logical bob wrote:
Regarding b), the best response is the one from Cito above. What does it even mean to understand another person talking about their mental events?

We say we understand, but prove it by following the fucking directions in the Ikea package. Tools supplied in most cases that are the case. Where's my trepanning gear, including the spoon, for getting the special sauce, down to the last delicious drop?

Tastes like coriander...

logical bob wrote:Hey zoon,

You seem to be making two contradictory points at the same time.
a) Mental events are actually physical events. Future neuroscience will pin down exactly what those effects are. Mental language refers to these physical events.
b) We can safely assume that other peoples' subjective sensations are similar to ours. Mental language refers to classes of sufficiently similar sensations.
I presume you can tell that these aren't the same, so I don't know which one you're in favour of.

I think a) is going to encounter significant problems being stated as a hypothesis rather than a statement of faith, but if you accept this then you've essentially accepted my point that there are no private mental events, so I'll settle for that.

...

Zoon 1, logical bob, 0. Although a and b are not the same as each other, they are NOT mutually incompatible.

logical bob wrote:Hey zoon,

You seem to be making two contradictory points at the same time.
a) Mental events are actually physical events. Future neuroscience will pin down exactly what those effects are. Mental language refers to these physical events.
b) We can safely assume that other peoples' subjective sensations are similar to ours. Mental language refers to classes of sufficiently similar sensations.
I presume you can tell that these aren't the same, so I don't know which one you're in favour of.

Hey logical bob,

I’m with DavidMcC on this one: I agree that those two statements are not the same, I fail to see why they contradict each other.

Supposing mental events are actually physical events, it’s entirely possible, indeed highly likely, that the evolved brain of one individual in a species very often reacts to a stimulus (e.g. biting into coriander) in the same, or a very similar, way as the brain of another individual of the same species. There is much evidence that we have evolved to take advantage of this similarity, and to guess on that basis what is going on in another person’s brain.

logical bob wrote:I think a) is going to encounter significant problems being stated as a hypothesis rather than a statement of faith, but if you accept this then you've essentially accepted my point that there are no private mental events, so I'll settle for that.

Yes, as a physicalist, I use the working assumption (I like to think it's not faith) that physicalism is correct, and accordingly I agree with you that there are (almost certainly) no essentially private mental events. I don’t think we have any disagreement about the essential facts of the case, I’m in no way trying to argue that mental entities exist in some non-physical realm, or that they cause physical objects to behave independently of the laws of physics as described by science.

logical bob wrote:Regarding b), the best response is the one from Cito above. What does it even mean to understand another person talking about their mental events? You're just imagining your own mental events, which is no evidence of anything. Unless you're one of the small percentage of people who find that coriander tastes soapy, you don't know what that taste is. You can imagine what soap tastes like to you, but I doubt someone who has that taste will say that the taste of coriander is the same as the taste of soap, any more than every kind of exotic meat is indistinguishable from chicken and pinot noir really has blackberry notes and a structured floral finish. It's just the best description available (except for the wine tasting one, which is bollocks). You genuinely don't have access to that sensation, any more than a blind man has access to colour. This subjective-but-objective category doesn't exist. How could you ever compare your sensations to someone else's? It would require you to be in their body in a sort of Freaky Friday way that's incoherent on any kind of physicalist view. How can you tell when two of your own sensations are the same? What metric is used and with what margin of error? I can only repeat, sensations are too flimsy a thing to be put into equivalence relations and correspondences.

It seems to me that your entire argument here presupposes that mental events such as sensations are essentially private, which is what we agreed above is almost certainly not the case? If mental events are physical (that is, not essentially private), then why would it be meaningless for one person to access the mental events of another person? OK we can’t actually do it yet in accurate detail, because neuroscience is not advanced enough, but why are you arguing that guesses have to be meaningless because “my” sensations are so utterly separate from another person’s? If you say the taste of coriander to me is something essentially private which no other person can possibly compare to their own, so that it’s not even meaningful to talk about the possibility, then you are claiming that subjective events like sensations have an essentially non-physical nature.

zoon wrote:There is much evidence that we have evolved to take advantage of this similarity, and to guess on that basis what is going on in another person’s brain.

That's really convenient, zoon, because you just finished saying somebody couldn't figure out what was going on with you:

zoon wrote:Since this example of internet psychoanalysis purports to uncover a ruling motivation of mine which is so deeply hidden that even I am unaware of it, would you perhaps link to some examples of the (apparently numerous) posts which evidence my overpowering desire to reintroduce absolute morality in the face of all the scientific discoveries which indicate it isn’t there? I should be interested to see if all the evidence is of the calibre of my quoting one of your posts in which you used the word “worthwhile”.

I guess as long as you keep it sufficiently hidden from yourself, you'll be able to say nobody else is going to guess what is going on in your brain, because you don't know, for yourself. Har dee har. Have it both ways, zoon. I have no worries that you're going to overturn any paradigms in evolutionary psychology. Given, you know, all those big, syrupy waffles.

Cito di Pense wrote:

zoon wrote:There is much evidence that we have evolved to take advantage of this similarity, and to guess on that basis what is going on in another person’s brain.

That's really convenient, zoon, because you just finished saying somebody couldn't figure out what was going on with you:

zoon wrote:Since this example of internet psychoanalysis purports to uncover a ruling motivation of mine which is so deeply hidden that even I am unaware of it, would you perhaps link to some examples of the (apparently numerous) posts which evidence my overpowering desire to reintroduce absolute morality in the face of all the scientific discoveries which indicate it isn’t there? I should be interested to see if all the evidence is of the calibre of my quoting one of your posts in which you used the word “worthwhile”.

I guess as long as you keep it sufficiently hidden from yourself, you'll be able to say nobody else is going to guess what is going on in your brain, because you don't know, for yourself. Har dee har. Have it both ways, zoon. I have no worries that you're going to overturn any paradigms in evolutionary psychology. Given, you know, all those big, syrupy waffles.

If you read my post (which you quote above) more carefully, you will note that I did not claim that you could not have noticed something about my motivation which I am still unaware of. I agreed that it is possible that there may be, as you claim, evidence in my posting history of that motivation. I asked you to present the evidence in the form of links to the relevant posts. I note that no such evidence has yet been presented.

There is no spoon, there are no qualia, there is no subective awareness.

There is no Basil Fawlty, there is no SSV Normandy, there is no starship Enterprise.

I think we can't see the trees for the forest at times.

Wittgenstein sucks though. Rorty and Wittgenstein, they both suck.

Philippa Foot sucks.

Whoah, careful who hears you say that. You know that trolley thing is not just a thought experiment. It's something she does to people.

Yeah mostly she was askin' if you'd rather be the lone dead person or prefer to go out with four others.

Boyle wrote:Yeah mostly she was askin' if you'd rather be the lone dead person or prefer to go out with four others.

There must be a word for that these days. Quinsexual? Quintissential? Quinsensual? Something like that.

Quintextual, I think. When you're with that many people it's mostly about textures.

Thommo wrote:There is no spoon, there are no qualia, there is no subective awareness.

There is no Basil Fawlty, there is no SSV Normandy, there is no starship Enterprise.

I think we can't see the trees for the forest at times.

You are equally clear that there is no pain and no happiness, there are no beliefs, desires or intentions?

Maybe we thought the forest was pine trees and it's turned out to be eucalyptus? If mental terms can (in principle) be redescribed in physical terms, then they are not the kind of thing we thought they were?

zoon wrote:

Thommo wrote:There is no spoon, there are no qualia, there is no subective awareness.

There is no Basil Fawlty, there is no SSV Normandy, there is no starship Enterprise.

I think we can't see the trees for the forest at times.

You are equally clear that there is no pain and no happiness, there are no beliefs, desires or intentions?

Honestly, I'd probably separate out the specific and the general. There are pains, there is no pain. There are beliefs, there is no belief. Perhaps, at least.

I'm not certain that the specifics warrant reification, I'm certain the generals don't. These are the correspondences we share with others, "the taste of coriander" is no more real than "the experience of Basil Fawlty".

zoon wrote:Maybe we thought the forest was pine trees and it's turned out to be eucalyptus? If mental terms can (in principle) be redescribed in physical terms, then they are not the kind of thing we thought they were?

Maybe, but whatever it is we share of good old Basil - it's still not real. It's not a "thing". I can give you directions from Joker's station to the commander's quarters, but they don't actually exist.

Thommo wrote:

zoon wrote:
You are equally clear that there is no pain and no happiness, there are no beliefs, desires or intentions?

Honestly, I'd probably separate out the specific and the general. There are pains, there is no pain. There are beliefs, there is no belief. Perhaps, at least.

What a load of bollocks. If Li or myself had come out with such vague illogical crap, you'd be swinging a rope near to a tree.

I'm not certain that the specifics warrant reification, I'm certain the generals don't. These are the correspondances we share with others, "the taste of coriander" is no more real than "the experience of Basil Fawlty".

Then how do you account for your own personal tastes? Is there a physical narrative for that or are you just making stuff up which will sustain your bogus metaphysics?

I hope that you realise that you're guilty of turning materialism into a religion with unsubstantiated crap mantras like these? You really need to have a word with yourself before you become so far gone that coherent discourse with you becomes an impossibility.

If I weren't so tired I'd be extracting a frozen badger from the freezer. But rest assured, I'll be back.

jamest wrote:

Thommo wrote:

zoon wrote:
You are equally clear that there is no pain and no happiness, there are no beliefs, desires or intentions?

Honestly, I'd probably separate out the specific and the general. There are pains, there is no pain. There are beliefs, there is no belief. Perhaps, at least.

What a load of bollocks. If Li or myself had come out with such vague illogical crap, you'd be swinging a rope near to a tree.

It's neither. If you don't understand the difference between the specific and the general I can certainly explain it if you ask for clarification.

jamest wrote:

I'm not certain that the specifics warrant reification, I'm certain the generals don't. These are the correspondances we share with others, "the taste of coriander" is no more real than "the experience of Basil Fawlty".

Then how do you account for your own personal tastes? Is there a physical narrative for that or are you just making stuff up which will sustain your bogus metaphysics?

What metaphysics? Show me the threads I start proclaiming one metaphysics over another. Show me my strong metaphysical convictions. Show me you have even the first clue what you're talking about.

jamest wrote:I hope that you realise that you're guilty of turning materialism into a religion with unsubstantiated crap mantras like these?

Do you even know what the word "mantra" means? I get that it probably feels good to use my criticisms of you against me, but it would help if it wasn't literally the first time ever in my entire life I'd said that thing you choose to call a "mantra". It might make the complaint even slightly relevant.

jamest wrote: You really need to have a word with yourself before you become so far gone that coherent discourse with you becomes an impossibility.

James, for you to have coherent discourse with me long since ceased to be a possibility.

jamest wrote:If I weren't so tired I'd be extracting a frozen badger from the freezer. But rest assured, I'll be back.

Squire. Badger. Bleedin obvious. Observed X is not X itself. Newton.

You need to get a new act.

Thommo wrote:

jamest wrote:

Thommo wrote:

zoon wrote:
You are equally clear that there is no pain and no happiness, there are no beliefs, desires or intentions?

Honestly, I'd probably separate out the specific and the general. There are pains, there is no pain. There are beliefs, there is no belief. Perhaps, at least.

What a load of bollocks. If Li or myself had come out with such vague illogical crap, you'd be swinging a rope near to a tree.

It's neither.

I didn't ask you for clarification. I simply stated that your whole utterance was bollocks.

If you don't understand the difference between the specific and the general I can certainly explain it if you ask for clarification.

Likewise, I can certainly explain the distinction between bollocks and truth... if you ask.

jamest wrote:

I'm not certain that the specifics warrant reification, I'm certain the generals don't. These are the correspondances we share with others, "the taste of coriander" is no more real than "the experience of Basil Fawlty".

Then how do you account for your own personal tastes? Is there a physical narrative for that or are you just making stuff up which will sustain your bogus metaphysics?

What metaphysics? Show me the threads I start proclaiming one metaphysics over another.

Stop acting the retard. Note where you are and the point of the OP. Next, take a time-out to consider that you've just rejected the notion of there being any personal experience in favour of a purely physical explanation for your/our behaviour. Stop telling us that you're not partaking of metaphysics, otherwise I will have to conclude that you're either stupid or just trolling.

Show me my strong metaphysical convictions. Show me you have even the first clue what you're talking about.

I'm showing you that now, as I explain why you're either stupid or trolling.

jamest wrote:I hope that you realise that you're guilty of turning materialism into a religion with unsubstantiated crap mantras like these?

Do you even know what the word "mantra" means?

That's akin to asking Gordon Ramsey what 'seasoning' means. Have you been smoking something tonight?

jamest wrote: You really need to have a word with yourself before you become so far gone that coherent discourse with you becomes an impossibility.

James, for you to have coherent discourse with me long since ceased to be a possibility.

I'm sorry to hear that. Is there no cure for your ailments? If not, then I apologise for giving you a hard time.

jamest wrote:If I weren't so tired I'd be extracting a frozen badger from the freezer. But rest assured, I'll be back.

Squire. Badger. Bleedin obvious. Observed X is not X itself. Newton.

You need to get a new act.

Perhaps. But you need to get a new philosophy!

jamest wrote:

Thommo wrote:

jamest wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Honestly, I'd probably separate out the specific and the general. There are pains, there is no pain. There are beliefs, there is no belief. Perhaps, at least.

What a load of bollocks. If Li or myself had come out with such vague illogical crap, you'd be swinging a rope near to a tree.

It's neither.

I didn't ask you for clarification. I simply stated that your whole utterance was bollocks.

And you were wrong (not that it's actually true that you simply stated it was bollocks, you quite plainly called it illogical, as if you'd know what that meant). If you don't want clarification, I won't provide it, but I'd point out that I didn't solicit your ill-informed opinion either.

Thommo wrote:

jamest wrote:

Thommo wrote:

jamest wrote:
What a load of bollocks. If Li or myself had come out with such vague illogical crap, you'd be swinging a rope near to a tree.

It's neither.

I didn't ask you for clarification. I simply stated that your whole utterance was bollocks.

And you were wrong (not that it's actually true that you simply stated it was bollocks, you quite plainly called it illogical, as if you'd know what that meant). If you don't want clarification, I won't provide it, but I'd point out that I didn't solicit your ill-informed opinion either.

Why would I give two shits about the opinion of anyone who actually rejects the occurrence of his own experience so as to sustain a bullshit metaphysics (as if a personal metaphysics didn't suffice in itself as evidence of the 'personal'!!!!)? And why would I care whether you solicited my opinion, or not?

... This is my beloved philosophy forum. Anyone who talks absolute bollocks here, as you have tonight, should know that I shall pounce at any moment!!!

Thommo wrote:
the taste of coriander is no more real than the experience of Basil Fawlty

So do you not think that everything perceived as real is within a spectrum