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Very good point. Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Th

Very good point. Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. Despite the above, we (and science) are continuously trying to reduce the immensity, inconmensurability and ineffability of reality into something that can easily fit into our small minds. Unfortunately this is an impossible task to perform for all of reality. However we do have the capacity to experience instead of thinking/modeling, which is a very good way of understanding things at an intuitive level. This was very well expressed by Nietzsche: "There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy".

kiba 7y ago
Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. What are ineffable things in life?
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  Qualia are one class.
  - kiba 7y ago
    I am content with trying to grasp with it and never quite coming to an answer. These stuff can be answered with "I don't know" or "I don't know, but this is my best guess".
    - wellpast 7y ago
      Or you could write narratives and koans and poems that explore it and assist in exploring it to its depths. Or -- better -- read the ancient and long-evolved, long-refined attempts at this. Why limit exploration to the narrow (and yet highly valuable at times) domain of Science.
      - StanislavPetrov 7y ago
        Its fine to write fairy tales and works of fiction, but its quite another to do so in a attempt to explain objective reality. There is great value in being able to admit to yourself, and to others, that you "don't know" without any shame in doing so.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    Qualia are the only class of things which both can be experienced by an individual (and thus reasonably be said to exist, at least by that individual) but also be ineffable. If there are other ineffable things which exist, we cannot ever know about them.
    - gus_massa 7y ago
      From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia > Much of the debate over their importance hinges on the definition of the term, and various philosophers emphasize or deny the existence of certain features of qualia. Consequently, the nature and existence of various definitions of qualia remain controversial because they are not verifiable.
- ta1234567890 7y ago
  Some examples (for me): Love, death, having a kid. One way of understanding how we struggle with the ineffable: When parents raise a kid they usually want the kid to learn without suffering, without making the mistakes they made. However that's an impossible task. The kid will only truly understand what getting burnt (literally) means, when they get burnt. And no amount of explaining from the parents will ever convey the experience/meaning of getting burnt to their kid. Same for falling to the floor or falling in love. You can only truly "know" those things by experiencing them.
MRAutumn 7y ago
> Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. The concept of 'Ineffable things', is a very poetic way of describing something but it does not reflect reality. If a word exists to refer to something it is because is not ineffable. Let's take your example of love, for which you say is impossible to model or explain with words: Now, perhaps it is, if we are being pedantic and requiring a 100% concrete description of it where every one of its possible expressions are explained to the total satisfaction of every one every where every time. But that is not the bar we are aiming for, we are only aiming for it not being ineffable. As it happens, we can describe love at the very list in a vague sense, which is a lot more than no description at all. We can say for example that love is an emotion, we can say love is not hunger. Love is not the number 9. Love is related to affection, love is a feeling expressed by humans, among other creatures. Just in those few sentences we know a lot more about love than we did if we just accepted its condition as ineffable. In fact, we could spend days describing love, as many many poets already have, and while it is true we do not understand it completely, we do know what we are talking about when we say love enough to write millions of inspiring pages about it.
- ta1234567890 7y ago
  What you are saying is that because we have a map then we know the terrain. A description (in this case words), is not the actual thing. Using your example, we can spend days describing love and write millions of pages about it, but that is a very different thing than actually experiencing or feeling love. It is the experience that is ineffable, not the description of the experience. Additionally, we each assign meaning to our own experiences and language, even if we choose to agree with others about it. Funnily enough, there are people that have assigned meaning of love to the number 9 (you can lookup the song Love Potion No. 9, or Love Numerology). Accepting something as ineffable doesn't mean that you give up on it, it just means that it doesn't have a universal "true" meaning for everyone and that it cannot be fully understood unless it is experienced.
  - MRAutumn 7y ago

kiba 7y ago

Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. What are ineffable things in life?

CharlesColeman 7y ago
Qualia are one class.
- kiba 7y ago
  I am content with trying to grasp with it and never quite coming to an answer. These stuff can be answered with "I don't know" or "I don't know, but this is my best guess".
  - wellpast 7y ago
    Or you could write narratives and koans and poems that explore it and assist in exploring it to its depths. Or -- better -- read the ancient and long-evolved, long-refined attempts at this. Why limit exploration to the narrow (and yet highly valuable at times) domain of Science.
    - StanislavPetrov 7y ago
      Its fine to write fairy tales and works of fiction, but its quite another to do so in a attempt to explain objective reality. There is great value in being able to admit to yourself, and to others, that you "don't know" without any shame in doing so.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  Qualia are the only class of things which both can be experienced by an individual (and thus reasonably be said to exist, at least by that individual) but also be ineffable. If there are other ineffable things which exist, we cannot ever know about them.
  - gus_massa 7y ago
    From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia > Much of the debate over their importance hinges on the definition of the term, and various philosophers emphasize or deny the existence of certain features of qualia. Consequently, the nature and existence of various definitions of qualia remain controversial because they are not verifiable.
ta1234567890 7y ago
Some examples (for me): Love, death, having a kid. One way of understanding how we struggle with the ineffable: When parents raise a kid they usually want the kid to learn without suffering, without making the mistakes they made. However that's an impossible task. The kid will only truly understand what getting burnt (literally) means, when they get burnt. And no amount of explaining from the parents will ever convey the experience/meaning of getting burnt to their kid. Same for falling to the floor or falling in love. You can only truly "know" those things by experiencing them.

MRAutumn 7y ago

> Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable. The concept of 'Ineffable things', is a very poetic way of describing something but it does not reflect reality. If a word exists to refer to something it is because is not ineffable. Let's take your example of love, for which you say is impossible to model or explain with words: Now, perhaps it is, if we are being pedantic and requiring a 100% concrete description of it where every one of its possible expressions are explained to the total satisfaction of every one every where every time. But that is not the bar we are aiming for, we are only aiming for it not being ineffable. As it happens, we can describe love at the very list in a vague sense, which is a lot more than no description at all. We can say for example that love is an emotion, we can say love is not hunger. Love is not the number 9. Love is related to affection, love is a feeling expressed by humans, among other creatures. Just in those few sentences we know a lot more about love than we did if we just accepted its condition as ineffable. In fact, we could spend days describing love, as many many poets already have, and while it is true we do not understand it completely, we do know what we are talking about when we say love enough to write millions of inspiring pages about it.

ta1234567890 7y ago
What you are saying is that because we have a map then we know the terrain. A description (in this case words), is not the actual thing. Using your example, we can spend days describing love and write millions of pages about it, but that is a very different thing than actually experiencing or feeling love. It is the experience that is ineffable, not the description of the experience. Additionally, we each assign meaning to our own experiences and language, even if we choose to agree with others about it. Funnily enough, there are people that have assigned meaning of love to the number 9 (you can lookup the song Love Potion No. 9, or Love Numerology). Accepting something as ineffable doesn't mean that you give up on it, it just means that it doesn't have a universal "true" meaning for everyone and that it cannot be fully understood unless it is experienced.
- MRAutumn 7y ago