Here we have a problem in the way you've laid this out. If expressing a pain is a physical reaction, then that requires it have a physical initiate (otherwise Newtons laws of thermodynamics have been broken). Yet with an intrinsically private experience (ie one that is not accessible even to suitably advanced neuroscience) I can't see how it could cause such an initiation. — Isaac

Fair enough, maybe "physical reaction" was not an apt description. Perhaps "physical manifestation of pain" might be better. However, I was attempting a description which allows one to feel pain without showing it.

It seems that you could then turn around your claim above to say "people can experience your tokens of pain, via your expressions of pain" — Isaac

People don't experience the feeling that hurts when they experience my expressions of pain.

The word "bicycle" denotes the class; my bicycle (or any particular bicycle) is an instance of that class. This shouldn't be difficult.

Well, if you think a token is an experience, one of us is wrong. — Banno

I don't think a token is an experience. To repeat:

"The type–token distinction is the difference between naming a class (type) of objects and naming the individual instances (tokens) of that class."

I'm making a distinction between the class of experience, pain, and individual instances of that class. The word "pain" denotes the class. A particular experience of pain is an instance (token) of that class (type).

SO here's another example of tokens:

"Rose is a rose is a rose"

The first "Rose" is one of three tokens.
— Banno

You agree?

Suppose you and I are both looking at that sentence.

We both see it. I hope you will agree that there are 2 people, but one token - the first instance of "Rose".

So here we have two experiences of the very same token - the first instance of "Rose". This is a counterexample to your: If there are two of them, then they are not the same token. — Banno

I'm under the impression that you do not understand the type-token distinction.

I agree that the first "Rose" in the sentence is one of three tokens of the word "Rose" in that sentence.
But if two people see or read the word "Rose". then there are two tokens of (having the experience of) seeing or reading the word "Rose".

We can distinguish between instances of the word in the sentence and instances of (having the experience of) reading/seeing the word. My point is about the latter, but for some reason you are talking about the former.

"Pain" or "having pain" is a type of experience. Individuals experience instances (tokens) of having pain.

If there are two of them... — Banno

Yes, two experiences. This was in response to what Khaled said: "You can define it so that that is the same experience token or not." We were talking about experiences.

I hope you will agree that there are 2 people, but one token - the first instance of "Rose". — Banno

Yes, there is one token of the word. I'm not talking about the word.

So here we have two experiences of the very same token - the first instance of "Rose". — Banno

I'm talking about types and tokens of experience, not types and tokens of words.

The (instance of Banno's typing the) word is one token, but our individual experiences of (seeing) the word are two tokens. — Luke

:100:

Yes, we both saw different screens, but I thought Banno's point was supposed to be that both of us seeing the same word "Rose" is one token, not two. The (instance of Banno's typing the) word is one token, but our individual experiences of (seeing) the word are two tokens. My response to Khaled was in relation to two identical experiences, which are two tokens of the same type.

No, Banno is here next to me. :razz:

We both saw it and each had our own individual experiences of it. I wouldn't say we each saw a separate token. We both saw the same word. It's our perceptual experiences which are different tokens, just as it would be if we both felt pain at the same time.

"Rose is a rose is a rose"

The first "Rose" is one of three tokens.

We both see it. Are you saying there are two of them? — Banno

Explain to me how this relates to what I said. How could I possibly be saying there are two tokens in "Rose is a rose is a rose" when I never referred to that phrase?

"Rose is a rose is a rose"

The first "Rose" is one of three tokens.

We both see it. Are you saying there are two of them? — Banno

Why the fuck would you think I was referring to the number of tokens in "Rose is a rose is a rose"? I was clearly referring to Khaled's example that I quoted, you goose.

2 people, one token. — Banno

How is that possible? Explain it.

What can happen is for 2 people to have identical experiences. You can define it so that that is the same experience token or not. — khaled

If there are two of them, then they are not the same token, they are the same type.

I can't understand your one word responses.

If you're saying that there was only one token in this scenario and that Salinas and his patient shared the same token of pain despite having separate bodies, brains and minds, then why do you believe that? Why would they each not have had their own tokens of pain?

Why?

Perhaps Salinas felt the pain just as his patient did. — Banno

The same type or the same token? Didn't Salinas and the patient each experience their own tokens of pain? Were there two tokens here (one each) or only one?

Is there a reason you did not respond to my latest post? Oh well, never mind.

No two things are exactly alike, ever. Pain's not unique in this respect. No two phones are exactly alike either, but we still refer to them as 'the same' phone - "Oh look, you've got the same phone as me". We seem to be constructing this arbitrary wall around feelings when their intrinsic differences between people are no more than the particular scratches on your phone that are not on mine. If we share the same make and model we happily say we have 'the same' phone. — Isaac

This confusion seems to me easily resolved by maintaining the distinction between types and tokens. Here is a Wikipedia summary for those unfamiliar or havng trouble with this concept:

The type–token distinction is the difference between naming a class (type) of objects and naming the individual instances (tokens) of that class...

The sentence "they drive the same car" is ambiguous. Do they drive the same type of car (the same model) or the same instance of a car type (a single vehicle)? Clarity requires us to distinguish words that represent abstract types from words that represent objects that embody or exemplify types. The type–token distinction separates types (abstract descriptive concepts) from tokens (objects that instantiate concepts).

For example: "bicycle" represents a type: the concept of a bicycle; whereas "my bicycle" represents a token of that type: an object that instantiates that type. — Wikipedia

In this case, we have the types "pain" and "phone" and the tokens "my pain", "my phone", "your pain" and "your phone".

You obtained the token of your phone somehow - you possibly bought it - and now you are in possession of it. You can lose possession of it, sell it or give it away. It's possible for anyone else to perceive your phone and use it while it remains intact. This is no different for any other phone. But pain and other subjective phenomena are different and unique in this respect. While everyone can partake in the same type of experience - of pain - tokens of that type of experience are intrinsically private.

We must firstly recall the distinction between having pain and expressing pain. Having pain is your experience of the feeling that hurts; whereas expressing pain is your physical reaction to the feeling that hurts, such as screaming, wincing or saying "ouch".

Although your physical reactions to pain are obviously public, in that other people can hear you scream, see you wince and understand the word "ouch", your experiences of having pain (your tokens of having pain) are not accessible to anybody else. Nobody else can experience your tokens of pain in any way, except via your expressions of pain. But your expressions of pain are not the feeling that hurts. Other people undoubtedly have their own tokens of pain, which we perceive via their expression, but when it comes to the feeling that hurts, you can only ever experience your own tokens.

This has nothing to do with context and it is not the same for a phone. If you'll let me, I can experience/perceive and use any phone that you happen to possess. I can have your phone (e.g. if I buy it from you), but I can't have your tokens of pain.

I get the sense you would prefer to reject subjective experience from your explanations entirely.
— Luke

What other kinds of experience are there? — unenlightened

None. I just added it in to emphasise what I took you to be rejecting.

Feelings are intrinsically private and unshareable only in the sense that I can't have yours and you can't have mine.
— Luke

But as I said earlier. That's not a property of the feelings.
— Isaac

Then what is it a property of?
— Luke

You. The things you possess are a property fo you (and the law of the country you live in, when it comes to stuff not part of your body). The feeling 'pain' doesn't have the property {belongs to Luke}. How could it? — Isaac

You're saying that pain is not a property of me. But aren't my pains a property of me? I have them. Otherwise, pain is not a property of anybody, so what's the purpose of talking about properties in relation to pain?

Also, just wondering: do you consider my body to be a property of me?

There's a feeling 'pain' in your body when you stub your toe, there's one in my body when I stub mine. The feeling 'pain' hasn't been changed in any way by whose body it's in, it's just a conceptual collection of worldly events (nociceptor activity, yelling, cringing, defence reflex etc...). When those events are centred on your body, it's your pain, when they're centred on my body it's my pain, but the collection of events that constitute 'pain' is a cultural, linguistic fact, it's not yours or mine. What 'pain' is is determined by the loose collection of events we're collectively prepared to accept to qualify for a use of the term. The props. They belong the the language community, not any individual. — Isaac

I take the moral of Wittgenstein's beetle to be that our sensation terms get their meanings from the expression of feelings - from our behaviours (e.g. your "conceptual collection of worldly events") - not from the feelings or private sensations themselves. Therefore, the word "pain" refers only to the outward expression of the feeling, not to the internal feeling.

@unenlightened's friend Richard learned to use the word "red" despite his difficulty or inability to distinguish red from green, or whatever his private sensation of red was like. Richard's colourblindness was no doubt detected/diagnosed on the basis of his verbal responses, not via the impossible act of looking at his private sensations. But it's unjustified to infer from the private language argument that we do not have private sensations.

Perhaps it should be clarified that what is private is having the feeling and what is shareable is expressing the feeling, and that these are not the same thing.
— Luke

Right. Same with noses. Having a nose is not the same as talking about a nose. But noses are not private as a consequence. Your nose is not the same as my nose. But noses are still not private as a consequence. — Isaac

I'm not saying feelings are private because having a feeling is not the same as expressing a feeling. I'm saying feelings are private because nobody else can have your feelings; they can only have their own. Noses and feelings are also dissimilar because your nose is not fleeting like a feeling, and you don't express your nose in any similar sense. You can also get a nose transplant but not a feeling transplant. And noses are not subjective (mind-dependent).

That's not a property of the feelings. — Isaac

Then what is it a property of?

Say I have a feeling X. I show you, using body-language, speech etc. You now know I have feeling X, you may even have feeling X too by the action of your mirror neurons. We've shared feeling X. So is feeling X inter-subjective now? That seems to leave the distinction between subjective and inter-subjective one of arbitrary historical record. — Isaac

We haven't "shared" the feeling in that we both partake of the same feeling. I have my feeling and you have yours, even when they occur at roughly the same place and time.

Perhaps it should be clarified that what is private is having the feeling and what is shareable is expressing the feeling, and that these are not the same thing. I might choose not to express a feeling, or at least try hard to suppress its expression. I can sometimes hide my pain or my thoughts or make the conscious effort not to react to (i.e. express) the feelings I have. The distinction between having feelings and expressing feelings is identical to the distinction between subjective and inter-subjective.

EDIT:

I experience something, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience.

Is that any clearer? — unenlightened

It seems to run afoul of your earlier complaint, since it implies that you experience "the whole world at once".

Thus I am wearing a red fleece today, "The fleece is red", not "my experience is red". — unenlightened

What relationship is there between "the fleece is red" and your experience?

I get the sense you would prefer to reject subjective experience from your explanations entirely. After all, if subjective experience has no place in language then maybe it does not exist at all? For example, you said that your friend Richard did not have an experience of red, and instead you thought the experience of red might be an illusion for him. But an illusion is also an experience. If experience has taught me anything, it's that I experience things.

Your experience is the world, or is of the world?
— Luke

I don't understand the distinction. I don't imagine I experience the whole world all at once, if that's what you mean. — unenlightened

It didn't make much sense to me either, but I was trying to make sense of this:

I experience, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience. — unenlightened

You call your experience the world? Are you a solipsist, then?

Maybe intersubjectivity also requires an element of understanding rather than mere expression (or sharing).
— Luke

Then wouldn't that be problematic for the idea that such feelings are intrinsically private? — Isaac

Feelings are intrinsically private and unshareable only in the sense that I can't have yours and you can't have mine. But feelings are also non-intrinsically private and shareable in the sense that they can be expressed via language, body language, or otherwise. Intersubjectivity deals only with the latter.

I experience, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience. — unenlightened

So, you experience but you don’t have experiences. I don’t understand the distinction.

Your experience is the world, or is of the world?

I still wouldn't be talking about "my experience of red" as if it were something similar or different to "your experience of red"...

What is the experience of red of someone who is colourblind but does not know it? — unenlightened

Mustn’t my experience of red (as a non-colourblind person) and your friend’s experience of red be different, just as they would be different if your friend was blind and unable to see? My ability to distinguish red from green, or your friend’s inability, is not due to linguistic fluency. Therefore, isn’t the difference of experience at least part of what it means to be blind or colourblind?

So you seem back to intrinsically private again. If subjectivity is not the cause of a thing being intrinsically private, then what is? — Isaac

I've said from the outset that subjectivity has both private and public aspects. On reflection, though, perhaps it should be that subjectivity has both intrinsically private (unshareable) and non-intrinsically private (shareable) aspects.

Originally, my view was basically that the internal (e.g. feeling of pain) was private and the external (e.g. expression of pain) was public. Your questioning on the matter has led me to reassess the distinction between subjectivity and intersubjectivity. What is expressed (e.g. an expression of pain) now seems better categorised as intersubjectivity. However, I have trouble giving up the idea that there remains a degree of subjectivity in the expression of subjective experience, i.e. in the intersubjective, especially since those expressions are made by individual subjects. Maybe intersubjectivity also requires an element of understanding rather than mere expression (or sharing). If a lion could talk...

Odd. So there could be something publicly shared yet which is entirely subjective? I'm not following you. — Isaac

In the relevant Wittgensteinian sense, there could be something publicly shareable, in principle, which is entirely subjective. There are such things, such as thoughts one has which are not yet shared, unexpressed pain hiding behind a stoic disposition, a poker face, and the like.

But even if it becomes shared, there remains an intrinsically private aspect - how it feels to the subject. What cannot be shared is for me to have your pains and vice versa.

Like phones. My phone is 'my' phone entirely by virtue of whose legal possession it is in, no property of the actual phone. Your pain is 'your' pain entirely by virtue of whose mind it is in, not any property of the actual pain. — Isaac

Phones are not mind-dependent, but yes, pains are subjective to the mind/person that experiences them.

So what on earth would 'intersubjective' mean? Something which takes place in multiple minds at once? Not sure where that model leaves intersubjectivity. — Isaac

Publicly shared, I suppose; an expressed subjective experience that is made public, usually via language but not necessarily.

I don't see why having "an experience of red" necessarily implies "seeing just the one colour over your entire visual field". Therefore, I still don't understand how having "an experience of red" differs from having an "experience [of] things as red".

have you ever seen red by itself?

What would that be like? Just the one colour over your entire visual field? — Banno

Not that I can recall, no. Why do you ask?

no one has "an experience of red", they merely experience things as red — unenlightened

What’s the difference?

I can't have your (subjective) pains because you and I are different people, but that doesn't mean your pains are necessarily private.

How can you say what is normal or abnormal without comparing subjectivities? — unenlightened

How can we "compare subjectivities" if, as per you original claim "Subjectivity is a social construct; subjectivity is intersubjective"? If subjectivity is already intersubjective and no more than a social construct, then what's to compare? How can we compare what is already intersubjective, and what are we comparing it to?

You cannot have normal and abnormal private worlds — unenlightened

Again, not my argument. You seem to be making the same conflation as Banno between "subjective" and "private". My whole point here is that these are not the same.

Always a good argument> if you disagree with me you must be mad! — unenlightened

That wasn't my argument. I suggested that a mental health professional might disagree with you if, as you stated, you were to think that you didn't have your own pains and Banno was to think that my pains were his. That was intended as a lighthearted remark because those are abnormal views to hold. But if you wish to take that as my argument and ignore the rest, then...nice chatting with you.

Yep. That's the bit I saw as circular; because your definition of individual persons contained their ability to feel pain as one of the defining factors. So you end up with "pains are subjective because they're in the list of things which are subjective". — Isaac

Only if "subjective" and "person(hood)" are the same word. Anyway, so what if it's circular? My point wasn't to define subjectivity, only to point out that it is not identical to privacy.

Why are persons defined by their ability to feel pain, but not by their having noses? — Isaac

Don't you have any idea of what "subjective" means? The dictionary offers this relevant definition: "dependent on the mind or on an individual's perception for its existence."

But I'll try again, in good faith, to answer the question in my own words. A person or conscious subject is the centre of consciousness or "I" who experiences, perceives, feels pain, thinks, deliberates, plans, remembers, uses language, is aware that they have swapped noses with someone, etc. These things, including the ability to feel pain, are typically constitutive of personhood or subjectivity. These things are dependent on consciousness, or are "mind-dependent", and they disappear together with consciousness. Noses do not.

I see. Doesn't that open you up a little to Banno's complaints that

you cannot therefore use the privacy of pain as evidence for subjectivism - at least, not without a vicious circularity.
— Banno — Isaac

No, because I’m not saying that pain must be private.

You've defined 'subjectivity' in terms that assume the existence of subjective properties (conscious awareness, rational thought, sensory perception, and the ability to feel pain), so we can't then prove something like pain is subjective. It's just in the list there, the list of things you associate with subjectivity. It would be tantamount to saying "pain is subjective because it's in the list of things which are subjective". — Isaac

You were pressing me to explain why pains are subjective but noses are not. I offered an explanation in terms of personhood. A better explanation, more relevant to the OP, might be that the subjective is whatever aggregates to make the “intersubjective”. My view is that it’s individual people.

I consider subjectivity to be somewhat synonymous with personhood and its traits, such as conscious awareness, rational thought, sensory perception, and the ability to feel pain. This is how our being two different people/persons relates to subjectivity.

I can only have my phone and you can only have your phone. That's there in the definition of 'my' and 'yours'. But we don't say phones are subjective. — Isaac

We don't say that I can only have my phone and you can only have yours, either.

If I have a pain and you have a pain, they're unlikely to be the same whole experience, granted. — Isaac

I'm not talking about differences between your pain and my pain as though I were disputing the meaning of the word "pain". I'm pointing out what I take to be self-evident: that you can only have your pains and I can only have mine because we are two different people. This, for lack of a better term, ontological truth that we are each individual people is independent of the meaning of the word "pain".

I don't see where you end with with subjective meanings. — Isaac

I'm not suggesting "subjective meanings" or any private language.

I cannot experience anybody else's pain and nobody else can experience my pain.
— Luke

The expression “I feel your pain” can only be figurative. In empathy one can only feel one’s own pain, even if it is expressed or felt for others.
— Luke

Imagine we agree about this. You me and Banno. How is that not intersubjective? — unenlightened

If we agree that we cannot experience each other's pain, then it is our agreement about the proposition which is intersubjective, not our experiences of pain which are intersubjective. Otherwise, we would not be in agreement.

Imagine I don't think I have my own pain, and Banno thinks he has your pain. Are these our private subjectivities, about which no disagreement is possible? — unenlightened

I'd imagine that a mental health professional might disagree with you both. As to "private subjectivities", your thoughts would be subjective insofar as they occur individually to you and to Banno. I suppose they would remain private to each of you until or unless they were expressed in some way (not necessarily linguistically).

... and there's the expected ad hoc hypothesis.

Ok, that renders your view irrefutable; you've just defined pain as a private sensation.

The twist is, you cannot therefore use the privacy of pain as evidence for subjectivism - at least, not without a vicious circularity. — Banno

Where did I define pain as a private sensation? All I've said is that we each have our own. Even if I were to define pain as a private sensation, how is that irrefutable? If that's irrefutable, then so is the opposing proposition.

I've acknowledged that you and I can both mean the same thing by "pain" and that it can refer to the same qualitative feeling (and/or physical expression) for each of us. I don't believe that subjectivity necessarily entails or equates to privacy, whereas you treat the two as synonymous.

I agree with you that our language and the meanings of our words including "pain" are necessarily public. On the other hand, our existence as individuals with individual experiences, pains, perceptions and viewpoints is also evident. Moreover, our existence as individuals does not obviously depend on the existence of our public language; quite the opposite, in fact, since our public language obviously depends on our existence as individuals (who share the language). "In the beginning was the deed."

Your view strikes me as this: subjectivity is necessarily private, but language is necessarily public, therefore subjectivity is impossible. But how does a public language preclude the existence of a private subjectivity?

I’ve already explained why that fails:

Unless we were one and the same person in this scenario, then we would each be feeling our own individual pains, even if they both occurred at the same time, both occurred in the same locations in each of our bodies, and felt qualitatively the same to each of us. — Luke