone doubting the applicability of the word "pain" to their present situation. That's not the same as doubting that one is in pain. — Banno

I maintain that it is the same. Being in X is what is undoubted, whether that x is 'pain' is a socially constructed judgement and can be mistaken. The reaching for the word "pain" is one of the responses to the stimuli. You're still assuming that there's a physiological/mental state that answers to the term 'in pain'. What if there wasn't? How would that change things?

Why are you doubting that you or someone else is using the word "pain" correctly? — Luke

Same reason I might doubt I'm using any word correctly - it's not having the effect I expect it to in the context I'm using it.

I don't see how the word could be used (in the sense we are using it here) without reference to the sensation. Pain is a sensation. — Luke

It isn't. There's no such thing as 'sensations'. They don't exist. No representation on earth, Non-entities...*

*Obviously I'm being rhetorical, it's a leading theory, that's all - other theories are available.

Once again:

That is, if someone said “I don’t know if what I have is a pain or something else”, we would
think, perhaps, that he does not know what the English word “pain” means; and we’d explain it to him. — How? Perhaps by means of gestures, or by pricking him with a pin and saying, “See, that’s pain!” This explanation of a word, like any other, he might understand rightly, wrongly, or not at all. And he will show which by his use of the word, in this as in other cases.
If he now said, for example, “Oh, I know what ‘pain’ means; what I don’t know is whether this, that I have now, is pain” — we’d merely shake our heads and have to regard his words as a strange reaction which we can’t make anything of. — LW

There's no such thing as 'sensations'. — Isaac

LOL. You've never been in pain? You don't know what "pain" means? I wouldn't want you to upset your theories by feeling anything.

it seems to me that Isaac is really adding a new language-game to the mix based on new information. It could be that the example (not sure at this point) of pain and doubting that one is in pain, is generally senseless, but that there are exceptions.
— Sam26

Yes, that's exactly it. Banno and I have been here before. When we talk about cognition, in the scientific sense, we need a language-game to talk about what we find, but that's often not the folk psychology that gives us many of the terms we use day-to-day. — Isaac

Ya, but when you say things like this,

There's no such thing as 'sensations'. They don't exist. No representation on earth, Non-entities...* — Isaac

then you lose me. Also, you can't look at X, Y, and Z happening in the brain, and say, that's pain. Moreover, if someone isn't feeling pain, then they're not in pain, regardless of what the body is doing.

Ya, but when you say things like this, — Sam26

Yeah, I lose a lot of people at that point.

What do you think the 'sensation of pain' is, as an existent entity. What type of thing is it? On what grounds does it 'exist'?

If I were to say "I'm ill, I have some bad humors", you might say "humors don't really exist, they're an old theory of physiology, but modern science can find no such thing answering to the definition, so you're mistaken in saying you have them".

Modern science can find no such thing that answers to 'the sensation of being in pain'. That's the problem I'm attempting to address.

Modern science can find no such thing that answers to 'the sensation of being in pain'. That's the problem I'm attempting to address. — Isaac

That's just the old problem of trying to identify some thing that corresponds to the word. Obviously, not all words function like that, and sensation, is just one such word. Are you saying that when someone says, "I feel a weird sensation in my big toe," that that sentence is meaningless? It's correct use is what gives meaning to the word, so it has an ontology based on that use. This reminds of people trying to argue that consciousness is an illusion, or that the self is an illusion, therefore, they don't exist. You say, there's "...no such thing that answers to the 'sensation of being in pain' - but this just isn't true, we answer to it all the time. How? By what we say and do. You seem to be confusing the grammar of "This is a cup" (as you point to it), with the grammar of "This is a pain." One's tendency, and this is what Wittgenstein points out as a mistake in the Tractatus, and what he is fighting against in much of the PI, is to want to find that thing. What exists here is not some kind of object, be it physical or not, that corresponds to the pain, but a family of actions and statements that create its ontology. Where is the thing that corresponds to the word the? Should I say the word is meaningless, or that it doesn't exist because I can't find some thing to point at?

Modern science can find no such thing that answers to 'the sensation of being in pain'. That's the problem I'm attempting to address. — Isaac

Yes, as was Wittgenstein throughout his entire career.

I would first suggest reading Bertrand Russell's Analysis of Mind. Without reading this book, it isn't easy to fathom the ideas Wittgenstein was criticising and the problems he was attempting to solve, especially with respect to his remarks regarding 'private language'. Wittgenstein's 1930's transcript known as 'Philosophical Remarks' is also necessary reading to understand his intermediate thinking and to put his later remarks into the right context. Both of these works are freely available online.

Notably in PR, Wittgenstein gives what is to my understanding the first 'zombie argument' against behavioural understanding of 'Other Minds', predating David Chalmers zombie arguments by 65 years. But unlike Chalmer, he phrased the zombie problem in terms of the indistinguishability of sense when interacting with a person versus a zombie, as opposed to Chalmer who posed the problem in a more realist fashion in terms of metaphysical substances.

Ultimately, the late Wittgenstein was an anti-realist who didn't think of 'other minds' in the sense of other substances or in terms of property dualism. Rather he emphasised the role that ones own sensations play when one attributes so-called 'other' minds to other people.

Yeah, I lose a lot of people at that point. — Isaac

However, it is the place where you find me.

You're still assuming that there's a physiological/mental state that answers to the term 'in pain'. What if there wasn't? How would that change things? — Isaac

This is the scourge of Platonism. We refer to things like Ideas, and sensations, as if they are things, mental states, subject matter, content, what Banno calls mental furniture. But this is a complete misrepresentation. It is a misunderstanding of the mind, and how the mind works, which Aristotle attempted to dispel us of, when he formulated the law of identity. The law of identity states what a thing is in a way which excludes ideas, and other subject matter from being classed as things. This is the category separation between universals and particulars. To understand a universal as a particular is the classic category mistake.

The issue which is alluded to at 270, in the quoted passage above, is that this way of speaking, because it provides us great convenience for speaking about internal feelings and thoughts, is very deeply rooted in our language-games, pervading them all. Aristotle proposed the law of identity as a way to exclude this type of speaking from formal logic, but as Wittgenstein implies at 254-255, it is an illness which has reestablished itself through mathematical axioms.

Wittgenstein suggests at 255, that philosophy needs to treat this illness. The illness consists of convenient falsities, and is therefore a form of pragmatic dishonesty, rooted in intellectual laziness. But how is it possible to treat such an illness, when these expressions provide us with such a high degree of convenience for talking about internal conditions? This illness, which has been allowed to establish itself at the highest intellectual levels, is allowed to permeate in a top down manner throughout all the different games. In the other thread Banno insists that burning books is not a good thing, it burns a hole into the culture. But how else can we destroy such a cancer?

That's just the old problem of trying to identify some thing that corresponds to the word. Obviously, not all words function like that, and sensation, is just one such word. — Sam26

and

As I said...

We quickly learn what the word does. That doesn't require us to refer to any private 'sensation' at all. — Isaac

it's use (and associated conceptual responses) is a strategy to get something done within a social context. It might be the wrong strategy, it might not do what we expect it to do (same as any other response). In that case we've used the wrong model, we made a mistake reaching for the word "pain". — Isaac

I'm arguing against the identification of a word with a referent. (I doubt you'll have had a chance to read other posts I've made on the subject, but I've been quite vocal about that very error over the years).

People can nonetheless use words wrongly, it's not a free-for-all.

When we use the word "pain" we do so as a result of a modelling relationship with a non-exclusive set of triggering physiological signals, it's one of the outputs from the model, a tendency to say things like "I'm in pain". This is a strategy, a response to the signals to get something done. This response will downregulate the input signals in accordance with a prior expectation about the cause of those signals. So If I just saw my thumb get hit with a hammer, I'll be expecting pain and will start the responses before the c-fibre signals have even reached the cortico-limbic-striatal circuits. If, seconds later, those signals fail to materialise (for whatever reason) I'll adjust my model response and update my priors - in other words, I'll have been wrong about the only thing we could possibly say constituted being in pain.

Basically, if "I'm in pain" has any meaning at all, it has to serve a function in a language game which those involve understand, it can't just 'hang loose' unconnected to any social function. Our models are socially constructed so that where one on the responses is linguistic, they match these social functions. That has to link back to the effect we want the word to have (again, if there's no context dependant consequence in mind, the word is meaningless). So "I'm in pain" is a response which does something in a social context, and - being triggered by interocepted physiological states - it's those states we intend the word to act on. If this weren't the case, the saying of it would have no cause to be triggered by those states. So if we reach for that word and it doesn't have the intended effect on those states, we're wrong to reach for it.

Note this is not just us not having learned the right use of the word, since the modelling of the "I'm in pain" response at inappropriate times can result from nothing more than a misfiring of triggering signals, or an overlap with similar signals in a noisy part of the network.

What I'm saying is not that we can't treat "I'm in pain" as a simple functional expression, and therefore not amenable to being right or wrong, we can. I'm saying that there's an additional matter to be talked about when we speak of as pain responses modelled from what are typically pain triggers. Here we definitely have a moment when we decide, post hoc, if we're going to trigger the 'pain' responses or not and if we decide in such a way as to elicit an unexpected response, we change the prior (ie we consider ourselves to have been 'wrong' the first time). How do we speak about this psychology if not by saying that we decide if we're in pain and can be right or wrong about that?

However, it is the place where you find me. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, it's nice to have some company, but as ever I can't really make much sense of what you're saying, you may have to be a bit more explicit for me.

I haven’t looked closely enough to see if you and Antony have had any substantive engagement over your linking of free energy models with the later Wittgenstein, but my supposition is that he would find its representationalism problematic. That is to say, aren’t such approaches more compatible with the Hacker-Ryle-Malcolm-Strawson reading of Wittgenstein than with Cora Diamond-James Conant-Cavell and phenomenologically informed enactivism? This difference i reading has to do with what to make of rules, grammar, concepts , criteria. Do they have any existence outside of actual, contextual situations? This question would seem to apply equally to terms like model and representation as they are utilized in free energy approaches. Put differently, do you understand and concur with Antony’s objections to Luke’s reading of Wittgenstein on grammar and rules? https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11479/bedrock-rules-the-mathematical-and-the-ordinary-cavell-kripke-on-wittgenstein

If, seconds later, those signals fail to materialise (for whatever reason) I'll adjust my model response and update my priors - in other words, I'll have been wrong about the only thing we could possibly say constituted being in pain. — Isaac

What if they do materialise?

So "I'm in pain" is a response which does something in a social context, and - being triggered by interocepted physiological states - it's those states we intend the word to act on. — Isaac

How does a sensation differ from an interocepted physiological state?

So if we reach for that word and it doesn't have the intended effect on those states, we're wrong to reach for it. — Isaac

And if it does have the intended effect on those states, then we're right to reach for it.

Note this is not just us not having learned the right use of the word, since the modelling of the "I'm in pain" response at inappropriate times can result from nothing more than a misfiring of triggering signals, or an overlap with similar signals in a noisy part of the network. — Isaac

It sounds like there are also appropriate times that 'I'm in pain' gets used.

What I'm saying is not that we can't treat "I'm in pain" as a simple functional expression, and therefore not amenable to being right or wrong, we can. — Isaac

Then it's not about the use of the word "pain", as you've been claiming.

Also, what counts as "right" and "wrong" here? Because it sounds very much as though what is counted as 'right' is if there follows a sensation (or an interocepted physiological signal) of pain.

I'm saying that there's an additional matter to be talked about when we speak of as pain responses modelled from what are typically pain triggers. Here we definitely have a moment when we decide, post hoc, if we're going to trigger the 'pain' responses or not and if we decide in such a way as to elicit an unexpected response, we change the prior (ie we consider ourselves to have been 'wrong' the first time). How do we speak about this psychology if not by saying that we decide if we're in pain and can be right or wrong about that? — Isaac

You said that if we hit our thumb with a hammer, then we expect a painful sensation to follow but we may find that it does not follow. I would not call that "deciding" whether to be in pain or not. Wittgenstein is only talking about those cases where the pain does follow and we find that we are in pain.

This difference i reading has to do with what to make of rules, grammar, concepts , criteria. Do they have any existence outside of actual, contextual situations? This question would seem to apply equally to terms like model and representation as they are utilized in free energy approaches. Put differently, do you understand and concur with Antony’s objections to Luke’s reading of Wittgenstein on grammar and rules? — Joshs

The problem I see with Luke's reading of Wittgenstein, and Sam26's to an extent, is that they give priority to rules, as if rules are foundational to language, as required for language. But a careful reading of the first part of PI reveals that Wittgenstein intended something completely different. Rules are not foundational, and only come into existence as a feature of language. You might say that rules are the result of the public use of language.

Misunderstanding of the PLA leads one to believe that a private language is impossible. But this is not at all what Wittgenstein has demonstrated. What he has demonstrated is that a private language cannot consist of rules, so right and wrong within a private language is nonsensical. This does not mean that a private language is nonsensical, it just means that the ideas of right and wrong cannot be supported by the private language. So we have a deep division here, a fundamental divide between two very distinct types of language-games, the private game within which there is no such thing as correct and incorrect, and the public game, within which "correct" and "incorrect" appear to form the substance.

a private language cannot consist of rules, so right and wrong within a private language is nonsensical. This does not mean that a private language is nonsensical, it just means that the ideas of right and wrong cannot be supported by the private language. So we have a deep division here, a fundamental divide between two very distinct types of language-games, the private game within which there is no such thing as correct and incorrect, and the public game, within which "correct" and "incorrect" appear to form the substance. — Metaphysician Undercover

When we think or talk to ourself, or perceive our surroundings, we know when an event is recognizable or unrecognizable, coherent or incoherent , consistent or inconsistent , with respect to our expectations. Aren’t these forms of correctness? Let’s say we are creating poetry or literature that is making use of idiosyncratic grammar and words. Within that world of language we have constructed dont we know when we have violated our own norms?

Well said.

I'm not sure that this is actually different to what @Isaac is claiming.

So I'll come back to our poor patient's agony, while the doctor calmly says "You are not in pain, because you are not exhibiting the correct neural signals to be in pain".

Who is to have authority here, in our new language game?

Who is to have authority here, in our new language game? — Banno

Only me Banno, only me. :wink:

When we think or talk to ourself, or perceive our surroundings, we know when an event is recognizable or unrecognizable, coherent or incoherent , consistent or inconsistent , with respect to our expectations. Aren’t these forms of correctness? — Joshs

Not in Wittgenstein's conceptual structure. Remember, to think that oneself is following a rule is not the same as actually following a rule. We must be capable of judging one's actions as being consistent with the rule, to be able to say that the person follows a rule. This is fundamental to Wittgenstein's form of justification.

So, for a person to recognize something as similar, or to make a judgement of consistency, this is not sufficient for justification. And if it is not justified we cannot say that it is a form of being correct. In other words if the person cannot be judged as following a rule, then "following a rule" is not justified, nor is "correct".

I really don't think that Wittgenstein intended to deny the reality of these forms of judgement, he is just not interested to move on toward describing these personal forms of judgement. He classes them as outside justification, and moves toward understanding the justification side, epistemology, rather than the metaphysical side. In the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, such personal judgements are judgements of "good". You can see that "good" has a pragmatic base, very much dependent on the particular circumstances, whereas "correct" is rule based, depending on universal laws. The two meet in moral ethics, morality being concerned with the personal decision of good and bad, whereas ethics is concerned with rules of correctness, though many do not care to acknowledge the difference.

Well, it's nice to have some company, but as ever I can't really make much sense of what you're saying, you may have to be a bit more explicit for me. — Isaac

@Metaphysician Undercover

It should give you some pause if MU is on your side. Of course it could be that MU is right and everyone else is wrong, it's logically possible. Sorry MU, but it's just so funny how your thinking on this subject is so different. And, by different, I mean that I know of no one who interprets W. the way you do, but I could be wrong. There might be some one somewhere, after all the universe is a huge place.

I'll have to commend you on a couple of things MU, you're consistent, and you're, on the whole, very respectful of others, which is probably more important than being right. I, on the other hand tend to be a bit cranky.

Of course it could be that MU is right and everyone else is wrong, it's logically possible. — Sam26

This is the root of the problem right here. "Correct" is determined through public justification, making "correct" whatever obtains social consensus. However, there is no consensus as to what Wittgenstein is actually saying. Therefore there is no "correct" reading of Wittgenstein. You, and your buddies, can argue endlessly about who's reading is "correct", and there will never be a resolution. Wittgenstein intended it this way. There's a way of speaking, an oratory skill, which employs parables, and ambiguity is essential. To be appealing to a wider audience one can choose words which different people will relate to in different ways, allowing that everyone might find something favourable in the same expression. But I see through Wittgenstein's sham, to see that true principles are derived from the minds of individuals, not from the public judgement of "correct".

my supposition is that he would find its representationalism problematic. — Joshs

He may have done if he overstated the degree to which it's representationalist. I think we've talked about this before. I get what you're saying about representationalist approaches, I just don't agree with you that active inference need necessarily be interpreted that way. But the extent to which active inference and enactivism differ is way out side the scope of this thread (which is already a little off topic), lets not make matters worse.

This difference i reading has to do with what to make of rules, grammar, concepts , criteria. Do they have any existence outside of actual, contextual situations? This question would seem to apply equally to terms like model and representation as they are utilized in free energy approaches. — Joshs

Yes, I think 'existence' here causes unnecessary confusion, rather we should ask about the consequences of our decision. If I say "sensations don't exist" (as I have been wont to do), what is it that I intend such a declaration to do? I'm not interested in whether it's got the 'right' label, because there's no external measure of that anyway - we can say these rules 'exist' or we can say they don't, what matters is the consequence of that exercise. What does it do if we say they exist or not? This is a question which doesn't have a single answer, it depends on what the person is trying to do by asking the question (or challenging the proposition) in the first place. I sometimes respond to these types of posts (bearing this last matter in mind) because I suspect reification where the effect of such is to undermine progress in understanding of pain function. That riles me (only a little) so I resist. Were I to suspect that the object of insisting the sensation of pain exists were merely to allow for a convenient façon de parler, then I'd be less inclined to care, but then who's seriously concerned that the result of this investigation might be to ban the use of the word 'pain'?

What if they do materialise? — Luke

Then we'll have been 'right' to assume such.

How does a sensation differ from an interocepted physiological state? — Luke

A sensation is a single category, the interocepted physiological state signals are manifold and form a non-exclusive set.

And if it does have the intended effect on those states, then we're right to reach for it. — Luke

Yes. Although, we could later revise that in the light of other goals, we have more than one objective that these outputs form part of the subsequent model for.

It sounds like there are also appropriate times that 'I'm in pain' gets used. — Luke

Yes. I think that's undeniable, the expression wouldn't exist otherwise.

What I'm saying is not that we can't treat "I'm in pain" as a simple functional expression, and therefore not amenable to being right or wrong, we can. — Isaac


Then it's not about the use of the word "pain", as you've been claiming. — Luke

Not sure what you're getting at here...

Also, what counts as "right" and "wrong" here? Because it sounds very much as though what is counted as 'right' is if there follows a sensation (or an interocepted physiological signal) of pain. — Luke

No because a sensation of pain is not the same as an interocepted physiological signal. There is no physiological signal for 'pain' there's only a non-exclusive set of signals, some portion of which get modelled in such as way as to lead to a tendency to use the word 'pain'. Much like Wittgenstein's 'props' when he talks about using the name 'Moses'.

You said that if we hit our thumb with a hammer, then we expect a painful sensation to follow but we may find that it does not follow. I would not call that "deciding" whether to be in pain or not. Wittgenstein is only talking about those cases where the pain does follow and we find that we are in pain. — Luke

Again 'pain' does not 'follow', it's not a physiological state, it's a modelling relationship and we make decisions about those.

while the doctor calmly says "You are not in pain, because you are not exhibiting the correct neural signals to be in pain".

Who is to have authority here, in our new language game? — Banno

I'm not referring though to the third-person's assessment. I'm referring to our own. We (in our modelling relationship) make a decision about whether to follow the pathway of responses which include the use of the expression "I'm in pain". We could later (milliseconds later, even) decide that was the wrong pathway to follow when we have updated physiological signals.

The doctor, of course, could predict this change of model if he had access to the external cause of those signals, but that's not the same as giving him authority over the 'correct' response. Being able to predict it isn't the same as being able to proscribe it.

If, seconds later, those signals fail to materialise (for whatever reason) I'll adjust my model response and update my priors - in other words, I'll have been wrong about the only thing we could possibly say constituted being in pain.
— Isaac

What if they do materialise?
— Luke

Then we'll have been 'right' to assume such. — Isaac

I thought you said there are no such things as sensations or pain. So what are we right to assume? What is "the only thing we could possibly say constitutes being in pain"?

A sensation is a single category, the interocepted physiological state signals are manifold and form a non-exclusive set. — Isaac

This sounds like family resemblance, and you are seeking the essence of pain.

And if it does have the intended effect on those states, then we're right to reach for it.
— Luke

Yes. Although, we could later revise that in the light of other goals, we have more than one objective that these outputs form part of the subsequent model for. — Isaac

Yes, but right now, we are feeling pain. Wasn't that "the intended effect on those states"?

Note this is not just us not having learned the right use of the word, since the modelling of the "I'm in pain" response at inappropriate times can result from nothing more than a misfiring of triggering signals, or an overlap with similar signals in a noisy part of the network.
— Isaac

It sounds like there are also appropriate times that 'I'm in pain' gets used.
— Luke

Yes. I think that's undeniable, the expression wouldn't exist otherwise. — Isaac

So, just to be clear, what makes the usage appropriate in this context is when there is not a misfiring of signals and no overlap with similar signals in a noisy part of the network. So it's when your body gives you the right signals that you are in pain. Which is what most of us would call a pain sensation. So why are there no such things as sensations or pain?

What I'm saying is not that we can't treat "I'm in pain" as a simple functional expression, and therefore not amenable to being right or wrong, we can.
— Isaac

Then it's not about the use of the word "pain", as you've been claiming.
— Luke

Not sure what you're getting at here... — Isaac

If we can treat "I'm in pain" as a simple functional expression, then it's not a problem with our use of the word "pain", right? The "problem", as far as I can tell, is that there is no unique or exclusive set of physiological signals that answers to the name "pain". Nonetheless, the word "pain" still has a use in our language.

What I don't get is if there is no such thing as pain and no exclusive set of signals that answer to the name "pain", then how can the word "pain" (in the sense we are using it here) have a use, how can it be used "appropriately", and how can your body give you the "right" signals and "the intended effect" that you are in pain?

Again 'pain' does not 'follow', it's not a physiological state, it's a modelling relationship and we make decisions about those. — Isaac

Meteorologists who model and forecast the weather do not decide what the weather will be.

It's difficult to follow what you're saying Isaac, because it's not that clear. On the one hand, you seem to agree about the use of the words sensation and pain, but on the other you deny the existence of sensations and/or pains. Not only do I think you're making it more complicated than it is - you also seem contradictory at points. You seem to be adding to social meaning, i.e., adding a thing that's not needed. Also, I don't think it's likely that you have created a model that shows we can doubt being in pain. Moreover, doubting as you seem to present it, as some physiological model, seems not to line up with how we learn to doubt. I don't doubt based on some inner physiological happenings. Doubting was just fine (at least generally), even without your model. Adding your model confounds the issue, and is especially problematic.

If you are talking about learning new things about physiology, and creating a language-game base on these new discoveries, that's one thing, but you seem to be drawing inappropriate conclusions about what's happening linguistically (based on your model). It's not clear to me, and it seems it's not clear to others, so your idea needs more work.

Also, I don't think it's likely that you have created a model that shows we can doubt being in pain. — Sam26

According to what I described above, Wittgenstein's PLA, 253-270, demonstrates very clearly that one can never be certain concerning one's own sensations, if certainty requires justification. Do you not agree, that Wittgenstein has created a model that shows we can doubt being in pain?

Consider the beetle in the box. Is a person not justified in doubting whether the thing in one's own box is really a beetle? Suppose we say that the person has named the thing "beetle" therefore it is impossible that the thing is other than the thing called "beetle". We could say that there is necessity here, so the person is certain. But what Wittgenstein is arguing, and Isaac as well, I believe, is that each time one looks into the box, the thing is a little different, so how is one certain that it is still the same thing in the box? Look at 253, how do you know that the chair in front of you today is the same chair that was there yesterday. That it is identical is just a judgement you make, which is fallible. Someone could have switched chairs over night.

So this is the issue at 258, and what Isaac brings attention to, the sensation from one day is not the same as the sensation of another day. They are similar but not the same. Therefore we do not have a thing named "beetle" in the box anymore, each day you look in, there is something different, yet similar in the box. Now, we cannot be certain that it is a beetle, (or "pain") because justification is impossible, as Wittgenstein describes.

Btw, thanks for the compliment above. I'll try not to push your buttons, to make you cranky. That kind of thing is really detrimental to constructive discussion, but sometimes it takes a long time to understand how to avoid it, especially with people who have very different perspectives.

It's not clear to me, and it seems it's not clear to others, so your idea needs more work. — Sam26

I think that's a very charitable summary. I hadn't intended it to be 'idea' at all really, just trying to see how my knowledge from my specialist field fits in with my understanding of Wittgenstein (which is far from my specialist field!). The answer may well be "nowhere". Wittgenstein talks a fair bit about things which appear to have a strong overlap, belief and certainty - two aspects of the human psyche I've spent most of my career studying. I understand belief in terms of active inference models (little bits of hierarchical neural networks which output 'tendencies to act as if...') and certainty in terms of Bayesian probability. I know Ramsey (the only philosopher I would dare to claim I knew quite well) dealt a lot with the latter, but obviously no one has particularly dealt with the former because its quite new to cognitive science.

At it stands, all I was really trying to do was interrogate some of the positions people talk about here in the light of the cognitive sciences. That's been most instructive.

As to my 'idea' I'll see if I can formulate it any more clearly with fewer contradictions.

According to what I described above, Wittgenstein's PLA, 253-270, demonstrates very clearly that one can never be certain concerning one's own sensations, if certainty requires justification. Do you not agree, that Wittgenstein has created a model that shows we can doubt being in pain? — Metaphysician Undercover

You are correct to think that Wittgenstein is talking about doubting one's pain in these passages, but there's a huge difference between these examples, and the examples where one cannot doubt that one is in pain. The difference is this: In these examples, Wittgenstein is referring to the PLA, as you correctly pointed out, and the point of the PLA is that one cannot privately create a language that correctly identifies sensations (of course it's more than sensations that goes terribly wrong). Hence, the doubt, but in this contrived situation (viz., the PLA context), which is, it seems to me, logically impossible. Why? Because language dictates a social environment, which is lacking in the PLA. Actually, one would wonder if even the concept doubt would have a foothold in the PLA, because the same argument being made about sensations could be made about doubting.

Now the contrast - the PLA must be seen against, and in the light of how we normally learn a language. So, in our normal everyday language-games about sensations and/or pains, which is not by the way, the PLA, can we doubt we're in pain? Emphatically, No! We can see how far out such doubts are, especially if we compare this with what Wittgenstein is doing in the OC. If we compare Moore's proposition "I know this is a hand," at least Wittgenstein gives a reasonable example of how a doubt can occur here, although one has a difficult time understanding how a doubt could arise in Moore's context. However, in the case of doubting one is in pain, Wittgenstein constructs a contrived example (the PLA), which cannot be done (a totally private language cannot be done), as he rightfully points out. It's only done to point out how language logically works, and how that logic falls apart in the PLA.

Finally, it must again be pointed out, that even the doubt in the PLA is not a doubt.

What I was getting at is that the model of meaning based on a word's definition, imagines it as particular and certain; which creates the picture that I cause or intend something particular and/or use rules for a certain outcome. Wittgenstein is taking apart that explanation to see how each thing is important to us (all).
— Antony Nickles

Doesn't what you've written here have a meaning that is "particular and certain"? — Luke

Saying something particular is not caused by my "intention" (or the particularity of a rule) so a particular "meaning" is not transferred from me to you; and, by "certain", here you mean specific, which is a different sense of certainty (something I am sure of, resolved to stand behind) than the kind of certainty in which some kind of intention or rule would give you: complete repeatability, extension, application, removing the need for me, judged as true/false, right or wrong.

3) That a word can be defined (which we do call: its "meaning") does not reflect the way language works, e.g., a sentence cannot be defined. Meaning is not an action (a cause/our "use") or a thing (internally, like, intention; or externally, like rules for a practice); it is what is meaningful to us as a culture, what is essential to us, expressed in the implications (grammar) of our expressions and actions.
— Antony Nickles

How does this relate back to the private language argument? I don't view the PLA as being about what is meaningful or essential to us as a culture. — Luke

If we say: meaning, grammatically, is not something I share with myself alone, than we share meaning together, we share how we would judge a particular event; how it has meaning to us, thus meaningful to us.

and, by "certain", here you mean specific, which is a different sense of certainty — Antony Nickles

How could I mean one sense instead of another? You just said that "Saying something particular is not caused by my intention".