A good read.

I noted the similarity between the "thick moment" and Douglas Hofstadter's I am a strange loop. Prophetic stuff.

That and the suggestion that having a self is evidenced by wanking. — Banno

There is no invisible thing associated with consciousness.
— Sam26

Given that consciousness has both public and private aspects, I disagree. There is only no invisible thing associated with our public behaviour, including our talk about consciousness.
— Luke

I'm not so sure we disagree here. There are private experiences going on all the time, but in order to talk about these private experiences there has to be the public component. I'm referring to the use of the word soul. The religious idea that there is some private thing that represents the soul, i.e., that gives meaning to the concept, is problematic. The use of the word apart from the religious use, is associated with that which animates the body, or the actions of the body. There are obviously unseen things going on. — Sam26

The public part being that which allows us to access the concepts and ideas associated with what's happening to us privately. Without the public part there would be no talking about consciousness, period. — Sam26

If you mean there is no scientific avenue of investigation into these private experiences, that too, seems false to me. We investigate these private experiences all the time in science. To investigate the person (their private experiences) is to investigate consciousness. We can easily collect data on such an investigation, and have collected data. — Sam26

There is no invisible thing associated with consciousness. — Sam26

Yes, that's right. The 'feeling of pain' is not a reified object. It's a folk notion. It exists in that sense (like the category 'horses' exists), but there's no physical manifestation of it. — Isaac

Then how could we ever learn to use the word?
— Luke

By trying it out and it's having a useful and predictable effect. — Isaac

Yes. I find it philosophically interesting too. What I'm arguing against here is there being any kind of 'problem' with the fact that neuroscience (dealing with physically instantiated entities) cannot give a one-to-one correspondence account connecting these entities to the folk notions 'pain' and 'consciousness' (as well as 'feeling', 'it's like...', 'aware', etc).

It's not a problem because it's neither the task, nor expected of science to explain all such folk notions in terms of physically instantiated objects and their interactions.

Basically, because (2) is at least possible, there's no 'hard problem' of consciousness because neuroscience's failure to account for it in terms of one-to-one correspondence with physically instantiated objects may be simply because there is no such correspondence to be found. — Isaac

I don't follow why there cannot be a feeling of pain associated.
— Luke

The quote was "... cannot not be a feeling of pain associated." — Isaac

there's no physical manifestation of the word 'pain' — Isaac

I'm arguing something like (2) for both 'pain' and 'consciousness'. — Isaac

...the last bit doesn't make sense. There cannot not be a feeling 'pain' associated with the felicitous use of the word 'pain'. It's what the word means. — Isaac

Did I, or did I not use the word 'pain' in the sentence "There is always a feeling of pain associated with the (felicitous use of the) word pain"? — Isaac

There is always a feeling of pain associated with the (felicitous use of the) word pain. — Isaac

Your "agreement" that people have pains seems to be no more than that people know how to use the word "pain"; that there is never any feeling of pain involved.
— Luke

That's right. — Isaac

I use the word 'pain' same as everyone else because I've been taught how to use it. One of the ways to use it is to say (of someone saying "ouch!") "he's in pain". Nothing in that use reifies 'pain'. — Isaac

I don't see any argument that us using a word somehow automatically means there's an object/event there in need of explanation. How are we always right? Are you claiming we have some kind of deep intuitive insight into the workings of the universe? I'm just not seeing the link. — Isaac

Your "agreement" that people have pains seems to be no more than that people know how to use the word "pain"; that there is never any feeling of pain involved.
— Luke

That's right. — Isaac

Is it not scientifically relevant to investigate mental events?
— Luke

Investigate, yes. But it's not a problem for the science that it can't find anything which correlates to the folk notion. It's not its job to match everything up. Some things won't match. To suggest that everything will match up is to imply we already know all the fundamental objects of the universe somehow. — Isaac

As far as I know, anomalous monism does not deny that there are mental events.
— Luke

Nor am I. — Isaac

A word can't be defined as a thing. That's the whole point of Wittgenstein's argument against reference. We use the word pain, it does a job, it's not pointing at a thing. — Isaac

I'm a competent user of English, so I can agree that people have pains and doubts since I know how to use both of those words. — Isaac

Nothing in my use of the words commits me to the existence of some scientifically relevant entity to which they point. — Isaac

Words don't point at things. — Isaac

if there's something you don't understand about anomalous monism — Isaac

Then it is not only about the use of words; it is also about actually having pain
— Luke

'Pain' is a word. — Isaac

I'm not arguing that using a word necessarily implies the existence of anything.
— Luke

Yet...

it follows that there are things/people which exist that can have pains and doubts (among other things).
— Luke

...is a direct claim about existence resulting from the use of a word. — Isaac

if you agree with Wittgenstein's statement that it makes no sense for one to doubt they are in pain, then it follows that there are things/people which exist that can have pains and doubts — Luke

Exactly. "If..." The existence is not given by the use. — Isaac

It seems to me that you also equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies.
— Luke

Does it? From which particular comments? — Isaac

Because the word 'doubt' has no meaning in that context. Doubt is used when the data is lacking, but the data can't be lacking about pain because we treat the data as being already given. It's part of the definition. — Isaac

It isn't. Necessity is a modal concept. That which must exist. The only way I can see it entering into logic is modally - if X then Y. So we could say "if the word doubt refers to a scientific object/event, then it implies there's a thinking subject also as a scientific object", but simply using the word doesn't cash out that modality. — Isaac

From the article... — Isaac

...despite his appeal to "notional worlds," Dennett still owes his reader an account of how we are able to interpret the content of "reports" that others make and the content of the
beliefs they hold. And even he realises that the heterophenomenological "process depends on assumptions about which language is being spoken, and some of the speaker's intentions." But he gives no explanation as to how we are able to interpret these quasi-'reports' of others. For example, in collaborating to create your heterophenomenological world I hear you say "I see a purple cow." But what is it that I take you to be saying? How am I to understand the meaning of that report if it is referring to some item in your notional world? What is it about my knowledge of English that enables me to know what you mean? It cannot be that I understand you because I know what kind of notional objects your words designate. For, to put the point succinctly, the private-language argument will work just as effectively against objects in a notional world as in a private inner world. Beetles in boxes are beetles in boxes, whether they are real or notional. [...]

I believe it helps to see how unbehaviourist [Wittgenstein] really was when we contrast his position to that of Dennett's. For in concentrating solely on the "grammar" of our mental discourse, by rejecting the name-object picture of language as altogether inappropriate in this domain, Wittgenstein is led to a more satisfactory view of the nature and importance of consciousness. He has not tried to equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies, rather he has reminded us that in treating others as conscious we are always engaged in an interpretative project (broadly conceived) informed by our form of life.

The word 'doubt' is used in such a way as makes "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical, makes "I doubt I'm thinking" garbage... — Isaac

But these are facts about the use of the word 'doubt', they're not about logical necessity. — Isaac

If, for example, I declare that 'whatsits' have 5 arms and 'thingamabobs' have 2 it is logically implied that 'whatsits' have more arms. But this says nothing about the necessary existence of either. — Isaac

If I use a word 'doubt' and it's sensible use requires also an 'I' to do the doubting, this likewise says nothing about the necessary existence of either. — Isaac

He's pointing out what it "makes sense" to say - the internal coherence of the language. — Isaac

So we haven't discovered a truth of any sort. we just use a word a certain way and people know what to do with it when we do. — Isaac

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. — Wittgenstein, PI 246

Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour — for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.
This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. — Wittgenstein, PI 246

Lukes error was to suppose that expressing a rule had to be either stating it, and hence effable, or enacting it, and hence ineffable, but you were pointing out that we can follow a rule that can also be stated, and hence the doing is not ineffable. — Banno

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. 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

Lukes error was to suppose that expressing a rule had to be either stating it, and hence effable, or enacting it, and hence ineffable, but you were pointing out that we can follow a rule that can also be stated, and hence the doing is not ineffable. — Banno

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. — Banno

So folk ought restrict themselves to not saying anything more about the ineffable than that it is ineffable.
— Banno

But that's saying something about it, according to you.
— Luke

Now you're getting it. — Banno

...nothing else can be said about something except that it's ineffable... Crisis averted.
— Luke

So folk ought restrict themselves to not saying anything more about the ineffable than that it is ineffable. — Banno

What Witti points out is that, that you cannot have my sensation is a direct result of it's being my sensation. If you had it, too, it would by that very fact no longer be just my sensation...

248. The sentence “Sensations are private” is comparable to “One plays patience by oneself”. — Banno

Here's the issue that plagues any attempt to claim ineffability:

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

Can you escape this paradox? — Banno

My reply, to you and to various others, was summed up in what you quoted above,

(it) pretends that our sensations are prior to our "being in the world". It assumes the perspective of an homunculus. — Banno

"The cup has one handle" is true IFF the cup has one handle. — Banno

I can only imagine that the findings that there isn’t a one-to-one correspondence comes from testing subjects’ neural activity while they are smelling coffee (or while they are “in the presence of coffee” as you originally put it). Therefore, what is in common to them all is that they are smelling coffee.
— Luke

Thinking of coffee does it too. Smelling something you think is going to be coffee but isn't, expecting coffee...
— Isaac

Does what too?
— Luke

Triggers one of a number of neural networks associated with reports of 'smelling coffee'.

I'm baffled as to why this is causing such confusion.

Several different neural events result in us reporting we experience 'smelling coffee'

There's no single thing connecting all the different events other than that they all happen to result (sometimes) in reports of 'smelling coffee'

Since there's no biological link, and no external world link, the only conclusion we can reach is that it's our own post hoc construction to conceptualise any given neural event as 'smelling coffee'. — Isaac

I can only imagine that the findings that there isn’t a one-to-one correspondence comes from testing subjects’ neural activity while they are smelling coffee (or while they are “in the presence of coffee” as you originally put it). Therefore, what is in common to them all is that they are smelling coffee.
— Luke

Nope. Thinking of coffee does it too. — Isaac

That argument is circular. If you decide that some collection of neural activity is called 'smelling coffee' then obviously 'smelling coffee' is going to then be common to all, you defined it that way. — Isaac

We've no apparent biological reason to group the various neural goings on in the way we do. No reason to have the collection 'smelling coffee' at all, other than for communication. — Isaac

Yes, but the key thing that some miss, 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... We make a Bayesian inference that what's going on fits with the story that "I smell coffee". Which, of course, is where the unavoidably culturally-embedded nature of 'experiencing coffee' comes in, since we wouldn't have the rules, the criteria for what sorts of mental goings on might fit the narrative 'smelling coffee' without learning the words 'smelling' and 'coffee' (or the non-linguistic equivalent, for the dumb, or the deaf). — Isaac

my reply to ↪Luke
, repeating a point made on page one:

"Suppose someone had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would they then be a bike rider? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike." — Banno

We can't put the tree or the smell or the bike ride or ↪jgill
's olympic diver into words. they are things in the world, not sentences. If you like, call them ineffable, but don't make the mistake of thinking that we can't therefor talk about them. We can, and we do. — Banno

You said that we do talk about sensations. However, Wittgenstein says of his beetle that "The thing in the box doesn’t belong to the language-game at all". If the beetle in the box represents sensations (as Richard B suggests here), then it seems like you are advocating both positions? — Luke

304. “But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour with pain and pain-behaviour without pain.” — Admit it? What greater difference could there be? — “And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a Nothing.” — Not at all. It’s not a Something, but not a Nothing either! The conclusion was only that a Nothing would render the same service as a Something about which nothing could be said. We’ve only rejected the grammar which tends to force itself on us here.
The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts — which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or whatever. — Philosophical Investigations

Do you intend to address these questions, Banno?
— Luke

Behold! We are not done yet! There is more! — Banno

Because it gets to the intent of the post, without the "knowing" that confused the issue
— Banno

Okay, so what was the original intent if it wasn't about knowledge? — Luke

Do we talk about them? Or do they drop out of the conversation as irrelevant? — Luke

Exactly. Somehow sensations are supposed to occupy some middle (@Moliere) ground, private, ineffable, yet the foundation of our understanding (@Constance).

You clever folk all agree, but can't explain it. I call bullshit.
— Banno

You said that we do talk about sensations. However, Wittgenstein says of his beetle that "The thing in the box doesn’t belong to the language-game at all". If the beetle in the box represents sensations (as Richard B suggests here), then it seems like you are advocating both positions? — Luke

Didn't I already acknowledge this, in saying "sure, I'm using the word in a special way"? Surely we're still able to make distinctions? — Moliere

It'd be more interesting to say something is ineffable because it's not even teachable, or not even learn-able, rather than because we don't know something. — Moliere

78. Compare knowing and saying:

how many metres high Mont Blanc is —
how the word “game” is used —
how a clarinet sounds.

Someone who is surprised that one can know something and not be able to say it is perhaps thinking of a case like the first. Certainly not of one like the third. — Philosophical Investigations

Do we talk about them? Or do they drop out of the conversation as irrelevant? — Luke

Exactly. Somehow sensations are supposed to occupy some middle (@Moliere) ground, private, ineffable, yet the foundation of our understanding (@Constance).

You clever folk all agree, but can't explain it. I call bullshit. — Banno

I agree sensations are entirely ineffable. — Mww

And yet we do talk about them. — Banno

I believe an exhaustive list of instructions will not give one knowledge of how to ride a bike, because I'd say that we do have to actually do something in order to learn. I have read my piano books, but practicing them everyday is how I learn (in a more perfect me, at least) — Moliere

But I also want to say that this doesn't make it ineffable -- where you say an exhaustive list will give someone knowledge, I'm hesitant because I'm thinking about how practice seems to be needed too. — Moliere

Working my way through an example-- anyone who didn't know how to ride a bike, supposing this was a good list of instructions, would upon reading it now know how to ride a bike. Hence, it is effable, by your account. Right? — Moliere

Right! I think what I want to say, though, is that after being shown, what was ineffable is no longer ineffable. And, if that be the case, it suggests that we could continue this process of turning what is, right now, ineffable to us -- into something which is no longer ineffable. — Moliere

Wouldn't we just have to know everything in order to be able to say, definitively, this is what can be said while gesturing to what can't? — Moliere

But then there's the case of coming-to-know, and knowledge-production, and that we can learn. — Moliere

So I think I want to use "the ineffable" in a specialized way to mean that which cannot even be learned by creatures like us. Immortality is the case I like to use because it's clear-cut -- in order for creatures like us to learn if they are immortal, we have to die. If we die, we're no longer a creature. Therefore, a creature like us will never learn if we are immortal. It's ineffable. — Moliere

I want to say this specialized case is different from the case of learning how to ride a bike. How to ride a bike, in the dictionary . com definition way, is ineffable. But immortality, in this specialized sense, is ineffable in principle (again, for creatures like us). — Moliere

Because it gets to the intent of the post, without the "knowing" that confused the issue — Banno