Justifying Hallucinations as "Reality"

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Didn't happen the way I believed they happened. So I'm talking not just the experience but how the experience is represented and it's connection to the other things.

An other way to put it is that there's internal inconsistency in the experience. So if I see something as a person that's a legitimate experience but if what was seen in the experience was an old log that looked like a person then how the log presents itself in the experience isn't accurate. All depends upon whether you use a more internalist language or externalist language.

This is a distinction without a difference as far as I am concerned.  There is no standard for judging the "reality" of any of this within your presented paradigm as I understand it.  So I guess still I perhaps do not understand it.  Sorry for being so dense.  You still have "representations of other things"- what the heck does that mean??

If this is just a straight up coherence theory I could deal with it, but it still seems to want to point to "other things" infinitely- maybe that is what you mean by "the universe is a sign".  Ok fine I call that a coherence theory.  It is true because all experience of all humans cohere and everyone can replicate the same experiments.  Fine. I would say we replicate the same experiences- but do not try to tie that to anything beyond the experiences.

There is nothing we can say about anything beyond experience- it is not "pointing" to anything but other experiences.  Period.  End of story.

I have a dream of a log becoming a person, as perhaps in a horror  movie portraying shape shifters etc.  So was it really a log or a person?  

The question makes no sense

So did Joseph see God or did he only think he saw God and reported it as such?  All we have is the report and some kind of "burning in the bosom" against which we have absolutely NO verifiable evidence tied to "the world" whatsoever.  We have perhaps signs pointing to nothing but hunches and perhaps as Scrooge might say, indigestion.

How can one check how an experience is "represented" or its "connection to the other things"?

You see "something AS a person"?   In the dark perhaps you saw a log and mistakenly thought it was a person?  That is a "mistake" and one certainly I would think would not want to base a whole metaphysics on accounting for mistake perceptions.  Linguistically everyone knows what a mistaken perception is.  "Oh- it's you!  I thought you were Bob!"  "Is that a waterhole?- Oh no it's a mirage!"

So in the case of a vision of God how can we find out if the "representation"- ie: the words spoken by Joseph telling us what happened- for which even the idea that those utterances are a "representation" of a personal meeting with the King of Glory and Creator of the Universe is absurd- correspond to the reality OR to use your words in case the jargon is important to you- "how the experience is represented and its connection to the other things"?

The other things are just experiences also- so why even postulate "things" which are not experiences?????   We cannot speak or know anything about anything other than experience- so where's the BEEF?

Yes you have said you have personal "evidence" that the statement is true- I get that and indeed I agree with you on that.  I have no problem with that vocabulary whatsoever.

But how can you personally say that "Joseph saw God" is true because of "how the experience is represented and it's connection to the other things."?

Are the other things your testimony?  But can you show that testimony to others to make your testimony "true" to them?

Perhaps because they also feel the spirit?   Is that what you are saying?

I could understand that kind of thinking- I think it is the usual Mormon way to think- I know the church is true by revelation and you can know too if you... (Moroni 10:4, Alma 32, etc)

But I don't see how Peirce enters into that way of thinking at all.  Perhaps you just like Peirce for everything else in your life and see that there is no conflict with Mormonism on that reading of Peirce.

Again- I see no inconsistency with that, but it just doesn't fill my personal requirements.   I want a philosophy I can use to intellectually justify the gospel and I do not see it in that approach.  It's fine- nothing wrong that I can see with it, it is just now what I am looking for

So another question then- Suppose Joseph said he saw Org of Xzyton and his Son who came in glory who gave Joseph the exact same message- that all churches were wrong, etc and to start a new church worshiping Org, and you have a stirring in your bosom that Joseph was telling the truth- or you have the same vision.

Is Org of Xzyton conceptually that different than El of Kolob?

Edited April 29, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

21 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

This is a distinction without a difference as far as I am concerned.  There is no standard for judging the "reality" of any of this within your presented paradigm as I understand it.  So I guess still I perhaps do not understand it.  Sorry for being so dense.  You still have "representations of other things"- what the heck does that mean??

Well, normally I was giving context but you asked me not to.

The point is more about what constitutes an experience. As I said within an experience I don't, as the strict empiricists asserted, have sense data. Rather the interpretation is part of the experience. I gave an example of that "as-structure" where you see something as something and then realize that part of the experience was wrong.

I recognize you don't accept this as a difference.

The point is that future experiences transform the meaning of any given experience. That's how judgment works. As our inquiry proceeds and we and others come to stable answers we are judging reality. The very process of revision which is belief-change is this process of judging reality.

[mfbukowski]

16 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Well, normally I was giving context but you asked me not to.

The point is more about what constitutes an experience. As I said within an experience I don't, as the strict empiricists asserted, have sense data. Rather the interpretation is part of the experience. I gave an example of that "as-structure" where you see something as something and then realize that part of the experience was wrong.

I recognize you don't accept this as a difference.

The point is that future experiences transform the meaning of any given experience. That's how judgment works. As our inquiry proceeds and we and others come to stable answers we are judging reality. The very process of revision which is belief-change is this process of judging reality.

Yeah- I want to know what Clark thinks and how he explains it- not what the strict empiricists think- I want to know how Clark interprets the strict empiricists or does not interpret them and how Clark makes sense of Clark's life.   I can read the other stuff anywhere - I probably already know it anyway.  You are a smart dude, you are Mormon so I want to crawl into your universe and have a look around and see how it works.  THAT to me is real philosophy- the history is just HIS-STORY and I want your story not his.

So in the experience of meditating, is Clark interpreting sense data?

Yes clearly the experiences of a baby and a 70 year old are vastly different.  But I see that as supporting my case that we "create our own world from matter unorganized" and that point leads to a whole theology about the relationship between God and Man.   Of course that world changes over time.  Perhaps our difference is just semantics and jargon.

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

So in the experience of meditating, is Clark interpreting sense data?

The type of meditation I do is clearing the mind. I find "sense data" the way classic empiricists talk of it nonsense. But certainly when doing breathing exercises at the beginning there are interpretations. But the goal is to simply act and not think. (In these sense of consciousness) As the other thread mentioned that's not the only type of meditation and I've studied intellectually other sorts. But Zen meditation is what I liked best and it was most relevant to my life at the time I practiced it formally.

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Perhaps our difference is just semantics and jargon.

90% of any philosophical disagreement seems to be getting agreement on semantics.

I'm reasonably sure you don't just mean we take experience at face value. From your other comments I just can't see you adopting that solipsistic a position. But I confess I'm just not quite sure what you mean when you don't see how one can inquire about an experience. My sense is that how you are defining experience is perhaps far more narrow than I am.

[mfbukowski]

From the other thread

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't understand what it even means to say a testimony is self-grounding. But I'll leave that for the other thread.

And here we are on the other thread.  I guess what I meant was that if I was a foundationalist I would call a testimony "properly basic".   There is noting more to say about how it is grounded- it is as basic as you can go.  Of course as an anti-realist I would not put it that way.  Doubting that a testimony experience happened is like doubting you stubbed your toe.  The experience event happened.  Whether it was a chair or a table your toe struck is another question that you perhaps don't know until you turn on the light

But I can turn that around and ask you, since you brought it up, what is the grounding for YOUR testimony if you think they need grounding?   It's like knowing you exist- or that you are seeing the color blue.  What grounding can one have to be sure you are seeing "blue"?

If its the voice of God or the voice of Satan there are no criteria internal to the testimony to tell you which it is epistemologically, we can only tell the difference by acting on the consequences and seeing how it works out

Frankly epistemologically we cannot even say if a testimony is from God or our own unconscious.  Suppose someone proposes that God does not exist and a "testimony" is not an indication that he does exist, since testimonies are simply produced within your own mind- chemical reactions, etc- physicalism.   How do you prove otherwise?  Either you believe in God or you don't

THATS what I meant by "self grounding"

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The type of meditation I do is clearing the mind. I find "sense data" the way classic empiricists talk of it nonsense. But certainly when doing breathing exercises at the beginning there are interpretations. But the goal is to simply act and not think. (In these sense of consciousness) As the other thread mentioned that's not the only type of meditation and I've studied intellectually other sorts. But Zen meditation is what I liked best and it was most relevant to my life at the time I practiced it formally.

Well I agree totally but my question is- how does that relate to Peirce and signs?  If the idea of "sense data" is nonsense here, are there "signs" in meditation?  What does the experience of meditation point to ?

THIS is what I mean by "non-verbal experience"- no language, no signs, no representation, no pointing to anything- just the pure experience of watching your thoughts go by while not letting them pull you in.

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90% of any philosophical disagreement seems to be getting agreement on semantics.

Wittgenstein would make it 100%

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I'm reasonably sure you don't just mean we take experience at face value. From your other comments I just can't see you adopting that solipsistic a position. But I confess I'm just not quite sure what you mean when you don't see how one can inquire about an experience. My sense is that how you are defining experience is perhaps far more narrow than I am.

No- everything is interpretation- there is nothing BUT interpretation- there is no such thing as "objectivity" in the sense of impartiality.  Again, Nietzsche- "there are no facts, only interpretations"

But I sense that is not your point.  I have trouble understanding what you do not understand.  The experience of "blue" is the experience of blue- what more is there to be said about it?  Why does it have to be "grounded"?

Perhaps if we look at analytically- someone says he is seeing a blue car.   How do we challenge that the color of the car he is experiencing something other than blue?  The relevant analogy is perhaps a Mormon says he has seen God, perhaps his name is Joseph Smith.

We may doubt that he saw what he says he saw, perhaps he was lying or mistaken or hallucinating or deluded etc.  But what is our" standing" to doubt what he says he saw?

Someone says they have a testimony.  What basis would anyone have for saying "No you don't"?   One could shake one's head and walk away, but there is no disputing someone who says they had a certain experience.

[clarkgoble]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Well I agree totally but my question is- how does that relate to Peirce and signs?  If the idea of "sense data" is nonsense here, are there "signs" in meditation?  What does the experience of meditation point to ?

Not quite sure what you are asking. I'd say that Nietzsche's "everything is interpretation" ends up being the same as Peirces "everything is mediated by signs." With the caveat that Peirce also has in his basic ontology not just signs but also what he calls firstness (somewhat akin to qualia) and secondness (somewhat akin to action). 

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No- everything is interpretation- there is nothing BUT interpretation- there is no such thing as "objectivity" in the sense of impartiality.  Again, Nietzsche- "there are no facts, only interpretations"

Well I wouldn't say everything is interpretation/signs. But I assume you agree with me there since you allow for qualia. My only caveat to the common Nietzsche quote is that we don't pick the interpretations. They happen but aren't consciously selected. Akin it's selection by greater powers. That rejection of the volition of belief is crucial I think.

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But I sense that is not your point.  I have trouble understanding what you do not understand.  The experience of "blue" is the experience of blue- what more is there to be said about it?  Why does it have to be "grounded"?

I think I've given several examples. If I see something as a particular type of thing, that's an experience. Yet the content of the experience is wrong. I can be mistaken with an experience. The experience as an experience of course has happened and thus isn't wrong in that sense. But in the sense of how it represents the things within the experience it can be wrong.

Put an other way not all interpretations are equally good. I could start dropping non-sequiturs in our discussion and you'd quickly become annoyed. Why? Because you'd recognize I'm doing something wrong. The mere fact you can have that experience of me being wrong in my interpretations strongly suggests you recognize experiences have to be grounded in terms of connection reality.

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Perhaps if we look at analytically- someone says he is seeing a blue car.   How do we challenge that the color of the car he is experiencing something other than blue?  The relevant analogy is perhaps a Mormon says he has seen God, perhaps his name is Joseph Smith.

If someone else sees the car as red then that at a minimum raises doubts. The objects in our experiences don't merely occur within a single experience. Thus they have a repetitive nature that allows me to correct my interpretations.

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We may doubt that he saw what he says he saw, perhaps he was lying or mistaken or hallucinating or deluded etc.  But what is our" standing" to doubt what he says he saw?

We can doubt what he says because we don't have any experiences allowing us to believe him. We can doubt what he says because of inconsistencies or because the objects he describes don't line up with our experiences of them. In that sense all experience including religious ones are open to inquiry. If, to give a hypothetical, I pray and God appears and doesn't look like Joseph described and he tells me Joseph was wrong, that seems a reasonable type of doubt. Now of course any new experience I have is also open to inquiry. So in my hypothetical I may have cause to doubt that I saw God. Maybe I'm suffering from mental illness and so I'm more apt to be skeptical of my experiences. Maybe I find out I was without my knowledge drugged at the time of my experience. There's all sorts of things that can lead me to doubt.

All of this just seems like common sense and is how most people deal with their experiences. We've all had occasions where we experience something that isn't how it's presented in our experience. You think you heard the baby crying and then discover it wasn't. And so forth.

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Someone says they have a testimony.  What basis would anyone have for saying "No you don't"?   One could shake one's head and walk away, but there is no disputing someone who says they had a certain experience.

Well aren't there times when you hear someone saying something and you think it a lie? What would make a religious testimony any different? I may simply distrust what they say about religion due to their actions. Of course that doesn't mean they didn't really have it - perhaps they have a testimony but an extremely weak will and they lie a lot. But it raises doubts. Maybe when I'm listening to them I don't feel the spirit when I do with everyone else.

Again all of this just seems like common day to day experience. We doubt people's accounts. Those doubts are interpretations. The interpretations arise due to the details of the objects in question. About all I add to the account is the claim that beliefs/doubts aren't volitional and are simply selected by the powers at hand. (My biases and habits within my mind, my past experience with the person I doubt/believe, my past experiences with the objects testified about, etc.)

Edited May 1, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Not quite sure what you are asking. I'd say that Nietzsche's "everything is interpretation" ends up being the same as Peirces "everything is mediated by signs." With the caveat that Peirce also has in his basic ontology not just signs but also what he calls firstness (somewhat akin to qualia) and secondness (somewhat akin to action). 

Well I wouldn't say everything is interpretation/signs. But I assume you agree with me there since you allow for qualia. My only caveat to the common Nietzsche quote is that we don't pick the interpretations. They happen but aren't consciously selected. Akin it's selection by greater powers. That rejection of the volition of belief is crucial I think.

I think I've given several examples. If I see something as a particular type of thing, that's an experience. Yet the content of the experience is wrong. I can be mistaken with an experience. The experience as an experience of course has happened and thus isn't wrong in that sense. But in the sense of how it represents the things within the experience it can be wrong.

Put an other way not all interpretations are equally good. I could start dropping non-sequiturs in our discussion and you'd quickly become annoyed. Why? Because you'd recognize I'm doing something wrong. The mere fact you can have that experience of me being wrong in my interpretations strongly suggests you recognize experiences have to be grounded in terms of connection reality.

If someone else sees the car as red then that at a minimum raises doubts. The objects in our experiences don't merely occur within a single experience. Thus they have a repetitive nature that allows me to correct my interpretations.

We can doubt what he says because we don't have any experiences allowing us to believe him. We can doubt what he says because of inconsistencies or because the objects he describes don't line up with our experiences of them. In that sense all experience including religious ones are open to inquiry. If, to give a hypothetical, I pray and God appears and doesn't look like Joseph described and he tells me Joseph was wrong, that seems a reasonable type of doubt. Now of course any new experience I have is also open to inquiry. So in my hypothetical I may have cause to doubt that I saw God. Maybe I'm suffering from mental illness and so I'm more apt to be skeptical of my experiences. Maybe I find out I was without my knowledge drugged at the time of my experience. There's all sorts of things that can lead me to doubt.

All of this just seems like common sense and is how most people deal with their experiences. We've all had occasions where we experience something that isn't how it's presented in our experience. You think you heard the baby crying and then discover it wasn't. And so forth.

Well aren't there times when you hear someone saying something and you think it a lie? What would make a religious testimony any different? I may simply distrust what they say about religion due to their actions. Of course that doesn't mean they didn't really have it - perhaps they have a testimony but an extremely weak will and they lie a lot. But it raises doubts. Maybe when I'm listening to them I don't feel the spirit when I do with everyone else.

Again all of this just seems like common day to day experience. We doubt people's accounts. Those doubts are interpretations. The interpretations arise due to the details of the objects in question. About all I add to the account is the claim that beliefs/doubts aren't volitional and are simply selected by the powers at hand. (My biases and habits within my mind, my past experience with the person I doubt/believe, my past experiences with the objects testified about, etc.)

I think we are talking past each other- we may just genuinely disagree but I would hate to give up if there is a way to see the other's position.

I cannot see your position at all except as Cartesian dualism, cloaked in other terms.  Yet again I must say that the clear fact of common sense that we make mistakes in perception like mirages etc is no reason to create an entire metaphysics of a world outside our experience.  And that SEEMS to me to be what you are doing.  Of course people lie, of course we have experiences which we think will predict one event while another happens.  So in the case of a mirage, our experience of seeing the mirage might predict an experience of getting a drink, while in fact it predicts nothing but a mouthful of sand

That our interpretation of experiences does not always correctly predict future experiences is no reason to postulate the existence of some unseen world that experience supposedly "points to" or "represents" or is "reality"

Essentially you have the world as it appears vs the world as it is- the old Cartesian dualism in new terms, as I see it.  Sorry.  

Let's give it one last try- let me ask you to define the difference in how we know the truth or falsity of the statement "I saw a blue car" contrasted with knowing the truth or falsity of these statements:

"My toe hurts"

"I am hungry"

"I saw God"

and do so without referring to any kind of dualism or metaphysics whatsoever.

In fact perhaps that is the key to the whole problem- Peirce has a complex metaphysics. I find it desirable to do away with metaphysics in order to use a system which can account for a "real" God who is immanent and can be directly experienced without any reference to any other realm outside of our experience.

 

[clarkgoble]

21 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I think we are talking past each other- we may just genuinely disagree but I would hate to give up if there is a way to see the other's position.I cannot see your position at all except as Cartesian dualism, cloaked in other terms.

If I am correct, you see as Cartesian any position that emphasizes representation. Is that correct? The problem I have is that we recognize we represent. So I'm not quite clear on your replacement for representation. The reason I object to that label if first I don't see representation as the characteristic feature of Descartes. I think the bigger issue is the ontological dualism and the implications that entails. The second problem I see is the focus on a static view which then frames epistemology in terms of math proofs. Again I think the solution there is to simply shift to a more process view and what causes changes in belief. It's that emphasis which is why I find Peirce, Heidegger and Derrida interesting.

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That our interpretation of experiences does not always correctly predict future experiences is no reason to postulate the existence of some unseen world that experience supposedly "points to" or "represents" or is "reality"

But that's explicitly what I'm not doing. I'm not saying there's some other world. I'm saying it's the world we experience but represented incorrectly. There is no other world. In that sense I'm completely Nietzschean not Cartesian.

My problem with your view is that you keep assuming the issue is an other world rather than just the issue of how particular experiences can make objects seem. Since again I know you acknowledge we can be incorrect about objects I don't quite see why you keep focusing on this. Again representation in an externalist scheme is different from an internalist scheme. Especially of the ontological sort Descartes introduces. If your solution is to merely get rid of the very notion of representation that seems inherently a problem since you have to explain the very clear sense of representation in our language games.

To suggest there is no predictive power here just seems astoundingly odd. If I see a pencil in a cup of water appearing bent it's not hard to predict that if I pull out the pencil it'll not be bent. I just don't see how you can explain these very, very common phenomena.

Again since I assume you don't actually deny representation nor embrace solipsism I'm having a very hard time making sense of what you actually do espouse.

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"My toe hurts"

"I am hungry"

"I saw God"

and do so without referring to any kind of dualism or metaphysics whatsoever.

My toe hurt is a description of the toe hurting so it hard to be mistaken about. (Indeed examples like that are usually taken to be the paradigm case of where we're least able to be mistaken) But of course we can be mistaken. A person wakes up in a hospital after an accident. His toe hurts and he says so. His wife says, "honey, you lost your leg in the accident." So you have the feeling of hurting but the representation of the pain as in the toe is wrong. So even these paradigmatic examples aren't infallible.

Again hungry is similar. And I think there we've all had the experience where we thought we were hungry but as soon as we look at food we don't desire it. The typical response isn't to say we really were hungry and changed our mind but to say we were mistaken about being hungry. Even if you disagree it seems like there's no way to select between those two possibilities in a consistent fashion. (If you don't mind me playing Rorty's argument against you)

Neither of those involve any dualism or metaphysics. I'd assume God would be the same way. I think I see God then realize I hadn't taken my lithium for several weeks and suspect my cognition is not to be trusted. Or I think I saw God and then discover it was friends with a flashlight and hidden speaker and some ketamine snuck in my food.

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In fact perhaps that is the key to the whole problem- Peirce has a complex metaphysics. I find it desirable to do away with metaphysics in order to use a system which can account for a "real" God who is immanent and can be directly experienced without any reference to any other realm outside of our experience.

I confess I don't see that. It seems a pretty simple metaphysics. He has three entities. Firstness, secondness, and thirdness defined entirely in terms of how many entities are involved in each. He then has the idea of chance and continuity along with the idea that habits develop. That's about it. Most of the rest are implications from those. I think it might be controversial due to its similarity to forms of platonism and Hegelianism. But it's not really complicated. I also don't think his ontology actually has anything to do with the argument  I've made. I don't see any assumption of metaphysics in the argument beyond the rejection of dualism.

Edited May 1, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

If I am correct, you see as Cartesian any position that emphasizes representation. Is that correct? The problem I have is that we recognize we represent. So I'm not quite clear on your replacement for representation. The reason I object to that label if first I don't see representation as the characteristic feature of Descartes. I think the bigger issue is the ontological dualism and the implications that entails. The second problem I see is the focus on a static view which then frames epistemology in terms of math proofs. Again I think the solution there is to simply shift to a more process view and what causes changes in belief. It's that emphasis which is why I find Peirce, Heidegger and Derrida interesting.

But that's explicitly what I'm not doing. I'm not saying there's some other world. I'm saying it's the world we experience but represented incorrectly. There is no other world. In that sense I'm completely Nietzschean not Cartesian.

My problem with your view is that you keep assuming the issue is an other world rather than just the issue of how particular experiences can make objects seem. Since again I know you acknowledge we can be incorrect about objects I don't quite see why you keep focusing on this. Again representation in an externalist scheme is different from an internalist scheme. Especially of the ontological sort Descartes introduces. If your solution is to merely get rid of the very notion of representation that seems inherently a problem since you have to explain the very clear sense of representation in our language games.

To suggest there is no predictive power here just seems astoundingly odd. If I see a pencil in a cup of water appearing bent it's not hard to predict that if I pull out the pencil it'll not be bent. I just don't see how you can explain these very, very common phenomena.

Again since I assume you don't actually deny representation nor embrace solipsism I'm having a very hard time making sense of what you actually do espouse.

My toe hurt is a description of the toe hurting so it hard to be mistaken about. (Indeed examples like that are usually taken to be the paradigm case of where we're least able to be mistaken) But of course we can be mistaken. A person wakes up in a hospital after an accident. His toe hurts and he says so. His wife says, "honey, you lost your leg in the accident." So you have the feeling of hurting but the representation of the pain as in the toe is wrong. So even these paradigmatic examples aren't infallible.

Again hungry is similar. And I think there we've all had the experience where we thought we were hungry but as soon as we look at food we don't desire it. The typical response isn't to say we really were hungry and changed our mind but to say we were mistaken about being hungry. Even if you disagree it seems like there's no way to select between those two possibilities in a consistent fashion. (If you don't mind me playing Rorty's argument against you)

Neither of those involve any dualism or metaphysics. I'd assume God would be the same way. I think I see God then realize I hadn't taken my lithium for several weeks and suspect my cognition is not to be trusted. Or I think I saw God and then discover it was friends with a flashlight and hidden speaker and some ketamine snuck in my food.

I confess I don't see that. It seems a pretty simple metaphysics. He has three entities. Firstness, secondness, and thirdness defined entirely in terms of how many entities are involved in each. He then has the idea of chance and continuity along with the idea that habits develop. That's about it. Most of the rest are implications from those. I think it might be controversial due to its similarity to forms of platonism and Hegelianism. But it's not really complicated. I also don't think his ontology actually has anything to do with the argument  I've made. I don't see any assumption of metaphysics in the argument beyond the rejection of dualism.

Well I hate to get back to secondary sources but if you look at the SEP under "Peirce" and the article under Rorty I think it becomes clearer where Perice is mentioned in terms of a medieval metaphysics and Rorty's anti-representationalism becomes clear.

It's not like I am making this stuff up- so unfortunately we are back to arguments from authority.   Perhaps its my garbled understanding of Rorty, but I think not.  Rorty essentially believes there is no possibility or a "representation of reality" in language- but of course representation within language is a different animal.

We can roughly translate from one language to another but even there the meaning is never perfectly "represented".  Look no further than the title of the "Mirror of Nature" to understand that there IS no "mirror of nature"

Underlining added

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2.2 Antirepresentationalism

Rorty's enduring attitude to relativism and subjectivism is that both are products of the representationalist paradigm. Though the theme is explicit in PM and CP ("Pragmatism, Relativism, Irrationalism"), it is with Rorty's later and further appropriation of Davidson that his criticism of the idea of knowledge as representation becomes fully elaborated (ORT "Introduction" and Part II). Drawing on Davidson's criticism of the scheme-content distinction ("On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme") and of the correspondence theory of truth ("The Structure and Content of Truth"), Rorty is able to back up his rejection of any philosophical position or project which attempts to draw a general line between what is made and what is found, what is subjective and what is objective, what is mere appearance and what is real. Rorty's position is not that these conceptual contrasts never have application, but that such application is always context and interest bound and that there is, as in the case of the related notion of truth, nothing to be said about them in general. Rorty's commitment to the conversationalist view of knowledge must therefore be distinguished from subjectivism or relativism, which, Rorty argues, presuppose the very distinctions he seeks to reject. Equally, Rorty's epistemological behaviorism must not be confused with an idealism that asserts a primacy of thought or language with respect to the unmediated world, since this, too, is a position that is undercut by Rorty's Davidsonian position. In light of the view of truth and of meaning that Rorty appropriates from Davidson, his conversationalism is not a matter of giving priority to the subjective over the objective, or to mind's power over world's constraint. Rather it is the other side of his anti-representationalism, which denies that we are related to the world in anything other than causal terms. Differently put, Rorty argues that we can give no useful content to the notion that the world, by its very nature, rationally constrains choices of vocabulary with which to cope with it. (TP "The Very Idea of Human Answerability to the World: John McDowell's Version of Empiricism").

 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/#A

 

[clarkgoble]

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Well I hate to get back to secondary sources but if you look at the SEP under "Peirce" and the article under Rorty I think it becomes clearer where Perice is mentioned in terms of a medieval metaphysics and Rorty's anti-representationalism becomes clear.

That's the nominalism issue. I think that ends up being a natural corollary of the metaphysical commitments he makes. But as I've mentioned it's a huge focus for him.

While obviously realism about generals/universals is something you'd reject, I don't quite see how it resolves the question of representations.

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It's not like I am making this stuff up- so unfortunately we are back to arguments from authority.   Perhaps its my garbled understanding of Rorty, but I think not.  Rorty essentially believes there is no possibility or a "representation of reality" in language- but of course representation within language is a different animal.

Well I don't think it's an argument from authority. The argument I made from surprise and how it changes the views of inquirers leads naturally to realism. As people investigate if they all arrive independently at the same structures (say the laws of physics) I think that's prima facie evidence those laws aren't merely in their minds. Put an other way, the universe sure seems unusually mathematically in a way that's hard to ascribe to just us imposing structures on it. Explaining why the universe is so mathematical is something I don't think nominalists are able to do too well. And Rorty's particular nominalism seems very unable to explain physical structures.

I should note relative to the quote you have of Rorty following Davidson that I think it's particularly there that Peirce does offer a solution. Reality acts on us directing how we make ideas. It's the third way between the traditional poles of realism and idealism that Dewey dealt with in the early 20th century. That Hildebrant book on Dewey/Peirce against Rorty/Putnam is all about that topic.

So the Peirce position doesn't make the distinction Rorty critiques yet is still able to explain truth and representation by way of reality acting. To me it's extremely persuasive and explains why the hard sciences arrive at the answers they do. The reason I originally became quickly dissatisfied with Rorty in college was precisely that issue of the hard sciences. 

I recognize you won't agree with that distinction, but I think it's pretty crucial for understanding how representations are possible.

 

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

That's the nominalism issue. I think that ends up being a natural corollary of the metaphysical commitments he makes. But as I've mentioned it's a huge focus for him.

While obviously realism about generals/universals is something you'd reject, I don't quite see how it resolves the question of representations.

Well I don't think it's an argument from authority. The argument I made from surprise and how it changes the views of inquirers leads naturally to realism. As people investigate if they all arrive independently at the same structures (say the laws of physics) I think that's prima facie evidence those laws aren't merely in their minds. Put an other way, the universe sure seems unusually mathematically in a way that's hard to ascribe to just us imposing structures on it. Explaining why the universe is so mathematical is something I don't think nominalists are able to do too well. And Rorty's particular nominalism seems very unable to explain physical structures.

I should note relative to the quote you have of Rorty following Davidson that I think it's particularly there that Peirce does offer a solution. Reality acts on us directing how we make ideas. It's the third way between the traditional poles of realism and idealism that Dewey dealt with in the early 20th century. That Hildebrant book on Dewey/Peirce against Rorty/Putnam is all about that topic.

So the Peirce position doesn't make the distinction Rorty critiques yet is still able to explain truth and representation by way of reality acting. To me it's extremely persuasive and explains why the hard sciences arrive at the answers they do. The reason I originally became quickly dissatisfied with Rorty in college was precisely that issue of the hard sciences. 

I recognize you won't agree with that distinction, but I think it's pretty crucial for understanding how representations are possible.

 

Well there's a lot here, but along with Rorty I don't think that there is any way to "represent" things as they are in mental states, much less in language.  For me there IS no "question of representations".

People arrive at what you call the "same structures" because they are all people with the same brain and ways of seeing and interpreting what enters that brain.  Like you say, if you are a hammer all you see is nails.  Right on.  We look out and see a reflection of ourselves looking back. THAT is the "mirror of nature" from a different angle.  Every creature sees reality not as reality is, but as its cognitive structure is formed by and for its survival.  That is a scientific explanation in a philosophy thread and normally I would not use it but it seems to be the only way to communicate the idea

Much of the Twentieth Century was about anti-representationalism.  That;s why my icon is Picasso.

I wonder what Peirce would think the concept was behind a Kandinsky painting?  What does it point to ?

And then we have this Magritte that makes it explicit.  All of this plus philosophy questions the very possibility of  representation.

Edited May 2, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

My sense is we're equivocating over representation. To me Picasso is still representational.

I think that we likely are seeing each other as Cartesian for different reasons. To me you are making a cleave between the inner and outer world and merely getting rid of the outer world as unknowable or even unspeakable. Yet to me that still puts you in the Cartesian metaphysics much as say Kant is still within that metaphysics. You reject representations because they require an outer world to be a representation. So when you hear me speaking of representations you immediately think I'm thinking in that Cartesian model of the outer and inner world.

The problem, from my perspective, is that I completely reject that Cartesian metaphysics. There is no inner/outer world and even no mind in the sense of Cartesian metaphysics. Everything is signs and while you can speak of the object or interpretant of a sign to speak of an inner or outer is meaningless or at best allegorical. So when I talk about representation there is no inner or outer world. I've tried to make that point about signs quite a few times but I don't think it's quite sinking in as you still want to think of signs in terms of minds, insides and outsides.

So to me it's you, not me, that is still caught up in Cartesianism. To my eyes where Rorty goes astray is in reading the pragmatists in Cartesian terms. To me to say the letter 'a' stands for the sound "a" is a kind of representation regardless of whether any person is thinking it. Representations are just signs. As Peirce says, "a representation is an object which stands for an other so that an experience of the former affords us a knowledge of the latter." (W 3:62) So a weather vane pointing the direction of the wind represents the wind independent of any human seeing it. To talk of symbols is to talk of representations. It's simply not a matter of inner pictures or thoughts and outside objects.

Abstract paintings are, for Peirce, still representational to the degree any object determines them. That representation may not be intentional by the painter. So for instance the fractal mathematics present in a Pollock painting is represented by that painting. Pointing to abstract art isn't a terribly good example for me since such art still is in accordance with basic aesthical norms and thus represents them. The strength of Peirce's notion of signs as representation is that his realism can easily deal with these abstractions. Because neither intentionality nor mind in the Cartesian sense simply aren't key to his notion of representation the types of criticisms you raise are largely irrelevant. Intentionality is simply an other sign.

Edited May 2, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

My sense is we're equivocating over representation. To me Picasso is still representational.

I think that we likely are seeing each other as Cartesian for different reasons. To me you are making a cleave between the inner and outer world and merely getting rid of the outer world as unknowable or even unspeakable. Yet to me that still puts you in the Cartesian metaphysics much as say Kant is still within that metaphysics. You reject representations because they require an outer world to be a representation. So when you hear me speaking of representations you immediately think I'm thinking in that Cartesian model of the outer and inner world.

The problem, from my perspective, is that I completely reject that Cartesian metaphysics. There is no inner/outer world and even no mind in the sense of Cartesian metaphysics. Everything is signs and while you can speak of the object or interpretant of a sign to speak of an inner or outer is meaningless or at best allegorical. So when I talk about representation there is no inner or outer world. I've tried to make that point about signs quite a few times but I don't think it's quite sinking in as you still want to think of signs in terms of minds, insides and outsides.

So to me it's you, not me, that is still caught up in Cartesianism. To my eyes where Rorty goes astray is in reading the pragmatists in Cartesian terms. To me to say the letter 'a' stands for the sound "a" is a kind of representation regardless of whether any person is thinking it. Representations are just signs. As Peirce says, "a representation is an object which stands for an other so that an experience of the former affords us a knowledge of the latter." (W 3:62) So a weather vane pointing the direction of the wind represents the wind independent of any human seeing it. To talk of symbols is to talk of representations. It's simply not a matter of inner pictures or thoughts and outside objects.

Abstract paintings are, for Peirce, still representational to the degree any object determines them. That representation may not be intentional by the painter. So for instance the fractal mathematics present in a Pollock painting is represented by that painting. Pointing to abstract art isn't a terribly good example for me since such art still is in accordance with basic aesthical norms and thus represents them. The strength of Peirce's notion of signs as representation is that his realism can easily deal with these abstractions. Because neither intentionality nor mind in the Cartesian sense simply aren't key to his notion of representation the types of criticisms you raise are largely irrelevant. Intentionality is simply an other sign.

Chris Burden is not exactly within the realm of aesthetic norms- why does he make it into the highest levels of accepted art?  What about a urinal in an art museum? Is that in the highest level of aesthetic norms?  And did Pollock really represent fractals?  Warhol had nothing to do with aesthetics but was commenting on exactly what we are discussing here.  Contemporary art is about contemporary art- it refers only to its own world.

But I am sure you will point to Andrew Wyeth or someone.  To me, it's Andrew Wyeth vs Warhol. That's the exact same difference in art that we are discussing here.  One pretends to represent reality the other is self-referential.  Cartesianism vs Postmodernism.  Newton vs Susskind. http://www.peterbyrne.info/documents/sad0711Byrn3p.pdf

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Physicists’ dream to explain the universe as the unique outcome of basic principles. Physicists seeking to understand the deepest levels of reality now work within a framework largely of Susskind’s making. But a funny thing has happened along the way. Susskind now wonders whether physicists can understand reality.

Same deal.

I can see that your (mis)understanding of me is right on the money- and I am at fault for speaking that way about inner and outer- but I cannot speak here the way I would speak to a fellow philosopher of my ilk because it would not communicate-  to an analytical philosopher I would only be speaking about first person and third person statements

The fact of the matter is that the meaning of a first person utterance cannot be fully conveyed ever by a third person utterance.  Something will always be left out of the meaning- and what is left out is the point of view of the first person utterance.  If you want to call that Cartesianism then I am guilty.

Quite honestly that is all that needs to be said as far as I am concerned.  That is straight Nagel.  But that would communicate to darn few.

I could characterize what you say of Peirce in my language if all it was was a coherence theory- that language represents other linguistic statements- that words are signs which reference other words and observations and inferences and point to whatever else we can imagine having them point to.  In that sense the (human) universe is signs and there is nothing more.  It's signs all the way down.

But that is exactly what Rorty is saying too.  Everything humans can know is part of a humanized universe- because humans know it.  That is a tautology- it is a statement of equality.   All humans can know=all humans can know.

But yes, you are right- I do speak of subjective and objective.  But all of that is human experience- neither side of objective or subjective connects with OR REPRESENTS "things as they are"

"Objective" experience for me is a pool of individual human experience, and we call that "science".  A ton of guys having the same experiences and communicating them through journals etc.  But each time someone checks his gizmo-meter it is an individual experience.  His eyeballs take in light rays and his brain analyzes the input and creates an experience which he then turns into language.  "AHA! The gizmo-meter reads 98.6!!!  I have discovered Watchamacallit! Then he publishes that and others have the "same experience" with their gizmo-meters and voila! science happens.

The religious man prays and has a vision and says "Voila! I have seen God!"  Let me write it down and I have invented the church of XYZ!"

Notice there are no references there to anything outside of human experience.  No representation of "the world" no pointing to anything but human experience.

If that is what Peirce is doing, fine.

If he is pointing to something beyond human experience which is NOT human experience he is a dirty "Cartesian" in my book.

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  Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

 

 

I don't know how to make it more straightforward, and I still don't see how Peirce does it better.  To me, he is creating castles in the air.  

 

Edited May 2, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Contemporary art is about contemporary art- it refers only to its own world.

That's still a world that is part of the universe and it's still reference. Not quite sure what argument you're making unless you're again merely adopting the metaphysics of an inside world and outside world and saying art is just about the inside world so it doesn't count. But again I reject that metaphysics and you've not provided any argument for why I should adopt it.

Put an other way you're more or less illustrating the point I made about representation. You see representation as essentially about the inside referencing the outside. You see anything that doesn't reference the outside as somehow an argument against my position. But that only works if you first postulate the Cartesian idea of an inside and outside. What's so weird to me is that you then call me the Cartesian.

The usual argument here is that my experiences are mine in a way yours aren't. The question might be what then holds the difference between mine and not-mine. If you don't allow reference to anything but "mine" and this division isn't clearly in "mine" (otherwise it couldn't act as the difference) then doesn't that mean you can't maintain the division between mine and not-mine only by appealing to mine? And if so, isn't your metaphysics completely self-refuting if you want a metaphysics of inside and outside with the outside cut off? The only way to cut off the outside is to appeal to the non-inside which you say we can't do.

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The fact of the matter is that the meaning of a first person utterance cannot be fully conveyed ever by a third person utterance.  Something will always be left out of the meaning- and what is left out is the point of view of the first person utterance.  If you want to call that Cartesianism then I am guilty.

Again I have no trouble with that. Peirce has firstness, secondness and thirdness. He doesn't require that a sign in response to qualia (thirdness in response to firstness) is complete. So, to turn to postmodernism I can fully accept Marion's position that my representations of an experience don't exhaust the experience. But I'm not sure why you see that as inherently a problem with representation. I've certainly never claimed representations are perfect. They're always lacking. 

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Quite honestly that is all that needs to be said as far as I am concerned.  That is straight Nagel.  But that would communicate to darn few.

Yes and if you recall I said that not only do I accept Nagel but I radicalize him further and say that applies to all other minds. 

Put an other way, why is talking about what art refers to in this "inner" sense any less problematic than talking about how my math refers to real electrons. In both cases I'm referring to something outside of my experience. Perhaps one is human and the other not. But so what? Aren't other minds just as disconnected from me as the world? Indeed that's my ultimate point. It's all just world. The inner world of the bat is no less alien than your mind to me nor any less alien than the world of the electron. You seem to be saying that your mind is somehow not, and that thus I can refer. That seems a deeply problematic assumption.

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But all of that is human experience- neither side of objective or subjective connects with OR REPRESENTS "things as they are"

It seems, from my perspective, the problem is your defining representation as a perfect copy. But almost no one makes that claim about representation.To use my earlier example a weather vane represents the wind. But no one would imagine that it represents every facet of the wind. To say critique representation because it doesn't do something few think it does just seems odd.

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Notice there are no references there to anything outside of human experience.  No representation of "the world" no pointing to anything but human experience.

Right. I recognize that's the cut you wish to make. I just don't understand why you do. 

When you asked me why I want to refer to the world I gave pretty good arguments I thought. It explains surprise and why ideas by independent investigators converge on the same answers. That is I infer that reality acts on us constraining how we think. 

What's your counterpoint for why we should reject this? Complaining about perfect representation seems a side road since I don't believe in such a thing. Nor do I believe in an inside vs. an outside beyond in a very loose sense that breaks down when examined closely. Given that I simply don't hold the Cartesian metaphysical position you espouse how can you even critique representation in this fashion? To me there's nothing ontologically different from me referring to what I said yesterday versus referring to the keyboard I'm typing on. It's just reference.

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If he is pointing to something beyond human experience which is NOT human experience he is a dirty "Cartesian" in my book. 

Again I'd just point out again that to make the distinction of human vs. non-human experience first requires one join the dirty Cartesians. So your argument already depends upon Descartes' ontology. But I'd also say this conflates how we know with what we know. If you want to break down that distinction that's fine, but I think you have to make an argument for it because it seems a pretty natural distinction to make. If I hear someone knocking at the door I know someone is there but the way I know someone is there is from the knock. So in common every day experience we recognize this distinction. 

 

Put more simply why assume human experience is purely human and not contaminated by what is not-me? When I have experiences I don't experience things merely as me. You create the divide between the me and non-me but that's not how experience comes to me. I just experience them as objects I am with and that withdraw or come close to me. The idea of an inside and outside just seems alien. It's very odd Descartes came up with it when you stop and think about it. In experience there's no clear line demarking myself from not-myself. There's just experience. 

Edited May 2, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

That's still a world that is part of the universe and it's still reference. Not quite sure what argument you're making unless you're again merely adopting the metaphysics of an inside world and outside world and saying art is just about the inside world so it doesn't count. But again I reject that metaphysics and you've not provided any argument for why I should adopt it.

Put an other way you're more or less illustrating the point I made about representation. You see representation as essentially about the inside referencing the outside. You see anything that doesn't reference the outside as somehow an argument against my position. But that only works if you first postulate the Cartesian idea of an inside and outside. What's so weird to me is that you then call me the Cartesian.

The usual argument here is that my experiences are mine in a way yours aren't. The question might be what then holds the difference between mine and not-mine. If you don't allow reference to anything but "mine" and this division isn't clearly in "mine" (otherwise it couldn't act as the difference) then doesn't that mean you can't maintain the division between mine and not-mine only by appealing to mine? And if so, isn't your metaphysics completely self-refuting if you want a metaphysics of inside and outside with the outside cut off? The only way to cut off the outside is to appeal to the non-inside which you say we can't do.

Again I have no trouble with that. Peirce has firstness, secondness and thirdness. He doesn't require that a sign in response to qualia (thirdness in response to firstness) is complete. So, to turn to postmodernism I can fully accept Marion's position that my representations of an experience don't exhaust the experience. But I'm not sure why you see that as inherently a problem with representation. I've certainly never claimed representations are perfect. They're always lacking. 

Yes and if you recall I said that not only do I accept Nagel but I radicalize him further and say that applies to all other minds. 

Put an other way, why is talking about what art refers to in this "inner" sense any less problematic than talking about how my math refers to real electrons. In both cases I'm referring to something outside of my experience. Perhaps one is human and the other not. But so what? Aren't other minds just as disconnected from me as the world? Indeed that's my ultimate point. It's all just world. The inner world of the bat is no less alien than your mind to me nor any less alien than the world of the electron. You seem to be saying that your mind is somehow not, and that thus I can refer. That seems a deeply problematic assumption.

It seems, from my perspective, the problem is your defining representation as a perfect copy. But almost no one makes that claim about representation.To use my earlier example a weather vane represents the wind. But no one would imagine that it represents every facet of the wind. To say critique representation because it doesn't do something few think it does just seems odd.

Right. I recognize that's the cut you wish to make. I just don't understand why you do. 

When you asked me why I want to refer to the world I gave pretty good arguments I thought. It explains surprise and why ideas by independent investigators converge on the same answers. That is I infer that reality acts on us constraining how we think. 

What's your counterpoint for why we should reject this? Complaining about perfect representation seems a side road since I don't believe in such a thing. Nor do I believe in an inside vs. an outside beyond in a very loose sense that breaks down when examined closely. Given that I simply don't hold the Cartesian metaphysical position you espouse how can you even critique representation in this fashion? To me there's nothing ontologically different from me referring to what I said yesterday versus referring to the keyboard I'm typing on. It's just reference.

Again I'd just point out again that to make the distinction of human vs. non-human experience first requires one join the dirty Cartesians. So your argument already depends upon Descartes' ontology. But I'd also say this conflates how we know with what we know. If you want to break down that distinction that's fine, but I think you have to make an argument for it because it seems a pretty natural distinction to make. If I hear someone knocking at the door I know someone is there but the way I know someone is there is from the knock. So in common every day experience we recognize this distinction. 

 

Put more simply why assume human experience is purely human and not contaminated by what is not-me? When I have experiences I don't experience things merely as me. You create the divide between the me and non-me but that's not how experience comes to me. I just experience them as objects I am with and that withdraw or come close to me. The idea of an inside and outside just seems alien. It's very odd Descartes came up with it when you stop and think about it. In experience there's no clear line demarking myself from not-myself. There's just experience. 

We just aren't communicating I guess.

I honestly don't know where I have said the things you ascribe to me.

That last paragraph takes the cake- I have no idea what it even means much less how it applies to me.  Not being able to differentiate between yourself and others might be problematic for some.

And it seems you never answer direct questions.

And no, clearly we do not memorize every word of the other's posts.   Since we rarely understand what the other is talking about, I cannot say that I do not repeat questions

Peirce has "Firstness Secondness and Thirdness" and therefore I am wrong?   Really??

Incomplete representation leads to errors like this, and is the whole point. Ambiguity is exactly the problem.  Jargon and lack of clarity are the problem.  If Wittgenstein cared, he would have a field day with the ambiguities going on here, yes, on both sides I suppose. Religiously, speaking of visions not being "real" for example and creating worlds of substance which can change wine to blood

I cannot imagine anyone who cannot see a clear line between first person statements and third person statements or cannot see what is himself vs not himself.

I think I will stick with Rorty, for now, thanks, I have no trouble understanding him.  Maybe we will click at some point in the future, I hope.

At least some here understand my views just fine and they seem to have helped keep them in the church.

 

Edited May 3, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

One example

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I confess I don't see that. It seems a pretty simple metaphysics. He has three entities. Firstness, secondness, and thirdness defined entirely in terms of how many entities are involved in each. He then has the idea of chance and continuity along with the idea that habits develop. That's about it.

Seriously?  "That's about it"?

Entities?  And then "Chance" and "continuity" and the idea that "habits develop?"

Oh of course- why didn't I see that??

 

 

[clarkgoble]

Not sure why we're talking past one an other. It's very confusing to me as you had agreed that you accepted this inside/outside distinction. Put an other way to claim all there is is experience entails distinguishing it from what is outside experience. (The world) But upon what basis can you make that distinction? It's a pretty simple argument for why dualism breaks down. It's really not that different than the main argument against positivism in a certain way in that the basis of the position can't be established in terms of what the position allows.

I think I answered your questions directly. It's just that the presuppositions you hold within the questions aren't positions I hold. Thus the divide. I'm asking you to defend your thesis that all there is is experience, but again, it's akin to the positivist trying to defend their verification principle. How on the basis of experience can you dismiss non-experience? Or put an other way, given that I think we disagree over what we mean by experience, how do we deal with the meaning of experience without merely begging the question.

To the other points, again this is the problem of your not wanting me to give context. Although I'd note that I've defined all those terms in our discussion. Firstness is anything that logically doesn't depend upon anything else. i.e. it's unity. In our discussion it's the unity of experience - roughly akin to the qualia part of an experience or first person feeling of the experience. Secondness is anything that logically depends only upon two things. In terms of our discussion it's the experience of otherness or force within an experience but without discussion of what is doing this. Thirdness is anything that depends only upon three or more things. In our discussion it's the "as" structure (to use the phenomenological term) or the structures and ideas within an experience.

Habit just means exactly what the common sense term implies. It's the tendency of things to behave in a repetitious fashion. Some phenomena is very repetitive and law-like. Other phenomena less so. In our discussion this is important since to gain knowledge particularly knowledge tied to predictive experience repetition is crucial.

As to ambiguity, I think some level to ambiguity is part of experience. So to appeal only to experience and then deny ambiguity or vagueness is to distort the very nature of experience. To the degree that happens in analytic philosophy (and I think it a huge problem among many although not all analytic philosophy) then analytic philosophy is just wrong or at best distorting.

To the last paragraph you want to distinguish human experience from everything else and appeal to Nagel to do that. The question again is that you're presupposing we can make easy distinctions without explaining how we can make those distinctions. So if we distinguish between human and non-human experience (thus the appeal to Nagel) the question is how we do that. Or, as I've pointed out numerous times, explain why the experiences of two humans aren't just as radically problematic to either distinguish or more importantly compare. The typical solution there via Rorty is language but he avoids the very question of what makes language possible. We can't merely appeal to Wittgenstein's language games because we first have to establish the components of what a language game is - the judges, signs and so forth.

 

Edited May 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

I've been thinking about this and I suspect part of the problem is that our positions are, in many ways, quite similar. The main difference is how we discuss experience and the world. So here's my attempt at a simple short explication of what I'm saying that might be more helpful than the above.

1. Reality acts on us

2. Our intellectual knowledge of reality is always linguistic/semiotic

3. Reality qua reality thus is inexpressible (since then we have language rather than reality itself)

4. As reality acts on us it affects what we express linguistically - constraining it

5. Given notions of continuity/infinity given enough time & inquiry language will stabilize upon a "said." (That is the expression of reality in language)

6. We are not yet at this point of continuity nor will we ever be due to being finite beings

7. Reality acting upon us constrains our linguistic expressions *now*

8. We may reach in our expressions stable expressions about reality.

9. To the degree we are doing our diligence in inquiry these points of stability count as knowledge

10. Because we can't help but count them as knowledge we take these expressions as the same as expressions from (5)

 

Note what this does. It allows what is "outside" of experience to affect us, yet remain essentially unsayable by us. When we talk about reference what we are doing is making more signs which are justified by their connection to truth and the universe of representation that has not happened yet. We are justified in believing there is a connection because of stability in inquiry.

While I could continue to focus on the problem within your view over how you themetize experience and non-experience the above might be more helpful. That said, I'd love to see you justify what experience is and how we can dismiss non-experience.

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I've been thinking about this and I suspect part of the problem is that our positions are, in many ways, quite similar. The main difference is how we discuss experience and the world. So here's my attempt at a simple short explication of what I'm saying that might be more helpful than the above.

1. Reality acts on us

2. Our intellectual knowledge of reality is always linguistic/semiotic

3. Reality qua reality thus is inexpressible (since then we have language rather than reality itself)

4. As reality acts on us it affects what we express linguistically - constraining it

5. Given notions of continuity/infinity given enough time & inquiry language will stabilize upon a "said." (That is the expression of reality in language)

6. We are not yet at this point of continuity nor will we ever be due to being finite beings

7. Reality acting upon us constrains our linguistic expressions *now*

8. We may reach in our expressions stable expressions about reality.

9. To the degree we are doing our diligence in inquiry these points of stability count as knowledge

10. Because we can't help but count them as knowledge we take these expressions as the same as expressions from (5)

 

Note what this does. It allows what is "outside" of experience to affect us, yet remain essentially unsayable by us. When we talk about reference what we are doing is making more signs which are justified by their connection to truth and the universe of representation that has not happened yet. We are justified in believing there is a connection because of stability in inquiry.

While I could continue to focus on the problem within your view over how you themetize experience and non-experience the above might be more helpful. That said, I'd love to see you justify what experience is and how we can dismiss non-experience.

I make no distinction between inner and outer, or experience and non experience. I could not even understand what that would be.

The usual Rorty quote below in my siggy explains it all very clearly.

All any humans can talk about is Human Experience. Some sentences about experience are first person sentences. And others are third-person sentences. That is to say some sentences start with the word I and other sentences start with the words he she it or they.

Some experiences are pre-linguistic. These account for events like visions and surprise. 

No experience can be fully contained in language. There is a richness in experience that is beyond the ability of language to convey therefore it cannot be said that language fully represents any experience.

[clarkgoble]

43 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I make no distinction between inner and outer, or experience and non experience. I could not even understand what that would be.

The usual Rorty quote below in my siggy explains it all very clearly.

All any humans can talk about is Human Experience. Some sentences about experience are first person sentences. And others are third-person sentences. That is to say some sentences start with the word I and other sentences start with the words he she it or they.

Some experiences are pre-linguistic. These account for events like visions and surprise. 

No experience can be fully contained in language. There is a richness in experience that is beyond the ability of language to convey therefore it cannot be said that language fully represents any experience.

Well other than the "human experience" claim I don't object much. It's just that you can't say "it's all human" and then say you're not making distinction that's dualistic. So I don't think you can say your sig explains it clearly. It gives the claims, but not the argument for them, nor an explication of the meaning of the terms you use.

For instance in your sig you say, "to say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states." But again, and I can't count how many times I've asked this, how do you distinguish experience from the mental? (If at all) I keep asking you to explain what you mean by experience and you keep avoiding that question even though it's clearly key to our disagreement. You say you don't make divisions and then repeat divisions like human versus non-human experience and non-human mental states and human mental states. 

Again this whole talking past one an other is due to not clarifying that. For instance many people see experience as purely mental phenomena within the mind even if parts are ineffable. Others see experience more akin to Davidson's events. So it's not bound by the mental. In that case my experience of driving a car essentially has as a component of the experience the real non-mental car.

Edited May 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

I will take this apart point by point and comment on each.

32 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I've been thinking about this and I suspect part of the problem is that our positions are, in many ways, quite similar. The main difference is how we discuss experience and the world. So here's my attempt at a simple short explication of what I'm saying that might be more helpful than the above.

1. Reality acts on us

Yes, as Rorty would say, there are the effects of causes which do not include mental states which we experience as humans experience them.  Calling that "reality" for me is Cartesian- dividing reality as it is from our experience of it.  So for me, your first point puts you squarely into Cartesianism.

All we can talk about is a product of a human mind because all we can know is what humans can know- we cannot know anything humans cannot know about "reality"

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2. Our intellectual knowledge of reality is always linguistic/semiotic

OK, better but still Cartesian speaking about a "reality" which is NOT linguistic/semiotic.   In a sense I see that sentence as self contradictory by saying on one hand that all "reality" is linguistic and then referring to "reality" at all.  Rorty says: To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.

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3. Reality qua reality thus is inexpressible (since then we have language rather than reality itself)

BINGO!

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4. As reality acts on us it affects what we express linguistically - constraining it

See the answer to number 1- same thing!  Causes which are not mental states constrain us, and we experience the constraints as humans experience them.  We call them "walls"and "gravity" and other causes we experience as humans experience them, and we sometimes express them linguistically, sometimes not.  "I stubbed my toe" is an example of a first person statement describing the experience of what we call a human "toe" being constrained by a cause which was not a human mental state.

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5. Given notions of continuity/infinity given enough time & inquiry language will stabilize upon a "said." (That is the expression of reality in language)

 

Over time, human linguistic descriptions cohere and all our common experiences converge in a common vocabulary which works better as it is refined.  Infinity?  No need for using the word "reality" which connotes something beyond human experience, "out there" separate from what humans can know.

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6. We are not yet at this point of continuity nor will we ever be due to being finite beings

 

We will always be developing better descriptions of human experience.

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7. Reality acting upon us constrains our linguistic expressions *now*

Of course causes which are not human mental states always constrain us- again see number 1.  This needs not be said.

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8. We may reach in our expressions stable expressions about reality.

Yes, as has been said, descriptions of human experience finally reach a vocabulary which within a context always works to describe and predict other human experiences. (mental states)

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9. To the degree we are doing our diligence in inquiry these points of stability count as knowledge

Yep that is Alma 32.  Through acting on various descriptions and trying them ourselves, we become certain of that description's utility.  "I know the church is true" within its context is as true as "E=mc2" is true within its context.  Each is its own language game, context, and vocabulary.  And so the belief in visions is justified similarly- belief in Joseph's vision has caused me personally great personal growth and has produced "sweet fruit" in my life.

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10. Because we can't help but count them as knowledge we take these expressions as the same as expressions from (5)

 

Yep!

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Note what this does. It allows what is "outside" of experience to affect us, yet remain essentially unsayable by us. When we talk about reference what we are doing is making more signs which are justified by their connection to truth and the universe of representation that has not happened yet. We are justified in believing there is a connection because of stability in inquiry.

Yep.  I put this together in grad school and then found Rorty had already said it.  PLUS noting that human "reality"= the pool of human experience/language which we have organized can metaphorically be put in terms of humans organizing "reality" (as we know it) from matter unorganized.   I bumped into a Mormon who told me about eternal progression and that we are gods in embryo.  The whole thing clicked- God as the Idealized Man metaphorically or actually (the difference only exists in language) organizes reality as humans do but on an infinite scale.

I got baptized.

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While I could continue to focus on the problem within your view over how you themetize experience and non-experience the above might be more helpful. That said, I'd love to see you justify what experience is and how we can dismiss non-experience.

Huh?

[clarkgoble]

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Yes, as Rorty would say, there are the effects of causes which do not include mental states which we experience as humans experience them.  Calling that "reality" for me is Cartesian- dividing reality as it is from our experience of it.  So for me, your first point puts you squarely into Cartesianism.

But that's the divide you keep saying isn't a divide. I'm not dividing reality from my experience of reality. Rather reality is in the experience. There no separation between my keyboard and my experience of the keyboard. The objects themselves are in my experience. That's why I keep saying you need to explain what you mean by experience because we are using the term differently. And I'd note that once again you've avoided that central question.

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All we can talk about is a product of a human mind because all we can know is what humans can know- we cannot know anything humans cannot know about "reality"

What's your argument for that? I certainly don't believe that. I agree we can only know what humans can know. But to say all we can talk about is the product of a human mind is a much stronger claim and I think impossible to defend.

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BINGO!

You do realize I've been saying that over and over again from the beginning. Right?

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Over time, human linguistic descriptions cohere and all our common experiences converge in a common vocabulary which works better as it is refined.  Infinity?  No need for using the word "reality" which connotes something beyond human experience, "out there" separate from what humans can know.

But this is exactly where this gets frustrating. You talk about the out there differentiating it from human experience and then say you're not doing this. Can you see how amazingly frustrating that is? You are fine with this inexpressible, except simultaneously you're fine with it having a causal connection to human experience. Which, of course, is talking about it. You create this divide between the reality that can't be talked about and experience which can and then deny this is a Cartesian dualism.  You can't have it both ways.

Edited May 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Well other than the "human experience" claim I don't object much. It's just that you can't say "it's all human" and then say you're not making distinction that's dualistic. So I don't think you can say your sig explains it clearly. It gives the claims, but not the argument for them, nor an explication of the meaning of the terms you use.

For instance in your sig you say, "to say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states." But again, and I can't count how many times I've asked this, how do you distinguish experience from the mental? (If at all) I keep asking you to explain what you mean by experience and you keep avoiding that question even though it's clearly key to our disagreement. You say you don't make divisions and then repeat divisions like human versus non-human experience and non-human mental states and human mental states. 

Again this whole talking past one an other is due to not clarifying that. For instance many people see experience as purely mental phenomena within the mind even if parts are ineffable. Others see experience more akin to Davidson's events. So it's not bound by the mental. In that case my experience of driving a car essentially has as a component of the experience the real non-mental car.

NOTE THAT THE SIGGY IS A QUOTE FROM RORTY, I didn't say any of it.  Did you not realize that?

You said

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But again, and I can't count how many times I've asked this, how do you distinguish experience from the mental? (If at all) I keep asking you to explain what you mean by experience and you keep avoiding that question even though it's clearly key to our disagreement. You say you don't make divisions and then repeat divisions like human versus non-human experience and non-human mental states and human mental states. 

Uh, ok of course human experience is mental.

I thought that was perfectly clear.   How does a rock get into my head except as a mental state?

Anything else would be uncomfortable.  KNOWLEDGE IS A MENTAL STATE, ALL WE CAN KNOW IS A MENTAL STATE- how could it NOT be??

A mental state which is not human:  The mental state of a dog.  I cannot experience what it is like to be a dog, but I will not argue that dogs do not have mental states.

Honestly I don't understand where you are getting this stuff.

Edited May 3, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

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driving a car essentially has as a component of the experience the real non-mental car.

Experience OF.  OF. OF. OF.

Of what? A car which you are EXPERIENCING IN YOUR MIND.  How else did the car get into your mind?  How is your brain processing information if not in your mind.  IT IS ALL EXPERIENCE.  It is all MENTAL STATES

A guy cutting in front of you and you avoiding him is an EXPERIENCE which is happening- WHERE IF NO IN YOUR MIND.

Suddenly take your mind out of the situation and the car goes on without direction unless you have an auto-driving car.

This growing very frustrating.

Edited May 3, 2017 by mfbukowski