This strikes me as special pleading and a category error — Hanover

Well, your confusing pain and touch certainly is an error. They, again, are not the same. So:

...you must make your perceptions available to the object to experience it — Hanover

This is exactly not the case with pain. It inflicts itself whether you "make your perceptions available" or not. Pain is not touch.

If we insist the red is in the pen (which is your thesis), the we must insist the pain is in the knife — Hanover

What twaddle. No, that's not the "thesis" (are we writing doctorates now? That explains the length of this thread). Pain is not in the knife.

I'm saying pain is no different than red. — Hanover

Ok. You go with such absurdism.

Much as

The fact that I pass Lionino the apple when he says in our non-English language "flurgle nurgle blurgle" is utterly irrelevant to the issue being discussed. — Michael

You are obligated to deny that being red is communal in order to maintain your limited account. And yet, overwhelmingly, we agree as to what is red and what isn't. Here are some shades of red:

Here are some shades of pain:

Notice that the shades of red are red? Do you suppose that the shades of pain are painful? No; the items in the first are red, the items in the second are not pain.

That it has to be pointed out that pain and colour are different shows the culpability of both your lines of thinking.

That it has to be pointed out that pain and colour are different shows the culpability of both your lines of thinking. — Banno

I don't what follows from the fact that pain and color are different. I might be hopelessly lost.

I might be hopelessly lost. — frank

I certainly am!

Threads such as this reach a point where the differences reach absurd levels. The basic point I would make is that colour is not entirely in the mind of an individual, but also functions at a social level. I think that pretty well undeniable.

The broader methodological point is that philosophical dichotomies such as subject/object. subjective/objective, internal/external, private/public are difficult to maintain on close examination; this is shown by the issues that arise for example if it is claimed that colour is only internal and subjective.

The claim from Michael and Hanover seems to be something like that colour is private (subjective, internal) in the same way that pain is private. But it seems to me that neither pain nor colour are entirely private, and further that there are quite important differences between our talk of pain and our talk of colour.

I suspect the usefulness of this thread has been passed, that there is little left to say.

And yet, overwhelmingly, we agree as to what is red and what isn't. — Banno

And we agree as to what is painful and what isn't.

As always your arguments are non sequiturs.

The basic point I would make is that colour is not entirely in the mind of an individual, but also functions at a social level. — Banno

Claims that the dichotomy of private/public is undeniable.

The broader methodological point is that philosophical dichotomies such as subject/object. subjective/objective, internal/external, private/public are difficult to maintain on close examination — Banno

Then denies the dichotomy of private/public can be the subject of a claim.

Sounds legit. :up:

Notice that the shades of red are red? Do you suppose that the shades of pain are painful? No; the items in the first are red, the items in the second are not pain. — Banno

I don't even understand what you're trying to say here. That I can't see pain when I look at that chart? Obviously, because pain is felt, not seen. That I can't feel pain when I look at that chart? Obviously, because looking at things doesn't tend to cause pain.

But if you visited me in person then you could show me "shades" of pain by first punching me, then breaking my finger, and then having me put my hands in a bowl of bullet ants.

What, exactly, would any of that prove? It certainly wouldn't prove that pain is not a mental phenomenon. And so showing me a bunch of images that I see to be red doesn't prove that colours are not mental phenomena.

And so showing me a bunch of images that I see to be red doesn't prove that colours are not mental phenomena. — Michael

He gave the game away. If you want to talk about the biology of consciousness, he is just going to confuse you by talking about its sociology. That way he gets to complain about another repetition of the same old chestnut running over 100 pages.

The basic point I would make is that colour is not entirely in the mind of an individual, but also functions at a social level. I think that pretty well undeniable. — Banno

Apparently, you read about a 10/10000 of what anyone on the opposite side wrote. This has been attended and move past multiple times. You trying to drag this back is what's mucked up the flow. The discussion otherwise was interesting.

are difficult to maintain on close examination — Banno

Perhaps for you. That would explain why you cannot move past a distinction that doesn't touch on the conflict being worked out.

As always your arguments are non sequiturs. — Michael

Not quite. He's trying to argue for a point neither of us(I don't think) would deny, and applying to a different problem. Standard for him, but not a non sequitur I wouldn't say.

:up: Seems a few of these around at the moment here on TPF.

I don't even understand what you're trying to say here. — Michael

Yep.

(I've fallen behind and I don't know if these posts are still relevant)

The fact that we know that phenomenal states can exist without external stimuli and that phenomenal states can be manipulated to provide varying perceptions of the same external stimuli forecloses direct realism as a viable option. Yet it persists. — Hanover

This is a bit like saying that we can dream about apples therefore we don't know whether apples exist, because we never know whether we are dreaming. It is a kind of overdoing of skepticism which is not in fact rational.

If I have a fear of dogs and I feel that fear every time I see a dog, is the fearsome dog an object like a red pen, with the fearsomeness and the redness within the object, or is the fearsomeness within me the perceiver only?

If I internally create the fearsomeness but not the redness, how do you decide which traits of the perception go into the internally created bucket and which go into the objectively existing bucket? — Hanover

Do you think fearsomeness is purely internal? I would suggest looking into the emotion and reality of fear, and what elicits it.

The broader methodological point is that philosophical dichotomies such as subject/object. subjective/objective, internal/external, private/public are difficult to maintain on close examination
— Banno
— apokrisis

Those dichotomies cannot properly account for that which is both. Some experience consists of both subject and object, internal and external things. All talk of experience is both, public and private.

That's the broader point that came to my mind. The inherent inadequacy of those dichotomies to be able to take sensible account of all human experience.

What counts as the bare minimum criterion for what counts as being an experience?

For starters, I say it must be meaningful to the creature having the experience. We must be able to say how.








I asked what the difference was between seeing red stuff, hallucinating red stuff, and dreaming red stuff, .

"Nothing" was your reply.

Phenomenally, there isn't. But I don't think he picked up what you were asking. Which is, cause (otherwise, his answer is a complete one and presents no issues). The cause differs in the three cases (the second two, its possible they don't at-base, but they are related experiences anyway).

Notice that the shades of red are red? Do you suppose that the shades of pain are painful? No; the items in the first are red, the items in the second are not pain. — Banno

If I want you to understand red, I show you a red card. If I want you to understand sweet, i give you a piece of candy. If I want you to understand massage, I rub your shoulder.

If I want to cross categories and let you understand pleasure through vision, I create a visual scale with smiley faces. I suppose I could correlate tastes to sounds and smells to taps on the shoulder and make all sorts of scales.

None of this makes pain special.

This is so i basic I find it hard to believe it is where dispute lies, but I suspect the role of pain to Wittgenstein is being misunderstood. I'd love to think myself so clever that I pierced this complex philosophy, but I find that hard to believe.

I'd love to think myself so clever that I pierced this complex philosophy, but I find that hard to believe. — Hanover

Witty's? You need only be about a 16 year old who is not on Tik Tok to understand that he is full of it, most of hte time, and wants to upend things because its fun. Clever is what he was. I would want to be clear. Something he seemed entirely incapable of.

cause differs — AmadeusD

Yup.

Seeing red pens is an experience that is partially caused by red pens. Hallucinating and dreaming red pens are experiences partially caused by seeing red pens. Hallucinating and dreaming red pens are partially caused by red pens.

There are very different basic elemental constituents. Red pens, while playing a causal role in all three, do not play the role of elemental constituent in all three. There are no red pens in dreams and/or hallucinations of them.

Those dichotomies cannot properly account for that which is both. — creativesoul

I was mocking Banjo’s abuse of these dichotomies to serve his rhetorical purposes.

The need to tease out what is neurobiological about consciousness, and what is then socially constructed, is where my semiotic approach to cognition starts.

Consciousness of course functions for us as a cohesive whole. And yet it is an integration across a hierarchy of semiotic levels. There is information encoded in forms that are genetic, neural, linguistic and numeric. These all fuse to inform the results. Perhaps not seamlessly, but adequately. Good enough for all practical purposes.

Banjo just wants to stop the conversation before it slips beyond his narrow grasp. And who really knows why.

My bold claim is just how quickly this project has been progressing these past 50 years. — apokrisis

Yes, and I have no reason to disagree with you even though I don't currently have a grasp on the full implications of semiotics, especially as regards its application to non-human realities such as non-human biological organisms.

OK, theism would be our sticking point then. I doubt I could have had a more atheistic upbringing. :smile:

But pursuing that line would be futile unless you were defending some point where a deity must intrude into the workings of nature. If God is unnecessary for consciousness, fine feelings, or the Platonic necessity of mathematical patterns, then where is His role in causality? — apokrisis

Okay, interesting. I don't often argue theism on these forums, although I am not necessarily opposed to doing so. The argument at hand is more subtle:

1. If theism is true, then God's will is an existent teleological reality.
2a. Theism is true.
2b. There are no teleological realities.

2a represents the modus ponens and 2b represents the modus tollens, and in this case we are adjudicating between 2a and 2b. I think we both reject the scientistic interpretation of 2b, and then what remains is a difference over a more narrow version of 2b, "There are no divine teleological realities."

So all causality appears to be wrapped up in this physics. It is pure internalism. No divine hand needed either to light the blue touch paper, nor call time in a final judgement. — apokrisis

...and then in this version of the argument the internalism ends up being externalized, to one extent or another. So in this rendition the naturalist will posit a brute fact where the theist posits a intentional ordering, and these sorts of disputes move further and further towards metaphysics and away from science. So if Michael were to say that color is arbitrary, I would want to know what it is arbitrary over and against. I would want to know what is precisely meant by 'arbitrary'.

But Natural Philosophy encourages the idea that the Cosmos is a Darwinian event, and even a structualist story – in particular, a dissipative structure story. And I like the idea that pansemiosis is another way of labelling the physics of dissipative structure. — apokrisis

So is pansemiosis something like the idea that semiosis occurs even where there is no organic life? Curiously, the first hit on Google initially frames the idea theologically.

But anyway, that would be my next challenge. Where does any divine cause seem needed in a Cosmos that keeps seeming to be explained in the terms of a self-organising structure of relations?

If it can be shown that the Cosmos is not just some random thermal event, but instead the self-organising story of a world managing to exist because it constructs the very heat sink upon which its existence is contingent, well where is even a God of the gaps a necessary character in the collective narrative? — apokrisis

I have never put much stock in scientific arguments for God's existence, but that is in part because I have not kept abreast of the science and would not constitute a very good judge. Reframing the supposedly brute-fact structure as intentional or teleological is not a scientific move. But I recently learned that the Big Bang was initially seen as evidence for creation by both sides, and that scientific internalists like Einstein resisted the theory because of this. I found that surprising and interesting. It is interesting that it is intuitive and commonly accepted that <If the Big Bang occurred, then the universe was probably created>, but I have never been sure what exact form of inference is supposed to be occurring in such a move. Often in such cases—pro and con—it feels as if we are moving beyond our paygrade.

My point here was not that we have clearly demonstrable arguments for the modus ponens with 2a, but rather that we have no clearly demonstrable arguments for the modus tollens with 2b. The more interesting question surely has to do with the narrower version of 2b, but I will leave it there for now.

Hmm. I agree prima facie with your formulation. But, this presents a bit of an issue to me.
When do you actually 'see' a Red pen?
Given that we only call the pen 'red' by convention, can this particular difference (realistically, the proximity to the trigger (whereas dreaming is far askance)) really do much lifting?
In all three cases we're experiencing the event of 'looking at an object we apprehend as a pen which will write with red ink", right? We're trying to delineate between them with levels of 'world-aptness' to ascertain whether colour obtains within, or without.

(Aside: deception also causes an issue with Banno's account quite directly - hand me that red pen. *hands you a "blue pen' which is coloured Red externally* - can you see the muddle here? Not rhetorical - if I'm missing or overthinking, please help! lol)

If the result of all this is that we never 'actually' see a red pen, when contrasting several obviously different experiences I'm unsure where that would leave us.. Uncomfortable, no doubt lol. And the question is no longer open to us. Some of this is linguistic though. When I say "see" I only mean to say that I currrently "mentally apprehend that which I have come to believe is X". Beyond this, I can't say i'm "seeing" any objects. Looking at them, sure.

When do you actually 'see' a Red pen? — AmadeusD

When 'you' have biological machinery close enough to our own.

Given that we only call the pen 'red' by convention, can this particular difference (realistically, the proximity to the trigger (whereas dreaming is far askance)) really do much lifting? — AmadeusD

What difference are you drawing/maintaining? If it's unacceptably weak, then why mention it?

When 'you' have biological machinery close enough to our own. — creativesoul

This is unfortunately, quite unhelpful. That obtains in all three cases and provides no basis to delineate.

What difference are you drawing/maintaining? If it's unacceptably weak, then why mention it? — creativesoul

None. This is literally something I am asking you to address. You drew the distinction. I would like a conceptual analysis of the difference between the three cases. If that distinction is unacceptably weak (I am questioning whether it is and asking for clarity)) why did you mention it?

I see the distinction you made as weak - I am trying to have you explain what it is in your mind, so we can talk about it.

When do you actually 'see' a Red pen?
— AmadeusD

When 'you' have biological machinery close enough to our own. — creativesoul

This is unfortunately, quite unhelpful. That obtains in all three cases and provides no basis to delineate. — AmadeusD

We already drew and maintained the distinctions between seeing, hallucinating, and dreaming?

Those still hold.

They all include biological machinery. They do not all count as seeing a red pen. Please keep up.

None. This is literally something I am asking you to address. You drew the distinction. — AmadeusD

What distinction do you think I drew?

In all three cases we're experiencing the event of 'looking at an object we apprehend as a pen which will write with red ink", right? — AmadeusD

There are no red pens in hallucinations and/or dreams thereof.

I see the distinction you made as weak — AmadeusD

So you've claimed.

Which distinction?

I would like a conceptual analysis of the difference between the three cases... — AmadeusD

I've given a brief causal history as well as an in depth enough elemental constituency.

We already drew and maintained the distinctions between seeing, hallucinating, and dreaming?

Those still hold. — creativesoul

Am I am asking for a justification. Intuitively, I am (and have been) agreeing with you. They are clearly different experiences. My point in these last two comments has been to tease out what you see as different between them, if what we're happy to say is that all three obtain in the mind.

There are no red pens in hallucinations and/or dreams thereof. — creativesoul

I think this is incorrect, depending on your response to what the difference would be between these and the "seeing" instance. That's all I'm asking... I would call it incorrect if we cannot pick out a feature of hte 'actual' seeing of a Red pen in contrast to the other two. I hve to say, this seemed clear to me rereading the exchange.

The other things you've replied seem to assume something other htan the above, so ill wait for a response here before approaching them, if the seem relevant at that point :)

There are no red pens in hallucinations and/or dreams thereof.
— creativesoul

I think this is incorrect, — AmadeusD

That's too bad.

There are no red pens in hallucinations and/or dreams thereof.
— creativesoul

I think this is incorrect, depending on your response to what the difference would be between these and the "seeing" instance. That's all I'm asking... I would call it incorrect if we cannot pick out a feature of hte 'actual' seeing of a Red pen in contrast to the other two — AmadeusD

The red pen is not an elemental constituent within dreams or hallucinations thereof. The difference between seeing, hallucinating, and dreaming pens is the pen.

I don't know how much plainer, clearer, or more precisely that can be stated.

This skips over what I am asking you to point out - which is how that actually is the case if we're saying "red pen" is a phenomena of the mind.

You aren't adequately addressing the question. It is not plain or clear what you mean, because your claim relies on several things i am wanting clarity on.

If I am entirely misapprehending you, and you actually hold the position that "A red pen" exists out there, on the table, regardless of any facts of perception then my response is entirely inapt, and this goes back a few pages... That seems plainly wrong to me. But you're holding that there is a red pen in one instance, and not the other two. I want to know why you think that... not jus reassert it?

NB: The I responded when all you had said was "Too bad". That certainly seemed like bad faith, no?