Ok, some quick asides. First, over 1100 views for 74 (including this) posts, so there are quite a few readers here. What imression they get from this is anyone’s guess. I hope we aren’t letting them down, but I don’t feel that we’re just making inarticulate sounds here.
Second, I did say that I don’t seek a pure intermediary, but any, and yet there are at least two intermediaries offered. One is the sort of pragmatism that we do sense things in more or less the same way period, and that is evidenced by language itself, among other sciences (reaction to definite stimulii). The other, of course, is the pure intermediary that you are offering.
So it is clear that I am not willing to accept these as they stand, though perhaps it would serve to explain why this is so. Unfortunately, that would be a herculean effort for a sunday afternoon/evening, and I am actually at work now to get things done that I couldn’t get done earlier and I should really get to that.
But, if it is requested, I will of course divulge my skepticism with respect to particulars.
I should like to reiterate a concern here. Justhink mentioned earlier that the problem I am facing is in trying to face this problem in isolation; that, as it were, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to actually get down and discuss consciousness and will and etc. And that I am hoping to tackle the problem in isolation is evidenced by my most recent request
As if, somehow, we could tackle this problem independent of other foundations of philosophy. Forisn’t the “Problem of Universals” itself only a problem when considered in isolation? Isn’t it often “resolved” by following a worldview?
But then, why is it that it has been mentioned (at least twice in this thread and as a sort of general motiff) that when we consider the worldview that explains it it is more like deft rug-sweeping than really getting to the heart of the matter?
As if I am somehow requesting a vague and generalized description of a specific issue with a vague and uncertain context as a backdrop, and then stand here flummoxed that nothing instantly presents itself to me. Well, what did I expect?!?
The notion of rug-sweeping in a Weltanshauung is fascinating, but it is also somewhat striking to most people that tend to look at such things. But, this rug-sweeping feeling is also what leads me to feel that we can sort of understand this topic without the corresponding worldview.
Quick aside: There is a little box below the posting window which appears when you hit “reply”. It contains a hot link to vB code, which available tags for things like quoting and bolding. Alternatively, above the posting window are several buttons which will insert the necessary tags for you.
A wise man would refrain from joining a discussion such as this so deep into the debate. . . I hesitated for almost 24 hours. Perhaps I am beginning to approoach wisdom.
Much has been posted in this thread that I would like to respond to, but I am afraid that going back to do so would simply muddy the waters of the ongonig discussion. I don’t see how to procede without clearing up at least a couple of points, though:
Erl: I doubt that any 5 randomly selected Wittgenstein scholars would be able to agree on what Herr Ludwig’s Private Language Argument was, where (exactly) it appears, whether its ramifications are epistemological/deeper than that/restricted explicitely to his logic of language, or even whether Wittgnstein himself ever asserted it as a logical argument. My impression of this thread is that you are not particularly interested in the historical/biographical associations of teh argument but rather in the application of it to your own philosophical investigations. If I am wrong, and you would like to discuss the historical development of either PLA or Wittgenstein’s philosophy let me know. I’ll run away just as fast as I can.
I will now immediately contradict myself (hey, why waste time) by stressing that I think the PLA must be explicitely understood within the context of Wittgenstein’s logic of language. Now, whether that makes it more specific or broader than general epistemology is another kettle of wax. Specifically, if we are going to talk about the PLA in Wittgensteinian terms, then we are going to have to be very careful about how we ascribe meaning to words/sentences, etc. This is not just a pedantic moment–I truly don’t see how we will understand one another, or the PLA, without such precision.
As an example (and without meaning to pick on anyone in particular) Scott Dickerson writes:
(1) All ontologs without possible exception are publically knowable objects
(2)But additionally every ontolog presents to the observer, the knower, an ineffable private “something” beyond all possibility of description or communication.
(3)Do this: name anything, anything at all–from the outer world, from your inner world. That name really indicates two somethings, two aspects of the noumenon
But, (3) implies that the “something” named in (2) possesses an aspect subject to (1) which, of course, contradicts (2). Now, this might simply mean SD has built an intricate philosophy around an obvious contradiction, but I think it more likely that it illustrates how easy it is to obfuscate our meanings with an imprecise semantic logic.
For myself:[ul]
[li]I accept the existence of unshareable experience, and I generally agree with Wittgenstein that the standard dualistic language applied the private phenomena (to adopt erl’s term) serves to mislead rather than illuminate.[/li][li]I disagree with the position that a private language is necessarily impossible.[/li][li]I disagree both with epiphenominalism and transcendent realism, but I think we can discuss private phenomenon without necessarily opening all of Pandora’s boxes at once. If I feel that I absolutely have to take issue with some aspect of these philosophies as they relate to private phenomena, I’ll try to make it explicit at the time.[/li][li]I honestly cannot see any reason why the PLA would contradict the ability to learn language or to exchange knowledge. If one of the posters who has expressed this implication would be so kind as to share the line of reasoning, I would appreciate it.[/li][li]Then again, I do not think that Wittgenstein’s objection to memory as a criterion of correctness should be read as a damnation of mnemonic validation for all language constructs. In working with public language, Wittgenstein explicitely allows memory as a guide to meaning. Consider the classic: “thunder is a sound that follows lightning”. Perhaps this understanding (of mine) will be relevant ot the point above.[/li][li]Reconsidering the sections of Scott Dickerson’s position that I clipped above, it occurs to me that it is only the implications of (3) for (2) which would allow escape from the PLA at all. If (2) is unambiguously true, then there is indeed a context of private phenomena which can never be expressed in language. The model would seem to simply redefine the boundaries of privacy rather than eliminating them. I am uncertain now whether this position represents an escape from PLA or an affirmation of PLA.[/li][li]Erl, I am not clear on why you say that your investigations of categorical distinctions between internal and external entities leaves you empty handed, but I am certain that Wittgenstein would object strongly to your use of “internal entities”. Under Wittgenstein’s logic of language, I believe that the distinction you name would be semantic: [/li]first person, present tense statements requiring criterial evidence for justification::first person, present tense statements not requiring criterial evidence for justification.
[li]I’m not sure how the impossibility of private language falls out directly from epiphenominalism. Erl, can you trace the path for me, please? (Are you arguing that a private language would be a material effect?)[/li][li]Erl, I like your statement of epistemological limits. So long as “Language” is understood as a class and not an instance, I find that I agree with it unreservedly.[/li][li]To take another quote out of context: **one Self can in principle be able to Know directly the very noumena being then experienced (known) by another Self. ** I fear that this type of conjecture leads us far afield from the PLA or any general discussion of private phenomena. I know of no form of PLA which is not intrinsically anthropological in nature: the construct depends entirely upon the practical limits of human perception. Now, if this is intended to introduce unambiguous communication of perceptual referents as a basic human capacity, then I would definitely like to see the argument presented in detail. I have yet to encounter this capability.[/li][/ul]
I’ve tried (believe it or not) to keep this first post brief. I will happily develop in more depth any of teh points above, should anyone ask. [sub]And quite possibly even if nobody asks.[/sub]
added after preview
No, you two have certainly not been talking nonsense, though you might (in Wittgensteinian terms) have been uttering nonsense.
yes, but pleaser do not forget such choise phrases as: if I do speak of a fiction, then it is a grammatical fiction. and It is correct to say “I know what you are thinking”, and wrong to say "I know what I am thinking."
Spiritus, I can say with absolute confidence that your posts often possess a clarity which most of us only imagine we have. Of course, I say that in full awareness of how often I and others mangle your posts!
Let me take your list here one element at a time, where appropriate.[ul][li]I accept the existence of unshareable experience, and I generally agree with Wittgenstein that the standard dualistic language applied the private phenomena (to adopt erl’s term) serves to mislead rather than illuminate.[/li]I think this position is easily accepted. But I think it introduces some problems without a broader epistemological and ontological framework that I am not certain Wittgenstein ever managed to assert. In all his talk of meaning, I do nto get a sense of how it got there, or how we can use it.
[li]I disagree with the position that a private language is necessarily impossible.[/li]This is a matter for rationalists to explicate, I think, because no other development seems possible. If private language were possible, the statement that private language exists would have to be a priori for there could be no demonstration of it.
[li]I honestly cannot see any reason why the PLA would contradict the ability to learn language or to exchange knowledge. If one of the posters who has expressed this implication would be so kind as to share the line of reasoning, I would appreciate it.[/li]That would be, I think, pretty much me. Without private language, there can be no way to tell one’s self that one has just recognized a distinction. for if we could recognize distinctions, we could simply name them internally and operate according to some internal grammar that would, presumably, just happen, even though it would be the case that this language wouldn’t probably appear to us like a language. Merely that our concepts are like words that indicate distinctions we have made internally. If we refuse ourselves the possibility of an internal language, we lose our means of concept-formation according to a realist platform (where we differentiate and integrate experiences based on perceived distinctions).
By which I really mean: we cannot learn as learning (presumably) requires a sense of distinction, and we humans [can] name distinctions. If we abandon private language, we abandon our ability to internalize similarity and difference.
[new vB code doesn’t allow for nested lists]
----1)For if everything we can speak must have presented itself to our senses
----2)and if we may not name a sensation by making a mark on (say) a calendar
----3) then in what sense can anything ever be named?
Of course, this sort of assumes that naming something can be a deliberate activity. If all language “just happens” then I suppose LW has no problems at all. But that is some real rug-sweeping for sure. Lotsa dust bunnies under his bed.
Note here that, I believe, Scott has not accept the first point in that our Self has direct, unmediated access to similarity, and so can in that way tolerate and utilize nominalistic perceptions.
[li]…but I am certain that Wittgenstein would object strongly to your use of “internal entities”. …[/li]first person, present tense statements requiring criterial evidence for justification::first person, present tense statements not requiring criterial evidence for justification
I agree that our language happens to have this sort of seperation upon reflection (I did note this in reference to how we don’t doubt that another person sees something as a particular color, we simply assert how we see it in turn). but without internal entities, by which I mean a distinction we make without language (in order to recognize and form concepts), i fail to see that any words have any meaning at all that corresponds to the speaker. Reference, then, the previous list item.
[li]I’m not sure how the impossibility of private language falls out directly from epiphenominalism.[/li]Mental states or activity, as it were, is a consequence of but does not affect physical states. the implication path goes from real world to physical states (of my body) and back, byut any physical state which causes a mental state has no feedback (since mental activity merely “rides on top of” my physical being). As such, things which fall into private phenomenon (how green appears to me, mentally) could never cause any utterance, and could never affect an internal utterance at that. But now that I have sort of spelled it out, I am no longer so confident of the assertion; though it is the case that I am not clear where I may be in error.
[li]I like your statement of epistemological limits. So long as “Language” is understood as a class and not an instance, I find that I agree with it unreservedly.[/li]It is something I am, in a way, very happy to think on, and it came as a consequence of the [perhaps infamous from threadspotting] epistemology thread. I am not sure what you hope to indicate by “class”, but of course I would mean language in the most general sense, not strictly any language we must presently be associated with. But then, I also mean, the limit of any epistemology I form is the limit of the means of communication I know or can conceive of, which is an instantiation of a kind, so perhaps you will reposition your reservation. I suppose it could be more eloquently stated that the limit of epistemology is the limit of expressability, though I am not clear that that elucidates anything more than the previous phrasing.[/ul]
Now, you find a quote which further exemplifies (I think) my point of contention.
By which I would say: the fiction here is not that these objects do or do not exist, but that we are speaking about them. but I think my response to this is implicit in my argument of why I feel private language must be necessary (if anything at all is in fact private by necessity). Then, the thrust of this thread would be more along the lines of, if private phenomena exist, and private language exists (or is not forbidden), then why can’t we share them, that is, why are they private? This would reference, I think the second response to your points. Which is: I would like to develop this notion of privateness to its fullest possible extent so that I may also be able to investigate the public, and to what extent these two do interact (and they must interact, mustn’t they?)
I am either seeking to understand why there can be no private language, or why there is private language.
Basically, I have no clue what’s going on in my head.
Yeah. I find myself in such accord with him as I read, though, that there isn’t a clear seperation between the two. It is either I would like to be able to say he was wrong or right, not by understanding what he must have been saying, but rather to understand what I would agree or disagree with while using him as a jumping-off point.
[preview]
Well, that was remarkably clear. :rolleyes:
It could be possible, after all, that if my thoughts are caused by physical effects [in epiphenomenalism] then so could a private language. I see that this could be an objection. But, if the mental is purely a manifestation of the physical (if there is some mapping, so to speak), then there is no such thing as a private phenomenon, everything is related to the physical states of the being, which are of course publically available. I guess, honestly, that this argument would apply to anyone that didn’t argue dualism…?
Hmm. I don’t know that I like the sound of that. Damn me and my bold assertions! [kicks insignificant pile of dirt for effect] Well, I shall have to let it stand. These are my impressions.
…
Also, Spiritus, do you recall the thread about solipsism where I found that article by some guy using this very argument as proof of an external world? I am almost interested in rehashing that, in some ways. My comment about private language existing being a priori: it would also be analytic/tautological, because, of course, if there was a demonstration of it, it could only be to yourself from within yourself. Which is sort of like a subset of the broader epistemological claim that there exists things which I can prove only to myself, or rather, that are a priori elements that only I have. Like, for example, the knowledge that I am thinking [Descartes] or that I exist.
Now, would Wittgenstein have to discount that? Which is not to say that if he said certain things by which we may infer that he felt there was an external world that we somehow have proof of it, but a rejection of the existence [or possibly even the notion?] of private language seems to not be able to stand along many conceptions of knowledge.
This seems worthy of investigation, though it would betray a certain unwillingness on my part to try to discount underlying assumptions and face the topic cleanly.
And by “Would Wittgenstien have to discount that” I mean would he or anyone who thought along those lines etc, don’t want to focus the thread down there except to note that I feel very positive about the sense I get from his writings, except [possibly] this point. And it is interesting to note that he did find that the expression “I know that I am a human being” had no general sense, but only very special ones. There does seem to be a consistency of thought here, but one that seems even more obfuscated by his musings.
One would have to deny all sorts of knowledge if we discounted private language. Or would we only have to discount expressions like “I know that I know that [etc]”? The a priori seems unavailable here other than in a sense of being simply tied to the language games themselves. Again I feel a huge void where meaning comes from or how it is that we employ it. And again, even if they were a function of language games, the knowledge of my own existence cannot really be stated. Now, do I want to say that? but then wouldn’t the alternative be that even people who don’t know me have as an element of their knowledge the fact that I exist? Or that I don’t know that I exist [that this sentence is a grammatical fiction]?
It is as if I am offered the notion that I cannot have my left hand “give” my right hand anything, and from this I am to extrapolate that the whole class of meaningful expressions cannot be sensical if I only apply it to myself.
There is something fundamental here. This phenomenological barrier—you know it has caused me no end of distress in the past, and has in fact caused me to assert all manner of awkward and nonsensical propositions (remember when I knew everything with absolute certainty?!?]. It seems only fitting that I end up here again.
Thanks for the compliment, erl. I’m afraid the empirical evidence dosn’t support your conjecture.
Easy one first: Yes, I meant class in the sense of Russell’s RT.
okay, so much for easy.
Well, my own view is that Wittgenstein specifically avoided framing his arguments (well, this particular argument) in a well-defined epistemological/ontological framework. The PLA is not so much a separate epistemologicla assertion as a possible consequence of Herr Ludwig’s logic of language. It is this logic of language which was principal.
I don’t think Wittgenstein was trying to argue for the “nature of truth/existence”. I think he was trying to change the way we talk about things, including the nature of truth/existence. Also, I think Wittgenstein’s treatment of his ideas as a logic of language is important. He clearly understands that other logics of language (common usage, standard grammatical rules) exist, he simply feels they are unsuited for discussions of philosphical topics, and specifically unsuited for discussions of the “internal world”. If you are looking for an axiomatic basis for his logic of language, then I would suggest, "I must begin with the distinction between sense and nonsense. Nothing is possible prior ot that. I can’t give it a foundation.
Now, with that said, it is obvious that the structure of Wittgenstein’s arguments do stand upon an epistemological and ontological understanding. I think he tried to keep this element as “generic” as possible, but it is certainly possible to attack the PLA by denying, for instance, the existence of a phenomenological barrier between percetion and perceived. (As Scott Dickerson seems to, though the “private” element of his model still leaves me uncertain as to the applicability of PLA.)
How it got there is, perhas, an area of conjecture. How we use it is, in fact, Wittgenstein’s definition of meaning. The meaning of a symbol is found in the “explanations of meaning” or that sign, and they must be interpreted specifically for individual cases (contexts). “Explanations of meaning” are the rules of grammar (in the LW usage) which govern its use, including the definitions of the word (again, in the LW sense, and specifically concerned with {to borrow labels from Aristotle}verbal definitions not real definitions ). To use an example:
Thunder: A noise which follows lightning. (verbal definition, indicating usage.)
Thunder: A sound caused by the sudden heating and expansion of air by an eletrical discharge. (real definition, a hypothesis about the nature and causality of the referent.)
Wittgenstein’s logic of language is concerned only with verbal definitions.[sup]1[/sup]
Also, it is not clear to speak of the meaning of “green”, because “green” might have many meanings depending upon the particualr usage. “I see a green frog” and “Green is my favorite color” are not parallel uses of “green”.
A priori? How so? Wouldn’t my internal experience of a private language be the very definition of a posteriori? I think that teh very reason that PLA has been advanced (by others, not LW) as an epistemological argument is that it counters the “common sense experience” that we are capable of meaningfully recording and recalling our “internal states of being”.
As to explicate–in what sense? I can certainly try to counter arguments that would make a private language impossible/nonsensical, but I can by definition have no menas for convincing another that a private language exists or must exist. I am troubled by these statements, because they make me worry that we have very different understanding of what a private language might be or imply. Perhaps my answers to the next questions will clarify my own position.
Not at all. Without a private language it would be impossible to recall that the distinction one recognized in the past was identical to the distinction one recognizes now. The criterion of correctness for “recognizing a distinction” is not explicitely private–we still have the sensory input to use as verification. Consider: have you ever seen an object, identified it quickly, but then looked again and revised your identification? This process is the external verification of a “recognized distinction”. Wittgenstein does not argue that memory is impossible, merely unreliable (as an unsupported criterion of correctness). Memory of a private event cannot be used as verification of a private event.
Not really, we simply refuse to allow our concept-formation to use internal criteria of correctness. (Not that I personally accept teh PLA. I simply do not see it as forming an impervious boudary to learning. For what it’s worth, Wittgenstein certainly did not espouse that position.
Do not be misled by (2). We can quite readily make marks on the calendar to “name” any externally verifiable object of our perception. The PLA does prevent us from ever learning about “the ‘I’ which is not a subject”, but it is no impediment to learnig about externally verifiable object.
In other words, “know thyself” becomes an impossibility under PLA.
[sub]I think the above covered your next response, too, so I will skip to–[/sub]
Well, I’m not really up on recent epiphenomnological theories, but classically (according to the link you posted) it allows for both things like “pain” and “the belief that I feel pain” to be considered epiphenomena. Now, this seems to clearly indicate that while an epiphenomena (pain) to have an effect upon another epiphenomena (the belief that I feel pain). Under such a model it does not seem clear to me that private language would be invalidated. It would simply be another member of that class of epiphenomena which can be afected by other epiphenomena.
Alternatively, I suppose, one could deny any interaction between qualia and the belief that one has qualia, but I think that kind of wall locks you in even more tightly than the PLA.
I thought the original form was quite elequent.
Well, I personally would phrase it: the fiction is that our grammatical forms imply attributes, including the attribute “object”, which impede understanding of the phenomenologic process.
Well, I do not believe that a private language is logically excluded from existence. As for why one can exist, I have only my phenomenological experiences to guide me in that direction.
[sup]1[/sup][sub]Example stolen en toto from here[/sub]. It’s a pretty good site.
You post too fast. I’ll try to catch up with your most recent couple after I find some lunch. (By which time you’ll probably have posted 3 more. Damned psuedo-touch typists!)
We cross-posted on epiphenominalism. I think I’ll wait for you to confirm or deny my understanding of the basic philosophy before saying anything more.
I’m afraid that I recall neither the thread on solipsism nor the article you mention. I would be interested in reading them (again) if you track down a link. I certainly see no way for anyone to convincingly “prove” the existence of an external world based upon either an afirmation or denial of PLA. Of course, that is just a statement about me.
Of course, neither of those statement is sensible under Wittgenstein’s logic of language. One cannot, with verifiable meaning, say “I know that I am thinking” or that "I (the “I” which is not a subject) exist.
I’m not 100% certain which “that” you mean, but certainly Wittgenstein discounted the meaningfulness of phrases like those you quote. He also certainly accepted the existence of an external world in his formulation of the logic of language. And, clearly, he did not think the PLA (regardless of whether he actually espoused it as an assertion) prevented us from learning. His logic of language explicitely requires that we learn the uses of symbols through experience.
Indeed, and even those specialized meanings are lacking “grounds for doubt” (in the language of On certainty"
Neither.[ul]
[li] With or without PL, we can share knowledge of the external world.[/li][li]With or without PL statements like “I know that I know . . .” are nonsensical. The issue of “false implication of subject” remains, even if the issue of private “knowledge” is circumvented.[/li] Also, even accepting a private language (~PLA) does not allow us to communicate ideas about our private context to anyone else–that is in the very definition of “private language”.
[/ul]
Amen to that, brother. It is a disturbing idea, yet I can convince myself of no other alternative. I try (now, 'twas not always so) to simply live within the limits of (un)certainty.
BTW, thanks for slowing down so that I could catch up.
The discussion of private language is apparently contained in sections 244-271 of Philosophical Investigations. Try section 257, for the calendar reference (my guess only, based on the web).
I anticipate posing a few naive questions at some point (which can be ignored at everyone’s leisure )
A perfect example of the unreliability of confirming one’s previous thoughts (through memory of them etc). I have been away for the past two days on a road trip (to the hell that is Pennsylvania) for work, and this has left me apart from all the thoughts in this thread, including my thought on epiphenominalism.
I had convinced myself that I must have been arguing that PL/PP falls out of epiphenominalism itself. Now I wish to drop the subject entirely: it clearly seems to be a dead end. I believe I have convinced myself of the truth that epiphen. must have absolutely asserted or absolutely denied PL. A clear sign that I am mistaken on several levels and have overshot even when, as it is, I already intend to overshoot in matter philosophical (when you jump into the water you are forced to find the shore).
Now. During this time I also had the opportuniety to, as it happens, read through (for a second time) these passages which are directly motivated to the discussion at hand, and which flowbark has now brought out. however, it is interesting that I feel the argument extends far beyond those passages.
Scott
Passages which, as it were, seem to be addressed to a person in a situation not entirely different from your own. (279, 280)
This, in fact, is my whole problem with nominalism: I cannot get a sense of what it wants me to see (to know, etc). It uses the words of universiality to speak, apparently, the notion that everything is particular. And it has always appeared to me to be a fundamental contradiction that nothing could overcome. But then, I didn’t imagine a sort of dualistic idealism riding along side it.
Hi, Spiritus Mundi, and thanks for the instruction on quoting, bolding, etc.
I’m getting more and more into “bullet-pointing” as opposed to narrating. I think it promotes ease of reference post-to-post. And (if only!) pith, if not wit.
I also find a real utility in reading over large amounts of material and choosing to respond only to whatever his-and-that has stuck with me. To take a detailed exegetical approach to my unholy scriptures seems definite overkill, and I ask it of no one.
Yep, ERL, I agree that I have destroyed the distinction between internal and external. If you care for explication of how I would handle issues arising thereunder, it would help me if you would indicate (a) three items that you regard as definitely and paradigmatically internal; and (b) similarly for “external.”
I know Wittgenstein’s box was in the title of the thread, but I took that more as an example of the nature of the issue, than a desire to focus on LW. LW is so notoriously opaque and meandering in his musings that it seems… Well, I guess my interest in putting a great deal of interpretive effort into him is limited. But that’s just me.
On similarity (I think this was your lob, Spiritus): As ERL responded, one might regard similarity/dissimilarity as directly given, just as “a sensation of blue” (whatever that “is”) is directly given. In other words, there need be no “process of comparison” from one temporal instance to another, just two present-entities placing before the observing mind the fact of their possession of this attribute. Thus: “similarity” is simply the name we give a directly observable quality (quale) appertaining to presented multiplicities. Anthony Quinton presented a view of this sort. Now having said all that, I am not prepared to wholly endorse such an approach. I say instead: the “process of comparison” is indeed relevant, but should be understood as a sort of “discipline” or “routine” whereby the mind situates itself (metaphorically) to observe a quality (“similarity”) not otherwise noticed. (I suppose I think of “being similar to” along the lines of “being to the left of.”)
SM, you wonder if my saying that all ontologs are necessarily public contradicts my reference to privae aspects. It does–because I was sloppy. By “ontolog,” I meant “unit ontolog,” “count-as-one ontolog.” This is what I term a noumenon. It is grasped as a “whole thing.” Don’t think I mean, a complex thing of many parts joined together as a whole. I do not. It is, in all but one very technical sense, a simple undifferentiated unity. If you can imagine pointing at some entity with your mind, that mental gesture could not possible select-out less than one whole ontolog. And it is quite true to say that every such entity is a public objective item (by my approach): it exists out there in a transcendent reality, for all to “see.” BUT, every ontology shows us two faces (aspects), the aforesaid public one, and the private one. The private aspect is not an ontolog, not an entity, not a “thing”: for to say so is to deny my premiss that we can only talk about (give name to) what is shareable. It is the (private) aspect of the (nonprivate) presentation of an ontolog; that is the sense in which I said that all ontologs are public.
I should make clear that I do not find any special “problem” to be solved regarding one’s own “internal communication.” My view is that the problem is entirely general: How is it possible for there to be such a thing as the conveyance of ideas, one person to another OR my earlier self to my later self? I diverge paths from LW in that I take the PLA to extremes, as an indictment of ALL language communication (as conceived through those key common assumptions of public versus private).
SM, the short answer to what I intend when I claim that even my own thoughts are publically shareable, is: such a capability as “telepathy,” whether it ever happens to be actual or not, is not excluded by logic alone (ie, by self-contradiction in the description). My approach is an exploration of the limits of the possible as an illumination of the “actual” that we find around us.
(…oh, I get it…you’re supposed to go into review mode first…)
Well, he says as much, at least. Now, is this the sort of thing that we accept without qualification (this is blue; really? I see it more as a green)?
Man, that was an unfortunate typo I sort of corrected later but naver gave indication of. I wanted to say: how it is that we use it. Sort of: tool, implimentation. Hammers came from… and are utilized in this way… to such an end…
Sometimes I feel like I am reading a religious work in PI in that, while reading, I get a very general sense of understanding. But when I try to sit back for a moment and reflect, it all disappears into other contexts I begin to undeliberately force on it for a cleare application of scope etc and then it is all gone, so many symbols on paper.
So I can give my impressions. And my impression is: this language is an external tool, that is how it evolved, that is what its use is, and so on. The act of introspection and “deeper” philosophizing by means of this tool is, if we are not almost perfectly careful, liable to screw us up, by leading us through existing implications toward conclusions and hidden assumptions which are a feature of its externality to begin with, not with our ability to try and apply it to whatever it is we think about (including thinking). It beauty lies, perhaps, in its connection as they apply to the objective world. Its danger lies in its flexibility and our ability to, I suppose, philosophize with it. As if it were a hammer, only no one had previously warned us that they hurt when used incorrectly (or that it could be used correctly or incorrectly in some sense in the first place [and that the sense and nonsense is the standard for correctness!]).
I digress.
Well, it would at least be analytic. The recognition of PL as PL is asserting a PL (else there could be a map between PL and PubL which, of course, would deny PL’s privateness).
Also, is this a valid rephrasing: “wouldn’t my internal experience of identity be the very definition of a posteriori?” Or consider LW to ask you, “Allowing yourself to demonstrate to yourself that PL exists and this is it already assumes a PL to exist.” No? for who could you demonstrate that tihs belonged to “my private language” but yourself? Or is it that you are thinking you would induce that this language was private in that no one else seemed to use it or follow how you did?
Now, that would be strange. I think I can say that, whether PL exists or not, should I come to induce something like that from the experiences I mentioned I should probably feel like I was in the Twilight Zone.
Now, is this the case? You make it seem as if a private language afforded no possibility of error.
I cannot seperate a name’s meaning from distinction which appears to the senses. As much as we can be mistaken of the meaning of the word (use it incorrectly) should we also not be able to do so internally? Isn’t that characteristic of language itself? But then: such a language couldn’t be learned, could it? One would have to invent it and use it as one went along. But for all that, the possibility of error in that language’s use should be no more than in our own… only that, its true, there is also no one to point out the error of use other than yourself, which sort of taints any use of “right” and “wrong” there.
Troubling.
When I use a [public] word, even if I do so wrongly, it isn’t as if I couldn’t have been thinking something. The error is at least grammatical, and at most conceptual, but it isn’t as if there was something wrong with my brain when I spoke incorrectly: it continues to operate as before. Like thinking on a paradox doesn’t destroy anything (but time ;)). And we shouldn’t be then inclined to say that whatever it is we were thinking of, it wasn’t a paradox. Else how else could one be recognized at all?
Well, it is like we create a game with it as a rule and see who, if anyone, can win. But of course that game has rules not found in the paradox itself (for the only reason we find it paradoxical that Achilles can’t win is that we know he should win).
Is it, after all, actually axiomatic that “You have to start somewhere” meaning, everything needs axioms? I mean, it seems axiomatic, but haven’t I come to that conclusion? GOD my mind wanders on this topic to places so far from the barrier I wish to understand. but then, isn’t that a consequence of using a language replete with its own pre-existing (as it were0 implications to try and examine something else? By which I am asking: is my confusion here at least partial evidence of the PLA itself?
But this seems to reduce to behavioralism. Where would external criteria for correctness lie? Don’t I have to correctly recognize that someone has chasted me, corrected me, spanked me, etc?
I am always hiding behind Dennett’s “Cartesian Theater”, the singular Self we so often imagine we have. Surely I know what green is like, and though I do use the word correctly in every day use, I also know how to tell that I am using a word correctly in everyday use.
…
When I allow the phenomenal barrier to exist, I cannot escape the apparent fact that everything I sense is there. I am, as it were, totally reduced to internalizing everything. {And what are my grounds for thinking everything i sense is there?—Well, I sense it, don’t I? … DAMN IT lol}
I read this and can only make inarticulate sounds. The sounds are like: “What process?” Grrr…
Solipsism. I was looking for anyone to say that solipsism could be refuted in a non-axiomatic way. But then, if it was deductive, it would be just as tautologous as asserting any non-solipsism-refuting axioms’ truth, so I am not sure what I wanted to accomplish. I cling to the phrase “I know” and seem to forget the otherwise ubiquitous “I thought I knew.”
Well, I don’t want to strictly get at the heart, so to speak, of what he was trying to say, but that he raises issues and questions which anyone who feels inclined to disagree with his assertions (or interpretations of, given Spiritus’s note on disagreement) should be able to answer.
“is my confusion here evidence of the PLA” meaning: I can’t recognzie the “path” I took to get here, and all of a sudden here I am. If I had a PL shouldn’t I have been able to trace it back, and then posted, “Strange. I can tell how I got here, but I find no way to express it.”
Feel free to dismiss it as rambling instead of substence.
I finished the internet!! j/k =) Great thread though. When I typed my response to you DAM, it was about 40,000 words long before I realized
a.) It was that long
b.) I was still holding the other half in my head
Needless to say, I needed to do some factorization…
I’ll just lay my cards out and admit that I have no clue who Wittgenstien is, what he wrote about or what an Eigen - huh? is =) I have not been educated; I’m the guy who smokes three packs a day and looks at the same sky outside trying to solve the meaning of life. I actually get superstitious about reading; thinking that I’ll catch a thought virus and never return, or I get furious that someone wrote about ’ my idea’ and I didn’t get any credit for it; and that the least they could have done was add the source code of conditions that lead the negation of those thoughts to keep intellectual honesty alive! I’m still not going to add much at the moment, because the factorization is still processing and there are a lot of names and technical jargon that I need to transcribe into my own little logical language formed in isolation (sigh I might have to actually read something from someone who’s taken credit for an idea! - and NO, I didn’t solve E=MC^2 before reading it, in case you were wondering if I was a genius or not.). =)
““Well… yes… If desire fulfilment is aimed at self centered satisfaction then increasingly more intense stimuli is required to satisfy the need for variety as each experience loses relevance in the need for repetition.””
I will comment briefly on this point however.
Someone who is being plagued by the desire to murder an individual; requires a knowledgable altruistic charachter to intercede on the behalf of those who’s trust would be violated in the act. An altruistic charachter would wander the streets with a ‘victim look’ (whatever that is); and act out all of the necessary scenarios for this murderer so that they had their desire fulfilled (didn’t harm anyone less constituted to this form of altruism); completely at the expense of their own being. The ‘self-centered’ satisfaction could be validation of their own superiority (knowing that they caused the behavior of a person who believes they are dominant; by tricking them into believing that they had free-will up until the end and beyond - and at the self-satisfaction of knowing that another less constituted being was saved a covert expression of desire.) To vaguely define “indentured system”:
Mechanism of human determinism which filled the gap of the ‘meaning circle’; when it became externalized to offer ‘self-recursive’ awareness in beings. It is fundamentally a metabolic system, with all sorts of built-in routines (been studying and observing them for years) for maintaining the human from existential collapse when meaning becomes cognitively absolute.
I am well aware of the redundancy of self-recursive; I settled on it one day as a convenient term to apply to our form of awareness when I was becoming frustrated at solving for it. Fundamentally, we tend to veiw our form of awareness as redundant anyways: “The self veiwing the self for the purpose of the self acting towards the self” … all of these layers of the self calling itself as a memory and function within the same call; but I in no way agree that this is a satisfactory solution.
Ironically, one of the mechanisms of the indentured system that I’ve paid a lot of attention to; is altruism, and the necessiy of it to provide a sort of self-explanitory meaning to the self by validating equalities in others that have a reverse polarity and are thus applying pressure on the existential wall. An example would be too wordy for my mood right now. Nothing truly substantive along the lines of PP, but checking in…
Of course, you may say I have used axioms here. And so I have. But if we require that all propositions be proved in terms of something logically prior, or not affirmed–then affirmation in general is ruled out…including the affirmation that solipsism is true.
So it comes down to: nonsolipsism is true, or nothing is true.
Forgive me for suggesting that I can make the solpsism, ideal forms & phenomenon articulations more
direct and concise. That is my intent though =)
I agree with the general conclusion of the “pi” analysis of the solipsism ‘debunk’.
I assume that we can all agree that ‘difference’ is necessary for all veiwpoints; as even a
solopsist would be hard pressed to imagine that all things are exactly the same, given their PP
(and that they are presumably ‘reading’/‘knowing’ it).
It also seems reasonable to state that absolute difference is pure chaos; something completely
inconducive to even ‘‘reading’ an instantaneous screen of cohesive flux’.
We can suggest that solipsism could be meaningful as a simulation instigated by the self from
a real reality.
We can agree that acausal solipsism has no meaning (even if it simulates meaning as an
‘emergent’ abstract - completely non-Platonic veiwpoint).
If we are to take it a step further and enter the realm of ideal forms; it stands to reason that
‘something cannot come from nothing’; so to state that: form needs a precedance of form.
For ‘nothing’
has no internal ‘desire’ mechanism or ‘toolbox’ in which to become, mutate or otherwise escape
itself or simulate ‘something’. This idea is rendered for archetypes as well as each
nuance expression of probobility and/or possibility.
This makes much more sense in light of the loaded statement of ‘change’: some fundamental
oscillation of perspective localized into a single veiwpoint. This would be the equivilent of
those drawings with a line through a circle; where, looking at it ‘one way’, makes it look curved
and another makes it look straight (aparently the phenomenal truth). Motion however is
registered as a rapid oscillation of eternal form sequencing; hopping from perspective to
perspective within a locus of focus.
Change itself offers its own problem. For change to truly change, it must become
(at somepoint at least) stasis. Since this is an absolute; we agree by condition that there
is no other change outside of change; and equally aknowledge that again, stasis/oblivion does
not change; and the cycle would be closed for eternity as if it never occurred. Even the
possibility of a reverbrative echo in which a little change was released and played, would be
impossible. Basically, change must be an ideal form; with some sort of ‘superficial’ lock on its
mechanism, keeping it from consilidating into oblivion, by acting of its absolute nature. It is
to suggest, that ‘change’ must exist as a simulation; and not an ideal - the same holding true
for oblivion as well. This can be accomplished by eternalizing the ideal forms into ‘slides’;
but the ‘geometry’ of this still eludes me.
