Then, when it's pointed to, we can see it as an example of a type. — Metaphysician Undercover
An expression, such as "I have a headache", is not a token of the type "pain". — Metaphysician Undercover
You invalidly concluded that I must be in possession of a token of that type (beetle in the box), from the fact that I assert that I have something of that type. — Metaphysician Undercover
That your conclusion is invalid is evident from the fact that I could be lying. . — Metaphysician Undercover
One more try, because I'm tired of your inability to grasp the type/token distinction. — Luke
However, there is no such Form, there is only the word/concept/type "pain" that we use to refer to actual instances/tokens of pain. — Luke
I can have a toothache and you can have a toothache and so can everyone else, and we can all refer to it as "a toothache". — Luke
Lying about what? That you've had pain before? You could be lying, but you could also be telling the truth. What then? — Luke
You don't seem to understand the fact that the type/token distinction cannot be applied in the context of the private language. — Metaphysician Undercover
As I said, I do not believe there is any such a thing as an actual instance of pain. You'll have to show me one before I believe you. That's how you're using "instance", to signify an example of something, a "token". A token is an example of a type. So you'll have to show me your example. To talk about the existence of a token is insufficient, because you are telling me about a type, "pain" and insisting that there is such a thing as examples of this type, "tokens" without showing me these tokens. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are insisting that you have something in your box, a token of the type "beetle" (in this case, a token of pain), But to be tokens of a particular type, they must serve to exemplify that type. Since you cannot use what's in your box, as an example of the type you are talking about, "pain", to demonstrate that type to me, we cannot truthfully say that what is in your box is a token of pain. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you understand the reality of the type/token distinction? A token is an example of a type, by definition. If there is something which cannot serve to exemplify a type, such as an inner, private sensation, it cannot be called a token. Otherwise, you could make up all sorts of fictitious types, and claim that there are real existing tokens of those types, like unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters, but all the tokens are in your mind. — Metaphysician Undercover
This means that we can have real existing things which are not tokens. You seem to be bogged down by some type of dichotomous thinking within which everything must be either a type or a token of a type — Metaphysician Undercover
So you do not recognize the fact that I can claim to have something, and even call it by the name of a type, "a pain", yet it is not a token of that type because I cannot use it to exemplify that type, as required by the name "token". Therefore it is not a token of that type, as required by the definition of "token". — Metaphysician Undercover
I have asked you several times whether you have had any instances of pain before. — Luke
You cannot have a token that is independent of its type. That is, I don't think it makes any sense to talk about tokens unless you are talking about them in terms of their type, or in terms of the type/token distinction. And I don't think that everything is a type. To repeat, I introduced the distinction to raise your awareness of two different possible meanings of the word "same": the same type or the same token. — Luke
If you have something, and you call it a "pain" when it is not a pain, then you are either lying or misusing the word. — Luke
You invalidly concluded that I must be in possession of a token of that type (beetle in the box), from the fact that I assert that I have something of that type. That your conclusion is invalid is evident from the fact that I could be lying. . — Metaphysician Undercover
My pain does not exist as an instance, or as a token. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, and it was you who insisted that the same token, or instance, of pain could not go away and come back at a later time. My pain usually goes away and comes back at a different time, when I sleep for example. Therefore I have concluded that my pain cannot exist as a token or an instance, as you are defining these words.. — Metaphysician Undercover
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
OK, I'm glad we're finally getting to the point. 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. 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". Whether it is possible for the person to actual have the same particular sensation is not the issue. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, I have never had an "instance" of pain as you are using "instance". — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, I told you lying is a real possibility which proves that what you are asserting is false.
You invalidly concluded that I must be in possession of a token of that type (beetle in the box), from the fact that I assert that I have something of that type. That your conclusion is invalid is evident from the fact that I could be lying. .
— Metaphysician Undercover — Metaphysician Undercover
You said that "A token is an example of a type, by definition." So that means your pains are not examples (or instances) of the type "pain"? — Luke
Furthermore, you are being dishonest because I acknowledged on more than one occasion that a token could be defined as lasting longer than a day. — Luke
And, as I indicated in my response at the time, the possibility of lying implies the possibility of telling the truth. If it is possible that your tokens (or "somethings") of pain are a lie, then it is also possible that your tokens (or "somethings") of pain are not a lie. Which proves that your assertion "There is no such thing as a token of sensation" is false. — Luke
This is an invalid conclusion. That there is a token, an example, or instance of pain which is referred to when I say "I'm in pain", requires that I am not lying. The possibility that I am telling the truth when I say "I'm in pain", does not necessitate that there is a token, instance, or example, being referred to, because it's only a possibility. It is required that the token actually serves as an example, to be a token.. — Metaphysician Undercover
I guess this is all you have left to say. — Luke
I am waiting for you to produce this token of pain which you seem to believe is so real. — Metaphysician Undercover
You can tell me about your claimed token all you want, that's a far cry from producing it. — Metaphysician Undercover
246. In what sense are my sensations private? [...]
Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour — for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.
This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. — PI 246
250. Why can’t a dog simulate pain? Is it too honest? Could one teach a dog to simulate pain? Perhaps it is possible to teach it to howl on particular occasions as if it were in pain, even when it isn’t. But the right surroundings for this behaviour to be real simulation would still be missing. — PI 250
Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour — for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them. — PI 246
You want me to produce my sensations? Do you not have them yourself? — Luke
Do you want to contradict Wittgenstein and say that you doubt whether you are in pain? Also, what do you make of the remarks at 250 which relate to your comments on lying: — Luke
Is a dog so honest that it cannot help but express only real pain? — Luke
I cannot show you my sensations because sensations are private. Wittgenstein's is not a private sensations argument (unless you count PI 246-251, where he acknowledges that sensations are private). Did you think he was a behaviourist? — Luke
Just saying, if you want a token of pain, just give me your hand and a hammer. I can easily combine those two things in a manner that will produce a token of pain for you. — Olivier5
i don't see how you could produce a token of pain with a token of hammer and a token of hand. You could create a token of 'damaged hand', or 'injured hand', but where's the token of pain? — Metaphysician Undercover
I have sensations, but as I explained to you, they do not consist of tokens, if I maintain consistency with the way you use the word "token". — Metaphysician Undercover
You said that if I express "I am in pain", then it is necessary that I have a token of pain. — Metaphysician Undercover
But you accept that the expression is not itself the token. So you seem to completely overlook the possibility that I might be intentionally lying. — Metaphysician Undercover
How is a dog's supposed experience of pain even relevant to what we're discussing? — Metaphysician Undercover
You seem to be saying that Wittgenstein argues that sensations are not private, yet at 246-251 he acknowledges that sensation are private. — Metaphysician Undercover
But if this is the case, we are talking about a type, called "pain", not tokens of pain. — Metaphysician Undercover
If we have no means for comparison how can we even talk about whether they are one token or two? — Metaphysician Undercover
Don't worry, you'll know where it is as soon as I start smashing your hand with that hammer. — Olivier5
I don't care if you're lying or not. It's not about me trying to work out if you genuinely have pains. I directly asked you whether you have pains. I already know that you do, and you have already said on multiple occasions that you do. I do not understand why you are refusing to refer to separate instances of having pain (or any other sensations) as "tokens". — Luke
That there are two of them - you have one and I have one - and that they are both "pain" means that we each have a token of that type. It makes no sense to say that we each have a type called "pain". There is only one type called "pain" and we each have a token of it. — Luke
That's right, I think it's nonsensical, incoherent, and inconsistent with the definition of "token", to call pain a token. — Metaphysician Undercover
We each have a type of sensation which we call "pain". Why do you say that this makes no sense? When I have a sensation of the type I call pain, I call it "pain". When you have a sensation of the type you call pain you call it "pain". — Metaphysician Undercover
And, as Wittgenstein explains at 258, it would not even make any sense to think of the sensations which I call "pain", as tokens, because there is no criterion of correctness by which to judge whether the sensations I call "pain" are really of the type pain. — Metaphysician Undercover
Therefore they are just sensations which I say are of the type pain, but do not qualify as tokens of pain because there is no correctness as to whether they really are pain or are not pain.. — Metaphysician Undercover
At §293 the ‘beetle-in-the-box’ argument itself suggests a similar but more general conclusion. Public words that refer to inner sensations do not get their meaning from the sensations themselves. All these words tell us is that there is a sensation, not what the sensation is. To Wittgenstein, linguistic meaning is the use of words, and as mentioned above, the use of the word ‘pain’ is to express rather than to describe the sensation:
“Suppose everyone has a box with something in it: we call it a “beetle”. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. – Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box...The thing in the box has no place in the language game at all”
What Wittgenstein is saying is that the word ‘beetle’ cannot be referring to the beetle itself, because if it did then only I could know what I meant by the word ‘beetle’, as only I know what is in my box. In the same way, we can see that the word ‘pain’ cannot refer directly to the sensation, because only I could know what that sensation is: if the word did refer to the sensation, the word would mean nothing to anyone but me (as a word in a private language would). Clearly our sensation words have to tell us something about what kind of sensation they’re referring to, otherwise it would be difficult to see any difference between ‘pain’ and ‘pleasure’. But what Wittgenstein is trying to show is that what we actually feel – which no one else can really know – is irrelevant to the meaning of the word.
Wittgenstein’s position therefore seems to be that sensations definitely are private, and that sensation words do not have sensations themselves as their meaning, and in fact the exact nature of the sensation has no bearing on the meaning (use) of the word whatsoever. The word merely indicates that a certain kind of sensation is present. — Richard Floyd
it's nonsensical, incoherent, and inconsistent with the definition of "token", to call pain a token. — Metaphysician Undercover
That doesn't answer my question of what you think a token is, or how you think I am using the word "token". — Luke
There is only one type, which is "pain" - i.e. the category or class called "pain". — Luke
Likewise, if you had a Ford Mustang and I had a Ford Mustang, then there would not be two different types of car (yours and mine); instead there would be two different tokens of the (one) same type of car: "Ford Mustang". — Luke
We cannot possibly have different types of "pain" in the way you suggest. In order to have different types we might call your type "pain A" and my type "pain B". But all that distinguishes pain A from pain B is that one is yours and one is mine. Either they both still refer to what we were previously calling "pain" or else we are no longer talking about "pain". — Luke
In order to be different types, if you had something of the type "pain", then I would need to have something of a different type that is not "pain". — Luke
Moreover, you cannot have a type. — Luke
Wittgenstein does not mention the word "pain" at all at PI 258. He mentions only the word/symbol "S", which has a supposedly private use in a supposedly private language. — Luke
No, there are many different types of pain. — Metaphysician Undercover
a type, or class, is often divided into subtypes, or subclasses. — Metaphysician Undercover
The type of pain which I have could easily be different from the type of pain that you have, especially if I have a different type of injury from you. And, the fact that we'd be talking about different types of pain, does not imply that we are not talking about "pain" any more. If you and I are talking about different types of Ford Mustangs, that does not mean we are no longer talking about Ford Mustangs. This fact is a big reason for the existence of misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover
If I can't have a type, then neither can you. — Metaphysician Undercover
Look, "inner experience" refers to a type. Then we have specified a type of inner experience as "sensation", so we have just named a new type. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now, the diarist wants to say that the thing referred to with "S" is a token rather than a type, but there is no criterion (other than the law of identity which Wittgenstein has rejected as nonsense) as to what constitutes a token. — Metaphysician Undercover
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