Re: THEORY: Are commands to believe infelicitous?

Hello, the list.  Hello, and thanks for writing, Trent.
BTW, Trent, your Idruvan (do I recall the name correctly) conlang, and the
associated "artifacts", have excited favorable comment on the "Neographies"
Yahoo group's Non-Linear Fully Two-Dimensional Writing Systems thread. I gather
you are not a contributor to that group. You might enjoy reading that thread,
though. Even if you don't, I'd like to say I think your "artifacts" are
beautiful.

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While I was in OK, I couldn't get nor send e-mail, so I couldn't find out about, nor
do anything about, rejected postings. The below is an attempt to re-post a
reply to a posting by Trent Pehrson. I apologize if it's too out-of-date; I
hope it isn't.

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This is interesting; but not in the direction I was hoping the
discussion here would lead.
Whatever Grice, Austin, and Searle disagreed about, they agreed to
disagree about something.  I would like to take for granted that
whatever they agreed was there to disagree about probably really
exists.
In particular, I would like to agree that other people really exist,
and that when people say things they mean things.
You are not the only responder to raise the question of whether or
not "felicity" should even be an issue here.  However you are right
that I find your final proposal, if I understand it correctly, a
little too radically solipsist to be of use to settling the
questions I was trying to settle.  Perhaps I have not understood
you; or perhaps you have some less-radical observation to contribute.

Thanks.

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Tom H.C. in OK (well, that's where I was, /then/.)

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Trent Pehrson <pehr099@A...> wrote:
> At best, the felicity to which you refer is not truely determinable due to
> subtleties of relativity in nature.  First, imagine a system containing a
> speaker who will issue the command, a hearer to which the command will be
> spoken, and you-- the observer of the other two.
>
> The only way the speaker can evaluate the capability of a hearer to carry
> out a command is by the behavioral evidence the speaker observes (or has
> observed) in the hearer along with the relative context of the hearer.
>
> Such observations are filtered in several ways.  First, due to the unique
> aspect of the speaker in space-time, his observations of any event in
> space-time are unique.  Second, (assuming the speaker is human, as you
> said) the speaker observes only what his/her sensory capabilities allow.
> This does not include the *actual* mental motives and beliefs behind the
> behavior of the hearer.  Third, the observations that make it past his/her
> sensory limitations are selectively shaped and trimmed by conscious and
> non-conscious processes in his/her brain-- many of which are the product
> of an ever-changing flux of absolutely unique experiences had by the
> speaker.
>
> On top of all this is the scientifically valid point (according to quantum
> physics) that anything *can* happen.  The probability that a human will
> turn green upon command may be astronomically small.  However, the
> possibility exists.
>
> Hence it impossible for the speaker, him/herself to ever truly know
> whether or not they are felicitous in giving a particular command.
>
> Now, you, the observer-- being subject to the same subtle realities,
> attempt to determine whether or not the speakers command is felicitous.
> Your inability to determine felicity is twice that of the speaker.  You
> are attempting to determine the motives and capabilities of both parties.
> Your space-time vantage and experiential filters are as unique as theirs.
> You see the hearer and evaluate his capabilities differently than does the
> speaker.  You observe the speaker and perceive him/her differently than
> he/she perceives him/herself.  You cannot know what either of them
> actually thinks or believes.
>
> Having conducted this little thought experiment, I propose that the
> imperative form of "to believe" only betrays the deeper reality that
> felicity is never determinable.  And just to go the extra distance in
> making my (likely-to-be-labeled-as-radical) point, I propose that language
> is actually an act of faith.
>
> Trent P.
-----

Thanks for writing, Trent.

Tom H.C., now back home in MI

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