Blue Book: Difference between revisions - The Ludwig Wittgenstein Project

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The fault which in all our reasoning about these matters we are inclined to make is thinking that images and experiences of all sorts, which are in some sense closely connected with each other, must be present in our mind at the same time. If we sing a tune we know by heart, or say the alphabet, the notes and letters seem to hang together; and each seems to draw out the next as though they were pearls strung on a thread, and by pulling out one I pulled out the one following it.

Now there is no doubt that seeing the picture of a string of beads being pulled out of a box through a hole in the lid, I should say: “These beads must all have been together in the box before”. But it is easy to see that this is making a {{BBB TS reference|Ts-309,65}} hypothesis. I should have seen the same picture if the beads had gradually come into existence in the hole of the lid. We easily overlook the distinction between stating a conscious mental event, and making a hypothesis about what one might call the mechanism of the mind. All the more as such hypotheses or pictures of the working of our mind are embodied in many of the forms of expression of our everyday language. The past tense “meant” in the sentence “I meant the man who won the battle of Austerlitz” is only part of such a picture, the mind being conceived as a place in which what we remember is kept, stored, before we ~~expresses~~ it. If I whistle a tune I know well and am interrupted in the middle, if then someone asked me “did you know how to go on?” I should answer “yes I did”. What sort of process is this ''knowing how to go on''? It might appear as though the whole continuation of the tune had to be present while I knew how to go on.

Now there is no doubt that seeing the picture of a string of beads being pulled out of a box through a hole in the lid, I should say: “These beads must all have been together in the box before”. But it is easy to see that this is making a {{BBB TS reference|Ts-309,65}} hypothesis. I should have seen the same picture if the beads had gradually come into existence in the hole of the lid. We easily overlook the distinction between stating a conscious mental event, and making a hypothesis about what one might call the mechanism of the mind. All the more as such hypotheses or pictures of the working of our mind are embodied in many of the forms of expression of our everyday language. The past tense “meant” in the sentence “I meant the man who won the battle of Austerlitz” is only part of such a picture, the mind being conceived as a place in which what we remember is kept, stored, before we express it. If I whistle a tune I know well and am interrupted in the middle, if then someone asked me “did you know how to go on?” I should answer “yes I did”. What sort of process is this ''knowing how to go on''? It might appear as though the whole continuation of the tune had to be present while I knew how to go on.

Ask yourself such a question as: “How long does it take to know how to go on?” Or is it an instantaneous process? Aren't we making a mistake like mixing up the existence of a gramophone record of a tune with the existence of the tune? And aren't we assuming that whenever a tune passes through existence there must be some sort of a gramophone record of it from which it is played?

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 The fault which in all our reasoning about these matters we are inclined to make is thinking that images and experiences of all sorts, which are in some sense closely connected with each other, must be present in our mind at the same time. If we sing a tune we know by heart, or say the alphabet, the notes and letters seem to hang together; and each seems to draw out the next as though they were pearls strung on a thread, and by pulling out one I pulled out the one following it.
-Now there is no doubt that seeing the picture of a string of beads being pulled out of a box through a hole in the lid, I should say: “These beads must all have been together in the box before”. But it is easy to see that this is making a {{BBB TS reference|Ts-309,65}} hypothesis. I should have seen the same picture if the beads had gradually come into existence in the hole of the lid. We easily overlook the distinction between stating a conscious mental event, and making a hypothesis about what one might call the mechanism of the mind. All the more as such hypotheses or pictures of the working of our mind are embodied in many of the forms of expression of our everyday language. The past tense “meant” in the sentence “I meant the man who won the battle of Austerlitz” is only part of such a picture, the mind being conceived as a place in which what we remember is kept, stored, before we expresses it. If I whistle a tune I know well and am interrupted in the middle, if then someone asked me “did you know how to go on?” I should answer “yes I did”. What sort of process is this ''knowing how to go on''? It might appear as though the whole continuation of the tune had to be present while I knew how to go on.
+Now there is no doubt that seeing the picture of a string of beads being pulled out of a box through a hole in the lid, I should say: “These beads must all have been together in the box before”. But it is easy to see that this is making a {{BBB TS reference|Ts-309,65}} hypothesis. I should have seen the same picture if the beads had gradually come into existence in the hole of the lid. We easily overlook the distinction between stating a conscious mental event, and making a hypothesis about what one might call the mechanism of the mind. All the more as such hypotheses or pictures of the working of our mind are embodied in many of the forms of expression of our everyday language. The past tense “meant” in the sentence “I meant the man who won the battle of Austerlitz” is only part of such a picture, the mind being conceived as a place in which what we remember is kept, stored, before we express it. If I whistle a tune I know well and am interrupted in the middle, if then someone asked me “did you know how to go on?” I should answer “yes I did”. What sort of process is this ''knowing how to go on''? It might appear as though the whole continuation of the tune had to be present while I knew how to go on.
 Ask yourself such a question as: “How long does it take to know how to go on?” Or is it an instantaneous process? Aren't we making a mistake like mixing up the existence of a gramophone record of a tune with the existence of the tune? And aren't we assuming that whenever a tune passes through existence there must be some sort of a gramophone record of it from which it is played?