On Oct 13, 1:52 am, "1Z" <peterdjo....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> > You know you can, of course. But what you are communicating is
> > information derived from your 'seeing a square' in order for others to
> > instantiate something analogous, as 1-person experiences of their own.I disagree. Squareness is fully expressible in language.
Make your mind up. You said 'see a square' not 'squareness'.
> Squareness is fully expressinle, so instantiation
> doesn't matter in that case.
Yes, fine, no problem of course, so why discuss this example? I
specifically said '1-person experience', and in the case of 'see a
square' (your choice) let's try the hard one - i.e. communicate the
experience of seeing a particular square, not the concept of
squareness. So, for example, you can say 'look at that square', I look
at it, I see the square, I instantiate it, I have an analogous 1-person
experience. OK?
Come to think of it, even in your example of squareness, I have to
instantiate *something*, otherwise your explanation won't register with
me. And this something is *my* private something, as it happens
*derived* from your communication - it isn't literally what you 'had in
mind', because this is private to *you*. Frankly, I think if you
quibble about this, you must have some other notion of 1-person in
mind. But will we ever know?
David
> David Nyman wrote:
> > On Oct 11, 11:17 pm, "1Z" <peterdjo....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > > > It may be impossible in principle (i.e. 1-person experience is
> > > > ex-hypothesi incommunicable) and we certainly don't know how > to.So if I see a square, I can't communicate it?
>
> > You know you can, of course. But what you are communicating is
> > information derived from your 'seeing a square' in order for others to
> > instantiate something analogous, as 1-person experiences of their own.I disagree. Squareness is fully expressible in language.
>
> > Your 1-person experience per se is incommunicable,That's just my point. It's not the fact that is
> is an experience, or that it is had by a person that makes something
> inexpressible.
>
> > and consequently you
> > have no direct evidence of (although you may be jusified in your
> > beliefs concerning) what others have instantiated as a result of your
> > communication.Squareness is fully expressinle, so instantiation
> doesn't matter in that case.
>
> > David
>
> > > David Nyman wrote:
> > > > On Oct 11, 5:11 am, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > > > > > But it isn't possible to determine by inspection that they are
> > > > > > conscious.Are you claiming it's impossible in principle, or just that we don't know how?
>
> > > > It may be impossible in principle (i.e. 1-person experience is
> > > > ex-hypothesi incommunicable) and we certainly don't know how to.So if I see a square, I can't communicate it?
>
> > > Colours and Shapes: Exactly What Qualifies as a Quale ?
> > > Because qualia are so often used to argue against physicalism (or at
> > > least physical communicability), it is often assumed that they must be
> > > mysterious by definition. However Lewis's original definition pins
> > > qualia to the way external objects appear, and it least some of those
> > > features are throughly unmysterious,such as the shapes of objects. A
> > > red square seems to divide into a mysterious redness and an
> > > unmysterious squareness. This does not by itself remove any of the
> > > problems associated with qualia; the problem is that some qualia are
> > > mysterious. not that some are not.. There is another, corresponding
> > > issue; not all mysterious, mental contents are the appearances of
> > > external objects. There a re "phenomenal feels" attached to emotions,
> > > sensations and so on. Indeed, we often use the perceived qualaities of
> > > objects as metaphors for them -- sharp pains, warm or cool feelings
> > > towards another person, and so on. The main effect of this issue on the
> > > argument is to hinder the physicalist project of reducing qualia to the
> > > phsycally-defined properties of external objects, since in the case of
> > > internal sensations and emotional feelings, there are not suitable
> > > external objects.
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Received on Thu Oct 12 2006 - 21:25:24 PDT