Obviously your belief is that no solipsistic one-mind existence could ever contain the illusion of a language, communication and conversations. I think we've hit the nub of it. You see I do think it's possible for it ALL to be an illusion, and you haven't proven it impossible. — GLEN willows

I grant that people sometimes dream without knowing they are dreaming. But is that really all you wanted ?

Obviously the dude in the dream who tells you you're awake is part of the dream. Grammatically, tautologically, trivially.

I totally get that, but that's a tangent, an exception. — Pie

And by an exception you mean a coherent example of there being a private mind behind the public expression that cannot be known? Then what left is there to say? The case is proved.

And by an exception you mean a coherent example of there being a private mind behind the public expression that cannot be known? Then what left is there to say? The case is proved. — Michael

I don't think you mean to do it (and maybe I'm guilty of it as well), but it's way too easy to jump back and forth between common sense and serious philosophy. Indeed, Ryle's big point is that the absurd ghost story is parasitic on common sense.

No one disputes the ordinary gab about secret thoughts or the possibility of a hustler accessing Mrs. Robinson's bank account by feigning desire. But you seem to think you can go from this triviality to doubting the world in which your point makes sense (and from which it derives its sense) in the first place.

The ontological commitments of the Official Doctrine lead to the mind-body problem; the epistemological commitments of the Official Doctrine lead to the problem of other minds. According to the traditional view, bodily processes are external and can be witnessed by observers, but mental processes are private, “internal” as it is metaphorically described (since mental processes are not supposed to be locatable anywhere). Mental processes or events are supposed, on the official view, to be played out in a private theatre; such events are known directly by the person who has them either through the faculty of introspection or the “phosphorescence” of consciousness. The subject of the mental states is, on this view, incorrigible—her avowals of her own mental states cannot be corrected by others—and she is infallible—she cannot be wrong about which states she is in.[6] Others can know them only indirectly through “complex and frail inferences” from what the body does.

But if all that is mental is to be understood in this way, it is unclear how we are justified in believing that others have the requisite episodes or mental accompaniments. It would be possible, on this view, for others to act as if they are minded, but for them to have none of the right “conscious experiences” accompanying their actions for them to qualify as such. Perhaps we are in much the same position as Descartes who thought it made sense to wonder whether such creatures are automata instead.

The problem of other minds is compounded by even more serious difficulties given certain assumptions about the way language works. Proponents of the Official Doctrine are committed to the view that mental discourse serves to designate items that carry the metaphysical and epistemological load of that doctrine.

The verbs, nouns and adjectives, with which in ordinary life we describe the wits, characters and higher-grade performances of the people with whom we have do, are required to be construed as signifying special episodes in their secret histories, or else as signifying tendencies for such episodes to occur. (1949a, 16–17)

Ryle’s criticism of the Official Doctrine begins by pointing out an absurdity in its semantic consequences. If mental conduct verbs pick out “occult” causes then we would not be able to apply those verbs as we do; so something must be wrong with a theory of mental phenomena that renders so inadequate our everyday use of these verbs. For, according to the Official Doctrine

when someone is described as knowing, believing or guessing something, as hoping, dreading, intending or shirking something, as designing this or being amused at that, these verbs are supposed to denote the occurrence of specific modifications in his (to us) occult stream of consciousness. (1945, 17)

Ryle’s criticism of the view is that if it were correct, only privileged access to this stream of consciousness could provide authentic testimony that these mental-conduct verbs were correctly or incorrectly applied. “The onlooker, be he teacher, critic, biographer or friend, can never assure himself that his comments have any vestige of truth.” And yet,

it was just because we do in fact all know how to make such comments, make them with general correctness and correct them when they turn out to be confused or mistaken, that philosophers found it necessary to construct their theories of the nature and place of minds. Finding mental-conduct concepts being regularly and effectively used, they properly sought to fix their logical geography. But the account officially recommended would entail that there could be no regular or effective use of these mental-conduct concepts in our descriptions of, and prescriptions for, other people’s minds. (1949a, 17)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ryle/#EpiSemCom

Is it not better to say that we are constituted by all we do and say ? — Pie

No, because I think and feel and see things that I never talk about or act on. I dream, I imagine, I lie, I ignore, etc.

And I assume that there are others to whom this is also the case. Although the solipsist will argue that I cannot know this.

No I wanted to be pulled out of the fiery pit of solipsism, ha! No worries, I respect your arguments. On to other hills to die on!

No, because I think and feel and see things that I never talk about or “act out”. I dream, I imagine, I lie, and so on. — Michael

Sure, this plays a role, but the more you emphasize it...the less it should and can interest us as philosophers. Or as the public. Even lovers share their worlds. "You can never understand my secret heart." Very well then. Next topic.

No I wanted to be pulled out of the fiery pit of solipsism, ha! No worries, I respect your arguments. On to other hills to die on! — GLEN willows

:up:

Why not worry though that you have cancer or were adopted or will be attacked by a Venusian cloudshark in the shower three weeks from now ?

FWIW, I got to my position by contemplating semantics, what us being able to talk implies.

Given that you seem to understand what I mean when I say “no, because I think and feel and see things that I never talk about or act on. I dream, I imagine, I lie, I ignore, etc.” and given that you seem to understand the conceptual difference between a genuine loving relationship and a convincing act, why wouldn’t your “semantic” contemplation lead you to agree with the sensibility of my position?

What I think is actually going on is that you’ve been convinced by something like Wittgenstein’s account of how language is learned and that you think such an account of learning doesn’t work with my position. Which I think should just show the limitations of Wittgenstein’s account, or at least with your interpretation of its implications.

Incidentally, for a similar reason I think there’s a fundamental problem with Putnam’s brain-in-a-vat hypothesis and his causal theory of reference. I think it implausible that the brain-in-a-vat cannot refer to itself as being a brain-in-a-vat. We’re intelligent creatures and we’re able to talk about things beyond what is given in experIence. I admit that I don’t know how we do it but I think it evident that we do.

If anything his argument is a refutation of the causal theory of reference rather than its intended target of metaphysical realism.

given that you seem to understand the conceptual difference between a genuine loving relationship and a convincing act, why wouldn’t your “semantic” contemplation lead you to agree with the sensibility of my position? — Michael

Pray tell how we might evaluate from the outside whether Harry loved Sally, having met her? Or how 'love' could have a public meaning if its referent is infinitely private.

you’ve been convinced by something like Wittgenstein’s account — Michael

Wittgenstein is one of many. I even tend to invoke Sellars, Ryle, and Brandom lately, all too dry and careful in their exposition to be taken as a guru or taken as taken as a guru. I take Wittgenstein to have showed how broken some of our philosophical thinking about mind was, without being all that interested in building a positive theory. Sellars put on his gloves and went to work, building one of the more coherent stories I'm aware of, managing to include both marriages, explanations, and electrons in the same tale, all hanging together reasonably well.

Pray tell how we might evaluate from the outside whether Harry loved Sally, having met her? — Pie

We can't, hence skepticism. Knowledge of private matters is impossible.

Or how 'love' could have a public meaning if its referent is infinitely private. — Pie

I don't know how it does. How does the word "future" refer to something that is necessarily inaccessible? We're just clever people that are somehow able to do clever things with language.

We can't, hence skepticism. Knowledge of private matters is impossible. — Michael

This is not an empirical or a metaphysical discovery. It's a language trap.

"We each contain a box that no one can look into but ourselves."

"Why do you say that ?"

"I see it in my box."

How does the word "future" refer to something that is necessarily inaccessible? — Michael

At a minimum, it plays a role in inferences.

"John expected a big check, so he paid for the drinks."

It plays a role in inferences. — Pie

I don't understand what you mean. The phrases "the future" and "your private thoughts" each refer to something that is necessarily inaccessible to me. What's the problem?

The phrases "the future" and "your private thoughts" each refer to something that is necessarily inaccessible to me. — Michael

Both play a role in inferences. Both have meaning. I don't have to know your private thoughts to reason about private thoughts in general. The norms for their application are not hidden.

It's as if you are amazed that humans can speak of ignorance, of the unknown as such, yet your solipsist makes claims about ignorance.

Both play a role in inferences. Both have meaning. I don't have to know your private thoughts to reason about private thoughts in general. The norms for their application are not hidden. — Pie

The norms for the application of the phrases aren't hidden but the referents are hidden. I can talk about the future and your private thoughts but it is impossible for me to know what will happen in the future and what your private thoughts are.

So, again, what's the problem?

So, again, what's the problem? — Michael

If you leap from the boring, typical talk of private thoughts to the 'official theory' of the ghost, then the only difference between a P-Zombie and a real boy is ... nothing at all.

We must pretend to admit that possibility that Hitler actually loved the Jews. Or that the guy who beats and rapes his wife 'actually' loves her, because the truth is behind or other than any evidence we can summon for this or that judgment. Along these lines, concepts 'really' mean ...whatever I in my secret heart think they mean. So all the Cantor cranks are right, because they can't grok lamestream infinity or rather 'their' infinity is a round square.

"He ate children for breakfast, but let's not rule out that he was a kind man in the privacy of his soul. " Or "he spent his life trying to square the circle, but it may be he was a mathematical genius." And so on. Our actual criteria, the ones we live by, depend upon public performance. It seems better to understand the self as constituted by its doings and not hidden behind the mostly public self as a ghost with spectral and secret feelings and thoughts which are detached from our actual, practical explanatory nexus.

"Kind" and "smart" and "loving" are either in or out of the causal nexus. I think you are trying to have it both ways.

The phrases "the future" and "your private thoughts" each refer to something that is necessarily inaccessible to me. What's the problem? — Michael

"I'd call it a diary, bro, because it's just your private thoughts."

"I'm putting this money away for a rainy day, because you never know (the future)."

If you leap from the boring, typical talk of private thoughts to the 'official theory' of the ghost, then the only difference between a P-Zombie and a real boy is ... nothing at all. — Pie

The difference is that the p-zombie doesn't have the private thoughts. You keep switching between accepting that there are such things to then not? I don't understand it.

We must pretend to admit that possibly that Hitler actually loved the Jews. Or that the guy who beats and rapes his wife 'actually' loves her, because the truth is behind or other than any evidence we can summon for this or that judgment. — Pie

Yes, it is possible. But a case can be made that it is incredibly unlikely because one's private thoughts are what motivate behaviour. So as I said before (either in this or another thread), the only suitable argument against solipsism is to claim that something without a mind wouldn't behave in this way. Trying to argue against the coherency of solipsism is just wrong.

The non-solipsist says "it is possible to know that other minds and mind-independent objects exist".
The solipsist replies with "it is impossible to know that other minds and mind-independent objects exist".
The non-solipsist then says "but what does it mean to exist"? — Michael

I don't see where the last question enters into it. I was criticising your point or assumption that the solipsist and non-solipsist have a shared understanding (of the word "exist", or anything you please) despite the fact that the solipsist claims it is impossible to know that other minds exist. If the solipsist does not accept that other minds can be known to exist, then neither can they accept that they have a shared understanding with any other minds.

But I dispute very much that they are the product of an individual intelligence. — Pie

Such is your prerogative. So what are they a product of, or, from where do they originate?

Even the idea of an individual intelligence is problematic. I don't mean that a man can't write poetry in the woods. — Pie

How would it be problematic, if the individual writing of poetry presupposes the individual intelligence of the writer? Is the writer using an intelligence that does not belong to him alone? Perhaps it is the case that writing poetry requires no intelligence, which makes the individuality of it, irrelevant.

much of my thinking in this thread..... — Pie

.....would seem to follow from your individual intelligence. Conditioned by others, maybe, but the thinking, as such, must be your own else in saying “my thinking”, you contradict yourself.
————

I'll grant that, in this tiny corner of human life, we have relatively exact concepts. — Pie

Relatively exact. Can’t be both simultaneously. Up is relative to down, but up and down are each exactly representative of their part in a logical relation.
————

But 'self-evident' non-linguistic thoughts sounds like mysticism. — Pie

Metaphysics carries a less pejorative implication, but, suit yourself.

The difference is that the p-zombie doesn't have the private thoughts. You keep switching between accepting that there are such things to then not? I don't understand it. — Michael

What would you count as evidence for a private thought ?

Is a private thought just something we might quietly 'say' to ourselves ? Is it something that, in principle, could be detected and translated by a sufficiently advanced neuroscientist from Venus ?

Or is it on another 'plane' entirely, untouched and untouchable by the 'non-mental'?

What would you count as evidence for a private thought ?

Is a private thought just something we might quietly 'say' to ourselves ? Is it something that, in principle, could be detected and translated by a sufficiently advanced neuroscientist from Venus ?

Or is it on another 'plane' entirely, untouched and untouchable by the 'non-mental'? — Pie

I don't know, hence the hard problem of consciousness.

Such is your prerogative. So what are they a product of, or, from where do they originate? — Mww

I can speculate, but why go down this road ? It's like a theist asking how the world got here if God didn't create it. I don't need to have a settled theory to find 'they got here as if by magic' unsatisfying.

"Well if they didn't magically appear, then how did they get here, smarty pants ?"
"I'm not sure. What are the prominent theories among those who specialize on this issue?"

Is the writer using an intelligence that does not belong to him alone? — Mww

In 2020, the analogy is simple; bodies are hardware and 'minds' are software. Humans are animals with exquisitely developed 'second natures.' We 'grow' cultures in our doings together. Part of our culture is the partial autonomy of the individual. This makes great sense. We need pioneers, specialists. If I can't take the software away from the tribe for a little while, the 'tentacles' or 'antennae' of the tribe aren't as long. It's 'fingers' aren't as specialized.

Relatively exact. Can’t be both simultaneously. Up is relative to down, but up and down are each exactly representative of their part in a logical relation. — Mww

To be sure, you can't get much more exact than a single bit of information, but mathematics is a bit more than that. The completeness axiom is disturbing. It says that every nonempty subset of real numbers with an upper bound has a least upper bound. So it 'creates' or guarantees the existence of a
number in terms of a set of such numbers. Or, starting from below if you prefer :

In mathematics, logic and philosophy of mathematics, something that is impredicative is a self-referencing definition. Roughly speaking, a definition is impredicative if it invokes (mentions or quantifies over) the set being defined, or (more commonly) another set that contains the thing being defined. There is no generally accepted precise definition of what it means to be predicative or impredicative. ...
...
The greatest lower bound of a set X, glb(X), also has an impredicative definition: y = glb(X) if and only if for all elements x of X, y is less than or equal to x, and any z less than or equal to all elements of X is less than or equal to y. This definition quantifies over the set (potentially infinite, depending on the order in question) whose members are the lower bounds of X, one of which being the glb itself. Hence predicativism would reject this definition.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impredicativity

Metaphysics carries a less pejorative implication, but, suit yourself. — Mww

That's just it. It's not about suiting myself, because I'm not writing poetry in the woods. I'm trying to do philosophy, settle beliefs rationally. I'm arguing against certain traditional theories of basic situation. There's more to life than philosophy, but that's the game we're here for, no?

I don't know, hence the hard problem of consciousness. — Michael

I claim that the hard problem of consciousness is a language trap. What's a operational definition of consciousness ? What's a criterion for its presence in the first place ? If 'mysterions' want to hide it 'behind' every typical reason we have for ascribing it, they dig the very hole they complain about. "Well, a P-Zombie could do that too." The unjustified and absurd assumption is that there is the 'same' thing we all know 'directly.' If it's private, we can never know if we all mean the same thing by "conscious."

I can think of a number and not tell you or anyone about it. It is impossible for you to know what number I am thinking of, or even that I am thinking of a number.

I don't know what else to tell you. This really is a self-evident fact. If your understanding of language and the world denies this very fact then your understanding of language and the world is wrong.

.....would seem to follow from your individual intelligence. Conditioned by others, maybe, but the thinking, as such, must be your own else in saying “my thinking”, you contradict yourself. — Mww

That's a silly objection...as if anyone disputes that individuals make claims, as if I didn't share a Brandom quote about the self as something like a set of claims that ought to cohere. You pretend that I contradict myself, supporting my point, hoping to discredit me in the light of this coherence norm.
The 'scorekeeping' notion of rationality features us as all keeping one another relatively honest.