Of course my instance of using "same" is not the same as Aristotle's, that's exactly the point, and it's quite obvious according to how "same" is defined by the law of identity — Metaphysician Undercover

You appear to have missed the point. A definition of the law of identity gives its meaning, yet it is your claim that no two meanings are the same or that we can ever be sure that they are the same, since agreement in ways of use are non-existent, and we can at best have only similar but not the same ways of use. Therefore, how can you use the law of identity as a law or a standard of sameness when the agreement of use is non-existent? You cannot be using it the same way as anybody else, including Aristotle, by your own argument. There is no such thing as the "same" because you have made it an impossible standard.

Don't be absurd, this is the "same" which is defined by the law of identity. It was stated by Aristotle as a means of expelling sophism from philosophy. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's a shame that your use of the word "same" cannot be identical to Aristotle's definition, by your own argument, since he lived so long ago. I wonder what you can possibly mean by "same" in your current, unique use of the word.

I think Witty talks about the origin of usage; — god must be atheist

Where does he talk about this?

usage is different from the origin of usage.

The origin of usage is using a word in a particular way, — god must be atheist

What is "usage" (as opposed to "the origin of usage")?

In my opinion Witty lacked the insight of accepting the status quo of language. He delved into apparent contradictions of language, and he conveniently ignored the social and cultural reconciliatory practices that eliminated the contradictions. — god must be atheist

How and where does Wittgenstein reject "the status quo of language"?

It's a deficient "same" though. — Metaphysician Undercover

Only if you hold "same" to the impossible standard that requires another person be in precisely the same place and time (and mind?) in order to replicate your usage. Nobody besides a misguided philosopher would ever use the word "same" in this way about meaning or use. We often speak of synonyms having the same meaning without requiring your impossible standard of sameness. If that's what it takes to mean the "same" then we ought to replace every use of the word "same" with the word "similar" instead. Thankfully, our everyday usage needn't meet your impossible standards simply because you deem it to be more logically correct. That's just not how the word is commonly used, especially when describing linguistic meaning.

No problem. I just did a quick search and found this which has a download option: https://www.docdroid.net/FmkyBAp/ludwigwittgenstein-philosophicalinvestigations.pdf

Is there a link between the context principle (CP) of Frege and the later Wittgenstein's language game (LG)? — TheMadFool

Yes. As I understand it, Wittgenstein was strongly influenced by Frege and adapted the context principle in both his Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations.

Marie McGinn describes Wittgenstein's use of the principle in the Tractatus:

Wittgenstein's investigation of the logic of depiction has led him to a profound expression of a version of Frege's context principle: Only within a system of representation that stands in a projective relation to the world does a proposition have sense or a name meaning. — Marie McGinn. Elucidating the Tractatus: Wittgenstein's Early Philosophy of Language and Logic

In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein refers to the principle himself:

Naming is not yet a move in a language-game — any more than putting a piece in its place on the board is a move in chess. One may say: with the mere naming of a thing, nothing has yet been done. Nor has it a name except in a game. This was what Frege meant too when he said that a word has a meaning only in the context of a sentence. — PI 49

I don't know whether this is what Frege actually meant. I suspect that Wittgenstein credits his own ideas to Frege here because they were based on his context principle.

You're preaching to the choir Luke. I'm not conflating information and meaning. Information is not meaning. — creativesoul

Okay, we don't disagree, so what do you want from me?

Your original complaint was:

What I have not seen is a coherent explanation of exactly how information - which is already meaningful, lest there could be no translation/decoding - can be moved. — creativesoul

I explained prior to this what I took "moving information from one head to another" to mean and I've explained it since. What I take it to mean is simply informing someone of something.

If I tell you "the building is on fire" and you were not already aware of it, then I have passed this information on to you. You might say that this information has passed from my head to yours (although I dislike this way of putting it).

What has not been passed on to you ("moved from my head to yours") is the meaning of the sentence, which is something you would need to know ("have in your head") already in order to understand the sentence.

Information is meaningful. — creativesoul

Information can have meaning, but it does not follow that information is meaning (or the same as meaning). Likewise, a demonstration can be peaceful, but a demonstration is not peace.

Furthermore, meaning needn't be informative. I can understand the meaning of a word or a sentence without it informing me of something; without it teaching me or providing any facts about something. This informing, or information moving, is the context of use in the OP, which is why information should not be conflated with meaning here.

Moving information may indeed occur, but is incidental to language. — Banno

If moving information (or using language to inform people of things) is something that we use language for, then I don't see how it is incidental "to language". Again, I'm unsure if we mean the same thing by "moving information".

I could go either of two ways: the first, call what is done with information the meaning of that information; the second, drop the notion of meaning altogether and just talk about information and its uses. — Banno

I'm confused by this. It's unclear to me why you might want to "call what is done with information the meaning of that information".

I've already stated my objection: that you are conflating meaning and information. I've also quoted you obviously conflating the two when you say "what since does it make to say that information(meaning) can be moved?"

Were you referring to some other "gratuitous assertion"? Because I have no desire to follow you in this conflation, and therefore no desire to address your "argument".

I think you overlooked your obvious conflation that you just asked me to point out to you.

You mean this?

what since does it make to say that information(meaning) can be moved? — creativesoul

I wasn't talking about meaning, nor do I conflate meaning with information, whereas you do.

What I have not seen is a coherent explanation of exactly how information - which is already meaningful, lest there could be no translation/decoding - can be moved. — creativesoul

If you had read my entire post, you would have seen what I took 'moving information from one head to another' to mean.

What I'm arguing would be closer to saying that moving information is not moving meaning or knowledge. That much more is involved. — Banno

My concern with the OP, as others have already expressed, is that moving information from one head to another can be one use of language, even though it may not be its only use. If the OP was instead that language is not only moving information from one head to another, then I would be more inclined to agree. Also, I take 'moving information from one head to another' to mean informing someone of something (e.g. teaching, alerting), but I'm not sure whether that's what you mean by it?

Meh, I've realized I was dreaming before and recall even saying so "out loud" to a a dream person. — Marchesk

Your awareness of dreaming is not at all the same as Wittgenstein's inability to seriously suppose that he is dreaming while he is awake writing his book. Furthermore, your comments have little relevance to the current discussion of private language. If we distinguish talking from talking-in a-dream, Wittgenstein is discussing the former whereas you are discussing the latter.

Solipsism or not, if we suppose that you are talking-in-a-dream to other people in a language that is understood by your dream participants, then it is not a private language. But that's a lot to suppose, and I'd be unwilling to consider a dream-language a real language. Unless, perhaps, you could actually teach it to someone else in waking reality.

As for BIVs, do you know any?

That's probably true, though. :grin:

Philosophy is typically a serious subject. I don't think this necessarily implies or indicates that philosophers are humourless. But obviously they are gits.

Firstly, Wittgenstein makes a clear distinction between reality and dreams; or between language use in reality and language "use" in dreams (where the latter isn't really use):

I cannot seriously suppose that I am at this moment dreaming. Someone who, dreaming says: “I am dreaming,” even if he speaks audibly in doing so, is no more right than if he said in his dream “it is raining,” while it was in fact raining. — On Certainty 676

Secondly, even if we suppose in your scenario that you can "talk to people in both worlds in different languages" then you must be talking to someone else in a public language that you and the people you are conversing with share (albeit in your dreams). Otherwise, you are not really talking to anyone else at all.

The point is that a private language is impossible. Therefore, as you say, "nobody in existence could call any language private".

Interesting argument.

The assertion of the OP was specifically about information; not about "all those things and more". Unless there is an argument that (moving) information is equivalent to meaning and knowledge (and more?)...

It's not only about the assertion of the OP then? Okay.

Is this discussion about information or meaning? Or knowledge? Or something else?

I think you are right. I had not read the paragraph carefully enough — Fooloso4

I suspected that might be the case. No worries and thanks.

it's a matter of determining the proper referent of "he" — Metaphysician Undercover

I've wasted too much time on this and given too much credence to your preposterous reading already. I was just optimistic that you might for once be able to see something so obvious.

After all, I’d like you to say: “Yes, it’s true, one could imagine that too, that might happen too!” — But was I trying to draw someone’s attention to the fact that he is able to imagine that?

How could Wittgenstein be saying in the first line he'd like the reader to "imagine that", but then in the second line be asking about the pupil's ability to "imagine that"? It's ridiculous to think that he switches from reader to pupil in between these two lines. He clearly wants us to say that we could imagine that, and then he asks whether he was trying to draw attention to our ability to imagine that.

Rather I was trying to consider how the student might have looked at the series of numbers he wrote on the assumption that if we can understand how he looked at it we might be able to provide another way for him to look at it — Fooloso4

What I dispute (consistent with Baker and Hacker's exegesis) is that Wittgenstein is referring to the pupil's way of looking at things at all. Instead he is referring to our (the reader's) way of looking at things. I see little textual support for your claim as it relates to PI 144.

That by changing the way we look at a problem it can be resolved? — Fooloso4

I was commenting on PI 144 when you quoted and responded to me. You appear to be referring to something else.

Perhaps with this student it is, but I don't think Wittgenstein intends for this to be the end of the matter. I take the larger point to be that by changing the way we look at a problem the problem can be resolved. — Fooloso4

I see little textual support for this.

How does one have to look at it in order to continue? — Fooloso4

Maybe he can't continue.

Sorry, to have to reiterate, but he doesn't say "we", he says "he", referring to the theoretical student — Metaphysician Undercover

You're reading too much into "he". Wittgenstein often uses the third-person male pronoun ('he', 'him') as a general reference to any person, which was common practice at the time. For example:

69. How would we explain to someone what a game is? I think that we’d describe games to him

31. ...We may say: it only makes sense for someone to ask what something is called if he already knows how to make use of the name.

32. ...Augustine describes the learning of human language as if the child came into a foreign country and did not understand the language of the country; that is, as if he already had a language, only not this one.

The "someone" in this case is a reader of the text.

At 143 Wittgenstein writes that in copying the series of natural numbers, there is a normal and an abnormal learner's reaction. We can assume, given that most people are able to count to ten, that the normal reaction is one of eventually writing down the series correctly. Wittgenstein notes that the possibility of communication will depend on the student "going on to write it down by himself". He then says (my emphasis):

And here we may imagine, for example, that he does copy the figures by himself, but not in the right order [...]

Or again, he makes ‘mistakes’ in the order. [...]

Or he makes a systematic mistake; — PI 143

This is not intended to be some sort of theory of developmental learning.

At 144, Wittgenstein asks what he means by his statement that "the pupil's ability to learn may come to an end here". He notes that he does not report this from his own experience "(Even if I had such experience)", and he asks us what is he doing with this remark?

After all, I’d like you to say: “Yes, it’s true, one could imagine that too, that might happen too!” — But was I trying to draw someone’s attention to the fact that he is able to imagine that? — PI 144

He wants us ("you"; the readers) to say “Yes, it’s true, one could imagine that too". To imagine what? To imagine that the pupil's ability to learn may come to an end here. The second line of the above quote relates to the first, as he then asks whether it was his objective to draw our attention to the fact that we could imagine that. His proceeding comments indicate that his objective was not merely to have us imagine it. On my reading, his objective was to put an alternative picture (or "sequence of pictures") before us to accept, where our acceptance "consists in being inclined to regard a given case differently". The objective of his statement that "the pupil's ability to learn may come to an end" is to change our way of looking at things.

However, if your account is correct, then this raises several questions. For example, where Wittgenstein asks in the second line of the above quote:

But was I trying to draw someone’s attention to the fact that he is able to imagine that?

You claim that this question translates into:

But was I trying to draw the pupil's attention to the fact that the pupil is able to imagine that the pupil's ability to learn may come to an end here?

Isn't that a very odd (or oddly phrased) question? Why would Wittgenstein ask it?

Furthermore, what alternative picture does Wittgenstein put before the student (other than the "picture" of the series of numbers which are written down and placed before him)? What "way of looking at things" is required in order for the student to copy the numbers on the page in front of him?

He is clearly talking about the pupil who's capacity to learn has come to an end, not the reader. — Metaphysician Undercover

I know you're beyond help (or a troll), but in the interests of futility:

At 144, he asks: "What do I mean when I say “the pupil’s ability to learn may come to an end here”? ...what am I doing with that remark?" He then goes on to explain the purpose of that remark.

Why would Wittgenstein explain his remarks in the text to a fictional person in the text? Do you think that the pupil at 143 is reading the Philosophical Investigations? Why would he refer to the pupil as "someone"? These questions are rhetorical.

144. Wittgenstein reflects on the purpose of his preceding section 143, and particularly its final line: "the pupil's ability may come to an end". He notes that he did not report this from his own experience, so what was he doing with that remark? He states that he wants the reader (you) to imagine its possibility, and to be inclined to compare and accept this "picture". Ultimately, he says, he wants the reader to "regard a given case differently"; that is, he wants to change the reader's "way of looking at things".

Baker and Hacker provide the following explanation for the type of alternative picture Wittgenstein may be referring to here:

W. is drawing our attention to a logical possibility, reminding us of a particular contingency, in order to reorient our way of looking at things. At what things? At the phenomena associated with understanding and meaning. He aims, in particular, at getting us to conceive of understanding quite differently from the way we are tempted to construe the concept: namely, as akin to an ability rather than as a mental state or process. If we compare understanding with abilities and think of manifestations of understanding as exercises of abilities rather than as causal consequences of inner states, we shall look quite differently at the phenomenon of sudden understanding, and also cease to conceive of understanding as a reservoir from which applications of understanding flow.

... that we do have certain elementary abilities (to imitate, react in standard ways, recognize shapes and colours, continue activities in a common pattern, etc.) is a general brute fact of human nature (cf. PI p. 56/48n.), which is crucial for our having the kind of language we have.

I'm not sure whether this is helpful (mainly because I disagree with it), but Baker and Hacker offer the following reading:

...understanding, misunderstanding and not understanding are distinguished by the difference between reacting correctly to training, making systematic mistakes, and making random mistakes.

But on the other hand, I also want to say that in all instances of what Witty would call 'everyday use', a picture, by virtue of it always being used in some manner or another (read: applied in some manner or another), is always-already a 'living' one, and that 'lifelessness' is always a derivative phenomenon, which happens when words are taken out of their everyday use. — StreetlightX

I don't disagree, but in the distinction between a picture and its application, the use is the application (of the picture). Recall that the same picture might have various actual applications. Rehashing the metaphor, we might say that this actual use is what gives the picture its "life". Whereas I see Wittgenstein as constantly attacking the mistaken idea that a picture by itself - especially, a mental Something - can be a source of meaning.

143. Wittgenstein describes a language game of teaching the natural numbers, wherein a series of numbers are written down and a student is required to copy them. Wittgenstein notes that there is already at this stage "a normal and an abnormal learner's reaction". He suggests we might guide the student's hand in writing out the series, but that the "possibility of communication" (i.e. the "pupil's ability to learn" or the possibility of teaching the student further) will depend on the student "going on to write it down by himself". Wittgenstein asks us to imagine that the student copies the figures but in the wrong order (in most instances), writing "sometimes one, sometimes another, at random"; and "at that point communication stops". The difference between this and the case of making (random) mistakes, Wittgenstein says, "will of course be one of frequency".

The student may also make a "systematic mistake"; regularly making the same mistake at the same place. "Here we shall almost be tempted to say that he has understood us wrongly". However, there is not a sharp distinction between (what we call) "random" and "systematic" mistakes. Wittgenstein notes that it may be possible to wean the student from a systematic mistake; otherwise, it may be possible to teach the student the normal way of copying "as an offshoot, a variant of his". However, the "possibility of communication" could end here again (if this fails).

Do you think that the meaning of the words is distinct from the meaning of the act, using the words? — Metaphysician Undercover

Your original claim was:

"you can use a word however you please, and this use provides meaning for that word."

Now you are pretending that your claim was instead something like:

"you can act however you please, and this act provides meaning for that....act?"

I don't believe this was your original claim. Furthermore, if you (as a reader) found my nonsense statement to be unintelligible and I (as the speaker) can find no meaning in it, then to whom is it meaningful? As you say, "just because you claim it, doesn't make it so."

One cannot escape the reality that intentional acts are meaningful — Metaphysician Undercover

Irrelevant. Your claim was about the meaning of words, not the meaning of acts.

142. At the end of 141, Wittgenstein tells us that a picture can suggest a particular use because that is how it is normally applied. At 142, he states:

It is only in normal cases that the use of a word is clearly laid out in advance for us; we know, are in no doubt, what we have to say in this or that case. The more abnormal the case, the more doubtful it becomes what we are to say.

This seems to indicate that language is a technique or skill that fluent speakers master, and that there is a certain degree of regularity to our language games. Moreover, there is a regularity to our form of life. Although Wittgenstein does not use the phrase here, I take PI 142 to be one of the best examples of form of life in the text, which he goes on to describe:

And if things were quite different from what they actually are —– if there were, for instance, no characteristic expression of pain, of fear, of joy; if rule became exception, and exception
rule; or if both became phenomena of roughly equal frequency —– our normal language-games would thereby lose their point. — The procedure of putting a lump of cheese on a balance and fixing the price by the turn of the scale would lose its point if it frequently happened that such lumps suddenly grew or shrank with no obvious cause.

Daniele Moyal Sharrock suggests (here) that 'form of life' refers to very general facts of living, which can be identified with the certainties referred to in Wittgenstein's On Certainty. Form of life can also account for Wittgenstein's comment at boxed section §139(b) with the picture of an old man walking up a hill: a Martian might describe the old man as sliding downhill, but there is no need "to explain why we don't describe it so".

Therefore there is meaning here, despite the fact that I did not understand. — Metaphysician Undercover

I intentionally used that string of words to be meaningless. I used those words how I pleased but my use did not provide meaning to those words, so your claim is false. It is your claim that "you can use a word however you please, and this use provides meaning for that word", not Wittgenstein's. I don't disagree with Wittgenstein; you simply fail to understand him.