Hi Jack,

Good point AND let me elaborate to make the point I was getting at.

We can tell if a dog’s eyes are closed because we can do analyses of functional awareness and responsivity. Can we tell if a dog has tinnitus? The key philosophical point is the tricky space between the Mind1 “easy problems” of functional awareness and responsivity, which can be framed from the vantage point of 3^rd person empiricism, and subjective experience of being and the Mind2 “hard problems” that pertain to the subjective epistemological portal and the gap between 3^rd and 1^st person perspectives.

Also, I don’t think it is the case that all or even most cases of tinnitus have a clear external physiological cause at the level of sensory transduction. Some do. I asked my doctor and she said that the most likely cause was “topdown” perceptual filling that is a function of the fact that I have hearing loss that causes the perceptual mechanisms to compensate for. When I asked her how would she know if someone was making it up, she thought it was a weird question, but and said “why would you be here?”. Great to have a philosophical patient 😊.

Best,
Gregg

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of James Lyons-Weiler
Sent: Friday, February 5, 2021 9:24 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK Is my tinnitus "real"?

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

There are different types of tinnitus - in some people, earwax can cause debris or small hairs to lay against the eardrum.

For others, the biological basis of tinnitus is that the hairs in the cochlea are damaged or lie flat.

So, it's a reproducible association.

You might as well ask: Can I really no longer see when my eyes are closed? How do I know?

On Fri, Feb 5, 2021 at 7:35 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi TOK Folks,

The thought of the day is: Is my tinnitus real? How does anyone else but me know?

I am asking because I am wrapping my chapter up on Mind2: Subjective Conscious Experience and exploring the nature of subjectivity relative to reality. I was playing around with the difference between perceptions and hallucinations and the concept of the ontically real, and then the difference between first person and third person empirical epistemology regarding assertions about the real.

If science is anchored to a third person empirical epistemology, what does it mean to say my tinnitus is real? If you see me say I have tinnitus and then engage in activity that seems to be directed at me adjusting to it, does that make it more real. For example, when it started to get bad, I got frustrated and then made a shift to interpret the buzzing as “crickets in the night”. In accordance with classic cognitive therapy principles, this helped.

Finally, how does someone determine if this is a lie?

Thanks for any thoughts people have.

Best,
Gregg

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