Suppose you are right. Then those feelings and sensations are private. There is therefore, by your own argument, no way we can ensure that we are talking about the same thing when we use the word "pain" or "Loneliness".
No? — Banno
But the same applies to objects in our common world. We have no way of knowing whether the table looks exactly the same to each of us. — Janus
It seems to me that you are in the untenable position of insisting that sensations are both not shared and yet the commonality on which talk of sensations is based. — Banno
My point is just that the feelings elicited by a poem are ultimately private, like sensation. — Janus
I didn't say sensations are not shared, though. — Janus
Think that's enough. Cheers. — Banno
A token does not refer to how many times you see something. — Luke
For "every day" on which he has the sensation means more than once. He is not talking about a single instance which would be a token of the sensation. — Luke
Can a person encounter the same token more than one time or not? — Metaphysician Undercover
Or are you saying that a person can see the same token more than one time, but a person cannot 'sense' the same token more than one time? — Metaphysician Undercover
Your assertion, that if a sensation goes away and comes back it cannot be the same token, makes no sense because it is completely unjustified. I get a pain in my toe sometimes at night, I can get it many nights in a row, or some nights I don't get it. It wakes me up when I'm sleeping. I cannot see what causes it to come and go. But the fact that it comes and goes does not give me reason to claim that it is not the same token of the type "pain" every time it occurs . — Metaphysician Undercover
This isn't to promote a kind of skepticism, although there are things to be skeptical about, but only to point out that language traps us into a kind of mire from which we cannot escape. There is a kind of mysticism to my point, and I think to Wittgenstein's thinking. — Sam26
I think this is right: it is only the language of poetry that can escape the mire; because it doesn't aim to be propositional but rather allusive and evocative. — Janus
It depends on the token/type. In terms of sensations, "encountering a token" is a particular instance of having the sensation. Unless you can time travel and live that moment over again, then you cannot have the same token of a sensation more than once. — Luke
I will grant you this one point. It is possible for someone to have the same pain for several days in a row, and we might consider this to be a single token or instance of pain. Admittedly, I had assumed that the sensation 'S' was fleeting and was presumed to last less than a day. Whether we call it a different token or not makes little difference, however, because the problem remains: how can you be sure that you are remembering it correctly as the same sensation after you have stopped sensing it for a while (e.g. after you have slept or lost consciousness)? In other words, are you correct to still call it 'S'? — Luke
It's the same problem if it were a different token. If you didn't have the sensation for a day or more and then it apparently returned, you could not be sure that you were remembering it correctly as the same sensation. — Luke
As I've repeated numerous times now, you've provided nothing to support this assertion. You are claiming two distinct types of tokens, ones which can be encountered numerous times and ones which cannot. But such a distinction needs to be justified, and as I explained many inner experiences like memories and ideas seem to involve encountering the same token numerous different times. — Metaphysician Undercover
But such a distinction needs to be justified, and as I explained many inner experiences like memories and ideas seem to involve encountering the same token numerous different times. — Metaphysician Undercover
So the distinction cannot be based in an internal/external division. — Metaphysician Undercover
You seem to be putting "sensations" in a category other than "inner experience", and other than "external object". — Metaphysician Undercover
Whether or not you believe it is possible to have the same token of a type of sensation on numerous occasions, is not what is at issue. — Metaphysician Undercover
What is at issue is that the private diarist is claiming this, and is claiming to mark down S every time the very same token of sensation occurs, "a particular sensation". — Metaphysician Undercover
The question Wittgenstein asks, is if the person might be correct in judging that a present instance is the same as a prior instance. — Metaphysician Undercover
And, he concludes that since there is no criteria which will tell the diarist whether it truly is the same or not, it doesn't make sense to even talk about the possibility of being correct. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think you need to rethink this, because it is not correct. If the diarist is judging the distinct instances, as distinct particulars, rather than as one and the same particular, the problem of a criterion of identity evapourates. The diarist can make up any criteria whatsoever as to what constitutes "the type". He can even say that they are the same type because he named them both S. — Metaphysician Undercover
The diarist can make up any criteria whatsoever as to what constitutes "the type". — Metaphysician Undercover
Look up the type/token distinction. It doesn't have a private meaning. — Luke
What do you mean by "the same token"? — Luke
You appear to be missing the point Luke. If the same token of a chair can come and go many times, relative to my conscious experience, then why can't the same token of sensation come and go many times, relative to my conscious experience? One comes from ,and goes to; an external source which is outside my conscious experience, and the other comes from and goes to an internal source which is outside my conscious experience How could your memory work, if it wasn't the same token coming and going, to and from your mind, each time that you remember the same event? A memory of an event comes and goes from your conscious experience, coming from and going to some internal place. Why would you think that each time the memory occurs to you, it is a different token? If it was a different token, you would not remember it as the same event, it would occur to you as a different event each time. And if each time the idea of two came into your mind, that is the number two not the symbol, it was a different token, how could you do any mathematics? — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not basing it on an internal/external division; I'm basing it on types (classes) and tokens (instances of those classes). You are incorrectly basing it on instances of "encountering". — Luke
No, I'm saying you have sensations as an "inner experience". — Luke
Why do you think that it's not possible for the person not to be consciously aware of that token of pain during some period of its existence? So that particular token of pain could be existing somewhere in the subconscious, while the conscious mind is not at that time aware of it. Isn't this what we say about memories? The memory is 'stored' somewhere so that it is not always present to the conscious mind throughout the entirety of its temporal existence. Yet it must exist somewhere as that particular memory, or else the conscious mind would not be able to access it.I will grant you this one point. It is possible for someone to have the same pain for several days in a row, and we might consider this to be a single token or instance of pain. Admittedly, I had assumed that the sensation 'S' was fleeting and was presumed to last less than a day. — Luke
I don't see why you say this is incorrect. As I said in my last post, it could be considered to be the same "particular" or token of the sensation both before and after one has slept or been unconscious. The problem is in remembering it correctly after waking up or regaining consciousness. Therefore, the problem can equally apply to tokens. That is, if you prefer to define a token, or a particular instance of a sensation, such that it includes a discontinuity in your awareness of it. We commonly refer to some pains in this way. — Luke
The diarist can make up any criteria whatsoever as to what constitutes it being the same token both before and after the discontinuity. — Luke
For me, probably not Banno, there is a kind of mystical experience in poetry, music, art, and even prayer, that transcends language to a point, not completely. So, the mystical can be seen in, for example, an act of prayer, and it's not about being true or false, it's about what the experience shows us. Wittgenstein admired some of the writings Kierkegaard (I don't put that much value in Kiekegaard), but I think it had to do with admiring the transcendent reach, right or wrong. The mire I'm referring to is confusion, but I don't think poetry escapes this - depending on what you mean by the mire. As long as we use language, in whatever venue, we are in the mire. Don't think I'm saying something against clarity, because I'm not, I'm just saying that language is a muddled approach to reality. I do think that Wittgenstein's thinking helps to bring us one step closer to clarity, if clarity is the objective.
I'm not sure I communicated my point well, but there you have it. — Sam26
I didn't say anything about a "private meaning". I don't know what you're talking about here, — Metaphysician Undercover
I fully understand the type/token distinction. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't understand the basis of your claim that a single token of a sensation cannot be experienced (since you do not like "encountered") by a person more than one different time. Isn't any duration of time "more than one different time"? — Metaphysician Undercover
Obviously we experience the same token of chair many different times, and as I described the other day, it appears like we must experience the same token of memory, and the same token of idea, many different times. I do not understand why you think a token of sensation is different. — Metaphysician Undercover
If a sensation is an inner experience, just like memories and ideas are inner experiences, how is it that we appear to experience the same token of a memory many different times, and the same token of an idea many different times, yet you still insist that we cannot experience the same token of sensation a multitude of times. — Metaphysician Undercover
Why do you think that it's not possible for the person not to be consciously aware of that token of pain during some period of its existence? — Metaphysician Undercover
So that particular token of pain could be existing somewhere in the subconscious, while the conscious mind is not at that time aware of it. Isn't this what we say about memories? The memory is 'stored' somewhere so that it is not always present to the conscious mind throughout the entirety of its temporal existence. Yet it must exist somewhere as that particular memory, or else the conscious mind would not be able to access it. — Metaphysician Undercover
However, it may actually be the case, that each time a person remembers, or accesses the memory of the same event, the mind recreates the so-called token of memory. If this is the case, then it is not really truthful to say that it is the same memory, because it's really a new scenario created each time. — Metaphysician Undercover
Likewise with ideas, the idea of 'two' for example. If the mind must recreate the idea of two, instead of pulling that token of idea from a stored memory bank, then it is not really the same particular idea. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is incorrect for the reasons I explained. If the person wants to say that it is the very same particular, a criterion as to what qualifies as "the same" is required in order that such naming can be correct. But if the person wants to name two distinct things as the same type, simply naming them as "the same type" is sufficient criteria for them to actually be the same type (270). — Metaphysician Undercover
We don't experience the same token of an "inner experience" many times. A token of an experience can be timestamped. You cannot have the same timestamped token of an experience twice. You clearly do not understand the type/token distinction if you think this. You can only have the same type of experience twice. — Luke
Doesn't your timestamp proposal amount to fitting experience to theory, rather than vice versa? — sime
In other words, there aren't always criteria available by which to say that an experience is unique or different from another experience. — sime
You asked for proof regarding the type/token distinction. I can only refer you to the definition, otherwise I don't know what sort of proof you mean. — Luke
Yes, a duration of time is "more than one different time"; it is a period of time. A single token of a sensation also lasts for a period of time. What I am saying is that you cannot have the same token of a sensation twice (unless you can time travel and relive some period of time over again). — Luke
Instantiations of sensations necessarily depend on our experience; instantitations of chairs do not. There are many chairs that exist without you ever encountering them, but there are no sensations that you can have without sensing them. This is why a token of a sensation is different. The instantiation of a chair does not require you to "encounter" or "experience" it. However, as I noted before, what they have in common is that chairs and sensations both have particular life spans of their existence/instantiation. — Luke
If the person is not consciously aware of the pain during some time, then they are not having any pain (not in pain), so there is no pain during that time. — Luke
I suppose, but now you are no longer talking about "inner experiences" (and their instantiations) like we are with sensations. — Luke
That's right, this is what tokens are about. Tokens of "inner experiences" are each unique instantiations that can be timestamped. This is why you are wrong to speak of there being more than one of "the same token". — Luke
But a person can simply name them as "the same token", too, and that is also sufficient criteria. — Luke
I think poetry escapes confusion because it is not trying to arrive at clarity, or at least any definite propositional kind of clarity, lacking any ambiguity. Perhaps by "confusion" you mean more uncertainty, and if this is the case I would agree with you because I see (at least much of the best) poetry as a celebration of uncertainty. Would you include the other arts in this judgement as well? — Janus
I'm not sure what you mean when you say language is a muddled approach to reality. And again I'd ask whether you would include the language of music and the language of the visual arts in this. Perhaps you mean that what we say about reality is never reality itself? But then the very idea of reality would seem to be impossible without language. — Janus
For me, probably not Banno, there is a kind of mystical experience in poetry, music, art, and even prayer, that transcends language to a point, not completely. — Sam26
A token of a chair is not a token of a chair without being encountered and classed as such. — Metaphysician Undercover
It was your choice to bring us away from Wittgenstein's words of particular things, to use the type/token terminology, now you cannot simply slip back without suffering the consequences. — Metaphysician Undercover
If both, the particular chair, and the particular sensation have been judged to be of a specific type, making them "tokens", then it's nonsensical to say that one of them might not have been encountered. — Metaphysician Undercover
The sensation itself cannot be the token because sensation is a type — Metaphysician Undercover
if we allow that there is variance in sensation, differences in sensation, then there must be an object of sensation at each different instance of sensation — Metaphysician Undercover
But if this is true, then the objects, or tokens, only have existence if they are being apprehended by the conscious mind, and this implies that the conscious mind itself, and only the conscious mind, creates these object, or tokens. — Metaphysician Undercover
That is nothing but your own mistaken and unnecessary assumption. — Luke
'S' is the type of sensation. The recurrence of particular instantiations of 'S' had by the diarist are supposed to be the tokens of that type of "certain sensation". That's why the diarist is said to write 'S' every time the sensation recurs. — Luke
"The sensation" refers to both the type and its tokens. "Each different instance of sensation" is a token (that's what "token" means), despite you just having claimed that "the sensation itself cannot be the token". — Luke
According to that logic, the same must also be true of external objects. — Luke
Your argument is both that all tokens must be encountered and apprehended, but also that encountering and apprehending tokens implies that the mind creates them. — Luke
The assumption is that a type is a human creation, artificial. And, since only human beings know humanly created types, then to be be a member, token, of a type is a human judgement. Of course it might be a mistaken assumption, — Metaphysician Undercover
Back to square one, Luke demonstrates that he doesn't know how to read. How is "the sensation", as used four times in 258, in Wittgenstein's description of what it might mean to "name" a sensation, supposed to refer to a type, called "sensation", rather than to a particular sensation? — Metaphysician Undercover
If each instance of sensation was actually the token itself, then there would be nothing which differentiates one instance from another, and we'd have no basis for a claim that they are distinct tokens. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now imagine if each instance of pain is itself a token. Then each instance of pain is exactly identical to every other instance of pain, as merely "pain", It is the described object, 'pain in my tooth', 'pain in my toe' etc., which provides the basis for a difference. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, it's a conclusion which would hold for external objects as well, but it's only the result of the assumption that each encounter with the object, is an encounter with a different object (token), as you assume with sensations. — Metaphysician Undercover
This assumption of yours, implies that the object of the sensation, the token, only exists when it is being sensed. Therefore the object, the token, must be a creation of the act of sensing. — Metaphysician Undercover
We assume that we encounter the same objects (tokens) multiple times, and they continue to exist while not being encountered. — Metaphysician Undercover
You have acknowledged there is no problem with naming a single token of the sensation. — Luke
• The problem is in establishing the name/type of the sensation, 'S'. — Luke
261. What reason have we for calling "S" the sign for a sensation? For "sensation" is a word of our common language, not of one intelligible to me alone. So the use of this word stands in need of a justification which everybody understands.—And it would not help either to say that it need not be a sensation; that when he writes "S", he ha something—and that is all that can be said
• Your constant repetition that Wittgenstein uses the phrase "the sensation" is no support for your claims. — Luke
• It is not my claim that he refers to a more general type called "sensation", but that he refers to a type of "certain sensation" called 'S'. — Luke
If you assume that the sensation occurs continuously, then what distinguishes one instance from another in Wittgenstein's example is every (different) day. — Luke
. Different tokens are different instances. PERIOD. — Luke
How does that follow? It's equivalent to saying that seeing something is a creation of the act of seeing. — Luke
Which part of "it's not about "encountering" something" do you not understand? I'm not going to follow you in your metaphysical nonsense. — Luke
Clearly, what distinguishes one instance from another is the coming into the conscious mind, coming to the attention of the conscious mind. Just like when you see the very same chair twice, what distinguishes one instance of seeing it from another, is the coming to the attention of your conscious mind. I don't understand why this is a problem for you. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are refusing to acknowledge that despite the fact that "Different tokens are different instances. PERIOD", we can have different instances of the very same token. PERIOD. Why is this so difficult to you? — Metaphysician Undercover
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