Comments

  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Nope. This is factually not the case. We 'feel' electrical impulses. That is the case. No idea how you're supporting a pretense that this isn't the case, and i've been asking for your(and others) account of that for pages and pages and yet nothing but obfuscation. The only reasonable response to this is to outline how it is the case that you feel ANYTHING without those electrical impulses. And you don't. So, maybe just adjust your position instead of having a short-circuit on a forum :)AmadeusD

    If anything, that paragraph shows a simple failure of comprehension.

    Sure, we only feel stuff because of nerve impulses. I never claimed otherwise.

    But we do not feel the impulses, we feel the sandpaper.

    Not much more that can be added.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    See the SEP Article Wittgenstein’s Logical Atomism.

    The nature of "object' is contentious; it might be bets to acknowledge this and move on

    (For my part I'll go along with Anscombe that objects are particulars and un analysable.)
  • Thought Versus Communication
    I hope you realise I rejected that view.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    . You feel electrical impulses taking on a certain character when decoded into conscious experienceAmadeusD

    No, we do not.

    I touch the two pieces of sandpaper and choose the 200 grit for the fine work; I hand them to you and ask you to choose the 200 grit, you are able to do so.

    You and I both feel the difference between the 40 grit and the 200 grit.

    We feel the sandpaper, not the electrical impulses.

    You do not say :"the impulses here have a finer character than the impulses there"; you say "This sandpaper is finer than that".

    You might feel with or via those impulses, but they are not what you feel.

    To feel electrical impulses, try sticking your fingers in a light socket.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Well, over time, it is inevitable that the interpretations of an author diverge.
    An Hegelian will read with an Hegelian lens.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    But where is this used by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus?

    Third ask. The pointless bit is continuing a conversation where someone says a text says something that the text does not say.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant

    Best drop this. It is a side line and rather pointless.
  • Thought Versus Communication
    , , that'd be ChatGPT, not you. You can do more than just "continue the prompt".
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Well, I went over the various papers mentioned hereabouts.

    But in the end it seems to me that if what is involved in 'sublimating Kant" is just making use of a transcendental argument then the point is pretty trivial.

    And that if there is some deeper point, I haven't been able to follow it. Kant places transcendence in experience, Wittgenstein places transcendence in the commonality of language. On this we agree.

    I do not share your regard for Kant. So while there are plenty of issues here we might discuss, I see Kant as being of little help.
  • Thought Versus Communication
    The obvious objection is that we coordinate behaviour by communicating.

    But "I promise to fetch water for you if you give me some of that haunch" does much more than just communicate; it changes the way things are. It does something new by setting up a contract that did not previously exist and which would stand scant chance of happening outside of language.
  • Thought Versus Communication
    Supose that how you think is not the same as how others think.

    There is a growing body of evidence that this is the case.

    Suppose that despite this there were common habits that we all learned, allowing us to do things together.

    So how we think is not important, but getting on with doing things is.

    Beetles in boxes, in a slightly different context.

    Language is not about sharing information so much as coordinating behaviour. It's use that counts, not information.

    A Banno impersonationJamal
    & , should I feel flattered or flattened?
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant


    Nowhere does Wittgenstein say that we cannot know all the facts. Nowhere is that relevant to his argument.

    He does say "The world is the totality of facts".

    Hence Sam is correct here:
    if you have all the true propositions, then you have completely described the world.Sam26

    Note that this is a contingent sentence. Its truth is not dependent on our having a complete description.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    In order to feel sandpaper:
    The sandpaper must contact our skin.
    The contact must register with sensory nerves.
    The nervous signal must conduct to our brain.
    Our brain must translate the nervous signal to sensation.
    hypericin

    Yep. And at the end of all that, you will have felt the sand paper.

    Not your skin, not your nerves, not the signal conducted to your brain.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    That we cannot give a complete description of the worldFooloso4

    Where?
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    just to be sure, is this what you think Wittgenstein is claiming in the tractatus?
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Then I'm not seeing a cogent point in your remark to Sam.

    You said
    We would not have completely described the world.Fooloso4
    But how could the facts about the world not be complete description of the world?

    I dunno. I can't make sense of your remark.

    Of course the propositions do not give a compete description of the world, but surely the facts do.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    As a curiosity, some languages have a word that is kinda like brightenLionino

    Illuminate?
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Everything that can be said about the world includes saying things that are not true.Fooloso4

    There's an equivocation in this. Everything we might say includes saying things that are not true. But if you say something about the world, it would be odd if what you said about the world were not true...

    I'd say that if you tell me something about the world, you are undertaking that what you say is true.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    What if one does not know the facts well enough to speak about them?Paine

    If there is a fact you don't know, then there is a fact.

    It's not about things that haven't been said, but things that cannot be said.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    We have an audience? Cool.

    Yep. If the world is the totality of facts, then how could everything that can be said about the world not be a complete picture? Supposing this would imply that there are facts that cannot be said, which would be anathema to the theme of the Tractatus.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    I may get around to replying to you down the line.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Everything that can be said about the world would not give us a complete picture of the worldFooloso4

    Then I do not see how you can make sense of Tract 1.1
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Hmm. Do you feel the sandpaper or the model of the sandpaper?

    I would say that feeling the sandpaper involves modelling its texture, and that what you feel is the sandpaper.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Either you're experiencing reality as-it-really-is, OR your experience is something subjective and crafted for you by your brain.flannel jesus

    I notice that this is not (p v ~p). It is not a tautology.

    That would be

    Either you're experiencing reality as-it-really-is or you do not experiencing reality as-it-really-is
    or
    Either your experience is something subjective and crafted for you by your brain or it is not something subjective and crafted for you by your brain

    The simple point here is that sometimes the brain models the way things are.

    If you like, the model does not have to be perfect - "as-it-really-is" - only adequate.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Misfire are curious. One can touch but not feel - numb fingers in the cold. Or listen but not hear - the sound had too high a pitch, perhaps. Or look but not see.

    Sniff but not smell? Eat but not taste?

    See, hear, feel, smell and taste. Look, listen, touch... sniff and eat?
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    You feel the differential effect of sandpaper of varying grit on your nervous system.AmadeusD

    Well, no. I feel the different grit of the sandpaper. I don't feel my nerves. I feel using nerves.

    That's kinda the point. Feeling only one's nerves would provide you with no information about the sandpaper.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    I didn't say it bears no relation,flannel jesus

    Smell is ENTIRELY an experience built up for us by our brains.flannel jesus

    Hmm. Ok.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Smell is ENTIRELY an experience built up for us by our brains.flannel jesus

    So smells bear no relation whatsoever to the stuff around you? Odd.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    ...the conscious part of my brain.hypericin
    ...your homunculus. Sitting in there looking at the stuff your brain presents to it, never seeing or touching the stuff around it, not knowing if it is in a vat or a Boltzman coincidence...
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    They are all ways that your brain presents sense data to you,hypericin

    Your homunculus is showing...
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    The glove is a fine example. Here, indirect touch or feel makes sense.

    And yes, touch and feel are different things, which is why we have two words. It's an interesting distinction. Is there something similar for smell or hearing?

    I don't think it's right to say you 'feel' the sandpaper itself, anyway. You feel it's impression on your nervous system, shunted through your nerves, into your brain where it is constructed into an experience.AmadeusD

    I don't agree with that at all. Of course you feel the sandpaper - 200 grit is very different to 40 grit; a fact about sandpaper, not about nerves.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    How do you touch something indirectly? What to make of an indirect realist account that has one feeling a representation of the sandpaper, not the sandpaper itself?
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    ,

    What happens if you reconsider these issues in terms of touch or smell?

    It becomes harder to insert a "representation" in those cases.
  • How to do nothing with Words.
    Is that your fear here? That you will lose your autonomy?

    I'm sorry, Nos, I genuinely have been unable to follow what it is you see as problematic, nor have I been able to make sense of your account.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Nobody is saying that representation is the thing seen.hypericin

    Ayer sometimes appeared to be doing just that. But as Austin shows, there is little consistency in his account. Trouble here is, without citations there are only straw men to discus.
  • How to do nothing with Words.
    You are enjoying the change of subject, I see.

    Yes, not at all dissimilar.
  • How to do nothing with Words.
    Curious, that you chose such a cooperative resource as Wikipedia.

    The citations in Wikipedia come down to one source, that noted resource for etymology, the Australian Journal of Political Science, which is paywalled.

    But even if not quite true, it ought be. After all, by your own account, you have not made any statements here. Only thumped your keyboard.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    I'm not sure that I would even describe seeing a hand in a mirror as seeing it indirectly.Luke
    It's intended as an example; one might differentiate seeing the hand in the mirror as indirect, in contrast to seeing it without the mirror - directly.

    Austin, especially in Other Minds, addresses "real".

    But is it a real one? When you ask if it is real, what are you sugesting? No, it's a fake; it's an illusion; it's a forgery; it's a phoney, a counterfeit, a mirage... What is real and what isn't is decided in each case by contrast; there is no single criteria.

    The wile of the metaphysician consists in asking 'Is it a real table?' (a kind of object which has no obvious way of being phoney) and not specifying or limiting what may be wrong with it, so that I feel at a loss 'how to prove' it is a real one.' It is the use of the word 'real' in this manner that leads us on to the supposition that 'real' has a single meaning ('the real world' 'material objects'), and that a highly profound and puzzling one. Instead, we should insist always on specifying with what 'real' is being contrasted - not what I shall have to show it is, in order to show it is 'real': and then usually we shall find some specific, less fatal, word, appropriate to the particular case, to substitute for 'real'
    — Austin
    Banno


    "Direct" and "indirect" relate in a similar way - You don't see it directly, you see a picture, a reflection, or through a telescope or video screen.

    It is the use of the word 'indirect' in this manner that leads us on to the supposition that 'direct' has a single meaning.

    Some words get their sense from an almost Hegelian juxtaposition against their opposite.

    So when someone claims to see that the hand before them indirectly, it is reasonable to ask what it would mean here to see it directly? And their answer might well be "as it is in itself" - but this is of course a nonsense, since the hand is aways already an interpretation... Or they might say "we see only the metal model (qualia, sense datum...) directly" and so commit themselves to being forever segregated from the world or to solipsism.