So can we conclude that Wittgenstein's description, or definition of "the world" is unacceptable, and "the world" as we know it is quite different from this?

Premise 4 makes a general claim that the cause of no pain can be known. — jkg20

I've clarified this already. I'm not saying that the cause of pain is unknowable, but that it is unknown. And the reason, as I've explained is that we do not have adequate knowledge of what pain is, in order to be able to identify a cause of it. How can we agree on the cause of "pain" when we cannot even agree on what "pain" refers to? That we cannot agree on what "pain" refers to, has been demonstrated in our discourse.

I have presented counterexamples of cases where I know what the cause of a pain is. You say I do not know in those cases, it seems because you have some commitment to the idea that claims to specific instances of knowledge have always to be backed up by the availability of some systematic theory. — jkg20

Let me tell you again why your claims of having presented instances where you know what the cause of pain is, are false claims. You can identify something as a cause of a feeling, or sensation, but you haven't identified why that feeling or sensation occurs as pain rather than pleasure, or some other sort of sensation. Until you can explain why those occurrences cause the feeling of pain rather than some other feeling, you have not identified the cause of pain. You are just making unjustified assertions.

Again, why do I have to accept that just because there is a sense of sight that all sight involves sensations? It seems to me that I would have to buy in to a very specific account of what vision is in order to accept that inference. — jkg20

Yes, you would have to buy into the conventional account which says that vision is a sense, and that sensations are what senses produce. The sense of sight produces the sensations involved with sight. So images such as dreams are not sensations produced by sight.

No one forces you to accept conventional definitions. But if you refuse conventional definitions in a philosophical discussion you need to justify your refusal or else it appears like you are simply refusing because conventional wisdom doesn't support your particular philosophy. Any philosophy not supported by conventional wisdom needs to be justified or else people just dismiss it as crackpottery.

Regardless, let's just accept that we cannot agree on what a "sensation" is, and we might allow that there is no such thing as "conventional wisdom" concerning this matter. Clearly this supports the truth of #4. We do not know the cause of pain. We say that pain is a certain type of feeling or sensation, but we do not even know what a feeling or sensation is. How can you suppose that we know the cause of pain when we do not even know what pain (as a type of feeling or sensation) is?

2. I'm extremely concerned about the effect the media has been able to exert on the general psyche. Culture has always been able to generate collective affect, but it's becoming worryingly uniform the more social media grows (I won't derail the thread by going into it here, but imagine starlings murmuring - one or two and it's just a mess going every which way, thousands and it suddenly looks like a choreographed dance, but all it is is just thousands of birds all trying to respond to each other and making tiny errors in copying which then get magnified) — Isaac

This is not at all an accurate representation of herd mentality.

What we know is that the vast majority of fatalities (over 90%) had other comorbidities which were "mostly likely to be the underlying cause of death for a person of that age and sex had they not died from COVID-19". so this is referring to cause of death at the time of death. — Isaac

I see this statement as blatant deception. The vast majority of covid-19 related deaths are pneumonia related, pneumonia caused by the virus. the cause of death is the virus.

This seems to be the premise that you are trying to support, that something other than the virus causes these deaths, but it's not the case. And it's completely false to argue that the people would have died at that time anyway, because they already have an "underlying cause of death". Clearly they were still alive and could not have had a cause of death already. From your logic we might as well say that every living person has an underlying cause of death because we're all going to die. Life is an underlying cause of death. It's simply a nonsensical argument which you've been putting forth.

Hardly any ancient farmers died of cancer. It's not because they were super-healthy, it's mostly because they died of something else first. — Isaac

Look at this analogy. It's pure nonsense. Ancient farmers ate produce directly from the farm, not highly processed food (a significant factor in some cancers) that today's city dwellers eat. Your entire argument, that people haven't died from A,B,C,D, or a bunch of other different conditions, because they died of X first, but we still ought to talk about all these conditions as is they are causes of death for these people, or even potential causes of death for these people, is complete nonsense. They have an actual cause of death, which is X.

Philosophical contention begins when one adopts more than an instrumentalist view of those laws and then, further, assumes that the same systematic approach works for all phenomena. — jkg20

Clearly we need to go beyond instrumentalism to understand what things like feelings and ideas are. And of course there is going to be contention here. Isn't that the point I'm making, that these things, feelings, like pain, are to a significant degree, unknown? Have I made my point then?

So what are you saying, inductive reasoning is not useful to philosophy? Then how do you propose that we proceed toward understanding the existence of things like sensations?

Is it? Why should I accept that seeing something is a sensation? Seeing something can cause me to have sensations, a tingle up my spine for instance, but that doesn't entail that seeing something is itself a sensation. — jkg20

Sight is a sense. Seeing something is a sensation. Hearing something is a sensation. Smelling something is a sensation. Tasting something is a sensation. Feeling something is a sensation.

It appears to me like you are trying to distinguish between one type of sensation and another, and make the unjustified claim that one type of sensation is a sensation and the other type of sensation does not qualify to be called a sensation. Are you arguing that "feeling" is the only proper sense?

That we cannot even agree on what the word "sensation" refers to is more evidence that particular types of sensations cannot be properly categorized. That's the key point to my argument, We cannot properly classify different types of feelings or sensations (which feelings are and are not pain, for example) until we have a working definition of "sensation" itself, to be able to identify which things we ought to look at to determine whether they qualify as pain or some other type of feeling.

You asked me to prove #4, which makes a statement about the unknown. The fact that there is contention and disagreement on basic principles concerning this subject, is evidence which supports the truth of #4. Do you agree with this at least?

In the particular instance of my pinching myself, why is it not a sufficient account of my feelingthat specific pain? I can strike a match and it produces a flame. Sometimes I can strike a match and the flame is not produced. But where I strike a match and the flame is produced, it would seem sufficient to account for that flames presence that I struck the match. Premise 4 is the claim that I cannot know the cause of pain. My claim is simply that sometimes I can. — jkg20

Because we have to account for why the feeling produced is pain and not pleasure or some other feeling. Similarly, with the match, we need to account for why striking the match produces fire, and not water, air, or something else.

Are you suggesting that there is a general cause of pain? Why do you think that? — jkg20

When numerous different things have something in common, it makes sense to think that there is a common cause. When things are hot, for example, the common cause is the activity of the molecules. when things are red there is a similar cause. So when different feelings have something in common, pain, it makes sense to think that there is a common cause to the pain. Here's another example. Consider that each time you see a different scenario in front of you, this is a different sensation. But all these sensations have something in common, they are instances of sight. So it makes sense to think that they all have a similar cause. The cause of the sensation of sight is the activity of your eyes and brain.

From my own case, many different things cause me pain. — jkg20

You are not looking at the pain itself here, the fact that the feeling is an unpleasant feeling is what makes it pain. As I explained above, we cannot look at the physical injury, and say that this is the cause of the pain, because physical injury is insufficient to account for the feeling of pain, the unpleasantness.

So, you have many different things which you associate with pain, but you cannot say that these things are the cause of pain. In fact, it makes no sense to say that all these different cause the same thing, pain. Take the example of sight, above. it makes no sense to say that all those different things which you see, cause the sensation of sight, because you have organs and a neurological system which really cause that sensation. Likewise it's nonsense to say that all these different things you associate with pain cause the pain, because you have organs and a neurological system which really cause the sensation of pain. We have numerous senses. You would not say that the thing seen causes the sensation of sight. So in the case of a tactile sense, why would you say that the thing which touches you causes the sensation of pain?

Like effects must have like causes does not seem like a particularly tenable general principle. — jkg20

I think if you look at the world around you, you'll see that the principle is very tenable. It's the basis of science and predictability. When there is similarity in the occurrence of complex events, it's not a matter of random chance or coincidence, and this allows us to produce scientific laws, and make predictions.

Perhaps, however, it is not that principle you are relying on. If you could give me the deductive argument for premise 4, perhaps I could see things more clearly. — jkg20

We are not in the ream of deduction any more, we have moved into inductive principles. But that's what happens when we get to the bottom of a deductive argument, we get to the foundational premises which cannot have been produced by deduction. Otherwise we'd have an infinite regress of deductive arguments producing premises, because the premise of each argument would be produced by deduction and so on. So we must judge those basic premises by other means.

s your claim then, that I cannot know that pinching myself is the cause of the pain because I cannot know how it causes the pain? That seems like quite an ask as a general principle for being able to know what a cause of an event is. After all, it seems reasonable to suppose that I can know that the cause of my car starting is my turning the ignition key, without my having to know the details of how internal combustion engines work. I can also know that my spilling a cup of coffee on my laptop caused it to stop working without knowing the first thing about computer hardware. — jkg20

The issue is this. If the essence of "pain", the defining feature, is that it is a certain type of feeling, (in this case an unpleasant feeling), then to know the cause of pain in any particular instance, (in this case the instance of pinching yourself), is to know what causes the feeling in that instance, to be of the specified type (unpleasant). Can you say that you know what causes the feeling you get when you pinch yourself, to be of that specified type (unpleasant). As I suggested, we could turn to the fact that the act of pinching is damaging to your body, but damage to a body is not sufficient to account for the feeling of pain, because things can be damaged without causing that feeling.

The issue here is that we have to address the reason why some feelings are identifiable and distinguishable from other feelings as a particular type. This requires that we produce an acceptable notion of what a feeling is, which allows for different types. So, #4 premise deals with "pain" as an identifiable type of feeling. To know the cause of "pain" in general, is to know what makes some feelings distinguishable from other feelings, and identifiable as pain. So I think your example is a sort of category mistake. A combustion engine has no feelings. You might try to make it a sort anology, saying that the electrical activity is comparable to "feelings", and the car knows how to distinguish between being turned on and being turned off, but I would say that's a poor analogy

You seem to have reached the opinion that there is some third process involved in pain that most people are ignorant of. Would you be able to express that opinion as the conclusion of a deductively valid argument? If so, would you do me the favour of giving that deductively valid argument, with precisesly articulated and numbered premises and do so, if possible, without name dropping any philosophers or philosophical movements? If, on the other hand, the opinion is one that cannot be reached by the route of a deductively valid argument, why do you think that is so? — jkg20

This would be an argument from causation, similar to some arguments used to demonstrate the necessity of God, which might or might not be acceptable to you. Would you agree that the existence of anything requires a cause? Would you agree that pain is something? If so, then the sensation of pain must have a cause.

At first glance, you might think ok, the cause of pain is some physiological processes, let's say it is damage to the living body which causes pain. But that description wouldn't account for the defining feature of pain which is that it is an unpleasant feeling, one we try to avoid. I can cause damage to all kinds of things, without causing that unpleasant feeling within myself, so the cause of pain cannot be described that way. Therefore, to account for the cause of pain, we need to account for what is essential to that feeling, according to accepted definition, and this is the unpleasantness of the feeling. What causes the unpleasantness of the feeling is unknown.

So, I have presented two deductive arguments above. The first, quite basic, two premises with the conclusion that pain has a cause, so I won't bother numbering the premises. The second concerns the unknown nature of the cause. This argument is a bit more complicated because the first premise is that to understand the cause of pain, we must start with an acceptable definition of "pain". The second is that the defining feature of pain, that it is "unpleasant" , has a cause which is unknown. The cause of "unpleasantness" is unknown. From this argument we can conclude that the cause of pain is unknown.
1. Pain is an unpleasant feeling.
2. The cause of "unpleasantness" is unknown.
C. The cause of pain is unknown.

Please do not read into these requests a belief on my part of the sacrosanctity of deductive logic, it is one philsosophical tool amongst others. It is, however, a tool that I am thoroughly comfortable handling, and if you yourself can use that tool to show how you reached your conclusion, it would greatly help me understand what you are trying to say. — jkg20

Deductive logic is the best tool. However, to do its job, it requires clearly expressed premises which may be analyzed, criticized part by part, and judged for soundness. The problem being that the foundational premises are always derived from something other than deductive logic. And these must be well understood in order that the deductive argument may be judged for soundness.

So your request for a deductive argument is very good because it makes me lay out the premises, so that we can determine what principles support the premises.

Is he reducing becoming to being? Already in Being and Time being was interpreted to mean something temporal. Is not temporality or time becoming? If being is temporality it seems that being is becoming. — waarala

This is the issue I tried to address earlier. It appears like Heidegger may be reducing being to becoming, in the Hegelian way.

But I think the question is about the relation between constant change and something that sustains itself through the change. That there is some relatively enduring whole through the accidental continuous change. — waarala

This is the classical way of looking at the issue, the Aristotelian way, it separates the aspect of the thing which is changing (the form) from the aspect of the thing which remains constant (the matter). Aristotle assumes himself to have satisfactorily demonstrated that the two are incompatible.

Somehow he recognizes this pure becoming as a "potential moment" in the whole. There is this purely accidental moment involved here. It refers to meaninglessness or that there is no "world" involved at that moment? — waarala

This is the Hegelian reversal of Aristotelian principles which the Marxists and dialectical materialists take hold of. Prime matter, pure potential, in the Aristotelian sense, cannot itself be classified as "becoming", because it is necessarily unchanging. Matter is defined as what persists through change. The concept of "matter" is introduced by Aristotle to account for the continuity (being) which exists within change (becoming), what stays the same. Hegel appears to have reversed that principle of continuity, allowing being to be subsumed within becoming, such that there is nothing to provide the necessity for continuity, hence allowing for the accidental moment of no world.

The point I want to get clear on about your position is whether you consider that the sensations of pain an individual feels has a representative function for that person, not whether those feelings of pain are representations or not. My expression of point 1 explicity did not call feelings of pain representations, it just described them as having a representative function. With that disinction in mind, do you accept 1 as it was stated, i.e, with the use of "thing" dropped: — jkg20

You seem to be changing the subject. Having a "representative function" implies being used for a representative purpose. So if you are asking whether the sensation has a representative function for the person experiencing the sensation, then you are asking whether the person uses the sensation for a representative purpose. I would say that in most cases the answer is no. An individual accepts the sensation for what it is, as a sensation, and does not seek the meaning behind it. It is only when a person investigates, to seek the meaning behind the sensation, that the person will move to establish a relationship between the sensation, and what lies behind it. In this case, the person might assign a representative purpose to the sensation, employing the sensation as a representation in an attempt to understand the underlying thing. This is what I think is wrong. The sensation is not a representation in its natural relationship with the underlying thing, so to employ it as a representation, (describe it that way or define it that way as a premise) for the purpose of proceeding with a logical investigation of the underlying thing, would be a mistake.

So the short answer, is yes, the sensation may have a representative function. But a function is dependent on a purpose. And if the goal or purpose is to understand the underlying thing, then I think it is a mistake to give the sensation a representative function. To use your lawyer analogy, you could hire a carpenter to represent you in court, therefore the carpenter would have a representative function, but that would be a mistake.

We can then discuss the intricacies of what representation is, and how the concepts of representing and representation come apart, later on. — jkg20

As you can see, I think looking into representation would be to head in the wrong direction. And if the concepts of representing, and representation, run into difficulties or "come apart", I'm not at all surprised.

I say "can be easily be other factors", — boethius

Like all viral infections, stress in general, plays a very important role in the severity of the infection. The type of stress that an individual might have varies enormously.

In many places it's a serious crime if the infection is HIV.

On leaks, arguably illegal. — tim wood

The legality of the acts is not the issue. The issue is whether some people who supported him disliked these activities.

But you aver there were "a significant number of things" he did, — tim wood

He applied the espionage act numerous times against whistleblowers.

But you slide in weasel-like and with your rhetorical microscope find and without any accuracy at all proclaim the mote you find in his eye, overlooking the whole faggot in your own. — tim wood

I happen to know two completely unacquainted people who cited this as something they did not like about Obama, people who otherwise liked him.

To my way of thinking it all falls under the Big Lie. I'm calling you a Big Liar - not a good thing. Show me wrong. — tim wood

What's there to show? Either you believe me that he turned off otherwise friendly faces with these actions, or you don't. If you don't believe me, I really don't care.

Is everyone bored, like MU? — Sam26

Someone else like me? I'd better change then.

Like what? Please educate? — tim wood

Some times I really wonder about your capacity to read, tim wood. Why did you ask me this question? I gave you an example right there in the post which you replied to, and it wasn't a long post, like you might have skipped that part. The example was Obama's attack on whistle blowers, through the use of the espionage act. Google it if you are interested, and maybe in your research you'll uncover other things which Obama did that people were unhappy with. There's a problem with having high expectations for someone, and that is that you're bound to be let down, because no one's perfect.

No one gave a shit when Obama blew up hospitals in the Middle-East because he was so charming. — StreetlightX

Actually there is a significant number of things which Obama did, that many Americans disagreed with, consequently tarnishing his image in their eyes. An important one was his sustained attack on whistleblowers through the use of the espionage act; culminating in the Snowden affair.

You expect that Wittgenstein's philosophy should enable us to prevent deception? — Luke

Haha, that's funny. Philosophy has a long history of rooting out and exposing deception. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all addressed sophistry as a significant problem inherent within the educational institutions of the day. Then came skepticism. Now we have all sorts of modern attacks on deception, starting with Descartes. I believe that a philosophy with no principles for the recognition of deception, to distinguish real knowledge from fake knowledge, is useless, and not actually philosophy. But many, perhaps you, believe that philosophy is useless.

1: For the person feeling a pain, the pain sensations they have represent some other thing or process. — jkg20

I believe "process" is the better word here. And this is important to the topic of the thread, "idealism" because most forms of idealism represent ideas as static passive things. This is the problem Plato identified in Pythagorean idealism with the theory of participation, an inherent problem which Aristotle greatly expanded on to decisively refute that form of idealism. In this idealism,the thing being participated in, the idea is necessarily passive. That's a problem in metaphysics, which leads to the accusation by monists, that eternal ideas cannot have any causal affect in the world.

Also, as I tried to explain earlier, I would not call the sensation a representation. I think that this is a mistake which we get from Kant, who describes sensations as representations. From the philosophy of semiotics we can see that biological activities can be described in terms of "signs". The significance of a sign is described in terms of meaning, not in terms of representation. We can get some insight into this difference through Wittgenstein's two ways of describing meaning, as representation in the Tractatus, and as use in PI. We can understand that any sign, such as a word for example, has significance or meaning, which might or might not be accurately called a representation.

So, I first look at the sensation as a product, created by the biological systems. The biological systems use semiosis to create the sensation. Since we cannot conclude that the significance of a sign is necessarily as a representation, we cannot conclude that a sensation is a representation.

2: For that person to really be in pain, the pain sensation must correctly represent the presence or occurrence of that other thing. — jkg20

If my explanation of #1 wasn't complicated enough, this is where things start to get complex. For a person to be really "in pain", we need a definition of what constitutes "pain". So now we have to turn to the public use of language, as "pain" is a word in the public communication system, and we need to look for the so-called objective definition of pain. If we were staying within the private realm, I could have a sensation, and mark it as S, and every time I had a similar sensation I'd call it S. If my judgement was good, I'd have consistency, in what S refers to. But S would probably refer to something very specific, a head ache, a sore thumb, or any other specific sensation, like when I call another person or animal by a particular name. When we go to the public sphere however, we allow our words to have extremely generalized and vague meaning, because the application, usage, in communication rather than naming particular sensations, is extremely varied. If "pain" could only refer to a sore thumb, then we'd need another word for a sore finger, and sore toes, legs, hands, etc. So "pain" being a public word in the domain of communication, rather than a private sign for a person's own internal usage, has a significantly vague meaning.

Furthermore, we now have the issue of the internal process which is being referred to with the word "pain". To judge whether a person is really in pain or not, we are looking on as an external observer, with an understanding of the public word, "pain". So we would be judging whether the person's sensation corresponds with "pain" as defined. Therefore in judging whether the person is really experiencing pain, and what we would call "real pain", we do not even approach this internal relation between the sensation, and the thing which the sensation is symbolic of. To put this in Kant's terms, we are judging the phenomena, the sensation, we are not getting to the noumena. But I do not agree with Kant, that we cannot get to the noumena, we actually do get to them through the private experience of reflection, and apprehension of the intelligible objects themselves, directly as intelligible objects, as described by Plato.

But here we are faced with the incompatibility. The intelligible object presents itself to us in the form of a symbol, a sign, which is a static thing. The sign though symbolizes something active, a process. The true intelligible object is active. So we have a gap to bridge. The true thing-itself is the process which is symbolized by the sign. Idealism assumes a static "idea", and asserts that this static thing is the true intelligible object, which in its own interpretations it is, but this static thing can only be a sign, or symbol of the underlying process (a "representation" of it, which is not even properly called a representation), and that process remains within the realm of the unintelligible for idealism. But actually we do have access to this process, to understand it, through understanding this relation between the sign and the process, which people call "representation", but more properly known as significance or meaning, because a static thing cannot correctly represent an activity.

3: Where there is representation there is the possibility of misrepresentation. — jkg20

Yes, and the problem is far deeper than that simple representation you offer. What is called a "representation" is most likely not even a representation at all. Therefore we cannot start with the assumption of representation. This is the problem which Socrates demonstrate way back in Plato's Theaetetus, and Wittgenstein demonstrated in the Tractatus. If we start with the assumption that knowledge consists of representation, then knowledge must be correct, or "true" representation. Now we have Socrates' problem of how false representation is excluded from knowledge. It appears like it cannot be done. Now knowledge consists of both true and false representation, but that makes no sense to say that false representation could be knowledge. Therefore we ought to recognize that describing knowledge as representation is a mistake.

The concept of "description" becomes very important now. So we need to understand the difference between a description and a representation. We can use mathematics to make a model, a representation for example, but that representation is based on a description, it represents what has been described (observed). Now we need to proceed toward understanding what constitutes a description, an observation. Notice that we need to make available the apt terms, and this process of making them available is more a process of defining rather than representing. This is where Wittgenstein appears to stumble, by assuming that language in general has inherent limits, making some things impossible to understand, rather than allowing that it is limitless, and we only apply boundaries as necessary. However, to give Wittgenstein credit, he distinctly describes the latter in some passages, but he seems to always revert to the former. We can see in mathematics for example, the concept of infinite is intended to allow that anything can be counted.

4: So a person could be having pain sensations, but not actually be in pain because those sensations are incorrectly representing the presence of that other thing. — jkg20

The problem here is the double representation, what Plato called narrative, which he warned us against. "Pain" here is the public word, defined by public use. So in reality it refers to having pain sensations. If the person has pain sensations, then it is real pain. We could even allow a further layer of representation and say it refers to pain behaviour, like Luke suggests. But each layer of representation gets us further from the truth. If we go the other way now, to the deeper internal level of what the sensation is symbolic of within the person, we cannot properly use that term "pain" here, this would create equivocation and the potential for the appearance of contradiction.

That's what "the beetle in the box" analogy shows, the inclination to equivocate in this respect. In the private language, the person notes the sensation as S. But the sensation noted as S, is symbolic of something further, and this is called the "beetle". So "beetle" here refers to that further thing which is indicated by a particular sensation. In the public language there is also "beetle". But "beetle" here in the public language refers to a person's sensation. Notice that "beetle" now has two completely different validations. Do you see that if the person is feeling the sensation of pain, the presence of "the beetle", but the sensations are incorrectly representing the presence of that thing, the person is truly in the presence of "the beetle" according to the public usage, but not in the presence of "the beetle" according to the private sense, in which the sensation is supposed to represent that deeper thing.

It seems to me that much of what W says, or at least the gist of it, is correct when limited specifically to descriptive propositions... — Pfhorrest

But Wittgenstein applies this to the entirety of the world, so it's really incorrect. What sense does it make to say that if we change what the person said, it would be correct?

He doesn't admit that it's all wrong, he says it is 'senseless', which is a different thing than 'wrong'. — Pussycat

When a person makes what are supposed to be truth statements about the world, then later admits that those statements are really "senseless", then I think we can conclude that the person has come to the realization that those truth statements are really not truthful at all, and therefore wrong.

Let me just make sure I understand your position. You believe that pain involves three things:
1. Pain behaviour, including talk, which is entirely public.
2. A sensation of pain, private to the person feeling pain that nobody else but that person can get access to.
3. Something, that the above mentioned sensation represents, and that nobody has any understanding of, including the person feeling the sensation.

I'm not asking for your arguments or your reasons for thinking this for the moment, I just want to make sure I've been able to extract the basis of your position from everything you have been saying. — jkg20

I would not quite agree with #3. I think we do have some knowledge of this "something", but limited knowledge. We obtain this knowledge through experience and logical process, in the same way that we obtain knowledge about anything. But the inward looking is a bit of an inversion to the outward looking so it requires a different process. A large part of this "something" is unknown, just like a large part of the external universe is unknown.

In either case, we have spoken about it in words. Wittgenstein is giving us what address the the deception in speech: there is no private language, the so called "private" thing was never private in the first place. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree with this, that the so-called "private thing" is not private, but not for the reasons you give, nor what Wittgenstein implies. It is not "private" because no one has access to it, not even the person who feels it. The feeling is just a representation of what is really there. So we cannot say that the thing there, "the beetle" is private, because the person whom we assume has ownership of it does not even have access to it. But this does not make it public. It is internal and inaccessible, like Kant's thing in itself is external and inaccessible. The person who feels the pain only has access to a representation of what is being sensed, just like any other sensation. The feeling is a representation, not the thing itself.

In either case, we have spoken about it in words. Wittgenstein is giving us what address the the deception in speech: there is no private language, the so called "private" thing was never private in the first place. — TheWillowOfDarkness

What I said above necessitates a private language. What appears to me, "the sensation", is distinct from any sensation which appears to you. Therefore the language which I use to refer to my sensations is inherently different from the language you use to refer to your sensations. I use symbols to refer to my sensations, you do the same. The sensations are not the same, so it's not the same language. Now we must communicate, agree, and conventionalize a common, or public language. As Wittgenstein demonstrates, the public language is completely distinct and incompatible with the private language, being developed for completely distinct purposes. That's what Wittgenstein demonstrates, that the private languages which we all use are distinct, incompatible, and not translatable to public languages, but not that private languages are impossible. To the contrary, we can see that private languages are necessary.

"Feels like" has similar publicity. I can know what other people feel. My experience may take on similar sensation. Here the topic has moved on from words. In this situation, we are not asking about what words are used, but whether someone feels the same as another. It's not a move from words to knowledge, but a sensation experience all along. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How can you know what another person feels, when the person who has the feeling cannot even know that? Suppose I have a feeling, and I want to give it a name in the public language, so I call it "pain". How can I know that I am properly using the word "pain"? I can judge by other people's behaviour, like Luke says, but how can I get beyond the possibility of deception in that behaviour? It's not like a sensation occurs to me, and says to me, you must call me by this name because that's what I am. There is nothing but behaviour (speaking for example) to indicate to me how to use the words to refer to my feelings in the public language. So I cannot ever be certain.

When we are dealing with publicity, we are dealing with whether some people feel or understand as others do, whether it be a language, what happened yesterday or what someone is feeling. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right, so how are we going to confirm this, that people feel or understand the same way as others? The incompatibility between the private language, by which the individual understands one's own feelings, and the public language, by which we talk about our feelings, demonstrates that it is impossible to confirm this.

This is incorrect. Wittgenstein is NOT admitting that it's all wrong. He says at the beginning of the Tractatus, "On the other hand the truth of the thoughts that are here communicated seems to me unassailable and definitive (T. p. 4)."

"My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them [metaphysical propositions] as nonsensical, when he has used them--as steps--to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) (T. 6.54)." — Sam26

So, isn't there a contradiction between 'the truth of these propositions', at the beginning, and 'the propositions are nonsensical', at the end? I interpret that Wittgenstein thought, at the beginning of the work, that he was representing the truth with his propositions, but due to the problems he encountered with the nature of a proposition, he realized that apprehending this as "truth", was a mistake.

So, the question now becomes, how do the propositions of the Tractatus show us the truth contained therein? One might answer the question this way - just as music and art show us something important, so do the propositions in the Tractatus. — Sam26

I would say that music and art give us something meaningful, without giving us truth. A proposition gives us truth or falsity, by definition, so to allow that the so-called "propositions of the Tractatus" tell us something important or meaningful in the way that art and music does, we would need to characterize them as something other than propositions. Under accepted definition of "proposition", such things get rejected as nonsensical, i.e. of a different category.

Wittgenstein defines for us which propositions have sense, and which do not. He demonstrates both in the Tractatus. There is a difference between saying and showing. Once we understand the difference between those propositions which have sense, those that refer to states-of-affairs, then we are able to have a clear view of those propositions that are senseless, viz., those that go beyond the limit of language according to the Tractatus. — Sam26

The problem though, is at the end he is recognizing his own propositions as nonsensical, according to the quote you presented above. Therefore this difference between saying and showing, and the difference between propositions with sense, and those which are senseless, which he has demonstrated with senseless propositions, is itself senseless. And so, from these principles proposed, there is nothing to indicate that any propositions might have any sense. This is the problem with trying to ground sense, or meaningfulness in truth. It is a backward attempt at classification. In reality, truth must be grounded in meaningfulness, as a type of meaningfulness, and meaningfulness cannot be characterized as a property of truth.

Such is the deficiency of the epistemology which claims that if a statement cannot be judged for truth or falsity (as a proposition), it must be meaningless, or senseless. This epistemology does not proceed from a proper understanding of what a meaningful expression is, because a meaningful expression might give us meaning in the way that art or music does, or some other way, without being a true or false proposition. Now we have to reject that original premise that meaning is grounded in such true/false statements, and accept that meaning is really based in other statements, or expressions like art and music, which all appear to be meaningless, or senseless from the perspective which premises that an expression must be true or false to be meaningful.

For sure. Which is why W. immediately after writes:

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. — Pussycat

Right, when you get to the end of the book, Wittgenstein admits that it's all wrong, and advises you to throw it all away. He basically says I've given you a demonstration of the wrong approach, now move along and find the right approach. But when you see from the very beginning, that it's all wrong, as Sam26 says, "Wittgenstein holds to the traditional view at this point in his life, that names refer to objects.", it makes a very boring read.

The difference is, obviously, the pain (having it or not having it). What is hidden, if anything, is what pain feels like for me, compared to what it feels like for you. Is it the same? We can't talk about it, so who knows? It won't affect the meaning or use of the word 'pain' anyway. Regardless of what it feels like internally for each of us, reactions to pain, or pain behaviours, tend to appear similar across genuine cases, which may help to explain why someone can pretend to be in pain. This public exhibition also seems the more likely determinant of the meaning/use of the word 'pain'. — Luke

This is the faulty logic right here. If the difference between real pain behaviour and mock pain behaviour is the presence of real pain, you cannot proceed to your conclusion of "regardless of what it feels like internally for each of us", and make your judgement as to whether there is real pain based on people having similar behaviour. We must address the similarity of the feeling inside to avoid deception.

In other words, you cannot say: 1. The difference is the pain, either having it or not having it. And also say: 2. It does not matter what pain actually feels like to anyone of us, so long as the person behaves in a pain-like way, then there is pain. These two propositions are inconsistent. The first makes "pain" an internal feeling which one must have, thus requiring consistency in the naming of that feeling, while the second makes "pain" something that people are judged to have based on their behaviour, while consistency in the named feeling is irrelevant. The criteria for "pain", i.e. the definitions of that word, are completely distinct.

Therefore we have to turn to the internal thing, the thing which is called pain, to establish principles to differentiate real pain behaviour from mock pain behaviour. This is where Wittgenstein fails as you describe. "The private sensation is real, but nothing can be said about it; nothing further about it can be described or discussed in our public language." By claiming nothing can be said about this internal, private thing, he leaves us completely vulnerable, without any principles to address deception.

This seems really odd. It sounds like you are suggesting there could be words and phrases in a language that cannot be understood by anyone. — jkg20

I'm saying that there is part of language which cannot be understood. In other words it is impossible for anyone to completely understand the thing which we call "language". You might extend this also to imply that any particular instance of usage cannot be understood with absolute clarity and certainty. There is no absolutely correct, ideal meaning of a word or phrase. This is due to "the beetle in the box" being unknowable, even to the one holding the box. So if for example meaning is what is meant by the speaker of the word or phrase, even the speaker is not absolutely certain of what is meant. And if meaning is attributed to use, not even the speaker is absolutely certain of the purpose of the word or phrase.

I am unsure that I am right about W, but I am even less sure that you are. — jkg20

This is not W's position, it is mine, and it's where I think W went wrong. W described the person holding the box as being able to see the beetle, I describe the person as incapable of apprehending the beetle. My perspective resolves the incompatibility between having the meaning of "beetle" based in what's in the box, and having the meaning of "beetle" based in how people use the word. We can use "beetle" to refer to what's in the box, without knowing what's in the box. W did not entertain this possibility because he started in the Tractatus with the assumption that a word always had to refer to something, to have meaning. When he later realized that this wasn't true, in the PI he introduced the idea of "use" to understand meaning, meaning is derived from use. Those are the two, very distinct, sources of meaning described in the beetle in the box analogy. What Wittgenstein doesn't proceed to consider as a possibility, is the instances when a word is used to refer to an unknown thing. There's something (a beetle) in the box but it's not known what it is. In reality, the unknown plays a very important role in meaning, it makes an appearance to some degree in all usage. But it's difficult for most people to relate to unknown meaning.

You will be aware of answers of the sort proposed by Hawking, in which infinite causes proceed asymptoticly within a limited time. You don't have to accept that explanation to see how divergent explanations of the origon of the universe may be from our regular experiences. — Banno

Right, some, like Hawking's are illogical.

However, we can narrow the field by rejecting such unsound proposals.

Let him sign each one of them! That might keep him out of trouble for a while.

That the beetle cannot be shown is the condition laid out in the premise, which makes the two uses of "beetle" completely separate, distinct, and incompatible with each other. If what I call "beetle" can never be corroborated with what you or anyone else calls "beetle", because we cannot see inside another's box, yet we still use a sense of "beetle" which is meaningful to us, then the two senses of "beetle" must be completely distinct and incompatible. If we could see inside each other's boxes, we could attribute that meaningful sense of "beetle" to the similarities of the thing

Luke's mistake is to dismiss the first sense of "beetle" as an invalid sense, through the devised loophole of finding similarity in "contents of the box" rather than within the thing in the box as stipulated by Wittgenstein. So the second sense of "beetle" is still related indirectly to the thing in the box by referring to the box instead of the thing. This loophole interpretation is the one which creates the contradiction between 'there is something in the box' and 'there might be nothing in the box'. This is the mistaken interpretation of those who believe that Wittgenstein demonstrated the impossibility of private language.

Wittgenstein's mistake is that he did not turn inward in self-reflection to understand the inner aspects of the human mind, in order to understand that not even the owner of the box can see the beetle. This would have revealed to him, the aspect of language which no one has the capacity to understand, that part of language which refers to the private. Instead, he presents the internal as accessible to the individual, one's own beetle can be seen by that individual, which is a false premise. And this is what is clearly lacking in Wittgenstein's analysis of language. He appears incognizant of the fact that language can be used to refer to the unknown, so he does not ever get to the point of presenting language in its natural form, instead he presents it as being constrained by knowledge.

Why not?

Speaking of drunks, I've either started drinking at work or I haven't. — Michael

Drinking at work, working at home, what's the difference?

Without a doubt the Tractatus is one of the most difficult works in philosophy to understand. — Sam26

Are you serious? The Tractatus has got to be one of the most boring, simplistic, and straight forward pieces of philosophy, (if it can even be called philosophy), ever written.

In the preface to the Tractatus Wittgenstein tells us what the book is all about. “The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood. The whole sense of the book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.

“Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather—not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

“It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense (Preface, p. 3).” — Sam26

Oh yeah, and thanks for reminding me, not only is it the most boring simplistic piece of work, but it's all wrong as well. That's because philosophy is not boring, simplistic, and straight forward as Wittgenstein makes it out to be in the Tractatus. At least he came to recognize this before he wrote his Philosophical investigations.

Sorry, to be clear, how I would like to interpret W is that "the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant" is true for him precisely and only if the object is considered to be necessarily private, so as per his analogy in the case where the beetle cannot be shown. — jkg20

This might be Wittgenstein's position, and it might appear to be true logically, because if the object is necessarily private, it cannot be observed, and therefore one might say that it ought not be considered. But that would be faulty logic. Being private, and unobservable does not necessitate that the object cannot be relevant, and cannot be known. We can consider a private cause with only an observable effect, as a relevant cause, and that cause as potentially knowable through understanding the effect.

I might have misunderstood you then. I was under the impression that your view was that pain behaviour is the intermediary in cases of both genuine and fake pain. Now though you seem to be suggesting that the intermediary is also hidden. I'm not sure I understand that, but it might just be lack of imagination on my part. — jkg20

I was saying that there is necessarily an intermediary, in order that deception is possible. The intermediary disallows us from saying that the beetle could be shown, because we can't see past the intermediary. The intermediary, like a blind, could be partially seen and partially hidden. We see one side of the blind, but not the other side. So if we look at "pain behaviour", we see some of that behaviour, what is exposed to us, but not all of it because the other side is not exposed. We do not see the internal neurological activity and the thinking, but we hear the noises and see other actions. The internal thing, which we might say "causes" the observable activity is the unobservable side of the blind. It is a part of the behaviour, but an unobservable part. You might assume a direct causal relation between the pain and the behaviour, and therefore believe that the behaviour is a direct indicator of the pain, but deception demonstrates that this is incorrect, because intention plays a causal role in the behaviour as well. Therefore we cannot accept that the behaviour provides a direct indication of the feeling, because we haven't accounted for the influence of intention.

Anyway, I only entered this discussion to correct MU's claim that Wittgenstein contradicts himself at §293, which I think I have done. MU won't agree, of course. I was foolish to think that he might actually try and understand Wittgenstein. — Luke

I didn't say Wittgenstein contradicts himself, he's very careful not to do that. However he invites you to make an interpretation which requires contradiction by using two univocally distinct, and incompatible by way of contradiction, definitions of "beetle".

I argued that jAmEs' and your interpretation requires that Wittgenstein contradicted himself, therefore they are faulty interpretations. The second described use of "beetle" in the analogy, in which there might be nothing in the box, is a completely different and contradictory set of circumstances from the first described use, in which there is necessarily something in the box. There is a clean break between the two described language-games. If you interpret that the second described use is somehow related to the first described use, as you continue to, you imply that Wittgenstein contradicted himself.

Therefore if Wittgenstein did not contradict himself, you have a faulty interpretation, because you continue to relate the two senses of "beetle" in your faulty interpretation. It is only in the second definition of "beetle" that what is in the box is irrelevant. In the first sense of "beetle", what is in the box is very relevant.

I still do not see the impossibility you are talking about, although it might be there somewhere. Let's change the example. A fake Picasso and a genuine Picasso can both have exactly the same appearance. Nevertheless, a fake Picasso and a genuine Picasso are distinct things. Sure, both Picasso and the faker need the same materials in order to accomplish their goals. However, Picasso's goal is not to produce a genuine Picasso, he could hardly fail to do that after all. He is also not attempting to produce a representation of a genuine Picasso. The faker's goal, however, is precisely to do both of those things. With genuine Picasso everything is there on the surface, so to speak. With a fake Picasso the story is much more complicated. In many cases, deception requires a lot more work than sincerity, although of course it can sometimes be hard to be honest as well. — jkg20

This example might not be so good, because what you question is the need to assume an intermediary between the internal feeling of pain (beetle), and the observable act. The intermediary, which allows for the existence of deception is an activity which lies unobservable between the observable behaviour and the internal intention, veiling the intention. The existence of unobservable activity, and its role as the intermediary between the internal "beetle", and the outward observable action, is what allows for the occurrence of deception. Therefore the observer never has a clear, unobstructed view of the internal feeling, because one is always looking through the veil of unobservable activity. The important concept here is unobservable activity.

Would you agree that there is never a direct and necessary cause/effect relation between the internal feeling, and the outward action, such that we could look at action Y and say it was directly caused by feeling X? There is internal, unobservable activity between these two. And this is why we cannot say that we observe directly the inner feeling, or even deduce the inner feeling from the outer act. Consider a reflexologist who taps the knee with a hammer. The fact that this medical specialist can make determinations about one's neurological system, from this act, indicates that there is not a direct cause/effect relation between the hammer tapping, and the physical response. There is unobserved activity in the neurological system which lies between. In this case, the neurological medium is at the unconscious level, but we are talking about activity at the conscious level. From the perspective of the consciousness and self-reflection, the neurological medium between the outward act, and the internal feeling, appears to us as intention instead.

So consider your example. We are concerned with human activity, and distinguishing the genuine from the insincere. In the example, we have two finished products, two distinct paintings. The actions themselves, of the people doing the painting, is unobservable. This action is the intermediary, and if we could observe it, we would see how different the two actions actually are, we'd see that the forger is copying certain techniques. In the case of language, we have words as the finished product. The genuine and the insincere might appear as exactly the same words, especially in the written form where we cannot see the person's mannerisms ( and the proverbial "lying eyes"). However, if we could see the activity which is the thinking responsible for choosing the words, we'd see the difference. This activity, the thinking is the intermediary, unobservable activity.

Now we can proceed to observable activity itself, behaviour, of which speaking words is a type. So speaking words can be our example of behavioural activity. We can understand that the thinking activity by which a person chooses words, is in some way directed by intention. And it is the intention itself which is judged as either genuine or insincere. The unobservable activity of thinking is between the observable activity, and the intention, making the intention inaccessible through cause/effect analysis of the observable activity.

Makes sense to me. — Merkwurdichliebe

It might make sense to you, but for that virus to spread through a nursing home and kill more than a third of the residents in just two weeks time, is quite incredible no matter how you choose to look at it.

So 13 people have died out of 72 old folks in this one care home. — unenlightened

26 out of 65 here:

https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2020/04/07/pinecrest-nursing-home-the-logistics-involved-in-horror-are-revealed/

This is compatible with the idea that we can nevertheless in some circumstances recognise genuine pain behaviour for what it is, i.e. the manifestation of pain. At least, you would need more argument to show that the mere fact that we can go wrong means that we can never get it right. — jkg20

Well, to get it right requires an objective and verifiable definition of "pain". This is why Wittgenstein's whole issue, of whether or not we can know what pain is, from our own experience, is an important issue. And, his presupposed assumption which Luke clings to, that we cannot know what pain is simply from one's own experience, is correct in the first place. But that is because one person cannot decide how we define "pain". I cannot simply turn to what's inside and call whatever is there "pain", because I might be calling what others call pleasure, "pain". So the issue is the consensus as to what feelings fulfill the conditions of "pain.

This is why I argue that the "going wrong" is a lot more complicated than the simple possibility of being deceived by someone else. Far more often, the going wrong is a matter of not understanding what's inside oneself, the matter of not being able to see one's own beetle. Consider the following variation to Wittgenstein's beetle example. We all have something in the box at any time, but I'm feeling pain, you're feeling pleasure, someone else feels grief, another feels joy, and we're all calling whatever we feel by the name "beetle". I think this is what Wittgenstein meant when he said the thing might be continually changing. Clearly, to be able to communicate concerning these inner feelings we need to figure out how to identify and distinguish one feeling from another.

We do not do this by ourselves, one person doesn't simply say, I'm going to call this feeling pain, and that feeling pleasure, etc., we have to learn from others through some sort of empathy, and settle on agreement, or something like that. But then there really is no "correct", objective definition of pain, no genuine manifestation of pain, just whatever we agree is acceptable as deserving the label. This does not mean that the thing in the box is irrelevant though, it means that there is a multitude of things in the box which need to be identified and distinguished from each other and called by the acceptable names. And that's the real problem, we can't just look inside and call whatever is there "pain", as if we could look into the box and call whatever is there "beetle, we need to learn how to distinguish which feelings are called pain, which are called pleasure, etc..

What it is to get it right, of course, remains open for discussion, but the idea that getting it right means, at least sometimes, being directly confronted with someone's pain and not simply a representative intermediary of it, has still yet to be refuted as far as I can tell. — jkg20

You can make that conclusion, but then we're right back to where we started, and that is having to deal with the matter of deception. Since there is no objective "pain", the question as to whether somebody suffers pain or not may be simply presented as an issue of correctly interpreting the person's behaviour, according to the agreed upon conditions of "pain". The acceptable definition of "pain" might be exhibiting such and such behaviour. So we're back to Luke's position where the beetle, (what the person is actually feeling as something separate from how the person is acting), is irrelevant. In your position, the person's actions are the beetle, the beetle is shown in one's actions, and there is nothing hidden in the box.

But, since there is a real, known difference between honestly expressing one's feelings, and deceptively expressing one's feelings, your conclusion has already been refuted. If there was no intermediary between one's pain, and one's expression of pain (pain behaviour) such deception would be impossible. If the intermediary was only added in the cases of deception, for the purpose of deceiving, it would be evident, the person would not be showing the beetle, creating a veil in between, when other times the person would be showing the beetle and there would be no veil. Therefore deception would be impossible.

If the issue you are concerned with is of mock vs. real pain-behaviour, then you might need to look elsewhere, but from memory I think Wittgenstein does say somewhere that we can recognise real pain-behaviour when we see it. I will try and find the quote another time. — Luke

If Wittgenstein actually said this, it would just be a false statement, so it wouldn't really matter. But I doubt he actually said that because he's very careful not to make false statements. The fact is that we might, anyone of us, at any time, be deceived by mock pain-behaviour. The statement "I have a pain in my stomach" is pain-behaviour. Whenever someone believes a statement such as this, when it is not true, that person has been deceived by mock pain-behaviour.

The issue that concerns metaphysics and on which Wittgenstein seems silent is embedded in Metaphysician Undercover's question: what makes the difference between mock pain behavoiur and real pain behaviour. — jkg20

The obvious, and very simple answer, is that the difference is found in the difference between the existence, and non-existence of pain. We can begin with the assumption that there is behaviour which is meant to indicate the presence of pain, pain-behaviour. We cannot provide an adequate description which will separate real pain-behaviour from mock pain-behaviour sufficient to completely eliminate the possibility of mistake (deception), therefore the only reliable description is the logical determination, that one is associated with the real presence of pain, and the other not.

Therefore, instead of taking the route which dictates that the existence or non-existence of pain is irrelevant, because we might distinguish real pain-behaviour from mock pain-behaviour without addressing this question, we must address this question of what differentiates the existence of pain from the non-existence of pain.

Look at it this way Luke. Ask yourself, as Wittgenstein asks, what is the difference between pain-behaviour with pain and pain-behaviour without pain. You should find that the difference is exactly as described, the presence of pain in the one case, and the absence of pain in the other case. The latter we can call deception.

If you understand this, you'll see that the second language-game in the 'beetle in the box' analogy, the game in which the thing in the box is described as completely unnecessary and irrelevant, can be classed as deception, just like pain behaviour without pain is deception.

It is nevertheless a very real purpose for language, and therefore a very real type of language-game, but it is completely incompatible with the other type of language-game within which the thing in the box is an essential aspect. As philosophers we despise that second type of language game, (within which the thing in the box is irrelevant) as dishonest, despicable, and therefore unacceptable.

A second wave might hit in the fall and basically the corona-virus might stay with us just like the common flu. — ssu

Why would it wait until the fall? The second wave would come right away.

Talk with your neighbourhood to form a local consensus and then challenge your local republican and democrat representatives to be seen to be working together too forward your views. — rob staszewski

We're practising distancing, congregating with the neighbours would be counterproductive.

Exactly, now you're catching on to what I'm saying, Luke. Thanks for the quote. How did you find that?

The "radical break" which Wittgenstein refers to is the second purpose for "beetle". In this second language-game, "beetle" has nothing to do with the thing in the box or even the box itself. When you see it this way, the appearance of contradiction and paradox disappears, and the situation is entirely comprehendible. No longer must "beetle" relate to some mysterious thing in the box which no one seems to have access to, we may dismiss the whole "beetle and box" scenario as completely irrelevant to what "beetle" is now used for.

However, once we make this radical break we cannot start referring back to the contrary premise, that "beetle" is somehow related to a thing in the box. If the thing in the box is reduced to nothing in relation to the meaning of "beetle", then we cannot talk about the meaning of "beetle" as if the thing is something within this use of "beetle". Therefore, in order that we can still talk about the thing in the box, which has already been named "beetle", we must respect that "beetle" has two very distinct, and absolutely incompatible uses, or meanings. If we equivocate we have contradiction. Consequently we have a radical break in "the purpose of language" ("beetle" is used in two incompatible ways), which forces the conclusion that language cannot be described as a single language-game. There are two distinct and incompatible types of "purpose for language"

In jkg20's term of "showing", we can characterize this radical break as honestly showing the beetle, and dishonestly not-showing the beetle. Notice the one kind of "purpose for language", in which the beetle is completely irrelevant (not-showing the beetle) is described as dishonesty. But I am arguing that the relationship between the individual and the beetle cannot be characterized as a matter of showing and not-showing. That relationship is far more complex, involving endless possibilities. The person does not even have access to one's own beetle when the intent is to honestly show the beetle (as is the case when one sees the physician for assistance in understanding one's own feelings).

I'm not sure about "unidentifiable" here, why isn't a case of deception just a successful attempt to deceive? After all, if each instance of deception were of necessity unidentifiable, no deception would ever be discovered, and so how would the notion of deception ever get a hold? — jkg20

I suppose "unidentified" would be the better word then, but it doesn't change the argument. The successful attempt to deceive is unidentified as an attempt to decive. And, the fact that some attempts are identified as deception justifies the claim that there are likely others which go unidentified. If you change "unidentifiable" to "unidentified" you can proceed with the argument.

If we could truthfully describe the situation as "the person is showing one's beetle", there would be no possibility of deception, nothing concerning the beetle could be intentionally hidden or undisclosed, everything would be disclosed in the showing of the beetle, and there would be no such thing as deception. This is why the relationship between the person, and the beetle which is in one's box, cannot be described in these terms of "showing".

Furthermore, there would be the matter of unintentional not-showing which I alluded to in the prior post. But "showing" is an intentional act. The human being experiences all sorts of different feelings and emotions, and "showing" consists of putting words to these, or demonstrating their existence in some other way. Many of the feelings that a person has cannot even be adequately described by that individual. So a person doesn't even really get to see one's own beetle, and what appears like intentional deception may simply be an unintentional misunderstanding of one's own beetle.

Now we get to what I described in the prior post. We must find the means to apprehend our own beetles (internal feelings), if we are so inclined, and we do this by looking to others who have gone before us in this arduous process, for guidance. There is a "body of knowledge" which has been constructed and accumulated for this very purpose of apprehending one's own inner feelings. If, for example, you believe that you might be feeling what is called "pain" inside, you would go to see a physician who has studied the relevant knowledge, for guidance on understanding this feeling.

..Trump has had essentially no agency through the entire ordeal, poor thing, while simultaneously believing Trump has done the best he could possibly do... — boethius

I think most of us believe that 'nothing' is the best Trump could possibly do.

You are ignoring that the word has a use in these people's language. — Luke

No I'm not overlooking that. That is the second language-game referred to in 3&4, in which the word "beetle" is used, but which is completely distinct from the first language-game referred to in 1&2.

I don't know whether it's a problem which is peculiar to English, but there is a difficulty in trying to describe the thing in the box without referring to it as a positive "thing", where it instead refers to either a something or a nothing. Yet, this is what the word "beetle" refers to: whatever is in the box, a something or a nothing. What would you call this instead of a "thing"? Is there a more neutral term? — Luke

The second language game clearly has nothing to do with the thing in the box.

But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. — Wittgenstein

See, the people have a use for "beetle", but this use has nothing to do with the thing in the box. The thing in the box has absolutely no relevance in this language-game. "The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all;..."

You took issue with my earlier use of "contents" of the box, I suspect because this deflated your argument, but that's really what the word refers to - some unknown quantity, an algebraic 'x', some "thing" which might not be a thing, just whatever it is that is in the box....or not. Whatever is (or is not) inside the box is called a "beetle". — Luke

We have absolutely no idea what the word "beetle" is used for in this second language-game. Wittgenstein gives us no indication of this, only that it does not refer to a thing, and that the thing in the box is completely irrelevant to this use.

You're clearly wrong to suggest that the word refers to a thing of any sort. And, I don't see why you would think that the box is relevant to this use at all. We are talking about a completely distinct language-game for the word "beetle". It could refer to someone's mother's behavior for all we know. There is no indication at all of what the word is used for in that second language-game, only that it does not refer to a thing, and that the thing in the box has no place in this language-game (therefore is completely irrelevant to this game).

Can you think of a better word than "thing" for the contents of a box which could be anything or nothing; a non-positive synonym for "thing"; a thing which is "not even a something"?

Anyway, that's where I see you going wrong here. Obviously, apart from your complete misunderstanding of all of Wittgenstein's work, including his private language argument. To avoid further repetition, I'll leave it there. — Luke

The "contents of the box" is completely irrelevant in this second language-game. "Beetle" is used for something completely different. That is exactly what Wittgenstein says, whether you understand it or not. So just forget the idea that the contents, or even the box for that matter, is at all related to the use of "beetle" in this language-game. It is a completely different language-game from the language-game described at 1&2, in which "beetle" refers to something in a box.