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Language and the other-minds problem

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Language and the other-minds problem

makerowner
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Posted 07/20/08 - 11:12 AM:	#11
Pete wrote: I think I'm trying to make essentially the same point as Yffer. Yes, I'm willing to grant that language is essentially social--that the idea of a private language is incoherent. But I'm still not seeing how this fact helps with the problem of other minds. Here's the problem of other minds: How can I know that anyone besides myself thinks? I know that I think via introspection. I obviously cannot introspect the minds of others. Nor can I perceive their minds--I have perceptual access only to their behavior, not their thinking. Here's your argument: (1) I think. (2) If I think, then I must have a language. (3) If I have a language, then there must be other speakers. (4) If there are other speakers, there must be other minds. Won't anyone who thinks the problem of other minds is a genuine problem take issue with (4)? In other words, won't they ask, how do you know that they are expressing thoughts when they speak? You cannot perceive their thoughts, only their words. So it seems to me that your argument will not persuade anyone who thinks that the problem of other minds is a genuine problem. I disagree with your presentation of my argument. Maybe I didn't state it clearly in the OP, but I would instead say something like this (rather informally): 1. I have mental states. 2. I can describe my mental states in language. 3. I learned how to describe my mental states from other speakers. 4. I could not have learned to describe mental states from speakers who lacked them. 5. Therefore, some speakers other than myself have mental states. This certainly isn't ironclad either. I can see an objection that 4, that the subject could have learned the mental-state words from a robot with no mental states, and made up his own connections between them and his mental states. But I would argue that this objection becomes absurd when you consider the sheer coincidence that would be needed to make everyone else's use of mental state words coincide with the subject's connections with his own mental states. That's not as strong an answer as I would like though. Edited by makerowner on 07/20/08 - 11:20 AM
The grounding-attunement of the first beginning is deep wonder that beings are, that man himself is extant, extant in that which he is not.

Philonus
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Posted 07/20/08 - 12:33 PM:	#12
Makerowner, Although your premise that a language is a strong evidence of "other-mind" since it is the means to communicate with them from expressing your own thinking and mental state I don't think langauge alone sufficiently proves this. What you have presented is something that cannot justify the other minds without some basic fundemental characteristics of social interaction. First of all Language is an expression of your thoughts, and such and expression is structured in semantics, connotation, sentence, tone, and ect. Sharing thoughts through language is not enough, the other party must understand what is said to him. If he does not understand what is said to him then he would foolishly assume that the other party does not have a mind because it does not produce a language that he is familiar with, thus another mind he cannot understand. Therefore there must be a general understanding but understanding only decodes what is said to him. Understanding does not bestow a satisfying solution to the problem of other-minds because you are only decoding what is said to you, and the words said do not always correspond with the mind. Someone can lie to you when you don't know it, thus because of this ethical issue language fails to substantiate the premise that language justifies other-minds. In my opinion its not language that gives use the idea or concept of other mind since its only purpose is to express thoughts into a complex sentences. Understanding only decodes the langauge you recieve, but you may recieve an information that does not always correspond with the nature of the mind through lies, ommission, social restrictions, and less accurate portrayal. Hence we must assume that there has to be another solution if not langauge and understanding. In my opinion another possible solution to the problem is the human a priori social intuition. This faculty gives us awareness of other minds in experience, while being aware of other minds we are able to interpret them only through their manifestation. The assumption that there are other minds is not solely based on reason, from looking at countless philosophical debates we find it impossible to come to a logical conclusion only by the means of reason. Reason alone cannot complete the problem of other minds since reason alone only deduce the manifestation of other minds, and that alone does not give us awareness of other minds. We will not be able to deduce that there are other minds if we are unable to be aware of them. Our sensation also cannot comprehend other minds since sensation serves as a purpose of representation. It is through sensation that makes it possible for us to be aware of other minds, and this awareness makes it possible for us to comprehend or deduce other minds. Thus the faculty is the ultimate root of our sense or concept of other minds. However I must confess that this faculty of awareness of other minds may not be a completely satisfying argument and theory because I may think I am aware of something that is not actually there. A mentally sick individual may think there someone is speaking to him when in reality that person was an illusive imagination. This would only bring us back to ground zero in which we must argue about the possible existence of other minds with reason all over again when we know that reason alone cannot justify the other minds. While we maybe aware of other minds it is more or less the question of the legitimacy of other minds. In other words how do we know that those other minds are actually real and not just some illusion. To be aware of other minds and to be aware of its authenticity are two different things. I personally think I have solved the first but fail to tackle the latter. The authenticity of other minds is to me something that derives from inferences and implications. Based on the basic principle of communication (presenter, reciever, decoder,responder) I can only assume from there that there are other minds as I apply the basic principle in every day life. I may talk to an old man who sits next to me in the bus, I presented my thoughts and he appears to recieve it and decode it simply by responding back. And I recieve and decode his response. By studying the pattern here it appears as though there are two minds since the conversation seems to flow consistently and that the other mind has not so often change the subject sporadically. If this was so then he has not recieve or decoded what I just presented. I'll present a dialogue: Me: So what is your name sir? Old Man: Isn't it a beautiful day? Me: Sir I asked what your name is Old Man: I have a dog, a cat, and a bat From this dialogue we can deduce that the old man did not follow the basic principle of communication. He failed to play the role of a reciever, decoder, and responder because his response appears completely irrelevant. Due to his constant irrelevant response I can only deduce or assume that he did not recieve and decode anything of what I said. If his response were relevent then I can deduce that he did recieve and decode what I said hence makes it possible for me to believe that there are other minds. Then again I only know that there are other minds based upon this principle which significantly limits my epistomelogical access of other minds. In conclusion of my very long argument language and understanding alone are not enough to know or be aware of other minds, our faculty of awareness of other minds must come before our language and understanding. Such faculty however is only possible when I have access in sensation. Hence communication with the other-minds is only possible from this faculty, but this has not solve the problem of authenticity of other minds. So I argue that based upon the basic principle of communication we can only infer that the other minds are authentic.

yffer
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Posted 07/20/08 - 03:03 PM:	#13
Philonus wrote: This faculty gives us awareness of other minds in experience, I’m not sure I understand this. What exactly is it that you are aware of when you are aware of other minds in experience? Edited by yffer on 07/20/08 - 04:21 PM

Pete
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Posted 07/20/08 - 06:40 PM:	#14
makerowner wrote: This certainly isn't ironclad either. I can see an objection that 4, that the subject could have learned the mental-state words from a robot with no mental states, and made up his own connections between them and his mental states. But I would argue that this objection becomes absurd when you consider the sheer coincidence that would be needed to make everyone else's use of mental state words coincide with the subject's connections with his own mental states. That's not as strong an answer as I would like though. I see, your argument is just about the use of mentalistic terms, not language more broadly. And you believe that, even it is is not impossible for someone without a mind to teach us how to use words like 'belief' and 'desire,' it is highly unlikely that this is what happened. But why is it highly unlikely? Since we learn the use of these words by observation, their teaching behavior would have had exactly the same effect on us whether they had or lacked minds. There is no sense, then, in which it is unlikely that we would have learned the use of these mentalistic terms from their behavior, had they lacked minds. Their minds are not the teaching tool, just their behavior. Perhaps you mean only that it is highly unlikely that others would have been able to engage in that teaching behavior had they lacked minds. But why would your opponent be forced to admit this, when they refuse to admit that it is highly unlikely that others would have been able to write symphonies, explore space, do philosophy, without minds? Your opponent is crazy and makes unreasonable demands. That's why it's often better when arguing against a skeptic to point out how unreasonable those demands are rather than try to meet them, as you're attempting to do. But it would be great if you succeeded.

Philonus
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Posted 07/20/08 - 09:05 PM:	#15
yffer wrote: I’m not sure I understand this. What exactly is it that you are aware of when you are aware of other minds in experience? That's not what I meant, what I meant is that we have an intuition that gives us a sense of other people (or minds) or simply being aware of them and this is only possible when we have access the sensation (experience) because our intuition interprets it. Without sensation this intuition cannot interpret anything.

yffer
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Posted 07/21/08 - 03:31 AM:	#16
Philonus wrote: That's not what I meant, what I meant is that we have an intuition that gives us a sense of other people (or minds) or simply being aware of them and this is only possible when we have access the sensation (experience) because our intuition interprets it. Without sensation this intuition cannot interpret anything. To be aware of other minds and to be aware of its authenticity are two different things. I personally think I have solved the first but fail to tackle the latter. In order to solve the problem of other minds; come to know as a fact that there are other minds, one has to have access to the inner mental experiences of others, that is, if that is what an other mind is. Your first person mental experiences would include the first person mental experiences of others in which there is a distinction between you own mind and another. That is why you and others on this thread have stated that language cannot achieve that goal as much as makerowner would like to claim otherwise. Language and the observance of other bodily behaviour can only give evidence that support an inference of other minds, because it lacks direct experience. Either you are claiming to have solved the problem of other minds, and thereby have access to other minds or you are not. Which is it?

Philonus
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Posted 07/21/08 - 08:02 AM:	#17
yffer wrote: In order to solve the problem of other minds; come to know as a fact that there are other minds, one has to have access to the inner mental experiences of others, that is, if that is what an other mind is. Your first person mental experiences would include the first person mental experiences of others in which there is a distinction between you own mind and another. That is why you and others on this thread have stated that language cannot achieve that goal as much as makerowner would like to claim otherwise. Language and the observance of other bodily behaviour can only give evidence that support an inference of other minds, because it lacks direct experience. Either you are claiming to have solved the problem of other minds, and thereby have access to other minds or you are not. Which is it? I have to admit that it was some-what arragont of me to say that I have solved the problem, but I think that I am at least a "step closer" for a few reasons. First of all you said that in order for us to solve this problem we need to know as a fact that there are other minds, my take on this is epistemological; How do we know that there are other minds? We cannot possibly know that there are other minds with pure reason apart from sensation. For us to make this distinction between "Me" and "Others" in the sense that we both have similar but different minds I have to know it, the question I'm raising and tackling at the same time is "How is it possible that we could make such and distinction epistemologically". My premise was that we have an innate faculty or intuition that makes this knowledge possible, and my supportive argument was that no other faculties (sensation and reason) alone can make the knowledge of other minds possible. Reason only deduces thing, and how can reason come to a conclusion that there are other minds from pure deduction if it cannot "sense" the other mind? Reason does not sense things since it is a mere deduction (and induction). This is when Intuition, I believe, comes in to play. Sensation alone only gives us the representation of things, and from there that's when we interpret what is given to us. Sensation alone would be like giving an object to a child in a vegetable stage who obviously cannot make anything out of it. We need something more than Sensation and Reason, and this is where I substitute Intuition. Thus from there I, like many of you, am trying to solve the problem of other minds and I have reasonable arguments that does this. And no I don't have any special ability or ancient knowledge that gives me absolute certainty of other minds, I am merely presenting reasonable questions "How do we know that there are other minds?" and "How is it possible that we know that there are other minds".

yffer
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Posted 07/21/08 - 09:56 AM:	#18
The problem with intuition is its unreliability to due the fact that it often occurs spontaneous and seems beyond the control of the individual. Philonus wrote: "How is it possible that we know that there are other minds". I don’t think it would be a ‘we’ that knows, but rather a single individual. On an individual basis. I would say it has to do with the nature of awareness. If awareness or consciousness has the potential to become nonlocalized and expands into other individuals thoughts and sensations, where you can feel what they fell and observe their thoughts etc. then you would know that there are other minds, or at least one other. Although that seems to be the content of mind and not mind itself. And that’s another issue. Is there such a thing as a mind without content? What would that be?

makerowner
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Posted 07/21/08 - 02:45 PM:	#19
Pete wrote: I see, your argument is just about the use of mentalistic terms, not language more broadly. And you believe that, even it is is not impossible for someone without a mind to teach us how to use words like 'belief' and 'desire,' it is highly unlikely that this is what happened. But why is it highly unlikely? Since we learn the use of these words by observation, their teaching behavior would have had exactly the same effect on us whether they had or lacked minds. There is no sense, then, in which it is unlikely that we would have learned the use of these mentalistic terms from their behavior, had they lacked minds. Their minds are not the teaching tool, just their behavior. Perhaps you mean only that it is highly unlikely that others would have been able to engage in that teaching behavior had they lacked minds. But why would your opponent be forced to admit this, when they refuse to admit that it is highly unlikely that others would have been able to write symphonies, explore space, do philosophy, without minds? Your opponent is crazy and makes unreasonable demands. That's why it's often better when arguing against a skeptic to point out how unreasonable those demands are rather than try to meet them, as you're attempting to do. But it would be great if you succeeded. I agree with you about skepticism and I think Wittgenstein's approach in On Certainty is probably a good response: there's no need to prove beyond a possible doubt that eg. objects exist, other minds exist, because it's not actually possible to doubt it. I'm also unsatisfied with arguments that infer the existence of such things, because, again as Wittgenstein points out, the argument is always less certain than our original belief. I was hoping this argument would be able to show that it's not possible to doubt the existence of other minds, by showing that using language to describe mental states would presuppose the existence of other minds. It doesn't do that, in this form at least, but I'm optimistic that a better formulation might. Thanks for your comments everyone. Edited by makerowner on 07/21/08 - 03:28 PM. Reason: typo
The grounding-attunement of the first beginning is deep wonder that beings are, that man himself is extant, extant in that which he is not.

Philonus
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Posted 07/22/08 - 01:03 PM:	#20
yffer wrote: The problem with intuition is its unreliability to due the fact that it often occurs spontaneous and seems beyond the control of the individual. I don’t think it would be a ‘we’ that knows, but rather a single individual. On an individual basis. I would say it has to do with the nature of awareness. If awareness or consciousness has the potential to become nonlocalized and expands into other individuals thoughts and sensations, where you can feel what they fell and observe their thoughts etc. then you would know that there are other minds, or at least one other. Although that seems to be the content of mind and not mind itself. And that’s another issue. Is there such a thing as a mind without content? What would that be? I understand where your getting at, but I don't think its necessary for us to exactly feel or know what the other minds are thinking or feeling in order to know that there are other minds. Because this is, at least from general experience, impossible it only limits our certainty that there are other minds. Hence we must concede to extreme skepticism that probably there is no other minds at all. What I proposed is that we need to be aware that there are other minds but not necessarily through interconnected experience in order to emphasize with the mind. We need to know that its there without the means to map out every detail of it since this is already impossible. What I'm trying to do is find the possibility in which we know that there are other minds without the impossible task of having direct access to it. Now I am not trying to find an absolute certainty, but a sufficient certainty in which we know that there are other minds. Another problem I have with your argument that natural awareness may require direct knowledge of the mind is that the same principle does not necessarily apply in everyday life. For example, it doesn't take a direct knowledge to be aware that there is a key right next to me. I know that the key is next to me because I see it and thus I am aware that its there. I don't know its very nature in the sense of what its made up of or which lock it opens, but this sort of knowledge is not the prerequsite of me being aware that the key is THERE. The same applies for the Mind, I don't have to know every detail of its thinking and feeling, I only need to know that the Mind its there by observing its manifestation. I may see Jack laughing, talking (in a language I understand), moving, and expressing certain feelings, and deduce that these manifestation indicate that Jack has a Mind. Although this is not an absolute certainty that there is the mind, it is the sufficient certainty we need by deducing the implication from the mind's manifestation.

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