Missing Members

[prémont]

we do not have privileged access to our own states of mind.

I find this an astonishing claim. Don't you have thoughts and impulses you keep for yourself either because you don't like them or because they are inappropiate in the given context.

[Madiel]

Given that the missing member discussion was moved here, perhaps the Philosophy 101 class could be moved too...

[Harry]

It was indeed a bold claim, made one summer's day in an exam room.  I think my point was that it was practically very hard to overcome the illusions of self deception, and that, as we say in English -- actions speak louder than words. Our mental natures, who we are and what we are and most importantlym, what we mean, are external (or so I argued.)

@ultralinear has the idea, I now see.

That is not always the case.

[Mandryka]

I find this an astonishing claim. Don't you have thoughts and impulses you keep for yourself either because you don't like them or because they are inappropiate in the given context.

It is an astonishing claim. If we just confine it to thoughts for the moment, the claim is indeed that the most justifiable attributions of what someone thinks - what he believes and desires - is made on the basis of what best explains his actions over time. The subject's claims about his cognitive states are not privileged.

[Mandryka]

The position is astonishing because, to speak crudely, it denies that the mind is inside your head. It denies the whole mind/world dualism.

[prémont]

But after all it's only philosophy, and who says the behaviorists are right?

[Maestro267]

Nobody is obliged to stay here.

[Brian]

Or maybe they eventually open the political threads and are disgusted by the toxicity.

I think that that user specifically was somebody who was on at least their second or third cycle of creating and deleting an account.

It's a pity, because all their posts were interesting, but who knows what their struggle is.

[Mandryka]

But after all it's only philosophy, and who says the behaviorists are right?

IMO the foundation for this position is Wittgenstein's private language argument in The Philosophical Investigations.

[Spotted Horses]

I think that that user specifically was somebody who was on at least their second or third cycle of creating and deleting an account.

It's a pity, because all their posts were interesting, but who knows what their struggle is.

Assuming it is due to "struggle" is perhaps a bit presumptuous. An individual may decide that the site is too addictive and likely to gobble up an unacceptable amount of time.

[Brian]

Assuming it is due to "struggle" is perhaps a bit presumptuous. An individual may decide that the site is too addictive and likely to gobble up an unacceptable amount of time.

I didn't mean a mental health issue, to be clear, but just whatever thought process keeps them changing their minds about joining.

[Maestro267]

Everyone's struggling with something or other.

[Traverso]

Yes, I think my point would be that the external observer is at least as well placed as we are to make hypothesis about our mental life. In particular, we do not have privileged access to our own states of mind. It's a fundamentally anti- Cartesian position.

What we are is not what we think we are, in which case we would reduce ourselves to an idea. All kinds of conditioning prevent us from seeing what is, crystallizing into an idea is after the moment of perception and should not be more than a guideline . 
 "actions speak louder than words" or in other words one knows the tree by its fruits. This already implies the danger of (pleasant) self-deception. I see life as a journey where the arrival never comes other than death that everything ends as far as we can determine. The degree to which we are open and vulnerable is also an indication of maturity to me, which of course also has no end point. Given the sheer size of the entertainment industry, one may wonder a number of things.
As for music, for me it is more than diversion and often teaches me to reconcile that the essential is not tangible.
As a musician you also live for the moments where you as a musician/human being become completely one with the music, a transcendent experience, if only for a moment.
Just some thoughts.

[Spotted Horses]

Everyone's struggling with something or other.

Yes, everyone has struggles, buit I wouldn't assume struggles I'd why am individual leaves. Struggles probably explains why I'm here at all.

[prémont]

IMO the foundation for this position is Wittgenstein's private language argument in The Philosophical Investigations.

Would it be that mental processes do not exist because they cannot be described in a common language, perhaps not even in a private language? But in fact many mental processes are not linguistic, many of our thoughts are pictorial or perhaps especially intangible. How would you, for example, put all the sensations that flow through you when you listen to a piece of music. It has been very tellingly stated that music begins where language ends. And these intangible (private) mental processes can rarely be read from our behavior.

[Mandryka]

Would it be that mental processes do not exist because they cannot be described in a common language, perhaps not even in a private language? But in fact many mental processes are not linguistic, many of our thoughts are pictorial or perhaps especially intangible. How would you, for example, put all the sensations that flow through you when you listen to a piece of music. It has been very tellingly stated that music begins where language ends. And these intangible (private) mental processes can rarely be read from our behavior.

I think you need to take it step by step, what applies to sensations may not apply in the same way to emotions or to cognitive states. Wittgenstein uses the idea of pain, he asks how the concept is acquired. On one model, someone has a sensation and kind of points to it in his head and says "I name this thing I'm experiencing pain" I think he shows very well that this model is incoherent, and he presents an alternative model where the meaning of pain is tied quite closely to its primitive expression -- cries etc. But the argument is a little bit complex to spell out here, and possibly this thread isn't appropriate anyway. Unfortunately the English wikipedia on The Private Language Argument seems rather encyclopaedic and complicated -- my lectures were clearer!

In my understanding of things, the private language argument can be extended to meaning generally. And thence to cognitive mental states, because believing that P, desiring that P etc are differentiated in part by the meaning of P. These states, beliefs and desires, are fundamental for making sense of human action in informal (so called "folk") psychology.

But we're in some pretty deep water now -- in UK universities this is stuff for final year undergraduates probably, and then only those with a significant specialisation in logic and epistemology and philosophy of mind. To get to grips with it, you really need to think about the relation between truth and meaning, which, a few years ago at least, was right at the cutting edge of Anglo American philosophy. It would be as hard to discuss it here as it would be to discuss, let's say, category theory.

[prémont]

I think you need to take it step by step, what applies to sensations may not apply in the same way to emotions or to cognitive states. Wittgenstein uses the idea of pain, he asks how the concept is acquired. On one model, someone has a sensation and kind of points to it in his head and says "I name this thing I'm experiencing pain" I think he shows very well that this model is incoherent, and he presents an alternative model where the meaning of pain is tied quite closely to its primitive expression -- cries etc. But the argument is a little bit complex to spell out here....,

Well, emotions and cognitive states may be even more difficult than sensations to put into a common language. In my book pain is a tactile sensation (caused by changes in our tissue) parallelling listening to music which is a hear sensation (caused by movements of the tympanon), which not necessary can be read from the behavior of the individual.

In my understanding of things, the private language argument can be extended to meaning generally. And thence to cognitive mental states, because believing that P, desiring that P etc are differentiated in part by the meaning of P. These states, beliefs and desires, are fundamental for making sense of human action in informal (so called "folk") psychology.

Yes, mental states are difficult to communicate precisely because the meaning of the words we use for them can't be objectively defined, but all the same we know from ourselves, that different mental states exist whatever we call them. And they exist a priori and are not a result of the words we use for them.

[Madiel]

Nobody is obliged to stay here.

Except the zookeepers.

[prémont]

Can dogs lie?

Yes, they use to lie down when they sleep.

Joke aside, a dog can't tell lies, because they don't talk a language we understand. On the other hand dogs can tease us if they want us to do something in their favor.

[Traverso]

The main thing is in to be as receptive as we can and not like cows with two stomachs effect a predictable process. Every word is limited, it can never be the thing itself. Look at religions that each seem imprisoned in their symbols.  There is a red thread running through the history of philosophy.  One of the illusions is that we find what we are looking for, while this turns out to be a projection and cannot be objective proof because it still moves in what I already said about the cow. There is nothing more we can do than observe and from there  learning like a relentless stream until our minds go into tricks and we are flung ashore.