What is the experience of eating a chocolate brownie like? Can you describe it?
I believe it is ineffable. There is nothing you can say about chocolate that would mean anything to someone who has not tasted it.
Chocolate brownies are one of my favorite things -- but I don't think their ineffability is a big deal.
All experiences are ineffable. The best we can ever do is say "it's like this other thing."
Saying that something is ineffable and saying that nothing we can say is meaningful without the exact same shared experience are rather different things. To use your own example, comparision is possible - so we can imperfectly describe chocolate in terms of sugar and (depending on the type) bitterness, even if our audience has never heard of chocolate.
Conveniently, this allows us to roughly fathom experiences that nobody has ever had. Playwrights, for example, set out to create an experience that does not yet exist and prompt actors to react to situations they have never lived through, and through their capability to generalize they can imperfectly communicate their ideas.
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: