Dat is some kind of great humor bruh

"You can't explain color to a blind person". That took two seconds.

"that did it justice"

john kinsey :P *raspberry*

Right, but the blind person example is precisely an example. The Beetle Box metaphor is not merely about psychology or a particular type of experience, it is about all language.

No. No, it is not.

A lot of buzzy phrases - and you missed JBS Haldane's sniffy dismissal of God.

R/whoooooosh

Hi there. How did your comment here (the exact same one) get into a SUN video of Boris Johnson's recent speech in Greenwich? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m5aEmpqbq7nbgYE.html.

😄

Your lecturer's job and sense of self worth likely depends largely on making himself believe things have to be complicated enough that 'he' (and the academic position he holds) is needed to be able to explain these oh so complex ideas to his 'underling' students, and that it takes a long time to do that (otherwise how could his job be worthy of pay if he could explain things like this in a few minutes or less?).

​@@RalphfiliI am starting to believe wittgenstein isn't as big of a deal as I thought he was

Yes, such an oversight is surprizing, considering how much work went into the illustrations.

came to the comments for this

That's pretty important because Wittgenstein basically disowned one book and not the other.

@@EGarrett01 Wait, so the Tractatus concludes that people shouldn't talk about things they don't know how to express, but in his posthumous work he argues that people SHOULD talk about things they can't fully understand, in order to develop a language that comes closer to being able to express that what was inexpressible before? Talking about a spoiler :/

​@@DarkAngelEU I haven't read all of both books. It seems like in the second book he concluded that the meaning of words is context-dependent so they are much more useful than he thought.

tysm for this! really helped me with my essay :)

That's exactly what I gathered as well!

language is then the spacing between two notes or tones which is agreed upon. So practically a shared repetition of percussions.

Having only recently taken an interest in language acquisition, are you referring to the concepts of Chomsky, being an inherent language faculty?

Flynn Papandrea Not really. Haven't read any Chomsky myself. I'm referring to an Aristotelian or even a medieval understanding of semantics, wherein words do not represent private qualia that can in theory never be understood by anyone else, but rather that words are vehicles which present to our minds the means by which we understand real, public things. Under Aristotelian semantics, as far as my understanding of it goes, concepts are not things but activities. And the activity of concepts are the abstraction of something's essence. Words signify concepts. Concepts are the means by which we understand the public world. Thus we can talk about words signifying and referring without thinking that this leads to privatizing the meaning of said words.

very interesting points! i add that 1. it follows almost the traditionalists view there in that we view our private qualia as actually something everyone has (for we have no choice), therefore when we talk about private qualia with a public language, we are actually talking about the concepts that we ourselves (rightly or wrongly) think are universal (noumenal world). i like the way the video said "cancel out", as i think that is what witt meant. 2. his metaphor is based on some hume and kant, which comes after medieval views (i'm not insulting here, i'm just a student!), which is to say that representations and knowledge that are just simply assumptions of an individual based on their sensations and internal interpretations of them. in a way, there is no such thing as representing "something" or a "knowledge of", as all is just assumptions we make based on other sensations and a possible biologically innate "first" interpretation which is built up. (this doubt is of Hume, the way of eliminating some doubt is of Kant, and the biologically innate interpretation is of structuralists). however, here with the beetle, witt tries a slightly different approach, which adds to those views, not replaces it completely (not casting those views aside). witt says that we have a sensation "pain", and name it based on a public language the word "pain", and then whenever we see someone else behaving a certain way, or hear the word "pain", we assume their "private" sense is actually our "private sense", but really we are only using whatever entails what we see when someone else says the WORD "pain". saying "this color causes me pain whenever i see it" only means whatever i think the speaker means, even if i am color blind. i hope i helped with interpreting wittgenstein (regardless of the truth of it, whether you or i actually believe him)!

Richard Iphone I think that's a fair interpretation of the beetle in the box example. I was more so skeptical of the conclusions Wittgenstein drew from the example (i.e. that meaning in language is entirely a matter of regulative use). I was trying to show, perhaps in a fashion similar to Searle, that language itself can't be understood independent of a thorough going psychology. I think the different conclusions one draws from the beetle in the box example depends on whether one accepts the idealist trend in modern thought or not. If you do, you opt for a Kantian view of language (and meaning) as being entirely a matter of regulative use. If you don't, you reject the entire nominalist/conceptualist framework that makes 'things' irrelevant in normative human practice. I would offer as an argument for the latter position the fact that access to 'public' language as opposed to merely 'private sensations' really isn't intelligible if we accept a thoroughly nominalist/conceptualist view wherein all that ever influences our thought is entirely self-given. In short, a purely regulative approach to thought and language disenfranchises any actual binding principle that might regulate thought and language. Mere regulation isn't regulative, since regulation is only ever one kind of regulation rather than another. The need for a further determination shows that regulation is only possible if there is real being.

To later Wittgenstein words DON'T signify universal concepts. That is the main point of the Philosophical Investigations: a refutation of Realism or "essentialism." Words don't have formal "definitions" they do not "point to things." Meaning is involved with use, precisely not definition. Please read a few pages of Philosophical Investigations: it is a near complete refutation of his earlier work (Tractatus), which had been a cornerstone of positivism.

Yes, but we'd be using a shared language of some sort. The point is: I have my pain, you have your pain, and although we cannot experience each other's pain, we can use the word "pain" in conversation, or paint, or texting or in sign language or through music or whatever. But the communication is not the "private pain."

William Hanses Since when did any one think words replace sensations?

Who said "replace"? Words are used as words. How might you speak of pain without words? Did you actually read my comment? Why would you construe "the communication is not the 'private pain' " as "words replace sensations"? Honestly, I don't know where you're getting this.

That point is utterly irrelevant to the analogy and its argument.

​@@williamhanses7651 yes, the pain mentioned takes form of the pain of the person you are talking to when hes listening to you say "pain". so when you say pain, he thinks of it as a pain of his own conception. so everyone is living in their own world, except ALL THINGS HAVE CONCRETE BASIS OF SOME SORT. so when you say pain, there actually IS a shared conception, which is deep in our biology. that is why we can communicate. words can convey enough meaning to point out which biological phenomenon is attached to "concepts", such as the definition of "beautiful" is enough to make one understand that it is about aesthetism and what about what you see and a certain pleasure you get by merely looking at things. thus language works

How about a reply to your comment years later? I had never thought about this idea that to presume something 'impossible' is to presume we have the knowledge to know what the accomplishment of that 'impossibility' is. You said it better but my point is; I have something to chew on now for a few days, months, years.

for that, you have to accept that consciousness derives from neural processes and that others have it too

This is a valid argument, and I can see people being confused by it, being that by using context clues a person can figure out what the other person is experiencing (or, if they actually have a beetle or not). I think the point of the video was to express how we can only teach so much about pain or experience, since experience is relative. If the person never knows what a rose even is, they can only imagine it, not experience the sight in the first place. You can draw a rose, you can show them images and even show them similar flowers, but their perception of a "rose" will never be concrete.

think of trying to use this argument for any item wherin the definition of the item is functional or non concrete. is your "mercy" and my "mercy" the same thing? can we both use the same word if we only disagree a little? what if we disagree a lot?

No, no it's not. It's about the impossibility of "private language," and the "problem of other minds," both of which W. will ultimately conclude are the result of linguistic confusion.

Oh?... By branch is the quote in the otha film

Tarvoc The word "expression" implies an inner process...

But what if you tell me I feel pain? Can I know then?

@@lukasdonald1639 Yes, but the whole point is that the "inner" isn't disconnected from its expressions. It's not _private_ in the *philosophical* sense of the term. Any separation between "inner" states and their expressions is learned behavior, and then you have to ask what has to be given already in order to be able to learn such behavior in the first place.

@@ibperson7765 The point isn't that you lack some kind of knowledge, but that your cognitive relation to your own pain isn't that kind of relation in the first place. It's not that there's something you don't know, it's that saying you know you're in pain doesn't mean anything beyond the fact that you are in pain. For _me,_ knowing whether you're in pain is similar to knowing whether there's a red car in front of my window. It's something I can learn from observation, and something I can be right or wrong about. But for _you,_ saying that you know you're in pain only means you're in pain, which makes the "you know" part a superfluous move in the language game, since you could just as well simply say you are in pain.

@@tarvoc746 Long comment here but hope you’ll follow and reply if interested: I see now. Yeah thats good and I agree. Similar (somewhat in some ways) to the practice of trying to find the border between the object and the sight of it for me. And then finally between the object/sight-unity and my consciousness or awareness of the object/sight of it. (That second step can be profound, but is not awareness that youre seeing; it’s your awareness of the sight). None of those borders can be found. Theres a way in which phenomena is made of awareness, a way in which the world we live in is living in our own mind. Now we could add to find the border between my awareness of the sight of the object and my “knowledge that Im seeing it”. To know Im seeing it doesnt mean anything beyond what seeing it means. But Im not sure I agree with that last step: (although I do finally completely understand your original comment) because we can be conscious of what our attention is on or not. We can notice we are seeing or just see. Doesnt knowledge have to do w memory. Forgetting I was in pain means not knowing. Forgetting immediately means never knowing. (?) But then again maybe consciously noticing that Im seeing and having knowledge that Im seeing are not the same. Im thinking about the fact that Im seeing my phone now, but wasnt consciously aware of it because of thinking about the topic. Did I just gain knowledge that I see my phone or just put attention on the knowledge that I had anyway? I guess the latter. So now I understand *and* tentatively agree. Lol

"That of which we cannot speak, we must be quiet about" is a famous quote from the earlier Wittgenstein's philosophy. Actually the Beetle in a Box analogy can be viewed as part of a major argument Wittgenstein makes against his own earlier work (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus). Wittgenstein's later philosophy usually confuses people, for multiple reasons. The first is there are usually 2 voices in his books: the voice of the traditional philosophers talking about Metaphysical arguments or talking about the Tractatus arguments; and actual voice of Wittgenstein, that always try to explore the limits of philosophical thinking throught various parables/analogies/thought experiments etc. Second, the books are often cyclical/redundant, they talk about the same things over and over again, the same idea is presented throught multiple lenses, arguments are re-re-re-written. Third, Wittgenstein's ideas are often anti-philosophical; they are a novelty, it's hard to compare him with other schools of thought because he dismisses most philosophical traditions.

But when we talk at length about a sensation, perhaps including relationships with or comparisons other sensations, we could say things that others would say do or do not agree with their experiences. That wouldnt be true under this beetle in a box view. (Also, mirror neurons and empathy, but thats a separate point)

The please go read Philosophical Investigations. You can't feel my pain nor my 1st person subjectivity, but we can refer to these things, as I just did.

William Hanses Do you agree that if our sensations were different, that language would still function?

Different from what? Our current sensations, or each other? When have you ever felt another person's pain, in a non-metaphorical sense? I might agree or disagree if your question were not equivocal.

The beetle is the ego

experience is personal and cannot be generalized is how i understand it.

who's on first

Meaning is decided by the listener (or in this case, the reader), not the speaker.

Elizabeth Anscombe, a student of Wittgenstein, translated P.I. into English. She was asked to do so by the author. A KZfaq video is not an authorized translation of anything.

That's not what the analogy conveys. Meaning is in the use of the language, requiring a shared "form of life," by those communicating.

I think your objection works. If I describe sensations at length you may or may not agree that it matches your experience. Guy was not so great

How? There is no "inside the box" to access through linguistics or social psychology -- that's the entire point. You're saying "nu-uh!"

Yep 👍🏻. He’s 👎🏻

Schopenhauer says the world has two aspects, will and representation: we experience most things simply as appearance (representation) but can experiment ourselves as both appearance and a part of the will that is an aspect of all things. This is a metaphysical idea combining Kant's idea of the noumena - the thing innaccessible via sense experience - with a Hindu-inspired pantheism, or universal consciousness. Wittgenstein is saying that shared language does not allow communication by mapping onto corresponding concepts in the private languages of different people. Language exists only through its social usage, not independently in individuals. This is an argument in philosophy of language / philosophy of mind. So the two ideas could be combined, but I would consider them contributions to very different debates.

Woody is absolutely correct. No, Wittgenstein is arguing against "private language" and "solipsism." Schopenhauer is ostensibly doing epistemology (how do we know what we know), but is also doing ontology (or metaphysics) contrary to Kant's epistemology. Schopenhauer's form of "Transcendental Idealism" in no sense dismisses solipsism, which Wittgenstein is attempting to do.

Later Wittgenstein is *not* analytic philosophy, and has little or nothing to do with mathematical logic. The core premise of the Tractatus (picture theory of knowledge, linguistic essentialism), which is retained in various forms of positivism after it, is throughly rejected in Philosophical Investigations.

if false attribution continues, then how can one ever prove that any attribution is false (ie. not true) in the first place? if it was true, how could you possibly prove it? if you can't prove what is true, then you can't prove that this is not that, that this is not true, that this is false. all of your criteria could equally be be considered false attributions between 2 people performing the same test. therefore, either you get the skepticism of both science and religion of Hume, or you try to build up reasoning, or science, or language, religion, etc.

The "shared public meaning" IS the use of the word in conversation. This is the entire point: words don't always "work" by definition, or by directly pointing to things. I refer to my pain, and you can commiserate, but you don't ever feel it as I do. There's no "false attribution": you know my pain is not your pain, but we both use the same word "pain" successfully in society. The meaning is tied to the use: I can talk about your past pain, which no one is experiencing, yet we both share a "meaning." We can have a conversation about Bigfoot or "the current King of England" or "Huck Finn," and understand one another. However, if i make up a new word for "my pain (or beetle)," no one will understand me until I say "by 'ugdfiwfurt' I mean 'my pain'." Then everyone else will say, "oh why didn't you just say 'my pain'?.. and by the way, do you believe in Bigfoot?"

What resentment? Some of his work, including the "Beetle Box' was intended as a refutation of solipsism. He donated his family fortune (one of the wealthiest families in Europe) to charity and lived in what was essentially a dorm room. Who did he insult? In what sense was he arrogant? Quote any instance or account of his arrogance, please.

William Hanses What about beating up school children for not understanding Maths and paying off the authorities to avoid sentencing. This was all based on arrogance.

Sounds like he had serious anger issues. Do you have anger issues, Lukas? Are you going to resort to name-calling again?

@@williamhanses7651 way to dodge the question

@@bentaro9743 There was a question? W. was accused of "seeking revenge on mere humans (because of)..... his arrogant miserable life," with no support. That's not a question. If *you* have a question relating in any way whatsoever to the video, please ask it.

Put down the bong, please. No, that is precisely NOT what the beetle box analogy is suggesting. I can talk about your pain, although i cannot feel it: language works that way.

If you promise not to name-call or insult others, perhaps we can answer your question.

How and why does it matter, how “deep” he was? What’s “deep” anyways? The important thing is he wrote about things (maybe) not everyone takes or would take into account, it doesn’t matter how overrated he was, or is, no one really has any kind of “academic” value anyway, we’re all standard, normal human beings who communicate what we think and feel the best we can.

You'll actually find that with much philosophy. A lot of philosophy is the explanation of the seemingly obvious. A lot of philosophy is also a response to previous philosophy, which often is a lot less obvious, and abstracts the concepts that you or I may use on a daily basis to point where only they, the philosopher, can truly comprehend them.

Master of the obvious? No. Master of the completely ridiculous interpretation? Yes.

How, and in what sense did Wittgenstein "diminish life"? He did not inhabit a "nightmare world" nor did he wish us to share it. He was not an existentialist, nor a pessimist. He had a profound spiritual (actually religious) sensibility, and stated that the goal of his latter philosophy was "an ethical one." The Philosophies you mention bear no resemblance whatsoever to any of Wittgenstein's work.

Oh Please! An epistemology, not THE epistemology… Look how much things have changed since, knowledge-wise.

@@christopherhamilton3621 more things change the more they stay the same

I can find quotes that fit my confirmation bias too…