[Wittrs] Re: Minds, Brains and What There Is

  • From: "blroadies" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:37:50 -0000

Bruce asked
> Please  post a reply on the list and tell me how you are using the
expression  third-person "subjective experience".
Cayuse wrote
I'm using the expression "first-person  subjective experience" to allude
to what Nagel calls the "what it is like to be  [...]"  in the
particular case of "what it is like to  be me". I used the expression
"third-person subjective  experience" to allude  to an  imagined "what
it is like to be somebody else", in the same manner that  Nagel uses it
to allude to an imagined  "what it is like to be a bat" (it would be
inappropriate to refer to that as the "third-person" case since a bat is
not a  person).

Thanks. I'll keep it in mind

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:

> When you tell me about your ("third-person") pain, I can't help but
> interpret it in terms of how pain is experienced in the "first-person"
case,
> even though "The thing in the box has no place in the language-game
> at all; not even as a /something/: for the box might even be empty.
> -- No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels
out,
> whatever it is." (PI 293)

Thanks again for taking the trouble to find the LW quote. I think I read
it somewhat differently. For me, LW is say that NAGEL'S NOTION OF A
FIRST PERSON PRIVATE SENSE HAS NO APPLICATION. not THERE IS A PRIVATE
SENSE IN FACT WHICH IS INACCESSIBLE. Is this distinction clear? Put it
differently. You have no private experience of pain because you
interpret your experience in the same language that I interpret it. In
fact, you may come to agree that my understanding of your pain is more
accurate.

This outcome is not uncommon with my pain patients.

> What has no application is the idea that an object in the world
> is associated with a "what it is like to be that object".

Agreed. There is no object which in face is "what it is like for you to
be in pain." But we can empirically study events that aren't objects.

> But what if my conviction is in error?

That I'm in pain! Right? I may be faking or exaggerating. But that is no
different from being uncertain about any claim. It may be the case that
you deceive yourself into thinking that you only acted in pain when
later you decide that you were in pain. I recall Dean Martin who was
often drunk but acted as if he was someone acting drunk. At some point
he may have confused himself.

> That error is to consider the "what it is like to be [...]"as a
"something".

Right! But another error, which I think Nagel promotes, is to consider
self-awareness as private realm cut off from empirical inquiry.

bruce

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