In this case, how exactly is "experiencing a red qual" different from "seeing red"? I'm not asking for an answer, since there is a plethora of posts and indeed treads on the topic. But what is germane is the common use of "like" in "What it is like to be a bat" and "What it is like to see red".
There is nothing "it is like" to see red or to be a bat; there is just seeing red, and being a bat. — Banno
Someone might say " what is skydiving like?" for example, which means 'how does it feel?', not 'what does skydiving resemble?'. — Janus
:wink:...intractable... — Tom Storm
tractable (adj.)
"manageable," early 15c., from Latin tractabilis "that may be touched or handled, workable, tangible, manageable," figuratively, "pliant," from tractare "to handle, manage" (see treat (v.)). Related: Tractability.
If someone makes a wrong move in Chess, it is not inappropriate for one to point it out to them. — Banno
If someone makes a wrong move in Chess, it is not inappropriate for one to point it out to them. — Banno
The line I am taking here is more akin to Austin than to Wittgenstein — Banno
Anti-realism, to your lights, may be a wrong or bad move in a game of chess. But it's not fair to call it an illegal move. — ZzzoneiroCosm
:100: Thanks.While it might not be possible to adopt a view from nowhere, that's not what rationality requires. Rather, what is required are explanations that work for many - any - points of view; Einstein's Principle of Relativity makes the point: the laws of physics must be such that they are true for all observers. And if we can do this for physics, why not philosophy?
Rationality does not ask for the view from nowhere, but the view from anywhere.
There is a shared world, a world about which we overwhelmingly agree. A world that we might set out in terms that are agreeable to all observers. So you, I and the bat all see the moth.
That's realism. — Banno
:smirk:Nagel’s most important insight is that humans aren’t bats. — NOS4A2
Showing flies the ways of matryoshka fly-bottles. :up:Better to think of Wittgenstein as having provided a set of tools to help undo metaphysical knots. So long as folk keep tying them, there will be a need for untying. — Banno
Nothing is more clear to me than what it is like to eat an apple while I'm eating an apple. — Hanover
I think it is illegal. — Banno
t might be worth starting with a look at his suggestion that being objective is attempting the impossible task of adopting a View From Nowhere. The Bat is an extension of this line of thinking into consciousness; that the bat has a view that is different from anything else in the world, and hence irreducible. There is, then, for Nagel, an irreducible aspect of first-person conscious experience.
While it might not be possible to adopt a view from nowhere, that's not what rationality requires. Rather, what is required are explanations that work for many - any - points of view; Einstein's Principle of Relativity makes the point: the laws of physics must be such that they are true for all observers. And if we can do this for physics, why not philosophy?
Rationality does not ask for the view from nowhere, but the view from anywhere.
There is a shared world, a world about which we overwhelmingly agree. A world that we might set out in terms that are agreeable to all observers. So you, I and the bat all see the moth.
That's realism.
And further I am not sure that what I have said here is at odds with Nagel's own position. He has, if I recall correctly, objected to the direction that his bats have been flown. It's not at all uncommon to find folk claiming that because the bat sees the moth differently, there is no moth. An absurd, but ubiquitous, position. — Banno
So you, I and the bat all see the moth.
That's realism. — Banno
And as for games, see Mary Midgley's The game game. Games is an example, not a type. — Banno
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