/lit/ - Literature

What is the basis of his insistence in the first place?

That proposition simply makes no sense.

>>6215960
Wittgenstein isn't claiming that, he's doing an analysis of the word "pain" to show how it's misused by philosophers to build up what are really very tenuous theories about the mind.

he means there is no objective way of perceiving it because your life fucks with how you perceive it, and other peoples lifes fucks with how they perceive it.

Or something

>>6215960
>the brain is the mind
>no evidence
GR8 B8 -1/12

cause you cannot not know, therefore it is equally absurd to say you know.

Autism and virginity

>>6215960
That's not at all what he means. Read again:

>In what sense are my sensations private?—Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.—In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word “to know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain.—Yes, but all the same not with the same certainty with which I know it myself!—It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean except perhaps that I am in pain?

>>6215960
Brain scans aren't perfect. They identify patterns in what areas of the brain are involved in pain, but if someone claims to be in pain and the brain scanner doesn't pick up pain activity, that doesn't mean the person is lying.

>>6215960
He doesn't. How is it even possible to misinterpret this way.

>>6215960
>Implying neuroscience was even close to as advanced during Wiigensteins time

>>6216867
>>6215985

This is what I mean; here Witty is just saying it's stupid to use the phrase "to know" when you're in pain. You just are in pain. There is no process of knowing interposed.

The reason that this is important to Wittgenstein is that philosophers use this difference, between "knowing" one's own mental states and "knowing" the mental states of others, or the world, etc, to build up systems. Wittgenstein is trying to say that this use of the word to do that is actually pretty shaky. It's really only used by philosophers in system building. The rest of the work deals with ways the word "to know" is used by normal people vs philosophers (knowing where your house is, for example...)

If you want to know why he does this you need to get into Philosophical Investigations, really.

BEING IN PAIN IS AN IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE, ARISING FROM THE CONTINGENT.

ONE NEVER KNOWS ONESELF TO BE IN PAIN; ONE ONLY KNOWS PAIN ITSELF WHEN IT OCCURS, AND WHEN IT PASSES, WHAT REMAINS IS THE MEMORY OF THE BEING IN PAIN, OR MORE ACCURATELY, OF THE CONDITION OF PAIN —THE MEMORY OF ONESELF FEELING PAIN— NOT OF THE BEING OF PAIN OR ONE BECOME PAIN.

PAIN CAN ONLY BE EXPERIENCED AS A TRANSIENT IMMEDIACY, WHICH IS WHY SOMEONE SUBMITTED TO PROLONGED CONSTANT PAIN EVENTUALLY BECOMES NUMB TO IT, ONLY OCCASIONALLY SENSING THE SPORADIC PEAKS, AND LOWS, OF THE PAIN CONTINUUM.

BASED ON THIS THESIS, ONE CAN CONCLUDE THAT THE KNOWLEDGE OF PAIN CAN ONLY BE INFERRED, THAT EVERYTHING IN LIFE OCCURS WITHIN PAIN, AND THAT LIFE ITSELF ENTAILS PAIN.

>>6217726
Hi, Rei. How is your mom ?

>>6217751
His mom is not.

>>6216867
wow, is all his writing like this? is wittgenstein a good writer to jump to after nietzsche? i'd really like to read more of this

>>6217760
Read Philosophical Investigations and then anything subsequent. Also read Ray Monk's biography of him.

>>6217726

>tfw you finally agree with rei

>>6217760
If you want to be a complete dilettante, sure.

If you can't doubt you are in pain, then you can't know it, either, i.e. it becomes tautological.

Wittgenstein thinks 'I' is incoherent in terms of reference. Also, brain activity ≠ phenomenal experience or "what it's like": those are mere correlates. Moreover, there is controversy around whether or not c-fibers CAUSE pain.

The fact that you think it is a proof and the fact that you *USE* the word 'proof' in this context, suggests you have no idea how science, philosophy or mathematics works, AT ALL. No offense, but there is Philosophy 101 for people like you; people who are confused beyond help.