This quote is taken from the investigation of what those who ascribe to the notion of private phenomena call private phenomena. Specifically, it was motivated by a generalization of a discussion on the sensation we call pain.
When I first encountered the notion of private experience/phenomena in a debate with Spiritus Mundi back in my aynrandlover days, it stung me in a way that Kant might have felt when he first read Hume’s Treatise. It was, at once, so wonderfully complicated and yet at the same time so startlingly simple. But simple notions have a way of misleading the thinker, and this case is no different for me. The notion of PP (private phenomena) is starting to trouble me greatly.
On one hand, to assert that there are no PP would empirically require me to demonstrate that I know (in some tolerable sense; i.e.-- stands up to falisifiability, for example, if that is your method of discerning empirical knowledge) what you are “feeling” when you experience a PP like pain, or perhaps like self-awareness. And this seems relatively simple; after all, does pain as a word not serve a useful purpose in language? Do I not know what you mean when you say that such-and-such causes you pain? But then, on the other hand, have I not fallen into the chimerical trap Wittgenstein mentions; that is, am I not understanding your use of “beetle” by looking in my own box?
The trouble, it seems, is not in the notion of PP qua PP, but rather in any discussion involving PP. For doesn’t meaning imply knowledge of something? I’m taking a deliberately weak an intuitive view of meaning and truth here, I don’t want to be led down one path too quickly. But, sufficient to say, if there is meaning at all, how can a discussion involving PP have meaning?
In a correspondence sense, we may share the word tree by pointing to a tree and saying “tree”. If done contextually, I think most people will agree that it is simple to match meaning with object. But in the case of PP, the object is unavailable for pointing; this must be so, by the very nature of PP: the “box” shields all eyes but our own. Not subscribing wholesale to the correspondence theory of truth/meaning I’m not particularly troubled by this alone, but a rejection of wholesale correspondence doesn’t eliminate the requirement that one demonstrate, then, where meaning actually comes from in the case of PP.
PP seems to be the epitome of subjectivity, and furthermore seems to encompass everything. Any notion of phenomenology seems to fall prey to the notion of everything being a PP qua PP, for we are “trapped” behind the phenomenological barrier; that is to say, everything is sensation. It seems that the idea of PP must give somehow. We must be able to share PP (and hence make them not-so-private). They needn’t be public, but merely not-so-private. But how is this accomplished? What is the platform from which we may make our first leap?
Color is another good discussion. We all call what we see as green “green”. We are, in a way, trained to do so. And in fact, we all call [specific band of wavelength] green. Yet this says nothing about the sensation of green. The sensation of green, for me, might be roughly equivalent to your sensation of yellow, for instance. With this in mind, it is plausible that all humans actually, if they have a favorite color, actually all enjoy the same sensation. Yet what they are trained to call that sensation differs. Could we ever know? If we can’t know, what (if anything) seperates this sensation from other PP like pain?
I hope I have explained this clear enough and not made any tangential comments.
†[sub]Excerpt from Philosophical Investigations.[/sub]
I’ll try and state what I know of PP without going into a meglomanaic or solpist state of mind, but I may fail.
The idea of PP and use of language is a tricky thing. As a human (I’ll assume you are) you are told that when a certain event happens, lets say you stub your toe, what you feel is pain. The feeling “pain” here would be your “beetle”. What your beetle exist to you as is something completely different from what someone else feels, but its still your beetle. There may have been the chance that I was born I had no feeling in my toe (beetle in my box). This would lead me to believe that even though I shouldn’t feel pain (see a beetle) I would still derive some sensation that I would name pain, because thats what other people seem to identify it as. You have to take into account social construct theory and all that rot.
Lets change the idea a little. What if someone gave you a box, and there was something inside that you somehow couldn’t explain to anyone else (your head would explode Blade Runner style or something like that). You also saw that everyone else was walking around wtih a box. What would happen? Would you assume everyone had the same thing? Why wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t everyone else be doing the same thing? You would end up basing your ideas of what is in other people’s box on what you saw, because that would be the only thing you have to run on.
When someone describes “joy” to me, I think of my own personal construct of what joy is. My idea of “joy” has come is an aggregate of what I have “seen” (facail, more bouncy, etc.) other people expereince when they tell me they are happy. If you were a man on the moon, and the only man on the moon, and never have seen another man, would you even bother to explain what you felt? No because you woudln’t need too (unless you talked to rocks…)
I think I had better stop… I’m taking breaks between writing things when work provides time and Its making this a bit too jumbled… So this is my general take on Personal Phenomena… (whcih I can’t spell…) I’ll try and look back at this thread to see if I can defend myself if I need too…
-Duncan
If Life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life give you a truck load of hand grenades what then?
…phenomena are wonderful things. Although I know nothing about your cricket, erl, I can make several objectively verifiable assertions regarding its possible limits, as I have so much objective information regarding the box you keep it in.
Pain and other purely sensory perceptions are neurological responses to specific stimuli, determined by biological construction. Knowing (or assuming) that erl is human, I also know which stimuli will produce certain neurological responses in erl. I don’t know what those neural impulses actually “feel” like to erl, but I’m going to call them “pain” any way, because that’s what we’ve named the response.
So, what we’re really doing when we talk in general terms about these PP is describing the box, rather than the cricket. But that seems to be sufficient if you’re looking for the way we’re able to publically share these private perceptions.
Of course, as soon as you start talking about emotional responses, the box gets a bit murkier… But, that’s why we invented poetry…
xenophon41, you make a very good point about what produces the neurologically response which we call “pain” (the box). If I understand erl’s OP, though, I think the point is that we might all agree on the shape of the box (green, pain, tree) but not share the same experience of, perception of, response to what is inside.
erl, this is interesting because I think it has a bearing on the perspectives I’ve presented in other threads where we’ve talked – in ways I haven’t fully sorted through just yet. But let me think out loud for a bit, if I may. This may be tangential to the discussion you actually wish to have; if so, please tell me to pipe down and I will.
Take the collection of modern disciplines which we call “science”. For purposes of argument, I’m thinking of disciplines such as physics and chemistry, the so-called “hard sciences”, which we can all probably agree are “science” even if we can’t agree on a precise definition for “science” in general. A good deal of science depends on observations which, to the scientists, are demonstrably the same. “Green” applies to a certain range of frequencies on the electro-magnetic spectrum. A “tree” has a recognizable physical form. “Pain” can be described as a certain biochemical reaction/process which occurs inside specific cells in the body and the brain. Science depends on observing the box – and, if you will, drawing conclusions and constructing theories about how the boxes are constructed, where they come from, how they might fit together, etc. – but it does not usually depend on the experience of the contents (PP). In fact, I think science necessarily excludes PP from its purview, because it can’t examine the contents of the boxes in the same way it can observe the boxes i.e. by what we call “objective criteria”. Most of the time this is fine.
But how do we proceed when the contents of the box are of interest – say, when we talk about “consciousness”, “sentience”, “soul”, and so on? In such cases, the contents (of lack thereof) of the box are as important, or perhaps more so, than the box itself. We can’t fully understand the box marked “consciousness” unless we can look inside the box. Yet the premise of the OP is that it is not possible for one person to look inside another’s box, to find out whether the word “beetle” means the same. One can’t study something “scientifically” without being objective (an agreed-upon box shape); yet we can’t study “consciousness” (“beetle”) without subjectivity, because consciousness – the very way in which each person uses the word “beetle” – is very much a PP experience. Perhaps we all do use the word “beetle” in exactly the same way, to mean exactly the same thing – but our very paradigm of “science” prevents us from ever “proving” (another box) whether that is the case.
I may be putting this badly, and for that I apologize and will be happy to try to explain further, tomorrow. But the essence of my point is, I think, this: the problem I have with modern “science” is that it assumes that everything is boxes without contents, and that this is proved by the fact that if you take a box apart, it has no “inside” to hold anything.
I would also submit that it is not impossible to peek at the contents of someone else’s box of PP, or helping someone see inside his/her own box – but that “science” cannot admit this without accepting its own limits. Such fields of endeavor must appear in the trappings of “science” or they are dismissed as worthless. But there is a difference between studying boxes and studying the contents of your box: the motivations for doing each is quite different.
I’ll check back tomorrow and see whether I made any sense!!!
But xen, is that to say that PP are meaningless? We’ve resorted to pointing at trees again (by pointing at public response to whatever). Sensation is nowhere to be found. Can we discuss sensation (not asking you "Hey, let’s do it), but rather, is it theoretically possible)?
Your mention of public states also brings up an interesting question. Can we say that public states are representation/manifestations of private ones? But this seems to lead to paradox. Consider (in fact I just emailed a friend about this a few days ago, so here’s a copy and paste!)
It seems that understanding a PP from a public one involves the recursion of already having access to a PP! The above cases feel suspiciously like a contradiction in terms to me.
It’s areas of non-transparency still left with us; I don’t believe indefinately though. One interesting aspect is the use of hyperbole to express the mere presence of a state; simply because people are so unwilling to place their faith in the non-transparent, psycho-behavioral systems of others.
I would definately suggest utilizing as a variable, peoples use of hyperbole to convey the existence of a state; when pondering “private phenomenon” (which of course could simply be data on the paper placemat in a Dennies of alternate reality).
Questions to ponder:
Is private phenomenon required for existence?
Are you only interested in the profundity of your private phenomenon (asked because others may not have those limitations)?
Re: science and box contents. I think your description is pretty much on the nose, Jerevan. I would only add that in addition to dismantling boxes to check their construction, science is also in the business of finding and reducing more boxes. Rational inquiry alone may never fully define the content of “consciousness”, but a great many consciousness-related boxes have been identified in the past 50 years that were unknown before. In this way the ineffable qualities of consciousness are being slowly reduced. (Arguably, there is an irreducible core that will forever remain a mystery. I hope so.)
Of course not! But, as Lib would say, they are only meaningful in their own context. So, to the extent that you can share the context of your personal phenomena (that is to say, to the limits of your ability to covey your perceptions) you can share their meaning.
I guess that depends on how you define “having access to a PP”. In your Case 1 (lying), your deception can reveal as much as truthful communication, if I have enough experience with you and can uncover the lie. In Case 2, I think that my understanding of your mental processes is predicated not only on what you say, but also on what I already know about you (meaning, what you have revealed, and what I have surmised). So it’s possible for you to convey a concept incorrectly to someone with great experience of you, and have that concept comprehended correctly merely because of the other party’s limited apprehension of you as a person.
The problem I see here revolves around polar forms.
Non-polar forms are unillaterally aknowledged as a concrete sensory equality.
There will never be an opposite to a “tree” or a “television”.
The problems that arise from polar forms is that the argument of perspective can always be inverted to reverse the polarity.
Some aspects have multi-dimensional polarity such as color and direction; allowing for any of those arguments to be inverted with a valid logical structure. This is true even if the items aren’t in a box.
Simply piling the perspective of “lying” on top of an inversion; does not negate the logical validity of the inversion (otherwise it would be inexpressable).
For areas of non-transparency we keep individual “passwords” of various encryption strengths to determine if someone is able to access your trust; where a standard has not been actuallized.
Once a standard is actuallized, the data moves into transparency and the polarity drops; thus the problem dissappears.
It seems to me that the critical question is whether or not reality relies upon PP to be sustained. That is where the meaning or meaninglessness will be found IMO.
Jerevan, slipped on in there while I was composing mine, I see.
I think we see the matter similarly in some respects; a deconstruction of private phenomenon doesn’t explain them and also destroys them. Certain persons might conclude that there was nothing there in the first place, but I think we agree that this isn’t necessarily the case. Cutting the bottom off a cup will allow one to study its cylindrical shape better, but it would be silly to say that a cup can’t hold liquid because of it, right?
But this is preceisely my problem! Words cannot actually refer to these objects (at least, not “like” they may refer to that which exists outside" of us), so in what manner may/can we speak of these things?
It seems almost impossible to describe green other than pointing at green things. What can I say were someone to ask me the question, “What is it like to see green?” Why, it isn’t like anything at all. Well, in fact, it is like something… it is like seeing orange, but that doesn’t answer the question, does it?
Does the question make any sense? Can language only consist of objective referents?
xenophon
But those are the questions! What is that limit, and how is it done?
But here is the recursion: to have experience to cover the lie (assuming I haven’t made an obvious tactical error like saying clouds are made of shoestrings) you must have already gained access to PP. Do you suppose that we really are never referring to other’s experiences but always relating them to our own? But of course, that can’t be right, because then there could be no empathy, and there could be no sense in which we understand others who are not like us (which, in truth, everyone is “not like me”).
It is the method that I don’t understand.
Perhaps it is that all we have is the box. And all we have is the notion that “When that has happened to me, then I would feel such-and-such.” I suppose I don’t mind this in itself, but I wonder what the limits of private experience are, or knowledge about them. Do I assume that you experience pain, or do I know it?
Does everybody share the same experience when they eat garlic bread?
Well, no. I heard on NPR that the ability to detect certain tastes varies across the population. Some chemicals that elicit a strong response in some people elicit no response in others.
Ok, what about color? We both know what green is. Do all sighted humans experience green in the same way?
Well, many of us surely experience red differently: mild color blindness is not uncommon among men, I understand. So, the answer is “no”.
Ok, what about pain?
Surely not, to the extent that I may experience a “stubbing the toe” experience in subtly different ways, depending upon my mood. Ergo, 2 different people with different experiences probably experience the “stub-toe-sensory-symphony” differently.
So are we all little black boxes then?
a) Well, no. From our shared outward responses to similar stimuli, we can conclude that we have similar (not identical) inward experiences.
b) Then there’s the argument from biology (comparable bodies, ergo comparable minds) and evolution (shared ancestors, shared ancestral environment, ergo shared basic experiences).
I hope this helps. As an aside, I must note that I invariably feel unequipped in threads like this, as I seem to be incapable of tackling these problems except by way of concrete example.
erislover, I agree with flowbark’s points 4)a) and 4)b) above (actually, I agree with all of the points).
We all create private perceptual universes, but they are not without windows, I think. Remember the blind men and the elephant? I may believe an elephant is very like a rope, while you think it’s very much like a wall. Both of our experiences of an elephant are private, but we have points of comparison, and we have the ability to comprehend each other’s point of view. You experienced the elephant as a wall, but you also know what a rope is like, so you can empathize with my experience of the elephant, and I with yours. We can also map out the elephant, and widen our experience.
I don’t know what the limits are to your ability to glimpse the contents of other boxes, but I know the methodology is to examine the box and to look for more boxes. So, yes, I do believe we are constantly relating others’ experiences to our own in order to understand them, but also that we can make inductions about those experiences without associating them with our own.
[sub]Do I really want to know what’s in your box? What happens to individuality if we can all have each other’s experiences directly? If my universe is no longer phenomenologically bounded, do I lose myself?
And why does nobody ever talk about how the elephant perceives the blind men?[/sub]
Well, I am not going to disagree with him; flowbark makes some interesting points. From such color-blind tests we do gain a limited perspective into some people’s PP… making them not-so-private. While color isn’t quite so obvious as happy, never-the-less we can study the objective brain states. Yes, and of course we legitimize the word pain, for example, based on what seem to be inherent public responses to such stimulii like pin-pricks and spankings.
So this raises the question: is Wittgenstein right in his last phrase quoted above? Is sensation not a function in language? Is the discussion of PP interesting but ultimately non-sensical? For though we might say that people don’t see red the same way, how much information have we added here?
And yet, the case of color is somewhat interesting. Colorblindness yields a great instance of this. For though we know that two colors are sensed to be hard to distinguish when I would be able to distinguish them without much problem, we still don’t know what that color is. All we have shown is that public pheonomenon may be linked, in some way, to private phenomenon. But that’s where we started! (everyone has a box…)
Have we removed the private phenomenon by studying brain-states and sensation-response from importance? Are sensations worth any more consideration that a that; that is, is it only important that I sense red, and how I sense red—that is, how it appears to me, not “in what manner” which is a different discussion—becomes irrelevant?
Grr, I’m sorry, but my last post wasn’t clear. My stance thus far is: with respect to language and discourse from the context of philosophy (and one of it’s subsidiaries, science), PP are nonsensical given any skepticism at all. It is one thing to say you continue to exist when I do not look at you; it is another entirely to say that you feel things, when it seems beyond capability to say what you feel and how I know it, unless PP-words like “pain” and “green” refer not to sensation but to objective referents; that, indeed, all language may consist of and speak of are objective referents.
But this can’t be right! When I speak of pain, I am speaking of a sensation I think or suspect you are having (or would or could have); but it is true that the box may be empty.
Exactly. It is reasonable to say that the cup cannot hold coffee once it has been deconstructed, but one cannot extrapolate backwards from this observation to conclude with assurance that the original cup could not hold coffee.
The question does make sense and I do see the problem it raises for you. I think that, in order to get around it, one has to be comfortable with the idea that some kinds of “knowledge” (box contents) cannot be known or discussed separately from the PP which gives rise to them. There is no external referrent by which to gauge the “correctness” (accuracy, truth, diversity, universality, etc., use whatever measure you like) of the internal PP – which is the core of the/your problem, as I understand you. As a result, internal experiences – and theories about the same – cannot be assessed by the same standards of “proof” and “objectivity” which we apply in “science”. So, either one has to accept that PP can never be rigorously “known” or “proven” according to the current paradigm of science; or one has to accept that “scientific” rigor must be abandoned in favor of individual/anecdotal/PP evidence if the “box contents” are to be perceived and understood at all.
To answer your specific question of “how can we know these things?”, let me give you some examples of what I mean. [disclaimer]Keep in mind, I am not looking to debate the particulars of the examples (which would take the thread off-course), and I’m not trying to convince you that the following methods actually “work”. I am merely offering them as possible or hypothetical “ways of knowing” which do not fit within the current paradigm of science, cannot by their very nature be expected to do so, and therefore cannot ever be “proven” in the way external phenomena can be. All of this is just to answer your question about my own statement; that is, I’m only sharing with you my PP. OK? [/disclaimer]
Short example. Sometimes I read Tarot cards. To me this is like peering through a glass, darkly (through a dark, glassly?) into someone else’s box. I don’t see anything in entirety, and I often don’t fully understand what I do see, but I describe what I can to the person for whom I am reading (the Querent). Now, we can argue ad nauseum about whether/how the Tarot “works” and so on… but if the Querent comes away from the reading having gotten something useful out of it, who has a right to question that? The only person who can ever truly evaluate the “correctness” of my perceptions – whether what I see there is “real” or just nonsense – is the Querent. An assessment of Tarot cards can never be separated from individual experience, anecdotal evidence, because any such assessment must needs rely on the Querent to measure the “correctness” of the experience. There is no independent, objective way by which the contents of the Querent’s box can be evaluated, then compared to the PP experience of the Tarot reading. It’s like comparing an apple to itself to describe the apple.
Longer example. Astrology has been dismissed, because it does not stand up to “scientific” scrutiny. Typically, experiments designed to test astrology depend on some kind of chart-matching exercise: astrologers generate real chart analyses for several test subjects. These are mixed up, sometimes with “fake” analyses thrown in; then someone else attempts to match each person to the the “real” chart analysis (or vice versa). This “someone” is often a psychologist who has made a separate evaluation of the test subjects; sometimes the test subject her/himself is asked to select the correct chart analysis. Inevitably these experiments generate no better match than random guessing, and this is taken as scientific proof that the “knowledge” generated by astrological analysis is in fact just nonsense.
This may well be the case. But for argument’s sake, let’s look at it from a different angle, in light of the OP: perhaps the experiment could never be successful because there is no way to accurately assess PP. I would call the specific PP involved here “knowledge of self”, that is, the degree to which the individual is cognizant and aware of the many layers and aspects of her psyche, personality, characteristics, and so on. The experiment above is predicated on one of two assumptions: (1) that “knowledge of self” can be objectively assessed by another person (the psychologist) through observation of the individual, from which the accuracy of the astrological analysis may be assessed; or (2) that the individual already possesses sufficient “knowledge of self” to make that assessment herself.
With respect to (2), such experiments often include the following unspoken assumption: that if the individual says, “No, the chart analysis made by the astrologer is not correct,” then she is speaking an objective truth; but if she says, “This chart analysis is fairly accurate”, then she is engaging in self-attribution: she perceives it as correct because she wants it to be so. As if denial – “no, I am not like that at all” – cannot sometimes be a negative form of self-attribution.
In light of the thread topic, these assumptions are hardly supportable. Another person (the psychologist) can never arrive at complete knowledge of another’s box through observation; only the individual patient/subject can ever truly know whether the insights and knowledge so generated are correct (that is, reflect the reality of PP). Neither is it safe to assume that the individual already has complete self-knowledge, or that she is/is not engaging in self-attribution (positive or negative).
As far as I can tell, there is no way to re-fashion the contents of a box into a box itself, so as to apply the current scientific paradigm to it. Of course, this does not speak to the issue of whether astrology is/is not accurate, correct, useful, etc. Rather, I think it means that “science” ought to remain silent on the topic, because PP experiences, by their nature, do not yield themselves to “scientific” analysis. However, I also think that modern “science” is unwilling to admit its limitations – that there are things in the Universe which are beyond the limits of “scientific” explanation. For some this can be a very frightening or threatening prospect to consider.
To reiterate, though: this does not mean that astrology actually generates knowledge/information which “science” cannot. That, of couse, is an entirely different issue. What I am suggesting is that the information generated by astrology does not originate with the PP experiences of the individual, so in this sense it is, like the Tarot, a way of “knowing” the contents of a box without appealing to the external referrent of the box itself.
I could go into what the origins of astrological information are, but that is a topic for another thread. Here I am just using astrology to illustrate my view on PP experiences.
A quick response; I’ll have detail later, but this caught my interest immediately:
Wittgenstein himself, in Tractutus Logico-Philosophicus (a work he attacked somewhat vigorously in later writings, including the book mentioned in the OP), said, “That which we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence.” The seventh and final proposition of the work, in fact. A fascinating but immanently tiring work to read.
Ok… key words.
What is critical to the existence of private phenomenon? What conditions create it? Does it exist? Is it meaningful if indeed it does exist?
I’m going to stream conciousness here for a bit…
Does a tree think? Does a tree understand us?
Two types of people:
Those who can teach with intent
Those who cannot be taught with intent
In terms of private phenomenon, I find interesting the point when someone is attempting to teach you something with their intent; yet your experience
One way to catagorize PP is to …
Can you willingly convey an observation to another human being, knowing that they absorbed it? I believe the encryption I spoke of earlier is how people decide. Internally, the topic which you speak of could be so elementary to them
–stream took on some cohesiveness–
Does the person “get it” when you communicate something?
Repetition or lack thereof seems to be a key to understanding PP as well…
You have mutliple layers of capacity to “get something”.
A small child tells the joke:
What happens when you sit on a whoopie cushion?
Answer: It sounds like a fart!!! giggles and laughs at the joke he just told
The person recieving the joke can respond various ways:
They laugh
They don’t laugh
If they laugh, can we assume that they “got it” the same way?
Maybe the joke was “genuinely” funny to them in the same ‘mindless’ way that the child finds it funny.
Maybe they’re laughing, thinking: “Oh my God, that joke was soooo stupid; this kid is soooo young. WTF? I was never that clueless was I?”
However, if the person doesn’t laugh with the child, does it really mean that they didn’t “get” the joke; just because their response wasn’t the same?
Maybe the entire point of the joke was to taunt the adult through the tension of their self-concious inability to meet or exceed your expectation. The adult may beat on you as a result of telling the joke; and the inversion of humor exists because in this scenario it is the adult who is the butt of your joke by being robotic instead of "human’. The joke would then be, that you as a child are more sophisticated than the adult; and the humor may run off with itself exponentially in that: any attempt to reveal your mental superiority over them will result in more beatings. In this sense you have PP locked in a catch-22.
Part of the humor in this sense is the child being able to manipulate the adult’s PP, and invariably feel secure knowing that the adult’s PP is only PP that the child creates, by ‘hacking’ a vulnerability into the adults logical matrix. So while the adult is yelling at or beating the child, this could be a defense mechanism to rationalize irrational behavior by controlling its output.
Nestled deep in PP is the game of cloak and daggers; or at least this is one lens you can peer at it with. How much depth resides in PP can be staggering; and seemingly our external veiw of intelligence is only a mere glimpse of what degree of intelligence may lie internally - what we see an lack of intelligence; may in many if not all cases be extra-ordinary intelligence. But like the first question, “Does a tree think?”.
Another way to observe PP, is to note repetition. There’s a good chance we’ve met someone or are that person who has listened to only one album of music their entire lives. They never grow tired of it; extolling its virtues (the same ones over and over) with the same vigor; not caring for ‘other’ music … and that’s it. It’s as if their memory literally wipes a clean slate every few millisenconds and they experience the album as if for the first time all over again - the wonder and awe. The ‘extol’ seems to be some sort of ritual of conversion, looking for someone to worship their PP of the album. It seems that getting someone to unconditionally worship your PP seems to be a favorite of just about anyone; being so non-transparent, the individual cannot be held logically accountable for any behavior.
Who’s to say that someone who only listened to that album a few times did not experience it the same way? Maybe they have a cognitive echo the reverberates at extremely high frequencies; causing them to experience moments as decades of use - let alone accounting for what the brain is conjuring up in sleep.
What interests me most about PP is that degree of cognitive depth and specialization that can occur when allowed to grow in its own vacuum. When a person acts in a way that you did not predict, and that behavior falls far short of expectation of what you could or would do, or expect them to do; that judgement could be in their conscious mind because they have actually simulated you and maintain your simulation amongst billions of other simulations simultaneously. They could in essense be your negation for existence by being yourself ‘squared’ so to speak; regardless of how you judge their actions… the PP places depth on that action that you may never achieve in terms of cognitive age for the span of your entire life.
