and hopefully I don't have tuberculosis
I tried to cook candied lemon slices today. It didn't work too well - they've come out soft and sticky, rather than the crunchy/crispy I was hoping for - but they're quite tasty nonetheless, and now I have a load of sugar syrup to do something with. I'll try again at some point with more sugar, smaller lemons cut into thinner slices, and a different recipe. I also cooked red mullet with salad potatoes and asparagus for dinner; it was tasty, and the two fish only cost me about £3.50, too.
I also got a haircut, and booked an eye exam. I've had these glasses for four years or so, I think? Time to at least see whether my prescription's changed. Amy at the optician recognised me, which I thought was quite impressive as I've seen her maybe once in the past three years, but in retrospect it shouldn't have surprised me that much because I've got the goatee at the moment. Fresh haircut, clean-shaven sideburns, nice shirt, I was looking good today.
I asked a lot of questions about Wittgenstein today, here is a summary of what I have learned, and my thoughts about it.
I think those are the main things. Please, if I've gotten these wrong, do speak up - I want to understand why Wittgenstein is so popular, so widely taught and referenced, and it's possible that it's a massive conspiracy of academic philosophers unwittingly deluding themselves, but a simpler explanation is that he made some points worth studying. I aim to find them. It was suggested that he's widely taught/referenced not because he made good points but because he causes those who study him to make good points, which would be interesting if it's true.
#1 might have a part to play in explaining why Wittgenstein is so popular. Both sides of an argument can quote him. :-)
I reckon #2 collapses: for something to be 'completely private,' it has to not be inferrable by anybody else. In order for it to not be inferrable by anybody else, it has to not be possible for them to observe any effects of it. So, maybe I'm pushing the idea of 'observation' a bit much here, but what if you're observing me using a highly advanced brain scanning device? That means that the thing has to have no mental effects on me whatsoever - here's the leap - and I think that means the thing can't exist. So he's saying that we can't say meaningful things about some things that can't exist.
A statement about a completely private thing could be, I guess, "my soul is green."
If meaningful means 'having a truth-value,' then I think his claim is false; my soul might very well have a colour, within its realm of existence; I will never know that colour, never see it, but just because I don't see it doesn't mean it isn't green. It's logically possible that the statement is true, even though it's about something that is completely private to me.
However, if it means something like like 'being worth talking about,' then, OK, it probably isn't worth talking about the properties of things that don't interact with this universe, because a) we'll never find out if we're right and b) it wouldn't help us with anything anyway. "My soul is green? Uh, OK. So what?"
The leap mentioned above is that I'm assuming it's impossible to experience something without it having a physical effect on your brain somehow/somewhere. This might not be true if consciousness is strongly emergent. I don't think it is strongly emergent, though. :)
Presently I agree with #3; I wonder about refutations (particularly from Objectivism, because he's saying that any given word doesn't have an objective meaning). Anyone know any?
My model of language is one of shared symbols - words, sounds, etc - but private meanings. The meanings held by two people are often similar, but you can never guarantee that they're the same. If I ask two people to go to my fridge and bring me the meat, it is unlikely that either will go to my cupboard and bring me the salt, but more likely that one would bring me the bacon and the other would bring me the ham. The private meanings are formed through conjecture and refutation - guessing at what a word means (through seeing the context in which it is used, or working out what it derives from, etc) and then refining that guess as you see more uses of it that do or don't fit with what you'd thought it meant.
I also got a haircut, and booked an eye exam. I've had these glasses for four years or so, I think? Time to at least see whether my prescription's changed. Amy at the optician recognised me, which I thought was quite impressive as I've seen her maybe once in the past three years, but in retrospect it shouldn't have surprised me that much because I've got the goatee at the moment. Fresh haircut, clean-shaven sideburns, nice shirt, I was looking good today.
I asked a lot of questions about Wittgenstein today, here is a summary of what I have learned, and my thoughts about it.
- Wittgenstein went through two distinct phases; he spent much of the second phase proving his first phase wrong. So, sometimes when he seems inconsistent it might be because he actually did change position pretty totally between saying one thing and saying another. (He may, of course, be inconsistent for other reasons). I think most of the things I learnt tonight were ideas from his later phase.
- He didn't think it was possible to say meaningful things about a completely private thing (like a quale), because you can never be sure you're experiencing the same private thing twice. By 'private' he meant something that other people couldn't observe or infer.
- He believed that there was therefore no such thing as a public language; that all words only had meaning in context, to their speakers.
I think those are the main things. Please, if I've gotten these wrong, do speak up - I want to understand why Wittgenstein is so popular, so widely taught and referenced, and it's possible that it's a massive conspiracy of academic philosophers unwittingly deluding themselves, but a simpler explanation is that he made some points worth studying. I aim to find them. It was suggested that he's widely taught/referenced not because he made good points but because he causes those who study him to make good points, which would be interesting if it's true.
#1 might have a part to play in explaining why Wittgenstein is so popular. Both sides of an argument can quote him. :-)
I reckon #2 collapses: for something to be 'completely private,' it has to not be inferrable by anybody else. In order for it to not be inferrable by anybody else, it has to not be possible for them to observe any effects of it. So, maybe I'm pushing the idea of 'observation' a bit much here, but what if you're observing me using a highly advanced brain scanning device? That means that the thing has to have no mental effects on me whatsoever - here's the leap - and I think that means the thing can't exist. So he's saying that we can't say meaningful things about some things that can't exist.
A statement about a completely private thing could be, I guess, "my soul is green."
If meaningful means 'having a truth-value,' then I think his claim is false; my soul might very well have a colour, within its realm of existence; I will never know that colour, never see it, but just because I don't see it doesn't mean it isn't green. It's logically possible that the statement is true, even though it's about something that is completely private to me.
However, if it means something like like 'being worth talking about,' then, OK, it probably isn't worth talking about the properties of things that don't interact with this universe, because a) we'll never find out if we're right and b) it wouldn't help us with anything anyway. "My soul is green? Uh, OK. So what?"
The leap mentioned above is that I'm assuming it's impossible to experience something without it having a physical effect on your brain somehow/somewhere. This might not be true if consciousness is strongly emergent. I don't think it is strongly emergent, though. :)
Presently I agree with #3; I wonder about refutations (particularly from Objectivism, because he's saying that any given word doesn't have an objective meaning). Anyone know any?
My model of language is one of shared symbols - words, sounds, etc - but private meanings. The meanings held by two people are often similar, but you can never guarantee that they're the same. If I ask two people to go to my fridge and bring me the meat, it is unlikely that either will go to my cupboard and bring me the salt, but more likely that one would bring me the bacon and the other would bring me the ham. The private meanings are formed through conjecture and refutation - guessing at what a word means (through seeing the context in which it is used, or working out what it derives from, etc) and then refining that guess as you see more uses of it that do or don't fit with what you'd thought it meant.