The impenetrability of the consciousness of others

[beige]

As long as people can agree what red is who gives a fuck what it looks like in someone elses head

I'm just curious from time to time, that's all. I wasn't saying it was important.

[JimC]

Because you're believing the universe is the result of your observation when the reverse is the reality.

No, you misunderstand the OP. The view you seem to detest so much is called 'solipsism'. ( see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism)

There is no evidence either way on this one. 'Common sense' however dictates that your mind is one of the billions that exist on the planet today. My OP was not about solipsism, but about the fact that each of those minds is totally isolated except for the narrow pathways of communication which we have between ourselves, all prone to misunderstanding, ambiguity and in any case lacking in content for the most part.

We invent the content of the universe and we project it too in my view,

I would argue against the "totally". Sure, we have no direct experience of the inner mental states of others, but we have evolved have a "theory of mind" which allows us to create pragmatically useful models of other's cognitive states, particularly when we use our own consciousness as a basis for comparison.

I fully concede it is only a model, but it provides enough data for both useful prediction of others reactions, and also the basis for empathy...

Also, I think it's fairer to say we develop a model of the universe, rather than invent it. It's important to understand it is only a model, but, with the aid of science, it is a fair and useful approximation of a dynamic physical reality.

[Trolldor]

We invent the content of the universe and we project it too in my view

A perfect example of solipsism.


We do neither. We evolved to take in pre-existing information, we invent nothing and project nothing. There is plenty of evidence to support my view, it's called the Theory of Evolution.

[floppit]

I cannot understand the down play of communication. The very way I think, my most private, internal world is the way it is because of language.

Our individual make up is undeniabley unique, but the ingredients of the mix are so often shared. I doubt I contain a single element of what I view as self which is not shared with someone, even many, likely millions.

[Sean Hayden]

and beer

[hadespussercats]

Well, I was reading Ryle at some point, and he was discussing this issue in these terms (I'm paraphrasing):
A man can assure you that the ice is safe, in completely convincing terms, but if he shies away from venturing out on it, you can be pretty sure he doesn't actually believe the ice is safe.

We can know a lot about what people are thinking, even without verbalization, through their body language, facial expressions, and the actions they take. These same people might think that they have an interior life that can only be penetrated in as much as it is deliberately shared. But we've all (I expect) experienced situations where we've known what people were thinking and feeling, at least in part. We also know that people lie, that they sometimes don't know what they think, or what their faces and bodies are projecting without their knowing.

Consciousness is a product of our brains, which are intimately connected with the rest of our bodies on any number of nervous, chemical, and mechanical levels. And those connections are evident to those who care to look for them. So while I may never know what the color red actually looks like in someone else's mind, I can derive enough information about that person's consciousness in other ways to assert that consciousness itself is hardly impenetrable.

[stripes4]

I just like eating crisps. Does that help?

[Feck]

I just like eating crisps. Does that help?

Tried these today

nom nom

[hadespussercats]

I just like eating crisps. Does that help?

You might like eating crisps. Or you might just think you do. Or you could be lying to us all about your crisps predelictions. How could we ever know?

And how could we know whether what you call crisps tastes the same to you as it does to someone else? Are crisps an impenetrable mystery?

[Trolldor]

No. We know that crisps would taste the same, or similarly to, anyone with a healthy functioning taste... err... system... (oh shut up) because it would operate similarly at a biological level. The only way it would taste different, all conditions being the same, is if somehow magic determined the taste of food.

[Rum]

No. We know that crisps would taste the same, or similarly to, anyone with a healthy functioning taste... err... system... (oh shut up) because it would operate similarly at a biological level. The only way it would taste different, all conditions being the same, is if somehow magic determined the taste of food.

I think not. You have no access to the way the other persons perceptions interpret the mechanism which triggers the sensation of 'taste'. You could guess, but you will never know.

[Trolldor]

But I could know. In fact, knowing what it would taste like to other people is the very science of 'artificial flavouring'. That's why they spend so much money in developing smells and aromas. The only variation would be in the strength. What smells like cooked meat to me would smell like cooked meat to anything else, unless you can come up with any known factor, outside of biology, that would determine a difference.
Until you can, stating that, at best, we can only guess is absurd and ignores reality.

[JimC]

No. We know that crisps would taste the same, or similarly to, anyone with a healthy functioning taste... err... system... (oh shut up) because it would operate similarly at a biological level. The only way it would taste different, all conditions being the same, is if somehow magic determined the taste of food.

I think not. You have no access to the way the other persons perceptions interpret the mechanism which triggers the sensation of 'taste'. You could guess, but you will never know.

You could do a series of controlled tests which could at least establish that people can detect certain foods by taste alone, and consistently give them the same labels (and I would confidently expect that result...)

Given such a result, there is a certain commonalty in peoples tastes. True, at a purely experiential level we cannot make a perfect one-to-one link between my experience of eating crisps, and yours. However, we can both identify them in blind tasting, and give them a common label, so our island consciousnesses at least have plenty of bridges...

[Hermit]

I utterly loathe that whole philosophy. It reeks of woo and metaphysics, with remnants of that human-centric perspective, as if somehow the Univere's shape is contingent upon Man's recognition of it.

The only missing ingredient to complete this melange of bullshit is the mention of quantum mechanics. Where is Undercoverelephant? He would add it in a trice.

But you wouldn't know them as a person. You'd only know the physical reality of their brain. There is no person there. Person is what we experience on the inside.

The physical reality of the brain, the way tiny charges jump across synapses, is the person. Mention of "inner experience" puts me on infinite regress alert. There is no little agent sitting inside the eyeball, evaluating the sensual data that stream in. Those data make the person. If you doubt that, see if you can evince some opinions or emotions from a baby as it leaves the womb, and report your findings.

[Trolldor]

No. We know that crisps would taste the same, or similarly to, anyone with a healthy functioning taste... err... system... (oh shut up) because it would operate similarly at a biological level. The only way it would taste different, all conditions being the same, is if somehow magic determined the taste of food.

I think not. You have no access to the way the other persons perceptions interpret the mechanism which triggers the sensation of 'taste'. You could guess, but you will never know.

You could do a series of controlled tests which could at least establish that people can detect certain foods by taste alone, and consistently give them the same labels (and I would confidently expect that result...)

Given such a result, there is a certain commonalty in peoples tastes. True, at a purely experiential level we cannot make a perfect one-to-one link between my experience of eating crisps, and yours. However, we can both identify them in blind tasting, and give them a common label, so our island consciousnesses at least have plenty of bridges...

More than that. In fact, you couldn't really call them islands, but city blocks. Mildly different, but to all extents and purposes the same from an outside perspective. As I have said before, when all conditions being sufficiently equal, the taste would be sufficiently similar unless you can introduce an outside party which somehow arbiters taste, and that outside party is 'uniform' in nature (ie, the same force reacting in the same way with each individual) but producing variable results.