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Re: OT Re: DISAGREEMENTS and THIS LIST was goo now Sercret Chord




----- Original Message ----- 
My answer to the question "How do we "know" the feeling of pain" or more 
aptly, how do we know when someone else is feeling pain, was simple: If 
you 
get knocked about the head with a bat, let's say, do you not understand, 
nay, know, the feeling of pain?  If so, you can logically assume that 
another person, "C" in this case, would feel pain if s/he were to befall 
the 
same unfortunate circumstances.  That's the end of the inquiry as far as 
I'm 
concerned.  Please help me: Is there something more to this?
*****

Basically, there isn't much more to it, Harry. You have shed light on an 
age 
old philosophical problem, called "The Problem of Other Minds".   Your 
statement, how do we know when someone else is feeling pain, is really an 
extension of the more general question of how do we know other minds 
exist? 
There are a lot of convoluted arguments for this, but the two most basic 
in 
my mind are:

1) Argument by analogy: That you feel pain after being hit with a baseball 
bat, talk in such a such a manner (that suggests intelligence), etc, and 
so 
when you observe another body being hit with a baseball bat, or uttering 
similar words that suggest intelligence, you can infer by analogy (not 
logic), that the other person is feeling pain and also has a mind as you 
do.

2) Argument by Causation and Probability: You have complex thoughts and 
ideas and are able to communicate them with language; you hear this 
language 
spoken by things (sensory data that appear like human bodies) other than 
yourself; so either something is just randomly generating the language in 
such a way that is sounds intelligent, or the language is indeed being 
"caused" by another mind. We can argue that the former argument, though 
possible in the realm of ideas, is highly improbably, so we infer that 
there 
are other minds.

People get annoyed with these little arguments and debates or what seems 
to 
them completely obvious. But the point is that in the above two simple 
argument, the conclusions are not "deduced" from the premises, meaning 
they 
are logically certain and necessary, but are inferred. And all inferences 
of 
this nature are not certain, but are believed with a degree of 
probability. 
So, we never truly "know" in the strict sense of the word that other minds 
exist or that other beings feel pain; we can only infer this with a high 
degree of probability.   This is one of the beauties of philosophy, in my 
opinion. It keeps us from elevating ourselves so high in the world that we 
think we are prefect and can have certain knowledge of the world, when in 
fact we are very limited, and our very nature that allows us to comprehend 
millions of possibilities, also thwarts any attempt for us to make claim 
to 
certain knowledge. And this is exactly why science, being a discipline 
based 
on inference and induction, makes no claim to the truth or certainty, but 
only degrees of probability. The only people you hear boasting that they 
know truth are a certain school of philosophers (the non-empirical or 
Rationalist sort) and religious fanatics.  They only believe they know the 
truth, yet none can withstand the acid test of doubt.

Kris