The question “did you have a headache when you weren’t noticing it?” is the same sort of question as “does an unheard falling tree make a sound?”, or, for that matter, “is a wreck of a car up on blocks that will never be driven again still a car?” The error is not specific to the issue of subjectivity.
There’s room for nuance here. You can have a sensation without noticing, if it is at the edge of attention. The question in my mind, is the extent to which pain requires attention. I see two ways in which pain involves attention: passively—it can force itself on your attention—and actively—you can be grappling with it in some way.
I am reminded of an anecdote from Celia Green. One day, she thought she had figured out that the essence of pain is the violation of will. A sensation is painful if you don’t want it there and can’t drive it away. Therefore, she reasoned that if you don’t fight the sensation, it will lose its painful valence. She then had an opportunity to test this theory during a trip to the dentist. She was to have a tooth removed, and persuaded the dentist to not use anesthetic.
According to her own account, by embracing what was happening, she was able to neutralize the pain, and the sensations became simply sensations, varying in certain ways but not intrinsically painful. But she hastened to add that this experiment required elaborate psychological preparation in advance, and would not recommend it to the unprepared person.
I think this was recounted in her book Advice to Clever Children.
Interesting: I’ve had the same thought and did the same experiment, though it wasn’t a tooth removal, but some tooth-drilling that I was assured would not be touching a nerve. The normal anesthesia would have been local Novocaine, and I hate how Novocaine feels for the rest of the day. (So it was a choice between two sensations, over two different time periods.) Without the Novocaine, it was like a distant, dull pounding, like falling on a bone, which can be managed. I did this more than once, but my current dentist argued more strongly against it and I acquiesced rather easily.
The main thing I was worried about was controlling my body—I didn’t want to flail and disrupt the dentist.
Just like you (and Celia Green) said about the preparation involved, I’d make a distinction between unexpected pain and expected-and-prepared-for pain. You can affect how you feel about a dentist visit, but not a sudden, stabbing pain in the back. (That may be a System-1, System-2 thing.) I’ve also found that I can relax into something cold—sitting on a stone in winter—but not something hot—being near a fire. We can choose to modify our will about some things, but others are too low-level and force themselves upon us from below.
(Which is part of the topic of “mind breaks down into smaller pieces” that I’m thinking about.)
They’re similar-sounding questions, but different.
“Do I have a headache when I’m not noticing it?” is a question about the definition of a headache. One definition is in the physical reality-box: a headache is neurological state that can be detected by a scientific instrument. Another definition is in the subjective reality-box: a headache is what I feel—I’m the only one who can say whether or not I have a headache. Some people deny that subjective reality is a kind of reality, and for them, the only real thing that can be called a headache is the one that could be detected by a scientific instrument. I’m asserting that the subjective reality is real, too, in a way that is neither superior to nor inferior to the physical reality. I thought that a headache (and maybe pain in general) would be a good example because imagine if you said, “I am in pain,” and a doctor examined you, then declared, “No, you’re wrong. You are not in pain.” The doctor might say, “I can find no cause for your pain,” or even “There is no physical cause for your pain” (a very strong statement!), but “You are not in pain” sounds like it fails a basic definition of what it means to be in pain.
“Does an unheard falling tree make a sound?” could be about the limits of scientific induction if the “sound” you mean is physical waves in the air. Based on our scientific understanding, we strongly expect mechanical disturbances to make waves, even if we don’t observe them. But if “sound” is the subjective experience of hearing sound, then it’s the same doubling I referred to above: the vibrating air is one thing, the quale of hearing sound is another.
“Does an automobile that will no longer automatically mobilize itself still an automobile?” is a different kind of question. That’s related to but different from the ship of Theseus, about recognizing composite objects by form or function. If the mass of atoms can’t be used to do what cars do—drive—then it seems we have no business calling it a car, but this particular mass of atoms previously worked as a car. Similarly, you could ask if it’s still a car between times when it’s being driven, since not having gasoline go through the engine makes it temporarily immobile, just as a car on blocks could be temporarily immobile, could be permanently immobile, depending on its future. Sure, there are philosophical questions there, but they’re different questions from the one I was trying to raise.
I think they’re very similar. The primary question is ‘how do you operationally define {”have a headache”‘|”make a sound”}’? The only conundrum is by changing definitions midway through.
Your second example of what it COULD be about is downstream of what it is actually about, but is ALSO the same (if you define “headache” analogously to “sound”), about the limits of induction and measurement.
Your third is still about definitions, including the definition of identity.
The question “did you have a headache when you weren’t noticing it?” is the same sort of question as “does an unheard falling tree make a sound?”, or, for that matter, “is a wreck of a car up on blocks that will never be driven again still a car?” The error is not specific to the issue of subjectivity.
There’s room for nuance here. You can have a sensation without noticing, if it is at the edge of attention. The question in my mind, is the extent to which pain requires attention. I see two ways in which pain involves attention: passively—it can force itself on your attention—and actively—you can be grappling with it in some way.
I am reminded of an anecdote from Celia Green. One day, she thought she had figured out that the essence of pain is the violation of will. A sensation is painful if you don’t want it there and can’t drive it away. Therefore, she reasoned that if you don’t fight the sensation, it will lose its painful valence. She then had an opportunity to test this theory during a trip to the dentist. She was to have a tooth removed, and persuaded the dentist to not use anesthetic.
According to her own account, by embracing what was happening, she was able to neutralize the pain, and the sensations became simply sensations, varying in certain ways but not intrinsically painful. But she hastened to add that this experiment required elaborate psychological preparation in advance, and would not recommend it to the unprepared person.
I think this was recounted in her book Advice to Clever Children.
Interesting: I’ve had the same thought and did the same experiment, though it wasn’t a tooth removal, but some tooth-drilling that I was assured would not be touching a nerve. The normal anesthesia would have been local Novocaine, and I hate how Novocaine feels for the rest of the day. (So it was a choice between two sensations, over two different time periods.) Without the Novocaine, it was like a distant, dull pounding, like falling on a bone, which can be managed. I did this more than once, but my current dentist argued more strongly against it and I acquiesced rather easily.
The main thing I was worried about was controlling my body—I didn’t want to flail and disrupt the dentist.
Just like you (and Celia Green) said about the preparation involved, I’d make a distinction between unexpected pain and expected-and-prepared-for pain. You can affect how you feel about a dentist visit, but not a sudden, stabbing pain in the back. (That may be a System-1, System-2 thing.) I’ve also found that I can relax into something cold—sitting on a stone in winter—but not something hot—being near a fire. We can choose to modify our will about some things, but others are too low-level and force themselves upon us from below.
(Which is part of the topic of “mind breaks down into smaller pieces” that I’m thinking about.)
They’re similar-sounding questions, but different.
“Do I have a headache when I’m not noticing it?” is a question about the definition of a headache. One definition is in the physical reality-box: a headache is neurological state that can be detected by a scientific instrument. Another definition is in the subjective reality-box: a headache is what I feel—I’m the only one who can say whether or not I have a headache. Some people deny that subjective reality is a kind of reality, and for them, the only real thing that can be called a headache is the one that could be detected by a scientific instrument. I’m asserting that the subjective reality is real, too, in a way that is neither superior to nor inferior to the physical reality. I thought that a headache (and maybe pain in general) would be a good example because imagine if you said, “I am in pain,” and a doctor examined you, then declared, “No, you’re wrong. You are not in pain.” The doctor might say, “I can find no cause for your pain,” or even “There is no physical cause for your pain” (a very strong statement!), but “You are not in pain” sounds like it fails a basic definition of what it means to be in pain.
“Does an unheard falling tree make a sound?” could be about the limits of scientific induction if the “sound” you mean is physical waves in the air. Based on our scientific understanding, we strongly expect mechanical disturbances to make waves, even if we don’t observe them. But if “sound” is the subjective experience of hearing sound, then it’s the same doubling I referred to above: the vibrating air is one thing, the quale of hearing sound is another.
“Does an automobile that will no longer automatically mobilize itself still an automobile?” is a different kind of question. That’s related to but different from the ship of Theseus, about recognizing composite objects by form or function. If the mass of atoms can’t be used to do what cars do—drive—then it seems we have no business calling it a car, but this particular mass of atoms previously worked as a car. Similarly, you could ask if it’s still a car between times when it’s being driven, since not having gasoline go through the engine makes it temporarily immobile, just as a car on blocks could be temporarily immobile, could be permanently immobile, depending on its future. Sure, there are philosophical questions there, but they’re different questions from the one I was trying to raise.
I think they’re very similar. The primary question is ‘how do you operationally define {”have a headache”‘|”make a sound”}’? The only conundrum is by changing definitions midway through.
Your second example of what it COULD be about is downstream of what it is actually about, but is ALSO the same (if you define “headache” analogously to “sound”), about the limits of induction and measurement.
Your third is still about definitions, including the definition of identity.