Additional Argument for My Philosophical Idea
As you remember, my philosophical idea is that one's sensation of X is merely belief that one is undergoing sensation of X. I did however leave out my best argument:
Imagine Fred, who believes he is seeing an oak tree. Suppose Fred is not really seeing an oak tree. That is, suppose Fred is not having the sensation of seeing an oak tree, that the sensation is completely absent in him and his phenomenological realm is devoid of oak tree experience.
But Fred still believes he is seeing an oak tree. Now the question: Is there any way we can convince Fred, or ourselves, that he is not seeing an oak tree? He believes he is. It is trivial that given Fred believes he is seeing an oak tree, it is impossible for Fred to conclude that he is not seeing an oak tree. He will never have any idea that he's not seeing an oak tree.
Therefore, if phenomenal experience were detachable from belief, there would be no way to tell that other people -- or even we -- were having phenomenal experiences. This is of course impossible; the whole idea of phenomenal experiences is that they're instantly knowable. Therefore phenomenal experience of X is belief that one has phenomenal experience of X.
Imagine Fred, who believes he is seeing an oak tree. Suppose Fred is not really seeing an oak tree. That is, suppose Fred is not having the sensation of seeing an oak tree, that the sensation is completely absent in him and his phenomenological realm is devoid of oak tree experience.
But Fred still believes he is seeing an oak tree. Now the question: Is there any way we can convince Fred, or ourselves, that he is not seeing an oak tree? He believes he is. It is trivial that given Fred believes he is seeing an oak tree, it is impossible for Fred to conclude that he is not seeing an oak tree. He will never have any idea that he's not seeing an oak tree.
Therefore, if phenomenal experience were detachable from belief, there would be no way to tell that other people -- or even we -- were having phenomenal experiences. This is of course impossible; the whole idea of phenomenal experiences is that they're instantly knowable. Therefore phenomenal experience of X is belief that one has phenomenal experience of X.
posted by apk01004 at 4:46 PM
5 Comments:
Let's assume that "phenomenal experience of X is belief that one has phenomenal experience of X".
No. Let's not. I dislike proofs by contradiction and other things that are like them.
Instead, I will simply say that the above definition of 'sensation' appears recursive into infinity, and whatever you need to be in order to accept such a definition, I am not that.
I don't think that definition is recursive at all. If what you mean is that "phenomenal experience of X" is being defined in terms of itself you are wrong. It is being defined in terms of something that refers to it.
Constructions like this rarely happen, but here is a (lame) example of one that might help.
Smith defines a "spoo" as whatever it is that he believes to be a spoo. He might call you a spoo, or the Brooklyn Bridge or whatever. He can do that, right? There is a definite class of things that are spoos and a class of things that are not spoos.
Likewise, if we describe "phenomenal experience of X" in terms of belief about phenomenal experience of X, that's okay. Right?
My poorly expressed concern involves the consequences of believing that one is undergoing a sensation while also believing that a sensation X is merely a belief that the sensation X is being experienced.
My impression is that the commonly accepted rules about belief will lead us to conclude that anyone doing both of these things will be entertaining a belief which has infinite content.
After further consideration, I see that the problem, if it arises at all, will arise in anyone who adopts your theory, whether it is correct or not.
Because of this, while I can still hope that my thoughts will be indirectly problematic for theories based on folk psychology, I must retract them as a direct assault on your new idea.
So if I understand it, you are saying that my theory is unbelievable but not necessarily wrong.
I'm going to have to think about that.
What do you think of my argument for it?
Its a pretty good agrument. Most of it appears to be very reasonable.
From that your experiences are immediately and unmistakeably knowable, we can safely conclude that you will believe you are experiencing nausea when and only when you are experiencing nausea.
What your argument doesn't do is make the final step from biconditionality (is that a word?) to identity. If this can be done, it will require a discussion of the essential natures of beliefs and experiences that shows their identity to be the cause of the interdependence whose necessity you've already demonstrated.
I'm not sure whether or not the publicly available definitions of 'belief' and 'experience' provide for such a discussion, but if they do, the debate is almost over.
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