Glen -
While I share and applaud your subscription to "reflectivity", I
am not sure that this invalidates all distinctions between 1st and
3rd person (conceptual) perspective. For many things I think it
is *useful* to assume that this transformation of perspective can
be achieved, even if in practice it may be impossible to achieve
with perfect fidelity. I'm not sure how it resolves (in it's
absolute conception) opposite your idea that communication does
not exist (is an illusion)?
This may be reflected in your second point: "I'll go to the
store tomorrow" (or "might") differs from "she *might* go to the
store tomorrow". While we *do* generally talk as if we believe
we have free will, and by "reflectivity" (if I understand) we
ascribe other's actions to "free will" as well, my own experience
is that we tend to believe we *know* our own intentions, but only
vaguely guess at anothers'.
"I intend to go to the store tomorrow, because I am out of X, Y, Z things which I use daily"
"She will likely go to the store tomorrow because I observe that she goes every other day and she did not go today"
Or perhaps, I might say
"If I were her, I would go to the store tomorrow because I believe she is out of X, Y, Z and I believe she uses those daily"
with uncountable hidden equivocations such as
"she may have X, Y, or Z in her pantry"
"she may substitute A, B or C where I might not"
"she may prefer X, Y, Z daily but is disinclined to go for just 3 items"
...
et cet, ad inf.
I don't know if you register all of this as "word play" or not, but I think the equivocations in this example are qualitatively different.
I will grant that if we assume that we do not know our own mind,
our own self, our own future-self any better than we know that of
another, then our "future self" may be as distinct from our
"present self" as our "present self" is from "another self".
Maybe this is the extreme form of your ideas on "episodic" vs
"diachronic" perspectives?
Complementarily, I might also say:
"I think I will slip and fall if I try to cross that icy parking lot"
or
"I think she will slip and fall if she tries to cross that icy parking lot"
This example implies a more consonant "reflectivity" perhaps, though there is always room for more equivocation like:
"She is more athletic than I and is wearing better shoes, so I think she may cross the icy parking lot without falling down"
"No man is an island.... but he might be an archipelago?
- Steve
Whether it's 1st or 3rd person is irrelevant. As you should know by now, I subscribe to "reflectivity", the ability to treat oneself as you treat others and vice versa. I still haven't read "The Myth of Mirror Neurons". But I do believe we learn mostly through mimicry, by simulating the actions of others. The phenomenon we're after is whatever the *thing* is we mean when we say "I'll go to the store tomorrow", as if you have any control over whether or not you'll actually go to the store tomorrow. It's a promise [†] based on some *thing*. It's that *thing* that I intend to simulate. If you deny that thing exists, then you're lying, full stop. Everyone acts/talks as if they have free will. And it's that acting/talking *as if* you have free will that is the target phenomenon. [†] To shunt anticipated word-play, if someone is very fastidious, they may only ever say things like "I *might* go to the store tomorrow", allowing ambiguity in the agency. It's agnostic as to whether the cause/choice to go the store is within the person or elsewhere. But that's just word-play. The idea that you have any idea whatsoever whether you'll go to the store tomorrow speaks of an in-person agency. The only actually agnostic statement is "I have been to the store in the past for some unknown reason." And very few sane people talk that way. On 6/18/20 7:52 PM, [hidden email] wrote:I think we have yet to agree on the phenomenon that we are explaining. Is it a first person phenomenon or a third person one?
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