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From: stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
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Date: Sun, 22 Jan 95 00:16:51 GMT
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In <3fqtbl$6js@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> prem@ix.netcom.com (Prem Sobel) writes:
>In <3fq9ng$d0m@prime.mdata.fi> jsand@mits.mdata.fi (Jan Sand) writes: 

>>...  So far, I have not seen any method which
>>would indicate consciousness exterior to one's self. Is there
>>such a method, other than instinctive feel (which, unfortunately,
>>is not communicative)? I am curious.

>Yes there is one. Via love to identify with another. This identification
>can be learned. it is more then emparthy, much more than deduction from
>observed exterior behvaior. It is the same identity of consciousness
>that allows us to be self-aware. We know ourselves because we are
>our self.

Breakdowns of love, like breakdowns of language, call the notion that we are
really knowing another into question for me.  This is one area where I
agree with Wittgenstein -- they're all "it."  It may sound a bit cynical,
and personally, if both people in a "love" relationship are happy, I
don't think it matters one fig if they are "right" or not, but I wouldn't
ASSUME that their love gives them priviledged access to knowing what it
in one anothers' consciousness.

And functionally, there's no way of telling.  If two people isolated from
everyone else, A and B, had the following personal definitions of the
word "love":

A: If two people are in love, they exchange flowers every night.
B: If two people are in love, they have sex every night.

As long as they exchange flowers and have sex every night, both are
happy.  They don't understand one another in one sense -- when one says
to the other "I love you" there is no transmission of information
going one -- but does it matter?  Functionally, they are as in love
as any couple in the world today.

Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

