The fact that they mean different things, with the first referring to the present and the second referring to the future. — Michael
Well yes, one might take it to be analytically true that a prediction is future-referring. — sime
But in that case, the future-contingency of the prediction cannot mean anything about the world in itself — sime
As a matter of interest, do you consider ChatGPT's responses as future-referring? — sime
But doesn't the fact that the bornblind can talk about color support the thesis that meaning is public ? They don't need an 'internal' referent for 'red.' Meaning looks to be 'out there' with stopsigns and handshakes. — plaque flag
You might like this: https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/08/17/blind-people-understand-color/I don't know how often blind people use colour terms. — Andrew4Handel
The public aspect of language may be the rules of application but whether what is being said refers to something is an open question. But my issue is whether mental terms like memory and beliefs etc refer to the same thing between individuals. — Andrew4Handel
Eliminative materialists go to the extreme of saying that don't refer to anything or only refer to brain activity. Such as "love" just mean Oxytocin levels. — Andrew4Handel
Immaterial private referents are problematic. — plaque flag
I don't think that would quite work. The grammar of 'pain' would allow for anomalies like reports of pain that were not accompanied by the expected brain activity.Can the word “pain” refer to this particular kind of brain activity? — Michael
The grammar of 'pain' would allow for anomalies like reports of pain that were not accompanied by the expected brain activity. — plaque flag
That’s true of every word in every circumstance. I can report that it’s raining when it isn’t. — Michael
To be sure, the grammar of the word 'pain' could change, but currently (as far as I can make out) it's more about behavioral dispositions than brain states. — plaque flag
If that were true then we wouldn’t ask people if they’re in pain. — Michael
I can’t understand this devotion to the idea that words can only refer to some publicly verifiable activity. — Michael
I take aspirin because I’m in pain. It’s not the case that taking aspirin is being in pain. — Michael
I just think immaterial references don't make sense — plaque flag
That's roughly how we learn to use "headache" and "pain" -- in terms of what implications are thereby licensed — plaque flag
Why not ? — plaque flag
We’re assuming brain states here, not immaterial stuff. — Michael
If you want to pretend that 'pain' has a different grammar than it does, we can try to play that game and see what happens. — plaque flag
But behaviour isn’t enough. There really is stuff going on in people’s heads that we don’t know about, and when we ask about things like pain we’re asking them to tell us about this stuff going on in their heads. — Michael
It's not too outlandish to think technology will become powerful enough to know our socalled insides better than we do. — plaque flag
I’m suggesting that we assume that what we think of as first person experience/consciousness is reducible to brain activity. — Michael
Yes, that’s implied by my assumption here that consciousness is identical to a particular kind of brain activity. — Michael
I don't think the self makes sense as a present-at-hand object. It's temporally stretched, socially constituted. It's more of a dance than a dancer. — plaque flag
What I will say is that I don’t need a second person for me to be conscious. It is both logically and physically possible for me to be the last man alive. — Michael
So assume in some post-apocalyptic wasteland the only thing to survive is a newborn baby. Given that it has no sense of self and no language it isn’t conscious and can’t feel pain or be hungry? — Michael
I think that we can apply such concepts, and I think we can do that now with pigs being treated badly in processing plants. The baby could be hungry or in pain, yes. Why not ? So could the pig. "We should stop creating pork this way, because pigs suffer, because it's wrong to cause unnecessary suffering." — plaque flag
What does it mean to attribute pain ? — plaque flag
Does immateriality add anything? — plaque flag
-but then if we didn't have language we wouldn't be the kind of creatures who worried about being closed off. Maybe it follows that the conditions that lead us to think we are closed off--a rich inner life that owes its existence to the essentially social fact of language--are precisely those that allow us not to be. — Jamal
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