Are our Experiences Similar?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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My question is how similar are our experiences to each other and also the question of how do we know that a persons various experiences of the same object such as an apple are of that same object? It has to be that are experiences are somewhat similar to other people as if you ask two people to draw a fish they will both draw something similar but as to the reason for this. The form of something allows you to think of the possible uses or what you can doe with that something. And if everyone saw the same form of something it would open up communication to others in what you can do with it. Therefore it’s logical to assume an object has a common form to all of us. Common form appearance opens up communication because were able to pass knowledge on of the same characteristics to others and then thus be able to tell what we can do with it.

My other question is how do we tell an apple we experience at different points is the same apple. That is how do we know its “Toms apple” say. Is there some common physical denominator between all the experiences of the apple or do we all group those experiences together under Tom’s apple for some purpose. But this would require recognition of a common denominator, physical or based on physical and only suggests a function to telling it’s the same apple and not as to how. I would guess that we see various common denominators as said such as knowing the apple is on the table. So if you see this in both experiences you know it’s Tom’s apple or you might know it has a cut on the dark side of the apple. And notice this is both experiences. This shows one of the purpose of memory is to find common denominators so as to “correctly label” say something as Tom’s apple. And this recognition is found not only though memory but through memory and the powers of reason. Of course with this exp it is very simplistic and you could bring in other factors to say it’s not Tom’s apple in both. But if you do that where will it end. What list of factors is what? We can only understand such things then though highlighting specific examples.

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What I suggest is that there is no such thing as your mind and my mind. For purposes of convenience, and for want of a better and more adequate word, I can use the world mind. The world mind is the totality of man’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences passed down to us.

The world mind has created you and me, for the sole, main purpose of maintaining its status quo, its continuity. That world mind, if I may use that word, is a self-perpetuating one, and its only interest is to maintain its continuity. It can maintain its continuity only through the creation of what we call the individual minds – your mind and my mind. So without the help of that knowledge, you have no way of experiencing yourself as an entity. This so-called entity – the I, the self, the soul, the psyche, or whatever word you want to use – is created by that, and through the help of that you will be able to experience these things, and so we are caught up in this vicious circle, that the knowledge gives you the experience, and the experience strengthens and fortifies that knowledge.

You have a body and a brain, and the brain serves as a kind of antenna. You’re receptive to the thoughts that are coming to you from the world mind, and they give the illusion that you are an individual self, that you even have a mind. Is it possible for you – let alone the mind, or the entity, or the I, or the self, or the soul, or whatever you want to call it – to experience your body as a body, without the help of that knowledge? For example, you look at your hand. Is this hand yours? First of all, the hand, is it created by the knowledge you have of that.

Operations are performed on the blind. They see for the first time and don’t know anything. They have to be taught to recognize the things that they see. So without the mediation of the mind, if the mind is not trained somehow to recognize this it would all be meaningless. We have only the senses. The sensory perceptions do not say that this is a hand. The knowledge that we have tells us that this is a hand, and that this is your hand and not my hand. You have no way of looking at it except through the knowledge you have of this hand.

This knowledge is put into us during the course of our life. When you play with a child, you tell him, “Show me your hand, show me your nose, show me your teeth, show me your face. What is your name?” This is how we build up the identity of the individual’s relationship with his hand, with his nose, with his eyes, and with the world around. So do we look at anything – this so-called looking is a blurry experience of yours, but you have no way of looking at anything at all except with the knowledge. So it is necessary for us to have that knowledge, otherwise it is not possible for us to function sanely and intelligently. It helps us to function sanely and intelligently, and we have to accept the reality of the world as it is imposed on us. Otherwise we have no way of functioning sanely and intelligently; we will end up in the loony bin, singing merry melodies and loony tunes. So it is very essential for us to accept the reality of the world as it is imposed on us by culture, by society, or whatever you want to call it, and leave it at that, and treat it as functional in value, and it cannot help us to experience the reality of anything.

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The world mind as you’ve named at must be changing all the time. Therefore what defines it as a distinct entity. Is it defined by function and not by knowledge? If we assume the function of the mind is to apply yourself correctly to specific situations, that is to do what is in the “possible” or “probable” interest of your gene pool. But what is gene pool? An individual has a gene pool and so does an ethnic group and species. Each category differs slightly more genetically. Why is this? well from what Darwin said if I have this right to precision it is to increase the probability of genes continuing. But new genes are not a continuation therefore a new gene is for the purpose of continuing old genes. The individual as a function is for the purpose of spreading out common old genes between individuals while giving each new ones for the purpose of increasing the probability of the old ones surviving. If we assume the mind’s only purpose is to continue the survival of these old genes then you could say “if the individual of that group” is programmed to more probably defend the survival of other individuals of that group, then you could say all those individuals share a common “function” the mind. And since this is only defined by its function then you could say that all those individuals share a common world mind. However this also tells us that groups that don’t share common old genes are not of that world mind and may be part of another world mind.

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I think that that’s back to front: communication is the prerequisite for common form. If you ask two people to draw a fish, they will draw what they associate with the word “fish”. There are a lot of images that language associates with some words (like fish, apple, cross, sun) - you’ll find pretty good agreement for anything with generally-recognised pictograms. Less so for other words, though… think how much more agreement there would be between various people’s drawings of “apple” and their drawings of “shale” or “hairstyle”.

If (most Western) people draw a fish, they’ll draw a vaguely haddock- or John Dory-shaped creature, not a monkfish or a ray or a gar, because that’s what (most Western) people draw when they draw fish. Learning something of a foreign language in many cases will require you to open your eyes to different ways of classifying things into “common forms”.

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fish is a verb

keep drawing

-Imp

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I think I would have to agree with O_H here.

For example, I speak a language other than English.
An example of “communication is the prerequisite for common form” size=85 is the term Brother/Sister.
In my second language the term Brother/Sister is used for siblings but at the same time it is used for cousins, i.e. the word “cousin” does not exist at all.
The word Brother or Sister takes on meaning when used in context.

  1. If I am with people who I know and I refer to my Brother John then people instantly know that I am referring to my sibling.
  2. If I am with strangers and I refer to my Brother John then people can only infer that he is a sibling or my Aunties/Uncles son. Only upon further investigation (and if allowed to) will they comprehend the nature of my relationship with John.

The effect of not having the word cousin is to broaden the concept of family whereas in English speaking families there is generally a reduction in the notion of what constitutes a family.

So in this case would we consider the word Brother to only be a noun? - It appears to function differently to the way Brother is used in English.

There are countless other examples of this.

From my own experience this statement is very true.

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I with a good certainty agree that language often determines what categories are in the sense it supplies new utilities but not that language actually does the actual categorization itself. We must be able to categorize, see patterns without language otherwise we would not be able to create words for categories. Because from human experience where a teacher isn’t present such as a mother teaching her child language it is always the learning of the experience that proceeds the learning of the word. In a world where only words were learned but not what they represent words use would become obsolete. But the point is there is that categorization precedes wording. Because categorization needs the ability to see patterns which precedes wording. Wording cannot supply the ability to see patterns. At most it can only act as a memory or a road to the patterns you have already established.

But as to your example as to what we associate with a word correct me if I’m wrong but this has nothing to do with what we “broadly” classify as common forms. A western person may be aware of other types of fish perhaps only in word, and as far as in association by this word, with the characteristics you already know of the fishes, you already fully know. What fishes they draw has nothing to do with “how” we establish common forms but rather what we “associate” most strongly with a word, such as fish. I see what your saying here, words as you did say determine what people categorize but this is not it.
Words do not determine what people categorize rather it’s is different society discovery of different utilities of categorizing “through” word (there are already patterns seen and there are the starting form of categorization of which words “can” if chosen only reflect)". What do I mean as a utility discovered? For exp if you had two intelligent species and they can across the same bunch of different groups of berries. One species might be allergic to them and call them the Loda berries to indicate their poisonous. The other species who’s not allergic would have no use to giving a new word to these berries and would not linguistically categorize them though they may already be categorized as the species knows what’s all in the berries that make them poisonous to the other speices but because they are not poisonous to themselves they do not linguistically categorize them into a new word.

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I think Hilary Putnam has a valid hypothesis namely multi realisability ie that qualia aren’t the same even in different minds, but they are simillar enough of pallette not to matter.

ie

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For example if I have seen a picture of Notre Dame and someone has actually been there: quantitatively they are different and qualitatively also. But we have both seen Notre Dame, it’s just we may disagree on details. If you saw a picture of Notre Dame you would know what it was but little more unless you had visited it. There is more to perception than sight or site.

I have seen Notre Dame, from inside and out, actually having been there, those who haven’t could never experience what I have exactly.

Also my experience rests on my reflections as well as actually being there so it is unlikely even I am the same as I was when I was there.

What can you tell me about this place that I don’t know?

Perspective is important.