As a phenomenological philosopher, I have a hard time finding this comment useful. Neither would contributors to journals like Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. — Joshs

I'm wondering why you even bothered to take the time to respond to such a vacuous, facile comment.

If you're to claim "It seems to me that X, therefore X" then there's no investigation. The answer is already fully presented to you. That's the point I'm making.

An 'investigation' requires, by definition, that you accept things might not be as they first seem to you to be. — Isaac

How things appear is not always, or even mostly, obvious. So, phenomenology calls for paying attention to experience, reflecting on the results and synthesizing insights from that process. If you've ever tried to draw or paint "from nature" you'd understand what I'm talking about. the arts are predominately phenomenological pursuits.

The empirical investigations of science are in some ways analogous and in others very different. To seek to hold one way of investigation up as the 'true one" which trumps and corrects all the others shows a narrow polemical way of thinking; it is one of the ways of the ideologue, as I see it.

All I can suggest to help you understand better is to take up meditation, or painting and drawing, or writing poetry, or music, anything to free you from a dualistic, objectivist. machine-like mentality, and perhaps try reading some phenomenology, so you at least understand it before deciding to criticise it..

If, after sufficient investigation, you find it's not for you, that's fine, but that would say more about you than phenomenology

Aren't there 'fine people' on both sides? (sorry) — Tom Storm

Yes, I have no doubt there are. The 'fine people' makes me wonder if your question is tongue in cheek, but I've answered it assuming it was not.

I hear you and it is a fascinating matter - to me anyway. I have heard it argued that epoché is like some accounts of meditation or prayer. Do you think this is fair for some forms of epoché. You seem to be suggesting this in the second para above. I've often thought of mediation as an attempt to encounter the ineffable. — Tom Storm

I'm also fascinated by the possibility of altering consciousness, and prayer and meditation are considered by many to be suitable anthropotechnics* for the purpose. To be transformative it would seem the epoché would have to be more than just an intellectual exercise of bracketing and shifting focus.

I do see meditation as a technique to be used for "encountering the ineffable". Hallucinogens are another 'shinkansen' way, but don't seem to yield permanent results, as meditation is claimed to be able to do by some.

As I've said, I think our experience in general is ineffable, where 'ineffable' means 'not susceptible of adequate propositional expression'..We experience particularities and speak in generalities.

* This term was coined by Peter Sloterdijk, and I encountered it in You Must Change Your Life (well worth reading).

:up:

Hmmm. I actually think it is possible to ask questions just to get other's perspectives based on their experiences. :razz: Can I do epoché it is not the question I was asking. I was wondering if others could here and whether it paid off for them (to use a crass expression). — Tom Storm

OK, fair enough: I guess it depends on what is meant by "doing epoché". If it means simply not focusing on the metaphysical question concerning the independent reality of phenomena, I don't see how that could be so difficult. As I said I think scientists for the most part, ignore that question: "Shut up and calculate"; in any case the question certainly doesn't seem to be a necessary part of scientific practice.

If it were taken to mean something like a radical alteration of consciousness, as, for example, satori is understood to be in Zen Buddhism, where the independent reality of phenomena might be said to be no longer unreflectively presupposed, then that might be more of a challenge, and you would need to try for yourself.

Do you think there's a potential thread in epoché? — Tom Storm

I don't know, it might turn out to be a very short one.

But I'll say materialism is "winning" in my mind at the moment. And mostly for ethical reasons, rather than the usual debates. But I know materialists have done bad things, too, so.... ever and forever thinking back and forth. — Moliere

I'd say bad things are done by ideologues, and there are plenty of those on both sides.

How will you show that my private first person experience is false?

How will you show that your private first person experience is false?

Think that makes my point. It's not falsifiable, and hence not empirical.

Hence

The epoche isnt in conflict with the results of neuroscience — Joshs

is right. Phenomenology is not science. It's more like prayer. — Banno

But I don't see how either are more than...

The epoché is not a falsifiable notion, so it could not be in conflict with any empirical evidence. The epoché is more like a prayer. — Banno — Isaac

The epoché doesn't purport to be falsifiable, because it is simply the setting aside of a question in order to focus on other things. It is analogous to science which is not really concerned with the metaphysical questions concerning the reality of the phenomena it investigates.

So, in making that statement and asking the inappropriate questions about the "falsity" of first person experience you commit a basic category error.

Phenomenology is simply an investigation into how phenomena are experienced; I don't see what it has in common with prayer as traditionally conceived which consists in "petitioning the Lord", although you could say it has something in common with meditation. I suppose.

But what could possibly constitute such a 'focus'? Things appear to us as they appear to us. If you look harder you don't get to some 'more real' version because you've got no external reference against which to measure this quality. — Isaac

There is a difference between noticing how things appear to us, and analyzing the results to form general principles, and simply carrying on with life, which doesn't necessarily involve noticing the general ways in which things appear, as opposed to simply reacting in accustomed ways, to appearances.

You don't need to afford empirical science an special place, but simply by accepting it (the evidence of the lab) you have a contradiction to resolve between models. your folk model and the empirical model don't knit together. You could have one or the other, but not both. — Isaac

Merleau Ponty, for one, took into account and used scientific results in his investigations. Phenomenological results may or may not be in accord with "folk models"; and they don't contradict empirical results simply because they are from totally different perspectives; the first and third person perspectives respectively. You seem to be making the same rookie error as @Banno, in assuming that there is only one "correct" perspective. only one all-encompassing "truth".

Is it even possible to achieve epoche? It sounds tricky and mystical. — Tom Storm

I can't help you with that, mate; you won't know until you try, and if you are not prepared to try, then there is no point asking the question. It's like asking whether it is possible to understand QM, since it is so difficult and counter-intuitive; you won't know whether it is possible for you unless you attempt it. I'm not prepared to attempt QM, so I don't ask the question.

Zahavi argues that phenomenology practised in psychology and the arts, and areas outside of philosophy generally ignore this transcendental expression of phenomenology. — Tom Storm

Husserl's approach is not the only one, and has been modified and critiqued by other phenomenologists, notably Heidegger. Also bear in mind that the epoché and the transcendental reduction are not the same thing.

But I don't see how either are more than...

The epoché is not a falsifiable notion, so it could not be in conflict with any empirical evidence. The epoché is more like a prayer. — Banno — Isaac

The epoché is simply the bracketing of the question about the reality of the external world, so as to focus on the phenomena as they seem to present themselves to us, so Banno's comment seems oddly inapt.

. Having established that our introspected assessment of what's going on is frequently flawed anyway, — Isaac

Our assessment of what seems to be going on is not flawed, and what, outside the context of neural activity, which we simply don't experience, could "what is really going on" even mean?

Either way, wouldn’t the full list be never completed, hence never expressed, hence remain inexpressible? — javra

Well, I did say that a list might be complete, yet we be unable to tell that it is.

As you say there may be forms of expression we cannot imagine.

But back to: if you think some things are inexpressible in words then prove it expressing in words that which you deem to so be inexpressible in words — javra

:lol: Should I waste my time trying to rise to an impossible challenge?

Why, thank you. Very kind. It's true, many things seem odd to me that seem ordinary to others. — Banno

That's probably a good thing...don't take anything for granted.

Tea time.

I'm having tea as I type this, but I swear there is something inexpressible about the taste...

Many things seem to be "odd" according to you. Says more about you than the things. In any case, I think it is salient, even if oddly so,since it would only be that which is uncompleteable in principle, which is philosophically relevant.

There's a difference between a list that could never, in principle, be completed. and one which is potentially finite, but large enough that we could never find the time to complete it, or be able to tell if it was complete.

I am going to try to give this idea of “seeming to have a experience” some sense. But we will have to accept that a human is just a machine and that there is a world that we experience. Lets assume there is a color detecting machine. You place a red object in front of it and on its screen it will report what color the object is. The machine goes on working fine but one day it reports that the object is red when no object was placed in front of it. Do we want to say the machine seems to experience red? Or would it better to say it is broken and needs to be fixed? What about human making such a claim of experiencing red when there is no red object? Does the human seem to have the experience or is just broken? — Richard B

That humans are "just machines" and that "there is a world that we experience" are not two necessarily conjoined ideas. The first is from a particular methodological perspective, namely that of science, and the second is common to all perspectives, that is no one denies that we experience (or at least seem to experience) what we call a "world". Leaving aside the question as to whether there really is a world, experiencing and seeming to experience are not distinct as far as i can tell.

So, you draw an analogy between someone claiming they have experienced red when they are hallucinating and a machine designed to detect and respond when red objects are placed in front of it, that has broken down, and responded inappropriately to some non-red object.

The difference is that the machine makes no claim and has no thoughts on the matter, but just responds inappropriately, and that seems to me to be a very great difference. In other words the machine does not think it is experiencing red, either correctly or erroneously.

The experience consists in the sensations, feelings and images of the body-mind. They don't all have to be conscious, or reflexively conscious, let alone reported. — Janus


If that's the definition of experience you prefer, then we definitely don't have experiences of 'red'. We just have some neurons fire. Else, which of them are the sub-conscious experience of 'red'? The V4 cluster? BA7? Parietal lobe? Which bits would be 'red'? — Isaac

Seeing something red (and whatever else goes with that) is an impression, image or sensation, whatever you want to call it, experienced by the body-mind, You seem to be trying to look at it from the perspective of neuronal activity, which is a performative contradiction since there is no experience of neuronal activity and hence no neuronal "perspective". If I seem to be having an experience then I am having an experience: I can only see absurdity in trying to deny that; in saying "I don't really have an experience".

No, that's not how it seems to me. Experiences are all post hoc constructions. What 'comes first' is not an experience. It's not something we can report, nor anything that we're even conscious of. It's just a load of neural activity which, as we should all know by now, does not have any kind of one-to-one relation with the sorts of things we talk about like balls, colours, or words. all of that is constructed afterwards as a way of explaining what just happened.

So it's not a case of "I threw a red ball" being an experience constructed out of the constituent experiences "throwing" redness" and "ball".

It goes...

1. {some collection of neural firing events} ->
2. "I threw a red ball" experience ->
3. (if necessary) - abstraction of 'red', 'ball' and 'threw' from that experience (2) according to the social rules around identifying those components — Isaac

OK, I can agree that it seems reasonable to think that the neural machinery operates prior to the experience, but that is irrelevant to what I am saying. The experience consists in the sensations, feelings and images of the body-mind. They don't all have to be conscious, or reflexively conscious, let alone reported.

So, I'm saying that what the dog sees; either the yellow ball or the blue ball, is different in each case. The dog is aware of the yellow ball or the blue ball, and can tell the difference, as evidenced by her responses.

Of course dogs and other animals may not be capable of the self-reflexive awareness of experiencing as humans are, since that ability may require symbolic language. Experiencing requires a perspective, and the neural machinery is not experienceable (in the sense that we have no awareness whatsoever of neural "goings on; it has no perspective).

But it makes me ponder the ineffable nature of hangovers for me - something about a headache and queasiness; but those are just words, right? :razz: — Tom Storm

Right, words will never convey what it is to enjoy a hangover if you've never had one; if you've experienced a hangover then you might relate to the words.

I have heard that some don't experience hangovers; I didn't myself until I was about mid-twenties. Maybe it's on account of having a very efficient liver, since the excess alcohol which overburdens the liver's capacity to metabolize the alcohol is converted to formaldehyde apparently, which toxifies the body. There is also the dehydration caused by alcohol's diuretic effect, but this can be counteracted by consuming adequate water during or after your drinking sessions.

There are also some who claim to find freedom in the bottle. Not good for one's liver, I hear. — Banno

:up: Ha, that is more a case of finding freedom, not in the bottle, but in the contents; and a very temporally limited freedom it is, often followed as payback, in proportion to the sense of intoxicated freedom enjoyed, by having to endure a period of even more strict unfreedom than that imposed by nature herself. Of course, the trick is to avoid the hangover by never sobering up, but I think that course comes with its own horrendous set of constraints and rigours.

It is not so much a matter of putting yourself in the bottle as it is putting the bottle in you (figuratively or metonymically speaking).

The second is that if we have two competing narratives such that there is no test to decide which one is true, then either they are consistent, amounting to two different ways of saying the very same thing, or they are inconsistent. — Banno

The third possibility is that they are narratives derived from different perspectives, which are neither consistent nor inconsistent.

It would be pretty fly of him if he could so demonstrate. :wink: — javra

:lol: Well, there are demonstrations, and then there are acceptances of the soundness of those demonstrations. Likely it is we all accept our own; hopefully not in perpetuity, though. :pray: .

There, waxed poetic a bit in turn. — javra

:up: :cool:

Right, so the (wordless) experience comes first and the post hoc narrative follows, but the latter, no matter how much in it is distorted, left out, or confabulated, supervenes on the former.

So, if I see, for example, a blue ball, that will differ from seeing a yellow ball, whether I be dog or human, and my report of that experience will vary accordingly, assuming my report is accurate.

Hence, I'm maintaining that since no language is absolute or else set in stone, all languages thereby evolve via the endorsement or proscription of word use by individuals. — javra

I agree with that and the rest of your post, but watch out, @Banno might interpret what you've said in such a way as to make it seem that you are stuck in a bottle that he has freed himself from. :wink:

Since plants, not to mention spectrometers, don't possess central nervous systems and brains it might be thought to be implausible to claim they have experiences. Dogs possess both those, and if you owned dogs I think it would seem plausible to you that they do have experiences.

Of course we can't know for sure that any beings other than ourselves have experiences, although language capable humans can report their experiences, so we can be justified in thinking it more or less certain that they do. Are you prepared to say that a human being who had been raised without learning language would have no experiences?

I see no reason to think there is not a distinction between having and reporting experiences and that having them is not contingent on being able to report having them. But again, there is no way to be absolutely certain either way.

As I said it is just an example of a possible experiment I thought of, so I don't know. But dogs are said to be able to see colours, so I guess some experiments have been done which demonstrate that. It would be easy enough to check on the Net.

I've saved you the trouble

From where do we learn that the wine and the post box are of similar enough colour for the experience they produce to be the same 'red experience'? Language. Culture. — Isaac

Of course we learn colour terms via culture. They are part of language obviously.

Yes, in the main. I would deny the claim that animals have no language, but I doubt any are sophisticated enough to delineate colour terms. — Isaac

Animals have no symbolic language such as we do, But some animals can undoubtedly recognize different colours. You could set up an experiment to show that, for example dogs, might respond differently to different coloured cards where a green card meant getting fed and a blue card meant being let out for some exercise, and where the cards were tonally identical, which would rule our their responding to different shades of grey, (I remember reading that dogs can see certain colours, but I can't remember which ones, so my suggested experiment is just an example).

That's language. You were denying the role of language. I was asking how this 'generalization' was carried out absent of language or socialisation. — Isaac

I denied the role of language in determining the colours seen, but of course language is involved in conceptualizing and talking about the colours seen, including the kind of gross generalization involved in referring to all those differently coloured objects as "red". Do you deny that animals can recognize different colours although they have no language?

Gross, but appropriate in an inappropriate kind of way.

'Red' is the word used to denote the colour of the post box, wine and rose in the example you gave.

Which one? The one you experienced with the red post box, or the one from the red wine, or the red rose, or the red car...which of them is the 'red' one? — Isaac

"Red' is a generalization applied to all of them. The experience is the experience regardless; is the post box red or maybe more orange, is the red wine red or burgundy, the rose red or dark pink, and so on. You're not going to convince me that I don't see colours or that there are no animals who see colour on account of not undergoing the requisite social induction.

It's not a mathematical type of determination, but it in such roundabout ways I find that it can be more or less decidable / determinable, yes. — javra

:up: Makes sense, in different contexts in regard to saying 'yes' or 'no' to the use of loaded words.

giant turd of analysis — unenlightened

Bloody Huge Grant. — Banno

forget Hugh Grant: as @Bartricks would say, " Bloody Hugh Janus".

Can you determine whether or not it is in one's "pragmatic favour"?

Whether it's at all in one's pragmatic favor to do so is a different matter. — javra

Decidable?

So, which is the trap: imagining that there is a real, determinate mountain there independent of human experience and conception or imagining that the mountain is an appearance resulting from an interaction we cannot get to the bottom of?

Does freeing oneself from the bottle consist in believing that we know some unimpeachable fact of the matter concerning the reality of the mountain, or does it consist in becoming comfortable with uncertainty?

There can be purpose, utility, in remaining in the trap. — Banno

As there can be in believing one has escaped a trap one has merely imagined.

"Better the bottle than Bannoland", saith the foxy Fly.

:up:

I finally found time to read that article and it says nothing I didn't already know; of course congenitally blind people can form some sort of concept of colours by hearing others talk about them, just as we do with microphysical objects, but that doesn't mean that if they suddenly regained sight that they would be able to say which names referred to which colours unless they related say blue to sky or green to leaves or grass. Red has no clear definite association like that. Underwhelming!

Only that which is unknown cannot be put into words. Only that which is unknown is ineffable. If it is known, it can be put into words and is expressible. — RussellA


All well-said.

Do we….or do we not….still need to stipulate the criteria for determining how the unknowable isn’t a mere subterfuge? Seems like that would be the logical query to follow, “only the unknown cannot be put into words”. — Mww

It depends on what you mean by "know". I know what my friend looks like, but I can't put that "knowing" into words that could communicate what she looks like such that you could, on the basis of what I told you. recognized her on the street. For me our whole experience is ineffable, since we speak only in generalities, whereas experience is particular. But again, it depends on what you mean by "ineffable"; on how you conceive its range and application.

Each may be said, indeed, to be the more fundamental, though in different senses: the one is epistemologically, the other physically, fundamental.” — Richard B

Is saying that a physicalist conceptual scheme is, from its own perspective, more physically fundamental saying anything at all?

There is no determinate fact of the mater that the mountain is a mountain? You are throwing out the principle of identity? — Banno

The principle of identity; the mountain is a mountain is a mountain is vacuous and tells us nothing whatsoever.

I'm not talking about the arbitrariness of the name, that we might have used a different word.

Amusing as this is, it all seems utterly pointless. — Banno

Precisely!

What is it you are claiming here? — Banno

I'm not claiming anything...least of all that it is a mountain, or not a mountain...

I'm trying to get you to see that there is no determinate fact of the matter.

It seems that you don't have enough rope for conquering mountains...but keep trying anyway...

It's a mountain — Banno

No, it is both a mountain and not a mountain and neither a mountain nor not a mountain. But keep on insisting if you think it weill get you somewhere

Yes, not a something, but not a nothing either.

Actually, ianus is the significant part of the appellation, typically used in Latin in adjectives formed from proper names. — Ciceronianus


So where does that leave ↪Janus
? — Banno

I- anus: i.e. I am an arsehole...but at least I am not like and/or don't follow anyone.

So, what is it we can't say about mountains? — Banno

Hilarious...you expect me to say what it is that can't be said.

Note, there is a difference between saying thst there is that which can't be said and, per imposibile, saying what "that" is. Conflating those will only confuse you further.

So I can't quite see what it is you are saying. — Banno

Of course you can't...you're excused.




:victory: you got it.

Janus
wants to talk about Himalayan politics. — Banno

No, the point was that we all have our own mountains of experience, and you want to flatten that out such that there could be no difference as to what 'mountain' means to each of us.

What you don't seem to get is that saying that there is a concrete object "mountain" "there" which we all independently experience and talk about is not so much wrong as it is just one possible way of talking about a situation we actually cannot get to the bottom of. It is the least thoughtful, naive way of thinking about it.

Another way of speaking about it; that is to say that there is "something" unknowable which gives rise to the human experience commonly referred to as "mountain", is neither more nor less correct, per se, but has the advantage of being more philosophically, phenomenologically, subtle .

That you don't personally favour the latter way of thinking says everything about you and nothing about the merits or demerits of either way of thinking.