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Full Idea
If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
Gist of Idea
If a lion could talk, we could not understand him
Source
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.xi)
Book Ref
Wittgenstein,Ludwig: 'Philosophical Investigations', ed/tr. Anscombe,E. [Blackwell 1972], p.223
A Reaction
How does he know these things?! We could at least know whether they talked or merely grunted, by studying their correlated behaviour. Cf. dolphins. I think he is wrong. All talk is understandable to a degree, even God's.
| 2109 | Increase a conscious machine to the size of a mill - you still won't see perceptions in it [Leibniz] |
| 7392 | If a lion could talk, it would be nothing like other lions [Dennett on Wittgenstein] |
| 4161 | If a lion could talk, we could not understand him [Wittgenstein] |
| 7391 | We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown [Dennett] |
| 7522 | A full neural account of qualia will give new epistemic access to them, beyond private experience [Churchlands] |
| 3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
| 5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
| 2403 | Nothing in physics even suggests consciousness [Chalmers] |
| 5210 | We could know what a lion thinks by mapping both its brain patterns and its experiences [Douglas,A] |