When a speaker declares x is good, they are marking their approval of x. Moreover, they are asserting that this approval springs from something intrinsic to x itself. If I say "Sally is good", I don't merely like Sally, according to me Sally is so constituted as to be intrinsically liked.

Answering this question depends on a specific evaluative context. — 180 Proof

Good has no fixed referent, but the meaning itself holds constant.

I'd say it's neither rational nor irrational. It's a question of values, which are non-rational. — T Clark

This is debatable. To take a common example, many value money over happiness. This might be irrational, as money might be valued as instrumental towards happiness. Similarly, understanding might be valued as instrumental towards the joy of deeper understanding. What use then is this understanding, if in this case it leads to a state of perpetual joylessness?

Just as bad, suppose these values are not instrumental. Suppose that money was valued absolutely, as an end in itself. Wouldn't this be irrational, a kind of arbitrary idolatry? Especially if it supersedes other values, such as the happiness and well being of yourself and others. Similarly, mightn't understanding as an absolute end in itself, be a kind of irrational idolatry?

The difficulty is not that we lack a theory (we have theories, but none are widely accepted or even compelling, afaik), but that we lack a theory of a theory: not only do we not know how material processes lead to consciousness, but we don't even know what a theory which explains it would look like. In other words, we cannot conceive it.

We have not yet explained irritable bowel syndrome either. I — Isaac

The comparison is not apt. Even if it is not explained, we understand what a theory of IBS would look like: a cascade of biological processes, in one form or another, lead to and explain the observed symptoms. This is readily conceivable.

But we cannot conceive how a cascade of biological processes can lead to the observed symptoms of consciousness, because we cannot conceive how any physical process can lead to consciousness. There is an explanatory gap.

And as I said in the OP,
The problem with claiming that something is ineffable is, of course, the liar-paradox-like consequence that one has thereby said something about it. — Banno

If that's good enough for you why bother with a thread in the first place? "Yggzavil is effable. Hey, I mentioned it, after all. "


You can mention anything. The point is that you can't describe anything.

The use of "the smell of coffee" is no different than the use of the smell of any of the other overtones in your wheel. There are phenolic compounds common to roasted coffee we identify as coffee smelling. Coffee just confuses the issue because it is very complex. What about "the smell of ammonia?"

Instead, the aroma of coffee is a family resemblance, a way in which we talk about a group of things that have nothing specifically in common. — Banno

Nothing specifically in common? Not much of a "family resemblance".

Here's that mad view that we can never see things as they are in themselves, — Banno

Who's claiming we can see things as they are in themselves. Talk about nonsense phrase.

Instead of going off about the red herring stoves gem some more why don't you answer:

If the scent of coffee is describable why is this impossible:

.There is a state of affairs where A's (smell-of-coffee) is the same as B's. There is a state of affairs where A's (smell-of-coffee) is same as B's (smell-of-feces), and vice versa. There exists no verbal exchange between A and B which can tell them which state of affairs holds. because 2 is inexpressible.
— hypericin — hypericin

The contention that the aroma of coffee cannot be described in words is blatantly wrong. — Banno

Coffee is a complex and varied aroma, and can have overtones of other aromas depending on the variety. At the center of the wheel should be the smell of coffee itself. Show me someone who can look at that and know what coffee smells like, without having smelled it before.

If the scent of coffee is describable why is this impossible:

.There is a state of affairs where A's (smell-of-coffee) is the same as B's. There is a state of affairs where A's (smell-of-coffee) is same as B's (smell-of-feces), and vice versa. There exists no verbal exchange between A and B which can tell them which state of affairs holds. because 2 is inexpressible. — hypericin

I'm claiming that the evidence we have thus far points to such a lack of neural criteria for the collection of the various activities at 1 into the grouping of 2 that we must have learned those groups. — Isaac

You keep referring to this trove of evidence without citing it. Your account raises far more questions than it answers.

* How do you account for novel sensations? If you smell something new, it smells like something. How can this be, if we haven't learned how to group it?

* We have immense neural machinery to process sensory data. Did all this come after language use? Then why do other animals have it too?

* Every animal recoils from pain, and manifestly finds it unpleasant. Only humans have to be taught this?

* Animals and babies are deemed to be unaware? In spite of having the behaviors we correlate with awareness?

* How would we learn anything, starting from a point of undifferentiated neural activity? Both auditory words and what they are pointing to would be mere neural noise.

It is far more reasonable to believe that sensations are abstractions of specific neural activities, and that this abstraction is built in.

No reason to have the collection 'smelling coffee' at all, other than for communication. — Isaac

My dog strongly disagrees. Scents carry information on where food is, what is safe to eat and what is not. The purpose of being aware of your environment is not to just communicate, it is to be able to act on it, in a manner more sophisticated than reflexive instinct.

Moreover, even if your account were accurate, which I don't agree with at all, there is still something sensations are like, for us adults. Socially constructed, or no. You can argue that it is an illusion, that is, it is not what it seems, but not that it doesn't exist. I argue that they exist with the same strength of "I think therefore I am". For this something to be communicable, you need to demonstrate how to differentiate between cases where smells are swapped, colors are inverted, etc, and where they are not.

I think, is that there's no one-to-one relationship between the two, such that a small and variable number of 'chemical and physiological reactions of my brain in the presence of coffee' might be described by us as "I smell coffee". There's no one set of neural goings-on which correspond to 'smelling coffee', we estimate, make up, narrate, story-tell... — Isaac

This is confusing to me, maybe in part because the sensation of smelling coffee is not distinguished from the verbal utterance "I smell coffee".

There are really three things:

1/ Neural activity in response to smelling coffee
2. The subjective sense of that neural activity: (smell-of-coffee)
3. The verbalization "I smell coffee"

* No one is claiming a one-to-one relationship between 1 and 3.
* No one is claiming even claiming that between 1 and 2: for all we know many distinct neural activities correspond with 2.
* No one is claiming that the relationship between 2 and 3 is not culturally bound
* No one is claiming that 1 is not expressible with language, at least in principle.

What is claimed is that the contents of 2 are not expressible with language. We can express we are having the sensation with "I smell coffee", but we cannot express what it is like.There is a state of affairs where A's (smell-of-coffee) is the same as B's. There is a state of affairs where A's (smell-of-coffee) is same as B's (smell-of-feces), and vice versa. There exists no verbal exchange between A and B which can tell them which state of affairs holds. because 2 is inexpressible. The can only express the culturally bound mapping from 2 to 3: "I smell coffee".

Because "about" means concerning or referencing, but doesn't mean conveying, which would mean transferring actual content. — Hanover

How is talk of leaf and branch different to talk of smell and touch? — Banno

Of course language can't transmit sensation any more than it can trees. What it could do (but can't, for sensation) is describe.

We don't merely label trees, we have descriptive terms for them. If you only have labels, description is limited to

"What is an oak? It is like an elm, but not like a spruce? What is a spruce? It is like a pine, but not like an alder..."

Instead,

"An oak is a deciduous thick barked tree, growing to 100-200ft at maturity. It has broad, waxy, green, tri-pointed leaves. In autumn it bears conical, edible nuts with a fibrous cap..."

If I had patience and actually knew what I was talking about I could paint a picture in your mind of what an oak was like, without your actually ever seeing one.

But I cannot do the same for sensation terms. We only have labels for them, no descriptors. So while we can trivially use them in sentences "I have a red cup", we cannot describe them. At best we can only use impressionistic associations and metaphors ("Red is fiery", "Oak is majestic"). This lack of descriptive ability makes sense terms ineffable.

If one of the meanings of sensory terms derives from sensation, hasn’t some language been used on it? — Mww

This seems to be a common confusion. Words are labels which are attached to sensation. But this doesn't make sensation any less ineffable. Imagine as a child you were trained to associate buzzes with animal pictures, so that one buzz is associated with a dog, two for a cat, and three for a horse. Do the buzzes then describe the animals? No, they merely symbolize them. But the buzzes are to the animals as sensory terms are to sensations.

And if I read you correctly, it begs the question as to how conceptions, by which all objects are described, arrive at purely physical structures such as sensory devices. — Mww

Please restate, I don't get the question.

I think Merleau-Ponty goes some way to undermine this thought — Moliere

To my (very limited) understanding phenomenology aspires to what the title suggests, an account of the "phenomenon of perception", of what it is like to perceive, in the abstract. Perhaps you can illustrate your point with a quote? I can't see how an abstract accounting like this can bridge the gap I described.

If a language capable of describing perception were achieved, conversations like this would be possible:

"Hi Bob, I was thinking, my subjective experience of my perceptions are like this (...). What about you?"
"Wow Sam, that's crazy! Mine are exactly like yours, except when you smell cinnamon I smell your cardamom, and when you hear the violin I hear your piano!"

Humans have been playing at language for a long time, and afaik such a conversation has never happened. Forgive my skepticism at phenomenology ever achieving some kind of linguistic breakthrough that would allow it. The reason, I believe, is fundamental: internal states cannot be pointed to, so no language can ever develop.

As are feelings, and for much the same reasons. — Mww

I add two to the traditional five senses for feelings: bodily feelings and mental feelings. Feelings are akin to senses but point inward.

what is it about objects that can elicit descriptive terms from sensation — Mww

Objects interact with the world in ways we are attuned to: they emit and reflect light, cause variations in air pressure, sublimate chemicals. Our sense organs and then our brain translate these into sensations. We are trained to bind together the relevant features of objects and their corresponding sensations with symbols, words, and so we have descriptive terms. (this is why sensory terms are a little peculiar, they always have two meanings: the sensation and the feature of the world that produces it).

Sensations are profoundly ineffable, for a simple reason: we lack words for describing them. At the most elemental level, we can describe the physical world in terms of the sensations that it elicits. But that's as far as it goes, we lack the language to describe the sensations themselves. The best we can do is to compare them to other, similar sensations, or to list other sensations that the sensations invoke ("red is like orange and makes me feel warm").But the actual, qualitative sensory experience is indescribable .

If you doubt this, just consider that all of our ways of experiencing the world might be basically identical, or they might be radically different: we each might experience our own private sets of colors, sounds, smells, or our ways of perceiving might be more profoundly different in ways that are difficult to conceive without taking serious drugs. But we will never know, one way or the other, because lacking the words we simply cannot describe our internal state.

There is no possibility of inventing a language to describe sensations. We can have words for sensations because we can point to things that invoke the sensation. But we cannot point to the sensations themselves, as they are internal. Therefore we can never assign words to features that would describe them. And so they will forever remain both immediate and indescribable.

There is no topic — Janus

"The Insufferable?"

"Whereof one cannot argue, thereof one must distract, insinuate, cast aspersions, baldly assert, pontificate or utilize some other deflection designed to blind oneself and/ or others from the vacuity of one's position". — Janus

No.

"Whereof one cannot argue, thereof one must be silent." — hypericin

These are not the same.



Hey, this is easy!

You're deflections, one-liners, non-arguments approach ineffability themselves.

"Whereof one cannot argue, thereof one must be silent."
.

And?

So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. But that's not something it makes sense to add to the list! — Banno

And so what is missing in order to ride the bike? Just, and only, the learning to ride. But that's not something it makes sense to add to the list either! Because what is learned is knowledge that cannot be verbalized.

I've been meaning to read Wittgenstein for the past 4 bloody years. Can you link me to his books — Agent Smith

Since the end result seems to be some variety of philosophical addlement I personally wouldn't bother.

In this respect, reflection is like relating to another through language. — Joshs

Even if it is true that reflection "changes the phenomenal character of the original phenomenon", both sides of the comparison, immediate experience vs. reflection, are phenomenal. Whereas, when phenomenal experiences are verbalized, an attempt is being made to transform them into something that is not phenomenal whatsoever, leaving aside whatever phenomenal medium is being used to convey the language.

what we are communicating is something similar rather than identical to what we experience in it’s never-to-be repeated immediacy. — Joshs

Maybe, but an impression or memory of a phenomenal experience is still similar in kind to that experience. As opposed to when we attempt to translate that experience into words, where its phenomenal character is destroyed. A being who hears those words can only attempt to reconstruct it if that variety of phenomenal experience is already familiar to them. Words can refer, but words themselves are not a medium that can convey phenomenal experience. And so I still maintain that phenomenal experience is ineffable.

I thought denazification was the reason. — RogueAI

If you're making shit up anyway you may as well throw as much as you can against the wall and hope some of it sticks with some of the people.

The risk of Ukraine joining NATO was what caused the current war — Benkei

Has anyone explained how, with Russia's ridiculously overpowered nuclear arsenal, Ukraine in NATO posed even the slightest threat to Russia? In the real world their mere threat has deterred NATO even defending their "ally in all but name", in their own damn country.

Russia sure are touchy about names. — Isaac

This "ally in all but name" sure didn't seem to buy Ukraine much security in the end, whereas with NATO membership Russia would lose the privilege of levelling the country when they please.

why they and their supporters wank on nukes so much: it's a form of porn, designed to give back a sense of power to the impotent. — Olivier5

In my view the Russians successfully used their nukes to provide them an umbrella to conduct their invasion relatively uncontested. The current arrangement where NATO supplies arms and intelligence but no planes and no direct involvement is the result of a tacit "negotiation". Russian nukes, which they emphasized with thinly veiled threats, were perhaps their most important bargaining chip in this "negotiation", and bought them somewhat favorable terms.

...

None.

What's missing is the riding of the bike.

That was my point way back on page one. — Banno

Maybe this foolish claim needed to be nipped in the bud back on page one.

What's missing is not "the riding of the bike". What's missing is learning, learning to ride the bike.


More unnipped gems from p1:

And the same goes for "You have to learn on your own". Of course you do, since anyone else learning would not count as you learning.

But that makes "You have to learn on your own" just another grammatical point. — Banno

Someone else learning history does not count as you learning history. Yet, you don't have to learn history on your own. It is not "just another grammatical point".

"knowing how to ride a bike" and "riding a bike"; we don't have two things here, one being bike riding and the other being knowing how to ride a bike. — Banno

Yet here I am sitting on my ass, knowing how to ride a bike yet not riding a bike.

It's only ironic when the outcome is opposite to the intention because of the intention. — Vera Mont

By astutely contributing to this thread you have ironically ended it.

it’s entirely doable for someone else to twiddle ones knob satisfactorily, perhaps with instruction. — Banno

A truly worthy first entry to my "Favorite Quotations"!

And after pages of discussion, if that's the case, then I'm thinking you don't understand your question either. — Banno

Yet from my vantage he understands his own question just fine, it is you that are missing it.

if tacit knowledge is effable, then why is it not included in the explicit instructions in the first place? — Luke

How exactly does a description of some knobs you are considering fiddling with answer this question?

Sounds more like a lack of knowledge than any tacit knowledge. :roll: — Luke

Perhaps @Banno could be persuaded to record a performance of "the lick" for us as a fitting capstone to this effing thread. I have a feeling the performance would be "ineffable" :rofl:

You're seriously suggesting that all the countries America have fucked over haven't even thought about America's massive nuclear arsenal when considering whether they 'let them get away with it'? — Isaac

Yeah, that's exactly what I am suggesting. These are all countries that faced an adversary with overwhelming conventional force, nuclear was the last of their worries. How exactly are you suggesting they would otherwise have not 'let them get away with it'? Whereas the invasion of Ukraine would be impossible without nuclear weapons, since it would otherwise almost certainly trigger engagement with NATO.

Whatever.

Since the ;deadly' we'd be avoiding by concession is also war, I can't see much in it either way. at least war later can be mitigated, war now is killing people right away. — Isaac

Like "mitigation" is working out for "war now"?
Concession would mean strategic victory for an aggressor who used nuclear weapons to achieve their aim. Nuclear weapons already have excellent utility as a deterrent; if they are proven useful by Russia as a weapon of aggression, everyone will take note. Nuclear powers will all see new opportunities to settle regional scores, and non-nuclear powers will be further incentivized to join the club. At some point an aggressive nuclear power will have to be confronted. Does the west do it now, following the first such use of nuclear weapons, when the enemy is already reeling, or later, in the context of a new, terrifying global nuclear arms race? Hell, we (the USA) may be that aggressive nuclear power. Either way, your ".000001%" chance is a pure fiction.

The west is already walking the tightrope, unwilling to fall one way into possible Armageddon, or the other into handing an aggressively nuclear Russia victory. It's a poor position, and it is not clear what the alternative is.

Why not? — Isaac

Domestically, it is a show of extreme weakness by the leadership. It makes people feel humiliated and insecure, as they may be next. Opposition parties will seize on this. An administration which passively cedes its land will be replaced by one which does not, one way or another.

Regionally, if the aggressor is not contested and punished, they or others will seize more, threatening the existence of the state itself. In fact exactly this happened, Russia was hardly chastised in 2014, and look where we are now.

But the difference is that Betty can play the guitar.

You explained exactly what that difference is, you put it in words, and hence it is not ineffable. The difference is that betty can play guitar. — Banno

The difference, KGI, is a knowledge difference. It comprises a vast amount of information, all encoded in Betty's brain, which is the goal and the end result of her practice. That is not "Betty can play guitar". That is just 4 words, almost no information at all.

Can you see the difference there? That one is trivially expressible, the other not at all?

There is a difference in kind between chalk and democracy, and a difference in kind between guitar instruction books and playing guitar. — Banno

But there is no difference in kind between the knowledge in guitar instruction books and the knowledge in Betty's head that lets her play guitar. They are both knowledge.

EDIT:

Before you reply: "a vast amount of information, all encoded in Betty's brain" is not a vast amount of information, encoded in Betty's brain. It is a mere description, and a trivial amount of information on your screen. One is perfectly effable, the other, not at all.

The fact the 3 comes after 2 doesn't seem to prevent either from being constructed. — Isaac

If 3 comes after 2, how is 2 constructed from 3?

Then why don't you have a go at explaining it to us. — Banno

Suppose Betty, an aspiring guitarist, reads "How to Play the Guitar". She diligently reads and re-reads every word. We agree that Betty does not know how to play the guitar yet. Call her guitar knowledge at this point KG1.

She then practices her instrument 8 hours a day, for 15 years, until she is a master guitarist. Call her knowledge at this point KG2.

At KG1 she does not know how to play the guitar at all:
KG1 ~= 0

The difference between KG1 and KG2 is huge: it is the difference between tyro and master.
KG2 >> KG1

Call it KGI:
KG2 - KG1 = KGI

KGI is the Ineffable part of KG2. Betty could only gain it by practice. Even if she had read every book on playing the guitar, she would still be more or less at KG1. Now, at KG2, she can write her own books. Unfortunately her readers will only thereby attain roughly KG1. All books can really teach is how to practice, not how to play. The bulk of Betty's knowledge, KGI, can only be learned by practice, not by reading, as it cannot be put into words: it is ineffable.

Your argument is quite clear to me. I feel your frustration reading through the discussion, you might call it "The @Banno Experience".

Perhaps the missing keyword is "practice"? In order to learn to ride a bike, which I think we agree is a kind of knowledge (one "knows" or "doesn't know" how to ride a bike), one has to practice. The knowledge gained from practice is always ineffable knowledge, otherwise you wouldn't have to practice, you could just read.

Which part of this do you disagree with Banno? Or perhaps you could respond with misdirection, mischaracterization, insults, or some more of that clever "irony" of yours?

Yep. Moreover, he seems to think that dodging the argument, or telling us to "eff off", is his argument. — Luke

Here I thought that was his (ungracious, but what can you expect) way of conceding the point.

Yep — Isaac

And yet.. 3 comes after 2.

@Luke
Your argument applies to any kinesthetic skill: who would claim to know how to play the guitar after reading "How To Play the Guitar", even if the last instruction were: "Now, go play the guitar!"
The problem is that even when you have the skill, you don't know how you do it, you just do it. Or rather, you don't know how to verbalize it.

Dodging the argument again. — Luke

He has a talent!