Object and experience

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Objects are countable, experiences are not. Objects are made in the framework of experience and so can be differentiated. A framework itself is not countable.
Experiences are not countable even if they are said to be the same. The ground for experiences to be considered the same refer to bodies (objects) and not experiences. Experiences are neither the same nor different for there is no framework within which they can be placed to make a count.
Object and experience cannot be compared.
'Counting' is the method we use to distinguish an object. It has limitations, but none are presented here.

This establishes the nature of object and experience without a comparison and incidentally disposes of solipsism, and refutes the law of identity.

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Why objects vs. experience?

Are you trying to get under your own skin?

Objects can be counted, as you say, but is it that simple?

How many leaves before it is one tree? How many trees before it is one forest?

The counting is based on experience. When listening to music some people hear only the sound. Others can tell you what is making the sound, and how many beats there are etc. Their experience is richer, so they can glean more out of it.

So if you cannot count experience, there are surely ways to make experience count more.

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Good points, Cyrcuz. As far as we know from our experience, objects can exist only within our experience(s).

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Cyracuz wrote:

Why objects vs. experience?

Are you trying to get under your own skin?

Objects can be counted, as you say, but is it that simple?

How many leaves before it is one tree? How many trees before it is one forest?

The counting is based on experience. When listening to music some people hear only the sound. Others can tell you what is making the sound, and how many beats there are etc. Their experience is richer, so they can glean more out of it.

So if you cannot count experience, there are surely ways to make experience count more.

The post was two things. First, it was applied against science's latest craze of counting experience as an object (which happens in medicine, and is also shown by the term 'qualia'); second, it was an exploration of a theme conducted whilst typing (I do this sometimes).
'Object and experience' as a pair, are perfectly frightful. If I don't, can't, or won't describe either objects or experience, then that does not mean that I am left with nothing.

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JJ-

What gets you going typing a piece for us.What inner spring says type a post on A2K.That's an experience I think.And those might be all the same.
I'm not saying they are.It might be exactly the same experience which could start you off to turn the television on.Possibly a boredom threshold.If they were all the same they might be countable.

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JJ wrote:

Quote:

If I don't, can't, or won't describe either objects or experience, then that does not mean that I am left with nothing.

No, just that you don't know what you have. Wich is basically what you'd get even if you did bother to describe it, only then you'd not know because some other, completely up-the-wall description of your own devising making you believe that you got it... "You" meaning we, us, yall, myself included.

So you want no answer before a wrong one, is that what you mean?

That would make experience count more.

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Cyr-

A must read for you=Isis Unveiled by Madame Blavatsky.2 Vols.

Right up your street.

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JJ-

I read The Materialist Theory of Mind a while ago and I got the impression that Armstrong thought that these inner experiences were objects having momentary existences and passing through like time.If one creates a train of events,such as writing a post,then that is simply a side track and is derived from the original experience and a part of it or a development of it.

But I'm no expert as you probably know.

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Cyracuz wrote:

JJ wrote:

Quote:
If I don't, can't, or won't describe either objects or experience, then that does not mean that I am left with nothing.

No, just that you don't know what you have. Wich is basically what you'd get even if you did bother to describe it, only then you'd not know because some other, completely up-the-wall description of your own devising making you believe that you got it... "You" meaning we, us, yall, myself included.

So you want no answer before a wrong one, is that what you mean?

That would make experience count more.

If, in situation 'A', I do not know what object I have, then that can mean that I am in doubt. But it can also mean, and this is not the same thing, that I have not named any objects. I can get along well in situation 'A' in the latter case, even though I have not named, recognised, or constructed by imagination and language, any objects.

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Quote:

I can get along well in situation 'A' in the latter case, even though I have not named, recognised, or constructed by imagination and language, any objects.

Maybe you are ascribing too much power to words. If you've seen something once it will have a place in your mental image of things. From there, if you chose to ignore it, it is merely an issue of stubborn ignorance, and it is a way to ensure that experiences count as little as possible.

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Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
I can get along well in situation 'A' in the latter case, even though I have not named, recognised, or constructed by imagination and language, any objects.

Maybe you are ascribing too much power to words. If you've seen something once it will have a place in your mental image of things. From there, if you chose to ignore it, it is merely an issue of stubborn ignorance, and it is a way to ensure that experiences count as little as possible.

The power of words...
I say this! that without language there is no knowledge.
And this! without language there are no objects.
And this! without language there is no experience.

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Hmm... I'd say that...
without knowledge there is no language
without objects there is no language
and no experience, no language

I don't know how your mind works, but mine works in the way that I get images and impressions that I need to apply language to. Things don't come complete with a users guide.

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John Jones

Quote:

The power of words...
I say this! that without language there is no knowledge.
And this! without language there are no objects.
And this! without language there is no experience.

No. Without language there is no experience based on language. But you still have your sensorial experience. Experience is an interaction between you and all things that are not you. A tree has experiences. In fact, life is nothing but experience, since you are always interacting with something.

Conceptual experience is different. There, I agree, you must have a language. In this case, even your sensations are experienced as concepts. Between you and your sensorial experience there is already your "reason". The thing you see and touch becomes a "stone": but you only know what a stone is within the language system it belongs.
Our experience is, most of the time, conceptual (intentional in the way Husserl defined it), but that doesn't mean that it is the only possible experience.

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val wrote:

John Jones

Quote:
The power of words...
I say this! that without language there is no knowledge.
And this! without language there are no objects.
And this! without language there is no experience.

No. Without language there is no experience based on language. But you still have your sensorial experience. Experience is an interaction between you and all things that are not you. A tree has experiences. In fact, life is nothing but experience, since you are always interacting with something.

Conceptual experience is different. There, I agree, you must have a language. In this case, even your sensations are experienced as concepts. Between you and your sensorial experience there is already your "reason". The thing you see and touch becomes a "stone": but you only know what a stone is within the language system it belongs.
Our experience is, most of the time, conceptual (intentional in the way Husserl defined it), but that doesn't mean that it is the only possible experience.

(My post that stated 'without language there is no experience', etc, was a half-emerged idea that had dried out before it dropped to the floor. It's foul stench surprised even me. Alas, I cannot put it back, its fixed tortured shape cannot be accomodated in the three-dimensional hole from which it fell.)

You are right about experience. Of course things have an experience without language. But there are some further points to be made, and my position, although I made a mistake in the way I presented it, may not itself be mistaken:

I cannot say 'without language there is no experience' because 'no experience' assumes the case of experience when in fact there should not be one if my claim is right. That was my mistake, I think. But now to your point, and one that seems obvious to all of us - that there can be an experience without language. To that I would say this - that I cannot say 'there can be' an experience without language, because when I say 'there can be..' I refer to a particular case, and without language, I cannot present the particular case or particular experience. So I would say that we cannot say 'there can be an experience without language'.

There is a further point which I will explore at another time: The term language is to my mind, always obscure. We get mixed up between words and meaning; also, it is not clear if we refer to a general form called 'language'; and again, 'language' may be a term that merely refers to a particular collection of thoughts and sayings. But never mind that for now. The main point I want to make here is that there appears a schism in language. Language can immediately invoke sadness, but can never present yellow. Related to this, I think, is the observation that words are not enough - a language must be understood, and if a language is not understood through its words, how is it understood?
Ta.

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JJ-

Are you considering language to mean any process by which information is passed to another person (or being) or are you confining it to word use?

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spendius wrote:

JJ-

Are you considering language to mean any process by which information is passed to another person (or being) or are you confining it to word use?

(The word 'information' must work pretty hard here. Perhaps the task is too much for it...We are now doing philosophy proper - investigating, storming an idea or problem, paying attention to intuition and stray thoughts, getting used to the territory.)

Regarding the term 'information', how would I explain the supposed fact that I cannot convey the information 'yellow' by language, but I can convey the information 'sadness'?

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JJ-

Would you allow the case of someone telling someone else that yellow is the colour represented to the human eye by a wavelength of so and so Angstroms if the second person knew what that looked like.That might be a circularity.I'm not sure.
There's also the case,which I gather Picasso exploited,of colour affecting mood and the mood then being detected by others from a physiognomy.

Sadness is sometimes feigned.Does that interfere with your position.

I'm sorry to rush but I'm due in the pub to discuss the first day's play in the Test Match.

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Under the assumption that "language" means exchange of information (not limited to words only), the term "information" is more accurately applied when it refers to the attributes of an object. Information is nothing in itself

Then "yellow is the label we put on light of a certain wavelength" is a valid definition of yellow.

A good question then, in light of spendius' remark regarging colors and moods, is wether or not the mood is affected by color (or sound, since we have the same there), or the mood is the experience of certain wavelengths. This would mean that different states of mind are really the mind operating on different wavelengths.

Far fetched maybe...

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If information is an exchange, then experience is not information - I do not exchange, or transfer information with, or to, myself. However, I may take time to work something out from a sequence of fixed thoughts. Do these represent packets of information? Yes, but there is a mistake in the example I suggest: I do not need to chop up my experience in this way, except as an afterthought, or to construct and convey an experience to someone else.

I can convey the colour yellow by describing it as a wavelength, or as a colour reference number or page in a paint book. But I cannot present yellow as information. I can present yellow, but I would say that 'presenting' is not an exchange of information. Whatever else happens after a person has experienced the presentation 'yellow', such as changes in feelings, takes us away fron the example.

Sadness is a presentation through language. We do not interpret something as sadness except through information, but information is not necessary in a direct presentation. Whether or not the sadness is feigned, the presentation can still be direct.

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