Thinking About "Dual Descriptions"

General Philosophy
181

Hi Jay. Sorry for the delay. Very actively house/shop hunting. No luck yet, but it’s been fun, interesting, and full of deliberate effort. I’ve been watching the local housing market for three years. It’s been a three year wait… :winking_face_with_tongue:…and the call to action has been a very long time coming!

Unfortunately, we’re faced with a misattribution of meaning. I’m not even remotely sure how you got there from what I wrote. It’s a completely different conceptual scheme.<----That’s an invitation for, or relevant to Davidson’s approach, right? The misunderstanding is fine though, for my language use is odd in the sense that it’s just barely conventional. That said, I was getting at something different with that jab at Nagel.

The question IS/WAS the problem.

The fact that each and every duration and/or segment of our own lives is very different than the others shows us that no single description of any single moment, segment, or set thereof is capable of describing the rest. Being human includes them all. Hence there is no adequate single descriptive answer possible, because being a human includes all of those segments/durations.

With that in mind, Nagel’s question loses both its bite and its veneer of allure.

It’s the result of coming up against the limits/capabilities of our language use, much more so than it is a sign that experience is irreducible to physical stuff. Although, I do agree that experience is irreducible to both physical description and stuff.

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The stickiest part, I think, is staying away from conceptual schemes, notions, and/or linguistic frameworks/taxonomies that are utterly incapable of setting out individual meaningful thought and belief(experience) on a level that predates common language use as we know it. That would be a very good start.

There are plenty of historical spiderwebs to avoid.

If truth is held as a property of language… for example. If meaning is a property of language… for another. If thought is equivalent to propositional attitude… another. If belief is equivalent to sincere statements… yet one more. Those are certainly not the only inadequate notions, tenets, schemes, and/or accounts. Radical skepticism. Solipsism. Frameworks that sever the agent from the world. Even “‘to be’ is to be the value of a bound variable” sets us up for failure on the level of what exists in its entirety prior to our taking note of it. To be counted is to be the value of a bound variable. There is an unknown realm/world of things in the sense that there are innumerable things that exist and/or existed in their entirety long before we became aware of them.

What I’m saying is that when we’re considering anything that existed in its entirety prior to our awareness of it, we can be mistaken about its basic elemental constituents.

Experience is exactly that sort of thing.

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I don’t know? I don’t use the notion/concept/term “ontology”. That would be for someone else to answer. I don’t find much use for that language. I don’t see what it adds.

Oh, I think there’s always a difference(call it “daylight” if you like) between our account and what we’re taking account of.

I’d rather not debate the depths of what counts as “privileged”.

I’m looking for an accounting practice that is inherently capable of effectively setting out that which exists in its entirety prior to language use. Some experience(thought and belief) did/does. I’m also looking for an accounting practice that can outline the experience of language creation/acquisition as well as the experiences of those with mastery of common language, like ourselves. Moreover, language less experience must be capable of evolving into the other two.

184

Well, in order for any novel account to be used by more than one person it must prove useful to more than the just the individual originally framing it.

I can also see the incompatibility of certain senses of common terms being far too broad a valley to bridge, depending of course on exactly how ‘foundational’ such a term/notion is.

Folk who hold that truth is nothing more than a property of language cannot admit that language less animals are capable of forming, having, and/or holding true thought and belief… on pains of coherency alone.

But yes, I agree that there’s no magic Big Glossary that is capable of mediating disputes between philosophical traditions. I find that some positions are incompatible/incommensurate with one another.

If many ‘sides’ are mistaken in much the same way, then neither will even be capable of pointing it out to the other. That’s what’s going on with experience(meaningful thought and belief).

185

OMG. Welcome to insanity. But I hope the outcome is wonderful for you!

Agreed, as long as by “basic elemental constituents” you mean one of the two categories of “wrongness” I described. If you mean “mistaken” as in, “I thought I had a phenomenal experience but I was wrong,” then no. We can add “at time T” if you like, but I don’t think that helps.

Yes. OK, so by “experience” you don’t mean “my experience,” but rather “possible object of experience”? I hadn’t understood that. Since I have no experiential access to something I haven’t experienced, the third “way” doesn’t apply.

Yes, me too, though we’ve each developed a different vocabulary to describe this search. What we share, I think, is a belief that there is something we can “account for,” and that language tries to grasp, as opposed to the idea that language defines or delimits what we can understand.

“In its entirety,” though? How would we know?

186

Oh, the ethics are horrible. It’s a good thing I’m anal and have a decent grasp on the power of certain contractual language. I just dropped an agent today because she said she could no longer use the supplementary language that I insist on adding into a contract explicitly. It’s just to preserve my rights as a buyer.

Next… lol

Thanks though, I’m sure I’ll find something that fits soon enough.

187

Basic elemental constituents are individual things that exist in their entirety prior to becoming part of a composition. The composition would be experience.

Given how little we’ve interacted, I’m hesitant to agree, and even more so to disagree. Here are those two categories again for a refresher.

The part about being mistaken regarding what causes or constitutes the experience is closer to what I’m getting at.

Not quite. Firstly, to address my own notion/use of “experience”. I stay away from ‘object of experience’. If that sort of framework were capable of effectively setting out what our target is, I would think that it would have already done so.

By “experience”, I’m talking about correlations, connections, and/or associations drawn between different things by a creature so capable.

Secondly, in that quote I’m pointing out/asserting that many things existed before we became aware of them. As such they did so in their entirety, whatever that may include.

I’m not sure that I see that last bit the same way you do. I think that that is a point of disagreement actually, because I very much believe both, that 1.) language tries to grasp(helps us to understand), and 2.) that language use defines and/or delimits what we can understand, and in doing so causes us to misunderstand.

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How do we know things that existed prior to our awareness did so in their entirety? It couldn’t be anything less.

Something tells me that’s not the question you’re asking though.

I think you’re perhaps asking “how would we know” when and if we have taken proper account of such things?

Could you rephrase the question making it a bit more explicit?

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Good, that’s the way I see it too. That sort of wrongness is always a possibility.

OK. The distinction I was making was between this creature needing to be me, versus any creature so capable. You’re saying that experience must be some creature’s actual experience, rather than an (admittedly kinda lame) “object of experience,” and not necessarily my experience. Sounds fine.

This is interesting. When you say, “Language tries to grasp”, what is it trying to grasp? I assume it’s related to what you call “that which exists in its entirety prior to language use”?

To be sure, I agree that language often plays a limiting role in our understanding, perhaps especially when it sets out to define things in essentialist terms. But I think it doesn’t have to do that. For me, ontological thinking is often basically pictorial or symbolic, with the language coming afterwards. Do you see that as a possibility for yourself?

And of course if we broaden what “understanding” can mean, so as to take us outside of dialectic, there are myriad possible roles for language, including being quiet!

Yes, I’ll try. But first, I am partially asking the question you’re not sure about. I’m not raising a deep point in asking such a question, just observing that we have rather limited knowledge of whether, and how, things from the past might or might not be continual with the present. Did “artistic modernism” happen in its entirety prior to my awareness? Maybe, or there may be important aspects of it that continue to this day, thus changing what I might understand about the prior manifestations.

But to focus on the “how we would know” question, which I agree is the more interesting: Yes, my question points to a lack of hermeneutic access to the past. Using your language, I might rephrase the question as: How would we know when our understanding of some past event has taken proper account of it?

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Okay. Good!

I’d like to say that I appreciate the not only the effort, but also the capability to critically assess what I’ve been saying. It’s an uncommon view. Although, my guess is that I’m no longer as alone as I once felt and/or was when I first began this endeavor. I’ve noticed that there are a few different relatively recent conventional approaches/philosophers aimed more at unpacking thought and belief, but I digress…

…that notion of experience in the quote above is one that I’ve been painstakingly working with while fleshing it out over nearly two decades. It has - at its core - a plurality of things, and it is as a result of that that I reject so many dichotomous approaches to human thought, belief, understanding, consciousness, experience, etc. The notion is meant to be - and function as - a minimalist universal criterion which must be met/satisfied by each and every candidate under consideration.

This harks back to the earlier part of our conversation when I stated the need/requirement for any acceptable/adequate notion of experience to be parsed in such a way that the terms/notions themselves are easily amenable to evolutionary progression. I’m fairly certain that that one suffices.

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Sure. It’s related to that as well.

I was just being agreeable and mirroring your expression. Personally, I wouldn’t use that phrase as a means to support and/or set out my position. It’s a weak kind of personification/anthropomorphism that I try to avoid when doing philosophy, and it already looms as a quite large danger to avoid regarding the subject matter at hand.

In everyday speech and creative writing, it’s perfectly acceptable/understandable.

192

:face_savoring_food: I’ve been accused of doing that! :innocent: I’m not an Aristotle follower though. I think that’s who famously set out essences, if memory serves me well enough. I remember very little of the time I researched and participated in a few discussions regarding essentialism, but I walked away and remain thinking that I’m not an essentialist.

As before, I don’t practice using “ontology”. It could be a possibility for me, but I seriously doubt that such a description dovetails into my own position. I cannot say either way because I have no idea what sorts of thinking you’re picking out of the world to the exclusion of all else by using the term “ontological thinking”.

I cannot imagine well-grounded doubt that language less thought and belief precedes language creation, acquisition, and/or use.

193

The epistemological concerns are warranted. I wouldn’t attempt to descriptively take an account or otherwise ‘tackle’ anything that is itself existentially dependent upon language with the notion of that which exists in its entirety prior to our awareness and/or language use, because “our” sets out all human awareness, not just you or I.

I’d guess that it’s pretty apparent that artistic modernism is not the sort of thing that existed in its entirety prior to language use or prior to human awareness writ large. To me, it’s the sort of thing borne via language use, in large part anyway. I would even go so far as to say that if there were never any language, there could have never been artistic modernism.

194

It’s a good point. A valid concern, as it were. I’m not sure having hermeneutic access to the past is necessary for the endeavor of effectively setting out the basic elemental constituency of all thought and belief(experience). Nor do I think the parsing of “some past event” has the right target. A bit of healthy skepticism is warranted, nonetheless.

We do have some access to and knowledge of our own thought, belief, and/or experience. We do have some access to and knowledge of our own biological machinery. We do have quite a bit less access, but some nonetheless, to some other animals’ thought and belief as well.

If all experience(thought and belief) is/are the sort(s) of thing(s) that begin simply and evolve very slowly over time while gaining complexity, then we do have something to work with.

Very roughly speaking, we can examine conventional accounting practices, and assess where and how they fail to be able to take proper account of language less experience(thought and belief). I’ve skirted around a few of those already.

When it comes to how we would assess the veracity and/or accuracy of any notion of language less thought, belief, and/or experience, I’m thinking we can sometimes check certain aspects for ourselves. What I’ve been putting forth is amenable to verification/falsification via experiment.

Pavlov’s dog, while meant to show involuntary response and support the notion of simple stimulus/response at work, is prima facie evidence of the dog drawing correlations between the sound of the bell and getting fed. The bell becomes meaningful to the dog solely by virtue of those correlations.

I’ve had Muscovy ducks draw correlations between the sound of opening the lid of a food container with getting fed as well. By my lights, there’s quite a bit of promise.

I suppose the question becomes, what is the bare minimum criterion as it pertains to experience(thought and belief).

This opens the door to discussing which sorts of things we, as relatively knowledgeable creatures, would say are absolutely necessary features, elements, and/or aspects of all thought and belief, language less creatures’ notwithstanding? What do they all have in common such, that it is the commonality itself that is adequate?

I for one, will die on the hill of saying that all experience is meaningful to the creature having it. Which is nearly semantically identical to saying that all thought and belief is meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding them.

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Yep, and avoiding it is hard, since we have no purely abstract vocabulary other than that of a formal language. You’re right to ask, At what point does a metaphor like “grasp” move from helpful to misleading?

Well, that’s the important point. When I speak of ontology or ontological thinking, I have in mind primarily questions of structure, of what grounds what. Typical example: We appear to have both physical and mental phenomena. Does one ground the other, or is this the wrong question? Is the structure implied by “physical and mental” itself grounded in something besides language?

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There’s so much thought packed into this post, I’m not quite sure where to go with it. Maybe I could just start with a clarifying question: Your use of “accounting practices” is clearly special, a term of art that’s important to laying out your ideas. So could you say more about the work that term does for you, and perhaps an example or two?

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You’re welcome. Is your view so uncommon? It hadn’t struck me as being very far from “mainline” philosophical discourse.

You may have said this and it went over my head, sorry, but: Why “evolutionary progress”? – I don’t quite follow.

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Sure, thanks for asking. I like the notion of accounting practices, because of its generally exhaustive ‘nature’. I prefer to talk about things in ways that can tie otherwise disparate things together. That’s actually a pivotal/key feature of many key notions underwriting my position. It’s part of the methodological approach. I’m not sure exactly how special “accounting practices” is, but it can be used to refer to what others call “conceptual schemes”, “linguistic frameworks”, “terminological frameworks”, “taxonomies”, “jargon”, “slang”, “pidgin”, “creole”, “colloquialism”, “reports”, “spoken language”, etc.

It can also refer to conventional academic philosophical positions that are known by and for the particular ways that they talk about the world via their own individually unique methods, categories, taxonomies, methodological approaches, etc.

In short, I like to use “accounting practices” because breadth of scope is an important methodological consideration and is the key feature of several different notions underwriting my worldview, as it must be given the aim. It covers a lot of ground.

In our philosophical/scientific endeavors to understand the world, if we’ve gotten the very basics of all thought and belief wrong, then it only follows that we’ve gotten something wrong on a very basic level regarding anything and everything following from and/or grounded upon those mistaken notions/ideas/concepts.

Hence, the breadth of scope is key.

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No worries. Perhaps it be best put like this…

If all experience consists - in large part at least - of thought and belief, and all thought and belief begins in rudimentary simple form and slowly grows and/or increases in complexity over time, then any acceptable/adequate notion of experience must be parsed in such a way that the key terms/notions are themselves easily amenable to evolutionary progression.

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Hmmmm. I wouldn’t say it’s the wrong question. I’m not sure that I even understand what you’re asking given the use of “structure” here.

When I think in terms of “what grounds what”, most of the time anyway, it seems that the aim of the endeavor is looking at/examining justification or warrant for belief/believing something or another. So, to me, while such accounting practices are very common and most certainly concern belief, because on my view knowledge is a kind of belief, they seem more like an epistemological endeavor.

Typically speaking, the candidate under consideration is a language user, which is certainly relevant but I’m not so sure “what ground what” is even applicable to language less thought, belief, and/or experience.

However, all that being said, I do find that a language less creature is more than capable of forming a well-grounded true belief.

If that seems like a direction you’d like to pursue/unpack/tease out, I’d be happy to join you!