Direct realism about perception
To perceive something is to be in unmediated contact with it. I take that to be a conceptual truth that all involved in this debate will agree on.
With that in mind, a 'direct realist' is someone who holds that we are sometimes perceive the mind external world. That is, when I look at the ship I am directly aware of the ship itself. Thus, I perceive the ship.
This is as opposed to indirect realists who hold that we are only directly aware - and so only perceiving - mental states of our own, rather than the world out there.
I think most contemporary philosophers will want to describe themselves as direct realists of one sort or another. But having read some of their views and overviews of their views, it seems to me that most of those who call themselves direct realists are not really direct realists at all.
The point they typically make at first is to note that when we have a visual sensation of a ship, it is not the visual sensation that we perceive, but the ship itself by means of it. The mistake they accuse indirect realists of making is to confuse a 'vehicle' of awareness with an 'object' of awareness. Fair enough: that does seem to be the mistake the indirect realists are making (one of them, anyway).
What they then do is point out that the visual experiences have 'content' - that they are 'about' a ship or 'represent' there to be a ship. And they then think that this is somehow enough to secure the direct contact with the ship needed for that experience to constitute a perception of the ship.
That's where I get puzzled. Fair enough that the indirect realists are making a mistake. But it seems to me that these direct realists are making one too. As in order to secure direct contact with the mind-external ship, the experience would surely have literally to contain the ship. It's not enough that it's 'about' a ship. A note about a ship is about a ship, but it can't thereby be a means by which we perceive a ship. A thought about a ship is about a ship, but again one can't perceive a ship by thinking about a ship. So it won't help at all to make a view 'direct' just to focus on the way in which a sensation is 'about' or 'of' a ship. The sensation would have to include the ship itself.
Some direct realists acknowledge that in order to perceive a ship the perceptual relation needs to put us in direct contact with the ship - so acknowledge that the ship itself must be included in our perceptual experience. But they insist that the ship itself is somehow a constituent of the experience.
But I can make no sense of that idea. An experience is mental, so how can it include an actual ship? It's like proposing that the number 5 has a door in it - it just makes no sense.
So I think that currently direct realists are either guilty of being indirect realists in disguise (if they admit that experiences do not contain actual ships and such like but are mediators between us and ships), or they have an incoherent view (that mental experiences can somehow incorporate ships, even though a ship is a thing and a mental experience is a state of a thing).
I think that direct realism 'proper' would have to be the view that perceptual relations have 2 and only 2 relata: the perceiver and the perceived. That is, no mental experience features as a relata within it (for then you automatically get indirect realism). That doesn't mean that there is no mental experience associated with perception - for clearly there is, as there's something it is like to perceive a ship - but that the experience is 'of' the perceptual relation, rather than a constituent part of it. It might even be the case that it is invariably the case that there is an experience of the relation whenever the relation obtains. The point would be that to experience perceiving and perceiving are distinct nevertheless
I am interested in hearing any objections to this 'proper' form of direct realism - perhaps it is not coherent or perhaps it has unacceptable implications. (I am not interested in defending indirect realism - my interest is in investigating the viability of direct realism so only mentioned indirect realism because I think other forms of direct realism collapse into it).
With that in mind, a 'direct realist' is someone who holds that we are sometimes perceive the mind external world. That is, when I look at the ship I am directly aware of the ship itself. Thus, I perceive the ship.
This is as opposed to indirect realists who hold that we are only directly aware - and so only perceiving - mental states of our own, rather than the world out there.
I think most contemporary philosophers will want to describe themselves as direct realists of one sort or another. But having read some of their views and overviews of their views, it seems to me that most of those who call themselves direct realists are not really direct realists at all.
The point they typically make at first is to note that when we have a visual sensation of a ship, it is not the visual sensation that we perceive, but the ship itself by means of it. The mistake they accuse indirect realists of making is to confuse a 'vehicle' of awareness with an 'object' of awareness. Fair enough: that does seem to be the mistake the indirect realists are making (one of them, anyway).
What they then do is point out that the visual experiences have 'content' - that they are 'about' a ship or 'represent' there to be a ship. And they then think that this is somehow enough to secure the direct contact with the ship needed for that experience to constitute a perception of the ship.
That's where I get puzzled. Fair enough that the indirect realists are making a mistake. But it seems to me that these direct realists are making one too. As in order to secure direct contact with the mind-external ship, the experience would surely have literally to contain the ship. It's not enough that it's 'about' a ship. A note about a ship is about a ship, but it can't thereby be a means by which we perceive a ship. A thought about a ship is about a ship, but again one can't perceive a ship by thinking about a ship. So it won't help at all to make a view 'direct' just to focus on the way in which a sensation is 'about' or 'of' a ship. The sensation would have to include the ship itself.
Some direct realists acknowledge that in order to perceive a ship the perceptual relation needs to put us in direct contact with the ship - so acknowledge that the ship itself must be included in our perceptual experience. But they insist that the ship itself is somehow a constituent of the experience.
But I can make no sense of that idea. An experience is mental, so how can it include an actual ship? It's like proposing that the number 5 has a door in it - it just makes no sense.
So I think that currently direct realists are either guilty of being indirect realists in disguise (if they admit that experiences do not contain actual ships and such like but are mediators between us and ships), or they have an incoherent view (that mental experiences can somehow incorporate ships, even though a ship is a thing and a mental experience is a state of a thing).
I think that direct realism 'proper' would have to be the view that perceptual relations have 2 and only 2 relata: the perceiver and the perceived. That is, no mental experience features as a relata within it (for then you automatically get indirect realism). That doesn't mean that there is no mental experience associated with perception - for clearly there is, as there's something it is like to perceive a ship - but that the experience is 'of' the perceptual relation, rather than a constituent part of it. It might even be the case that it is invariably the case that there is an experience of the relation whenever the relation obtains. The point would be that to experience perceiving and perceiving are distinct nevertheless
I am interested in hearing any objections to this 'proper' form of direct realism - perhaps it is not coherent or perhaps it has unacceptable implications. (I am not interested in defending indirect realism - my interest is in investigating the viability of direct realism so only mentioned indirect realism because I think other forms of direct realism collapse into it).
Comments (1282)
Kant’s concern was more structural and general: he focused on how the mind contributes to experience. Our sensibility provides raw intuitions, structured by space and time, while our understanding organizes these intuitions into coherent experience through concepts, or categories. As a result, everything we experience: the phenomenal world, is filtered through these mental faculties. This framework implies that our perceptions can misrepresent the “thing-in-itself,” whether through error, illusion, a range of factors. However, Kant didn't need to discuss specific perceptual errors to make this point, his argument is systematic: we never access things directly, only through the mind’s structuring. This argument (in a simple form) occurred to me when I was very young and always seemed more convincing to me than arguments from illusions or hallucinations.
There's a lot going on in that. Why should we accept it?
Isn't such statement ruling out representationalism, sense-data theories, intentionalist and inferential accounts by fiat?
And "unmediated" is doing a lot of work. I hope no one will deny that vision is mediated by light, hearing by sound.
And we know that perceptual content is structured, that we see a chair, not bare colours and textures.
And what is that relation, being in contact? spatial? causal? intentional? normative?
Quoting Clarendon
Maybe not in those terms: Survey Results: Metaontology: heavyweight realism, anti-realism, or deflationary realism?
Quoting Banno
Picking up on these observations: By starting with the idea of "looking at a ship", we can be misled into believing that to perceive a ship is always to do so under that description.. A child has to learn, quite literally, to look at a ship -- to learn what to look for, how to recognize one, what the fuzzy cases are. Direct perception would instead be something like "bare colors and textures" -- a very unnatural thing for the human species to experience, past infancy. I think that to defend direct realism, you have to argue that those unmediated (?) experiences are what we perceive, full stop.
Why not just say that the babe has not yet learned to see the ship, and doesn't do so until they do so under a description? That "seeing a ship" just amounts to applying that set of games and rules. Before learning, the baby sees shapes, colours, textures — not “ships”. After learning, the baby sees ships, and not by constructing an internal model or representation, but by participating in a set of practices: naming, recognising, sorting, using ships.
Seeing the ship is unmediated... Seeing it through a telescope might be called unmediated. What we call a "ship" just is the sort of thing that we see. We don't see it "indirectly" in any ordinary sense.
So the claim is: when I see a ship, I am directly in contact with the ship itself, not with a representation, sense datum, or mental model of it. And what "the ship itself" is, is an aspect of the games we play with words and the world.
Summarising, when a babe learns to “see ships” it is learning to participate in the practice of identifying them. And seeing a ship is direct: you are in contact with the ship, not a mental model. What counts as a ship is socially and linguistically mediated, but that mediation does not make perception indirect. Direct realism = contact with objects; practice/learning = the conditions under which contact with conceptually-defined objects is possible.
Kant doesn't explicitly reject direct realism. His empirical realism and transcendental idealism can be interpreted as two worlds, or two perspectives. I think there's only one world that can be seen in many ways under various conditions of observation.
Quoting jkop
I’m no Kant expert but I was referring to that argument specifically. Mind you, if we what we see is phenomena not noumena then what meaning does realism have?
Seeing is part of what's real. No need to split the world in one that we see and another that we supposedly never see.
There is a problem here with comparisons. If one invokes "experience", that includes all that we do not understand about it happening. Thinking about how perception works does not require a zero sum game where the "real" is real or not. If we do not stand on both sides, we cannot judge.
But isn’t that the question which matters? How do we cocreate our reality as opposed to see reality?
Whether the question matters is a separate one. As Simon Blackburn put it: An idealist is a realist whenever he walks out the front door.
Upon what basis do you make this distinction?
We do not own our experiences; we just have them.
My argument is that a perceptual relationship cannot possibly involve a mental state, as then there would be no direct contact between the object of perception and the perceiver. The perceptual relationship must have just 2 relata: the perceiver and the perceived. No doubt experience occurs too, but not as a constituent of the relationship. The experience of perception is 'of' it, not constitutive of it.
I think I have addressed this point some time ago to @RussellA.
It depends on the mode of our perception - how we perceive the object.
When I am seeing a guitar in front of me, and can touch it, pick it up and play it, it is directly I am perceiving or interacting. But when I am thinking about it, imagining it, or remembering it in my mind, it is indirect perception I am having. The real flesh guitar is not available for me - I cannot touch it, pick it up or play it, but I can still see it by imagining, remembering or thinking about it.
So, both indirectly and directly we perceive and interact with objects. It depends on the existence and availability of the object in flesh we are perceiving or interacting.
You set up those conditions of what a "mental state" involved. You presume the difference that you hope to demonstrate.
Given perceptual relationships must be direct, then it seems true by definition that a perceptual relationship can only have two relata: the perceiver and the perceived. There is no room for any mental states. On my view 'experience' (and thus mental states) enter indirectly: we have experiences 'of' perceptual relationships between ourselves and objects, but these experiences are in no way constitutive of the perceptual relationships themselves.
When you see a boat, it' a boat that you see. If what you see is not a boat - if it is an illusion of an hallucination - then by that very fact what you see is not a boat.
But when philosophers say "perceive" instead of "see" they quickly loose track of what is going on. "Perceive" tries to treat veridical vision, hallucinations and illusions as if they were the same; it often presumes that there is a "something" that is being perceived, even when this may not be so; and it tries its best to be a private inner process.
:smile: Direct realism is a bit like idealism in the sense that experience and object are not separate entities. The visual experience that you have when you see a real ship is the real ship.
Ok, so one objection to your view is that the assumed "perceptual relation" between a "mental state" and the object means that the experience would be indirect.
Brain states are constituitive for having experiences, but since brain states can be shared in hallucinations and veridical experiences of a real object there is no relation between a brain state and the real object. Instead, the experience is the object.
There seems to be two main forms of Direct Realism. There is Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR), a direct perception and direct cognition of the object ship as it really is in a mind-independent world. There is also Semantic Direct Realism (SDR), an indirect perception but direct cognition of the object ship as it really is in a mind-independent world.
Your “proper” direct realism seems to be PDR, although many direct realists support SDR.
For the SDR, language is crucial. For example, David Armstrong, who emphasised the role of language in understanding reality, and Michael Dummett, who emphasised the link between language and the world.
I agree that Indirect Realism and SDR overlap in many ways.
However, PDR is far more difficult to justify, and it may be that few Direct Realists actually support PDR.
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Quoting Clarendon
I don’t think that Indirect Realists are making this mistake. For example, as an indirect Realist, when I look at a pixel on my computer screen that is red, I am well aware that I am directly looking at the colour red.
As an Indirect Realist, I am also well aware that it is the pixel that is red. If there were no pixel I would not be able to see the colour red.
I disagree. You seem to be defining perception of X as direct perception of X, and so this would entail that indirect perception of X isn't perception of X, and so the very concept of indirect perception would be a contradiction.
Quoting Clarendon
I understand the distinction between direct and indirect realism to be better expressed by this picture (imagine a line down the middle and them to be two separate viewpoints):
Indirect realists accept the distinction between Locke's primary and secondary qualities, and that secondary qualities are qualities that constitute conscious experience and not material objects like apples and ice cream cones, i.e. the left-side of the above picture. Primary qualities like atomic composition and electromagnetic reflectance may causally determine secondary qualities, but it is a mistake to think of these secondary qualities as being properties of the object seen.
This view contrasts with direct realist views, e.g. realist color primitivism, which believe that Locke's so-called secondary qualities are in fact primary qualities, i.e. the right-side of the above picture.
This distinction explains why there is an epistemological problem of perception. If indirect realism is true then how much of the world we experience is a product of our bodies and brains and how much is really "out there", i.e. which qualities are primary and which qualities are secondary? What if even visual distance, shape, and orientation are secondary?
Incidentally I think it's a shame that so much of this discussion focuses on vision and colour at the expense of the other senses and other qualities. I wonder if the realist color primitivist would commit to realist taste primitivism.
I don't understand what that picture is getting at at all. They both see an ice cream that's half red, half black. One has a mental image of it being brown and one has a mental image of it being red? That's what I'm getting from it, but that doesn't seem to have much to do with the distinction between direct and indirect realism to me.
Cover one half of the picture, and then imagine the other half of the ice cream being a mirror of what you can see.
For the indirect realist the ice cream itself has no colour, because colour is not a property that exists outside of experience, and so it's represented as entirely black. The red, dark brown, and light brown colours are then produced by the brain in response to the eyes being stimulated by various wavelengths of light. As alluded to in my previous post, this might be better explained with reference to taste rather than vision; sweetness isn't a property inherent in sugar but a mental quality produced by the brain in response to the chemical reaction between sugar molecules and taste buds.
For the direct realist, the dark red, light red, and light brown colours are inherent in the ice cream, and in the veridical case the colours we experience "match" these inherent colours.
My question is, don't we have a scientifically agreed upon sequence of events from "there's an ice cream in front of you" to "you're experiencing the visual sensation of the ice cream in front of you"? Like, the matter that makes up the ice cream is there, it reflects or emits photons, some of those photons hit your eyes, your eyes send signals to your brain, your brain interprets those signals and the context they're in to create your full visual-spacial-objectoriented experience of the ice cream and the space it exists in.
If we already know the physical sequence of events, what extra disagreement even is there to be had?
Yes, and so the relevant questions are; what and where is colour and what and where is taste? The indirect realist says that colour and taste are something like emergent mental phenomena and not qualities or properties inherent in the ice cream (even if those things which are qualities and properties inherent in the ice cream, like its chemical composition, causally determine particular mental phenomena), whereas direct realists like realist colour primitivists say that colour and taste are not (just?) emergent mental phenomena but (also?) qualities and properties inherent in the ice cream, and that our colour and taste perception is veridical if and only if our experience "matches" what's out there.
I think so, which is why the Wikipedia article on direct and indirect realism says "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is."
I think the science clearly shows that colour, taste, smell, etc. are the product of our biology, causally determined by but very different to the objective nature (e.g. the chemical composition) of apples and ice creams.
So the traditional phenomenological and epistemological questions are firmly resolved in favour of indirect realism.
The current problem as I see it is that semantic direct realists have muddied the waters by trying to adapt direct realist terminology to mean something very different — something which doesn't actually contradict the phenomenology or epistemology of indirect realism.
That's my take too
Then, why are you an indirect realist?
As an Indirect Realist, when I look at the colour red, I am directly looking at the colour red. I am not indirectly looking at the colour red.
When I feel pain, I directly feel pain. I don’t indirectly feel pain.
Both the Direct and Indirect Realist would agree that we directly look at the colour red. They would, however, disagree where this colour red exists. The Direct Realist would say that the colour red exists in a mind-independent world. The Indirect Realist would say that the colour red exists in the mind.
If the Indirect Realist did say that they only indirectly see the colour red, then they would fall into the homunculus problem, and trap themselves into saying that they are seeing a representation of a representation of a representation, etc.
I see the colour red because a wavelength of 700nm entered my eye, not because the postbox is red. It may be that when you look at a postbox and a wavelength of 700nm enters your eye, you see the colour purple, but this I will never know, as I can never know what exists in your mind.
We both look at the same postbox and the same wavelength of 700nm enters our eyes. I see the colour red and you see the colour purple. How do we decide whether the postbox is actually red or purple?
We ought to remember that we don’t just see ships, we also see everything else in our periphery. This fact seems to be rarely mentioned and for some reason we’re supposed to consider objects in a void. That’s just not how it works.
All seeing must be direct, that is, there has to be some environment or medium that is viewed without something else in the way, or you simply won’t see at all. The indirect realist simply doesn’t know or doesn’t want to say what that environment or medium is, or with what parts of his body he views it with.
When you see colour of the postbox, and say it is red, and when I see it, and say purple. This is a a very peculiar case. Ordinary folks don't come across this type of problems in daily life.
But when it happens (which I doubt very much unless one of us are colour blind), it must be concluded that our perception of colours of the objects are personal judgement, rather than perception. You have already perceived the colour of the postbox, and it appears "red" to you, and you are making your personal judgement "The postbox is red."
For me the postbox appears "purple", hence I claim "It is purple", which is just a personal judgement on the content of my perception.
The colour is not in your mind or in my mind. It is on the postbox. Instead of talking about Direct and Indirect Realist, we need to know that there are different type of perceptions, and whether the perceived objects do exit in flesh in front of the perceiver, and can be interacted with, accessed to, and used by the perceiver.
I am now looking at my guitar which is red colour in front of me. I will never say the redness of the guitar is in my mind. It is on the guitar. And because it appears red to me, I say it is a red guitar.
Under the different lighting it may appear different colour to me. I will still say it is a red guitar. But it appears blue under the blue lighting. It is my personal judgement on the visual sensation.
But my view is that no mental state is involved. That's the objection I'm making to other direct realists - they still make a mental state - an experience - a component of the perceiving relation. I'm not doing that - I'm saying the perceiving relation has two and only two relata: the perceiver and the perceived. We experience these relations obtaining - that is, we experience perceiving things - but the experience is not itself a relata in the relation.
Our experience is 'of' perceiving rather than constitutive of it. That's also why my view does not face the problem of accounting for hallucinations, as hallucinations are kinds of experience (whereas if one bakes the object of perception into an experience then - the objection goes - hallucinations would seem to be impossible (to the discredit of the theory).
I think indirect realism is false as an account of what it is that we're perceiving in normal cases of perception. When I look at a ship in the harbour it is the ship, not a 'ship in the harbour-like' mental state that I am seeing if, that is, it is to be true that I'm perceiving the ship. On my characterization, the indirect realist is someone who - one way or another - says that what you're perceiving is a mental state; the perceptual relation terminates in the mental state. By contrast, the direct realist thinks that in the regular case, it is the ship that you are perceiving. They standardly try and keep the relevant mental state in the picture, they just think you're somehow looking through it to the ship. In the same way as if I look at the ship through a telescope I am looking at the ship 'through' the telescope and not looking at a telescope, the direct realist wants to say that some of our mental states - those involved in seeing and touching primarily - are akin to telescopes or windows. They are involved, but they enable one to see through them to the world, rather than themselves being the objects of perception.
So, crudely, I take indirect realists to think we're looking at pictures of the world and (the current crop) of direct realists to think we're looking through windows onto the world.
I don't think the window pane view makes sense (perhaps it does and I have just yet to conceive of it properly). I cannot see how a mental state can operate like a window. For one thing, it's a state, not an object. It would be a category error to think our mental states are literally windows, then. Now the issue is how it could be that a mental state - a state of mind - could give one direct contact with an object. It can't be a mediator - it can't be by simply 'telling us' - about the object. For that's not perception. That's not direct contact. It can't be by modelling or in some other way resembling the object of perception (which is perhaps a coherent possibility - for perhaps a state of mind can resemble a state of a mind-external object). For again, we cannot perceive something by looking at a model of it, no matter how accurate the model. These are indirect ways of acquiring information about something, not direct ways.
If they try - and some do this - to say that the object itself is included in the experience, then we have a mind external object being said to be part of a mind-internal state. That just seems confused - as confused as thinking a note about a mountain contains the actual mountain. (Additionally, such views face problems accounting for hallucinations and a driven to extreme and ontologically embarrassing measures to do so).
Maybe they could say that the experience - the mental state - is constitutive of the two place perceptual relation between the perceiver and the perceived. For an analogy, if I desire a ship, then there is a two place relation there constituted by my desire. My desire is for a ship. It's my desire - so I am the efficient cause of the relation - and it's for a ship. But the desire is not a relatum within the relation. So maybe the direct realist could say something analogous: the perceiving experience is constitutive of the perceiving relation, a relation that has two relata.
I find that proposal quite interesting and sometimes it is my view. But it seems to run into problems accounting for hallucinations. For if it is the essence of such experiences that there is an object of perception, then given hallucinations seem to be identical experiences, then they would need to have an object too. Perhaps that's not too much of a problem for one could just say that in their case it is a mental object, not a mind-external one. That is, that in the hallucination case the perceiver is perceiving a mental image of a ship, not a ship.
We had this chat previously. Let;s look again at some philosophical weasel-words.
So the idea is that sugar is not really sweet, it just tastes that way to us.
See the word "really" there? what's it doing?
If we take it away we have "sugar is not sweet, it just tastes that way to us"...
Something has gone wrong here. sugar is not sweet, it just tastes sweet? Well, yes... that's what being sweet is - a taste.
"No, no, the sugar isn't sweet in itself!"
See the words "in itself" there? what'r they doing?
If we take them away we have "sugar is not sweet", which is false. Sugar is sweet.
Sugar has hydroxyl (–OH) groups which activate the T1R2/T1R3 GPCR on taste cells, triggering a calcium-mediated signalling cascade form which the nervous system learns certain activities, including seeking out sweet tastes and calling them "sweet" in contrast to "bitter" and "umami".
It's the chemical composition of sugar that makes it sweet, in interaction with a human. Being sweet is having a chemical structure that activates T1R2/T1R3 GPCR on taste cells.
Now nothing in this last, bolded paragraph implies that being sweet is not a property of sugar in itself or is not real.
Being sweet is not an illusion or hallucination. Sugar really is sweet.
So, Michael, is there anything in this with which you disagree? I hope not.
That's not what naive taste realists (or naive colour realists with respect to colour) mean. The historical dispute between direct and indirect realism concerns phenomenology and epistemology, and these problems are neither solved nor dissolved by (re-)interpreting the phrases "is sweet" or "is red" as meaning "having the mind-independent properties to cause such-and-such physiological/mental phenomena in such-and-such organisms".
The phenomenological dispute between direct (naive) and indirect realists concerns whether or not a) there are mental phenomena and whether or not b) the qualities of these mental phenomena are (also) mind-independent properties of things like apples. Naive realists believe either that (a) is false or that (b) is true, and so that there is no epistemological problem, whereas indirect realists believe both that (a) is true and that (b) is false, and so that there is an epistemological problem. And I think that today's science of perception supports the indirect realist view (even if mental phenomena is reducible to neurological phenomena).
It is true that apples have the mind-independent properties to cause me to see particular colours and taste certain tastes, but these colours and tastes are nothing like these mind-independent properties. I can't really grasp these mind-independent properties at all (my vague "understanding" of the Standard Model notwithstanding). All I really grasp is my body's reaction to them.
My apologies, here"s the quote to which the objection was a reply.
Quoting Clarendon
I can't make much sense of the above, hence my objection. Your opening post, however, is fairly clear. So perhaps my failure to make sense of the quote has to do with the choise of words?
By the way, are you familiar with Searle's philosophy of perception? I think it clarifies some of the mess in talk of perception. For example, he distinguishes between two different senses of the word 'experience'. In its constituitive sense (e.g. a brain state from which an experience arises) there's an experience in both the veridical case and in the hallucination case. But in its intentionalistic sense (i.e. what the experience is about) nothing is experienced in the hallucination case, only in the veridical case.
Extensionally, being sweet is the very same as having a chemical structure that activates T1R2/T1R3 GPCR on taste cells.
It's not clear what the intensional difference is. We talk in very different ways in cooking and in biochemistry. Yet the two meet. Intensionality might be no more than a different language game.
Here I am purposefully deflating the phenomenology.
Yes, though maybe we should use scare-quotes: "The babe has not yet learned to see 'the ship' and doesn't do so until they do so under [that] description." This allows that the kid has some kind of visual experience before the learning.
Quoting Banno
OK, again adding that on occasion we see things that we can't conceptualize without further instruction.
Quoting Banno
A lot of the foofaraw here seems to hinge on "in contact." One of those terms that can be used in many contexts to mean many things. Certainly there is no ship (not even a "ship") pressing against my eyeballs when I see one; it can't be that kind of contact we mean. But why should it be? The appropriate kind of contact is, precisely, perceptual contact, and I agree it doesn't help much to interpose "representation" or "datum".
But I have some sympathy with those who want to. I think they're trying to emphasize the fact that our contact with what we perceive doesn't provide us with certainty about the experience. There's the idea that, if I had the right kind of direct perception, I couldn't be wrong. Instead, I perceive a ship . . . but wait a minute, no I don't. Fair enough. But I don't think the language of "sense data" or "indirect perception" is the best way to keep this distinction in mind.
I'm not at all confident in this view and am quickly persuading myself that perception is essentially experiential, it's just that the experience constitutes the perceptual relation. So just as a desire constitutes a relation (between the desirer and the object of their desire), likewise a perceptual state constitutes a relation between the perceiver and the perceived.
I am only superficially familiar with Searle's view. It doesn't sound quite right to me, even given my revised view. For he seems to be trying to get directness out of the content of a mental state, and that - to my mind - is never going to work. All that'll get one is aboutness, but not perception. I want to insist that perception is a relation that can only have two relata - the perceiver and the perceived. There's no room for anything else. If 'the perceived' is to be a mind-external object, then there's no room for a mental state among the relata, for the other relatum has to be the perceiver themselves (not some mental state of theirs). What I currently think - and this is a distinct view from the one I started with - is that the mental state can be constitutive of the relation. If it's constitutive of the relation, then it doesn't feature as a relatum within it (thus preserving directness).
So now what I'd say about hallucination cases is that they are cases of perception, it's just that what they are perceptions of are mental states, not mind-external objects. So a visual hallucination of a ship would be a perception of a mental image of a ship, whereas a perception of a ship would be a perception of a ship. The difference, then, between hallucinations and perceptions of mind-external objects is not that one is a perception and the other not, but that one is a perception of something purely mental (but indistinguishable from a perception of something mind-external), whereas teh other is a percpetion of something mind-external
Yep. It helps to talk of the other senses - a suggestion from Austin. We already used the taste of sugar being sweet - the contact is pretty direct there. Touch provides an alternate example, rough against smooth.
Perhaps the problem is the expectation of certainty.
M. Chirimuuta, Outside Color: Perceptual Science and the Puzzle of Color in Philosophy
I'm explaining the historical distinction between direct and indirect realism, and how each position addresses the epistemological problem of perception. Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities is a fitting example of indirect realism, with his direct realist opponents rejecting this distinction.
There are legitimate phenomenological and epistemological differences between direct and indirect realism that can only be addressed by a scientific study of the world, the body, the brain, and possibly the mind, and that cannot be "deflated" by some semantic argument that "X is red" means "X causes such-and-such an experience".
This is why I phrased my post carefully, and why I posted the picture I did. The relevant dispute between direct and indirect realism concerns whether or not a) there are mental phenomena and whether or not b) the qualities of these mental phenomena are (also) mind-independent properties of things like apples. If (a) is true and (b) is false as indirect realists claim then there is an epistemological problem.
So you claim. Yet the deflation is set out before you. Hmm.
It's not. It's a red herring that distracts from the actual phenomenological and epistemological questions. Do mental phenomena exist, and if so are its properties the mind-independent properties of things like apples (or do they in some sense resemble them)? If mental phenomena do exist and if its properties do not resemble the mind-independent properties of things like apples then indirect realists are correct and there is an epistemological problem of perception.
My take of some relevant ancient history.
The strongest logical statement in philosophy comes from Parmenides. To paraphrase, Everything is, period. There is no else to this existential logic because Everything comprises all possible conceptions whether logical, verbal, psychological or physical.
The next strongest logical statement comes from the mouth of an unlikely source, "Après moi, le déluge". This represents the other, Protagorian existential absolute. Taken within their premises, these two absolutes are not debatable.
Unfortunately neither absolute gives any insight into their only object, nor do they suggest any relation or transition to the world we or I live in.
Plato replaced the One with the plurality of the Forms and also of objects, a multitude of sensible objects represented by Forms. But visible sensation of the material objects is indirect through circumstances, visual rays of sorts, and mental perception. Plato noted that this necessarily indirect sensation-perception cannot possibly yield personal certainty or knowledge because it is contingent on worldly intermediaries.
Quoting Clarendon
So be it. Doing so eliminates the Platonic Formal and perceptual complexities and in the process makes Truth, Certainty, and personal Knowledge possible! Reasonably well defined philosophical objects can be logically acted upon. But only for the direct realist. The majority who insist on either naively obvious indirect or publicly derived Scientistic dogmas will point to their greater more popular world but can never have anything more than the probability of their opinion in that greater world.
Quoting Clarendon
In the strict sense (ignoring quotes of whatever outlier opinions) [s]perception[/s] is a foreign word to direct realism that introduces a Trojan horse fallacy if admitted.
This is better - we are getting closer to the presumptions underpinning this picture of the world.
DO mental phenomena exist? Well, what sort of thing is a mental phenomenon? What is to count as mental phenomena? Once we decide that, we are on the way to being able to quantify over them and include them in out discourse. Whatever they might be, they are not apples. But can the notion be set out clearly?
Now I know what an apple is - at least well enough to cook apple crumble. Is there something I can do with, say, a mental phenomenon of an apple that I can't do with an apple? Well, I can post about them on a philosophy forum, I suppose.
Are we going to say I can use my mental-phemonenon-of-apple to make mental-phenomenon-of-apple-crumble?
And if I did so, what have I done that is not equally well set out by saying I used apples to make an apple crumble?
See how the mental phenomena loses its puff? That's the deflation mentioned above.
It's all in the crumb.
I think you over complicated this scenario. The essential difference between a hallucination and the perception of a mind-external object is in the case of a hallucination we have the absence of a "mind external object." In one case, the success of calling out an apple when an apple is present shows we perceived an object. In the other case, the error of calling out an apple when none is present shows we may have hallucinated, thus, we did not perceived an object called "apple."
I take it we can agree that hallucinating a ship and perceiving a ship are indistinguishable experiences. So we need to explain why the hallucinating episode and the perceiving the ship episode would be indistinguishable.
My view does this: they are both perceiving relations, it's just that one has as its object an actual ship, and the other has a mental image of a ship as its object.
On my view the perceptual experience 'is' a perceiving relation (and it is precisely because of this that the experience doesn't feature as a relatum within the relation - for it is essential that the relation constitutive of perceiving have only 2 relata). Thus, the most straightforward way for an experience to be indistinguishable from perceiving an object is for it to be the same kind of experience - a perceiving experience - but with an identical appearing object (a mental image of a ship).
But on your view in the hallucinating case there is no object at all - but then that means it is not a perceiving relation and thus is a quite different kind of experience from the perceiving one. So why would it be indistinguishable from it?
It seems to me that you only have two options, one of which introduces extra clutter and the other of which renders the perceptual case - the good case - indirect. The first option is simply to posit a quite dfiferent mental state from the experience of perceiving and say that it can nevertheless be indistinguishable from it. But now you've got two kinds of state, not one. That's more complicated than my view.
The other option is to say that there is one and the same mental state, it's just that in one case there is nothing answering to its content out there in the world, whereas in perceptual case there is. But that's the indirect realist view in which it turns out that we never really perceive mind external objects at all.
I'd say Searle's view is that the content of a visual experience is set by conditions of satisfaction, such as the object's presence in the visual field. Its appearance is fixed by angle and distance of view, available light, surface properties etc. and while the observer's brain and eyes enable the experience, the content of the experience is fixed by the object and its properties. We can't detach content of experience from object's appearance, hence direct. The relation between observer and object is always direct.
What Searle does is just emphasize the distinction between perceiving a mental state and perceiving its contents. He seems to think that so long as the content of the mental state is what one is perceiving - and its content is 'about' a ship and this content is satisfied in the right kind of way - then one is directly perceiving it. But that's precisely the issue: I'm arguing that simply won't work. I'm not denying that there are such mental states or that when we are in them it is the contents rather than the state that we are aware of; I'm just denying that when that occurs we're perceiving an object as opposed to looking at an image of one.
For example, these words are just patterns. But you're probably not seeing them as patterns, but rather as messages. That distinction - between the patterns and the content - is essentially the same as between a mental representation and its representative contents. Clearly, however, one cannot perceive a ship by reading a note about it, even if in reading it one is not noticing the patterns but only really noticing the content.
So, it's not enough for Searle to point out that when we have a mental image of a ship it is the content of the image that we 'see' and not the mental state. That's true - I grant all that. The point is that we're still dealing with a mental note 'about' a ship and not a ship itself. Thus, there is no direct contact between the perceiver and the perceived, much though Searle may insist otherwise.
There has to be but two relata in a direct relation, otherwise it's simply not direct. Mental states can't perceive things, only minds can. Thus, in a perceptual relation one of the two relata must be a mind. That leaves the object that is perceived as the other. Those are the only two relata a perceptual relation can contain (otherwise there's no directness). Introduce a third relatum - a mental state by means of which one becomes aware of the object - and one has indirect contact, not direct.
Mental phenomena are either reducible to neurological phenomena or are emergent. They are what occur when we dream, and what don’t occur when we are unconscious (even if our taste buds are chemically reacting to apples).
These mental phenomena have qualities that, although often causally determined by particular mind-independent properties of mind-independent objects, are neither identical to these mind-independent properties nor similar to them.
Given the distinction and dissimilarity between the qualities of mental phenomena and the mind-independent properties that causally determine them, there is an epistemological problem of perception.
This is what indirect realists, both historical like Locke, and modern argue. And the naive realist, i.e. the phenomenological direct realist, disagrees, rejecting anything like the primary and secondary quality distinction. They claim that mind-independent properties are not just causally responsible for the phenomenology of experience but are actual constituents of it.
The newer semantic direct realists who try to turn the problem into one about language and the meaning of the English phrase “the apple is red” neither absolve naive realism nor refute indirect realism. They’re just addressing an unrelated and unimportant issue. The actual philosophical issue is one that applies to people without a language and/or from 100,000 years ago as well (even if they are not equipped to express the issue themselves), and to non-human animals with different sense receptors who may even see colours and taste tastes that we can’t even imagine.
Why should we think this covers all the possibilities?
Again, with phenomena, and the presumption that somehow I observe "what occur when we dream, and what don’t occur when we are unconscious".
I don't observe my dreams; I have them. What doesn't occur when I am unconscious is consciousness, which is again not something I observe, so much as something I do.
You are taking these "mental phenomena" as granted. I would question them.
And along with them, the characterisation of direct realism.
I’m explaining what I believe most indirect realists believe. Mental phenomena exist and have qualities that are neither identical to nor similar to the mind-independent properties that causally determine them, and so the qualities of metal phenomena provide a misleading picture of the mind-independent nature of the world.
These are the substantial phenomenological and epistemological claims that direct realists dispute, and this dispute can neither be solved nor deflated by arguing that the English phrase “sugar is sweet” means “the chemical structure of sugar activates T1R2/T1R3 GPCR on taste cells”.
It’s a dispute that can only be addressed by a scientific study of the body, the brain, and sugar, and I think the current scientific view favours indirect realism over direct realism; the evidence is quite convincing that, whatever first-person experience is, it is not constituted of the mind-independent properties of distal objects (even if it is causally determined by them).
You've retreated back to the sociology, to "most indirect realists believe...", and there is little empirical data one way or the other. What we do have is evidence that philosophers overwhelmingly accept realism.. The same is unsurprisingly the case for physicist.
Philosophers appear to have moved past the direct/indirect realism dichotomy, and indeed past the realism/anti-realism debate. The deflationary arguments have brought a rejection of grand dichotomies, and a focus on local questions about representation, perception, normativity, explanation, and practice - to small, close conceptual work.
Well, it is a good thing we don't learn what an hallucination is by evaluating our private experiences since they are indistinguishable from our veridical experiences. But somehow we actually do learn what they are, the advantages of learning a language in a community with other human beings.
Quoting Clarendon
Yes, the typical imagery of the private theater that no one else can enter.
Quoting Clarendon
Those are your words not mine. In principle, you cannot demonstrate to anybody that the two experiences are indistinguishable. However, what you do present is a metaphysical fiction that tries to explain why someone would claim they are perceiving an "apple" when it is not there.
I simply am stating that when someone is hallucinating they simply did not perceive what they claimed.
But if an explanation is needed, let's look no further than a naturalistic one. First, view the human as a color detecting machine, just like colorimeter. In both case, in order to detect color you need to standardize the machine. For example, when a child is learning colors, we present them with standardized swatches. They practice identifying the colors, learn how to verbalize their names, and with enough practice they are able to demonstrate to the human community their ability. Whether a colorimeter is operating as expected will also need to be check using standardized color solutions or filters.
Unfortunately, machines can break down or not put together well. The human can make incorrect color judgments, or the colorimeter can't make the correct reading. In either case, there is no need to construct metaphysical entities like "mental states" or "sense data" to explain what may be going wrong. I better route would be to understand the physical mechanism in which each machine is able to correctly make the necessary color judgments and repair as needed.
Specifically, are you against Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR) or Semantic Direct Realism (SDR).
The Indirect Realist would agree with SDR that there is an indirect perception of the ship, whilst accepting a direct cognition of it. The term “direct cognition” already presumes a mental state, whether a model, picture or concept. As you say, most SDR are probably Indirect Realists in disguise.
As those who believe in PDR are probably as rare as those who believe in a flat Earth, you may have trouble finding someone willing to defend PDR.
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Quoting Clarendon
In what sense can the Direct Realist say we directly see a ship, something that could weigh 100,000 tonnes, be 300m in length, contain 3,000 guests, have restaurants, bars, cafes, an engine room, propeller, etc when all we may be seeing through our eyes is a set of coloured shapes.
When you see a ship in the harbour, what are you actually seeing? You are seeing a variety of coloured shapes, such as a white horizontal rectangle, a smaller central red vertical rectangle and an upper black line.
In our language game, such a combination of coloured shapes is known as a “ship”. This allows us to talk about ships, such as saying “there is a ship in the harbour. Even if we have only seen a ship from a distance, we can still talk about ships, in the same way we can talk about the Sun even if we have never been there.
So in what sense is the Indirect Realist wrong in thinking that a set of coloured shapes that we know as a “ship” is not the same as directly looking at a ship?
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Quoting Clarendon
What you say seems along the lines of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism in his Critique of Pure Reason, where he attempts to combine Empiricism with Rationalism. In our case, the Empiricism of the Direct Realists who believe they directly perceive the ship and the Rationalism of the Indirect Realists who believe they directly perceive the concept of a ship.
A transcendental solution is needed, because we cannot know we are looking at a ship without the prior concept of a ship, and we cannot know the concept of a ship without a prior look at a ship.
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Quoting Clarendon
Indirect Realism makes sense that we are looking at pictures of the world, but a Direct Realist’s analogy that we look at the world as if through a window is hard to justify.
For the Direct Realist, where exactly is this window, in the eye or in the mind? In neither case can the window have no effect on what passes through it. If the eye, on one side is a wavelength of 700nm and on the other side is the colour red. If the mind, on one side is the instantiation of a ship and on the other side is the concept of a ship.
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Quoting Clarendon
Yes. We see a ship, but if a veridical experience is identical to an illusory or hallucinatory experience, how can we ever know whether our experience is veridical, illusory or hallucinatory. The Direct Realist argues that they do know. But how exactly?
I think you may have a difficulty finding someone who supports PDR, whilst, it seems to me, SDR is Indirect Realism in disguise.
Indirect realism is still realism, so I don’t understand the relevance of those references.
We don’t really know what mental phenomena — or as scientists of perception call them, percepts — are, but they exist, whether reducible to neurological phenomena or as emergent phenomena. They are what occur when we’re awake, when we’re dreaming, when we’re hallucinating, and when having some scientist directly stimulate our brain, and they are what don’t occur when we are unconscious, regardless of how the rest of the body is reacting to stimuli. They and their qualities are neither identical to nor similar to the molecular structure of an apple’s surface or the wavelengths of light that it reflects, firmly showing that positions like naive colour realism are false. Similar reasoning holds for taste and smell and so on. That’s all it takes to support indirect realism as I see it. Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities is well established.
So I think the Wikipedia article is correct when it says “indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception”, regardless of whether or not philosophers have “moved past” such labels, because it’s not the label that matters but the underlying phenomenological and epistemological claims.
But then, we are not ordinary folks.
==============================
Quoting Corvus
In the world is a postbox and within the language game the colour of the postbox has been named “red” in a JL Austin performative utterance kind of way.
Henceforth, everyone playing the same language game agrees that “the postbox is red”.
However, this is regardless of what is in our minds. I may perceive the postbox as green and you may perceive the postbox as orange. But we both agree that in our language game “the postbox is red".
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Quoting Corvus
How do you know that colour exists in a mind-independent world?
Science tells us that a wavelength of 700nm travels from the postbox to our eyes. Our only knowledge of the colour of the postbox, if it has any, is the information arriving at our eyes, which is 700nm .
In what sense is a wavelength of 700nm the colour red?
If an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy sees a wavelength of 700nm, are you saying that you know that they will also perceive the colour red? How do you know?
That's a misrepresentation, because no direct realist believes that one perceives one's own mental state or some element of it.
The 'content' of a mental state is not a picture nor a sensation. It is the perceiving, not its object. More specifically, the content is formed by the way the brain responds to photo chemical processes in the eyes and the bundle of light rays reflected by the ship under certain conditions of observation. Thus your visual experience of the ship is, literally, the visible appearance of the ship under those conditions of observation.
You've introduced "mental images" into your model in order to explain hallucination. This introduces an instability within your position that indirect realists have been capitalizing on for centuries in order to show that direct realism is untenable.
The problem is that you appear to be explaining indistinguishability in terms of [I]identity within[/I] phenomenal experience (I.e. identical “appearing object”). This is ambiguous. If by "appearing object" you just mean an object [I]within[/I] phenomenal experience - i.e. an object directly present to consciousness - then you've already collapsed into indirect realism since now the direct object of perception in both veridical and non-veridical experience is a phenomenal object.
If, on the other hand, the “appearing object” is not what is directly present to consciousness (i.e. objects [I]within[/I] phenomenal experience), then they cannot secure identity within experience at all, and so cannot explain why hallucination and perception are indistinguishable as experiences. In that case the appeal to mental images does no explanatory work.
So, either you must give up on explaining indistinguishability in terms of the identity of "appearing objects" within experience, or you must give up on direct realism.
Isn’t an hallucination, by definition, a (waking) mental image that does not “correspond to” and is not caused by some appropriate distal object?
And isn’t a dream, by definition, a (sleeping) mental image that does not “correspond to” and is not caused by some appropriate distal object?
I don’t see how anyone can sensibly reject the existence of mental images. We might disagree about their nature, i.e are they reducible to neurological phenomena or are they non-physical emergent phenomena, etc., and we might disagree about their relationship and resemblance to distal objects, but they clearly do exist.
More generally, though, I agree with you - I [I]don't[/I] think that we can sensibly reject the existence of mental images. But I do think we need to be careful about the epistemological and ontological roles we assign to them.
I can't claim to have this all sorted out, but I am wary of reifying mental images into objects of perception rather than treating them as features of experience that condition our judgments. Once images are treated as perceptual objects, they begin to play exactly the mediating role that indirect realists have historically relied on, which is a move that I am resistant to.
For that reason, I would tend to say that a hallucination is not the perception of an image, but the experience of imagery plus a false judgment.
Then isn't a veridical experience the experience of imagery plus a true judgement? I believe Clarendon is just saying that the imagery (mental phenomena) that occurs when we hallucinate is indistinguishable from the imagery that occurs when we have veridical experiences.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
What does it mean for something to be the object of perception? Because hallucinations are hallucinations of something; voices, faces, monsters, etc.
This is where I think people are letting irrelevant matters of language muddy the issue. Even if you don't like the grammar of the phrase "I hallucinate mental phenomena" it is still the case that the voices I hallucinate — and their qualities like pitch and tone — are mental phenomena, not distal stimuli (else it wouldn't be an hallucination).
I’m wondering if you could clarify something as I am not up on the literature, but consider myself a direct realist. In your analogy, what entities are looking through windows, and what are the windows? Because when I look at a perceiver there is nothing between him and the rest of the world. His eyes touch the light and atmosphere “directly”, for lack of a better term.
But our eyes don’t (usually) touch apples “directly”, yet direct realists claim that we see apples directly. So although there is ambiguity in what the word “direct” means in the context of “direct perception”, it clearly isn’t about our sense organs being in physical contact with the so-called object of perception. If it were that simple then direct realism (at least with respect to sight and hearing and smell) would have never been in consideration at all.
There is, so it is claimed, direct perception of distal objects even though there often is some third physical intermediary (light, air) between our sense organs and said objects.
We are ordinary folks as far as seeing the postbox is concerned. We are not equipped with some super vision eyes, or we are not aliens from some other galaxies, I am sure.
Quoting RussellA
I know I perceived the postbox as red, but I don't know what you perceive. The only reason I know you perceive it as red, is because you claim that you perceive it as red.
Quoting RussellA
Because some dude invented wave measuring meter, and scaled the numbers for 7000nm for colour red. No other reason than that. It could be 007nm or 2026nm. It is not some apriori idea or concept or number. It is just random reading that some dude attached to it, and published so the other folks would use it for saying the colour red in different way. You could say the Venus is a morning star when saw it in the dawn, or call it an evening star when saw it in the dinner time.
Quoting RussellA
What is a "mind-independent world"? Where is it?
Quoting RussellA
If the alien has been surfing the internet, and saw the colour red is wave length of 700nm, and thought it was true, then he would claim that wave length 700nm is colour red.. I know it by inductive reasoning.
The “object of perception” is the entire periphery and environment. That is what we see. An apple isn’t an “object of perception” because that would exclude everything else. I’m not sure why people exclude everything else in these discussions but I expect it is to help their arguments.
At any rate, our eyes contact the light that bounces off an apple “directly”. We can touch an apple “directly”, smelll it, taste it, and even consume it entirely. None of that is “indirect”.
Okay, but it's still the case that almost all of that environment isn't in direct physical contact with my eyeball; only the light is. So clearly "direct perception", if direct realism is to have any merit, isn't so simplistic as direct physical contact between our sense organs and the objects perceived.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, but our eye isn't in direct physical contact with the apple. If your simplistic interpretation of direct perception were correct then we could only say that we directly see the light reflected by the apple, not that we directly see the apple.
In our language game a wavelength of 700nm has been named “red. In another language game it could have been named “rouge”.
Therefore, when I look at a wavelength of 700nm, I know that within our language game, regardless of my particular mental perceptions, I can say “I see the colour red”.
============================================Quoting Corvus
All around us.
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Quoting Corvus
Yes, in our language game a wavelength of 700nm has been named “red”. Therefore, when you look at a wavelength of 700nm, by inductive reasoning, you know that the name of the colour you perceive is “red”, regardless of what colour you actually perceive in your mind.
Yes, and I agree. Where I would push back is on the idea that imagery itself is the object of judgment.
Take the example of hallucinating a ship. We have (at least) two acts on the part of the subject: sensation and judgment. While the judgment is dependent on the sensory content, it is not about the sensory content.
Furthermore, sensation is not truth-apt: it does not refer, assert, or commit. It does not make a claim about whether anything does or does not exist. That is what judgment does. Insofar as perception makes such a claim, I would say it includes a judgment of existence, and in that respect is distinct from mere sensation.
So it may be that the sensory content is the same in both veridical and non-veridical cases. What distinguishes them is the correctness of the judgment, which is determined by the way the world is, not by the sensory content. In the hallucinatory case, the judgment fails not because it is about a non-existent object, but because nothing in the world satisfies it.
I think the point being made is that the same wavelengths of light can cause different colour experiences in different individuals (e.g. because of different biologies).
This fact wouldn’t make sense if colour terms exclusively refer to wavelengths of light. A term like “red” can refer to 700nm light or it can refer to an object reflecting 700nm light or it can refer to the type of colour experience that 700nm light is typically responsible for in most humans.
As a particular example, consider the photo of the dress that some people see to be black and blue and others white and gold. The colour terms as used in the preceding sentence must refer to some mental/physiological phenomenon, because it’s not the case that some people see one wavelength of light and some people see a different wavelength of light, and it’s not the case that everyone sees the same colours but that a large group of people consistently forget the meaning of the words “black”, “blue”, “white”, and “gold” when asked to describe what they see. I really do see white and gold even though the wavelengths of light that are stimulating my eyes are the wavelengths that typically cause me to see black and blue.
I would argue that the fundamental dispute between the direct and indirect realist concerns the relationship between sensory content and distal objects.
Sensory content has properties, or qualities, and we describe these properties using such words as "red" and "sweet" (even if we also use such words to describe other properties, i.e. those that are causally responsible for such sensory content, like reflecting certain wavelengths of light).
Are these properties the properties of the distal object in the sense of token identity? If so then direct realism is true, else it is not. You might not want to describe the latter as "seeing a mental representation" but it would still be the case that sensory content is a mental representation, and I would say that that's all it takes for indirect realism to be true.
We then have an epistemological problem to address. If sensory content is a mental representation then can we trust that it is accurate, in the sense that the sensory content resembles the distal object. If the properties of the sensory content are the same as the properties of the distal object in the sense of type identity, i.e. in a sense that would satisfy realist colour primitivism ("colors are simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties ... not micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort"), then our sensory content is accurate, else it isn't.
And I think the science is quite clear that the properties of sensory content are nothing like the properties that are causally responsible for them, and the fact that we often use the same word to refer to both has led many to equivocate.
It depends on what you mean by "resemble". At best you'll get, "it's what that object looks like from a particular point of view in a particular context". It may look like one thing to you and something entirely different to a different sort of being, and both of those very different experiences of that object can be equally accurate representations of the object in question despite being very very dissimilar.
The epistemological question concerns the mind-independent nature of the world. For example the chemical composition of an apple and it reflecting certain wavelengths of light has nothing to do with a point of view or a particular context. It just is what it is.
The naive colour realist then goes one step further and says that the surface of the apple is coloured in the simple, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative sense that we are pre-scientifically familiar with, and that this has nothing to do with a point of view or a particular context, and that our experience of it is veridical if and only if this colour is the one that we see, and that anyone who sees a different colour is seeing it wrong.
Quoting Michael
They're not intenced as such. Your claim concerned what "most indirect realists believe", but there is no evidence on which this might be based.
Here's another account. A direct realist believes that when we, say, look at a veritable ship, what we see is the ship. They hold that light is reflected from the ship, focused by the eye and incites certain neural pathways associated with things of that sort, and that this process is what we call seeing a ship.
An indirect realist, in contrast, holds that what we see is not the ship, but something else, sometimes called a "mental image" of the ship, that is presented to us by the process of light being reflected from the ship, focused by the eye and inciting certain neural pathways associated with things of that sort.
The most obvious difference here is that the indirect realist one way or another relies on a homunculus, a mind being presented with various stimuli, while the direct realist is embedded in the world. (Edit: I've bolded this, since it seems to me to be at the very heart of the issue)
We could, if it were deemed worthwhile, re-write the distinction between direct and indirect realism in terms of Markov Blankets.
Indirect realism effectively treats the Markov blanket as opaque, the system having only access to internal states in the form of the mooted "mental image". External states are inferred, never directly encountered, and what is “perceived” is confined to what is inside the blanket (representations, images, models).
Direct realism treats the Markov blanket as causally, but not epistemically, isolated, the system having access to external states through the mediation of the blanket. Seeing the ship is an interaction, not an appearance, and perception is a skilled engagement with environmental states across the blanket;
there is no inner object that perception terminates on.
Now on this account, I take direct realism as telling the better story.
As does the indirect realist.
Quoting Banno
The dispute between the direct and indirect realist isn't just a semantic dispute about whether or not it is proper to describe the preceding chain of events using the English phrase "I see a ship" (or "I see a mental image of a ship"). It concerns the nature of sensory experience and the type of relationship it has to the ship. Both agree that there is a causal relationship, but the direct realist argues that there's a much more substantial relationship; one in which information about the mind-independent nature of the ship is given in the sensory experience, avoiding the epistemological problems that indirect realists claim are there.
The SEP article on the problem of perception, as one of the steps in defining direct realism, says that it requires that "the phenomenal character of experience is determined, at least partly, by the direct presentation of ordinary objects", and I think that this is the important part.
But we must unravel exactly what it means for something to be "directly presented" in the phenomenal character of experience, and as explained here, I think the only sensible interpretation is that there is a token identity between the phenomenal character of experience and the mind-independent properties of the ship. If there is no token identity, only a causal relationship, then it's not direct presentation. Even a type identity would be insufficient, as that simply leaves the phenomenal character of experience being an accurate representation of (i.e. resembling) the object, and this representational realism is still indirect realism; as explained further in the article, "this is why many naive realists describe the relation at the heart of their view as a non-representational relation".
Percepts, in such an account, would be some stage in various layers of Markov blankets, just one of the levels of the internal states within the nested, hierarchical Markov blanket architecture. The perception is inside the Markov blanket, but not disconnected from what it outside. Crucially, The system does not “see” the percept; rather, the system sees by being in that state.
But frankly the percept is an oversimplification of what is going on.
Quoting Michael
Yep. The difference in science is not in the basic physiology. At least you now agree with me here.
Quoting Michael
Scratch out "mind-independent" and you have it.
Quoting Michael
Are you willing to claim that the character of experience is not determined, at least partly, by things in the world? Surely not.
Your ideas of token identity might be interesting, but I wasn't able to follow what you were arguing. Neural nets are not representational, so it might well be that notions of tokens are irrelevant, covered by the Markov blanket, as it were.
I don’t think it’s correct to say that sensory content is a mental representation. Representations, in the epistemic sense relevant here, have a normative valence - they can be accurate or inaccurate, correct or incorrect, better or worse. Sensory content does not function this way within cognition. It does not assert, refer, or purport to get things right. Representation, in that sense, is the job of judgment.
Quoting Michael
You’re right that [I]if[/I] sensory content were a mental representation, then we’d face the epistemological problem you describe. But if sensory content is not a representation in that sense, then it’s not the kind of thing that can be inaccurate or misleading to begin with. It is only it judgments that can be accurate or inaccurate. And while those judgments are conditioned and motivated by sensory contents, they are not about sensory contents, but about how the world is.
Don't you see how anyone can sensibly reject the existence of fictional characters in a story? Must such supposed entities be either reducible to neurological activity or else non-physical emergent properties?
I suggest not, and yet that doesn't prevent us from talking coherently about their supposed actions in the story. Similarly with mental images.
Quoting Michael
On reflection, though, we can recast our disagreement as being about the relationship and resemblance of actual images to the objects. Our experience of readiness to project or associate a particular kind (e.g. colour) of actual picture to the object or other picture before us is conveniently and coherently discussed as involving an image in the mind. But not irredeemably so.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jEsYBM6ef1IC&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=sights+unseen+Nelson+Goodman&source=bl&ots=gdYiFfhX0-&sig=ACfU3U0SSgUWaVAE8yc0Hlu487OgJSdpmg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPjZOO9p7kAhWMa1AKHb3PCtkQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=sights%20unseen%20Nelson%20Goodman&f=false
The perceiver would be us, the mind, and the window would be the 'mental state with representative contents'. But the analogy doesn't really work. A window is an object, whereas a mental state isn't. So already there seems to be a category error involved in their view. The idea - I think - is that when it comes to these 'mental states with representative contents' we can distinguish between the state itself and its contents (just as we can distinguish between a note itself and its contents). They hold that the big mistake that the indirect realists are making is in thinking that in perception we are only ever aware of the mental states themselves - the notes - whereas in fact because they have contents, there is the possibility of us being aware of the content. They then think this gives them a way of respecting how it is that in perception we are in direct contact with the objects of perception - when the content of the mental state in question matches (and is appropriately caused) by the non-mental object 'out there', then we are perceiving the object itself. We are not perceiving the mental state it is putting us in, but its content - and as the content 'is' in some sense the object of awareness (though really it just mentions it), then we are seeing the object itself by being in that kind of state.
But to my mind this is not direct contact with the object at all. My example would be a painting of a receding corridor placed in a doorway such that if one looks at it, it looks as if the door opens onto a receding corridor. If we imagine that behind the painting there is indeed a receding corridor precisely corresponding to the image on the canvas, and imagine as well that the painting was created by the artist studying the actual corridor, then looking at that painting in the doorway - even if one does not realize it is a painting and so one is focused on what it represents to be the case - will not allow one to perceive the corridor behind it. No matter how accurately its content represents what is really there, at no point does the painting become a window. Matching content is simply not a way in which an object becomes transparent. So the whole idea of transparency is triply confused - first, because it involves a category error and second because even if it didn't, transparency does not come from matching content. And third, because the simple fact is we still have 3 elements to the relation - the perceiver, some mental state, and the object of perception.
A direct relation must, by definition, have only 2 relata, not 3. Thus a direct realist - I would say - is committed on pain of misdescribing themselves to saying that in perception, there is just a perceiver and the perceived. I am currently trying to explain how this can work by relocating the experience - the mental state - and saying that it is constitutive of that relation rather than an relatum within it. Just as a desire is a mental state yet is constitutive of a relation - between the desirer and the desired - likewise the mental state involved in perception can be constitutive of a relation between perceiver and perceived. I think this is a way of making the actual object of perception a part of the experience itself (I earlier dismissed this as being incoherent, but it now strikes me that it is not - for the object can be part of the experience in the same way as an object of desire is part of the desiring relation).
Thank you for your criticisms.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I'd first want to say that in denying mental images a role to play in the perception of mind-external objects I am not denying their existence. A silly analogy perhaps, but I deny that toffees play any role in perception, but I am not thereby denying toffees exist - I think they certainly exist.
I think mental images most certainly do exist and it would be a problem for a view if it was committed to their denial. They are employed in imaginings, for instance, and - I would say - in hallucinations, including dreams. So my first point would be that nothing in direct realism commits the direct realist to denying the existence of mental imagery - and it would be a grave problem if it did, I think, given the clear existence of such imagery. The issue, as I see it, is not over the existence of such mental imagery, but over what work it can do - can we, by means of it, perceive the mind-external world or not. My answer is a decided no, and that's why I think it is what hallucinations involve perceiving.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I do not see this. My view is that in the hallucination case I am perceiving mental imagery, whereas in the good case I am perceiving a mind-external object. I take it that our minds can copy good-case perceptual experiences and store these copies (and we call upon these copies in memory and imagination). And as these are copies, they - these mental images - can create in us an experience indistinguishable from perceiving the object they are depicting. So it is not that both cases are indistinguishable due to having identical objects. On teh contrary, they have radically different objects. In one case the object of the perceiving relation is a mind external object, in the other it is a mental image of a mind-external object.
So I hold that we have perception occurring in both cases - in the hallucination case (which I take just to be a special case of imagining) - we are perceiving mental imagery, whereas in the 'perceiving the mind-external world' case we are perceiving mind-external things. At the moment, then, I do not see how I am collapsing into an indirect realist. I am, to be sure, making use of the same mental imagery that they are employing, but I am saying that it is not involved in perceiving the external world.
Russel's objection was that this is unduly complicated - that there is no need to suppose that hallucinations have an object of perception. But this I do not understand. Without an object of perception, they wouldn't be experiences 'of' anything seeming to be the case.
I would want to stress, the indirect realist does not have a monopoly on believing there is mental imagery - on the contrary, I take the existence of mental imagery to be something we can all agree exists. The issue is whether we are confined to perceiving this mental imagery (or, in some direct realist's case, whether this mental imagery can operate as a window onto the world and allow us directly to see it), or whether perception of the external world requires precisely its absence (my view).
That was not what I claimed. The point was that one cannot, by perceiving the content of a mental state thereby perceive a mind-external object. And that is certainly something some direct realists - or people who call themselves such - claim. They talk of the content of the mental state - so it is 'of' that mental state, then. (You say "The 'content' of a mental state is not a picture nor a sensation. It is the perceiving, not its object" - I'm afraid I don't know what that means; the content of a painting would be what it depicts, the content of a note would be what it's about....it's not clear to me how 'content' can mean 'is the perceiving' as opposed to the means by which the perceiving occurs).
There is a painting of corridor. Now, whether one sees it as a painting or whether one doesn't notice and thinks, that by looking at it one is looking at a corridor, one cannot perceive a corridor by means of that painting.
So, crudely: the indirect realist thinks we're in a mental art gallery looking at paintings of the world. Some direct realists think we're looking at what the paintings depict (and they're emphasizing - quite pointlessly, I think - the difference between seeing a depiction as a depiction and looing at what it depicts). What I'm saying is that you're only perceiving the real world when you're not in the mental gallery at all.
That suggests that our thoughts about perception are an impediment to perception. I accept that they are speculative but against what measure can they said to be false?
I do not know the literature well enough to know if my view is already in it. No doubt it is. But it is what it is.
Direct perception has to be - by definition - a relationship that has two relata: the perceiver and the perceived.
No one can deny that - even the indirect realist must accept that this is the relationship we stand in to our own mental states, else we would not be aware of anything whatever.
My point is that when we perceive a mind-external ship, the perceptual relationship has that mind external ship as one of its relata and the mind - the perceiver's mind - as the other. There literally can't be anything else involved in the relationship. There can be no question that, if this is coherent, it constitutes direct perception of the mind-external ship. Perhaps it is not coherent. But I think it is.
By analogy, a desire is always for something. Only minds can have desires. But to have a desire - which is to be in a certain sort of mental state - is to desire 'something'. That something doesn't have to itself be something mental. If I desire a ship, then that relationship has two relata: me and a mind external ship.
That analogy is supposed to show how a person can be in a mental state and being in it can constitute a relationship between the mind - the one in the mental state - and some object that may not be a mental state at all.
I am then saying that this is what is going on in perception. There is a perceptual experience - that's a mental state. But it is not involved in the relation that it creates - at least not as a relatum within it, anymore than my desire is 'in' the relation between me and the ship when I desire the ship.
And so in this way the actual mind-external object is directly perceived - the perceiving relationship is constituted by the mental state, and in the good cases that relationship puts the perceiver in direct contact with a mind external object, and in the bad cases it puts the perceiver in direct contact with a mental image of one.
To return to my desire analogy: let's say I desire a $10 note and there is a $10 note on the table. Well, then that $10 satisfies my desire. But imagine it is not a genuine $10 note but a perfect forgery. Well, then it does not satisfy my desire, even though I might well think it does as a perfect forgery is indistinguishable from the real deal. What is phenomenologically indistinguishable from having a genuinely satisfied desire for a $10 note? Receiving a perfect forgery of one.
As I see it, what you're saying is that there is no need for me to posit forgeries and that in doing so I am introducing unnecessary extras. But this seems to me to be untrue on both fronts. First, if in hallucination cases there is no object of perception, then that's not going to be a seeming at all. Second, forgeries exist - they're not exotic extras that others do not have to posit. By analogy: mental imagery exists and any plausible view about what reality contains is going to have to make room for them. So I am not helping myself to anything that is not already there. That indirect realists appeal to the same material is irrelevant given they're doing something very different with it.
Quoting Clarendon
In your statements so far, that limit is self-evident for you. Pointing out that is not the same for others is not an argument against your thesis.
Folks, when you look at a ship, you see the ship, not some mental image of the ship.
And when you hallucinate, you don't see anything - that's kinda the point.
Those half-baked philosophical ideas of things-in-themselves and mental images are leading you up the garden path.
Austin sorted this stuff out int he middle of last century.
Quoting Clarendon
Thanks for confirming your view on these matters. You say that in cases of hallucination we perceive a mental image; in cases of veridical perception it is the external object itself that we perceive. So the difference between hallucination and veridical perception is the object of perception, not the perceptual relation itself. This makes sense.
Where I think you may still have an issue is in your treatment of indistinguishability. Your account requires that an external object and a mental image can lead to the same phenomenal experience. So what we have is:
Step 1: Hallucination case
Object of perception = mental image
Phenomenal experience = X
Step 2: Good case
Object of perception = mind-external object
Phenomenal experience = X
So on your own account, the same phenomenal experience (X) can be generated by both a mental image and an external object. The indirect realist will ask: "if hallucination achieves X via a mental image alone and veridical perception adds an external object [I]without altering X in any way[/I], then mental images are sufficient to explain X in all cases. If mental images are sufficient to explain X, what explanatory work is the external object doing in producing X?".
In other words, your account of direct realism does not rule out indirect realism or the "improper" forms of direct realism you were concerned to distinguish your view from, since the these others can leverage [I]your own[/I] explanation of indistinguishability in support of their model.
Now, this doesn't show that your account is incoherent, nor does it show that you are forced to accept indirect realism. It only shows that the indirect realist can happily accept your account and, if they wish, eliminate direct perception in the veridical case on grounds of parsimony.
's account is fair. Searle might downplay conditions of satisfaction in favour of intentionality as the way content is "fixed". When one looks at a ship, the intentional content (what the looking is about) is not an image-of-ship; it's a ship. Overstressing “content” risks sliding back into precisely the mental-image / representationalist picture that both Searle and Austin reject.
It seems to me that all the defenders of Direct Realism in this thread are Semantic Direct Realists rather than Phenomenological Direct Realists. There is a strong overlap between SDR and Indirect Realism.
As an Indirect Realist, I cannot deny that direct perception is the relationship between perceiver and perceived. However, for me the perceived is internal to the perceiver rather than external to the perceiver.
Many supporters of “Direct Realism” also place the perceived internal to the perceiver as intensional content rather than external to the perceiver as a mind-external object.
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Quoting Clarendon
This is the problem. How do you know that what you perceive is a mind-external object rather than intensional content, when the perception of a mind-external object will be identical to the perception of intensional content?
As you say:
If the genuine $10 note is identical to a forged $10 note, and the genuine $10 note satisfies your desire but the forged $10 does not, how do you know that one note is genuine and the other is a forgery?
How do you know you perceive a genuine note when the perception of a genuine note will be identical to the intensional content of a forged note?
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Quoting Clarendon
In the mind are desires and beliefs. As you say, only minds can desire something. Also, only minds can believe something.
Suppose the content of my desire, the intension of my desire, is a ship.
Suppose the content of my belief, the intension of my belief, is that there is a mind-external ship.
Then my desires and beliefs coincide, and can then act on them, such as moving a leg or raising an arm.
You have moved from a belief that there is a mind-external ship to knowing without doubt that there is a mind-external ship.
If your belief in a veridical mind-external ship is identical to your belief in an illusory or hallucinatory mind-external ship, on what grounds do you justify that your belief is veridical rather than illusory or hallucinatory?
You might argue that you not only see the ship, but you might also smell it, hear it, touch it and taste it. It is true that you can reinforce your belief that there is a mind-external ship using sensations through your five senses. But this not take away from the fact that sensations through your senses only exist in your mind. You may combine all these sensations through your senses and reason that there is a mind-external ship, but again, reason, as with belief and desire, only exists in the mind.
Ultimately, everything we know about any mind-external ship exists in the mind, meaning that there is only an indirect link from our mind to any mind-external object. This is why the concept of Indirect Realism is more satisfactory than Direct Realism, which ignores the fact that everything we know about any mind-external world can only come through our five senses, of necessity introducing an indirectness between the mind and any mind-external world.
Quoting RussellA
Yes, you can. But I don't know what you are actually seeing in your mind. I can only guess you are seeing same colour as when I see "red".
Quoting RussellA
Why do you call it "mind-independent"? Why is it not just a world?
Quoting RussellA
I am not in the language game, but I know what red colour means. I am not sure about "wave length 700nm". I know what it means, but I don't feel it is very meaningful to me unless I am working on some optical technology projects or studying clinical psychology. In daily life, no one will understand what you mean by wave length 700nm.
Quoting RussellA
I didn't mean I know the colour red by inductive reasoning. I meant that I know the alien will know colour red is same as wave length 700nm by reading the internet info. Because I have seen many folks acquire knowledge from the internet, and believe they are all true.
For knowing colour red as red is not reasoning. It is a direct perception and knowledge from the visual sensation.
Sure, I know what he means. But my point was that I don't know how other folks would perceive red post officebox, or wave length 700nm at all. All I know is that other folks perceive red, when they say that they see red. What is in their perception or mind, I have no clue whatsoever.
From inductive reasoning, under the same condition of lighting, and when the same red was seen by ordinary folks, it should appear the same red to all of them. Otherwise the traffic light system wouldn't work.
:100:
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Quoting Corvus
There is the world (Wikipedia - The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists) and within this world are minds. Whatever exists between these minds must be mind-independent.
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Quoting Corvus
Hopefully on this thread they do.
===========================
Quoting Corvus
:100:
These are two different claims:
1. The phenomenal character of experience is determined by distal objects
2. The phenomenal character of experience is determined by the direct presentation of distal objects
Direct realism, as defined in that article, asserts (2). The addition of "the direct presentation of" is important. It's the defining aspect of direct realism. (1) can be satisfied by a simple causal relationship, and is consistent with indirect realism (and even Kant's transcendental idealism, with the mind-independent nature of distal objects (noumena) being otherwise unknowable, entailing the exact kind of epistemological problems that direct (naive) realists are trying to avoid). (2) requires something more; something that indirect realists argue doesn't obtain.
The "direct presentation of" is a substantial claim about phenomenology, and requires a scientific study of the body, the brain, the environment, and phenomenal experience (whatever such a thing is, whether reducible to neurological phenomena, emergent non-physical phenomena, or something else). It cannot be deflated by a semantic analysis of English grammar.
Making sense of this "direct presentation of" is the trickier part, but I think two paraphrased assertions taken from here and here provide a starting point — as they are consistent with the direct (naive) realist's goal of avoiding epistemological problems:
a. There are in nature colours of a distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties ... not micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort
b. The character of your experience is explained by an actual instance of the apple's colour manifesting itself in phenomenal experience.
This, to me, seems to be arguing that there is a token identity between redness as a property of my phenomenal experience and redness as a mind-independent property of the apple.
But whatever so-called "colour" properties the apple has, they are not colours in the "intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative" sense (they are, at best, micro-structural reflectances), and nor do they manifest in phenomenal experience (they only causally determine phenomenal experience). So naive colour realism fails on both counts.
Redness as a property of phenomenal experience (which is an "intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative" property) is nothing like any of the apple's mind-independent properties (e.g. its molecular structure). If you don't like the grammar of saying that we see this redness then by all means don't, although I don't know how you then make sense of a sentence such as "some see a white and gold dress and some see a black and blue dress" because it's quite clear to me that in the context of this sentence the colour terms are referring to the phenomenal character of each person's experience (which differ between individuals) and not the pixels on the screen or the wavelengths of the light (which are the same for everyone). But that's a tangent to the philosophically (and scientifically) relevant point that (a) and (b) are both false.
Suppose, when the top light is illuminated, I perceive the colour green and you perceive the colour orange, will the traffic light system still work?
Why not, as long as we both know that when the top light is illuminated we stop.
The traffic light system will successfully operate regardless of whether the driver is an Indirect or Direct Realist.
This is a largely irrelevant semantic point but I don't think representation requires intention. If John and Jim are identical twins (or lookalikes) then I see no problem in saying that John's facial features are an accurate representation of Jim's facial features. It's not just a judgement we might make but also a (presumably) mind-independent geometric fact.
If you don't like the phrase "sensory content may or may not represent the environment" then perhaps the phrase "the sensory content's features (shape, size, distance, orientation, colour, etc.) may or may not resemble the environment's features".
The point I am making is that even if the environment has properties that resemble the properties that manifest in sensory experience, and even if English grammar describes the interaction between the body and the environment as "seeing the environment", if there is such a thing as sensory content distinct from the environment then it's still indirect realism. It is the features of this sensory content that inform our intellect and with which we make judgements about the environment, but given the distinction between this sensory content and the environment we cannot use sensory content alone to determine that it accurately resembles the environment (at best we can only determine that it is causally determined by the environment) leading to the exact epistemological problems that direct realists are trying to avoid — and in the extreme case to Kant's transcendental idealism.
We somehow need to "look past" sensory content to determine if it accurately resembles the environment. Some say that this is impossible in principle, whereas others say that modern technology has allowed us to do this, with such things as the Standard Model describing the mind-independent nature of the environment — but the picture of the world as described by the Standard Model (matter and energy as excitations of a quantum field) is very different to the world we are familiar with, proving, I think, that the original sceptical fears concerning the epistemological problem of perception were accurate.
I see what you are saying, but I would argue that indirect realism has traditionally claimed something a bit narrower than that. I don't think indirect realism follows from the mere fact that "something" mediates the connection between mind and world. It seems to also require that this "something" has the following characteristics:
(1) It [i]represents[/I] some aspect of the world
(2) It is itself the [I]direct object[/I] of perception
In other words, this "something" needs to act as an [I]epistemic[/I] intermediary rather than a merely [I]causal[/I] intermediary, irrespective of how that epistemic role is theoretically cashed-out (e.g. representation, resemblance or something else).
For my part, I would deny both (1) and (2). Inherent to my denial of (1) is the denial that sensory qualities as-such ("redness", "sweetness", "loudness") represent or resemble features of the world. I don't think they need to. Instead, I would say that sensory qualities simply need to provide enough data for the intellect to grasp the structures, patterns, unities and dependencies that exist in the world. These are [I]relational[/I] rather than qualitative, and the point is that the very same relations grasped by the intellect are instantiated in the world itself. That is my understanding of what it means for the mind to make direct contact with reality.
To push this a little farther, we could argue that this is what makes science possible. It enables us to accept that sensory qualities are not "out-there" in any naive sense while still maintaining that science has some theoretical purchase on the world.
It won't work at all, if the driver thinks that the red colour is in his mind, not in the traffic light. Because he thinks that the red colour is in his mind, he will not stop causing tragic accident.
The red light is always in the traffic light, not in the drivers' mind in reality. Hence indirect realists are wrong, and shouldn't be allowed to drive? :D
Doesn’t the fact that a driving licence makes no reference to the driver’s belief in either Indirect or Direct Realism show that an Indirect Realist (phenomenal experience is indirectly determined by mind-external objects) can function in ordinary life just as well as a Direct Realist (phenomenal experience is directly determined by mind-external objects).
So let's take the dress that some see to be white and gold and others black and blue. Let's simplify it for ease to a computer screen that some see to be red and some orange.
Do you accept that it is possible that all three of these statements are true:
1. John sees a red screen
2. Jane sees an orange screen
3. The screen emits only a single wavelength of light
I would say that it is possible that all three statements are true; the photo of the dress and the worldwide reaction to it suffices to prove this. So even though there is a sense in which John and Jane see the same thing (the screen) there's another sense in which they see different things (a red screen and an orange screen respectively).
In the context of (1), (2), and (3) all being true, it must be that the words "red" and "orange" are not referring to the wavelength of light emitted by the screen (which for the sake of argument I will say is 630nm, within what we would consider the "red" range). It is true that Jane sees an orange screen but it is not true that Jane sees a screen emitting a wavelength of light between 590nm and 620nm.
In the context of (1), (2), and (3) all being true, the words "red" and "orange" are referring to the phenomenal character of their experience. This phenomenal character is the "epistemic intermediary" from which they infer some mind-independent fact about the screen, with Jane (incorrectly) inferring that it is emitting a wavelength of light between 590nm and 620nm and John (correctly) inferring that it is emitting a wavelength of light between 625mn and 750nm.
Driving licenses are issued under the untold presumption that the drivers will think the colours of the traffic lights are in the traffic lights, not in the drivers mind. Indirect or Direct realism doesn't come to the issue.
They're issued because someone was convinced this person behaves safely in a car, not because of metaphysical reasons about where they think perception happens or where colours exist.
On the view I’m defending, "phenomenal character" is not what John or Jane are making inferences about. Phenomenal character does not assert anything about wavelengths, nor does it justify any belief. What does the epistemic work is their background understanding of light, screens, and illumination conditions, together with a judgment about what is the case. Jane’s mistake is not located in her sensory experience - it is located in a false judgment about wavelength.
If phenomenal character were itself an epistemic intermediary, then error would have to be traced back to it as being inaccurate or misleading. But in your own example, nothing is wrong with the experience as such; what is wrong is the judgment made on its basis. That’s exactly why I resist treating phenomenal character as representational in the epistemic sense. It conditions inquiry, but it is not what our judgments are about.
I agree; they are making inferences about something in their environment. But they are using the phenomenal character of their experience to make this inference, much like someone might use a thermometer to make an inference about the temperature of a pot of water. If this isn't what you mean by "epistemic intermediary" then I don't really know what you mean by the term, and I'd argue that whatever you mean isn't a requirement for indirect realism to be true.
To put it in overly simple terms, the epistemic question that gave rise to the dispute between direct and indirect realism is "can we trust that the world is as it appears?", with direct realists answering in the affirmative and indirect realists answering in the negative.
To refer back to and extend my post to Banno above, the naive colour realist justifies their affirmation of the epistemic question by arguing that:
P1. Colours as manifested in phenomenal experience are of a distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties
P2. The character of phenomenal experience is explained by an actual instance of the apple's colour manifesting itself in phenomenal experience
C1. Therefore, apples are coloured in the distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties (... not to be conflated with micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort)
Both the direct and indirect realist believe P1. The direct realist believes P2, and so deduces C1. The indirect realist rejects P2, and so cannot deduce C1, legitimising scepticism about the mind-independent nature of the world (i.e. C1 might be false).
So direct realism is true if and only if P2 is true and indirect realism is true if and only if P2 is false. My comments regarding resemblance or representation were just to say that indirect realism can be true even if C1 is true, although if modern science is to be accepted then it's clear that C1 is false, and so P2 must be false (hence why the Wikipedia article says "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception").
In a traffic light what is important is as much the relationship between the lights, top, middle, bottom, as the colours of the lights, red, amber, green. The rule to stop if the top light is on is as useful to the driver as the rule to stop when the red light is on. Perhaps more useful, as even if some people may not be able to distinguish red from green they are unlikely not to be able to distinguish top from bottom.
Our judgements are often based more on the relations between things than the things themselves. The sun is hotter than the Earth, a car is larger than a bicycle, an apple is sweeter than an avocado, a mountain is heavier than a hill, etc.
If there were no relations of any kind between our perceptions we would be unable to make any judgements. For example, spatial relations, temporal relations, causal relations, relations of colour, relations of texture, relations of sound, etc.
Causal relations are central in our judgements about our perceptions. Mary Shepherd 1777 to 1847 developed this idea as part of her Structural Realism. As an Indirect Realist, she justified her belief in realism through an “inference to the best explanation”, accepting that we are denied direct sensory access to mind-external objects. From observations about our sensibilities we can reason about causal relations within any external world. Not only causal relations within such an external world, such that when the wind blows a tree moves, but also causal relations between an external world and us, such as when the wind blows we feel the sensation of coolness.
In Structural Realism, the Indirect Realist makes judgements as much from relata as from relatum.
(Edit) In a similar vein, in linguistics, closely related to both Indirect Realism and Semantic Direct Realism, Jacques Derrida developed the concept of "différance", which explored how meaning comes from the relationship between signs, as much as the signs themselves (Wikipedia, Jacques Derrida). Using reason, we can discover meaning from the relationships within our sensibilities.
That’s why I don’t think the epistemic question is “can we trust that the world is as it appears?” Appearances don’t make claims, so they aren’t candidates for trust or distrust. Judgments make claims. Error and skepticism arise at the level of judgment, not at the level of experience as such.
For that reason, I don’t accept the biconditional tying direct realism to P2. My view doesn’t require that phenomenal character be explained by an object’s qualitative property manifesting itself in experience. What matters for my approach to realism is that the intelligible structures grasped in understanding and affirmed in judgment are the very structures instantiated in the world. Once that is in place, rejecting P2 doesn’t entail indirect realism - it entails the rejection of a particular kind of direct realism that is based on (what I consider to be) a faulty account of how experience secures knowledge.
In other words, I'm rejecting one of the key assumptions that the traditional dilemma is based on.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
These are not contradictory positions.
It is both the case that (a) the phenomenal character of experience is not truth-apt and the case that (b) we use the phenomenal character of experience to make inferences about the environment. (b) is exactly what John and Jane do in the example I gave; their assertions about the wavelength of light emitted by the screen are not made apropos of nothing — they derive their conclusion from the phenomenal character of their experience (coupled with their knowledge of the wavelengths of light that are usually responsible for such an experience).
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
But the naive realist does make this claim, and it is this claim that indirect realists reject. The naive realist believes that the phenomenal character of experience isn't just the phenomenal character of experience but also the phenomenal character of the environment. They believe that "there are in nature colors, of a distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e., that colors are simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties ... not micro-structural properties or reflectances" and that our colour perception is veridical if and only if the phenomenal character of our experience is the same as the phenomenal character of the environment.
And I can sympathise with this naive view. It's tempting to imagine the world as literally being coloured in the exact same way that my experience is coloured (i.e. not just in the sense of reflecting certain wavelengths of light). I think even the non-naive realist thinks something similar with respect to geometry, i.e. shape, size, distance, orientation, etc.
But at least with respect to colour (and other secondary qualities, à la Locke), the world just isn't this way. Any inference about the mind-independent nature of the world from these secondary qualities is open to scepticism. That's really all there is to indirect realism. Often this goes hand-in-hand with the semantic claim that it's appropriate to say that we see and hear and feel and taste and smell these secondary qualities — something which those like Banno seem to object to — but I don't see this as philosophically relevant (e.g. this grammar doesn't entail anything like a homunculus).
Am I to take this in a purely analytic way? That is, are we speaking in tautologies and not of metaphysics at all, meaning you are saying nothing about how eyes works, brains work, or perceptions occur, but we are involved in wordplay, grammar, and usage?
I say this because there is a reading to what you say that leaves us with a whole lot of nothing. There are two things here: (1) seeing and (2) objects. If you say that you can only "see" "objects," then should I have a phenomenal state of something that is not contained in the object, then what I'm doing is not "seeing," but it's something else (perhaps hallucinating).
So, should I have a phenomenal state of a ship, but there is no ship, I don't "see" the ship (as object). If I see a blur of what is a is far out at sea, I don't "see" a ship to the extent that blur is not a ship (but is instead a distortion). What that means then is by definition the ship I see is the ship because if it's in variance from the object, I am not seeing the ship.
And then the million dollar question: Is the perception I have the actual ship that is? Well, what is isn't part of this analytic inquiry. What "is" is the topic of metaphysics and cannot be spoken about. What this means is that the ship you see is the ship by tautology, but it does not mean to say the ship is precisely what it is within your phenomenal state.
To the extent you debate someone who claims certain objects have certain properties independent of perception and that certain properties are imposed upon objects by the subject, you miss your own point. You can't argue with a metaphysician or even a scientist for that matter, or at least if you do, it's all irrelevant. You're arguing grammar.
This is not to say that it's folly to engage in the scientific inquiry of figuring out which parts of the ship are attributable only to the imagination and which react to external stimuli, but it is to say that that isn't what you're talking about.
Arguing that schizophrenics don't hear voices, only hallucinate voices, is such a pointless argument that fails to address the actual philosophical substance of both direct and indirect realism. The phrase "the schizophrenic hears voices and sees faces in the walls" is a perfectly ordinary and acceptable phrase in the English language; it is meaningful, true, and does not entail anything like a homunculus.
This attempt to avoid the important phenomenological and epistemological issues by deferring to grammar or the dictionary, splitting hairs over the "one true" meaning of the verbs "see" and "hear", is hopelessly misguided.
You might want to use the phrase "I see X" only if there's the right kind of physical interaction between your body and some distal X, whereas others might want to use the phrase "I see X" whenever their visual cortex is active in the right kind of way, regardless of what, if any, distal causes there are. Even if it were a misuse of language to use the phrase "I see X" in this latter way, it does not follow that direct realism is true and indirect realism is false, because their dispute is far more significant (explained in my previous comment) than a dispute over which kinds of events are described by the phrase "I see X" in ordinary, everyday language.
And "I see X" ought not be conflated with "I directly see X". The philosophical term "directly" matters. Indirectly seeing distal objects is still seeing distal objects. So you appear to be guilty of equivocation in arguing that if you see the ship then you directly see the ship.
But I think that's the ultimate point of analytic philosophy, which is to make every statement ultimately analytic and not synthetic. It intentionally leaves all metaphysical discussion off limits because the grammar must relate to word usage itself and not to what is out there in the world. It's not to say there aren't things in the world, but it's that dividing the world into what actually is and what is discussed is a category error.
All of your commentary about how words have varying meaning (like "directly" and "indirectly") are true, but those modifiers gain their distinction by usage variation and not metaphysical referent.
I'm not saying I agree with it. I just think it's an internally coherent system that is meant not to offer an explanation of reality, but it's to cure us of the circles we argue looking for what's out there (i.e. therapuetic).
Quoting Hanover
That million dollar question is a fraud, one that pretends to a difference between the ship and the actual ship.
We can track some of the errors here. The most obvious is the move from "There is a phenomenal state" (a constipated way of saying "I see something") to "There is something that is seen". The argument is that naively, when we see a ship, there is a ship, so when we hallucinate a ship, there must be a thing that is hallucinated; and so philosophers invent the "mental image" as a reification of the hallucination. But of course what we have in an hallucination is not seeing any thing - the things hallucinated are of course not there. Talking as if there were a thing that is seen in an hallucination is a mistake.
It's worth noting that what marks an hallucination most clearly is that others do not see what the hallucinator sees. Hallucination is social. This is particularly important because in an hallucination there is nothing to fix truth; and that's were the "blur" example you give falls. You suggest Quoting Hanover
But if there is a ship, then you see the ship as a blur. Those on board will hopefully have a clearer view, as perhaps will the person next to you who did not forget their glasses. Again, the problem with phenomenology is the presumption of solitude. And indeed, that solitude is a variation on the homunculus, siting inside your head looking out, requiring an inner “viewer” who reintroduces the very subject–object split under dispute.
Those last two paragraphs don't make much sense to me. I think you are attributing a view that I do not hold.
So again, what is rejected here is the picture of an epistemic test layered on top of a private state that phenomenology takes as granted. What is suggested instead is an interaction between world and word, language games embedded in a community.
Now Hanover, I think you know this stuff. I suspect you agree with me, but find it more fun to disagree. As do I.
Of course. They hear hallucinated voices. If we ask those around them if they hear the voices, how do they answer? It is the mark of the misfire implicit in an hallucination, that there are others who do not participate. The appeal here is not to "one true" meaning, it's to the difference that makes an hallucination worthy of note. It is remarkable that the voice is heard only by the hallucinator.
Quoting Michael
Not quite. Rather we can make the observation that this is the typical situation, against which we note the exceptions. The exception can occur only against this background.
Again, the salient difference is that a direct realist sees ships, while an indirect realist never can. That in itself should be enough to show that the indirect realist has gone astray.
No. It's rather to take our words seriously, and try to use them consistently. To do metaphysic properly.
Anyway, is as analytic as they come. His method and mine correlate nicely.
We are only discussing driving license and traffic lights because you seem to think sometimes red colour exists in your mind. Hence I gave inductive reason how the license is issued to only to people who have normal mind set and normal perception. If the DVLC doubts that the person has not normal perception capability and normal mind, then they will not issue the license.
For traffic lights, people must be able to perceive red light as red, and green light as green. It must be direct perception. You don't have time to judge going through the relationship between the lights, and figure out which light must be top or bottom of which light.
Judgement to drive or stop the car can be made instantly from direct perception of the colour of the lights and reflex system in the brain with no thought process involved.
Let me push this a little further. I would argue that not only is phenomenal experience not truth-apt, it is not even conceptually articulated. Raw phenomenal character — redness as-seen, loudness as-heard, sourness as-tasted — is not the kind of thing that can directly participate in inferential relations, whether to ground them or otherwise. Inference requires intelligible, conceptual content. Phenomenal qualities can only figure in inference once they have been conceptualized through an act of reflexive understanding, but the resulting conceptualization is not identical with the phenomenal qualities themselves.
Once phenomenal experience has been conceptualized, we can make judgments about it (e.g. “there is a red patch in my visual field right now”). These judgments can participate in inferential relations, but at no point do phenomenal qualities themselves participate in inference. So you are right that John’s and Jane’s assertions are not made apropos of nothing, but it is not correct to say that they derive their conclusions directly from the phenomenal character of their experience. Phenomenal experience can condition and constrain the formation of judgments in a causal and heuristic sense, and judgments about phenomenal experience can certainly play a justificatory or explanatory role within reasoning — but that is not the same thing as phenomenal experience itself functioning inferentially.
Quoting Michael
I agree that color does not exist “out there” in the way the naïve realist insists, and in that sense I do not count myself among their number. I do consider myself a kind of direct realist, but only in the broader sense I’ve described in previous replies.
Quoting Michael
I don’t agree that this is all there is to indirect realism. Aside from the two required characteristics I pointed out in a previous post, I would also say your framing above seems to assume that our knowledge of the world is inferred from phenomenal character, as though phenomenal experience — or judgments about it — provides a justificatory foundation for all other knowledge. That is one of the assumptions I’m pushing back on. Phenomenal experience is not the kind of thing that can play a justificatory role, and even judgments about phenomenal experience are not epistemic bedrock.
Indirect realism, as you are presenting it, seems to depend on the idea that knowledge of the world is justified by first securing knowledge of phenomenal character and then inferring outward. Once that picture is abandoned — once experience is seen as conditioning inquiry rather than grounding justification — the skeptical pressure you associate with secondary qualities never arises.
What you here call judgement corresponds closely to what I might call intent. Putting the case far too briefly, I'd draw on Anselm's distinction between directions of fit, pointing out that we stipulate what things are in order to allow for our talking about them. This counts as a ship, while that counts as a tree.
I quite agree with your last paragraph.
I also take your point about “judgment” lining up closely with what you call intent. In both cases, what matters is that we’re talking about norm-governed, world-directed acts rather than inner episodes. The Anselmian point about direction of fit seems especially apt here: judgment isn’t a matter of mirroring appearances but of committing oneself to how things are.
As you might have guessed, while I agree that our classificatory practices (“this counts as a ship”) are indispensable for discourse I’d also want to say that such judgments are not merely stipulative. But on the main point — that skepticism doesn’t arise from rejecting phenomenal foundations — it sounds like we’re very much on the same page.
Of course, "counts as" is not merely stipulative, either, in that not just any stipulation will do. So perhaps we agree there, too.
Seeing red from the traffic light, and stopping is a similar type of perception and judgment / action, as getting pinched on your cheek by your wife, and screaming "ouch" from the pain. It doesn't involve any thought process, reasoning or relationships.
Where does the colour red exist
Within the language game of our community, the top light of a traffic light has been named “red”. Therefore, when I see the top light and perceive a colour, the name of the colour I perceive is “red”. Similarly, when you see the top light and perceive a colour, the name of the colour you perceive is also “red”.
But as you said:
We agree that the colour we both perceive has the name “red”, even if the colour I perceive in my mind is not the same colour as you perceive in your mind.
That we both use the same name “red” when seeing the same thing makes us normal members of our linguistic community.
Indirect Realism and Epistemic Structural Realism
It should be remembered that the name “red” includes wavelengths from 625nm to 750nm, meaning that there are an infinite number of shades of the colour “red”. So when we perceive a colour in our mind that has been named “red”, we are perceiving only one particular instantiation of an infinite number of possible shades of “red”.
It should also be remembered that in order to be able to say “I see the colour red”, we must have previously learnt the concept “red” by taking part in our community's language game.
Henceforth, when we perceive a particular instantiation of a colour in our mind, and already know the concept under which that colour falls, we can then talk about “the colour red”.
Indirect Realism avoids scepticism about a mind-external world by “inference to the best explanation” within the broader topic of Epistemic Structural Realism (ESR). Judgements about any possible mind-external world are thereby based not only on the perception of a particular instantiation of colour in the mind, but also on knowing that this particular instantiation of colour falls under the concept that has the public name “red”.
Similarly, we can talk about “ships” within a public language because not only are we able to think about a particular instantiation of a ship but also know that this particular instantiation of ship falls under the concept that has the public name “ship”.
The Indirect Realist can make judgments about a mind-external world using “inference to the best explanation” within Epistemic Structural Realism. These judgments are based not only on perceptions in the mind of particular instantiations but also on knowing the public linguistic concept that these particular instantiations fall under.
I have had to learn that “red” on a traffic light means “stop”. Once I have learnt that “red” on a traffic light means “stop”, and have driven often, then, yes, stopping may require minimum thought or reasoning.
The meaning of a symbol has to be learnt.
Our linguistic community must have stipulated that “red” on a traffic light means “stop” before we know we have to stop at a "red" traffic light.
Similarly our linguistic community must have stipulated that a particular set of shapes and colours perceived in the mind represent a “ship” before we are able to talk about "ships".
IE, when we talk about “ships” we are referring to a particular set of shapes and colours perceived in the mind, not something mind-external.
We can then extend what we perceive in the mind to a mind-external world using “inference to the best explanation”.
I don't agree with this approach because it delves into metaphysics. I'm fine with the idea that it makes no sense to speak of ships and actual ships as if they are different entities, but that has to do with grammar and the rules of language, not the ships out there versus the ships in my head. To commit to the idea that there aren't distinctions between what I see as the ship and what the ship is like out at sea is just as problematic as to say there are distinctions. You're speaking of what is "real," and that is just an off limits conversation if we wish to remain clear.Quoting Banno
What fixes truth is the consistency of usage of the term "ship" and "hallucinate." That you might see X (the beetle) in your brain that you associate as "ship" is entirely irrelevant for the analysis as long as the use remains consistent. That is, I push back on your comment above to the extent you see the distinction between the hallucination and the ship is one of difference in referent. It's not that I see an actual ship and you just see something weird going on in your head that distinguishes the hallucination from the ship. It's that no one else uses the word "ship" the same way the hallucinator uses the word when he does. I don't care why the problem is happening. That's a question for neurlogists and metaphysicians, not philosophers.Quoting Banno
My point is that there is no need to get into the weeds discussing how our brains work, how our retina receives light waves, how the optic nerve transmits information to our brains. To enter that debate forgets the category errror of combining philosophy with neurology. The reason the ship you see is the ship that there is is because our language designates it as such. That's how we use words. Once I enter the debate about how physics affects perception, I've left the field of philosophy.
Quoting Banno
Metaphysics is not properly done. Metaphysics asks about the beetle.
Quoting Banno
I'm just trying to argue straight Wittgenstein, more out of my attempt to just understand Wittgenstein. I do realize you're not locked into that limited of an exploration.
What I actually believe? I believe our consciousness and how we have perception is entirely unexplainable. Whether there is a ship at all consistent at sea with what we perceive is unknowable and meaningless. What a ship would look like without eyes that impose eye like properties on it makes zero sense. We interact in our world and have no reason to question whether there really is a world or whether there is an external stimulus providing us perceptions. Descartes concluded that an all perfect God wouldn't deceive us, which is just to say we take it as a most fundamental proposition that the ship at sea actually exists in some capacity and that it makes sense to say we see it clearer and less clear, consistent with how it actually is. To say the ship really is just what we see isn't how we think of things. We think of perceptions as possibly inaccurate and we do accept that we might be hallucinating things. We also think of the ship as being what we see as opposed to the breeze that passes us by that lets us know there was a ship, but that's just how we think about things. We have no reason to conclude that is correct outside of pragmatism or faith.
The other solution is quietism, which is to drop out the beetle as irrelavant for our immediate conversation. I think there's merit to that, although it's entirely unsatisfactory, which then takes me to the mystical, which is where all this metaphysical stuff belongs. And from there I go down a very theistic path that no one is interested in, except for me to say I find value in locating where the edges of our philosophical knowledge can take us, which is the beetle, the mystery.
It sounds like Indirect Realists are imagining that because they are IRists, things must exist inside their minds, when it is just memory, imagination and thinking about the objects in their head. The external objects such as chairs, tables, cars and postbox and colour of reds don't exist in your mind. You are just thinking, imagining and remembering about them.
I am not sure if Indirect Realism is a meaningful thing. We see the real objects in front of us, and interact with, access and use them. When we think, imagine and remember them, when the objects are not present in front of us, we are just imagining, remembering and thinking about them.
Yes, we have learnt our language from the early age, and can communicate our minds with others. That is all we have. We don't have access to any others' mind apart from our own. I know you are seeing red, because you said you are seeing red. What type of red, or how bright or dark red, I don't know. I could listen to your further explanation on what type of red you are seeing, and try to imagine what you are seeing. But it would be my own imagination of red I will be seeing in my mind, not yours ever.
You see the colour red. You feel a burning pain.
You don’t think that the burning pain exists outside of a mind. Why do you think that the colour red exists outside of a mind?
What exists outside of a mind is the cause of a burning pain in your mind, which is not a burning pain.
Similarly, what exists outside of a mind is the cause of the colour red, which is not the colour red.
==========================================================================
Quoting Corvus
You know that I am seeing the colour red, because I say I am seeing the colour red. You know that I am feeling a burning pain, because I say I am feeling a burning pain
How do you know that I am telling the truth? How do you know what is in my mind?
The burning pain and colour red are totally different things. The pain is your feeling, but the colour red is in the space out there. The perception of the colour red in your mind is your judgement, nothing to do with the colour red out there in the space.
Quoting RussellA
I don't know what is in your mind, but I can understand what you are saying. You are seeing the red. You are feeling a burning pain. It could be true or it could be a lie. But that is a different topic.
Pain is a feeling. As you say, when I feel pain, I don’t need to think about it for a while and judge that I feel pain.
Are you saying that when you see the colour red you have to think about it for a while and then make the judgement that you are seeing red rather than green, for example.
This is different to naming your feelings, which does require a judgement.
I would have thought they neither seeing a red colour nor feeling a burning pain require any judgement. Both seeing the colour red and feeling a burning pain must be immediate feelings and not judgements.
If that is the case, and both are feelings, why should one feeling, burning pain, not exist in the external world yet another feeling, the colour red, does exist in an external world?
Put another way, if you believe that the colour red exists in the external world outside the mind, then how do you know that a burning pain does not exist in the external world outside the mind?
Judgement can be made instantly when seeing the red. You don't require thinking to make the judgement. There are different types of judgements. If you are a judge for dancing competition, maybe you need time to think to judge who was the best competitor.
However, if you are seeing the red from the traffic light, then you don't need thought to judge it is red, hence you must stop. This type of judgement is made instantly, because it is a judgement on the simplest direct perception which you have been accustomed to for many years.
You know this by your instinct. It is obvious. The red is in the traffic light out in the street. The burning pain is on your body, and you feel the pain in your brain.
Yes, and hallucinated voices are mental phenomena. Ergo, the thing being heard is a mental phenomenon.
The Common Kind Claim is that this sense of hearing voices also occurs in the non-hallucinatory case, i.e. in the non-hallucinatory case there is both hearing voices-as-mental-phenomena and hearing voices-as-distal-stimulus.
The indirect realist claims that it is only hearing voices-as-mental-phenomena that satisfies the philosophical sense of directness (as explained here) and that it is only in virtue of this that hearing voices-as-distal-stimulus is possible — hence the latter being indirect perception.
Then perhaps I haven't explained myself clearly, because indirect realism argues that because perception of the world is not direct (i.e. its features do not manifest in phenomenal experience) phenomenal experience doesn't justify our knowledge of the mind-independent nature of the world, hence there being an epistemological problem of perception.
I think we can distinguish between an indirect realist who claims that it is impossible for a perceiver to perceive anything other than their own mental states and one who acknowledges that it is perfectly possible for a perceiver to perceive mind-external objects but that, in fact, this never happens in reality.
Of the first kind of indirect realist, they will have to deny my claim that we can perceive mind external objects directly. I think they can't, consistently, deny this - their view is untenable imo - for by their own lights they must acknowledge that perceivers can directly perceive their own mental states (and once this is acknowledged, I see no reason to deny that a perceiver cannot directly perceive states of mind-external things either). But, though I can see no grounds upon which they could do so rationally, they would have to deny that part of my view.
The second kind of direct realist can accept everything I have said and would only be denying that we ever actually do perceive mind-external objects. But that view seems epistemically untenable. Their reasoning is, I think, just plain bad. They are reasoning from the existence of forgeries of banknotes to the conclusion that therefore all banknotes are forgeries. Their rejection of the idea that we often directly perceive the external world would be an article of faith, not a conclusion one could reasonably arrive at.
So yes, because I make use of mental imagery to explain the bad cases, I am making use of what the indirect realist thinks all cases involve. But there is, I think, no metaphysical or epistemic problem in positing mental imagery - the problems come from what one thinks such imagery can do or how big a role one thinks it plays. And it's there that the indirect realist seems to be holding extreme and irrational views.
My understanding is that, traditionally, indirect realism has held that phenomenal experience (1) does not justify our knowledge because (2) it functions as an inaccurate representation of the world and (3) the rest of our knowledge is inferred from it. From this, (4) the problem of skepticism arises.
I accept (1) but reject (2), (3) and (4), so I wouldn't classify my view as indirect realism.
By contrast, my view is that phenomenal experience does not justify our knowledge because it does not function as a representation of the world at all. As a result, our knowledge is not inferred from it, and the skeptical problem you've described does not arise.
Yesterday I wrote at length arguing that this was an error.
Quoting Banno
That's good, because I hope there are no ships in your head. What little metaphysics I am indulging claims that there are things such as ships, and that we can talk and think about them. I'd hope for agreement on at least this.
Quoting Hanover
The hallucination of a ship has no referent, if our domain is ships and such. This is not a difference between the objects seen, since the hallucinator, by the very fact that they are hallucinating, does not see some thing; they have the hallucination of seeing something. That's kinda what hallucinations are.
Quoting Hanover
Yep. It's a point about how we talk consistently on these topics - that is, a conceptual, philosophical issue. The indirect realist invents something to be the thing the hallucinator sees, and that is their error. The direct realist points out that the hallucinator only thinks they see something.
Quoting Hanover
The idea of a Mental image must surely be anathema to someone who has an understanding of the private language argument. What marks an hallucination is how it differs from the usual circumstances. Austin is better here, going into sense and sensibilia in some detail. And not incompatible with Wittgenstein.
Quoting Hanover
This, and the stuff around it, seems also incompatible with Wittgenstein. There's a ship if the ship has a place in our language games. There's a ship if there is a ship in the domain of discourse. What remains unclear is the nature of that ship. Our perceptions here have a place in our language games, but do not underpin it in the way that (naive?) phenomenology supposes. And it's not here being argued that the ship is exactly as we see it - that would still be sticking to the phenomenalist picture. Of course we might be in error - and poignantly, that would be to be an error about the ship, not about some phantasmic mental-image-of-ship.
Quoting Hanover
...ok...
Quoting Hanover
Ok. I had suspected this. Thanks for being candid.
:100:
I'll copy the argument from Epistemological Problems of Perception:
1. Nothing is ever directly present to the mind in perception except perceptual appearances. (Indirectness Principle) Thus:
2. Without a good reason for thinking perceptual appearances are veridical, we are not justified in our perceptual beliefs. (Metaevidential Principle)
3. We have no good reason for thinking perceptual appearances are veridical. (No-Good-Reason Claim)
4. Therefore, we are not justified in our perceptual beliefs.
The most minimal version of indirect realism is simply an acceptance of (1), where "directly present" is a substantial claim about phenomenology.
The more skeptical indirect realists may also accept (3), and so (4), although strictly speaking they can reject (3), e.g. if they agree with the naive colour realist that colours exist "out there" but disagree that these are ever directly present to the mind (the distinction I made in earlier posts between token and type identity).
And direct realists, in their attempt to argue that (4) is false, argue that (1) is false.
I may have a phenomenal experience, which is a singular, specific and particular experience. Some call it a “qualia”, which may or may not be a useful term.
I may perceive a red circle, and this red circle may represent stop, where red, circle and stop are all concepts. Only a set of concepts may represent another concept.
As a phenomenal experience is not a concept it cannot represent anything, whether accurately or inaccurately.
The problem is that you are using your definition of "I see X" (such that it is true only if X is a real object in the environment) to (mis-)interpret their claim "I see mental phenomena" (and is why your accusation that indirect realism entails an homunculus is a strawman).
The indirect realist might argue that "I see X" just describes the visual cortex being active in the right kind of way, regardless of what the eyes are doing or what distal objects exist, and so I see things when I have visual hallucinations and hear things when I have auditory hallucinations (and don't see or hear anything if I have brain damage but otherwise functional eyes and ears). This is an ordinary use of English vocabulary.
And the things I see and hear when I hallucinate have properties that can be described, such as their colour, and is how we distinguish between hallucinating one thing and hallucinating something else. Given that there is no real object in the environment when I hallucinate, the colours I see when I hallucinate are not microstructural properties of something's surface, or wavelengths of light, or anything of the sort; the colours I see when I hallucinate are mental phenomena, and it is acceptable to say that I see these colours.
Nor does it match how native English speakers use the word seeing. People suffering from psychosis may see things that aren't there. That's a completely normal sentence in English. Seeing is the experience, not the stuff out there.
In fact the colloquial phrase to say that you're experiencing hallucinations is to say "I'm seeing things".
In other words, given your explanation of indistinguishability, mental imagery is sufficient to explain the phenomenal character in the hallucination case, and the presence of an external object makes no difference to that phenomenal character in the veridical case. That is what gives the indirect realist a foothold: they can accept everything you say while treating the external object as explanatorily superfluous with respect to phenomenal experience.
I don’t accept (1), but not because I think mind-external objects are phenomenally present. Rather, I reject the assumption that perceptual justification must be grounded in phenomenology in the first place. Directness, on my view, concerns what our judgments are about, not what appears in experience.
So I’m not accepting the Indirectness Principle; I’m rejecting the framing in which it is formulated. That’s why I don’t see my position as either naïve realism or indirect realism as characterized here.
Something is in my head, where "thing" is not meant to suggest physical, or not. It's like asking what's in the box. Is it a beetle, smoke, empty? The point is that it doesn't matter.
Quoting Banno
I don't see why words with referents are to be treated differently than words without as long as both have publicly confirmable rules. The metaphysical constitution of the referent remains irrelevant.Quoting Banno
This statement feels like an over committment of what Wittgenstein is trying to say. There are mental images per Witt. The PLA problem arises if you try to establish meaning of the term based upon that image without correlating it to use.
We have mental images under any scenario. Wittgenstein can't deny reality, admit reality, do anything with reality. He's a grammarian. It's what we can talk about, not what is.
Quoting Banno
Yes, I picked up on the move away from Wittgenstein and (not coincidentally) just ordered Sense and Sensibilia prior to this post. It was clear your explicit discussion of metaphysics was motivated by something and I figured Austin or Putnam based upon your other references. But this is clearly not Wittgenstein (to the extent clear and Wittgenstein go in the same sentence).
Very generally I see this as just another iteration of the dualism problem, as in how can we figure out to fit minds and bodies within the same system. Witt doesn't eliminate the mind (like a materialist), but he just says it's not something we can rely upon for understanding meaning. Austin, as I take it, is trying to find a way to put his toe in the water by allowing us to do some metaphysics without running into the problems shown by the PLA. But, I don't know, my copy of his book hasn't yet arrived.
Yes, in this respect, your position and that of the Indirect Realist is the same, in that phenomenal experience is non-conceptual and therefore cannot represent the world at all.
The Indirect Realist avoids external world scepticism by deriving concepts based on consistencies in these phenomenal experiences. Using these concepts, which can represent, the Indirect Realist can then rationally employ "inference to the best explanation” to draw conclusions about an external world causing these phenomenal experiences.
Your view seems to reject the representational aspect while still treating experience as epistemically primary, whereas I would want to reject both.
But direct (naive) and indirect realism, as traditionally understood, are concerned with what sorts of things are phenomenally present to the mind (and the epistemological implications). That's the nature of their disagreement.
I've addressed this elsewhere, but I think part of the problem here is that there are newer brands of "direct realism" that, in adopting the term "direct realism" to mean something else, have fabricated a dispute with indirect realists that isn't really there. Indirect realists aren't necessarily in conflict with every position that calls itself "direct realism". We need to look past superficial labels to the substance of the claims made.
An article I often refer to in these discussions is Semantic Direct Realism:
Yes, and I’ve acknowledged that. I’ve also acknowledged that my own view does not count as traditional naïve realism. My point is that it does not count as traditional indirect realism either.
Quoting Michael
I agree that these other views don’t adhere to the traditional rendering, but that doesn’t mean their disputes with indirect realism are fabricated. Rather, they reject a set of core assumptions that have often driven both direct and indirect realism as traditionally understood, such as:
(1) Sensory content is the direct object of perception
(2) Sensory content misrepresents the world
(3) Knowledge of the world is inferred from sensory content
(4) (Therefore) our knowledge of the world is deeply uncertain
These are all claims that have come up in this discussion, and my responses have simply been directed at those assumptions as they’ve arisen.
If the thing one sees is only ever "the visual cortex being active in the right kind of way" then we would have no basis for agreeing that there is a ship. If what one really sees is always private — cortex states, sense-data, whatever — then nothing in experience can fix reference to a public object. Memory deception, constant change, or cortical activity all make no difference: there is still no criterion for this rather than that object.
Quoting Hanover
Same. There is not path with which we might triangulate our beetles.
I didn't say only ever. I explicitly said here that "in the non-hallucinatory case there is both hearing voices-as-mental-phenomena and hearing voices-as-distal-stimulus", with the former satisfying the philosophical notion of directness — as explained here — and the latter not.
Quoting Banno
I object to this use of the word "really". It's a weasel word, as you said. The proper phrase in the context of this discussion is "directly see" — again, as explained here.
And we don't need to directly see something to "fix reference" to it. You and I can both talk about Napoleon.
Quoting Hanover
It would be odd to read what has been said here as denying reality. Far from it. Indeed, it seems to be indirect realism that cannot tell the real ship from the hallucination, since both are mere phenomena.
Yes, this relates to the mind-body problem - well diagnosed. The indirect realist accepts the dualism of mind and world, and then finds that they can't explain how a mind sees things in the world - the congenital problem of dualism. Their solution is to invent a "something" that is what we see, but which is in the mind, not in the world. Of course this does not help them, since they now have to explain how the "something" comes about, usually by handwaving at physiology.
A better approach might be to think of mind as a process embedded in the world, and seeing as something minds do.
Enjoy Austin.
Pretty ad hoc. Now we have both direct and indirect perception happening in the same individual for the same event.
Quoting Michael
So do I. Take it out, if you like. If what one sees is always private — cortex states, sense-data, whatever — then nothing in experience can fix reference to a public object.
The objection stands. Quoting Michael
That's exactly right. We can talk about Napoleon because there is more to him than the firing of neutrons. He is not an hallucination.
The parsimony claim seems unjustified given that mental imagery plausibly exists whatever one's view about perception. A plausible worldview should have to make room for it regardless of what it says about perception. If the indirect realist tries to run a parsimony argument, they really do seem to be arguing that anyone who acknowledges that fake banknotes exist, should then - on grounds of parsimony - accept that all banknotes are fake. But that seems a misuse of the parsimony principle.
Even taken on its own terms, however, the indirect realist seems to be the one who is guilty of positing more than is necessary. For on my view in the good cases we have a perceiver and a mind-external object some of whose properties are being directly perceived, whereas in the bad cases we have a perceiver and mind-internal states that are being directly perceived (whose origin nevertheless lies in mind-external states). So the more complicated case is the hallucination one - as that has mind-external objects that have - at some point - created in the perceiver a mental image that has then become the object of perception. The indirect realist, in supposing this always to be the case, is then making the more complicated case the norm. That violates the principle of parsimony it seems to me.
For an analogy: sometimes events are overdetermined. I put on two alarm clocks set for the same time and both go off together waking me up at the same time. My waking up at that time was overdetermined, for it was sufficient for just one to go off for me to be woken up. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be a proper use of the principle of parsimony to insist that just one woke me up - no, both did on this occasion, for sometimes events are overdetermined. However, it would violate the principle of parsimony to suppose that as some events are overdetermined, they all are. For that would then by to systematically propose two causes when one would normally do. It seems that this is what the indirect realist is doing though - we do sometimes hallucinate and, I think, the best explanation of what is going on in such cases (an explanation the indirect realist buys, of course) is that we're perceiving mere mental images. But to then move to 'therefore that's what is always happening' seems no different, from the perspective of reasoning about reality anyway, to inferring from the fact some events are clearly overdetermined to the conclusion that all of them are.
So yes, I think the indirect realist might try and argue from considerations of parsimony to their indirect realist conclusion, but it's hard - hard for me, anyway - to see how the argument could be compelling to anyone not already convinced indirect realism is true.
Yes? That's how indirect perception works. You directly perceive some X and because of that indirectly perceive some Y. Even the direct realist must accept that this is how television and telephones work.
Quoting Banno
The point is that we don't need to directly see him to talk about him, and we don't need to directly see ships to talk about them.
You are losing me here.
Sure, when we use a telephone we hear someone indirectly. Are you suggesting that undermines direct realism?
Quoting Michael
Yep. But he is not only a mental image, or a firing of brain cells. He is public in a way that whatever indirect realists say they see, isn't.
It appears to me that you have moved on to equivocating about what it is that indirect realists suppose it is that is perceived.
You said this, as if it were objectionable:
"Pretty ad hoc. Now we have both direct and indirect perception happening in the same individual for the same event."
It's not objectionable. It's quite ordinary. We just disagree on which things fall within the category "direct" and which things fall within the category "indirect".
Quoting Banno
You claimed that it's impossible to talk about things unless we can see them directly, and so I provided an example of something that we can talk about but haven't seen directly. So your objection fails.
We don't directly see Napoleon but can still talk about him. We don't directly see ships but can still talk about them.
I hold no stock in the private language objection. A society of people born with unremovable visors on their heads with sensors on the outside and a screen on the inside displaying a computer-generated image of the environment could develop a language, talk about the environment, and lives their lives just as well as we can. Let's even throw in the inverted spectrum hypothesis and have different screens output different colours (but consistent for each individual), just for fun.
Usage remains constant regardless of what's going on out there, which is the point of the Wittgenstinian enterprise. It avoids the messiness of reliance of what's there. What your asking is to impose special rules upon certain categories of words and not others (i.e. referentially based ones versus non-referentially based ones). That is, what about unicorns? How do I deal with the words without references? If I were to assume internal meaning were in flux, then I cannot assume unicorns remain constant. And the point is it doesn't matter that words might change and that cultures with no recording devices might call "freedom" something different daily. The only question is whether while folks are talking whether they are playing the same game when they do.
In asking me to assume the external object is a constant so that we can be sure our perceptions are similar across one another is also problematic because it's false. Given the true nature of things, with every subatomic particle being in constant motion, that we see identity and consistency, is just a product of survival, not based upon any metaphysical truth. We have no reason to think the out there is not mediated by the in here.
But all this is problematic, specifically because it's metaphysics. What is important is that we all engage in a word game, play it according to rules we all comprehend, and we interact in the form of life we know. Maybe there's not a great answer here, but opening up the can of worms to what's out there versus what's in my brain is the whole thing we were trying to avoid.
Well, no. Certainly not. I do agree with the private language argument in so far as talk about boxed beetles and images in brains is useless.
Quoting Michael
How is that in any way contrary to the private language argument? These folk are talking about their shared environment, not their unshared screen time...
And their language would be public and therfore not disproving the PLA. The PLA is not dependent upon unmediated access to the environment. In fact, Wittgenstein says nothing about whether the world is mediated through the senses or not. He's talking about words and how they can have meaning.
If I say, I feel S today, and you ask, what does that mean, and I say, "it's whatever I'm feeling right now." That's a private language. I offered no rule for its use and you have no idea how to play that language game with me. If I say "S feels like a vague headache," now it's has public criteria.
I meant to say that I hold no stock in the argument that the PLA refutes indirect realism. You appear to be accepting that these people are talking about their shared environment even though none of them ever directly see it (which even the direct realist must accept given the visors). The only thing these people ever directly see (even assuming direct realism) is their private screen.
So your entire objection falls apart.
I slightly misworded my first sentence. I meant to say that I hold no stock in the argument that the PLA refutes indirect realism.
But on the PLA, let's assume that John's and Jane's screens each output different colours in response to the same wavelengths of light, but in a consistent manner. Do you accept that a) they will both use the word "foo" in their language when asked to describe the colour of grass, that b) there is a very real sense in which when they use the word "foo" they are referring to the colour output by their private screen, and that c) it is intelligible for each to wonder if the other's private screen outputs a different colour when looking at grass?
Not quite. Rather, what we use is what remains constant... with regard to "out there"; but note that we ought also reject the phenomenological/cartesian picture of out there and in here. Wittgenstein emphasises what we do with words, in the world. His is not a form of idealism.
Quoting Hanover
"Unicorns" has a use, if not a referent, and if only as an example in philosophy fora. See if you can turn that into an argument.
Quoting Hanover
Not sure what this was - a reference to the quote from PI? You are not there being asked to assume the external object is constant, but to notice that you have no way of telling if your private object has changed.
Quoting Hanover
I'll agree with that, and note the corollary that private objects cannot have a use in the game.
I will oppose your position of indirect realism from a different angle. I often argued that there is no need to posit “mental entities”. My other criticism is that indirect realism ends up positing an external world. Specifically, indirect realism has a problem with causality. I would summarize my concern as follows:
If all causal relations that we can observe or describe occur within the mind/brain, then the supposed causal link to external objects is never actually experienced or justified.
To put it more specifically, the external cause is never part of the casual network you can access. Thus, the external world only becomes theoretical, which risk slipping into idealism or radical skepticism, which I think you do not want to assert.
Now we are stuck with an external world doing no epistemic work.
It's hard to see how the visor example counts against the private language argument. That's how you set the account up. You now want to use it as an example of indirect perception.
So back to this:
Quoting Banno
Your visor users talk about the ship, and not what they see on the visor.
Quoting Banno
An indirect realist says that all they see is the stuff on the visor.
So if we wish to talk about images on screens, we can adopt the perspective of the indirect realist. If we wish to talk about ships, we must bypass the visor and admit that we see the ship.
Hence:
Quoting Banno
So we are back to were we were four pages and 3 days ago. But yours is a much imporved argument. Indeed, it supports direct realism by showing that we routinely and intelligibly “see through” intermediaries without reifying them as perceptual objects.
But we need to add, neither direct realism nor indirect realism is the whole story - we can talk about the beetle in the box, the mental image; in Michael's world, someone might complain that their visor is faulty - and thereby change from the game of talking about ships to the game of talking 'bout visors - but having a faulty visor is to admit that there are functioning visors, and so to give the visor a place int he game.
It can't be beetles all the way down.
As I clarified in my comment, I meant to say that I take no stock in the private language objection to indirect realism. You claimed that if indirect realism is true then we cannot talk about our shared environment, only our private experiences, and so that because we can (must?) talk about our shared environment then indirect realism is wrong. I showed that your premise is false, and so that your argument fails. These people do not directly see their shared environment (given the visors) and yet can still talk about it.
Quoting Banno
You're seriously trying to redefine "direct perception" in such a way that even with these visors and their computer-generated images on a screen they still directly see their shared environment? This is absurd, and is precisely the problem I highlighted at the end of this post. You're taking what is very clearly indirect perception, butchering the meaning of the words "direct" and "indirect" to mean something else, and then taking this as proving the indirect realists of their world wrong. It's dishonest, and equivocation.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that direct realism is true. I directly hear the sound waves being produced by my telephone. Do I (directly) experience the "causal link" between these sound waves and my mother on the other end of the line? No. Does this matter? No. Does it follow that I don't (indirectly) hear my mother talking? No. Is it possible that I'm being deceived and that it isn't really my mother speaking on the other end of the line? Sure. Am I justified in believing that it's probable? Not really.
The same principle applies to indirect realism; it just draws the line that separates the direct from the indirect at a different place in the world, and as I believe I showed with my example of the society of people with visors, this line can be drawn in such a way that nobody ever directly sees what another directly sees, and yet they can still have a functional language and knowledge of their shared environment.
As an Indirect Realist, it would be illogical to reject any representational aspect, and not sensible not to treat phenomenal experience as epistemically primary.
My understanding is that:
It can be said that there are three temporal stages in perception.
Stage one. Phenomenal experiences, such as when we look at a wavelength of 736nm
Stage two. Mental concepts based on phenomenal experiences, such as perceiving red light
Stage three. Judgements about what these concepts represent, such that red light represents stop.
Sense data is introduced at stage two. As Betrand Russell wrote in The Problems of Philosophy:
It is in the nature of a judgement in stage three that any judgement could be wrong. This is why it is called a judgement. To negate all judgements because one judgement might be wrong would be to contradict the very meaning of the word.
All three stages are essential to both Indirect and Direct Realism.
As regards stage one, without phenomenal experiences, humans would be imprisoned in a dark and soundless room. As regards stage two, without the prior concept of ship, when looking at the singular instantiation of an object, no one would be able to say “I see a ship”. As regards stage three, no one would be able to judge that a set of perceived concepts represents a ship.
There is phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR), direct perception and direct cognition, and Semantic Direct Realism (SDR), indirect perception and direct cognition.
I would imagine that most Direct Realists on this thread believe in SDR, as few would not admit that when we see a ship we directly see the light entering the eye from the ship, in that, as has been said, we don't directly put our eyeball on the ship.
Both the Indirect Realist and SDR can say “I see a ship”, even though for both it is through the intermediary of light entering the eye, and for both illusions and hallucinations are possible. The linguistic expression “I see a ship” as part of a communal language can be understood by all those using the same language game, regardless of any metaphysical implications. If pressed, the IR may say “I see the wavelength of light as a ship” and the SDR may say “I see a ship by means of a wavelength of light”, but for convenience, to say “I see a ship” is perfectly understandable.
The Indirect Realist and the SDR differ in that the SDR believes that their judgements can transcend their phenomenal experiences, whereas the Indirect Realist doesn’t.
Between the mind and any external world are the five senses. The mind only knows what passes through these five senses. Therefore, for the Indirect Realist, anything we think we know about any external world comes indirectly from “inference to the best explanation”. However, for the Direct Realist, we are able to transcend these five senses and directly know about any external world.
One question for believers in SDR is how they explain their judgements are able to transcend their phenomenal experiences
I think your thought experiment shows that the response to (b) is irrelevant. If X presents to me as rabbits and to you as cats, but we both call them ducks, then "ducks" follow our rules, namely that they are Xs, but it doesn't matter what it is independent of us or what we see. It just needs to follow a usage rule which drops out the necessity of identifying the underlying metaphysical constitution of the thing. The purpose in this is not to suggest the underlying thing doesn't have some constitution, but it's to understand that speaking about it gets us no where. The purpose of philosophy under this model isn't to understand every aspect of the world, but it's to understand what can be understood and to discuss only that.
So, to answer your questions (because I hate it when people don't directly answer yes or no questions when posed) : (a) - Yes and to (b) yes, but as to (b), the fact that they are "in a very real sense" referring to their beetle in their box doesn't mean we now get to understand what those beetles are.
Why not?
I'm not claiming that we do. I'm only showing that our words can, and do, refer to these beetles.
In a situation like the below, both may agree with the proposition "the strawberry is foo-coloured", and may even agree that the word "foo" (sometimes) refers to a disposition to reflect a particular wavelength of light, but I think it unproblematic to accept that the word "foo" also refers to the private phenomenal character of the individual's experience, even if neither can know the other's. If someone were to secretly surgically alter their eyes and/or brains such that the phenomenal character was switched then each would say "the strawberry is no longer foo-coloured" (and then be very confused when they measure the wavelength of light and detect no change).
I feel like this example changes the grammar rules. Initially, we relied upon X to determine the word's usage, and then we changed to Y. When it was X, we relied upon our internal impression of the entity to use the word "foo" and then when it was Y, we relied upon our internal impression of wavelength measuring device to use the word "foo." That means our words have changed meaning, which is an interegral part of any word game, which is the ability of the players of the game to make and change rules.
The point here is not that there is not reliance upon perception when we speak, the issue is the relevance of what the perception is and whether it is similar across people. It is not. My beetle and your beetle may or may not be the same thing. It doesn't matter.
The point is to stop trying to do metaphysics and figure out what's going on in your head because that is beyond the scope of philosophy.
All of this is presented as implicitly rejecting the idea that meanings are fixed by hidden reference-makers (phenomenal or physical), and treating meaning instead as constituted by the public criteria governing a word’s use within a practice. That is, there are in fact all sorts of internal things going on in your mind that may in fact be the cause of your utterances, but we don't fix meaning by those, but we fix it by usage. Your example makes that clear, showing that regardless of the internal causes, even when they are dissimilar across speakers, the language game makes sense upon relieance upon usage without worrying about the internal causes.
And yet the example should show that the usage will change if the phenomenal character of experience changes, even though nothing about the strawberry or the light changes, so clearly the phenomenal character of experience also has something to do with the meaning of the word "foo" in their language.
Although, saying that the usage will change is somewhat ambiguous. It changes in the sense that they no longer describe strawberries as being "foo-coloured", but then that would also be true if rather than a secret surgery on their eyes someone secretly dyed strawberries (and every other "foo-coloured" thing). This will change which things are described as being "foo-coloured" but it doesn't follow that the meaning of the word "foo" has changed.
Quoting Hanover
I agree that metaphysics and grammar are different things; I just disagree with the claim either that the phenomenal character of experience is not real or that it does not have anything to do with language. It's real, and like every other real (and even unreal) thing in the universe, we can talk about it.
If by "meaning is use" we're envisioning that some activity is underway, and my language comprehension is entirely dependent on successful collaboration, then we have a kind of stilted scenario. I mean, when you read a history book, there's no collaborative activity that would allow you to feel confident about your interpretation, and yet most people don't struggle with reading.
Much of the time, you understand people because you're (possibly half-consciously) putting yourself in their shoes, looking at the world through their eyes. I think this is how reading works. Discerning context requires a meeting of minds. Now you could argue that such a meeting of minds is just a folk explanation. It doesn't really happen. But if that's true, how exactly does reading work? Kripke shows that it's probably not rule following.
So if the "put yourself in their shoes" scenario is how communication really works, then there is a consideration of what "ship" refers to. You'll need this once you are seeing the world that the speaker sees.
Where is the meaning of a word fixed?
Each individual has five senses. All information about anything external to the individual can only pass through the individual's five senses.
The Direct Realist believes each individual has direct cognition of a public sphere with its public language game. The Direct Realist believes that such a public sphere exists independently of any mind.
The Indirect Realist believes that each individual can only infer such a public sphere by reasoning about experiences perceived in their five senses.
Therefore, for the Direct Realist, meaning is fixed in a public sphere independent of any mind. For the Indirect Realist, meaning is fixed in each individual’s mind by reasoning about experiences perceived in their five senses.
I can only speak for myself on this, but I do not reject the idea that knowledge is mediated by the senses. What I reject is the idea that sensory content forms an epistemic base from which the rest of our knowledge about the world is inferred.
The key issue here is that sensation is not a normative act. This means it is not conceptual and is not truth-apt – it is simply not the kind of thing from which the rest of our knowledge could be inferred.
By contrast, judgment is conceptual and truth-apt. The act of judgment is part of the norm-governed process of inquiry. So, while judgments are constrained by sensory content, they are not inferred from sensory content. As we argued above, this would be impossible.
When we make perceptual judgments we are not making judgments about sensory content. We are making judgments about things in the world (“there is a ship”). That’s not to say that we [I]can’t[/I] make judgments about sensory content – we can (“I am seeing red”) – but this is not what we ordinarily mean by the word “perception”. Instead, this is a reflexive, second-order kind of judgment more commonly referred to as “introspection”.
I would argue that perceptual judgments are neither inferred from nor justified by introspective judgments. If someone questions one of our perceptual judgments, we don’t try to justify it by appealing to introspective judgments. Instead, we appeal to background knowledge and other perceptual judgments.
Consider the example of John and Jane that provided. Jane makes a perceptual judgment (“the screen is orange”) and infers that the wavelength of the light is between 590nm and 620nm. Appealing to an introspective judgment (“I am seeing orange”) in order to justify her perceptual judgment simply won’t convince anyone, including herself. If she really wants to justify her judgment that the screen is orange, she’ll need to appeal to her background knowledge (optics, screens, color-blindness, etc.) and further perceptual judgments about her environment (current lighting, viewing angle, screen filters, etc.).
So when you ask how judgments are able to “transcend” phenomenal experience, my answer is that they can’t – at least not in the sense of bypassing or overriding the senses, nor by inference from inner representations. Rather, judgments were never justified by phenomenal experience to begin with. Sensory experience constrsins inquiry by supplying data, but epistemic authority belongs to judgment, which is governed by norms of sufficiency, relevance, and answerability to how things actually are. Once that distinction is in view, the need to “bridge” phenomenal experience via IBE largely dissolves.
That's not a redefinition. What this shows is how you misdiagnose the the argument. In your visor world, the visors drop out of the discussion when folk talk about ships. They are not seeing the image on the screen, they are seeing ship.
Direct realism doesn't claim that direct perception is perception without mediation. That would rule out glasses, mirrors, telescopes, microscopes, hearing aids, telephones — and even eyes and nerves. Mediation is ubiquitous and trivial. What matters is not causal mediation but epistemic termination. This is why your visor world makes no difference. The visor drops out of consideration, much as the beetle in a box does in discussions of private language. The function of the visor is irrelevant, in that the moment you insist — as the indirect realist must — that what we really ever see is only the visor-image, the example collapses.
When you hear your mother on the phone, you do not hear sound waves and then infer your mother as a hypothesis about an inner item. You hear your mother speaking, by means of sound waves, transmission systems, speakers, etc. The fact that you do not experience the causal chain as such is irrelevant — because direct realism never required that.
Direct realism is not the thesis that perception includes awareness of causal links. It is the thesis that perceptual verbs take worldly objects as their logical objects. You hear your mother, not a sound-wave-token; you see the ship, not a retinal image. The mediation is causal, not epistemic.
We can talk about the image on the visor, but this is derivative, dependent on our being able to talk about an image of the ship, and hence being able to talk about the ship.
The argument here is not redefining “direct”; but refusing to accept a Cartesian picture in which perception must either be inner and certain or outer and inferential.
This is were a Markov Blanket helps. On the indirect realist construal, the Markov blanket is treated as epistemically opaque. On the direct realist construal, the blanket is only causally isolating. Information flows across it, but that does not lead to epistemic confinement. The organism’s perceptual capacities are attuned to environmental states across the blanket; perception is an interaction spanning the boundary, not an encounter with an inner surrogate. What is perceived is the ship, not a mental image that stands in for it.
The indirect realist uses the debunked picture of a theatre of consciousness; the homunculus, sitting inside only ever seeing the ship on the visor. The better picture is that we see the ship, using the visor. There is no phenomenal state that is what we see in the place of the ship; rather, the neural process that constructs vision constitutes your seeing the ship.
Because at some stage the conversation has a use.
That it has a use doesn't mean it can be had. Wittgenstein is diagnostic. Philosophy is declared incompetent for addressing the metaphysical.
But if you just need an explanation even though you realize it will be fraught with inconsistency and just becauses, posit the gods like I do.
Not at all sure what that means.
The choice here is between on the one hand an account that divides the world into mind and object, then finds itself unable to explain objects; and an account that makes no such presumption.
One account begins by dividing mind from world and then cannot recover the world. The other refuses that division and never loses it.
Perception is a activity within the world, not an impassible bridge between worlds.
And here's the thing: we do manage to talk about ships, cups, walls and each other.
The phenomenonal is absolutely real. My claims have always been grammatical, not ontological. Phenomenonal states are causally related to utterances. If not, I'd be arguing we're p-zombies.
You can talk about "phenomenonal states" just like you can talk about cats and unicorns and kings of France. It is irrelevant whether you have phenomenonal state for you to talk about them.
When you do speak of them, whatever is doing the work is the rule-governed use of the term, not privileged access to a phenomenal state whose identity could float free of that use.
Probably not. There's no fact about which rules anyone has been following.
I think we understand each other via empathy. We're telepathic. :grin:
I knew you knew I was going to say that.
To my understanding of perception:
Stage one is the mental, introspective, singular, particular phenomenal experience in the senses when the eye is directed at a wavelength of say 630nm. This is neither conceptual nor truth-apt. As you say, it is not a normative act.
Stage two is the introspective awareness that “I am seeing orange”. This is conceptual, as “orange” is a concept. This is not truth-apt, and therefore not a judgement, because if I see orange then I see orange. Stage two is not an introspective judgement.
Stage three is the introspective judgement that “the screen is orange”. Such a judgement is conceptual, because “screen” is a concept. The judgement is truth-apt on the assumption that there is a mind-external world where there are such things as screens. “The screen” is referring to something mind-external. I agree that introspective judgements about something mind-external are constrained by sensory content, but disagree that they are not inferred from sensory content. How can we get knowledge about any mind-external world if not from our sensations? What other way is there to get knowledge about a mind-external world if not from our sensations?
The only information we have about any mind-external world is through our five senses. Therefore our perceptual judgement that “the screen is orange” of logical necessity must be based on our sensations. I agree that we are not making any judgement about the sensory content “I am seeing orange”, because no judgement is needed to know that “I am seeing orange”. But we are making judgements about what the sensory content represents, in that we are judging by inference that “I see orange” in the mind represents in a mind-external world “the screen is orange”. We can only make judgements about things in any mind-external world by inferring from sensory content in the mind.
I agree that epistemic authority belongs to judgement about how things actually are. Judgement exists in the mind and how things actually are exists in a mind-external world. Between the mind and a mind-external world are the five senses, meaning that if we are to know anything about a mind-external world it is inevitable that the bridge that is our senses must be crossed.
From what you say, if there is no need to cross the bridge of our senses, this suggests to me that your position is that of Idealism. There are many kinds of Idealism, but fundamentally, Idealism asserts that reality is entirely a mental construct, which is also why you don’t support the realism of either the direct or indirect realist.
I want to focus on the role you assign to your stage two, since that’s where the inferential claim is doing all of its work.
You characterize stage two (“I am seeing orange”) as conceptual but not truth-apt, and therefore not a judgment. I’m happy to grant that description for the sake of argument. But then I don’t see how stage two can function as the basis of an inference to stage three. Inference requires premises that are truth-apt — something that can be correct or incorrect. If stage two is not truth-apt, it cannot play that role.
So either stage two is truth-apt, in which case it already is a judgment and your staged model collapses, or it is not truth-apt, in which case the claim that stage-three judgments are inferred from it does not follow.
More generally, I don’t deny that all inquiry is mediated by the senses. What I deny is that mediation entails inferential grounding. Sensory experience supplies data that constrains inquiry, but it does not supply premises from which judgments about the world are inferred. The epistemic work is done at the level of judgment itself, not by moving outward from inner representations.
For that reason, rejecting inferential mediation does not amount to Idealism. It does not deny a mind-external world, nor does it deny sensory mediation. It denies only the empiricist assumption that knowledge of the world must be constructed by inference from sensory contents.
So the disagreement isn’t about whether the “bridge of the senses” must be crossed — it’s about what crossing that bridge amounts to: inferential reconstruction from inner items, or norm-governed judgment constrained by experience but not inferentially derived from it.
It means that just because you find a need to understand the world doesn't mean you can. Quoting Banno
If reality is a choice, then let's imbue it with purpose. As they say, imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.
This is to mean, if you can jettison the distinction between mental states and external states on the grounds it makes reality easier to comprehend, regardless of whether it comforts with actuality, then you've made it no less logical to insert other preferences into this mix.
As in, I choose to maintain the dualstic nature and needn't go through the machinations of eliminating what appears an obvious division, but I choose to insert the mystical to maintain that distinction.
And isn't that to a large degree what modern philosophy attempts to do, but to globally disenchant reality? Maybe that enterprise is impossible, which results not in the dissolution of philosophy, but in keeping it to its boundaries. That, I say, is the implication of Wittgenstein.
This is just about category clarification, and I see no reason to seek unification of stand alone systems.
"Seeing" and "talking about" do not mean the same thing. They are seeing the image on the screen and they are seeing the ship and they are talking about the ship.
It simply doesn't matter what "drops out of [their] discussion". If it helps, consider us to be secret observers, e.g. the mad scientists who engineered these people. Their visors do not "drop out of" our discussion. We ought accept that they do not directly see their shared environment.
Quoting Banno
Yes it is. There is no reasonable account under which these people can be said to directly see the ship (as the term "directly" means in the context of the dispute between direct and indirect realism). A scenario like this is exactly what it means so see something indirectly.
I didn't mean to suggest that the phenomenal character of experience is sufficient to infer mind-independent facts about the environment (although the naive colour realist does suggest this, and is wrong). Obviously if neither John nor Jane know anything about electromagnetic radiation then they wouldn't infer anything about the wavelength of light emitted by the screen.
It doesn't follow from this that they don't infer mind-independent facts about their environment from the phenomenal character of experience. Given their background knowledge of electromagnetic radiation, computer screens, etc., it is then the phenomenal character of experience that allows them to choose between "the screen emits ~700nm light", "the screen emits ~600nm light", etc, with John's and Jane's different inferences being explained by them having different phenomenal experiences.
Even given background knowledge, phenomenal character is not truth-apt and cannot function as a premise. It does not count for or against a hypothesis in the way evidence does. Rather, it causally constrains inquiry by making certain hypotheses intelligible or salient and others not.
The inferential work is done entirely at the level of judgment, under norms of relevance and sufficiency, drawing on background knowledge and further perceptual judgments. Phenomenal character helps explain why those judgments arise, but it does not justify them or serve as a premise from which they are inferred.
So I don’t deny that phenomenal experience matters in inquiry; I deny that it plays the epistemic role you’re assigning to it.
Phenomenal character isn't truth apt but the premise "I am experiencing such-and-such phenomenal character" is, and so this latter proposition can function as a premise. It's exactly how John and Jane come to their respective conclusions.
John
P1. Electromagnetic radiation with such-and-such wavelengths usually cause people to experience such-and-such phenomenal characters
P2. I am experiencing such-and-such (e.g. orange) phenomenal character
C1. Therefore, the screen is probably emitting electromagnetic radiation with such-and-such a wavelength (e.g. 600nm).
Jane
P1. Electromagnetic radiation with such-and-such a wavelengths usually cause people to experience such-and-such phenomenal characters
P2. I am experiencing such-and-such (e.g. red) phenomenal character
C1. Therefore, the screen is probably emitting electromagnetic radiation with such-and-such a wavelength (e.g. 700nm).
Without each P2 each C1 would be a non sequitur, and given that P1 is the same for both John and Jane there would be no explanation for why each C1 is different.
What I deny is that ordinary perceptual judgments are epistemically justified by inference from such introspective premises. In normal perception, John does not first judge “I am experiencing orange” and then infer “the screen is orange”; he simply judges that the screen is orange. Introspective propositions typically arise later, and for special purposes (disagreement, error-checking, theory-building).
Your reconstruction helps explain how John and Jane might reason about their perceptual differences, but it does not show that perceptual judgment itself is grounded in inference from introspective awareness. Those introspective premises are reflective and ad hoc with respect to perception, not epistemically basic.
So while P2 can play an explanatory role in some contexts, it does not follow that perceptual knowledge of the world is generally inferred from it.
Then I really don't understand what you are trying to argue, or how it relates to the dispute between direct and indirect realism.
Again, the direct realists argued that a) the phenomenal character of experience is the direct presentation of mind-independent objects and their properties, such that b) we can infer (deductively, even) from the phenomenal character of experience that "there are in nature colors, of a distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e., ... simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties".
Indirect realists argued that (a) is false, and so that because of this (b) is unjustified, and possibly false, i.e. it is possible that the mind-independent nature of the world is radically different to the phenomenal character of experience ("the world isn't as it appears").
Inferences
I see a wet umbrella and infer that it is raining outside. In my senses I am seeing orange and infer that in the world the screen is orange.
I see a wet umbrella and I am seeing orange are conceptual, because both umbrella and orange are concepts.
They are neither truth-apt nor judgements, because if I see a wet umbrella then I see a wet umbrella, and if I am seeing orange then I am seeing orange.
It is raining outside and the screen is orange are truth-apt, because either they are true or they are false. It may be that I see a wet umbrella and it is not raining outside. It may be that I am seeing orange and the screen is not orange.
Premises
Major premise - all humans are mortal
Minor premise - Socrates is human
Conclusion - Socrates is mortal
Major premise - Umbrellas get wet in the rain
Minor premise - I see a wet umbrella
Conclusion - it is raining
Major premise - the screen is orange if I am seeing orange
Minor premise - I am seeing orange
Conclusion - the screen is orange
The major premise is the judgement in the mind using reason, and is truth-apt.
The minor premise is what I sense, and is not truth-apt.
The conclusion is a state of affairs in the world, which may or may not obtain as a fact, and so is truth-apt.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I agree. In order to infer from seeing orange in my senses that the screen is orange in the world, I need to have the major premise “the screen is orange if I am seeing orange”, which is a judgement based on reason, and is truth-apt
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
In stage two of perception, I am seeing orange in my senses. This is not truth-apt, because if I am seeing orange then I am seeing orange.
My judgement that “the screen is orange if I am seeing orange” is my major premise, and is truth-apt, in that the premise may be true or false.
If I am seeing orange in my senses, and have judged that “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses”, then I infer that the screen is orange in the world.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Seeing orange in my senses mediates between my judgement “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses”, and my inference that the screen is orange in the world.
In this sense, mediation plus judgement is the ground for inference.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Judgement by itself is insufficient to know anything about any mind-external world. The judgement “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses” tells us nothing about any mind-external world.
If I am seeing orange in my senses then, if my judgement is true, the screen is orange in the world.
As the word “house” in language represents a house in the world, my seeing orange in my senses represents an orange screen in the world. A representation links the mind to any mind-external world.
The epistemic work is achieved by judgements about our sensations, which, if true, enables the mind to represent any mind-external world.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
From observing many phenomenal experiences I can derive judgements, such as “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses”. From the principle of “Confirmation Holism”, each judgement must be supported by other judgements in a coherent whole. If my judgements do become part of a coherent set of judgements, then my confidence in each judgement will necessarily increase. All these judgements require the mediation of the senses. All these judgements require “the bridge to be crossed” if any are to have any validity.
There are no normative judgements about what ought to be independent of phenomenal experiences in the senses. My judgement that “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses” finds its justification in “Confirmation Holism”, where each judgement must be supported by other judgements in a coherent whole. My judgement that “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses” cannot find its justification as a normative “because it ought to be”.
However, I can understand that normative judgements of what ought to be could exist within Idealism, where reality is a mental construct and there is no mind-external world. Where reality is a mental construct, then we could construct normative judgements about what ought to be.
I think the recurring confusion here comes from a difference in what we take the core epistemological problem to be.
As you frame it, the dispute between direct and indirect realism concerns whether phenomenal character presents mind-independent properties, and whether skepticism follows if it does not. Within that framework, I agree that rejecting phenomenal presentation pushes one toward indirect realism.
My claim is that both traditional direct and indirect realism share a deeper assumption: that phenomenal character is epistemically primary, and that justification for beliefs about the world must flow from experience outward (whether successfully or unsuccessfully).
I reject that assumption. On my view, phenomenal character neither succeeds nor fails at justifying knowledge of the world; it is not the kind of thing that plays that role at all. Epistemic justification belongs to judgment governed by norms of relevance, sufficiency, and answerability to how things are, not to phenomenal character.
That’s why my position doesn’t fit cleanly into the traditional direct/indirect realism framework. I’m not trying to resolve that dispute on its own terms; I’m questioning whether it’s framed at the right epistemological level to begin with. So the divergence is genuine, but it's aimed at a shared underlying assumption rather than at one side or the other within the traditional framing.
Indirect realists wouldn't generally disagree with this, except for the last sentence. Both are perceived. Indirect realism doesn't deny perception of distal objects, but direct realists seem to want to brush aside perception's mediation.
When you see a flower on TV, you are seeing a flower (in the veridical case). And, at the same time, you are seeing pixels. These two "seeings" are related: you see the flower by way of seeing pixels. The pixels represent how the flower would look if it were physically in front of you.
This same relationship holds for perception itself. You see the flower in front of you, and you are seeing
its mental representation. "See" here is used in two senses to describe two components of the same act of perception. You see the flower by way of seeing its mental representation. The mental representation is how the flower looks, to you.
Quoting Banno
Perception is both. You don't know if the flower you are seeing on TV is real, but you know you are seeing a pixel image that looks like a flower. You don't know if you are truly hearing your mom's voice, but you do know that you are hearing something from your phone that sounds like her. You don't know if the mental representation you experience is truly of a flower "out there", but you do know you are experiencing the mental representation.
This does not mean we should all run and be radical skeptics. It does mean that perception is always structured as an immediate/mediated relationship, between representation and represented, between what is multiply realizable and what just is. Everyday tech objects that allow indirect perception (TVs, telephones) mirror the built in indirection intrinsic to perception (and so two layers of indirection are involved in their experience).
Thanks — this is very helpful, because it makes the structure of your view explicit.
I think the disagreement now turns on a single point. You want stage-two contents (“I am seeing orange”) to be conceptual but not truth-apt, and yet to function in inference to stage-three judgments (“the screen is orange”). But inference requires propositional, truth-apt premises.
That leaves you with a dilemma:
This is why I’ve insisted that perceptual judgments are not inferred from sensory contents. Sensory experience constrains inquiry causally and motivationally, but it does not supply inferential premises.
When you say that “seeing orange represents an orange screen,” you are reintroducing representation at the sensory level — precisely the move I’m resisting. On my view, representation, truth, and epistemic authority belong at the level of judgment, not sensation.
So the issue isn’t whether the senses mediate our contact with the world — I agree they do — but whether that mediation is inferential and representational, or whether judgment is norm-governed and answerable to how things are without being derived from inner items. That is the point at which we diverge.
Then we have two separate questions:
1. Is direct perception required for our perceptual beliefs about the world to be justified?
2. Is perception direct?
Direct and indirect realists likely agree that the answer to (1) is "yes", with direct realists arguing that the answer to (2) is "yes", and so concluding that our perceptual beliefs about the world are justified, and indirect realists arguing that the answer to (2) is "no", and so concluding that our perceptual beliefs about the world are not justified.
You appear to agree with the indirect realist that the answer to (2) is "no" but disagree with both the direct and indirect realist that the answer to (1) is "yes"?
I think you might be misinterpreting (1). It's not supposed to be interpreted as "does the phenomenal character of experience justify our beliefs about the world?" but as "are we justified in believing that the world is as it appears, i.e. that the phenomenal character of experience is (or resembles) the mind-independent nature the world?" (with naive colour primitivism being the exemplar of such a notion).
Thanks, this helps clarify where the disconnect is.
I think the issue is that your formulation of (1) already presupposes a particular conception of justification — namely, that perceptual beliefs are justified if and only if the world is “as it appears”, where phenomenal character is taken to mirror the phenomenal character of the world (as in naïve colour primitivism).
That is precisely the assumption I’m rejecting. I don’t think perceptual justification turns on whether phenomenal character is the phenomenal character of the world, either successfully (direct realism) or unsuccessfully (indirect realism).
So I don’t agree with the indirect realist that perceptual beliefs are unjustified, nor do I agree with the direct realist about why they are justified. On my view, perceptual beliefs are justified by norm-governed judgment answerable to how things are, with experience constraining inquiry but not serving as the justificatory ground.
In that sense, I’m not denying perceptual justification; I’m rejecting phenomenal appearance as the criterion of it. That’s why my position doesn’t line up cleanly with either side of the traditional direct/indirect realism divide as you’ve framed it.
Perhaps, but then by "perceptual belief" I mean "a belief that the world is as it appears". What do you mean by the term?
So to be very explicit, I'll rephrase (1):
1. Is direct perception required for us to be justified in believing that the world is as it appears?
2. Is perception direct?
If you want to argue that our perceptual beliefs (whatever they are) are justified even if the world isn't as it appears then I'm not sure it's relevant to the direct and indirect realist's concerns. This really depends on what counts as a perceptual belief.
I agree.
The major premise is the judgement = the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my mind.
The minor premise is the senses = I am seeing orange in my mind.
The conclusion is the inference = the screen is orange in the world.
============================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
The minor premise “I am seeing orange” is not truth-apt. The major premise is truth-apt.
================================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I agree.
The perceptual judgement that the screen is orange in the world is inferred from both sensory content in the mind, I am seeing orange, and the judgement in the mind that “if I am seeing orange in my mind than the screen is orange in the world”
======================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As regards representation, the orange I see in my mind represents the screen being orange in the world. As regards truth, my judgement that "if I am seeing orange in my mind then the screen is orange in the world" is true if the screen is orange in the world
========================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I judge evil to be bad because of what I observe in a mind-external world
The normative I ought to judge that evil is bad Is made prior to any observations of a mind-external world, which still suggests Idealism.
Thanks for making the definition explicit — that helps a lot.
I don’t accept that a perceptual belief should be defined as “the belief that the world is as it appears.” That definition already builds in the very thesis at issue in the direct/indirect realism debate, namely that phenomenal appearance is the standard against which perceptual belief is assessed.
By perceptual belief I mean something more ordinary and less theory-laden: they are beliefs about objects and states-of-affairs that are formed in ordinary perceptual contexts (e.g. “there is a ship”, “the screen is emitting orange light”, “the umbrella is wet”). Whether the world is “as it appears” is a further philosophical question about how such beliefs relate to phenomenal character, not what makes them perceptual beliefs in the first place.
Once that distinction is in view, my position is straightforward: perceptual beliefs can be justified even if phenomenal character does not mirror the qualitative character of the world. Justification does not turn on the world being “as it appears,” but on norm-governed judgment answerable to how things actually are, with experience constraining inquiry rather than supplying a standard of adequacy.
If one defines perceptual belief by stipulation as belief that the world is as it appears, then of course my view won’t count as addressing that debate. But that would mean the disagreement is about how to frame the problem, not about whether perceptual knowledge is possible.
Okay, so this is where the Common Kind Claim comes in. If we accept that (2) is false (that perception is not direct) then the phenomenal character of an hallucination can be indistinguishable from the phenomenal character of a so-called "veridical" experience.
If my "background knowledge" is the same in both the "veridical" and the hallucinatory case (which surely it must be, unless hallucinations necessarily affect memory), and if the phenomenal character of an hallucination can be indistinguishable from the phenomenal character of a "veridical" experience, then how can I justify my belief that I am not hallucinating? Other than the (questionable?) assertion that I ought assume that all experience is "veridical" unless I have a good reason to believe otherwise, it would seem that I cannot justify such a belief.
Although I personally find these sceptical conclusions to be secondary to the primary issues of (1) and (2), and especially to (2). If the answer to (2) is "no" then indirect realism is correct, even if its further conclusions (and other assumptions) are unwarranted.
This is helpful, because now the skeptical pressure you’re worried about is fully explicit.
I think the crucial step where we diverge is here: you’re assuming that for an ordinary perceptual belief like “there is a ship” to be justified, I must also be justified in believing something like “my current experience is not hallucinatory” — i.e. that I must first justify a claim about how my experience relates to reality before I’m entitled to make any claims about the world.
I reject that requirement.
It helps to distinguish carefully between phenomenal character itself and [I]claims[/I] about how things appear. Phenomenal character is not truth-apt; it does not assert anything, and so it is not something that can be correct or incorrect. Claims about how things appear (e.g. “it looks orange to me”) are truth-apt, but they are reflective, second-order claims that arise for special purposes — disagreement, error-checking, theory-building — not as the epistemic basis of ordinary perceptual judgment.
Ordinary perceptual beliefs are not justified by first establishing that one’s experience is veridical rather than hallucinatory. In normal cases, one does not infer “there is a ship” from the premise “it appears that there is a ship.” One simply judges that there is a ship, and that judgment is assessed over time by its coherence with other judgments, its responsiveness to further experience, and its success or failure in inquiry.
This is why the indistinguishability of hallucination and so-called “veridical” experience does not generate skepticism on my view. That skeptical pressure only arises if we assume that perceptual justification requires antecedent justification of claims about how things appear. I deny that assumption.
Hallucinations matter epistemically when they function as defeaters within inquiry, not as a standing possibility that must be ruled out in advance in order for any perceptual belief to be justified at all.
So the disagreement isn’t about whether hallucinations are possible or whether phenomenal character can be misleading. It’s about whether justification for ordinary beliefs about the world depends on first justifying claims about appearance. That is the assumption I’ve been challenging throughout.
All of which can happen if we are hallucinating ships. In the extreme sceptical scenario we are brains-in-a-vat. This is not to say that indirect realists argue that this is probable, only that this is possible. You could argue that such scenarios are fantastical and unfalsifiable, and so unworthy of consideration, but I don't see this as refuting the core claims that perception of the external world is indirect and that it is not as it appears.
I agree that everything I described — coherence, responsiveness to further experience, success in inquiry — could in principle occur in a hallucination or brains-in-a-vat scenario.
But I don’t think that concession supports the conclusion you want to draw.
The mere possibility of global deception does not by itself show that perception is indirect, nor that the world is not as it appears. It only shows that perceptual judgment is fallible — something I have never denied.
The step I think you’re taking for granted is this: that if perception were direct, then massive and systematic error would be impossible. But I don’t see why that should be accepted. Directness is a claim about the kind of relation perception bears to the world, not a claim about epistemic guarantees or immunity to skepticism.
In other words, the fact that we could be wrong about everything does not entail that our beliefs are mediated by representations standing in for the world, rather than being judgments answerable to the world itself. Fallibility and answerability are compatible.
That’s why I don’t take brains-in-a-vat scenarios to motivate indirect realism. They motivate epistemic humility, not a particular metaphysics of perception. To get from “global error is possible” to “perception is indirect” you need an additional premise — that direct perception would rule out such error — and that premise is exactly what I reject.
So the disagreement here isn’t about whether skeptical scenarios are conceivable. It’s about whether conceivability alone licenses conclusions about the structure of perception. I don’t think it does.
This has it backwards. The indirect realist claim is that because a) perception is indirect b) the world might not be as it appears and so c) there are legitimate grounds for scepticism, and the direct realist claim is that because d) perception is direct e) the world is as it appears and so f) there are no legitimate grounds for scepticism.
I'm not using (c) to justify either (a) or (b). I am:
1. Citing sources that show that in the context of this discussion the meaning of the phrase "direct perception" is such that if (d) is true then (e) is true
2. Arguing that our scientific understanding of the world shows that (e) is false (e.g. naive colour primitivism is false)
3. Concluding that (d) is false and that (a) is true
I can understand you arguing that (c) does not follow from either (a) or (b) and that (f) does not follow from either (d) or (e), but I think this is secondary to the primary issues of (a), (b), (d), and (e).
Thanks — that clarifies your position.
I don’t deny that many historical formulations of direct realism build in the conditional you cite: if perception is direct, then the world is phenomenally as it appears. Nor do I deny that naïve colour primitivism is false.
What I reject is treating that conditional as definitive of direct perception rather than as a substantive thesis adopted by particular theorists. The falsity of naïve colour primitivism shows that the world is not phenomenally structured as it appears, but that conclusion is neutral on whether perception relates us directly to mind-independent objects or only via inner intermediaries.
Your argument depends on defining direct perception in terms of phenomenal mirroring. My resistance has been to that definition. As I’m using the term, directness concerns whether perceptual judgment is answerable to the world itself, not whether phenomenal character reproduces the qualitative character of reality.
So I don’t dispute your historical reconstruction or the science. I’m disputing whether we should inherit that conditional as a constraint on how the problem must be framed.
Then work through that. There is a ship X. It sends data via photons and airwaves through the environment that distorts as it moves through space. It hits my retina and eardrum and onward through brain circuitry. I then have phenomenal state Y. X caused Y, but there were billions of variables in the causal chain from X to Y.
If you want to call Y "ship," you can't confirm we're using the term consistently by pointing to your hidden internal state. You can't show me your beetle.
If you want to call X "ship," you can't identify anything about it at all. It's noumenal.
So, what to do? You look to see if we use the term consistently. You attach meaning to use. It's all you've got.
I was referring to the example of the people with visors on their heads, with sensors on the outside and a screen on the inside displaying a computer-generated representation of their environment.
Even if direct realists want to argue that these people directly see the screen on the inside of the visor they must accept that they do not directly see the environment outside the visor. Yet these people can still talk about the environment outside the visor, not only about their screens.
So Banno's argument that if indirect realism is true then we can only talk about our private experiences is evidently invalid. We don't need direct perception of something to talk about it.
Your reply nicely clarifies the remaining disagreement.
You say the minor “premise” “I am seeing orange” is not truth-apt but can still function in an inference. I don’t think that position is stable. Inference is a normative relation between propositions, and only truth-apt contents can play that role. If “I am seeing orange” is not truth-apt, then it is not a premise at all, and the conclusion cannot be inferred from it.
This is why I distinguish constraint from grounding. Sensory contents constrain inquiry by occasioning and shaping judgment, but they do not function as inferential grounds alongside judgments. The epistemic work is done entirely at the level of judgment.
This also bears on representation. To say that “the orange I see in my mind represents the screen being orange in the world” reintroduces normativity at the level of sensation. Representation can succeed or fail, and once sensation represents, it is no longer non-normative. That is precisely the move I’m resisting.
Finally, rejecting empiricist derivations of norms does not imply Idealism. Epistemic norms are conditions for the possibility of inquiry, not constituents of reality. To say that judgment is norm-governed independently of experience is not to say the world is mental, but that knowing has irreducible normative structure.
So the disagreement is not about whether the senses mediate our contact with the world — I agree they do — but about whether that mediation itself does epistemic work by representing and grounding inference, or whether judgment alone bears epistemic authority while experience constrains it non-inferentially. That is where we part ways.
So here's the thing; anyone can mean anything by the words "direct" and "indirect". It is possible that direct and indirect realists each mean different things by the words such that perception is direct in the sense that direct realists mean by the word "direct" and that perception is not direct in the sense that indirect realists mean by the word "direct", and so that the dispute is nothing more than two groups of people talking past each other.
But I don't think that this is the case, at least traditionally. I think that both groups mean the same thing by the words. I think that naive colour primitivism is exactly what was meant by direct realism, with Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities being exactly what was meant by indirect realism. This appears consistent with the definition of direct realism as explained here, where one of the stipulations is that "the phenomenal character of experience is determined, at least partly, by the direct presentation of ordinary objects".
You used the phrase "perception relates us directly to mind-independent objects", but what exactly does it mean for perception to "relate us directly" to mind-independent objects? Consider this example of a society of people who wear visors with sensors on the outside and a screen on the inside displaying a computer-generated representation of their environment. Does their perception "relate them directly" to their environment? They certainly can talk about and make judgements about their environment, but must there be more to it? Will you say that these people "directly perceive" their environment, as Banno says? You're more than welcome to define "direct perception" in such a way that such a proposition is true, but I think it very obvious that this is not what is traditionally meant, either by indirect realists or their direct (naive) realist opponents, both of whom will agree that these people do not directly perceive their environment (even if they disagree over whether or not these people directly perceive the screen). Once again, I think it's semantic direct realists introducing a philosophy distinct from phenomenological direct realism, and which is consistent with (phenomenological) indirect realism (as that article argues).
I agree that this is now a question about how the debate has been traditionally framed, not about skepticism or justification.
I don’t deny that many historical direct realists tied direct perception to naïve colour primitivism, nor that Locke-style views are the canonical contrast class. In that sense, my view is revisionary with respect to the traditional dialectic.
What I reject is the claim that phenomenal mirroring is constitutive of directness rather than a substantive thesis adopted by particular direct realists. The falsity of naïve colour primitivism shows that the world is not phenomenally as it appears, but it does not by itself show that perception must proceed via inner representations standing in for the world.
When I say that perception relates us directly to mind-independent objects, I do not mean that any causal or informational link counts as direct. The visor case is instructive precisely because it introduces an epistemic intermediary whose outputs are the immediate objects of assessment. By contrast, in ordinary perception, our judgments are answerable to objects themselves within a shared public environment, not to internal surrogates whose accuracy must be inferred.
So the disagreement isn’t about whether my usage matches a traditional definition — I’m happy to grant that it doesn’t. It’s about whether we should inherit phenomenal mirroring as a constraint on realism about perception at all. That is the assumption I’ve been rejecting throughout.
Quoting Hanover
I again was not able to follow. The fact that mind and world interact I hope we both take as granted, and so ought be suspicious of any doctrine of substances that appears to impede this interaction.
I guess we might also acknowledge two variants on silentism; the one that says there is no further explanation, and the one that in comfortable with lack of congruence.
And while they are seeing the image on the screen and they are seeing the ship and they are talking about the ship, each of these has a slightly differing sense, each is involved in a different activity. The first, they might see the screen and talk about how it fits in to the causal chain that leads to them seeing the ship. The second, they see the ship. The last, they fit the ship in to their epistemic background.
The indirect realist sees the causal chain and says that perception is indirect. The direct realist sees the chain and point out that the chain is how we know about the ship. For the direct realist, the chain is the mechanism by which the world shows itself, for the indirect realist, it is a veil hiding it.
I'll try to be clearer about what it is I think that the Markov Blanket shows. It's to do again with the difference between the causal and the epistemic accounts. A Markov blanket can be placed in different parts of the causal chain with similar results. Consider the causal chain flower - camera - screen - eye - brain. Here are four possibilities:
[*]Blanket boundary: Around the eye
[*]Blanket boundary: Around the screen
[*]Blanket boundary: Around the camera
[/list]
In all three of these, the causal chain remains the same. In the first, the brain "sees" the signal from the eye; in the last, the whole apparatus "sees" the flower; now that's oddly reminiscent of the whole direct/indirect fiasco...
And causally speaking, there's where we can rest. The difference is not in the causal chain, but where one spreads one's Markov blanket.
So, and here we can reject much of the account @Michael has promulgated, since causal mediation does not entail indirect perception.
More anon.
I may perhaps now understand your position.
Rationalism vs Empiricism
In the grand debate between Rationalism and Empiricism, I would tend to position myself with the Empiricists, such as Hume, where knowledge comes from a combination of sense experience and a reflection on such sense experiences.
I am thinking that you would position yourself with the Rationalists, such as Descartes, where there are significant ways in which our knowledge is gained independently of sense experience.
Nothing is fixed, but the Rationalists tend to align themselves with Direct Realism, as they propose a direct relationship with the world through reason, and the Empiricists tend to align themselves with Indirect Reason, as they rely more on sensory input (SEP - Rationalism vs Empiricism)
However, in that nothing is fixed, I also support Kant’s attempt to bring Rationalism and Empiricism together through Transcendental Idealism.
Evil is bad
As an empiricist, I would tend to judge that “evil is bad” from observations of the world, whereas, as you say, such a judgement should be the normative “I ought to judge that evil is bad” independent of any observations of the world.
I agree that such a normative judgement does not infer Idealism.
The empiricist would tend to the belief that from observing that evil is bad, their descriptive judgement would be that evil is bad.
The rationalist would tend to the belief that an observation of evil must be bad, because their normative judgement is that evil is bad.
The difference is a direction of fit: the empiricist from the world to the mind, the rationalist from the mind to the world.
Orange screens
The empiricist would tend to the belief that when I am seeing orange in my mind then I can infer that there is an orange screen in the world, and then make the descriptive judgement that “I am seeing orange in my mind because there is an orange screen in the world”
The rationalist would tend to the normative judgement that because “I ought to be seeing orange in the mind because there is an orange screen in the world”, then when I am seeing orange in my mind then there should be an orange screen in the world.
As you say, "That is where we part ways."
Thanks for laying this out so clearly. Unfortunately, I think a couple of confusions have arisen regarding my position. Let me try to clarify.
First, when I speak of normativity, I am not talking about moral norms (e.g. “evil is bad”), but epistemic normativity: truth, falsity, correctness, and justification. To make a judgment is to take on a set of epistemic responsibilities. That normativity is constitutive of judgment, not something inferred from experience or imposed by the will, and it is independent of any moral “ought”.
Second, I don’t think the rationalism/empiricism contrast maps cleanly onto the disagreement between us. I’m not claiming substantive knowledge of the world independent of experience, as classical rationalists did. But neither am I claiming that experience supplies inferential premises from which all other knowledge is derived, as classical empiricists did. What I reject is empiricist foundationalism: the idea that non-conceptual sensory states can function as epistemic grounds or premises.
On my view, experience is indispensable, but it does not do epistemic work by representing or grounding inference. It constrains judgment non-inferentially, by situating inquiry and correcting it, while judgment alone bears epistemic authority. That places my position outside the traditional rationalist/empiricist divide rather than on the rationalist side of it. My position is best described as post-Kantian with a contemporary anaytic twist, and is heavily indebted to thinkers like Peirce, Sellars and McDowell.
This is why the “direction of fit” framing doesn’t quite apply. I’m not saying the mind legislates how the world must be, nor that sensation ought to match reality. Sensation itself is non-normative. The act of judgment is intrinsically normative, not because it is independent of experience, but because it is truth-apt.
So in the orange-screen case: I’m not saying that because there is an orange screen I ought to see orange, nor that seeing orange licenses an inference. Rather, when I judge “the screen is orange,” that judgment is assessable for truth, and experience constrains it without functioning as a premise.
That, I think, is where our views genuinely diverge: whether sensory mediation itself does epistemic work by representing and grounding inference, or whether judgment alone is epistemically authoritative while experience constrains it non-inferentially.
The indirect realist reads the book The Republic by Plato and says that our knowledge about Socrates is indirect. The direct realist reads the book and says that the book is how we know about Socrates.
Both are true.
Our knowledge about the ship is indirect because it has come directly from the causal chain.
The indirect realist is referring to the ship. The direct realist is referring to the causal chain.
Suppose you make the judgement that if you see an orange screen in your mind then there is an orange screen in the world.
Your judgement is true if when you see an orange screen in your mind then there is an orange screen in the world.
What makes your judgement normative rather than descriptive?
In society, the rule “you should not smoke indoors” is normative because it is controlled by the law.
In life, the rule “evil is bad” is normative because it is part of an innate, human nature.
You say your judgement is not normative because of any phenomenal experiences or will of the mind.
Then what exactly makes your judgements normative rather than descriptive?
This is where I think a crucial distinction is getting lost.
The normativity I’m talking about is not a property of the content judged, but of the act of judging. The proposition “if I see orange, then the screen is orange” is entirely descriptive. What is normative is taking it to be true — committing oneself to its correctness and taking responsibility if it turns out to be false.
That’s why comparisons with laws or moral rules don’t quite apply. Legal and moral norms are prescriptive and externally grounded. Epistemic normativity is neither enforced nor derived; it is imminent and constitutive. To judge at all is to place oneself under standards of truth, justification, and error. No additional rule, institution, or innate principle is required.
So when I say judgment is normative, I don’t mean that it issues an “ought” in the moral sense, or that it is governed by conventions. I mean that to judge is to take a stance that can succeed or fail — that can be correct or incorrect — and that this answerability is what distinguishes judgment from mere sensation or description.
That is also why sensory experience, while indispensable, cannot itself function as an inferential premise. Sensation is not the kind of thing that can be right or wrong. Judgment is. And that difference is where epistemic authority resides.
It is possible to infer from a single sensory experience, such as “I see an orange screen”, what exists in a mind-external world, but the probability of being correct is remote.
It is also possible to commit oneself to the judgement that “if I see an orange screen then there is an orange screen in the world”, but again the probability of being correct is remote.
I agree that a sensory experience is not truth-apt whilst a judgement is.
As it is unlikely that any inference from a single sensory experience will be correct, it is also unlikely that any single judgement will be correct either.
There is the normative claim “you ought not to be smoking”
There is also the normative claim “I ought to commit myself to making a judgement". I agree that it is not the content of the judgement that is normative but rather the act of committing oneself to making a judgement that is normative.
However, a judgement being normative does not make it any more likely to be correct than a descriptive judgement. There is no reason why a normative judgement that one is committed will be more correct that a descriptive judgement one is not committed to.
Epistemic authority resides neither in a single sensory experience such as “I see an orange screen” nor in a single normative judgement, such as “I ought to commit myself to making a judgement".
We must look elsewhere for epistemic authority.
I think there’s a subtle but important shift in your reply that ends up missing the point I was making.
My claim was not that single judgments are reliable, infallible, or likely to be correct. Epistemic authority is not a matter of probability, reliability over isolated cases, or confidence in one-off judgments. It concerns what kind of act is even eligible to be assessed as correct or incorrect at all.
Sensation, as you agree, is not truth-apt. Judgments are. That difference is not about likelihood of error; it is about logical role. Only truth-apt acts can be wrong, and only what can be wrong can be corrected, justified, or criticized. That is the sense in which epistemic authority “resides” in judgment rather than sensation.
So when you say that neither a single sensory experience nor a single judgment has epistemic authority, I agree — if “authority” is taken to mean certainty or high probability. But that is not the sense at issue. The point is that only judgment participates in the space of reasons at all, even when judgments are tentative, revisable, or likely to be false.
Likewise, the normativity I’m invoking is not the moral norm “you ought to judge,” nor the psychological commitment to judging. It is the epistemic normativity built into judgment itself: judgments answer to how things are, can succeed or fail, and can be revised in light of further reasons. Sensory experience constrains this process, but it does not enter it as a premise.
So I don’t think we need to “look elsewhere” for epistemic authority. We just need to distinguish authority from certainty, and normativity from reliability. Epistemic authority lies in judgment because judgment alone is answerable to truth — even when, and especially when, it turns out to be wrong.
Causal chains are not the real claim. As you, @Hanover and others point out, there are innumerable causal steps between an observer and any act of perception. If the claim was just "there are causal steps in between" it would be quite weak. Indirect realism, as @Michael points out, is aimed at naive realism, and so the target it attacks is the illusion of direct perception. The direct/indirect distinction this claim relies on is quite tricky, and the fact that people don't clearly grasp it is why this discussion is interminable. (I'm still working it out myself, which is why the topic is still interesting to me even after that huge thread a few years ago).
The physical world offers ample examples of this illusion. First, what it is not: consider looking at yourself in the mirror. It appears to you that you are directly seeing yourself. That is because you are. The mirror is an extra step in the causal chain the light undergoes, one designed to allow you to see yourself. That extra step doesn't mean you really aren't seeing yourself directly. You see yourself directly, with aid of a mirror.
Now, consider looking at a photograph of yourself. If you were naive to photography, it might be shocking to look directly at yourself, captured in a small flat square. You are not. When you look at the photograph, you are in fact looking at a square of cellulose or plastic, not yourself. But you are still looking at yourself indirectly, because there is still a causal connection between the surface of the photograph and your features.
Hopefully this example brings some clarity to the indirect realist claim. We experience the world through something it is not, phenomenal representation, just as you can experience your appearance through something you are not, a photograph. It only appears to us that all the sights, sounds, smells, shades that comprise the world, are the world. They are not, they don't belong to the larger world, but instead the world of the mind. The primitives of perception: colors, sounds, scents, are constructs of brains, and may manifest differently to different brains, almost certainly so across species. But crucially, these constructs are causally connected to the world. How they appear at any moment is causally connected to the world they are about, just as the photograph is causally connected to your appearance.
The world is real, and we are causally connected to it, through an indirect relationship like the relationship between a photograph and the subject it captured.
But those who advocate for indirect realism like to point out how all of this goes on in the brain. And last I heard the brain is part of this world.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion with a thoughtful reply. I thought I would chime in since this overlaps with so many of the same issues I've been discussing with @Michael and @RussellA.
The photograph case you raised is an interesting test case because I think that it subtly presupposes exactly what is at issue. The photograph itself is what is perceptually present, and the person is not. That’s why it’s natural to say the person is only perceived indirectly. But in ordinary perception there isn’t an analogous surrogate object that stands in for the ship in that way; at least, that is the point at issue. The ship itself is what our judgments are about, and it's what also constrains our beliefs over time.
That’s why I’m hesitant to say that the “primitives of perception are hallucinations of the brain.” That description already assumes that phenomenal character functions like a photograph—i.e. as the thing perceived instead of the object—whereas both @Banno’s point (if I'm understanding him correctly) and my own have been that phenomenal character causally constrains perception without being its direct object.
I agree that rejecting naïve realism is mandatory, and that causal mediation alone doesn’t settle the issue. But I don’t think the photograph case shows that perception must be indirect in the sense of being mediated by inner surrogates rather than being answerable to the world itself.
When you look at a photograph, you really are looking at its subject. And you are looking at the photograph. You are looking at the subject, by way of the photograph. This is indirection. We experience the ship too, by way of its phenomenal character.
Do you dispute that we experience its phenomenal character? We certainly talk about the way the ship looks, the way it sounds, the way it smells, the way it feels, all the time. Not just how it operates.
Do you dispute that looks, sounds, smells, feels belong to the brain? That they are not found on the ship itself, but are properties of the brain, which are causally constrained by properties of the ship?
If you agree with these two, its hard for me to see how this does not map to a photograph. We experience the photograph, and we indirectly experience the subject, which causally constrains its manifestation on the photograph. We experience phenomenal character, and we indirectly experience the world object, which causally constrains how phenomenal character manifests to us.
While addressed to hypericin, this post is for all.
This might be a side-issue, or perhaps the following point is worth making.
There's a line of argument, a form of scientism, that runs something along these lines: the chairs, tables and cups that make up our world are not as we see them but consisting of atoms or quarks or quantum fluctuations or some such; therefore the chairs tables and cups are not the things that make up our world.
Now I hope it's very clear that this line of argument is not only invalid, it is mistaken. That a chair consists of atoms or quarks or quantum fluctuations simply does not mean that it is not a chair.
At least a part of the problem here is that direct realism, as criticised by the indirect realists, is wholly accepted by hardly anybody. The reasons for this are partly historical. When it was noticed that we construct our understanding of the world around us using our brains, folks supposed that this meant we didn't see our world directly. They therefore inferred the existence of philosophers who thought we did see the world directly, and called them "direct realists".
There's also much vagueness concerning what it is to see something indirectly. You didn't see it directly, you saw it through a telescope, or a mirror, or only its shadow. It appears that how we are to understand "direct" perception depends entirely on what it is contrasted with; so of course it is difficult to imagine what "direct perception" is, per se. It's a nonsense, an invention of the defenders of the sort of argument from Ayer that was critiqued by Austin. You can find examples in every thread on perception.
What I would reject here is the idea, incipient in the physiological description of perception, that we do not see the flower, but an image of the flower. The argument being rejected is along the lines of the one given above that there are not really any chairs and tables and cups. It runs along the lines that what we see is not, and here the language gets a bit weird, the "flower-as-it-really-is" or the "flower-in-itself"; what we see is instead a construct built by light and atoms and neural nets.
Now I think this account is wrong, and on two counts. The first is count is the supposition that there is a useful way in which there is a "flower-as-it-really-is" or the "flower-in-itself". This idea relies on it making sense to talk of a flower seperate from our interpretation and construction of the world around us, a flower apart from our comprehension of the world. But our understanding is always, and already, an interpretation, so the "flower-as-it-really-is" or the "flower-in-itself" is already a nonsense.
The second count is the misdirection in thinking that we see the result of the causal chain, and not the flower. We do not see the result of the causal chain, as if we were homunculi; rather, that causal chain just is our seeing the things in our world.
We do not "experience the world through something it is not, phenomenal representation".
Firstly, the word "phenomenal" is doing damage here, by reifying the process of perception, mistaking the process for the result. It presumes, rather than argues, that what we see is the phenomena and not the flower.
And secondly, we do not "experience the world" passively, in the way supposed. We interact with it, we pick up the cup, board the ship, and coordinate all of these activities with others. We do not passively experience the world, we are actively embedded in it.
And none of this is to deny the casual chain that is part of this interaction.
I don’t dispute either of the points you raise. Yes, we experience phenomenal character, and yes, the looks, sounds, smells, and feels involved in perception are properties of the nervous system. I also wouldn’t deny that perceptual judgment is causally mediated by phenomenal character.
But the issue isn’t causal mediation; it’s epistemic mediation. Consider the following commitments:
(1) Phenomenal qualities represent aspects of the world.
(2) Ordinary perceptual judgments are judgments about phenomenal qualities.
(3) Our knowledge of the world is inferred from such perceptual judgments.
One influential way of understanding epistemic mediation in the indirect realist tradition involves accepting commitments like these. I reject all three. For that reason, I reject the claim that perceptual judgment is epistemically mediated in the traditional sense. That’s also why I think the photograph analogy misleads: it tacitly presupposes at least one of these commitments, whereas my view denies them.
Out of curiosity, which of three propositions above would accept, if any? Does the distinction between causal and epistemic mediation as laid out above make sense to you, or would you qualify it in some way? I’d be interested to get your thoughts.
I think I understand this distinction between causal and epistemic mediation, and I like it. At first blush, I accept all three propositions. Quickly, using the smell of ammonia as a grounding example:
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
The smell of ammonia represents that there is ammonia in the world. The relation smell of ammonia -> ammonia is symbolic, represented with the one way arrow characteristic of symbols. The smell of ammonia points to ammonia, without the smell being a part of the ammonia itself. In the same way, "dog" points to a doggy, without the glyphs "dog" being in any way a part of the doggy itself.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
True.
When I smell ammonia, I am judging that this particular phenomenal quality smells like ammonia to me. NH3 doesn't in itself smell like ammonia, it has no intrinsic smell. It is the way that smell manifests to me phenomenally, that sharp, unpleasant, pungent reek, that I associate with ammonia.
When I say ammonia is stinky, I am complaining specifically about the phenomenal quality of that smell. Not the NH3 itself. It is the phenomenal quality that makes me recoil. If the phenomenal quality were pleasant to me, I would not complain, despite NH3 being identical in either case.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
True. The smell of ammonia in itself tells me nothing about the world. I have to had experienced the smell, paired with knowledge of the substance producing it. Only after this learning event has occurred, can I infer, from the smell, the proposition "There is ammonia nearby".
To me this is all fairly straightforward. Where do you object?
The difference I see in our positions is perhaps in my insistence that the boundaries of philosophical inquiry do not imply anything about ontology.
Well, metaphysics is just conceptual plumbing, after all. So metaphysics is "definitional". Btu yes, I'm really not advocating direct realism so much as rejecting indirect realism, together with its reliance on private phenomenon.
Quoting Hanover
So you would rather a wrong answer here to no answer?
Quoting Hanover
The supposed "phenomenal state" is a large part of the problem. Why take such positing private phenomena as a metaphysical given?
Quoting Hanover
So far as philosophy consists in conceptual clarification, it doesn't presume an ontology. However there are things that we do talk about, so there are ontological ramifications here.
I read you as just rejecting reliance on private phenomena period. Whether our perceptions directly or indirectly reflect reality or not is irrelevant. Quoting Banno
I was arguing for quietism, meaning you can't say anything about what our perception is. When you say the perception of the ship is just part of the process, that doesn't mean much to me and it tells me nothing about how this seeing happens. It suggests an answer has been provided when it hasn't. The better answer to the question of "what is it to see a ship?" is "I have no idea, but I do. "Quoting BannoBecause they indubitably exist.. There's a significant difference between denying the phenomenonal and claiming it's identification is unnecessary for philosophical purposes. Quoting Banno
Wasn't the Wittgensteinian objective to isolate out metaphysical confusion from philosophical inquiry?
I think it'd be more informative to answer "Look over there... see that? it's a ship". Show, don't tell. (Edit: Notice that this is public and communal, it presumes that others are involved, as opposed to the solipsism seen in phenomenalism?)
And that's not quiteism. You and I understand what it is to see a ship, because that's what we do. Meaning as use.
Quoting Hanover
Well... we see things, and talk about them and so on - we interact with them and with each other. What place there is for private mental phenomenon in all this is at the very least questionable. You've seen my arguments rejecting qualia for similar reasons.
That word, exist... so often leads to reification.
Quoting Hanover
I'm not privy to Wittgenstein's intentions. I read him as primarily showing that what are thought of as philosophical problems are often, and perhaps always, confusions that can be sorted by rearranging the way we understood them.
To some extent your response here also seems pragmatic.
Well... not quite, although there are simialriteis.
What's absent, amongst other things, is the usual, somewhat naive view that truth is about practicality, that the utility of a sentence is what renders it true, or that there are no true sentences, only more useful ones.
I certainly would not call myself a pragmatist.
That’s more my speed.
Of course every understanding is an interpretation. But this does not obviate the distinction between the world as we perceive it, and (our understanding of) the world as it is. We perceive the flower as looking like this, and smelling like that. We understand the flower to typically take this physical form, to have this life cycle, to grow in this climate , to treat that disease, to attract these insects. The fact that these understandings are interpretations adds nothing. These are our interpretations of how the flower is. But to also understand the phenomenal presentation of the flower as how the flower is, is the misunderstanding at issue.
Quoting Banno
Yet we discuss both, which is your gold standard. How the flower appears to us, and what the flower is.
No homunculi. An object can phenomenologically appear to us in a certain way, without there being a literal gnome in our heads watching an internal monitor.
Quoting Banno
Experience is active in that it is an active mental construction, which is indirect realism. But it feels like a passive window to the world, which is the naive realist illusion. All these actions you describe are irrelevant, we are not talking about them, we are talking about perceptions.
Thanks for clarifying!
Here is how I would approach each of the three propositions. I’ll try to reuse your examples so that we can better observe how our approaches differ.
(1) Phenomenal qualities represent aspects of the world.
False. The sharp, pungent, acrid scent of ammonia as-smelled does not, in itself, represent anything in the world. Neither does redness as-seen, loudness as-heard, or sour as-tasted. A representation is something that can be assessed for correctness, truth or fidelity. Raw sensory qualities are not the kinds of things that can be correct or incorrect; they simply are what they are.
(2) Ordinary perceptual judgments are judgments about phenomenal qualities.
False. Ordinary perceptual judgments are about things in the world (“that rag smells of ammonia”), not phenomenal qualities (“there’s a sharp, pungent, acrid scent in my olfactory map”). The former are typically referred to as “perception”, the latter as “introspection”. Introspection is second-order, reflective and derivative with respect to ordinary perception.
(3) Our knowledge of the world is inferred from such (introspective) judgments.
False. We do not ordinarily infer perceptual judgments from introspective judgments. Rather, perceptual judgments are epistemically primary, and introspective judgments are appealed to only in reflective, corrective, or explanatory contexts. And even then, introspective judgments are typically not used to justify perceptual judgments, but only to help reason about (or explain) anomalous cases (e.g. uncertainty, disagreement, illusion).
As you can see, we approach and answer these questions in significantly different ways. What do you think of this?
I largely agree with the position you've been defending on this thread. The only significant divergence we have is the one we've discussed on another thread. Whereas you would say:
Quoting Banno
I would say: "our understanding is always, and already an interpretation, and the notion of the 'flower-as-it-really-is' or the 'flower-in-itself' is a non-eliminable regulative ideal around which the act of inquiry itself is organized".
Another divergence is that I am perhaps more apt to treat talk of phenomenal experience as legitimate (though not epistemically foundational).
Outside of those two things, I don't find much to disagree with in what you say.
Let me push back a little.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Compare this with words. "Dog" represents dogs. Yet, the word "dog" in itself, is not correct or incorrect. It simply is what it is. But, when placed in a larger context, for instance, pointing to an animal, and uttering "dog", then the word can correctly indicate the animal pointed to, or not.
Similarly, the smell of ammonia, in and of itself, is neither true or false. Yet, when it is experienced in an environment, the smell can correctly indicate ammonia, or not. Ammonia might be the wrong phenomenal smell, as happens sometimes with long covid. Or it might be hallucinatory.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Hmm, this is not how I experience odor. The smell itself is what hits me first, viscerally and immediately. No introspection is needed. If the smell is a familiar one, I might identify it quickly, so quickly that it might even seem immediate. But if I haven't smelled that smell in a long time, it can take significant mental effort to identify it. Occasionally, I won't be able to at all, and I am left frustrated, wondering what that smell reminds me of.
Do you not relate to this?
(The third disagreement seems to follow from the second).
Based on the Merriam Webster Dictionary, normative means conforming to norms, and norms means a principle that ought to be followed.
I agree that humans ought to be continually making judgements, such as “if I see an orange screen in my mind then there is an orange screen in the world”.
You use the word “authority”. A judgement cannot give itself authority. Any authority must come from outside the judgement. By what authority ought I to be continually making judgments? Where does this authority come from? What gives me the authority to make judgments?
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As you say, a sensation cannot be wrong, is not truth-apt, but a judgement can be wrong, is truth-apt.
Surely, If we are looking to an authority, we would prefer an authority that cannot be wrong, such as the senses, rather than an authority that is more often than not wrong, such as a judgement.
That I see an orange screen in my senses is authoritatively foundational to my subsequent reasoning, yet my judgement that “if I see an orange screen in my mind then there is a green unicorn in the world” has no authority in my reasoning about the world.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Is not the normal use of the word “normative” a moral norm, such as “you ought not smoke”
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
The problem is we give no authority to a judgement just because it is a judgement. We give authority to the content of a judgement.
For example, we give no authority to the judgement that “if I see an orange screen in my mind then there is a green unicorn in the world” just because it is a judgement. We give authority to the content of the judgement.
I would say that words are essentially representational: to be a word is to be a bearer of meaning or reference. And while I agree that context is required in order to fix a word’s conditions of use and meaning, context does not transform a word from a non-representational kind of thing to a representational one.
Smells are not like that. They can causally indicate ammonia, just as smoke can indicate fire, but the correctness conditions do not attach to the smell itself. They attach to the judgment made on the basis of it. When smell is misleading (hallucination, long covid, etc.), we don’t assess the smell as incorrect; we assess the judgment as mistaken or the sensory capacity as unreliable.
So even in context, phenomenal qualities are not what represents the world. They are a causal-enabling condition under which world-directed judgments acquire correctness conditions. That is the sense in which I deny epistemic mediation while fully granting causal mediation.
Quoting hypericin
I relate to that description completely. But I think this brings out a distinction rather than a disagreement.
What you’re describing is immediate phenomenal awareness — the smell hitting you viscerally, prior to identification. I don’t deny that at all. What I’m denying is that this involves an introspective judgment in the epistemic sense.
An introspective judgment would be something like “I am having a sharp, acrid olfactory experience.” That’s a reflective, truth-apt claim about one’s experience. In ordinary cases, we don’t make that judgment first. We either make a world-directed judgment (“that’s ammonia,” “something smells off”), or we hesitate from making a judgment at all because we can’t yet place it.
I would say that the delay or effort you describe doesn’t show that we infer from an inner premise; it shows that perceptual judgment can be difficult, uncertain, or fail altogether. Phenomenal awareness can be immediate without functioning as an epistemic intermediary.
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To sum up: it seems like the divergence between us can be captured by a single question: are phenomenal qualities representational vehicles whose correctness conditions are fixed in context, or are they non-representational causal conditions under which world-directed judgments acquire correctness conditions.
What do you think?
The problem with this is that it makes the word "direct" in the phrase "direct perception" meaningless. This is highlighted by your assertion that these people with their visors still directly perceive their shared environment. You appear to be arguing that the visor and its screen is "the mechanism by which the world shows itself".
Whereas I think this visor and its screen functions exactly like a Cartesian theatre, and a Cartesian theatre is exactly the sort of thing that would qualify as indirect perception (but isn't required for indirect perception, as I've argued before). So you've defined "direct realism" in such a way that even the strawman misrepresentation of indirect realism would count as direct realism.
Quoting Banno
According to the indirect realist, the same is true ("each of these has a slightly differing sense") even without the visor.
1. There is perceiving mental phenomena (e.g. colours in the sui generis qualitative sense of the term) — which is not to be understood in the sense of a Cartesian theatre but in the sense of the seeing and hearing that (also) happens when we dream and hallucinate.
2. There is perceiving distal objects (e.g. a dress).
3. There is talking about the mental phenomena (e.g. "I see white and gold").
4. There is talking about the distal object (e.g. "there is a dress").
The substantive philosophical claims are that a) (2) only happens in virtue of (1) and that b) (2) does not satisfy the philosophical notion of directness, e.g. as explained here — with the example of the visor showing that (2) doesn't need to be direct for (4) to happen.
So let's amend the scenario slightly. Instead of there being a screen on the inside that outputs light towards the eyes it has wires connected directly to the optical nerves and stimulates them in the "appropriate" way, i.e. the visor is a "bionic eye".
Would you still accept that these people only have indirect perception of the world beyond the visor, or does it now qualify as direct perception? What are the immediate objects of assessment? If the Common Kind Claim is to be believed then whatever are the immediate objects of assessment when the bionic eye is malfunctioning (e.g. causing their wearers to see things that aren't there) are also the immediate objects of assessment when it's working as intended.
Yes — in ordinary language, “normative” is often used for moral norms. But that is not the sense in play here.
By epistemic normativity I do not mean “humans ought to be continually making judgments.” I mean something closer to this: when we make judgments, we are implicitly adopting standards of correctness (e.g. truth, evidence, coherence, reasonableness).
In other words, judgment is normative because it is answerable to how things are. To judge at all is to commit oneself to being right or wrong, and to being accountable to reasons. That commitment is built into the act of judging; it is not a further moral obligation one may or may not take on. To reject those norms is not to judge differently, but to stop judging altogether.
And while these norms are indeed socially mediated, I would argue they are ultimately grounded in the subjectivity of the individual.
Quoting RussellA
Here the contrast is misleading. Sensation is not “an authority that cannot be wrong”; it is not an authority at all, because it is not the kind of thing that can be right or wrong. To say that sensation is not truth-apt is to say it can be neither correct nor incorrect.
Judgments, by contrast, can be wrong — but that is precisely because they are the only things that can also be right. Error is not a defect relative to sensation; it is the price of intelligibility. Only what can be mistaken can be corrected, justified, or improved. That is why judgments — not sensations — belong in the space of reasons.
Quoting RussellA
I think this shows that the word “authority” is doing more harm than good here, and that may be my fault for introducing it.
All I mean by saying that judgments have epistemic authority is that they are the locus of truth and falsity. Sensory qualities — redness-as-seen, pain-as-felt — are not the kinds of things to which truth or falsity apply at all. Judgments are. That is the only contrast I am trying to mark.
So the point is not that judgments are authoritative regardless of content, nor that every judgment deserves equal credibility. It is that only judgments, whatever their content, are even candidates for being assessed as correct or incorrect. Sensation constrains judgment, but it does not itself enter into justification or inference.
Where the SDR and Indirect Realist disagree is where this directly cognized ship exists.
The Indirect Realist believes that the ship they perceive exists in the mind as a particular instantiation of their concept of ship, caused by something that exists in a mind-external world that is unknown.
The SDR believes that the ship they perceive exists in the mind as a particular instantiation of their concept of ship, caused by something that exists in a mind-external world that is the same as what they perceive in their mind.
So in the mind of the SDR is something that weighs 10,000 tonnes, is 200m long, 25 m wide and 30m tall. But this is obviously not the case.
The SDR says that they are directly cognizing the ship in the mind-external world, but if in the mind of the SDR there is no direct cognition of a weight of 10,000 tonnes, length of 200m, width of 25m and height of 30m, then what exactly is the SDR directly cognizing? The idea of a ship?
I would say that the change doesn’t affect the point I was making.
Moving the interface from a screen to direct stimulation of the optic nerve changes the location of the causal mediation, not its epistemic role. In both cases, what the subject’s judgments are immediately answerable to is a generated input whose correctness depends on how it was produced, rather than to the objects themselves. That is the sense in which the perception is indirect.
Then what is the relevant difference between these:
1. An artificial bionic eye
2. An artificial organic eye (identical to a natural eye, but grown in a lab)
3. A transplanted natural eye
4. The natural eye one was born with
All work by taking electromagnetic radiation as input and then stimulating the optical nerve according to some deterministic process.
I would say that there is no relevant difference of the kind you are asking for — because the distinction I’m drawing is not about the material or biological status of the causal chain at all — but about the epistemic role it plays.
In ordinary perception — regardless of whether the eye is natural, transplanted, or artificially grown — one’s judgments are answerable to objects in a shared environment through ongoing interaction and correction, not to an internal signal whose adequacy must itself be evaluated.
The word "judgment" means deciding what is true or false. What is true or false means being answerable to how things are.
In this sense, yes, as definitions can be normative, judgement is here a normative definition.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Reason could not exist without sensations. The very existence of reason depends on sensations. I can only reason “if I see a red screen in my mind then there is a red screen in the world" if I have the sensation “I see a red screen”.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
It depends what you mean by “enter into”.
A judgement could not exist without sensations. The very existence of a judgement depends on sensations. I can only judge “if I see a red screen in my mind then there is a red screen in the world" if I have the sensation “I see a red screen”.
So why is this not also the case for the bionic eye? It simply replaces rod and cone cells with silicon chips.
I think what’s really at issue here is how we understand truth and directness. On my view, truth doesn’t consist in a resemblance or mirroring between what’s in the mind and what’s in the world, but in a judgment’s being correct or incorrect depending on how things are. That doesn’t require the ship’s properties to be present in the mind, only that the judgment be about the ship itself. Perception is direct in that sense: the object of perception is the mind-external ship, even though only some of its properties are perceptually available at any given time. Whether a judgment about the ship is true is settled by how the ship is, not by how closely something in the mind matches it. I realize this may sound like I’m simply assuming that judgments can be answerable to the world, but every account of truth has to take something as basic; here the difference is just whether one starts from mirroring relations or from the idea that judgments aim at getting things right about the world.
I agree entirely that judgment and reasoning depend on sensation in the sense you’re emphasizing. Without sensory experience, there would be nothing to judge about, and no reasoning could get started at all. I’m not denying that causal or developmental dependence.
The distinction I’m drawing is about epistemic role, not dependence. Sensations are conditions for the possibility of judgment, but they are not themselves reasons, premises, or justifications. That is why judgments, but not sensations, belong in the space of reasons. A sensation can prompt, occasion, or constrain a judgment, but it is the judgment that takes responsibility for saying how things are and can therefore be assessed as correct or incorrect.
So when I say that sensation does not “enter into” justification or inference, I don’t mean that judgments could exist without sensation. I mean that sensation does not function as a truth-apt item alongside judgments. The dependence you’re pointing to is real, but it doesn’t undermine the distinction I’m trying to mark.
It could be the case for a bionic eye — nothing I’ve said rules that out.
Simply replacing rods and cones with silicon does not by itself introduce an epistemic intermediary. What matters is not what the components are made of, but whether the system functions as part of the ordinary perceptual coupling with the world, or instead produces an output whose correctness must be assessed independently of that coupling.
If the bionic eye is integrated into perception such that judgments are still answerable to objects through ongoing interaction and correction — as with natural, transplanted, or lab-grown eyes — then there is no epistemic intermediary, and perception is direct in the sense I’m using.
The visor and nerve-stimulation cases differ because they interpose a surrogate whose adequacy depends on a generating process that stands in for the world, rather than being part of the perceptual relation itself.
So the distinction isn’t silicon vs biology, or artificial vs natural; it’s whether the device replaces part of the perceptual interface with the world, or replaces the world with an internal stand-in.
What's the difference between a bionic eye that is "integrated into perception such that judgments are still answerable to objects through ongoing interaction and correction" and a bionic eye that is a "surrogate whose adequacy depends on a generating process that stands in for the world"?
It just seems like there's a lot of special pleading here.
Whether an organic eye or a bionic eye, there is something that takes electromagnetic radiation as input, carries out transduction according to some deterministic process, and then stimulates the optic nerve.
Without begging the question, what determines whether or not the physical intermediary between the electromagnetic radiation and the optic nerve is an epistemic intermediary? I don't think there is such a thing, e.g. proteins are not privileged over silicon.
So either perception is direct both with the bionic eye and the organic eye or perception is indirect both with the bionic eye and the organic eye.
If you say that perception is direct both with the bionic eye and the organic eye then we return to the Common Kind Claim: whatever is the "immediate object of assessment" when the eye (whether bionic or organic) is "malfunctioning" must also be the "immediate object of assessment" when the eye isn't "malfunctioning" — and in the former case that thing cannot be an object in the external world because the thing we're seeing doesn't exist in the external world; therefore in the latter case that thing cannot be an object in the external world either.
I think this is where we finally reach the deepest point of disagreement.
I reject the assumption that for veridical perception and hallucination to belong to a “common kind,” there must be a common object that is the immediate object of assessment. On my view, what is common is not an object, but a kind of epistemic activity: world-directed judgment undertaken from a perceptual standpoint.
In veridical perception, that judgment is answerable to objects in the environment and can be corrected by further interaction with them. In hallucination, the same kind of judgment is made, but it fails—there is no object that satisfies it. No inner surrogate is thereby promoted to the status of what is assessed; rather, the judgment is simply false.
That is why the Common Kind Claim does not force the conclusion you draw. Fallibility does not require that the immediate object of assessment be the same in success and failure. It requires only that the same kind of claim can succeed or fail.
This is also why the bionic vs organic distinction does no work here. I agree entirely that proteins are not privileged over silicon, and that both are deterministic transducers. But that shows only that causal mediation is ubiquitous. It does not show that perception involves an epistemic intermediary unless one assumes that error must always be explained by reference to an inner object.
So the dilemma you pose—either perception is indirect in both cases or direct in both cases—rests on an assumption I reject: that epistemic assessment must target an intermediary whenever perception can misfire. I deny that assumption. Judgments can be directly answerable to the world and still be wrong.
As I said a few days ago, these judgements do not occur apropos of nothing. Excluding the obvious cases of mathematics and logic, it is the phenomenal character of experience that prompts and directs our judgements. I say "there is a white and gold dress" when the appropriate visual phenomena occurs. If the experience is veridical (to the extent that colour experiences can be veridical), the judgement is true. If the experience is an hallucination, the judgement is false. In either case it is the visual phenomena (including its character) that acts as "immediate object of assessment".
Yes, I think this makes the divergence fully explicit now.
You’re treating phenomenal character as that which is assessed for correctness in the act of perception, whereas I’m treating judgments about the world as what are assessed, with phenomenal character merely causally occasioning those judgments.
The difference here concerns what we each take as epistemically basic. It may be that we've hit rock bottom on this issue, which is fine. Either way, I have enjoyed the discussion very much.
No, I'm saying that it's the thing directly seen. From this we then make judgements about the world that can be correct or not (if indeed we do; much of the time I experience things without making any kind of judgement).
I see what you're saying, but I think that the distinction you're making here is more terminological than substantive. As I understand your account, it requires that it is possible for there to be a mismatch between the phenomenal character of experience and the world. Understanding phenomenal experience as something that can succeed or fail to line up with how things are burdens it with a representational role that I would reject. That's a difference in how we locate epistemic mediation within the context of perception, not about whether judgments are made “from” experience,
We start with the naive view that there is (usually) a match between the phenomenal character of experience and the world. The sky is blue in the exact same way as blueness is present in visual experience and the ball is round in the exact same way as roundness is present in visual experience. We can trust that this is so because the sky and the ball are "directly present" in experience; experience isn't just some distinct neurological or mental phenomenon but an "openness to the world". And this is understandable, particularly with distance being a feature of visual experience. It really seems as if experience extends beyond the body to encapsulate the environment.
The indirect realist then argues that experience is just a neurological or mental phenomenon and so the sky and the ball are not "directly present" in experience in this way. Because of this, it is possible that the sky appears blue to us but is in fact green (or not coloured at all, because colours are "secondary qualities") and that the ball appears round to us but is in fact a cube (or not shaped at all, because shapes are "secondary qualities"). When I see the sky the "immediate object of assessment" is the colour blue, which is a mental phenomenon, and when I see the ball the "immediate object of assessment" is the round shape, which is a mental phenomenon.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I would say the same about your claim that experience isn't the sort of thing that can "succeed" or "fail" at "lin[ing] up with how things are".
Just because an apple isn't a "representation" it doesn't follow that we can't say that its features/properties do or don't match the features/properties of some other apple (or some other fruit).
In the case of naive realism, the claim is that the features/properties of experience do match the features/properties of the apple (in the veridical case), in the sense of both type identity and token identity. The indirect realist argues that this token identity fails and so this type identity possibly fails.
And if we find that colours and shapes aren't even the sort of properties that the sky and the ball can have (which I think we have, at least with respect to colour) then that's just proof of indirect realism as I see it.
I dispute it because none of us have seen, smelled, tasted, or heard our brains. Sensing is an act of the body, no doubt, but the things or objects upon which we perform this act are out there, in a wholly different place and time from ourselves. It’s the reason our senses point outward, after all, towards ships or what have you.
The basic direction our senses point ought to eliminate the idea that we see sights or smell smells or taste tastes. I can extend my arm outward, point at what I’m seeing, and see both my finger pointing at the ship, and the ship itself. One can surmise, using every capacity of judgement he has, that he is not pointing inward towards his brain. Nonetheless, there is always a wide variety of verb-to-noun derivations and mind-things to replace the ship with. Perceptions, sensations, “phenomenal characters”. Se we stop speaking about ships.
Since the entire skeptical effort amounts to the claim that a person is only privy to what goes on somewhere behind the eyes and not before them, we get the infinite regress coming to all these discussions: who or what is looking at these sights and sounds? And so on and so on. There is no answer.
Common sense is just too difficult to ignore. The lights we see, the compounds we smell, the soundwaves we hear—these come from the boat, are properties of the environment outside of the mind; and the relationship with these properties is absolutely direct, so direct that we absorb them into our body.
What do you mean by senses "pointing" outward? The physics and physiology is just nerve endings reacting to some proximal stimulus (e.g. electromagnetic radiation, vibrations in the air, molecules entering the nose, etc.) and then sending signals to the brain. If there's any kind of "motion" involved, it certainly does appear to be towards the head.
If you agree that phenomenal experience cannot be correct or incorrect, then the hypothesis that phenomenal experience is "what is directly seen" no longer explains error or motivates the skeptical worries you have presented. At that point, our disagreement reduces to whether experience is the direct object of perception or merely a mode of access. My point has been that the direct objects of perceptual judgments ("that's a ship") are objects in the world (ships), not phenomenal contents (redness as-seen, sourness as-tasted, etc). And this pretty much brings us full circle to where we landed a few posts back.
The skeptical worry is that the sky appears blue but might be green (or not coloured at all, because colour is a "secondary quality") and that the ball appears round but might be cubed (or not shaped at all, because shape is a "secondary quality"). The direct realist tries to avoid this by arguing that the sky appears blue because a) the sky is blue and b) the sky is directly present in experience. The indirect realist argues that this argument fails because (b) is false.
You appear to be arguing that (a) is a category error (i.e. colour is not even the sort of property the sky can have). That neither proves direct realism nor disproves indirect realism. If anything, it proves indirect realism because if (a) is a category error then (b) is false.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
And so we circle back to the example with the visors. The judgement "there is a ship" is a judgement about an object in the world, but it still involves indirect perception of the ship given the visor and the screen. You seem to be conflating the immediate objects of perception and the things our judgements are about. These are not the same thing.
Its possible OP was trying to point out how nonsensical such a statement is. But there's been nine pages since, so I don't know.
What we call a 'ship' is also what a babe sees. They are mediated by the babes eyes and existing data set (as you point out, aptly). This is indirectness writ large and is not changed by accumulating more data to more quickly ascertain what the sensations are indicating to you.
Quoting Michael
This has long been my argument - science (which, if you take a moment, cannot give us certainty under any circumstances) - the best method we have for understanding anything - tells us that perception is patently indirect. This isn't really a philosophical issue.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
These seem to be the same thing?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Not always. You could simply talk about emotional sensations or at least involuntary mental states and make clear that our perceptions are wildly divergent. This can apply to sound, sight and touch. When the system is adjusted, sensation is adjusted and we do not really have ways to adjudicate between them between perception is, scientifically, a step askance from objects.
I am quite unsure why this ruffles so many feathers. There's kind of two positions that could taken in this type of vein:
1. Science tells us perception is indirect. Acknowledging that it requires perception to come to this conclusion, this doesn't mean we reject our senses for practical purposes. It means we cannot be sure of what our sensations represent - but if they are coherent as between individuals (mostly true) then we can get on just fine. This seems to be hte purpose of science, just to an extremely narrow and rigid margin of error - particularly in comparison with other methods (like trying to logically deduce emotional responses to stimuli);
Objection: Given that this requires that our sensations are, fundamentally, unreliable in some sense, we cannot trust science to give us this conclusion. We cannot trust science to lead us to any worth-while conclusions.
I'm sure we all see the issue with this response.
2. Science tells us perception is direct.
Objection: Patently untrue. It just might not matter to the realist because they're having a different discussion maybe?
I've granted that "blueness" is not a property of the sky, yet I maintain that "the sky is blue" is true. This sounds like a contradiction, but I don't think it is.
I would say that ordinary perceptual judgments like "the sky is blue" do not have to be interpreted in a naive way, but can be interpreted as something like "under normal viewing conditions, the sky systematically elicits blue-type visual responses in normal perceivers". This makes the claim objective, fallible, publicly assessable and non-projective. Nor does it require that the sky instantiate a phenomenal property as experienced. Many of the claims that people make ("the sun is rising", "that table is solid") can be cashed out in similar terms without resorting to naive realism.
Quoting Michael
It's not conflation, it's deflation. In the view I am defending, perception is cashed out entirely in terms of perceptual judgment, and perceptual judgments are about objects in the world. That’s not to deny that sensation [I]causally[/I] mediates perception, only that it [I]epistemically[/I] mediates it.
It is a contradiction in terms, but I understand the second to actually mean "The sky is blue, as far as the HUman perceptual system tends to present" and that is obviously true.
When I contrast mirroring with a judgment’s being correct or incorrect, I’m not redescribing the same relation. Mirroring posits a relation between mental items and worldly items; truth is a normative status of a judgment, not a relation between two objects. A judgment is answerable to how things are not by resembling the world, but by being correct or incorrect depending on how things are; when true, what is affirmed is identical with what is the case, without any mediating, internal mental replica.
Everything you say about variability, mediation, and scientific accounts of perception concerns causal dependence. I agree with all of that. Where I disagree is with the further step that treats causal mediation as implying epistemic mediation by inner representations. That step isn’t delivered by science.
Quoting AmadeusD
No, the claim is not just about how the human perceptual system presents things. It’s still a claim about the sky; namely the sky as it is in relation to the human perceptual system under normal conditions.
The point is just that ordinary truth doesn’t require predicates to correspond to simple intrinsic properties instantiated by objects. Rejecting naïve color metaphysics doesn’t make ordinary color judgments false—it just rejects a mirroring account of what makes them true.
So there's an interpretation of (a) such that (a) is true. However, notice that indirect realists aren't arguing that (a) is false; they are arguing that (b) is false. And they aren't arguing that any and all interpretations of (b) are false but that a particular interpretation of (b) is false; specifically, the interpretation of (b) such that if it were true, and if the sky appears blue, then (a) is true according to a naive interpretation of (a).
But out of curiosity, would you make the same claims about shape and orientation (and other features of geometry) that you make above about colour?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Then I'll repeat what I said to Banno in my last comment to him: I think the visor and its screen functions exactly like a Cartesian theatre (which is a strawman misrepresentation of indirect realism), and a Cartesian theatre is exactly the sort of thing that would qualify as indirect perception. So you've defined "direct realism" in such a way that even the strawman misrepresentation of indirect realism would count as direct realism.
It's so divorced from the actual (traditional) dispute between direct and indirect realism that it's not deflation but ... avoidance?
This is a restatement of what I've said amount to the same thing? I can't see a response to what I've said there specifically.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I'm not quite sure how you can make that claim: science tells us our mind cannot look at objects. Our eyes look at objects and our mind constructs images from sense-data. There is an unavoidable chasm between objects and our representations in this form. Can you explain what you mean in the above quote in light of this?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
They are the same thing. Wording things two different ways wont give us two different things.
That’s a fair question, and the short answer is: no, I wouldn’t treat shape and orientation in exactly the same way as colour — but I would reject naïve phenomenal mirroring for them as well.
Colour is plausibly response-dependent in a way that shape and orientation are not. Ordinary claims about shape and orientation track relatively stable, mind-independent structural features of objects — and that’s why geometrical error correction, measurement, and intersubjective agreement work the way they do.
But even in those cases, I don’t think truth requires that the phenomenal character of experience reproduce those properties as they are in the world. A judgment like “the ball is round” is true because the object has a certain spatial structure, not because a phenomenal roundness in experience mirrors a roundness in the object.
So the difference isn’t that colour judgments are non-realistic while shape judgments are naïvely realistic. The difference is that colour predicates are more tightly tied to perceptual response profiles, whereas shape predicates are tied to structural and relational features of objects. In neither case does perceptual truth require that properties be “directly present” in experience in the sense the naïve realist needs.
That’s why rejecting naïve realism about colour doesn’t force indirect realism about perception more generally — and rejecting phenomenal mirroring about shape doesn’t amount to denying that objects have shapes.
Quoting Michael
Calling my view “Cartesian” doesn’t address the issue I’ve been pressing. The Cartesian Theatre is defined by the presence of an epistemic surrogate whose adequacy must be evaluated. My whole point has been that once phenomenal experience is not truth-apt, treating it as the “immediate object of perception” does no epistemic work. If that move reclassifies the traditional taxonomy, so be it—but that’s a consequence of rejecting phenomenal-first assumptions, not a reductio.
Identity is not comparison.
Quoting AmadeusD
What I mean is that causal mediation does not by itself settle what perception is of. Science tells us that perception is implemented by sense organs and neural processes; I agree entirely. But it does not follow from this that the object of perception must be an inner representation rather than a mind-external object.
Saying that the mind “constructs images from sense-data” is already a philosophical interpretation of the science, not something the science itself establishes. All that science requires is that perception depends on causal processes. It does not require that awareness terminates in sense-data or inner pictures rather than in the world itself.
So the “chasm” you’re describing is not something science forces on us; it’s the result of adopting a particular representationalist model of perception. My claim has been that rejecting naïve mirroring does not commit us to that model.
Quoting AmadeusD
No, they are not the same thing.
A claim about perceptual presentation is a claim about how experience is structured (e.g. “humans tend to experience the sky as blue”). A claim about the sky-as-related-to-perceivers is a claim about the world under certain conditions (e.g. “the sky has properties such that, under normal conditions, it elicits blue-type responses”).
Those differ quite clearly in terms of:
Collapsing these distinctions is exactly what turns a claim about the world into a claim about experience, which is the move I’ve been resisting throughout.
Then to incite a more controversial topic:
Consider that there are two subspecies of humanity such that what one sees when standing upright is what the other sees when standing upside down. Both groups use the word "up" to describe the direction of the sky and "down" to describe the direction of the floor. Firstly, is this logically plausible? Secondly, is this physically plausible? Thirdly, does it make sense to argue that one subspecies is seeing the "correct" orientation and the other the "incorrect" orientation? Fourthly, if there is a "correct" orientation then how would we determine this without begging the question?
If it's difficult to imagine, consider two astronauts top and tail in space or standing on opposite sides of a ringworld looking at the Earth. From the perspective of one the North Pole is as the top and from the perspective of the other the South Pole is at the top. Neither is the "correct" perspective as there are no privileged viewpoints. Now retain their orientation relative to one another but bring them to Earth. Is there some distance from the ground such that one of their perspectives becomes the "correct" orientation?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I'm not calling your view Cartesian. I'm saying that the scenario with the visor and the screen functions like a Cartesian Theatre. This would clearly be indirect perception even though their perceptual judgement "there is a ship" is about an object in the world.
So your claim that "perception is cashed out entirely in terms of perceptual judgment, and perceptual judgments are about objects in the world ... [therefore perception is direct]" is a non sequitur.
That’s an interesting scenario to consider. Here is how I would answer your questions:
(1) Is the scenario logically plausible?
Yes. There’s no contradiction in two populations having systematically inverted orientation mappings.
(2) Is it physically plausible?
In principle, yes (vestibular inversion, neural remapping, spaceflight, etc.). The details are contingent, but not conceptually incoherent.
(3) Is one group seeing the “correct” orientation?
No. Because orientation is not an absolute property of the world, there is no “correct” mapping independent of a frame.
(4) How would we determine correctness without begging the question?
I think I would say we wouldn’t, because correctness isn’t the right notion here. I think what matters is
To summarize, I would say that orientation is frame-relative in a way that shape is not. That doesn’t imply error or indirectness, just that “up/down” are relational predicates whose correctness is fixed within a shared frame, not absolutely. This makes orientation relational rather than illusory, much like “left/right” or “near/far.”
Thoughts?
Sorry, missed this somehow.
I don’t think there’s a non sequitur here once my notion of “directness” is kept in view.
On my view, “direct” and “indirect” perception are not distinguished independently of where epistemic answerability terminates. To say that perception is indirect just is to say that perceptual judgment is answerable, in the first instance, to an epistemic surrogate rather than to the world itself.
The visor-and-screen case counts as indirect precisely because it introduces such a surrogate: the subject’s epistemic access runs through an internally generated stand-in whose adequacy must be assessed. That is not true in ordinary perception, even though both cases involve world-directed judgments.
So the inference from “perceptual judgment is about objects in the world” to “perception is direct” is not meant to be a standalone logical step. It’s a definitional consequence of rejecting epistemic intermediaries altogether. If one insists on distinguishing directness from judgmental answerability, then we’re simply working with different explanatory primitives.
Shape as seen or shape as felt? Because these are very different things. Studies on Molyneux's problem show that those born blind who have their sight restored "had no innate ability to transfer their tactile shape knowledge to the visual domain".
So is the mind-independent "shape" of an object similar to the look of a shape or the feel of a shape? Or is it similar to neither, and like colour we using a word like "circle" to refer to distinct things that are causally related but fundamentally different?
Or for something that might be less tricky to understand; what looks to be a smooth circle with the naked eye may look very different through a pair of binoculars or a microscope. Which "zoom" or "scale" counts as the "real" shape of an object? Same question when discussing something as simple as the distance between two points (2cm looks very different through a magnifying glass).
Then we're back to what I asked in this post (which I'll repeat below), which I don't think was addressed:
What's the difference between a bionic eye that is "integrated into perception such that judgments are still answerable to objects through ongoing interaction and correction" and a bionic eye that is "a surrogate whose adequacy depends on a generating process that stands in for the world"?
It just seems like there's a lot of special pleading here.
Whether an organic eye or a bionic eye, there is something that takes electromagnetic radiation as input, carries out transduction according to some deterministic process, and then stimulates the optic nerve.
Without begging the question or engaging in circularity, what determines whether or not the physical intermediary between the electromagnetic radiation and the optic nerve is an epistemic intermediary?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As I said before, you can mean anything you like by "directness". I'm concerned with what it means in the context of the traditional dispute between direct and indirect realism, which I summarised here (which I'll repeat below), and which I also don't think was addressed:
The direct realist argues that the sky appears blue because a) the sky is blue and b) the sky is directly present in experience. The indirect realist argues that this argument fails because (b) is false.
Even if there's an interpretation of (a) such that (a) is true, indirect realists aren't arguing that (a) is false; they are arguing that (b) is false. And they aren't arguing that any and all interpretations of (b) are false but that a particular interpretation of (b) is false; specifically, the interpretation of (b) such that if it were true, and if the sky appears blue, then (a) is true according to a naive interpretation of (a).
Perception is interpretive, mediated, and embedded in the world — and none of that entails indirectness.
I’d say neither the look nor the feel of shape as such is identical to the mind-independent shape of an object. Shape is a structural property that can be accessed through different sensory modalities and at different scales, each of which presents only partial, resolution-bound aspects of that structure.
Molyneux-style results show that cross-modal access to the same structure is learned rather than innate, not that there is no shared object or that perception is indirect. Likewise, questions about “which scale is the real shape” rest on a false assumption that there must be a single privileged resolution. Shape descriptions are scale-relative but objective within a scale.
None of this requires that perceptual experience mirror shape as it is in the world, and none of it implies that perception proceeds via epistemic surrogates. It just means that perceptual access to structure is perspectival and modality-specific.
Quoting Michael
I think the reason this keeps sounding like special pleading is that you’re asking for a principled distinction I don’t think exists. On my view, there is no such thing as a physical process being an “epistemic intermediary” as opposed to a merely causal intermediary.
All perception—organic or bionic—involves deterministic transduction from the world to the nervous system. What makes something an epistemic intermediary is not its material constitution or causal role, but a theoretical decision to treat some inner item as what perception is of and as the standard against which correctness is assessed.
I reject that move. Perceptual error is explained by false world-directed judgment, not by mismatch with an inner surrogate. Once that assumption is dropped, the demand to distinguish epistemic from non-epistemic intermediaries simply dissolves.
Quoting Michael
And as I have said before, I'm rejecting a shared assumption (phenomenal mirroring) that the traditional framing is built on. I don't think direct realism requires taking on this assumption, but if you don't agree then that may be as far as we can go. I don't think re-litigating the traditional framing is likely to help move the discussion forward at this point.
(i'm going to reply to this, then move on to your reply directly to me).
Interesting. So, is your position that even if tout court perception is indirect, we can derive truth from coherent experiences of properties we presume are out there in the world? Seems pretty murky to me, so assume I'm missing something there..
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
The reason I assume I'm missing something on hte murkiness, is because this doesn't actually say anything to me. Both situations require that the thinker determines their position on veridicality and then practicality and decide to which the term "true" should be applied (conceptually, they maybe contradictory 'objects' of thought, and so cannot be run together).
This seems intellectually expedient at the expense of truth. That said, "humans, under normal circumstances, look at the sky and see it as the colour we call blue" can be considered true, and so in a sense "the sky is blue" is going to be trivially true. But I do not think - and this may be where I diverge from much of the discussion - that that is any of interesting, complex or worthy of debate.
Are we maybe talking about two different things? There's a great paper that came out last year discussing this exact issue and concludes that the question of IR v DR needs to be set aside, as both are non-scientific, folk views which derive from equally substantial pre-scientific belief structures. I found that extremely unsatisfying and seemed more to be geared at sounding profound than anything to do with actually figuring the problem out. Although, I do think it's true among lay people (which the paper was talking about... very, very strangely).
My take has always been that perception is "near enough" reflecting the world to allow for intense, robust co-operation and for memory to function - but that doesn't give me naive realism. Hence, at some stage accepting some of Banno's takes - and at times having to just imagine he hasn't left his house.
"Perception is interpretive, mediated, and embedded in the world — and none of that entails indirectness"
Perfect example. This is total nonsense.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Hmm. I can't figure out what you're trying to say. I said that you haven't responded to what I've said there, as you restated the same thing I objected to without further elucidation. This doesn't help either. Can you clarify?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Sure. That much is true - Kantian or not, we can't rely on our senses to tell us about what's out there by definition (this is important, though, for my objection) - so it could be a 1:1 match, or a 0:1 match, or a 0:0 match in the case of genuine hallucination. Definitely agree. But as I understand, that isn't the debate. It's whether or not one or other possibilityis the case. There are people who will deny the mediation of the senses to support a DR position. Banno avoids this (i am talking about him a lot because we've had several exchanges on this, at the expense of perhaps engaging with others on it and he did a great job of outlining a position I found totally incoherent to begin with) and it was that which had me move towards the understanding that many people have already set aside the debate I'm trying to have without telling anyone.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
That's true - and I don't immediately claim that's the case. It isn't required to support an IR position. It could be 1:1, but if IR is true, we can never know. That seems fine to me and I don't get the discomfort many have with it. Science isn't going to fall apart and stop predicting things because we can't be sure what it's predicting in-and-of-itself. It predicts our perceptions almost perfectly, and that's "near enough" to ensure we do not pull the floor out by saying "science proves that perception is indirect, by way of indirect and unreliable perceptions". This is a confusion. "unreliable" here doesn't relate to whether or not it will work, or cohere. It is unreliable as an indicator of the actual object. Which, on my view, it is even if it's (from God's view) 1:1 in every single case. That part doesn't change the debate between IR and DR.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I am pretty confident it in fact does do this. We can physically watch photons hit cones/rods and transmute to neural signals and move into the brain for interpretation. There is nothing in an object that results in it's image in our mind. I do not think this is philosophically interpretive until you start saying things like "therefore, there's no way to..." or "because of this, we must accept...".
I'm not quite doing that. I'm saying that objectively, we do not see "objects" but images of them. This isn't an interpretation - it's how the mind works (subject to my explanation of why this doesn't defeat my reliance on the scientific findings). The interpretive aspect would be to call it "indirect" and I fully cop to that. Many will accept everything I've said and still call it "direct". I just can't make sense of that - seems a convenient lie to get on with things. Which you can do without the lie.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I quite vehemently, and with elucidation above, disagree. It is exactly what we are presented with and exactly what this debate it supposed to categorize in a way that can capture experience and fact. The DRist must find hte physical object in the mental image. That's a chasm science provides also. So, this isn't just a one-way issue of interpretation - both avenues must grapple with the physiology of the eye, vision, the perceptual process and indeed, aberration in any of those, to get a "direct" aspect in to the mix. We only ever see hand-waving at this point. I trust you'll be a little more engaging :) Again, though, we may be having separate conversations but with each other lmao.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Is the same, without content as:
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
They are literally the same exact thing, but the second includes an example. If you did not mean this, please do clarify.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Is the same as Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I understand that you're trying to say that 1. is about perception, and 2. is about the sky. The sky isn't even an object. Both are about perception. Again, if you can clarify to tease these apart, I'd be happy to engage.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
For your claims to be different claims, you need to tell me something about hte sky sans human perceptions. Otherwise, that's all we're discussing as I see it. And probably should. Perhaps this is why i'm not groking you - that resistance is folly to me.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Yes it is. This may also be a fundamental we cannot come to terms on.
Senses have a direction that tends toward the outside of the body. It’s why we have those holes in our skull where our eyes, nose and mouth are, so they can better interact with the environment. It’s why you turn your head towards something or open your eyes in order to see it better. This simple common sense ought to inform one of what it is he is seeing.
& , please excuse my interjecting. How would we be able to distinguish between these two populations?
Suppose Fred presents himself to your laboratory, and you are tasked with deciding which population he belongs to. How do you proceed?
I don't see that you can.
And the mistake here seems to be that of presuming there is a private notion of up and down; that is, there is no fact of the matter for Fred to belong to one population rather than the other.
So I'll opt for saying that Michael's scenario is incoherent.
Added: I think, although I haven't worked through it yet, that by treating "up" and "down" as indexicals we could show there to be only one population. Indexicals don’t tolerate private degrees of freedom. To master “up” is to participate competently in a network of practices: standing, pointing, correcting, navigating, explaining, and so on. If two groups are indistinguishable across those practices, then — by the criteria that individuate the concept — they are the same group.
If we would claim there to be two populations, then we must have a way to differentiate them. The set up of the scenario rules out behavioural and functional differences. Pointing out that "up" and "down" are indexical rules out private differences - what's up for me is just what is up for me.
The pull toward “two populations” comes from smuggling in a Cartesian picture: an inner orientation space that could be inverted independently of outer practice. Once that picture is rejected — as both Wittgenstein and Davidson would insist — the multiplicity evaporates.
Basically the choice between Indirect Reason and Direct Reason.
The question is, is it logically possible for the human mind to know “how things are” in a mind-external world.
Everything the human mind knows about the mind-external world comes through the five senses, meaning that it is logically impossible to know about the mind-external world independently of the human senses.
==============================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
You are assuming the human mind can know about the mind-external world, but how is this logically possible? How is it possible to know what broke the window just by looking at the window? How is it possible to know the cause of our sensation of the colour red just from the sensation itself?
I directly perceive the colour red in my senses.
I reason about a causal chain that has caused my perception, such that in the world is a wavelength of light that enters my eye, and travels up my optic nerve as an electrical signal to arrive at my brain which I then perceive as the colour red.
I know my perception of the colour red directly. I know about the wavelength of light indirectly by looking at the display on a spectrometer. I know about the electrical signal indirectly by looking at the display on an oscilloscope.
Therefore, I only know about the wavelength and electrical signal indirectly by looking directly at a screen. This means that all my direct knowledge is visual, and from this direct visual knowledge I can indirectly reason about the causal chain.
From my direct visual knowledge of my perception of colour and directly looking at the screen of an spectrometer and oscilloscope I can indirectly reason about the causal chain that caused my perception of the colour red using “inference to the best explanation”.
It is logically impossible to directly know the cause of what I perceive, although I can indirectly reason about the cause of what I perceive.
The Indirect Realist uses “inference to the best explanation” to indirectly reason about the mind-external world.
The Direct Realist mistakenly believes that they can directly know the cause of an effect. They believe that they can directly know the cause in the mind-external world of their perceiving the colour red in their mind. Yet for the mind to directly know the mind-external is a logical impossibility.
We can indirectly infer using reason “how things are” in the mind-external world, but it is a logically impossibility for the human mind to directly know “how things are” in the mind-external world.
There are two aspects to sensations and being truth-apt.
If I perceive a bent stick, then it is always true that I perceive a bent stick, therefore not truth-apt.
But if I perceive a bent stick and that is not how things are in the world, then it is not true that if I perceive a bent stick then in the world there is a bent stick. This is not a judgement. This is about how things are in the world. Perceptions can be truth-apt independent of any judgments made about them.
I can then make the judgement that “if I perceive a bent stick then in the world there is a straight stick”, and this judgement is certainly truth-apt.
As regards epistemic role, not only does a sensation take a responsibility in being about how things are or are not in the world but also judgement takes a responsibility in arriving at a proposition that is either true or false.
What does it mean to say that senses have a "direction"?
Quoting NOS4A2
If you just mean to say that (most of) our sense receptors are situated on the outside of our body and react to things that exist outside the body then, to be blunt, no shit.
If you think that this is all it means for perception to be direct then you're very mistaken. Indirect realists don't disagree with any of the above.
Like your prior suggestion that we directly perceive an object if (and only if?) our sense organs are in direct physical contact with the object perceived, you're presenting a very impoverished interpretation of the issue.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I think I now see fairly clearly where we diverge, and it’s not at the level of physiology, causal mediation, or even skepticism, but at a deeper metaphysical level about what counts as a feature of the world at all.
As I understand you, you’re assuming that any property defined in relation to human perceptual capacities collapses into a claim about perception rather than a claim about the world. On that assumption, statements like “the sky elicits blue-type responses under normal conditions” amount to nothing over and above claims about how humans experience the sky, and so the distinction I’ve been drawing between claims about experience and claims about the world simply disappears.
I reject that assumption. On my view, many genuine properties are relational without being mental or experiential in their subject matter. Properties like visibility, fragility, toxicity, solubility, or mass-relative-to-a-frame are all defined partly in relation to possible interactions or observers, but they are still properties of the world, with truth conditions fixed by how things are. I take ordinary color predicates to work in a similar way: they are world-involving, response-dependent properties, not reports about inner presentation.
This is why the two claims I’ve been distinguishing come apart for me. A claim about how humans experience the sky has its truth conditions in facts about experience. A claim about the sky’s standing in lawful relations to perceivers has its truth conditions in facts about the sky and those relations. If one denies that relational properties can be genuinely worldly, then of course that distinction collapses — but that is precisely the metaphysical constraint I’m resisting.
Once that difference is in view, I think it becomes clear why we’re talking past each other. Given your constraint, my position can only look like a terminological reshuffling. Given my rejection of that constraint, your insistence that everything here is “really about perception” looks like a substantive metaphysical narrowing of what the world can be like. At that point, the disagreement appears to be principled rather than clarificatory.
I disagree with your assertion that we must be able to determine which group someone belongs to for there to be two different groups.
A scenario like the below, where two humanoid aliens agree that the strawberry reflects 400nm light and that the proposition "the blugleberry is foo-coloured" in their language is true, is intelligible:
I think this makes the disagreement very clear, and it turns on a specific claim you’re making: that it is logically impossible for the human mind to directly know how things are in a mind-external world, because everything we know comes through the senses. I agree entirely that all perceptual knowledge is sensory-mediated. But I don’t think mediation by the senses entails indirectness in the epistemic sense you’re assuming.
The inference you’re relying on is:
sensory mediation ? only effects are directly known ? causes can only be known by inference.
That inference is not a logical truth; it depends on a particular picture of perception as awareness only of inner effects from which outer causes must be inferred. The Direct Realist rejects that picture. On their view, perceptual awareness is a relation to the object itself via sensory capacities, not an awareness of an inner item from which the object is inferred as a cause.
So when I see a red screen, I am not directly aware of a mental effect and only indirectly aware of a wavelength. I am directly aware of the red screen as a mind-external object, even though my access to it is mediated by physiological processes. Those processes explain how perception occurs, but they are not what perception is of. Knowing that a wavelength and neural signals are involved is itself a further piece of knowledge, typically gained instrumentally and inferentially, but that doesn’t show that ordinary perception is awareness only of effects.
In short, the dispute is not about whether we use inference to explain causal chains — of course we do — but about whether perception itself is exhausted by awareness of inner effects. You take that to be a logical constraint; I take it to be a substantive philosophical thesis, and one the Direct Realist denies.
There isn't a shared assumption of "phenomenal mirroring". There is the direct realist's claim that there is "phenomenal mirroring", because that is what it would mean for ordinary objects to be "directly present" in experience, and the indirect realist's claim that there might not be "phenomenal mirroring", because ordinary objects are not "directly present" in experience.
As for the "epistemic intermediary" I still fail to understand what you mean by the term. All indirect realists would mean by it is that we believe that the ball is blue and round because the ball appears blue and round, and that this appearance is a mental phenomenon, not the "direct presentation" of the ball's colour and shape.
Your reply gives me plenty of food for thought.
Yes, I am saying that it is logically impossible for the mind to directly know how things are in a mind-external world, whereas you propose that the Direct Realist says that it is possible for the mind to directly know how things are in a mind-external world.
Perhaps it comes down to whether one accepts the rules of logic or not. I agree that logic is beyond justification.
For example, either one accepts the Law of Identity or one doesn’t. No amount of argument is going to prove that “whatever is, is”. No amount of argument is going to prove the Law of Contradiction, “nothing can both be and not be.' No amount of argument is going to prove the Law of Excluded Middle, that “Everything must either be or not be.' Logic is beyond explanation, It is something one either accepts or doesn’t accept.
Taking another example, the premises "Mars is red" and "Mars is a planet" support the conclusion "Mars is a red planet". The premises “the mind is only directly aware of the senses” and “the senses mediate between the mind and the mind-external world” support the conclusion "the mind cannot be directly aware of a mind-external world”.
Yes, it may be that the Direct Realist does not accept the logic that the mind cannot be directly aware of a mind-external world, but no amount of argument is going to persuade them otherwise.
It looks like we've circled back to the starting point again, which is fine. I think this shows that we still have a disconnect at the level of foundational epistemic commitments. Your response attempts to push the discussion back into the traditional framing, whereas my view rejects that framing. It seems like we've hit bedrock here.
I think this is a helpful clarification, but I want to push back on one point. The inference you’re calling “logical” is not on the same footing as the laws of identity, non-contradiction, or excluded middle. Those are formal constraints on any intelligible discourse whatsoever. By contrast, the premise “the mind is only directly aware of the senses” is not a law of logic; it is a substantive epistemological thesis.
The argument you give is valid if one accepts that premise, but that is exactly what the Direct Realist denies. The dispute is therefore not about whether one accepts logic, but about whether one accepts a particular account of what perceptual awareness consists in. Rejecting that premise is no more a rejection of logic than rejecting sense-datum theory or representationalism would be.
To put it another way: the claim that sensory mediation entails awareness only of inner effects is not logically forced. It is a philosophical interpretation of perception. The Direct Realist’s alternative claim is that perceptual awareness is a relation to mind-external objects via sensory capacities, not an awareness of sensory items from which external causes must be inferred. That difference is not something logic alone can settle.
So I agree with you that if someone simply takes it as a basic truth that the mind can only ever be directly aware of sensory items, then no argument will move them. But that cuts both ways. What’s at issue here is not acceptance or rejection of logic, but which epistemological starting point one finds more compelling.
It was part of a larger argument. Their direction and the fact that they interact with the environment allow anyone to explain how we can see an apple, for example, while it precludes you from doing the same. You have no way to explain how you can see a perception, or some other mind-stuff, and are resigned to illustrating diagrams of apples in thought-bubbles floating around a head.
I think the issue I have is that you're arguing that the traditional dispute is framed wrong whereas I think that the traditional dispute just means something else by "direct perception". So perception might not be direct in the way that they mean even if it's direct in the way that you mean. Once again, I'll refer to semantic direct realism.
Regardless, thanks for the discussion.
On indirect perception of apples:
A society of people who wear visors with sensors on the outside and a screen on the inside that displays a computer-generated image of the outside can see apples, albeit indirectly. There's nothing problematic about this. The indirect realist simply argues that this sort of indirect perception of apples happens even without the visor and its screen.
On direct perception of mental phenomena:
Despite your previous objections to the language, it is perfectly ordinary and correct to say that schizophrenics see and hear things when they hallucinate. The things they see and hear are mental phenomena, not nothing — else there would be no distinction between hallucinating something and not hallucinating anything, or between a visual hallucination and an auditory hallucination, or between a visual hallucination of one thing and a visual hallucination of another thing. This sense of seeing and hearing things also occurs during "veridical" perception, and it is only in virtue of this that we see and hear objects in the world — e.g. if there's damage in the visual and auditory cortexes but otherwise functional eyes and ears then we don't see or hear anything.
If there is no visor or screen, through which medium are you viewing an apple indirectly?
The phenomenal character of experience; the thing that occurs when we dream, when we hallucinate, and also when we're awake and looking at real objects in the world.
So then no medium, it’s just that you view the world as if you were sleeping or on drugs?
The phenomenal character of experience is the medium, e.g. colours, which can differ between individuals despite looking at the same object and interacting with the same wavelengths of light.
Individuals have different bodies and never occupy the same position in space and time. One might have degeneration of the retina and so is unable to interact with the environment the same as someone who doesn’t. None of this entails some other medium, especially a fuzzy one called “experience”.
Yes, that seems right - I did my best to try to say there may be fundamental issues we're not seeing the same way. Thanks for that.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As I see it, it's not an assumption, but a requirement of what we know about our physiology. We are seeing that fact causing different follow-ons, I think, and so my saying this isn't an assumption doesn't work for you - but you calling it one doesn't work for me. I think. At any rate, I cannot conceptually escape this line of thinking without hte handwaving I want to avoid.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Roughly, yes. Its semantically sound to say that the one is "about the sky" and the other about human perception (because they are lol), but there's a ball being hidden imo viz a viz our disagreement. 1. would be more complete as "the sky elicits blue-type responses (in humans) under normal conditions" imo. Those "normal conditions", I take it, are the standard, physiological, interpretive processes involved in the perceptual chain. I can't see what else they are here, which would be relevant to the statement. But i definitely reacted to strongly to clarify properly, so thanks for the charity here.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Fair enough. We may not be able to litigate this, but safe to say I can't make sense of the position. It seems like wanting cake and eating it. It seems that we want substance dualism to work there..
So, yes, lol, your final para seems totally on point. Thanks mate - appreciate your elucidations.
You don't need to believe in non-physical mental phenomena to accept that experience is something the brain does. We see and hear things when the visual and auditory cortices are active, regardless of what things caused this to happen (whether internal to the body or external). If the visual cortex is active in the right kind of way we see colours, even if our eyes are closed and we're in a dark room, e.g. if we have chromesthesia and are listening to music. However you choose to "cash out" these colours they are evidently not the "direct presentation" — in the philosophically relevant sense of the phrase — of something like an apple's surface, and are the medium through which we are made aware that something (probably) exists at a distance (either reflecting light or, for those with chromesthesia, vibrating the air).
So in your scenario, it is not possible to assign Fred to one of the populations, but you maintain that the distinction is meaningful. That strikes me as absurd.
The same applies to your picture. How could you ever determine that what the chap on the left sees is different to what the chap on the right sees?
This, it seems, might be the core difference between our accounts. You insist that there are private phenomena while apparently agreeing that they make no difference, while I say that since there is no difference, there is no private phenomena.
We probably can’t, save for perhaps opening their heads and checking to see which neural correlates are active. It stands to reason that if their visual cortices are behaving differently then they are having different experiences, even if they utter the same words when asked to describe the strawberry. But that's not something we can practically do, especially not in everyday life and especially not if we're not a technologically advanced society.
As a less theoretical example, a language doesn't need to exist for it to be possible that some see the dress to be white and gold and others black and blue. They just either see it to be one set of colours or they don't, regardless of whether or not they can ask each other about it.
It's honestly quite surprising that you of all people are suggesting that something is true only if we can determine that it's true. That's very antirealist of you.
Interesting. I'm not saying it's not true, but that it's not even true, or false. It's not well formed enough to be true or false. Some strings of words fail to be truth-apt in the first place.
If <"the blugleberry is foo-coloured" is true if and only if the strawberry is red>, then we have some basis for assigning a truth value.
If there is no public content, the truth condition is not fixed; so unless "the blugleberry is foo-coloured" has some equivalent, such as "the strawberry is red", it has no truth value. After Davidson, we could not recognise "the blugleberry is foo-coloured" as a sentence. A string counts as a sentence only if it can be interpreted. Interpretation requires publicly identifiable conditions of truth. “The blugleberry is foo-coloured” lacks any such conditions. Therefore, it fails prior to truth and falsity: it is not even recognisable as a sentence.
I don't think science can offer any assistance in principle. Let me illustrate this with a thought experiment. For simplicity sake, let us assume this world has only two color, red and blue. Let us assume they have established wavelengths of 620 to 750 nm for red and 380 to 500 nm for blue. In the advance civilization, they have the technology to isolate brain state correlates (BSC) in the human brain with great precision. One day they decided to perform an experiment, where two subjects are exposed to two colored swatches (with verified wavelengths). With each exposure, the subject's BSC is recorded. When they exposed the red swatch to S1 they captured a BSC reading of 100, and when exposed to the blue swatch the BSC reading was 200. Interestingly, when they exposed the red swatch to S2 they captured a BSC reading 200, and when exposed to the blue swatch the BSC reading was 100, they complete opposite of S1. In both case, S1 and S2 verbalize the correct color of the swatches. What can the scientists conclude from such experiment? Simply, when these two subjects are exposed to the same colored swatch, there is a different associated BSC. What evidence is there they are experiencing different "private colors"? They are able to make the correct color judgment, so that seems to suggest they are experiencing the same color but just have different BSCs. And if they were experiencing different "private colors" how could we ever assign which "private color" to which BSC? You can't they are private. Would adding more subjects to the experiments help in any way? I do not see how. We can add 10 more and all had the same patterns as S1 and make the same correct color judgments, but in the end, it adds no evidence to what the "private color" is for each subject.
I agree that my premise was wrong.
I am using perception in the sense of cognition, rather than seeing.
We need premises that the IR and DR can agree on, such as:
There is no absolute definition of a word, such as direct or indirect, but usage should be normative within language.
There is a mind-external object.
An object is perceived by the mind.
We can have many different types of perceptions about a mind-external object, such as sight, sound, touch, taste, feel, smell, but all these perceptions are mediated by our senses.
There is a causal chain from the mind-external object to the object perceived in the mind.
The links in the causal chain are of a different kind, in that the perception of a colour in the mind is of a different kind to the neural activity in the brain, is of a different kind to the electrical signal in the optic nerve and is of a different kind to the wavelength of light between the eye and the mind-external object.
The senses mediate between the object perceived in the mind and the mind-external object.
We are not perceiving the links of the chain, we are perceiving the content of the links as an object.
The perception of the object and the links in the causal chain have been caused by the mind-external object.
The links in the causal chain are temporal, in that each link has been directly caused by the previous link.
I cannot directly perceive the cause of a link, as the cause of each link is temporally prior to the link.
Only the present time exists. Therefore, I can only directly perceive the present time and my memories of the past. Therefore, I can only indirectly perceive the past.
The DR believes that they directly perceive an object, and the object they perceive is the same object as the object in the mind-external world.
The IR believes that they directly perceive an object, but there is no reason to think that the object they perceive is the same object as the object in the mind-external world.
Therefore:
As I can only directly perceive the present, any object I perceive must exist in the present. An object can only exist in the mind in the present as a memory.
Therefore, I cannot directly perceive the mind-external object, as the mind-external object was at the beginning of a temporal causal chain, and I cannot directly perceive something that was in the past.
I can say that I have direct cognition of the object because the object that I am directly cognizing is in the present and in my memory. I have indirect cognition of the mind-external object because I cannot have direct cognition of the past.
When I cognize about a mind-external object in my mind, I am cognizing about something that no longer exists, and because it no longer exists, is now an illusion.
I’ve never seen a color in my life. This is because colors are adjectives. I have only ever seen colored things, like apples. And the reason a green apple appears different than a red apple is in the apple itself, because of chlorophyll levels, for example. The little patterns that show up when I close my eyes can be explained by biology, as the random firings of an organ that often deals with light, but it’s still a necessary fact that I’m just looking at the back of my eyelids.
So why do I need to say colors are in the brain, and act like the brain paints colors on a thing, and a little viewer is in there peering at the final results?
Thanks for the clarification. I think it shows how much ground we may actually agree on. But I don’t think the temporal argument you’re introducing does the work you want it to do.
From the fact that perception is causally mediated and temporally downstream, it does not follow that the object perceived no longer exists, nor that what is perceived is a memory or an illusion. Temporal priority in a causal explanation does not turn perceptual awareness into awareness of the past in the sense relevant to memory or illusion. If it did, then all perception—including the sensory contents the Indirect Realist treats as directly known—would collapse into illusion as well.
When I see a ship, the light reflected from it may have been emitted a fraction of a second earlier, but the ship itself has not thereby ceased to exist, nor has my awareness become memory-like. The causal story explains how perception occurs; it does not determine what perception is of. Conflating causal mediation with indirect awareness is precisely the move the Direct Realist rejects.
So at this point, the disagreement is no longer about logic or semantics, but about whether temporal causation entails that the object of perception must be a present mental item rather than a mind-external object. I don’t think that entailment holds, and if it did, it would undermine perceptual realism of any kind, not just Direct Realism.
Because you're not actually talking about the problem. Although, you are (imo trivially) totally correct.
"red" might be in the apple, insofar as certain material (lets say we're talking about a Rose apple to avoid ambiguity) is formed of arranged atoms, in such a way that when light bounces off it, that light travels to the human eye and etc... then we "see" red. That can then be true for paint, blood, packaging, leaves etc.. Same, basic, process (although, it does seem beyond us to determine what, across all those things, causes red to occur, as distinct from what causes the human to experience redness - I haven't worded this well, and on reflection I can't quite word it satisfactorily without being too verbose. Maybe another exchange).
I don't think many IRs would disagree with this. It seems factually true. But this doesn't address the issue of "what is the sensation of redness" or whther it corresponds to anything, as opposed to is caused by anything which seems unavoidable in either theory (there is a very good objection to this, which is essentially that it cuts both ways - happy to confront if its a line you want to take). Given that colourblindness and spectrum inversion exist, I do not think it's quite open to bare claim red is in the apple. If that were the case, any eye/brain complex would experience the same sensation and they do not.
You have to imagine that you can see redness without having a perceptual system to positively claim that we can be sure there's a 1:1 correspondence as opposed to, for instance, seeing a formal representation of the aspects of matter which cause redness (you could analogize this by looking at the data behind a photograph. The right specialist may be able to recreate the image from that data and that 'data' is what I'm positing for this hypothetical, in actual objects in the world "outside" our mind. While I wouldn't put it past you (or anyone), i find it very hard to believe someone actually thinks that with any conviction. And If we can't be sure, then IR is the way to go for now, I think. Its parsimonious, imo - but I presume the convicted DRist thinks the same and that may be why there's such a "basic" disagreement between DR and IR.
I think you're confusing two different arguments.
The first argument is that a scenario like the below is intelligible, and even plausible. Different people can have difference experiences (i.e. because their visual cortices are behaving differently) even if they use the same words. John and Jim each see different colours but when asked to describe the strawberry say "the flugleberry is foo-coloured" in their language. I then extended this to cover not just colour but also orientation. What John sees when standing upright is what Jim sees when hanging upside down even though they both use the word "up" to describe the direction of the sky and "down" to describe the direction of the ground.
My criticism with your response is that we don't need to be able to determine that John and Jim are having different experiences for them to be having different experiences. They just either are or they aren't as determined by what their brains are doing, regardless of whether or not we have the practical means to compare the two.
The second argument is that the words do, in fact, (also) refer to our private experiences. As an example of this, consider the people with the visors. The visors have been constructed in such a way that when the sensors on the outside detect 700nm light they output on the screen 500nm light and vice-versa. These people use the word "red" to describe the colour of strawberries and associate the colour red with 700nm light and use the word "green" to describe the colour of grass and associate the colour green with 500nm light.
Then when they're asleep we fix their visors so that the light emitted by the screen matches the light detected by the sensors. When they wake up do they go about their day as if nothing has changed, continuing to use the word "red" to describe the colour of strawberries and associate the colour red with 700nm light and to use the word "green" to describe the colour of grass and associate the colour green with 500nm light? Or do they immediately ask "why are strawberries now green?" and "why is grass now red?" and then be very confused when nothing about strawberries, grass, or the light they each reflect has changed?
I think the latter is obviously what will happen, showing that even though the use of the words "red" and "green" was public the words primarily referred to the colours on their private screen (assuming direct realism for the sake of argument) and not whatever was happening in their shared environment.
Dreams and hallucinations can be coloured (or "have colour" if you prefer), and people with synaesthesia can see colours when listening to music. This is because seeing colours (or even coloured things) is what happens when the visual cortex is active in the right kind of way, regardless of what the eyes are doing or what objects exist at a distance. This is also why cortical blindness is a thing, where the eyes react to stimuli as normal but the person doesn't see anything.
None of this entails a homunculus. That's a tired and lazy strawman.
Then let's make it even simpler.
There are two wavelengths of light: 1nm and 2nm. There are two neurons in the brain responsible for colour experience: A and B.
When John's eyes detect 1nm light his A neuron is active and he describes the colour he sees as red and when his eyes detect 2nm light his B neuron is active and he describes the colour he sees as blue.
When Jim's eyes detect 1nm light his B neuron is active and he describes the colour he sees as red and when his eyes detect 2nm light his A neuron is active and he describes the colour he sees as blue.
We then directly stimulate these neurons when their eyes are closed, asking them to describe the colour they see, and their answers will be consistent with the above.
Assuming eliminative materialism (to avoid positing non-physical phenomena), experiencing a particular colour just is a particular neuron being active. Given that when John's eyes detect 1nm light his A neuron is active and when Jim's eyes detect 1nm light his B neuron is active it must be that John and Jim are having different experiences when their eyes detect 1nm light even though they both refer to their experience as "seeing red".
We then rewire Jim's brain so that, like John, his A neuron is active when his eyes detect 1nm light and his B neuron is active when his eyes detect 2nm light, shine a 1nm light into his eyes, and ask him what colour he now sees. He'll say "blue".
I thought it might be interesting to interject here since I see my position as being wedged between @Banno's and @Richard B's on the one hand, and @Michael's on the other.
I’m broadly sympathetic to the spirit of Banno's and Richard's replies here, but I wouldn’t go quite as far as saying these inversion scenarios are outright incoherent or fail to be truth-apt.
I’m happy to grant that scenarios involving inverted neural realizations or inverted experiential mappings are logically and even physically conceivable. Where I part company with Michael is in what follows from that conceivability. I don’t think the mere possibility of private experiential differences that make no difference to judgment, action, or correction does any epistemic work.
In particular, I don’t think such scenarios motivate skepticism, indirect realism, or the introduction of epistemic intermediaries. Even if two subjects differed in their neural realizations or phenomenal character while making the same world-directed judgments, all that would show is multiple realizability at the causal level, not that perception is mediated by inner surrogates or that perceptual justification is undermined.
So my view sits between the two positions on offer here: I don’t want to deny the coherence of these scenarios altogether, but I do want to deny that they carry the philosophical weight Michael wants them to carry. Once truth and error are located at the level of world-directed judgment, private inversion possibilities become explanatorily idle, even if they remain metaphysically conceivable.
Forgive me, but I think I need some clarification here. It seems to be saying that once we ascertain that errors can be made in world-directed judgements, the underlying possible explanation of inversion and private aberration is then irrelevant? I think that's jumping to a conclusion.. We need not call a spectrum inverted person erroneous unless we already assume hte premise of colour being a property of objects rather than wavelength reflection.
Thanks, that’s a fair question — but I think it slightly mislocates the point I was making.
I’m not claiming that the mere fact that world-directed judgments can be true or false rules out inversion hypotheses, or renders them false. I’m happy to grant that spectrum inversion or other private aberrations remain metaphysically conceivable.
The claim is instead about explanatory role. Once truth and error are located at the level of world-directed judgment, inversion hypotheses no longer explain anything further about how perceptual judgments succeed or fail. They don’t add to our account of justification, error, or skepticism.
In particular, we don’t need to assume that colour is a property of objects [I]or[/I] deny that assumption in order to make sense of perceptual error. Error arises when a judgment about the world fails to be satisfied by how things are, not when an inner experience mismatches an outer property.
So the point isn’t that inversion is impossible or incoherent, but that it’s explanatorily idle with respect to the epistemic issues under discussion — even if it remains metaphysically possible.
That's surprising. I read a book (some years ago) which said most philosophers were idealists. Perhaps, that was true once but is no longer?
Quoting Clarendon
I have 5 physical senses. I have no "ship-sensing" sense. All I have is the visual sensation of the (purported, externally-existing) ship. Think "Brain in a Vat". Or there's this.
82 – Materialism and Some Alternatives https://vimeo.com/1135081275
Scientists say humans look purple to cats. So to a cat, it would be true that humans are purple. If a human says that, there might be something wrong. Except Latino babies are actually purple. For real.
Why is this complicated?
If the distinction between direct and indirect realism is the use of the brain, then indirect realism is direct realism because indirect realism is a no brainer.
I asked this crazy guy what his all-time favorite birthday gift was. I can't tell you what it was though.
The modern camera does a good job of accurately depicting the world. I don't hypothesize metaphysical intermediaries like mental images/sense data for the camera to achieve this success in accuracy. Likewise, I don't need to do it for the human brain, which has about million of years of development behind it, while the camera has about two hundred. When an artist paints a landscape by memory of a visit to a park, the accuracy is judged by comparing it to the actual park, not to some mental picture. If the picture is inaccurate, I don't suppose the camera hallucinated an extra tree when the picture has two when there should have been one. But I will inspect the camera to see if it is working properly. This is not to say the imagination cannot aid in the troubleshooting the problem of the camera, but only if that imagination has some knowledge of its design should we expect a resolution.
There are, but they're wrong. :grin:
If I see a cat, I'm not in direct contact with the cat even before it enters the CNS, and I don't receive the cat on my eye. I just receive photons. Even if I pet the cat, I only receive stimuli. Under this description, everything is indirect.
My point is that your distinction that sometimes we have direct contact with the world and sometimes we don't doesn't exist. All external objects are mediated by other objects, whether they be light waves, airwaves, or the various internal structures in your body, like retinas and your CNS.
Under this model, I don't trip over the cat. I experience falling which is how cats are represented to me when they are under my foot. The cat itself can't be said to actually be a certain color, truly have a distinct meow, nor have a certain trip like quality. I just know some noumenal cat triggered a phenomena of me busting my ass so I could better comprehend the elusive real actuality of cat.
Your eye is directly exposed to light bouncing off the cat. That's the only directness to the situation. Humans don't have any kind of direct perception.
Quoting Hanover
I didn't say that.
It depends what you mean by “the object perceived no longer exists”.
Light takes 8 min 20 sec to travel from the Sun to the Earth. The Sun we look at now in the present is not the same Sun as it was in the past 8 min 20 sec ago. The Sun is continually changing.
It depends whether you are referring to the object as a concept, such as the concept of a Sun, in which case we do have the concept of the Sun as it existed in the past, exists in the present and will exist in the future. This is the position of the Indirect Realist, in that the Sun exists as an object as a concept in the mind in the present.
Or are you referring to the object as a particular instantiation, such as a particular temporal instantiation of the Sun, in which case the Sun we are looking at in the present is not the same Sun as the Sun that existed in the past. And if so, it becomes impossible to directly look at any mind-external object, because a mind-external object is something that no longer exists in the present. But this is the position of the Direct Realist.
================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
One aspect is semantics, the normal use of language. When reading about Caesar, it would be misleading to say that we have direct knowledge that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. When looking at evidence of a crime, it would be misleading for the detective to say that he has direct knowledge of the criminal. Similarly, it is misleading to say that we have direct knowledge of a mind-external object, when we only know about the mind-external object because of a temporal causal chain.
Another aspect is logic. How can our perception of something in the present give us direct knowledge of something that happened in the past, when that something that happened in the past no longer exists in the present. How can we have direct knowledge of something that no longer exists.
I recall an argument from somewhere that argued something to the effect of:
P1. We directly perceive a distal object only if that object exists
P2. Many of the stars we see in the night sky no longer exist
C1. Therefore, many of the stars we see in the night sky are not directly seen
P3. The manner in which we see a star that still exists is the same as the manner in which we see a star that no longer exists
C2. Therefore, none of the stars we see in the night sky are directly seen
P4. The manner in which we see a star is the same as the manner in which we see any distal object that emits or reflects light, regardless of distance
C3. Therefore, no distal object is directly seen
So at best we only directly see light (leaving mental phenomena aside for the moment).
Absolutely.
Linguistically, I could call an animal with a long proboscis, tusks, large ear flaps, pillar-like legs, and tough but sensitive grey skin a “giraffe”, but this is a misuse of language. Similarly, the Direct Realist’s argument that they perceive mind-external objects “directly”.
Yes, and logically, how is it possible to “directly” perceive a mind-external object in the night sky, such as a star, when that star may in fact no longer exist.
It only makes sense that the direct object of our perception and cognition exists in our mind, from which we may reason and indirectly infer its cause as a mind-external object. The Indirect Realist does believe in a mind-external world, hence the name “Realist”. For me, my intellectual rather than instinctive belief in a mind-external world comes from “inference to the best explanation”, gaining understanding about the mind-external world indirectly.
Does it mean when you see a cup on the table, the cup exists on the table, and it also exists in your mind?
Thanks — this is a very clear statement of your position, and it helps isolate where we disagree.
I agree that perception is causally mediated and temporally downstream, and that in cases like astronomy our perceptual access depends on events in the past. I also agree that if objects are individuated strictly as momentary temporal instantiations, then the Sun-at-t is not identical to the Sun-at-t–8 minutes, and that no relation can obtain to what does not exist.
Where I disagree is with the inference you draw from this. I do not take the objects of perception to be momentary temporal stages. On my view, mind-external objects are temporally extended continuants that persist through change. The fact that the Sun is continually changing does not entail that it is a numerically different object at each instant in the sense required to break perceptual reference.
I also reject the claim that temporal mediation entails that the object of perception must be a present mental item. The causal chain explains how perception occurs, not what perception is of. That the light emitted earlier makes perception possible does not entail that what is perceived is a memory, an illusion, or an inner surrogate. It shows only that perceptual access is finite and temporally indexed.
This is why I think the Caesar and crime-scene analogies mislead. We deny direct knowledge of Caesar not because he is in the past, but because our access is symbolic, testimonial, and inferential. By contrast, perceptual access to the Sun or a ship is sensory and causal, not mediated by beliefs or descriptions. Temporal distance alone does not make knowledge indirect; mode of access does.
Finally, I think your conclusion overgeneralizes in a way that undermines Indirect Realism itself. If temporal mediation and non-simultaneity were sufficient to make perception indirect, then all perception would be indirect — not only perception of mind-external objects, but even the perception of mental images or sense-data, since those too are causally and temporally mediated. In that case, perception itself could never get off the ground, because every purported object of awareness would require a further epistemic intermediary, generating an infinite regress.
So while I agree that a relation cannot obtain to a non-existent object as such, I deny that this forces the conclusion that the object of perception must be a present mental item. The disagreement now seems to be about ontology — whether objects are momentary temporal stages or persisting continuants — rather than about logic or semantics.
I suppose there are two related claims:
1. The direct object of perception is a distal object
2. The direct object of perception is a mental phenomenon
It's possible that both (1) and (2) are false.
Carrying on from the argument here, let's assume a world in which light travels at 1m/s. An apple is placed in front of me at a distance of 10m. After 5 seconds it is disintegrated. After a further 5 seconds I see an intact apple.
Is the apple the direct object of my perception?
If it is then the direct object of my perception is something that doesn't exist, which is somewhat peculiar.
If it's not then what is the direct object of my perception, and at what (non-arbitrary) speed does light have to travel and at what (non-arbitrary) distance does the apple have to be for it to be the direct object of my perception?
Yes. It seems to me that the fact that we do not perceive light waves as such is important. Light and sound are the means by which we perceive, not what we perceive.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Exactly.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Quite so. But then one has to explain what a hallucination of a dagger is, if not a mental image. That's not easy, because most people are absolutely sure that, like Macbeth, they see a dagger that is not there. Hence, a dagger-like object. Illusions like the bent stick are easy - we can demonstrate that the stick in water should look as if is bent - it's an actual physical phenomenon. At the moment, I'm inclined to just say that Macbeth is behaving as if he can see a dagger, and believes he is seeing a dagger - but there is no dagger and hence no perception of a dagger.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
At the moment, I'm inclined to think that this is just a question of different notations. I need to be shown that something hangs on the distinction.
If I paint a landscape from memory of a park I visited long ago, do I need to appeal to mental images to explain how I did it? Is it not explanation enough just to say, “I am trained to paint landscapes, I visited that park, and have a good memory, go visit the park and you can see how accurate the painting is.” I don't need to say, “I am good at painting the mental copy of the park I have in my mind.” There need not be any mental copy at all.
Exactly. If you are painting from a mental image, how could you distinguish between mistakes you have made because you are not very good at painting mental images - though you might still be stellar at painting actual landscapes - and mistakes you made because you are not very good at painting actual landscapes even if your mental images are a bit naff.
From my position of Indirect Realism:
Suppose in my mind I have the concept of something that I know as “cup”.
Suppose I perceive in my senses a single instantiation of this concept.
From perceiving something in my senses, I infer that there is something in the mind-external world that has caused my perception.
I can never know what this something in the mind-external world is, but for convenience I can name this unknown something after the concept in my mind, in this case “cup”.
I name the unknown cause in the world after the known effect in my mind.
I name the unknown something in the world “cup” after the concept of “cup” I have in my mind.
Similarly, if I perceive the colour of red in my mind, I can name the unknown cause in the world “red”, regardless of what actually exists in the world.
Dreaming and hallucinating is not “seeing”. There are no eyes or receptors of that type in the brain. That’s just the figurative language of someone who cannot even see his own ears, let alone the imperceptible, mental actions occurring inside his own body.
The homunculus critique still stands unless people stop claiming that they can see the events occurring behind their eyes or somewhere in their brain. If you can see the events occurring in the brain, you have to explain how you can do so with no senses receptors in there. The problem is, though, if people cannot see the events occurring behind the eyes, they cannot see what the indirect realist is claiming they are can.
There's nothing figurative about the phrase "the schizophrenic hears voices". The problem here is that you seem to think that the verb "to hear" refers only to the ears reacting to vibrations in the air, but it doesn't. This is most evident in those with cortical deafness who don't hear anything despite having perfectly functional ears. To hear something is for the auditory cortex to behave in a certain way, regardless of what, if anything, is happening in the ears. In ordinary situations the auditory cortex is only sufficiently active in response to signals from the ears, but it's a mistake to conflate the two.
Is it your position, then, that sensing doesn’t involve sense receptors?
No, my position is that to see something is for the visual cortex to be active and that to hear something is for the auditory cortex to be active. Most of the time this involves sense receptors being the "source" of the signal that triggers the activation of these cortices, but this isn't necessary. This explains how schizophrenics hear voices, why those with cortical deafness don't hear anything, and the existence of synesthesia.
Then how do those cortexes see?
The activation of these cortices is seeing, just as the activation of other areas of the brain is thinking and is feeling pain.
Now that we know seeing doesn’t involve eyes, where do the objects of perceptions appear, and how are you looking at them?
It doesn't necessarily involve eyes, but most of the time it does.
Quoting NOS4A2
Seeing something doesn't require looking at something, just as hearing something doesn't require pointing one's ears at something. We see something if the visual cortex is active in the right kind of way, and we hear something if the auditory cortex is active in the right kind of way, and we think about something if the relevant areas of the brain are active in the right kind of way.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is like asking where the objects I dream about or hallucinate appear. It's a nonsensical question. There is just the occurrence of mental phenomena, with qualities described by such words as "pain", "pleasure", "red", "round", "sweet", "sour", etc.
I think your slow-light apple case is a very good stress test, and it helps clarify what “direct” can and can’t mean.
If we build “direct perception” to require strict simultaneity — the object must exist at the very time of the perceptual experience — then your conclusion follows. With light at 1 m/s, after the apple disintegrates I would still have an experience as of an intact apple, and it would indeed be odd to say I am directly seeing something that does not exist now. But that shows that the simultaneity requirement is doing the work; it is not forced by the ordinary contrast between direct and indirect perception.
On the view I’m defending, “direct” does not mean instantaneous or unmediated by delay. It means that perception does not proceed by inference from an inner surrogate. In your case, what is present to perception is not a mental intermediary, but a worldly manifestation of the apple itself — its visible presence at my location. The light that carries this presence is not a numerically distinct object perceived instead of the apple; it is the means by which the apple is perceptually available across space and time.
So am I directly seeing the apple? The right answer, I think, is: I am seeing the apple, but not the apple-as-it-exists-now. I am perceptually related to the apple as it was at the relevant emission time, via its causal presence reaching me now. That is not “seeing a non-existent object” in the sense that would imply illusion or imagination. The error, if there is one, lies in the judgment “the apple exists now”, not in the perceptual relation itself.
This also answers the non-arbitrary cutoff worry. There is no threshold speed or distance at which perception suddenly flips from direct to indirect, because directness is not a function of causal delay. Delay determines which temporal aspect of the object is perceptually available; it does not introduce an epistemic intermediary. The relevant contrast is between perception as non-inferential openness to the world and cognition that proceeds by inference from a representation.
Finally, when I distinguish proximal stimulation from the intentional object of perception, this is not a retreat to indirect realism. The proximal stimulation is not something we perceive instead of the object; it is how the object makes itself perceptually available within the physical world’s causal structure. That distinction allows us to acknowledge causal mediation without collapsing perception into awareness of inner or outer surrogates.
That’s more or less the approach I take as well. On my view, hallucination involves mental imagery together with a false judgment that something mind-external is being perceived. There is imagery and belief-like commitment, but no perceptual relation to an object.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
It's not clear to me what you mean by perception, which is probably why I don't understand what you mean by direct perception. The first quote seems to suggest it has something to do with inference but then the second quote seems to suggest that it's distinct from judgement. Could you clarify?
If it helps, consider the visor example before but assume that the person wearing the visor doesn't know that he's wearing a visor and that he believes that he has direct perception of distant objects. You've accepted before that this is indirect perception, but also said that this is because we must also judge the "accuracy" of the visor. In this case the wearer doesn't judge the "accuracy" of the visor because he doesn't even know about it. So given this, what is the difference between the visor being an intermediary and the visor being "the means by which the apple is perceptually available across space and time"? As I said once before to Banno, as he made a similar claim, the latter phrase seems like it can act as a truism that includes even a Cartesian theatre.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
What if the light first passes through a window? What if the light has been reflected off a mirror? Like above, assume in both cases that we don't know about the window or the mirror. When, exactly, does causal mediation stop "maintaining" direct perception?
Seeing something is when the visual cortex is active in the right kind of way. One needn’t have any eyes for this. So when you see something without eyes, where in time and space is this something you see, and how are you seeing it?
Where in time and space is this something you dream about? Where in time and space is this something you hallucinate? Where in time and space are the colours the synesthete sees when listening to music?
In the head.
Quoting NOS4A2
How are you dreaming about something? How are you hallucinating something? How are you thinking about something?
Because the appropriate areas of the brain, e.g the visual cortex, are active.
This relates back to the Ship Of Theseus. Is an object the same object after having all of its original components replaced with others over time?
It also relates back to the Sorites Paradox. If one particle of sand is removed one at a time, when is a heap of sand not a heap?
Is the problem of Indirect and Direct Realism a problem of ontology, linguistics or logic?
Both the Indirect and Direct Realist accept the temporal causal chain from mind-external object to perception in the mind of that object.
If the Sun exists at one moment in time, then the Direct Realist cannot directly perceive the Sun as they propose. However, if the Sun exists through time, is it still possible for the Direct Realist to directly perceive the Sun?
Some believe in a Block Universe, where all moments, past, present and future are equally real and some believe in Presentism, where only the present is real and the past and future don’t exist in the same way as the present does.
Argument one against Direct Realism
If Presentism is true, only the present exists, meaning that the Sun can only exist at one moment in time. Direct Realism is not valid as it is not possible to directly perceive something in the past that no longer exists.
If the Block Universe is true, the Sun exists over 10 billion years.
However, as the Theseus Paradox and Sorites Paradox shows, this is a linguistic and conceptual rather than ontological problem.
Suppose in a mind-external world at one moment in time there exists a Sun in the ontological sense. Suppose at a later moment in time this Sun loses one atom. What determines in a mind-external world that a Sun which has lost one atom remains a Sun or is no longer a Sun? There is absolutely nothing in a mind-external world that can determine when a Sun becomes a non-Sun.
Only in the human mind using language and concepts can a Sun be distinguished from a non-Sun.
If the Direct Realist is claiming that the Sun they directly perceive ontologically exists in the mind-external world, this is logically impossible, because there is no means within a mind-external world to distinguish between a Sun and a non-Sun.
However, if the Direct Realist is claiming that the Sun they directly perceive exists within language and concepts, then they are in agreement with the Indirect Realist.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Why? I directly perceive what is in my mind in my present, even if I infer that the cause was in the past.
Objects certainly exist in the mind in language and concepts, but what is the ontological nature of an object in a mind-external world? Specifically, in a mind-external world, what determines when an object becomes a non-object? What determines when a seed becomes a tree? What determines when a hill becomes a mountain? What determines when a slight rain becomes a thunderstorm? What determines when a pebble becomes a rock?
The suggestion that you're watching your own mental activity is the Cartesian theater in a nutshell, my friend. How can you be a realist if mental activity is what you're watching?
A "how" question requests a description of an action or state, in this case how you are viewing the activity of a cortex. It wasn't a "why" question. For instance, I see something by moving my eyes in its direction, whereupon the light from that object goes into my eyes, and so on. This can be done in excruciating detail. So how are you seeing the activity of the visual cortex? Can you provide any detail at all?
I'm not saying that I'm watching my own mental activity. I'm saying that the schizophrenic hears voices when his auditory cortex is active and even if he doesn't have ears, and that these voices he hears are mental phenomena. I'm saying that the synesthete can see colours in a dark room. I'm saying that those with cortical deafness don't hear anything even if their eardrums function normally. I'm saying that the flower might react to and move towards the light but it doesn't see or feel or hear the Sun. I'm saying that experience and its qualities are either reducible to or caused by complex neurological behaviour.
Right, you’re stuck in metaphor and analogy. You cannot describe perception without falling back on the first-person reports of medical conditions, genetic defects, sleep, and drug abuse, or wherever there is no evidence of any objects of perception at all.
That's a fair question, and I think the disagreement turns on a few distinctions that are easy to blur, so I'll try to make them explicit.
By perception I mean a non-inferential sensory openness by which an object is presented to a subject. By judgment I mean the act of affirming or denying that things are a certain way (“the apple exists now,” “the apple is red”). Perception is not itself a judgment, but it constrains judgment; inference is a further step where one belief is formed on the basis of others. So when I say perception does not proceed by inference from a surrogate, I mean that awareness of the apple is not achieved by reasoning from awareness of something else to the apple. When I say error lies in judgment rather than perception, I mean that perceptual presentation can remain world-anchored even when the judgment formed on its basis is false.
This helps with the slow-light apple case. If the apple disintegrates before the light reaches me, then the judgment “the apple exists now” is false. But that does not mean what is present to perception is a mental item or a memory. What is present is the apple’s visible presence at my location, carried by light. The light is not a third object perceived instead of the apple; it is the means by which the apple makes itself perceptually available across space and time. I am seeing the apple, but not the apple-as-it-exists-now. The mistake is one of temporal indexing at the level of judgment, not a loss of perceptual contact with the world.
This also clarifies the visor case. The point is not that the subject must consciously assess the visor’s accuracy. The point is structural: the epistemic warrant for beliefs about the distal object depends constitutively on the visor’s reliability. A visor produces a representation—an image whose correspondence to the scene is a further fact beyond what is perceptually given. Even if the subject is unaware of the visor, their access to the object is mediated by something whose correctness matters for warrant. That is why the perception is indirect.
This is what distinguishes visors from ordinary causal media like light, windows, or mirrors. Windows and mirrors can distort, but such distortions are typically perceptually available as distortions: a tinted window looks tinted, a curved mirror looks curved. They do not introduce a representational layer whose fidelity must be independently assessed in order for the object to be perceptually present. By contrast, a visor can systematically misrepresent without any perceptual cue that it is doing so. The difference is one of epistemic role, not degree of distortion.
That is why the question “when does mediation stop?” has no answer in terms of speed, distance, or number of causal links. Directness is not defeated by more mediation, but by a change in kind—from causal conduits that transmit an object’s own appearance to representational systems whose accuracy must be relied upon. Ordinary light propagation, reflection, and refraction do not play the latter role; visors, screens, and instruments do.
So the distinction I’m drawing is not a truism that would also accommodate a Cartesian theatre. The contrast is not between mediated and unmediated, but between non-inferential presentation of an object and awareness that depends on the correctness of a representational intermediary. That is the sense in which perception can be direct without being instantaneous, infallible, or free of causal structure.
It's not metaphor or analogy, just as "I feel pain" is not metaphor or analogy (which also doesn't require anything like a Cartesian theatre or a homunculus).
So this is the exact naive realism that we discussed before. A thing's appearance, e.g. it's shape, orientation, colour, smell, taste, etc. is not something that is inherent in the object and then "transmitted" via some medium like light or vibrations or microscopic molecules in the air and into the phenomenal character of experience. To risk being overly reductive, there is just a collection of particles situated in space that interact with other particles in their immediate vicinity according to deterministic (or stochastic at the quantum scale) laws, which in turn interact with other particles in their immediate vicinity, etc., eventually interacting with the particles that make up someone's sense receptors and then the particles that make up someone's brain. The phenomenal character of experience (the appearance) is then either reducible to the behaviour of these brain-particles (if eliminative materialism is correct) or emerges from them. The suggestion that this phenomenal character — i.e. the "movements" of these particles — counts as the "direct presentation" of the “real” appearance of some distant collection of particles (but not any of the physically intermediate particles for some reason) makes no sense. That's just us naively projecting appearances out into the world, like a phantom itch.
I agree that concepts are involved in perception, and that classification is norm-governed and interest-relative. But concept-involvement is not the same thing as perceiving concepts. The fact that there is no sharp, language-independent cutoff for when a Sun becomes a non-Sun, or a seed becomes a tree, shows that our classificatory practices are vague, not that there is nothing mind-external there, or that persistence through change is merely linguistic. Ontological continuity and conceptual boundaries are different issues.
Direct Realism does not require that the mind-external world itself “decide” when something counts as a Sun or a tree. It requires only that there be mind-external continuants with causal powers, and that perception be directly related to those continuants, even though the concepts under which we describe them are supplied by us. So when I say that the Sun I perceive is a temporally extended continuant, I am not claiming that “Sun” is an ontological category written into the fabric of the universe, but that perception is directly related to a real, persisting physical system rather than to an inner representation.
The Presentism/Block Universe distinction doesn’t change this. On Presentism, what I perceive is a presently existing continuant whose earlier state is made perceptually available by presently arriving light. On a Block Universe view, what I perceive is a temporal part of an extended object. Either way, the object of perception is mind-external, not something that exists only in language or concepts.
This is also why the regress point still stands. If temporal mediation or vagueness in classification were sufficient to make perception indirect, then all perception would be indirect—not only perception of mind-external objects, but even the “direct perception” of mental images or sense-data, since those too are temporally extended, causally conditioned, and conceptually classified. In that case, perception itself could never get off the ground, because every purported object of awareness would require a further epistemic intermediary, generating an infinite regress. Any account of perception must allow something to count as non-inferentially present to the mind, or explanation never begins.
So the disagreement isn’t about whether concepts are involved (they obviously are), but about whether perception is fundamentally a relation to mind-external reality, or instead a relation to inner items plus inference.
Ok, fiar that's clearer. My objection then goes back to, how could we know unless we assume DR?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Ok, fair enough - let's then just talk about colourblindness, which is extant rather than hypothetical. If the colourblind person judges what you see to be green as a red, what's the basis for calling that an error, in lieu of assuming DR?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
This is what I'm having trouble with. There seems a huge leap being made to establish this - Part of hte IR commitment is that there isn't truly any 'error' in perception other than true hallucination. Even then, given it's not initiated by anything beyond the mind, 'error' is probably wrong. Its more the system drawing outside the lines. But that's a digression, so sorry if it distracts.
I've been trying to make this argument for a long time. Banno does a good job of using this to his advantage.
Quoting Banno
I have my objections, but the position, i take it, is that the mediation is not manipulative or deceptive so gives a 'direct' indication of that object one has cast their eyes too.
I don't quite have an issue with this other than calling it direct. That seems patently unavailable to me, along your lines. The cat example you give later is a good one. Also, babies do not see colour the way they do later.
I am sympathetic to his idea that there are no strict laws connecting the mental and the physical. I myself am incline to think the casual laws are descriptive and predictive but not so sure we should call them explanatory. If I watching a movie from a movie projector, can I come up with a casual law. Sure, I can cut a strip of film into sequential pieces and label them 1, 2, 3, and so on. The law is the previous number piece causes the next number piece, 1 causes 2, 3 causes 4 and so on. I can get another uncut strip of film of the same movie and make all kinds of predictions on what will follow when one sees any particular scene from the movie. But does this explain what the movie is about? What is the plot of the movie? What are motives of the character? What reasons are there that the story is set in that location?
Where does your concept of "cup" come from? How does your internal concept of "cup" instantiates in the external world?
I agree entirely with the scientific picture you sketch: perceptual experience is realized in neural processes, and physics describes only particles, fields, and causal interactions, not colors, shapes, or appearances as intrinsic properties of objects. Where I disagree is with the inference you seem to draw from this. From the fact that phenomenal character is neurally realized, it does not follow that perceptual content is therefore about neural states rather than mind-external objects. That inference presupposes an internalist bridge principle—roughly, that the physical realization of a state fixes its intentional object—which is a substantive philosophical thesis, not a deliverance of science.
I reject that bridge principle. On my view, appearances are not intrinsic properties transmitted from object to perceiver, nor are they mental projections; they are relational ways objects are perceptually available to situated perceivers under specific conditions. This does not require that anything like an appearance be “carried” through space as a non-physical property. It requires only that perceptual states be individuated in part by their relations to mind-external objects—by the causal and counterfactual dependencies that link those states to the objects they are experiences of. In that sense, perceptual content is world-involving rather than internally bounded: what the state is about is constitutively tied to the object, not merely causally downstream of it. Science tells us how perceptual states are realized and transmitted; it does not by itself determine whether their content is world-involving or confined to the head. That question is exactly what separates internalism from externalism, and it cannot be settled by physics alone.
I didn't say that it's about neural states. I'm saying that phenomenal experience is neural states (or emerges from them). My concern is the relationship between these neural states and distal objects. There is certainly a causally covariant relationship, but nothing more substantial than that. The distal object and its properties are not "present" in the neural states, and nor does the distal object have a "real appearance" that is "transmitted" via light or vibrations and "into" these neural states.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
All of which is consistent with the presence of a visor. If the phenomenal character of experience is not a "representation" of some supposed "real appearance" then a) what does it mean for the image on the screen to be an "inaccurate" representation of the distal object and b) why does it matter if it is? Either way, the phenomenal character of experience is its own thing. It just seems like special pleading when you previously said that light "transmits an object’s own appearance" but then argue that the the visor doesn't. What does light "succeed" in doing that the visor "fails" in doing?
Thanks, you've raised some good questions.
I’m not claiming that the mere fact that world-directed judgments can be true or false rules out inversion hypotheses, or renders them false. I’m happy to grant that spectrum inversion or other private aberrations remain metaphysically conceivable.
The claim is instead about explanatory role. Once truth and error are located at the level of world-directed judgment — governed by norms of use, correction, and responsiveness to the environment — inversion hypotheses no longer explain anything further about how perceptual judgments succeed or fail. They don’t add to our account of justification, error, or skepticism.
In particular, we don’t need to assume that colour is a property of objects or deny that assumption in order to make sense of perceptual error. Error arises when a judgment about the world fails to be satisfied by how things are, not when an inner experience mismatches an outer property.
Take colourblindness. We don’t identify error by checking whether the colourblind person’s experience matches ours or some phenomenal property in the object. We identify it through publicly accessible norms: stability across conditions, systematic correlations with wavelengths, successful coordination with others, and responsiveness to correction. The colourblind person’s experience is not incorrect — it’s simply different. What can be incorrect is the world-directed judgment when assessed within those shared practices.
Those norms are not arbitrary or merely conventional — they are shaped by, and answerable to, stable patterns of successful interaction with the world. But they are norms governing judgment, not standards for grading the intrinsic correctness of experience.
That’s why I say truth and error are located at the level of world-directed judgment. It’s not a leap so much as a refusal to start from the phenomenal-first picture that much of the traditional debate takes for granted. Once that picture is set aside, the notion of error no longer depends on assuming direct realism, but on the norms that govern our practices of saying how things are.
Why do you have to "infer" the perceived object, when you are seeing it?
Thanks, that clarification helps, and I agree with more of what you say than perhaps my earlier wording suggested. I also do not claim that perceptual content is about neural states, nor that distal objects or their properties are literally present in neural activity. I also agree that there is no “real appearance” transmitted through space and into the brain. Where I think we still disagree is about whether causal covariance exhausts the intentional structure of perceptual states.
On your view, phenomenal character is self-standing, and the relation to distal objects is entirely causal. Given that, I agree that the visor looks continuous with ordinary perception: in both cases there is a neural state with a certain phenomenal character, caused in some way by the world. But that continuity is purchased by treating accuracy as non-fundamental—as a pragmatic gloss rather than a constitutive feature of perceptual content. If one is happy with that consequence, then that is a coherent internalist position; it is simply not one I accept.
I don’t think accuracy talk is optional in that sense. In the visor case, it matters whether the image on the screen corresponds to how things are in the environment, not because a “real appearance” is being compared to a copy, but because the perceptual state purports to present the environment itself—that is, it has correctness conditions that are not exhausted by its phenomenal character or causal history. The difference between an accurate visor and a misleading one is therefore not exhausted by differences in phenomenal character; it is a difference in how the state is answerable to the world.
This is why I don’t think the visor is just another causal conduit like light or reflection. Ordinary causal media do not introduce a layer whose outputs can succeed or fail as presentations of the environment. A visor does. Its outputs stand in normative relations to what is going on beyond the subject, even if the subject is unaware of the visor’s existence. That normative dimension is exactly what causal covariance alone cannot supply.
So the disagreement isn’t about whether appearances are transmitted, or whether phenomenal character is neural. It’s about whether perceptual states are merely causally covariant with the world, or whether they are constitutively world-answerable. If one denies the latter, then I agree the visor case collapses into ordinary perception—but only because one has already accepted a thoroughgoing internalism on which accuracy is not fundamental. That is the position I’m resisting.
Once that picture is in place, a binary seems forced: either we perceive the world indirectly, via inner objects; or we perceive it directly, without intermediaries. “Direct realism” is then coined as the negation of the first horn. It is not so much a positive theory as a reactive label: not that. This already suggests the diagnosis: the term exists because something has gone wrong earlier in the framing.
What those who reject indirect realism are actually rejecting may not be indirectness as such, but the reification of something “given” — an object of awareness that is prior to, or independent of, our conceptual, practical, and normative engagement with the world. Once you posit sense-data, qualia as objects, appearances as inner items, you generate the “veil of perception” problem automatically. “Direct realism” then looks like the heroic attempt to tear down the veil. But if you never put the veil there in the first place, there is nothing to tear down.
You see the cat. Perhaps you see it in the mirror, or turn to see it directly. And here the word "directly" has a use. You see the ship indirectly through the screen of your camera, but directly when you look over the top; and here the word "directly" has a use. The philosophical use of ‘indirect’ is parasitic on ordinary contrasts that do not support the theory. “Directly” is contrastive and context-bound, it does not name a metaphysical relation of mind to object, it does not imply the absence of causal mediation.
What you do not see is a sense datum, a representation, an appearance, or a mental image. You might well see by constructing such a representation, and all the physics and physiology that involves. But to claim that what you see is that construct and not the cat is a mistake.
One can admit that neural representations exist and denying that such things are the objects of perception. These neural representations are our seeing, not what we see.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Frank turns up at our laboratory, and we are unable to categorise him into one population or the other. Michael wants to maintain that there are nevertheless two populations, while I maintain that that the issue has no truth value. You, EQV, just refuse to commit. :wink:
Ok, fiar that's clearer. My objection then goes back to, how could we know unless we assume DR?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Ok, fair enough - let's then just talk about colourblindness, which is extant rather than hypothetical. If the colourblind person judges what you see to be green as a red, what's the basis for calling that an error, in lieu of assuming DR?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
This is what I'm having trouble with. There seems a huge leap being made to establish this - Part of hte IR commitment is that there isn't truly any 'error' in perception other than true hallucination. Even then, given it's not initiated by anything beyond the mind, 'error' is probably wrong. Its more the system drawing outside the lines. But that's a digression, so sorry if it distracts.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Very clear, good and answerable. Thank you. My view here is that if the former is the true (i think so) then the latter is arbitrary for our discussion. If its "within shared practices" when we're just discussing convention and not going anywhere - no?
I've been trying to make this argument for a long time. Banno does a good job of using this to his advantage. As it turns out, while I was drafting this, he came in clutch with a very clear description of this position.
It just seems utterly, inarguably clear to me it is prevarication. Specifically this:
Quoting Banno
This muddles up two meanings and pretends that the explanation of the one commits the thinkers to using it in the other. "direct" here is contrastive, you're absolutely right.
In perception, it is not. If this is missed, there is no coherent discussion to be had by denying hte intermediary nature of perception (which Banno does not, awkwardly imo). He calls this parasitic - and it certainly is, if you are so tied to a concept of direct perception, in the face of all the above reasons to reject that label, that any information that decries it is an enemy to be rooted out.
You're an indirect realist. You allow that humans experience neural representations, whether we call that seeing, hearing, tasting/smelling, touching (pressure and texture sensing).
:up:
Direct realism is also subject to the decomposing effects of skepticism. We all get by with pragmatism.
No. Humans do not experience neural representations; experience is having neural representations.
You are not separate from your neural processes.
Ok. The content of your experience is neural representations. Happy?
No. The content of my experience is the cat, the ship, the smell of coffee. Not my neural processes, and not my neural representations.
That, if we must make use of "content of experience".
Try again.
Sure. You experience the cat indirectly. You experience the ship indirectly. You experience the smell of the coffee indirectly. Welcome to indirect realism.
SO your response not by presenting an argument but by reasserting your error.
Ok.
Having a "content of experience" presupposes a container–contained picture of mind: an inner arena where experiences “have” objects or qualities. That’s precisely the sort of framing being rejected. Once you reject the Given, the idea of content starts to feel artificial, a placeholder for a problem that doesn’t exist.
Instead of talking in terms of content, we can frame perception as engagement with the world, and neural processes as how that engagement happens. We drop any separate “object of experience” in the mind.
I don't think experience has any particular location. It's something creatures with nervous systems do. A flood of electrical data comes into the brain, and the brain creates an integrated experience. Are you denying that?
Well, that's a start.
Quoting frank
No. I'm denying that what we experience is that flood of electrical data. Rather, having an experience is having that flood of electrical data. What you experience, if we must talk in that way, is the cat.
You see the cat, not your neural activity. Your neural activity is seeing the cat. At least in part.
My contribution to your word smithing would be that we do need to speak in terms of experience. Sight is not an isolated activity. It's integrated into a whole. And there is some functional entity we generally refer to as "you" which directs attention. As Isaac may have mentioned to you, a popular image among scientists is a main distribution board of some kind, from which "you" can turn focus away from sensation to a day dream, or a math problem, and then turn again to senses to see what time it is, and then the sound of a chainsaw grabs attention. It doesn't really make sense to say that you are your function of sight.
Quoting Banno
When you hear your wife's voice on the phone, that's not really her voice. It's a computer generated representation. If the logic of that throws you for a loop, I guess we could work through it. I wouldn't advise rejecting it because sounds illogical, though.
Quoting Banno
Bold: I said, no it isn't..Direct reply.
Italics: I said there is no cat in your eyes or mind. Your experience is in your mind (i could have added this). Therefore, no cat in your eyes or mind. It is not the content of your experience. It remains on the mat, while your brain represents that fact to you (i.e neural representation). So also, direct reply there.
Formally, that is all that is available to conscious experience. You seem to have accepted this formal reality at times**, bt continue to claim that your mental images are the items they are of. Very odd. However,
Quoting Banno
This is self-contradictory. I shouldn't need to point that out anymore. Its self-evident. It isn't the cat. In your own terms.
Poor Frank leaves the lab more confused than when he came in, but that's OK — he wasn't doing any philosophical work for us, and probably won’t be invited back. :wink:
I prefer "conceptual clarification"... I clarify concepts, you smith words, he makes shit up... :wink:
Quoting frank
Yes. I quite agree.
Quoting frank
A moment for the departed; he and I had long conversations about this, and I think he introduced me to Markov Blankets; together we forged an agreement that pretty much bypassed the direct/indirect dichotomy. The main distribution board was part of that discussion, another place to throw the blanket. Would that he were here now to give his opinion.
Quoting frank
See the weasel word? Did you hear your wife's voice? what dis she say? Were have you thrown the Markov Blanket? Were else might you throw it?
Well, he at the least served as a poor example, showing us that the theory that there are two populations does not have a truth value.
I think you’re right that we're hitting bedrock, but here are some additional thoughts for your consideration.
I’m not assuming direct realism in order to know that there is error. What I’m rejecting is the assumption — which I take to be doing a lot of work in the IR picture — that error must be identified by comparing experience with either a mind-independent phenomenal property or an inner experiential surrogate.
Returning to colourblindness: the basis for calling the judgment an error is not that the colourblind person’s experience fails to match mine, nor that it fails to match some phenomenal property instantiated by the object. The basis is that, within a shared practice of identifying and re-identifying objects across conditions, their judgments systematically fail to track features that figure in stable, publicly coordinated practices of correction and re-identification. That is an epistemic failure relative to those practices, not a phenomenal defect.
Importantly, this does not require assuming that colours are intrinsic properties of objects in a naïve realist sense. It only requires that our judgments are answerable to how things are in ways that admit of correction, stability, and disagreement. The colourblind person’s experience is not “wrong”; the experience is simply different. What can be wrong is the world-directed judgment, assessed within that normative context.
On the IR picture you gesture at, where there is no genuine error in perception outside of hallucination, I would say that this is not a neutral starting point but already a substantive philosophical commitment — one that insulates experience from normative assessment altogether, treating it as epistemically foundational rather than answerable to anything beyond itself. My move is to deny that insulation. It's not a leap so much as a refusal to grant that experience must be epistemically primary in the first place.
So the disagreement isn’t really about colourblindness as such. It’s about whether we think the notion of error belongs fundamentally to experience, or to the judgments we make about the world from within perceptual practices. I’m firmly in the latter camp.
Interestingly, this is pretty much the reply I owe you from that other discussion.
Good reply.
Fair enough—I’m resisting the nudge to deny truth-value, but I’m happy to concede that Frank was a poor example either way. While I stop short of moving from “no epistemic role” to “no truth value,” the practical upshot is basically the same.
Quoting Banno
Cheers.
:chin:
The causal chain remains the same, but our attention (the blanket) can be placed in differing locations. So in one throw we can refer to your wife’s voice, in another to the electronically constructed reproduction, and so on.
Hence the similarity with the distribution board.
Good charge, but I think misguided. In either theory there can be aberration - and generally, this would be represented by the exact 'error' you're pointing to - in perception precisely because it is indirect. Neither theory branches here - they both predict error with reference to shared experience - not external objects. That was what I took to be the claim for the DRist - error must be as held up to the "real world". Otherwise, we're not looking at error. We're just looking at disparate experience and error with this frame of reference is trivial. It seems you've given an IRist concept in support of rejecting IR. Perhaps not.
To me, the difference comes in where, for DR a mental event of perception could only be labeled an error for practical purposes - which is something I want to avoid. I want to actually know the relationship between my experience and the world - not other people's experiences. I just take it we can't know, or can't be certain. I don't see a problem with that conclusion unless its emotionally unsatisfying.
I think it might be worth dealing with a couple of common objections to IR that I think fail, and are being brought to bear here in complex discussion, instead of just stating them...probably because when stated just so, objection is easy.
Experiential transparency:
We must admit that the an anatomically indirect visual complex is at the base level of our descriptions (seems no one denies this part) and that we should not work backwards from psychological impressions to a theory. We need to work from the ground up to something which also fits our psychological impressions or we should adjust them. This is why experiential transparency is a red herring to me. It does literally nothing but say that humans tend to assume they are directly in touch with the world. So much is trivial. It doesn't help. Simply stating that it feels like that cat you see is "the cat out there" isn't anything so much as a lack of curiosity (or, ignorance).
Phenomenology of acquaintance:
There's no explanation of how this fixes the problems of content or accuracy. It just re-describes the above in a specific domain (felt sensation). It, also, seems to be a mere label in service of a couple other of the concepts below..
Disjunctivism:
In claiming that the object is constitutive of the veridical perception event, it accepts that there is a disjunct and cannot explain commonality in phenomena between minds without regression - which i find far less satisfying that "we can't know". Either way, its immensely underdeterminative and not supported by the neuroscience indicating common proximal causes of phenomenon. Also, what's the criteria for a disjunctive experience? Sort of begs the question..
Action-guidance:
IR predicts this just as well as DR. It seems to confused metaphysical structure with functionality/functional success. IR accepts the latter as well as DR.
Anti-skepticism:
Do I need to? LOL.
These seem to cover most motivations for clinging to DR:
- suspicion of representationalism or similar ruffle. The thing is, IR rejects antirealism, even if it accepts a basic framework from which it springs. Confusing these is poisoning the well I think;
- resistance to epistemic internalism and hte risks it presents;
- preference for ontological parsimony - not always the best answer. In fact, its only usually a good starting point, when we have conflicting data;
- desire to dissolve skepticism rather than answer it - fair, but again, about comfort not what's being argued.
Its just incredibly underdetermined. For me, far, far more questions arise from DR than IR. But more risk arises for IR than DR, epistemically. I understand that impulse, but it seems almost anti-philosophical.
You don't have access to your wife's voice. If you did, you wouldn't need a phone.
Think of your sensory nervous system as technology that allows that grey blob in your skull to gain information it wouldn't otherwise have access to.
I'm not sure I know what that might mean; but I do hear my wife's voice, through the telephone. That's indirect, in comparison to when she is in the room, but perhaps more direct than listening to a recording...
Telephony creates an illusion, and so does television. There's no tiny Donald Trump inside your TV.
Suppose on many different occasions I see the same combination of things, such as a square shape being cream in colour. Using my reason I can infer that in the mind-external world something exists that is causing me to see this particular combination of square shape being cream in colour. I don’t know what this something is in the mind-external world, but for convenience I can give it a name, and I name it “cup”. I could have named it anything, but I happen to name it "cup".
Therefore my concept of “cup”, a combination of a square shape being cream in colour has come from regularly seeing the combination of a square shape being cream in colour.
It seems to indicate that you don't need your internal cup in your mind to be able to see the external cup in the external world. At the beginning first time you saw the cup, you didn't have the concept of cup, but you were still seeing it. After having seen the cup many times, you named the object "cup".
Would it be correct?
In Presentism, how can the Sun persist through change, when only the present moment in time exists. The Sun cannot exist in the past when the past does not exist.
In the Block Universe, in the present is a physical state of matter and energy and in the past is a different physical state of matter and energy. But you talk about the Sun persisting through change. If two physical states are different between the past and present, where is the commonality between them?
If the Sun loses one atom, why does it remain the Sun rather than become a different object?=========================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
How can the Sun persist through time?
In Presentism, how can that part of the Sun that existed in the past and no longer exists in the present directly causally affect the present? Indirectly, yes, but directly, no.
In the Block Universe, how can that part of the Sun that exists in the past causally affect anything in the present, when in a Block Universe all moments in time are fixed, and there is no movement between moments in time?
As regards language, in what sense does the past directly (rather than indirectly) affect the present?=====================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
In Presentism, what I see in the present was indirectly caused by something in the past, but that something in the past no longer exists, so I cannot directly perceive it.
In a Block Universe, nothing can move between the past and present because both the past and present are fixed, including perception of the past from the present.
For both the Indirect and Direct Realist, the mind-external exists, and being mind-external, not just something that exists only in language or concepts. =================================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As regards temporal causal chain:
In Presentism, we infer that there is a temporal causal chain from a mind-external something in the past to a perception in the mind in the present. We can only directly perceive the present as the past no longer exists.
In the Block Universe, both the past and present are fixed, meaning that at each moment in time perception can only be directly of that particular moment in time .
As regards language:
In Presentism, only the present exists, and in the present I have the concept of the Sun, meaning that my perception can only be directly about something in the present.
In a Block Universe, each moment of time is fixed and nothing moves through this Block Universe, meaning that at each moment in time the perception of a concept can only be directly in that particular moment in time.
When I see the Sun, my perception is directly of something that exists in my present. There is no regress if my perception is directly of something.
No. I need the concept of a cup in my mind before I know I am looking at a cup. If I don’t know the concept of a cup, I don't know what I am looking at.
Quoting Corvus
No. I didn't see the cup many times, I saw many combinations of a square shape coloured cream, which I reasoned had been caused by something specific in the mind-external world.
From regularity of observation I learn the concept of a square shape coloured cream. For convenience this concept may be named, such as “cup”, but it could have been given any name.
This is the thing I'm trying to make sense of. What does it mean, for example, for 700nm light to "succeed" as a presentation of a strawberry and 450nm light to "fail" as a presentation of a strawberry?
You appeared to accept before the plausibility of the inverted spectrum, so let's assume that the phenomenal character I experience when my eyes detect 700nm light is the same as the phenomenal character you experience when your eyes detect 450nm light and vice versa. You are wearing a visor that transforms 700nm light into 450nm light and I'm not wearing a visor. When you and I look at a strawberry we now experience the same phenomenal character.
In what sense has your visor "failed" to present the strawberry to you? And why do we not ask if my eyes have "failed" to present the strawberry to me?
We experience (are aware of) something when we dream, when we hallucinate, (when we have synaesthesia?), etc., and these things are not distal objects in the world. The indirect realist claims that these things we experience when we dream etc. are mental/neurological phenomena, that we also experience these things when we have ordinary waking experiences, and that these things satisfy the philosophical notion of directness.
So which of these is your counterclaim?
1. We don't experience (are not aware of) anything when dream, when we hallucinate, (when we have synaesthesia?), etc.
2. Those things we experience when we dream etc. are not mental/neurological phenomena
3. We do not experience these things when we have ordinary waking experiences
4. These things do not satisfy the philosophical notion of directness
Note specifically that I haven't yet said that we don't directly perceive distal objects in the world when we have ordinary waking experiences. The above is just to see if we can agree that we do (also?) directly perceive mental/neurological phenomena (even during ordinary waking experiences)
Thanks for laying that out so clearly — I think this makes it obvious that we’re no longer talking past one another.
I agree with you on several points up front. I’m not trying to refute indirect realism, and I agree that IR can accommodate error, coordination, and action-guidance without collapsing into skepticism. I also agree that the epistemic situation is deeply underdetermined, and that “we can’t know with certainty” is a live philosophical outcome.
Before responding to your specific objections to experiential transparency, phenomenology of acquaintance, disjunctivism, and action-guidance, I want to flag why I haven’t engaged them directly. I’m not defending any of those positions. My claim is narrower: that the epistemic primacy of experience is itself a substantive theoretical commitment, not a neutral starting point. Whether or not disjunctivism or transparency succeed on their own terms is downstream of that more basic question.
Where I think we part company is over whether that underdetermination should be treated as a neutral default or as a philosophical choice. On the IR picture you’re defending, experience is effectively insulated from normative assessment: it can be causally aberrant, but it is not itself answerable to the world in a way that admits of correctness or incorrectness. Normativity enters only at the level of relations between experiences or theoretical overlays.
My move is to deny that insulation. I don’t think experience itself justifies our judgments, but neither do I think justification requires experiential comparison. The justificatory work is done by the norms governing world-directed judgment — norms shaped by, and answerable to, stable patterns of successful interaction with the world — with experience playing a causal, enabling role rather than an evidential one.
So I take your position to be coherent, but not compulsory. The disagreement, as I see it, is not about whether IR is viable, but about whether experience must be treated as epistemically primary in the first place.
OK fair enough. But going back the DR or IR, they are both realism. Isn't realism about existence? It is not about concept, or knowing. It is about existence. Even if you don't have concept, you cannot deny what you are seeing in front of you - the cup shaped object, and it is real.
Does existence of cup need concept of cup? What do you mean by existence? Even if, you don't have a concept of cup, you cannot deny the existence of cup shaped object you are seeing.
First I want to say that I agree that it would be a mistake to say that particular wavelengths or phenomenal characters “succeed” or “fail” as presentations of a strawberry. Neither wavelengths nor raw phenomenal character, taken in isolation, have correctness conditions. The notion of success or failure I’m invoking is role-based, not phenomenal: it concerns whether a system’s outputs function as presentations of the environment in a way that is answerable to how things are beyond the subject.
This is where the visor differs from ordinary vision, even allowing for spectrum inversion. In the inversion case, we can grant that you and I have systematically different mappings from wavelength to phenomenal character, and even that we enjoy the same phenomenal character when looking at the strawberry. Still, neither of us is perceiving an image that stands in for the environment. We are perceiving the strawberry itself, through our visual systems, under whatever lawful mapping holds for each of us. That lawful variation does not introduce a further question about whether what is presented corresponds to the environment; it just is how the environment is perceptually available to that subject.
The visor changes this structure. The crucial difference is not that the visor is physical while the eye is biological, or that one is reliable and the other not. It is that we do not perceive the outputs of retinal processing and then perceive the world by way of them; we perceive the world [I]through[/I] the eye. By contrast, the visor produces an image that is [I]itself[/I] an object of visual experience—something we see, and which purports to show us the scene beyond. Because the visor’s image is experienced as a presentation of the environment, it becomes intelligible to ask whether it corresponds to how things actually are. That is the sense in which its outputs can succeed or fail as presentations.
So the reason we do not ask whether your eyes have “failed” to present the strawberry is not that eyes are infallible, but that they do not introduce a detachable presentational layer whose outputs play the epistemic role of standing in for the world. The visor does. And that difference—between perceiving an object through a medium and perceiving an image that purports to present the object—is what introduces a normative dimension that causal covariance alone cannot supply.
Yes, both the DR and IR believe that a mind-external world exists. Even if there were no humans, there would still be a mind-external world.
Quoting Corvus
Yes, even if there were no humans, there would still be a mind-external world. In this mind-external world there would be neither concepts nor knowledge.
Quoting Corvus
I agree that even if I did not have the concept of “cup” I could not deny that in front of me I would still see shapes and colours.
But if I did not have the concept of “cup”, how could I know that what is in front of me is a “cup”? I would know something was in front of me, but I would not know that it was a “cup”
Both the DR and IR would agree that there is something in the mind-external world causing me to see something in front of me, and that something, whatever it is, is real.
Quoting Corvus
That something in the mind-external world causing me to see something in front of me does not need any concept in my mind. That something exists independently of any concept in the mind.
Quoting Corvus
Something that is physical, being either matter or energy. Things in the world.
The neurons of the brain exist as matter and energy. My assumption is that concepts in the mind are no more than arrangements of neurons in the brain. In that sense, concepts also exist.
Let's assume that there are just five "things" in the world; my brain, my eye, the visor, light, and a strawberry. The strawberry "moves" the light which "moves" the visor which "moves" the eye which "moves" the brain.
Without begging the question, why is it correct to say that we perceive the strawberry "through" the eye and not that we perceive the strawberry "through" the visor or "through" both the eye and the visor? You said before that it depends on whether or not something "introduces a layer whose outputs can succeed or fail as presentations of the environment". So why is it that the visor's output can "fail" as a presentation of the strawberry but that the eye's output cannot "fail" as a presentation of the visor? Remember; neither the visor nor the eye "purport" to do anything. They just behave according to the deterministic laws of physics. We make true or false judgements that something "succeeds" or "fails", but that's subsequent to perception and phenomenal experience.
1. The strawberry reflects 700nm light into John's eye and John's eye stimulates his A neuron, causing him to "see red".
2. The strawberry reflects 700nm light into Jane's eye and Jane's eye stimulates her B neuron, causing her to "see blue".
3. The strawberry reflects 700nm light into a visor that emits 450nm light into John's eye and John's eye stimulates his B neuron, causing him to "see blue".
4. The strawberry reflects 700nm light into a visor and the visor bypasses John's eye to stimulate his B neuron, causing him to "see blue".
You count (1) and (2) as direct perception and (3) as indirect perception, but what about (4)?
If the visor's "output" in (4) — i.e. stimulating John's B neuron — can be a "false" presentation of the strawberry then surely the eye's "output" in (2) — i.e. stimulating Jane's B neuron — can also be a "false" presentation of the strawberry. So it seems to me that (2) is direct perception if and only if (4) is direct perception.
But if (4) is direct perception then why isn't (3)? It seems to me that the visor in (3) can "fail" to present the strawberry if and only if the visor in (4) can "fail" to present the strawberry. So it seems to me that (4) is direct perception if and only if (3) is direct perception.
And because (1) is direct perception if and only if (2) is direct perception it seems to me that (1) is direct perception if and only if (3) is direct perception.
We are not interested in knowing it was a cup. We are interested in if the cup exists as a real object. It is all what realism is concerned, isn't it? Knowing is not existence, is it?
Quoting RussellA
Can you prove and demonstrate the existence of concept as arrangement of neurons in the brain?
I think your equivalence argument is very helpful, because it shows exactly where the disagreement lies. I’m happy to grant that (1) and (2) are on a par: variation in neural mapping or phenomenal character by itself does not make perception indirect. Where I part ways with you is in the move from (2) to (4), and therefore in the further identification of (4) with (3).
Your argument assumes that if two systems produce the same proximal neural outcome—e.g. stimulation of the B neuron—then they must have the same intentional structure, and so must count equally as cases of direct perception. That assumption is precisely what I reject. Intentional content is not fixed by proximal neural causes alone, but by the functional role of the system within a larger perceptual apparatus and its standing relations to the environment.
In (2), Jane’s eye and visual system are her means of perceiving the strawberry. The neural outcome is part of the perceptual process itself, not something she perceives instead of the strawberry. Differences in mapping (including inversion) affect how the strawberry appears, but they do not introduce a new object of awareness or a new question about whether what is presented corresponds to the environment. The system is functionally integrated into perception in such a way that the strawberry itself remains the intentional object.
In (4), by contrast, the visor is not functioning as part of the subject’s perceptual system in that sense. It is an external device that intervenes on the subject’s neural states, fixing the perceptual outcome independently of the normal perceptual linkage between subject and object. Even though there is no intervening “image,” the visor still determines what the perceptual state is of by inserting itself into the causal–functional role that normally belongs to the visual system. That is why (4) is relevantly like (3), not like (2): in both cases, the visor fixes the intentional object of experience rather than merely enabling access to it.
So the difference I’m drawing is not about where in the causal chain neural stimulation occurs, nor about whether phenomenal character matches across cases. It’s about whether the system producing the perceptual state is functioning as the subject’s means of perceiving the object, or as an intervening device whose outputs stand in for the environment. In (2), the eye is part of the perceptual system through which the strawberry is perceived. In (3) and (4), the visor plays a different functional role: it intervenes on perceptual states in a way that makes it intelligible to ask whether its outputs succeed or fail as presentations of the environment.
If one insists that intentional structure must collapse entirely into causal structure, then your equivalence argument goes through. But that insistence is a substantive internalist thesis, not something forced on us by physics or by the bare facts of causal mediation.
The Indirect Realist does not believe that a cup exists in the mind-external world, but only exists in the mind as a concept. In the mind-external world exists physical matter and energy, which the human mind may interpret as being a cup.
The Direct Realist believes the cup exists both in the mind as a concept and as a real object in the mind-external world.
What makes something an object? Suppose we see an apple on a table. The apple is a single object. The table is a single object. But is the apple on a table a single object? There seems to be no reason to think so. But we could name an apple on a table “apptab”. Is the apptab now a single object just because we have given it a name?
This raises the question, do objects exist in the mind-external world or are they created by the mind?
Quoting Corvus
No. I assume the mind is no more than the brain, but others disagree.
I think the remaining disagreement comes from running together three different questions:
(1) how persistence through time should be understood,
(2) how causation across time works, and
(3) what “direct” is supposed to contrast with in a theory of perception.
First, about persistence. On Presentism, to say that the Sun persists through change is not to say that past parts of the Sun still exist. It is to say that the present Sun stands in lawful causal continuity with earlier states. Persistence here is not identity-with-the-past, but continuity governed by physical laws. Losing one atom does not generate a new object because nothing in our best physical theories treats that loss as a boundary for objecthood. The absence of a sharp cutoff does not show that persistence is merely linguistic; it shows that persistence is a real-world phenomenon that our concepts track imprecisely.
On a Block Universe view, the Sun is a temporally extended physical process. Different temporal parts are different physical states, but they are unified by belonging to the same continuous spacetime process governed by physical law. The relevant commonality is not qualitative sameness at each moment, but participation in a single causal–spatiotemporal structure.
Second, about causation. You repeatedly say that on Presentism the past “no longer exists” and therefore cannot directly affect the present. But this conflates [I]existence now[/I] with [I]having causal efficacy[/I]. On Presentism, causal explanations are perfectly coherent: present states are effects of earlier states, even though those earlier states no longer exist. That is not indirect causation; it is just causation across time. Likewise, on a Block Universe view, causal relations are encoded in the spacetime structure itself. Nothing needs to “move” between moments for there to be causal dependence.
Third, and most importantly, about perception. When I say that perception is direct, I am not claiming that the past is perceived as past, or that temporal mediation is eliminated. I am denying that perception proceeds by inference from an inner surrogate. On Presentism, my perception is directly related to a presently existing physical state through which the mind-external object is perceptually available (for example, light now arriving), where that state is itself the lawful causal manifestation of the object. On a Block Universe view, my perception is directly related to a temporal part of a mind-external process. In neither case is the direct object of perception a mental item that stands in need of inference to reach the world.
This is why the regress point still matters. If the mere fact that a causal chain involves time were enough to make perception indirect, then your own claim that perception is “directly of something that exists in my present” would not stop the regress. That present item would itself be temporally conditioned, causally structured, and conceptually articulated, and so—by the same standard—would require a further intermediary. To halt the regress, something must count as non-inferentially present to the mind, and temporal mediation alone cannot disqualify it from playing that role.
So the core issue is not whether only the present exists, or whether time is block-like. It is whether “direct” means non-inferential openness to mind-external reality, or instead absence of temporal structure altogether. I reject the latter requirement, and without it, the arguments you’re pressing don’t force the indirect realist conclusion.
Why not? It is effectively a bionic eye, and you granted before that a bionic eye is no different in kind to an organic eye. There's nothing privileged about proteins. Both just deterministically react to electromagnetism by sending neurotransmitters up the optic nerve. So to suggest that (4) is different to (2) is special pleading or begging the question. A bionic eye "intervenes" and could "fail to present the environment" if and only if an organic eye "intervenes" and could "fail to present the environment".
I think your question here makes the issue as sharp as it can be. I'll try to clarify where I think the equivalence argument ultimately breaks down.
I’m happy to grant that there is nothing privileged about proteins, and that a genuinely bionic eye could, in principle, count as part of a subject’s perceptual system. Material composition does no work here. What matters is not what the system is made of, but the role the system plays in constituting perception for the subject.
The distinction I’m relying on is not between lawful vs. unlawful mappings, or between covarying vs. non-covarying systems. I agree that in all of your cases—(1) through (4)—there can be lawful, consistent causal mappings from strawberry to neural outcome. So counterfactual covariation by itself cannot mark the difference. The real distinction is this: whether the mapping in question is constitutive of what it is for the subject to perceive at all, or whether it is a substitutable, instrumental mapping that could be altered without redefining perception for that subject.
In (2), Jane’s visual system—eye, retina, and downstream neural processing—constitutes her perceptual capacities. Whatever the mapping from wavelength to neural state happens to be (even under inversion), that mapping is not something that stands in for perception; it is how objects are perceptually available to her. There is no further question of whether this mapping is “doing its job correctly,” because it is not functioning as an intermediary whose output purports to represent the environment. It defines what counts as seeing for Jane.
By contrast, in (4), the visor introduces a mapping that is not constitutive in this sense. Even if it covaries lawfully with the strawberry, it functions as a substitutable system that fixes perceptual outcomes independently of the strawberry’s own role in determining how it is perceived. That mapping could be changed, replaced, recalibrated, or removed without thereby redefining what it is for John to perceive at all. That is why it is intelligible to ask whether the visor is presenting the environment correctly. The mapping is instrumental rather than constitutive, and so its outputs are assessable as succeeding or failing as presentations of the world.
This is also why (4) aligns with (3) rather than with (2), even though (4) bypasses the eye entirely. The difference is not whether an image is interposed, nor where in the causal chain neural stimulation occurs, but whether the system in question defines perceptual access or intervenes by imposing a detachable mapping. A bionic eye could fall on either side of this divide, depending on whether it becomes constitutive of the subject’s perceptual capacities or remains an instrument that determines perceptual outcomes in place of object-governed availability.
So the equivalence argument only goes through if one assumes that any lawful causal mapping to neural states is sufficient to fix intentional structure. That assumption collapses constitutive and substitutable mappings into the same category. I reject that assumption. Once the distinction is in view, it becomes clear why (1) and (2) count as direct perception, while (3) and (4) do not—not because of biology, reliability, or phenomenology, but because of the different roles these systems play in individuating what perception is for the subject.
I'm sorry but this still seems to beg the question. You just assert that Jane's organic eye counts as constituting her perceptual capacities and that John's bionic eye doesn't. I want to know why this is. Why does a bionic eye "function as an intermediary whose output purports to represent the environment and can be assessed as succeeding or failing" but an organic eye doesn't? They both function in identical ways; they react to electromagnetic stimulation by generating neurotransmitters that are sent up the optic nerve. It shouldn't matter whether the eye is one's natural eye, taken from a donor, grown in a lab, built by a mechanical engineer, or is a Boltzmann eye that spontaneously formed from quantum fluctuations. If any one of them can output the "wrong" neurotransmitters given the input then all of them can.
Although it's still not clear to me what would even count as the "wrong" (or the "right") neurotransmitters given your objection to the notion that the phenomenal character of experience can "succeed" or "fail" at representing the mind-independent nature of the world. It seems like your position now depends on the very naive realism that you previously rejected.
I think these revisions make it clearer what you are trying to assert.
1. The strawberry reflects 700nm light into John's eye which correlates with the stimulation of A neuron, and John’s report seeing the color red.
2. The strawberry reflects 700nm light into Jane's eye which correlates with the stimulation of the B neuron and Jane’s report seeing the color red
3. The strawberry reflects 700nm light into a visor that emits 450nm light into John's eye which correlates with the stimulation of the B neuron and John’s report seeing color blue.
However, point 4 is a little unclear for revision.
4. The strawberry reflects 700nm light into a visor and the visor bypasses John's eye to stimulate his B neuron, John reports seeing blue.
What is a mystery is the nature of the stimulation of John’s B neuron. What we understand is the emission of 450 nm light which we typically call “Blue” is associated with stimulation of John’s B neuron. And no other color’s wavelength should be stimulating this color. So, if it cannot be no other color wavelength stimulating this color, other than blue, what is the nature of this stimulation? We are alway bombarded with enormous amount of “stimulations” from the external world that can make color judgments difficult to get accurate. Looks like the visor is one of them.
It turns on what kind of [I]standard[/I] a system is answerable to. I'll try to explain what I mean by this:
You’re right that Jane’s eye can be assessed against physical and biological standards. We can say that it malfunctions if it fails to transduce wavelengths in the statistically normal way, or relative to how human eyes typically function. But that kind of assessment is not yet an intentional standard of correctness. A biological malfunction is a failure relative to a kind; it is not, by itself, a failure to accurately present the world. Even a normally functioning eye does not answer to some prior specification of how the environment is supposed to look for Jane. Rather, it fixes what “getting it right” means for her perceptually. That is what makes it constitutive.
By contrast, the visor in (4) is assessable as misrepresenting the environment even when it is functioning exactly as designed. That difference matters. The visor’s outputs purport to stand in for how the environment is perceptually available independently of it, which is why it makes sense to ask whether those outputs succeed or fail as presentations of the world. That question does not arise for Jane’s eye, not because it is organic, but because there is no independent intentional standard against which its mapping could be evaluated for her. Its mapping is identity-fixing, not performance-assessable.
This also explains why lawful covariation and consistency are insufficient to erase the distinction. An organic eye with an inverted mapping is not misrepresenting the strawberry; it determines what it is for strawberries to look any way at all for that subject. A visor with an inverted mapping can misrepresent even while covarying perfectly, because its role is instrumental rather than constitutive. The possibility of misrepresentation without malfunction is exactly what marks that difference.
So the asymmetry is not asserted but grounded: Jane’s visual system constitutes her perceptual capacities because it defines the intentional space within which perceptual correctness is possible at all. The visor intervenes on an already defined perceptual capacity, which is why its outputs are assessable as accurate or inaccurate in a way the eye’s are not.
I don't quite understand your question.
In this simplified account of physics and physiology, when the sense receptors in John's eye detects 450nm light it sends an electrical signal up the optic nerve and into the brain, "activating" neuron B, and when the sensors on the visor detect 700nm light it sends an electrical signal up the optic nerve and into the brain, "activating" neuron B.
The visor doesn't purport to do anything. It's just a machine that deterministically reacts to light, exactly like an organic eye.
If it helps, the visor was not designed by anyone for any purpose. It spontaneously formed via quantum fluctuations, and those who wear it don't even know that they wear it.
Quoting Michael
I’m not attributing intentions, purposes, or design to the visor. “Purport” here is not a psychological or teleological notion. It doesn’t require anyone to think, intend, or even know that the visor exists. It marks a normative role a system plays relative to perceptual correctness, not an attitude the system has.
To say that a system’s outputs “purport to present the environment” just means this: the outputs are assessable as correct or incorrect relative to how things are, independently of whether the system is functioning normally or as designed. No intentions are required for that assessment to make sense.
That’s the crucial difference.
An organic visual system—even if it arose by chance, even if it were unknown to the subject—does not answer to an independent standard of perceptual correctness. If Jane’s eye maps 700nm light to a certain phenomenal character, that mapping fixes what red looks like for her. If the mapping were different, that would not make her perception false; it would make her a different perceiver. Biological malfunction is possible, but misrepresentation in the intentional sense is not separable from what it is for her to see at all.
By contrast, the visor’s mapping remains assessable as misrepresenting even if it arose spontaneously and even if no one knows it is there. We can coherently say: the visor is causing the subject to see the strawberry as blue even though, absent that device, it would appear red to that very same subject. That counterfactual comparison is what makes the visor’s outputs normatively assessable. No design, intention, or awareness is needed—only the fact that the visor intervenes on a perceptual capacity that is already defined independently of it.
So the distinction is not about what the visor “means to do,” but about whether a system defines perceptual correctness for a subject or is answerable to such correctness. “Purporting” names that answerability, not any inner purpose.
If you deny that distinction, then you are committed to the view that there is no principled difference between a system that constitutes perception and a system that merely alters its outputs—that all such systems are on a par as long as they are causally lawful. That is a coherent position, but it is precisely the internalist thesis at issue, not something forced on us by physics or by the absence of design.
So it's a question of whether perceptual normativity can be reduced entirely to causal covariance, or whether some causal systems fix the space of perceptual correctness while others operate within it. That’s the real fork in the road.
Let's assume that the people who wear the visor don't have eyes, and so absent their visor they don't see anything.
Let's also assume that they are later given eyes, and that rather than their visor bypassing their eyes to stimulate their optic nerve, their eyes bypass their visor. We can coherently say: the eyes are causing the subject to see the strawberry as red even though, absent the eyes, it would appear blue to that very same subject.
So why do eyes count as part of direct perception but the visor doesn't?
In the scenario you describe, I agree that the eyes count as part of direct perception. And more generally, I’m happy to grant this: any system—organic or artificial—can count as constitutive of direct perception if it fixes the space of perceptual normativity for the subject at the time. What matters is not what the system is, nor which came first, but whether it defines what perceptual correctness even amounts to for that subject.
So if a subject initially has only the visor, then perception is direct relative to the visor. If the subject later acquires eyes that bypass the visor, then the eyes now constitute the perceptual capacity instead. In neither case is the constitutive system assessable as misrepresenting, because there is no independent perceptual standard against which its outputs could be evaluated. Altering or removing it would undermine perception itself, not merely change its outputs.
The contrast with the original visor cases is that there the visor operated against an already-defined perceptual capacity. That is what made misrepresentation intelligible. When a system intervenes on a perceptual capacity whose identity conditions are already fixed, its outputs become assessable as correct or incorrect relative to that background. That’s the sense in which the visor was instrumental in those cases and constitutive in the one you’ve now described.
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At this stage, I think it’s worth noting that once the distinction is understood in these role-relative, normative terms, it’s inevitable that there will be borderline and hybrid cases. I don’t see that as a defect in the view; it’s exactly what one should expect if perceptual normativity is not reducible to causal structure alone.
What the edge cases are really testing is not whether a particular gadget counts as “direct,” but whether there is any principled distinction between systems that establish perceptual standards and systems that merely operate within them. If one thinks that any lawful causal mapping to neural states fixes intentional content, then my distinction will inevitably look arbitrary. If one thinks that perceptual capacities fix standards of correctness that other systems can intervene on, then the distinction is principled even if it resists sharp boundaries.
So I’m happy to keep discussing cases, but I think we’re now very close to a foundational disagreement about normativity versus causal covariance—one that further edge cases will merely illustrate rather than resolve.
Then referring back to this post, do you now accept that (1) is direct perception if and only if (4) is direct perception? Because to rephrase the quote above: if a subject initially has only eyes, then perception is direct relative to the eyes, but if the subject later acquires a visor that bypass the eyes then the visor now constitutes the perceptual capacity instead.
I think the “if and only if” formulation still overgeneralizes, and the reason is that it abstracts away from the role a system is actually playing at a given time.
What I’ve been claiming is this: at any given time, whatever system is fixing the space of perceptual normativity for the subject constitutes direct perception relative to that system. That does not imply a biconditional across all possible rewiring histories.
So yes:
– If a subject initially has only eyes, perception is direct relative to the eyes.
– If a subject initially has only a visor, perception is direct relative to the visor.
But it does not follow that (2) is direct perception if and only if (4) is direct perception in the original cases you described. In (4) as originally formulated, the visor was introduced as an intervention on an already-functioning perceptual capacity, not as the system that fixed perceptual normativity for the subject. That is exactly what made it instrumental rather than constitutive in that case.
Your rephrasing changes the scenario in a substantive way. If the visor genuinely bypasses the eyes and wholly replaces them as the system that fixes perceptual correctness for the subject, then yes, in that revised scenario, perception would be direct relative to the visor. But that is no longer the original (4). It is a different case with a different role-assignment.
So the disagreement is not about whether eyes and visors can ever be on a par in principle—they can. It’s about whether, in a given setup, a system is functioning as the constitutive basis of perception or as an intervention on one. Once that distinction is kept fixed, the “if and only if” claim does not go through.
More generally, this is why I’ve been resisting the idea that directness can be decided by gadget-swapping alone. Directness is not a property of devices considered in isolation, but of the normative role they occupy in the subject’s perceptual economy at a time. Changing that role changes the verdict; holding it fixed does not.
It is the original (4)?
Compare with:
(5) is direct perception if and only if (4) is direct perception, and above you argued that (5) is direct perception.
I think there’s a misunderstanding here about what I’m actually committed to, and it’s generating the appearance of an asymmetry that I don’t accept.
I’m not committed to the pattern you attribute to me. On my view, the symmetry holds at the level of replacement. In particular:
So there’s no device-based asymmetry here at all. Eyes and visors are on a par in principle. I've not been denying this.
What I’ve been denying is a different claim, which your formulation runs together with (4):
The crucial distinction is not eyes vs visor, but replacement vs intervention. A system counts as constitutive of direct perception only when it defines what counts as perceptual correctness for the subject at that time. A system that operates against the background of an already-defined perceptual capacity is instrumental, and its outputs are intelligibly assessable as succeeding or failing relative to that background.
This applies symmetrically. If someone initially perceived only via a visor, and eyes were later added in a way that merely intervened on that visor-based capacity, then perception would remain direct relative to the visor and indirect relative to the eyes. There’s no privileging of biology here.
What’s been doing the work in our disagreement is that your original case (4) was underspecified between replacement and intervention, and I think that you and I have been reading it differently. Once that ambiguity is resolved, the alleged inconsistency disappears. The view is role-relative, not device-relative, and it treats eyes and visors in exactly the same way.
What determines whether or not (4) counts as replacement or as intervention?
If it helps, as it's pertinent to real life, all scenarios are fixed at birth.
1. Only eyes with eyes into brain
2. Only visor with visor into brain
3. Both eyes and visor, with visor bypassing eyes into brain
4. Both eyes and visor, with eyes bypassing visor into brain
5. Both eyes and visor, with visor into eyes into brain
6. Both eyes and visor, with eyes into visor into brain
Which count as direct perception and which count as indirect perception?
The criterion is normative, not causal: a system is constitutive if it fixes what perceptual correctness means for the subject, instrumental if its outputs are assessable against an already-defined standard. Here “fixes” is not meant causally, but normatively: it determines what counts as seeing correctly rather than incorrectly for the subject. Wiring diagrams underdetermine this, which is why your cases (3)–(6) can't be resolved by causal structure alone—each could go either way depending on which system, if either, fixes the perceptual norm.
So 'fixed at birth' and 'bypasses' don't answer the question; what matters is whether there's an independent standard against which the system's outputs are intelligibly assessable. If you reject that distinction—if you think causal covariance exhausts perceptual normativity—then the question dissolves, but so does the notion that any system could misrepresent rather than merely malfunction.
I don't understand what you mean by saying that the standard is normative. If you just mean that my perception is direct if this is what I normally see in such a situation then the people born wearing visors with a screen on the inside have direct perception of the world beyond the visor, because that it is how they normally see the world. They ought no more assess the "veracity" of the visor's output than they ought if they didn't have eyes and the visors interfaced directly with their brain. This is where I think you're guilty of special pleading, or moving the goalpost. Either the former is direct perception or the latter isn't.
That's the point at issue. The thing about an hallucination or dream is exactly that there is no something.
An hallucination is defined precisely by there being no object of which one is aware, only a belief-like state produced in a derivative way.
I'm making a distinction between error and malfunction. Error is about failure relative to how the world is. Malfunction is about failure relative to how a system normally operates. I'm saying the former is not reducible to the latter.
The reason it can feel like the goalposts are shifting is that your scenarios quietly presuppose that all failure is just malfunction. But that’s exactly what I’m denying. Whether a device (organic or bionic) is constitutive of perception or merely instrumental within it depends on the role it plays in making representation—and therefore error—possible at all with respect to the subject. Causality can only explain malfunction. We need normativity in order to explain error.
More word smithing.
Or is it that you hung your flag on the "indirect realist" mast, then found that you basically agreed with what I had to say?
Take a moment to stop and take in the world around you: the sights, sounds, movements in time and space. Now take in that all of it is generated by your brain (possibly with some quantum magic).
I wouldn't want your word smithing to make you miss out on the touch of awe associated with that.
Well, no, it isn't. The bits and pieces around me have a place in there as well. Be they quantum fluctuations or cups and cats.
Your jump from "neural processes are necessary for perception" all the way to "the world is generated by the brain" is illegitimate.
You completely missed my point. Oh well. :grin:
Are you saying light at 450 nm and 700 nm both will stimulate the same B neuron for John to experience two different colors or one color? Or does John need two different neurons to experience two different colors? You example, #1 and 3, suggest two neurons are needed for two colors. Ok, if so, example #4 then suggests that two wavelengths can stimulated the same neuron. So is it one or two? Or some hidden stimulation?
What I have been trying to show is that science can only assist in helping us understand at a microlevel how humans have consistency in color judgment and how some may have divergent judgments (color blindness). Science relies on shared standards of color, consistency of color judgments, and shared language, not private introspection of sense data. So the metaphysics of indirect realism cannot find support from science.
You want I should be awe struck into agreement? Nuh.
You have an awe deficit.
...or you have an awe surfeit.
Awe is not an argument.
Nice work.
Neither is word smithing.
I think you are seeing two objects, not a single object. You can say it is one object, and call it apptab, but no one else will understand what you mean by it.
Quoting RussellA
Objects exist in the external world if we can see and interact with them. Some objects which are not visible because they are too distant or hidden inside buildings could be inferred as existing if there are good reasons to believe them existing such as Papua New Guinea, or folks in the houses and hotels.
Quoting RussellA
Brain definitely is the source or foundation for the functions of mind, but saying mind is brain sounds too simple and meaningless. It needs explanation how brain generates mind, how brain is linked to mind or how mind works from brain. This is a Philosophy of Mind topic.
My only hope is someone new to this area gets curious and wonders why we say such things. Their curiosity, I believe, will be rewarded.
That is, if we begin with the conclusion that it's error to speak of internal states as having composition of any identifiable type, then tautologically you cannot arrive at the particularized differences between the veridical parts and delusive parts such that you can conduct a Lockean breakdown of the primary and secondary elements.
It's hand waving away the composition of phenomenal states while still maintaining they exist as some vague non-compisitional event like sort of way.
Whatever he's getting at is not arrived at by force so much as just acceptance of his dogmatic rejection, a sort of phenomenal austerity that refuses to grant the inner state any substance. If you deny that dogma, you just deny Austin and there's no reason provided why you shouldn't.
I will stick to Presentism, as this still makes my point.
The Indirect Realist (IR) and Direct Realist (DR) agree
1 - There is a temporal causal chain that follows the laws of physics from a mind-external something to perceiving the Sun in the mind.
2 - There is a mind-external world, and in this mind-external world physical matter and energy follow the laws of nature.
3 - In Presentism, only the present exists.
4 - There are objects such as the Sun
Beliefs of the IR and DR
1 - The Direct Realist believes that there is a one to one correspondence between the Sun we perceive in the mind to a Sun that both exists and persists in the world.
2 - The Indirect Realist believes that we do not perceive the mind-external world as it really is, but perceive it through a conceptual framework. For the Indirect Realist, the Sun is a concept that both exists and persists in the mind.
As there is an arrow of time there is an arrow of causation
1 - In the arrow of time, we can remember the past but not the future
2 - In the arrow of causation, given a present event, we can determine a future event using the laws of physics, but it is logically impossible to determine a past event.
In particular, during a snooker match, when all the balls are at rest, we can determine their immediate future positions using the laws of physics, but it is logically impossible to determine their immediate past positions using the laws of physics.
In general, during a snooker match, when all the balls are moving, we can determine their immediate future positions using the laws of physics, but it is logically impossible to determine their immediate past positions using the laws of physics.
Where does the Sun exist
Suppose what we know as the Sun in the mind-external world with the passage of time loses one atom. On the one hand, in the mind-external world there has been an ontological change. On the other hand, the human observer has the choice whether to keep the same name, the Sun, or change its name. As the Sun is generally accepted as a concept and within language, although there has been an ontological change, we keep the same name.
Suppose there is one object, an apple, and another object, a table, and the apple is on the table. We could name an apple on a table as “apptab”. We have thereby created another object, an apptab. In the same way we created the objects apple, table and Sun. All names are human creations and exist as concepts and within language.
Objects exist and persist through time because objects are names, and names exist and persist in concepts and language.
The IR and DR disagree
1 - The IR believes that objects such as the Sun only exist as concepts and in language, whereas the DR believes that objects such as the Sun exist in the mind-external world.
2 - The IR believes that we cannot know but can only infer a prior event in a temporal causal chain, whereas the DR believes that we can know a prior event in a temporal causal chain
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As the Sun only exists as a concept and in language, it can persist through change both as a concept and in language. Something in the mind-external world that is constantly changing cannot persist.
Treating the Sun as a concept and in language is the position of the IR.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Both the IR and DR agree that causal explanations are perfectly coherent and present states are effects of earlier states.
However, in a temporal causal chain, a future event can be determined from a past event using the laws of physics, whereas it is logically impossible to determine a past event from a present event using the laws of physics.
For the DR to believe that they can directly know a past event from a present event through a temporal causal chain is a logical impossibility.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As knowing a past event using a temporal causal chain is logically impossible, only by inference from the present can a past event be hypothesised. This is the position of the IR.
There is no non-inferential means of discovering a past event from the present using a temporal causal chain.
When I see a table, am I seeing one object, the table, or five objects, the table top and four legs?
=====================================
Quoting Corvus
I see an apple, touch it and see it move.
Both the IR and DR agree that there is a mind-external world of physical matter and energy that obeys the physical laws.
It is a problem of naming.
Suppose in touching the apple I knock off one atom. The apple has changed. Is it the same apple even though it has changed or should I give it a new name because it has changed.
If I give it a new name then it becomes a new object.
Only a human can decide whether it should keep its name or be given a new name.
Only a human can create new objects.
All this suggests that objects only exist in the mind and language, not in the external world.
================================
Quoting Corvus
Very true.
Neuron A correlates to one colour experience and neuron B correlates to another colour experience, tested by directly stimulating neuron A and then neuron B and asking the subject if they see the same, different, or no colours, and them confirming that they see two different colours.
In (1) John's eye reacts to the 700nm light by stimulating neuron A via the optic nerve into the brain.
In (2) Jane's eye reacts to the 700nm light by stimulating neuron B via the optic nerve into the brain.
In (3) the visor reacts to the 700nm light by emitting 450nm light, and John's eye reacts to the 450nm light by stimulating neuron B via the optic nerve into the brain.
In (4) the visor reacts to the 700nm light by stimulating neuron B via a wire into John's brain.
So what is the relevant difference between:
1. People born without eyes and born wearing a visor that discharges electricity into their optic nerve
2. People born with eyes and born wearing a visor that discharges electromagnetism into their eyes which discharges electricity into their optic nerve
My issue is that you appear to argue that (1) is direct perception because they don't have to assess the veracity of the visor's output but that (2) is indirect perception because they do have to assess the veracity of the visor's output, but there appears neither a causal nor a normative justification for this inconsistency. Either they are both direct perception or they are both indirect perception.
Hallucinations are not delusions; they're not belief-like but experiential and with phenomenal character. When I eat shrooms I very much experience and am very much aware of the kaleidoscope of colours that I am seeing (and very much know that the colours I am seeing are an hallucination caused by the fungus).
If you're going to define "experience of" and "aware of" in such a way that nothing is experienced and we're not aware of anything when we dream and hallucinate then it's no surprise that your understanding of indirect realism is a misrepresentation. Feeling pain isn't like feeling a table but it's still the experience and awareness of something. The grammar of the first doesn't entail touching something with one's hands even if the latter does.
It is still the same apple even if with some of its atoms are missing or altered. It is called identity through time. With time change in the universe, everything changes. But the identity of the object remains same, as long as it can be remembered by the perceiver.
When you were born x number of years ago, you were a newborn baby, Now you are a grown up adult, I guess? You now look totally different in height, weight and looks from when you were a newborn baby, but you are still you. You changed through time, but you remember you are you. You are still you.
What is more, you don't need to change your name, or give you a new name. No, you don't keep giving new names to objects, unless there are necessary reasons for it.
I'd just describe your experience as a visual distortion, not a true hallucination. Someone going through withdrawal where they try to pick off non-existent bugs crawling on their skin I'd think of as a hallucination.
I don't actually think the room spinning if I drink too much, but I wouldn't say I hallucinated it either.
Austin's point, as far as I can tell, wouldn't deny the true hallucinations, but would deny that they were very common. That is, the bulk of your claimed confusion is non-existent, easily understood and described through common language.
He'd also deny Z, where it represents X (the verdical) minus Y (the delusive)., to suggest there is a portion of any experience A that contains some truth and some added mental baggage. To allow that, slips into Locke, distinguishing between the primary and secondary qualities.
Why he denies this, as I was saying to @Banno appears dogmatic. That is, he just denies it necessary to understand the world as we commonly (and a tremendous emphasis is placed on the common man, unconfused by silly philosophical problem creation) perceive it. The minute you break the world down into what there really is (veridical) and what you only think there is (delusive), you fall into the trap of making such silly (per his view) things like "the ship I see isn't the ship there is. "
Austin does, if you buy in, preserve meaning in our ordinary discourse, but I'd argue it does so at the expense of presenting an unexamined view under the guise of a mocking anti-philosophicism (my created term), where he sort of says this has been over thought to nonsense where we can't even say we saw a ship that everyone sees plain as day.
So, my question is if we admit a distinction between the noumenal core reality and the phenomenonal perception with its generated distortions, and the noumenal is defined as beyond knowable, isn't the attempt to identify and describe the mental baggage (Z, as I've described it) futile? If we can't know what is veridical, we can't know what is delusive.
Does this not warrant the sort of move Austin makes just to create boundaries so we can speak normally. I like Wittgenstein's approach better where meaning falls to use, making the swirl in your head irrelevant.
It would never suggest understanding lies outside historical context, but it would also not suggest pure relativism where beliefs were accepted as arbitrary and immune from criticism.
This is a somewhat ambiguous claim. It's certainly practically irrelevant if the phenomenal character I experience when my eyes are stimulated by 700nm light is the same or different to the phenomenal character you experience when your eyes are stimulated by 700nm light, but it doesn't then follow that colour terms don't (also) refer to this phenomenal character. I believe I showed that it can and does in the section below the image here and in the post here.
I spoke more precisely than that though. I said Quoting Hanover
Wittgenstein doesn't deny the phenomenonal. He denies it's relevance for communication and meaning. Wittgenstein doesn't say you have no beetle, nor that it might have all sorts of causative effects. He doesn't approach that inquiry.at all.
The approach (like Austin's) is therapeutic, designed to dissolve unclarity, not to get at ultimate truth.
Irrelevant for communication but not irrelevant for meaning. That's why the people wearing visors ask "why is the sky now green and why is the grass now red?" after their private screens are reprogrammed and why Jim says "1nm light now appears blue" after his brain is rewired.
Despite the public use of the word "beetle" it really does refer to the private thing in the box. If through magic or advanced technology you were to replace the contents of my box with something very different then I wouldn’t recognize it as being a beetle.
I don't accept this phrasing "perceiving the Sun in the mind" if it implies that perception is of some sort of mental item.
Quoting RussellA
Likewise, I didn't accept this. It suggests that what is perceived is a mental item (a Sun-in-the-mind) and that perception involves matching that mental item to a worldly object.
Quoting RussellA
This doesn't follow. Physical systems persist precisely by changing in structured ways.
Quoting RussellA
DR doesn't require this. It requires only that perception be grounded in lawful causal dependence on the world.
Quoting RussellA
I think you are missing the point of the regress argument. At some point, something must count as non-inferentially present to the mind, or explanation never begins.
So I went back and read your referenced argument. What that proves is that certain neuronal firings result in certain utterances, but how does it prove anything about the private experience?
Jim and John could still see the exact color before and after rewiring but they say different words now. That is the PLA problem. Reference to an unidentifiable beetle provides no additional explanatory power, even if there is a beetle.
The DR accepts there is a temporal causal chain from something in the mind-external world to their perception.
For example, we can conceptualise that the causal chain was initiated by the Sun, followed by a wavelength of light, to an electrical signal in the optic nerve, then neural activity in the brain and finally perception in the mind.
However, as all our information about the mind-external world comes through our senses, and as it is logically impossible to know the true nature of any link prior to coming through our senses, it is also logically impossible to know the true nature of what initiated any causal chain.
The DR agrees that they perceive a Sun because of a causal chain, but as it is logically impossible to know what initiated any causal chain arriving at our senses, what the DR is perceiving cannot be something in the mind-external world.
If the DR is not perceiving a “worldly object”, then they can only be perceiving something in their mind.
====================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I agree that the concept of a Sun is something that persists through time.
But how can something persist in a mind-external world, if persists means exists at different times, and in Presentism only one moment in time exists.
======================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I thought that DR requires that perception is grounded in a mind-external object. This mind-external object may in fact initiate a causal chain, but it is not the causal chain that the perception of the DR is grounded in.
========================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Do you mean that judgement is non-inferential?
In my sensations is a yellow circle. I judge that in the mind-external world is a Sun.
In what sense is judging that in the mind-external world there is a Sun different to inferring from my sensations that in the mind-external world is a Sun?
I agree that I am missing what other non-inferential thing must be present in the mind.
I'm not denying the beetle may be doing work. The argument isn't eliminituve ontologically. It's eliminitive epistemically. Your discussion of changing your beetle suggests we can now discuss your beetle publicly, which is exactly the way the beetle has been defined not to be.
What would happen if we changed your beetle to a cat and now you said "cat" for beetles, I would know your usage changed. I'd still not know if you saw a dog, a hat, or a cat. The point though is that what you see in your head offers me nothing in terms of the meaning I derive from your utterances. I just work off usage, such that you use "cat" for beetles now.
Is it likely we, all fellow human beings, use our terms to describe the same internal beetle? Probably, but the point is it doesn't matter and we can't know, so let's unbewitch philosophy and use it for clarification instead of entertaining impossible concepts.
That's not to say answers of ultimate reality aren't addressable, but just not through philosophy.
In (1), the visor is not itself the object of intentionality. It is part of the causal infrastructure that realizes intentionality.
In (2), the visor is itself the object of intentionality. The subject’s perceptual state is about what the visor presents.
My point is that intentionality is not reducible to causal structure, though it is realized by it. That’s why adding or removing links in a causal chain is irrelevant unless it forces a change in what the perceptual state is [I]about[/I]—that is, in the boundaries of the intentional system itself. And because intentionality is not reducible, there is no principled way of cashing that distinction out purely in causal terms.
I wouldn't. I'd say "there's a cat in my box, not a beetle".
Quoting Hanover
It does matter even if we can't know. Something like the inverted spectrum hypothesis and indirect realism can't be handwaved away by arguing that we can't know if what you are referring to by the word "red" is the same thing that I am referring to by the word "red". Pretending that the word's meaning only has something to do with public behavior because it's the only thing of practical relevance in everyday life isn't "deflating" philosophy but refusing to do philosophy. You're welcome not to, but it doesn't work as a refutation of those who want to address issues of phenomenology and metaphysics.
Jim now uses the word "blue" when a 1nm light shines in his eyes because his experience has changed. After rewiring his brain 1nm light appears different to how it appeared before. It wasn't just some random, spontaneous, unexplained decision to use a different word to describe the same experience.
Why? You're just begging the question again. I'll respond by saying that in (2) the strawberry is the object of intentionality and the visor is part of the causal infrastructure that realizes the intentionality. Where do we go from there?
Maybe you need to bring in Scientific explanation on this point along with Metaphysical analysis and elaboration.
I know that's what you want to conclude, but your thought experiment doesn't show that. What it shows is you've figured out how to change what people say. If your experiment is scientific, you can only report your measurable results. If I stimulate a monkey's brain to make him smile, my report will be that he smiled, not that I made him happy.
Quoting Michael
It just delineates the boundaries of philosophy and it doesn't result in walking away from the metaphysical questions. It just leaves them to the topic of mysticism, religion, or something else.
It is just as limiting for you to deny a description of the noumenal as for me to deny the description of phenomenonal. I have no idea what's in your mind and you have no idea what's outside the mind, so we limit it to what we can talk about.
I can perform the experiment on myself. I first stimulate neuron A and then neuron B and note that I have two different colour experiences. I then rewire my brain such that the light that previously triggered neuron A now triggers neuron B and the light that previously triggered neuron B now triggers neuron A. I shine the two lights into my eyes and note that the colour I experience continues to correlate with the previous neural activity but not with the previous wavelength of light, i.e. that 700nm light now causes me to see blue because it triggers neuron B and that 450nm light now causes me to see red because it triggers neuron A.
I then assume that I'm not special and that other humans have first-person experiences like mine and aren't just p-zombies, and that when I perform this experiment on them their choice of words is determined by the phenomenal character of their experience and not because they're automatons whose language-programming has been altered. Of course maybe this assumption is false, and that the reason my argument makes sense to me but not to you is because I'm not a p-zombie and you are, in which case we have a useful means to test whether or not someone is a p-zombie; those who agree with me aren't and those who don't agree with me are.
Quoting Hanover
You don't need to know what's in my mind. You just need to understand that if the beetle in your box was replaced with a cat then you wouldn't say "this cat is a beetle"; you'd say "there is no longer a beetle in my box but a cat instead". You then perform the quite easy task of recognizing that other people are probably much like you, and would say much the same thing if their beetle was replaced with a cat. You don't need to literally read someone's mind to "put yourself in their shoes".
If you respond that way then the dispute has been elevated from a question of where the visor fits into the causal chain to a dispute over what counts as the intentional object of perception. At that point, the only coherent way to adjudicate the claim is by taking an "intentional stance" toward the system - treating it as a normative, agential entity rather than as merely a causal chain. It is only at that level of resolution that the question "what is the object of the system's perception?" makes any sense, since questions of aboutness, reference, and error only arise at that level of analysis. They are not facts that drop out of wiring diagrams.
Now, you could refuse this move, but then the burden would be on you to explain intentionality without appeal to normative or agential notions—or else to accept some kind of eliminativism.
Once again, this shows that you are arguing for semantic direct realism, which is distinct from phenomenological direct realism and compatible with phenomenological indirect realism.
The traditional dispute between direct and indirect realism has nothing to do with whether or not our claims are about the world and everything to do with whether or not the world is "directly present" to the mind in phenomenal experience. It's an issue that covers even those unintelligent agents who don't have a language and so don't make claims of any kind, e.g. babies and animals.
You're saying that the painting is of Obama and that the book is about Trump and indirect realists are saying that the painting is just paint and that the book is just words and that neither Obama nor Trump are "directly present". And your responses are akin to arguing "but it's not a painting of paint and it's not a book about words".
So rather than the traditional dispute being "framed wrong" as you asserted before, it's just that you mean something entirely else by the phrase "direct perception". According to what traditional direct and indirect realists mean by the phrase, it's clear that the traditional direct realists are wrong and indirect realists are right, which is why "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception".
Why"d you go to that whole rigamarole and not just tell me that when you looked right you saw a tree and when you looked left you saw a bush and then we could say varying stimuli caused varying perceptions. Quoting Michael
I categorically do not question the existence of internal states. I am saying it doesn't offer explanatory power. I'm also saying you cannot show me that it does because you can't show me that inner state.
Back to the main issue: you saw a ship. What did you perceive? Can you paint it for me? Is the painting the ship or just what you saw modified by indirect distortions and interpretation? When I see the picture, do I see what you saw, or do I see a perception of a picture now modified by me?
So, I can't know anything except to assume my sight of the noumena matches your sight because you're not special, but when you want to tell me about your phenomena, you just paint me and speak to me in noumena?
As in, your phenomenonal state is certain to you but noumenal to me, but then you make an Austin move and dispense with the problem of delusion by now suggesting I can assume I see what you see. Wasn't part of the implication of hallucination that there is variation across individual perception?
If that, why not for simplicity sake just consider the noumena the same as the phenomena since you can't tell me how the specific distinction between what is and what is perceived except to say there is general consensus as to what the ship is. That sounds like a form of direct realism.
And that returns us to this: if we're going to end up treating the ship as the perception of the ship why the meandering journey to that conclusion every time where we talk about indirectness that affects our outcome in no way?
I don't really understand your questions. You and I are having a successful(ish) conversation right now despite the fact that neither of us is directly perceiving the same thing; even the direct realist must accept this. I can talk about your post and you can talk about my post but what do each of us directly perceive? The direct realist will say that you directly see your computer screen and that I directly see my computer screen. We might assume that our screens resemble each other but maybe they don't. Perhaps I don't even have a screen and instead I have some device that speaks the words out to me in French because I'm blind and French. And we can even talk about one another despite having never met and despite neither of us having anything to do with the computer screens we're looking at or the audio being spoken (other than in the causal sense).
If all of this is possible then why is it so problematic to just move things back "into the head"? You accept the existence of internal states, and internal states are as real as anything else in the universe, even if we cannot in practice perceive one another's. But then in practice we do not perceive each other or one another's computer screens but that's no problem at all. So what difference does it make if our conversation is only possible through the direct perception of our own internal states rather than the direct perception of our own computer screens or audio devices?
And once again, I disagree for reasons we have already discussed.
First, I don’t categorize myself as an SDR; at least, not in the way that Robinson defines it.
Second, in the traditional debate both direct and indirect realists assume that some kind of object is directly present to the mind through phenomenal experience, whether worldly or intermediary. I reject that assumption.
That’s why the painting analogy fails. For me, experience does not represent or manifest the world at all. Experience supplies data within a normative structure of inquiry; it does not function as a representation or as an object of awareness in its own right.
Also, the analogy obscures my point about normativity. Paintings can misrepresent because there's a convention connecting paint-patterns to subjects. But perceptual error is not a failure of representational convention, but a failure to satisfy correctness conditions—conditions that are constitutively world-involving, not products of representational convention.
Then we return back to something I said earlier:
1. Distal objects are directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience
2. Mental phenomena are directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience
Traditional direct realists believe that (1) is true and (2) is false, traditional indirect realists believe that (1) is false and (2) is true, and you believe that both (1) and (2) are false.
The first thing to note is that according to what traditional direct and indirect realists mean by the phrase "direct perception", perception of distal objects is direct if and only if (1) is true and perception of distal objects is indirect if and only if (1) is false. As such, according to what these groups mean by the phrase "indirect perception", perception of distal objects can be indirect even if (2) is false. Therefore, if you accept that (1) is false then your position is consistent with the "weaker" indirect realist claim that (1) is false even if inconsistent with the "stronger" indirect realist claim that (2) is true.
The second thing to note is that (2) does not require that mental phenomena be "objects" in the sense that I think you mean by the word. To be the object of perception isn't to be some thing with extension and mass or anything like that; to be the object of perception is to be the X in "I experience X", at least as I understand it. If I feel pain then pain is the object of perception, if I see colours then colours are the object of perception, if I hear a truck then a truck is the object of perception, and so on. The indirect realist's claim is that pain and colours are mental phenomena and are directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience, whereas a truck is a machine that exists at a distance from the body and is not directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience, and so therefore perception of mental phenomena is direct and perception of trucks is not direct (is indirect) — with perception of trucks only made possible by the perception of mental phenomena.
I believe this is where we keep talking past each other. I reject the above.
Out of curiosity, for the indirect realist described above, what is the relationship between multi-modal sensory data (redness as-seen, loudness as-heard, etc.) and the judgement that expresses the claim “that’s a truck”?
Also, what does it mean to say that multi-modal sense data are “directly present” to the mind?
Aren't you asking what difference any of this makes? As in, if I think even to another extreme that we live in the matrix and we're all hooked up in pods and none of this is real, we're still going about this conversation just the same. That is, it'd be the same with direct realism, indirect realism, idealism, and evil genius land.
And that's the Austin approach. Why all the complicated explanations and not just say WYSIWYG?
We know data comes into your brain in discreet bits. What you experience is a seamless whole. The architecture of the nervous system testifies that what you're experiencing is a construction, in some ways like a movie.
When I say I saw Trump on the TV, what I mean is that I saw digital data that came from sampling the light bouncing off Trump, which was then digitally transmitted to my computer, which regenerated the pictures of Trump and sent them to my screen. What I say is that I saw Trump. That's indirect realism.
But you just told me something different. You told me light bounced off a Trump object and a series of fortunate events left you with a phenomenal image of what you called "Trump." So, what is Trump? The thing in your head or the thing the light bounced off?
If they're different, why do you call them both "Trump"? If the reason is because there's no reasonable basis to maintain the distinction between the Trump object and the Trump perception in everyday discourse, you're sounding like a brand of direct realism.
Say you watched a Jimmy Cagney movie. You report that you saw Jimmy Cagney in the movie, though you also know what you saw was a representation.
Is this because there's no reasonable basis to maintain a distinction between Jimmy and his re-presentation?
So you're acknowledging rampant equivocation, where we call objects and representations the exact word in all cases outside philosophical circles. The noumenal Cagney and the phenomenonal Cagney are always called "Cagney."
Under what scenario do you distinguish the noumenal from the phenomenonal, and can you tell me the specific difference between the two? If you use the term interchangeably, and you don't even know how the two are different from one another, what exactly are you protecting?
And to be clear, I'm not denying our brain does all the things you say. I'm just asking what we're doing by protecting this entirely indescribable distinction between the true thing and the true thing with mental baggage added on.
There are a couple of issues here, but what I'd like to first square away is the notion that philosophy results in delusional behavior. Jimmy Cagney is dead. You didn't actually see Jimmy Cagney in the movie. You saw a representation.
Can we first agree that there is a difference between Jimmy and his representation?
Of course. But we"re equivocating here on what we mean by representation. In the context of the thread, representationalism draws a distinction between the veridical state (what actually is) and the delusive state (what is imposed by us on the object). Those terms appear in Austin.
Therefore, the representation (assuming indirect realism) would be of the object Cagney versus the phenomenal Cagney or it could be of the picture of Cagney versus the phenomenal state of the picture. As you've described it, you have the real Cagney versus a picture of Cagney. That is not the sort of representationalism we're interested in here.
I don't understand what you're saying here. I'll leave you with a painting by Magritte (I had a poster of it on my wall as a teenager.) It's about indirect realism.
What I'm saying is that indirect realism is the view that there is a ship at sea that is a real ship, but what you perceive in your head is a representation of it, altered by light, your retina, your CNS, etc. You therefore don't have a perception of the ship directly, but indirectly.
When you said a picture of Cagney is a representation of Cagney, that's true, but it's a different sort of representationalism than what we're talking about. That's just a picture.
Cool pic.
I know. There's also a homunculus problem with using Cagney as an example, but I wasn't trying to say that watching a movie is a comprehensive analogy for perception. My point was that highlighting the fact that we call Cagney's representation "Cagney" is not philosophically significant. It does not at all imply that we don't know the difference between the thing and its representation.
I don't see how we can move on to the real philosophical problems with indirect realism if we're stuck on an inflationary reading of common speech ("inflationary" in that it's drawing conclusions about the state of things by various turns of phrasing.)
I would appreciate it if sometime you could find any flaws in my main argument against Direct Realism (both Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR) and Semantic Direct Realism (SDR)).
1 - Both the Indirect Realist (IR) and Direct Realist (DR) agree that there is something in the mind-external world that initiates a causal chain that eventually leads to a perception in our mind.
2 - The IR and DR agree that the links of this causal change chain may change in form, ie, from a wavelength of light to an electrical signal in the optic nerve
3 - The DR believes that a change in form of the link does not mean that the content of the link changes. IE, the DR believes that they still directly perceive what initiated the causal chain.
4 - The IR and DR agree that all our information about the mind-external world comes through our senses.
5 - My argument, as an IR, is that even if one knew one link in the causal chain, it is logically impossible to know either the form or content of a prior link. One can, however, infer to the best possible explanation.
For example, seeing a broken window, it is logically impossible to work backwards through a causal chain to know what initiated the causal chain and thereby know what broke the window.
Also, when a detective sees a crime scene, it is logically impossible for the detective to work backwards through a causal chain to know what initiated the causal chain and thereby know who committed the crime.
Also, when seeing snooker balls at rest on a snooker table, it is logically impossible to work backwards through a causal chain to know what initiated the causal chain and thereby know where the snooker balls were a moment earlier.
6 - Therefore, as it is logically impossible to know the form or content of a prior link in a causal chain, it is logically impossible to know what initiated the causal chain.
7 - But we do perceive things such as the Sun and a wavelength of light. As it is logically impossible to know what initiated the causal chain that gave us the information from the mind-external world, we cannot be directly perceiving what initiated the causal chain, whether the Sun or a wavelength. Therefore we can only be perceiving the phenomenal experience itself. From this phenomenal experience we can infer to the best explanation that in the mind-external world there is something we conceptualise as the Sun and wavelength of light.
8 - As an IR, I accept that it is not logically possible to know either the form or content of a prior link in the causal chain.
9 - The Direct Realist (both PDR and SDR) is basing their belief on a logical impossibility, that it is possible to know either the form or content of the prior link in a temporal causal chain.
Reject what specifically?
1. That colours and pain are mental phenomena
2. That colours and pain are directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience
3. The transitive law that therefore mental phenomena are directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience
4. That distal objects are not directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience
5. That the phrase "to directly perceive X" as used by traditional direct and indirect realists means "X is directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience"
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Are you asking about the binding problem? We don't have a good explanation of that yet.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
That this sense data is a literal constituent of phenomenal experience. Taken from the problem of perception, "the character of your experience is explained by an actual instance of [a white circle] manifesting itself in experience". This is something that both direct (naive) and indirect realists believe, but with direct (naive) realists believing that this circle is a mind-independent object and its whiteness is a mind-independent property and indirect realists believing that this white circle is a mental phenomenon (e.g. of the kind that also occurs during hallucinations and dreams), (usually) caused by but wholly separate to the mind-independent object and its properties.
Because we're interested in how perception and the world actually works. As I said before, Austin and Wittgenstein aren't "deflating" philosophy, they just seem to be refusing to do philosophy — at least as you and Banno are presenting them. They're welcome not to, but that doesn't suffice as a refutation of those who do.
This does not follow. You are trying to argue from epistemic limits to an ontological conclusion. Even granting the contestable claim that it is "logically impossible" to know what initiated the causal chain, all that follows is that we can't be certain of what we perceive. Fallibility doesn't imply indirectness.
Quoting RussellA
Persistence on Presentism is cashed out in terms of tensed truths and causal continuity, not simultaneous existence at multiple times.
Quoting RussellA
The causal chain doesn't interpose something between subject and object; it's the [I]means[/I] by which the object is perceptually available.
Quoting RussellA
Judgment is the movement from sensory data to existential affirmation by way of insight and understanding, whereas inference is a movement from premises to conclusion by way of logical rules.
I pretty much reject all of them as stated. I'll be brief:
(1) Rejected because it reifies experiential data into mental objects.
(2) Rejected because experience is not object-presentation.
(3) Rejected because the ontology and the inference both misdescribe consciousness.
(4) Rejected because experience is not object-presentation, whether distal or proximal.
(5) Rejected because it misdefines perception at the wrong level of analysis.
Quoting Michael
No, I'm not asking about neural mechanisms, I am asking about the epistemic relationship between the two.
Quoting Michael
On this view, what is the difference between a white-circle "manifesting" itself within experience and a boat "manifesting" itself in experience?
A stick in water looks bent. The Semantic Direct Realist’s (SDR) position is that of indirect perception but direct cognition. The SDR is saying that in the mind-external world is a straight stick, and it appears bent. There are many instances of where perception is fallible.
The Indirect Realist (IR) is not saying that fallibility implies indirectness. The IR is saying that i) there is no stick in the mind-external world in the first place, ii) the fact there is no stick in the mind-external world is what implies indirectness, iii) the stick we perceive exists as a concept in the mind, not as a fact in the mind-external world.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
The persistence of the Sun has a different meaning to the IR and DR.
For the IR, the Sun exists as a concept in the mind, and as a concept persists from the past to the present. This is reasonable.
For the DR, the Sun exists in the mind-external world. Accepting Presentism, an object cannot persist through different times when only one time exists. The tensed truth “The Sun exists now” is true now has no relation to “the Sun persists now”.
For the Sun to persist makes sense for the IR, but not for the DR.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As I see it:
Quoting RussellA
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Suppose that many times I perceive the combination yellow circle.
Our ideas about the nature of a mind-external world is not subjective judgement alone, such as “we are a mind in a vat” nor objective inference alone, as we are reasoning about the subjective nature of the mind.
I both judge and infer that there must be a regularity in the mind-external world causing these regularities in my phenomenal experiences.
I think you're reading too much into the word "object" — and note that I didn't even use the word "object" in the context of mental phenomena. Whatever pain is, it is a literal constituent of phenomenal experience, unlike the fire that is causally responsible for this phenomenal experience by burning the nerve endings in my skin.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
It's unclear what you mean here.
Are you saying that direct and indirect realists are using the word "perception" wrong? What counts as the "right" use? Why not just interpret it, as I've suggested earlier, as them using the word "perception" to mean one thing and you using the word "perception" to mean another thing? So perception is indirect according to what they mean by the word "perception" (and the word "indirect") and direct according to what you mean by the word "perception" (and the word "direct")?
Or are you saying that direct and indirect realists are using the word "perception" (and the words "direct" and "indirect") in the same way that you but are wrong about what would satisfy "direct perception" and about what would satisfy "indirect perception"?
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I don't know how to answer that. What is the epistemic relationship between the words I'm reading and World War II, or between the radio I'm listening to and the distant events being reported on? The brain and/or mind is somehow able to interpret visual and auditory sensations into a meaningful experience that brings about understanding of and/or intentionality towards other things. As I asked Hanover, why does it matter if we move the line further back "into the head"? Mental phenomena, whatever they are, are as real as anything else in the world and we can extrapolate from them as well as we can extrapolate from vibrations in the air.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
For there to be a token identity between the features of the experience and the features of the thing experienced. I believe something I said earlier in the discussion is relevant here:
The direct realist argues that a) the boat appears blue because b) the boat is blue and c) the boat is manifested in experience.
The meaning of the term "manifested" is such that if (a) and (c) are true then (b) is true, and if (b) and (c) are true then (a) is true — and not just according to any interpretation of (b) but according to the specific interpretation that qualifies as naive colour primitivism.
Yes, but none of this follows from anything else you've said so far. I don't deny the IR the right to believe these things, I only deny that they are rationally compelling.
Quoting RussellA
Tensed truths are not only about the present, but about the past and future as well. Presentism doesn't rule out tensed truths about persistent objects.
Quoting RussellA
I will try to get back to this when I get some time.
Quoting RussellA
I think that your account of experience, understanding and judgment is overly simplistic and elides many important distinctions. For example, what does it mean to "perceive" the "combination" or "yellow" and "circle"? A "combination" is a relation. Are you saying we can perceive relations directly? "Yellow" and "circle" are classifications. Do these just "appear" within consciousness without any effort or learning on the part of the subject?
I'd really like to argue with this. Firstly, there's no equality here. Being near something doesn't automatically mean you perceive it: you can ignore it. Secondly, you simply might not understand what it is in order to perceive it. For example, if I've never seen, known, or heard anything about ships before, then it's quite possible I won't perceive a ship even though it's right before my eyes.
This phenomenon can be aptly demonstrated if you take a walk in the mountains with a geologist. For him, the surroundings will be a symphony of diverse rocks, while for you, it's simply identical stones. It follows that to perceive something, you need a primary conscious representation of it. Or a construct. In this sense, moderate constructivism is a preferable interpretation for me personally.
The next aspect is perception without fully contemplating an object, or constructing what you perceive in accordance with your own constructs. This is a particularly common phenomenon. For example, when I see a ship, I always see only one side of it, while my consciousness constructs the rest in accordance with my ideas. Therefore, being near a ship doesn't mean perception in the full sense you describe. Perception is both the direct contemplation of the ship and the mental construction of invisible elements.
That’s the question, which of IR and DR is more rationally compelling.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I don’t understand how the Sun can persist through different times when in Presentism there is only one time, namely the present.
I can understand, however, that as a concept the Sun persists.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Possibly, but this is a post on the Forum, not a PhD.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Are you saying that when you look at a table, you perceive the spatial relation between the table top and table legs indirectly?
Though I believe that there cannot be a relation in the absence of anything being related.
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Quoting Esse Quam Videri
We need to learn the names "yellow" and “circle”, but I would have thought that our ability to perceive yellowness and circularity are innate, something we are born with.
I'm just trying to interpret your language, which I find to be a bit opaque. In (2) you said that colours and pain are directly "present to" something -- "the mind" -- and that they are present "in" phenomenal experience. This language is strongly evocative of objects being present in a space to some observer. I'm just trying to figure out why we would use any of this language if we don't mean something like this.
Quoting Michael
Just trying to understand: you said in (1) above that pain is a mental phenomena. In the quote directly above, you've said pain is a "constituent of" phenomenal experience. This evokes a part-whole relationship. Is pain one part of a larger composite "thing"; namely, phenomenal experience?
Quoting Michael
Neither. By "misdefined", I'm saying that the whole traditional debate presupposes a mistaken "object-presentation" model of experience. By "wrong level", I mean that I don't think that "experience" is the level at which object-directedness occurs.
Quoting Michael
I’m not asking how information is causally transmitted or how the brain interprets signals. I’m asking how experiential data bear epistemically on judgment—i.e., whether they function as reasons, conditions for insight, or merely as causes.
Quoting Michael
I'm puzzled by this. How does this definition apply to the white circle? What is the white circle token-identical with such that it can satisfy your criterion?
I don't think I can explain it any simpler than this picture. With naive realism, experience isn't a mental phenomenon that occurs in the head; it's an "openness to the world" (McDowell, 1994) with distal objects being literal constituents of the experience and these objects being literally coloured in the sui generis sense. It's the way children and uneducated adults intuitively think of perception and the world (hence the term "naive"). Whereas with indirect realism experience is a mental phenomenon that occurs in the head, causally determined by proximal and distal stimuli but wholly separate to them, and with secondary qualities such as colour only being properties of this mental phenomenon. It's the way physics and physiology and neuroscience tells us perception and the world works.
Quoting Michael
How can you not understand them?
They go to the heart of the issue of whether a claim the ship varies from the perception offers us any added explanatory value. That is, if you can't tell me anything other than the ship you perceive looks like a ship, then how is that any different than what a direct realist would say?
That is, there is a ship at sea, your brain presents it to you as the sorts of things we know to be a ship. I ask you to tell me what you saw, so you say "a ship" and then you paint me the most perfect reproduction of the ship in your mind's eye. Of course, since indirect realism is the case, my brain interprets your statement "a ship" and it interprets the picture you painted.
You ask me what I see. I say, "the ship you saw."
My question, which I think you understand, is:
How is the ship at sea different from the ship in your head and how is the ship in my head different from the ship in your head and different from the picture you painted? Is the ship at sea green, but in your head blue? Does it have 3 sails at sea and 2 in your head? Is it a donkey at sea, but you see it as a pelican? You're asserting a modification between its appearance at sea and then in your perception, right?
If your answer is: I have no idea how it's different. I just know there was a process from at sea to my brain, and so it's indirect, and that's all I can say.
So, (1) we call the thing "ship" regardless of whether indirect realism is true and (2) we have no way of knowing if indirect realism alters how we perceive the ship.
Explain how it matters whether you're a direct realist or indirect one. It absolutely doesn't affect our manner of speaking, nor does it explain our world in a meaningful way.
In any event, at least answer my questions even should you think them irrelevant.
I was talking about colour and Wittgenstein's beetle, not ships. You seem to be reading more into my comments than was meant. I'm not saying that all words refer to internal mental states; I'm denying your claim that no words refer to internal mental states.
If the thing in your box is replaced with a cat then you wouldn't say "this cat is a beetle"; you'd say "my beetle has been replaced with a cat".
If I rewire your brain such that the same wavelengths of light stimulate different neurons then you wouldn't continue to say "the strawberry is red"; you'd say "the strawberry is now blue", and then be confused when nobody agrees with you.
And, most obviously, the term "internal mental states" refers to internal mental states.
The word "ships" still refers to the mind-independent ships in our shared world, even if it's possible that how they look to me is nothing like how they look to you.
I'm familiar with the diagram you presented and with McDowell's position. Although I am heavily influenced by McDowell, I part ways with him on the question of perception.
I don't accept your claim that we are forced to choose between naive realism and indirect realism as you have laid them out. Neither do I accept your claim that my view qualifies as SDR as defined by the paper you've referenced. I'm not sure where that leaves us.
Neither do I, but thanks for the discussion. I don't know if we can avoid going around in circles at this point so perhaps best to end it here.
So you are a direct realist with regard to ships?
Quoting Michael
Are you arguing every word has a referent?
No, I'm saying that the word "ships" refers to ships. Perception and language are not the same thing.
Quoting Hanover
No, I'm arguing that some words and phrases refer to internal mental states, like "pain", "red", and "internal mental states".
And yes, Austin is showing that we don't need talk of mental images in some form in order to explain perception, hallucination, illusion and so on. That doesn't seem to me to be dogmatic.
The first half of the book is an assault on Ayer's essay on perception, a pretty extreme example.
See Austin: Sense and Sensibilia
So then "pain" has a referent, which is the internal state of pain. I don't follow why "red" isn't similar to "ship," unless you buy into primary and secondary qualities, but you're going to have to offer support for why some qualities are purely internal and others external. The Lockean quality distinction seems arbitrary. I also don't follow why "ship" refers to the external ship and not the phenomenal experience of the ship, especially since we have precedent with words like "pain" where we directly refer to the phenomenal (assuming indirect realism).
Under indirect realism, for every experienced X there are two things: (1) X and (2) the experience of X. Why do words like "pain" attach to experiences but "ship" attaches to the ship at sea. What word do we use to describe the experience of the ship other than "ship"? Do we need two words?
Then we have precedent of words with no referent either phenomenal or actual, like "King of France." Why insist upon reliance upon referent at all then? Why not obtain meaning just from use without concern over the metaphysical underwriting of the term?
I do.
When I look at the photo of the dress I see a white and gold dress, when others look at the photo of the dress they see a black and blue dress. This is explained by us having different phenomenal experiences and the words "white", "gold", "black", and "blue" referring to the differing characteristics of these phenomenal experiences.
This view is supported by the science of colour:
Empirical study trumps armchair theorising, which is why I take the science to prove that this ordinary language philosophy is wrong (at least as you are presenting it), and not the other way around.
Quoting Hanover
Because it would be false. Phenomenal experience does in fact exist and some of our words do in fact refer to it and its qualities. All you seem to be saying is "let's pretend otherwise".
But it's confusing because you do seem to accept that the term "phenomenal experience" refers to phenomenal experience, and maybe also the word "pain"? So what exactly are you arguing? Just that colours are mind-independent in a way that pains aren't? What about tastes and smells?
This comment inadvertently makes my point. Wittgenstein and Austin are fairly clear that their object is to delineate the scope of philosophical inquiry. If ever you believe that scientific evidence defeats philosophical claims, then there has been a category error, confusing science with philosophy. The purpose of philosophy under this tradition is to preserve cogent argumentation and use of language and communication. So, if you are doing science, then your debate would be among scientists. That is, stop trying to disprove my position with science. My position makes no important scientific claims.
Quoting Michael
This doesn't contradict your prior comment, but it presents an odd result. You claim that science answers the questions about how we perceive and not philosophers, but you then claim Locke got it right. We'd have to chalk that up to luck and science vindicating his method, which was just armchair theorizing. That is, he was right, but for the wrong reason.
Quoting Michael
That does not provide support for Locke's theory. Locke posited two things: (1) Primary and (2) secondary qualities. Showing that color (a secondary quality) doesn't exist in the object doesn't prove that primary qualities (shape and size, for example) do. To stick to the science, we would show that none of the attributes of the object go unmediated by the subject, which means that I have no more reason to think a red ball is red than I do to think it's round.
Quoting Michael
The theory is a-metaphysical. It has nothing to do with science or metaphysics. It has to do with the proper role of philosophy, which is referred to a "therapeutic." In that context it, means to explain the proper role of language, communication, and discussing what can be discussed. It's about setting boundaries as to where philosophy can wander. I am therefore saying nothing about referents when interpreting meaning, not because I'm asserting there are no referents (internal or external), but that we cannot meaningfully rely upon those for comprehension. What we rely upon therefore for meaning is use, as in how the community uses a term.
Since it would be absurd to suggest I deny pain or that I deny any phenomenal experience, that could not be my argument. I think that's where this goes astray.
So, you see a ship, but it might really be red, but you see it as blue. It might "really" be 20 feet long or might be 5. You have a mental impression of X. Maybe it looks like the "real" ship, maybe not. Ok, great. I'm saying that's a fascinating scientific inquiry, but when it comes to philosophy, what do I mean when I say "I see a ship?" Do I mean "I am currently experiencing a private inner state of X that I suspect you will replicate if you look at the same Y out at sea that I do, but that is based just upon my assumption that your brain translates the myriad of variables as mine does, but that assumption is limited by the fact that I know there are delusive individuals and folks with various perceptual limitations that I've read about in the literature, like there was one guy who famously mistook his wife for a hat and a book was written about it." That means, when you say you see a ship, I have no idea what you're saying. Yet I do somehow.
In order to limit the role of philosophy, what I say is I don't know what you mean by all these "reallys." What I mean is that I use the term ship is a certain way and we get along with its use in predictable ways and I'm not entering into your theoretical scientific musings about reality.
Yeah, more than half is dedicated to showing why Ayer got it all wrong. It's interesting because he doesn't attack the Ayer tradition as much a Ayer specifically.
Without getting into the specifics of everything he says, I would say I generally agree with his notion that it's impossible to speak of metaphysics as many attempt to. The problem, and I blame those who don't articulate it well enough more than those who misunderstand it, is in clarifying the metaphysical is not being denied. Once that is understood, the instinct to attack the position dissipates (or should).
Philosophical enquiry ought take into consideration what science says about the world. If science says that colours are "in the head" then our philosophical account of language ought recognise that the word "colours" refers to something "in the head", else it is a false account of language.
Quoting Hanover
I said that empirical study trumps armchair theorising, i.e. that if the two are ever in conflict then we ought accept the results of empirical study over the results of armchair theorising. I didn't say that armchair theorising can't be correct.
Quoting Hanover
I only said that I agree that there is a distinction between primary qualities and secondary qualities, not that I agreed that all the things that Locke says are primary qualities are primary qualities and that all the things that Locke says are secondary qualities are secondary qualities. I agree with him that things like colours and tastes and smells are secondary qualities, but I don't necessarily agree with him that things like shape and size are primary qualities — and in fact I have made arguments earlier in this discussion that orientation is a secondary quality. But I'm not an idealist, and so I do believe that there are mind-independent objects and that they do have mind-independent properties. I'm undecided on whether to be a full Kantian and claim that primary qualities are unknowable or to be a scientific realist and claim that the Standard Model describes these primary qualities.
Quoting Hanover
You can use the word "ship" however you like, but that has nothing to do with perception. Perception has nothing to do with language and everything to do with physics, physiology, phenomenology, and the relationship between experience and the mind-independent world. People and animals without a language either do or do not directly perceive the world, and whether or not they do is something that only science can answer, not a critical analysis of speech and writing.
That summarizes what I just said.
The point of Austin and Wittgenstein is to challenge specifically what you have just said, which is what should be the proper account of language.
What you have been saying is that meaning is use and that mental states have nothing to do with it, and this is wrong. Some words and phrases do in fact refer to mental states, e.g. "mental states", "pain", and "red".
You also seem to have been saying that meaning-as-use entails direct realism, and this is also wrong. Perception and language are two different things.
That's not what I've said. I said reference to mental states does not provide a method to determine meaning because they are not publicaly confirmable. I have no idea what mental states might do behind the scenes. I'm not arguing metaphysics. Quoting Michael That's also not what I said . I said that reference to the inner workings of the conscious and the unknown ways the environment and your brain monkeys with the mystical noumenal ship at sea provides us no way to establish what we mean when we say basic statements like "There is a ship." I am not suggesting in any way that the ship out there "really" looks like the ship in your mind's eye. I have no idea what the noumenal is and I defer to science how light bends and drug abusers misunderstand their perceptions.
They don't need to be publicly confirmable. I don't need you to tell me that I have a headache for me to have a headache, or for the word "headache" to refer to this mental state that I am in.
An indirect realist speaks of the thing out there X and the thing in your head Y. If you are not committed to X resembling Y in any way (having no primary consistent quality), then why are we talking about Xs at all? What I'm getting at is that if we dispense with reference to X, the word "really" becomes irrelevant because X is what is supposedly "really" there." As in, let's not talk about "really" because that is metaphysical talk and it gets us no where. But might there be an X? Of course, but that's beyond the scope of philosophy.
Do you think that is my argument though? Do you think with that hammer, you've just defeated the entirety of what Wittgenstein was getting at, as if that argument was overlooked? I'm asking that because I'm suggesting you're not giving the argument it's due.
You have headaches. You talk to yourself. You have an inner life. You have all sorts of beetles. The word "headache" is understood by me with no reference to your inner headache but by the way the word is used.
Because we are not idealists and we believe that there is an X and that it has properties that are causally responsible for Y.
Quoting Hanover
If your argument is an argument against my claims then it must be — and you have presented it as an argument against my claims.
So if you don't deny that words like "headache" and "colour" are referring to the phenomenal character of subjective experiences then why do you keep bringing up Wittgenstein and Austin when I am clearly talking about perception and indirect realism?
Indirect realism tries to explain its own theory with a cascade of morphology, usually by way of verb-to-noun or adjective-to-noun nominalizing. So with each and every coining of a phrase we are introduced to new things and places by meeting new nouns and noun-phrases, but never by observing anything different.
Two types of nouns are particularly dubious. There is the necessary setting or environment where phenomena is said to occur— “awareness”, the “mind”, or “phenomenal experience”—and then there is the phenomenons themselves, often treated as discreet objects—qualia (Lewis), impressions (Hume), sense-data, perceptions, representations (Kant), and yes, experiences. (You seem to present “phenomenal experience” as a place one time and a thing in another). Not a single one of these things and places can be confirmed to exist, however, because not a single one of them have been found or observed. At any rate, to do so would be to utilize the method of observation indirect realists are busy at work in undermining. But places and things are how we are left to speak about them, I suppose? Sorry, but we’ve looked in heads and there are no such things.
With no sense allowed, any inquiry into human understanding is precisely that much lacking in the evidence, leaving a sense-sized hole in each one. Not only does it undermine one’s own faculties, but privileging the intellect while undermining the senses as fallible is to give away the plot entirely. There has to be an ulterior motive involved in discrediting one faculty while retaining undue faith in the others. This is evident in the moniker “naive realism”, the idea that those who trust their senses are of the unwashed, unphilosophical masses, who are still tied up in Plato’s cave.
There is a biological organism with photoreceptor cells in the eye that absorb electromagnetic radiation and in doing so reduce the release of glutamate into the central nervous system, changing the behaviour of the neurons in the visual cortex, and in many cases affecting bodily movement.
What does it mean to say that this biological organism "directly sees" some object located 100m away from it?
Does this biological organism have anything in his body called “phenomenal experience”? “Color”?
It means there is no mediator constructing imagery in the head, and that we are in fact seeing the environment.
Which means what?
Without reference to first-person experience, how do you even make sense of what it means for an organism to "see" distant objects? According to your eliminative materialism there is just a mass of skin and bones and muscles reacting to other material that comes into immediate physical contact with it.
The bent stick argument is a weak argument against Direct Realism (DR), in that the Semantic Direct Realist (SDR) may sensibly say that although perception is indirect, cognition is direct. We directly cognise a straight stick that appears bent.
A better argument against SDR is that direct cognition is logically impossible.
The SDR agrees with the Indirect Realist (IR) that i) all our information about the mind-external world comes through our senses and ii) there is a temporal causal chain from something in the world initiating a causal chain which eventually causes a perception in the mind.
For example, we can conceptualise that the causal chain was initiated by the stick, followed by a wavelength of light, to an electrical signal in the optic nerve, then neural activity in the brain and finally perception in the mind.
The SDR agrees that the form of the links in the causal chain may change, for example, from a wavelength of light to an electrical signal. However, it is logically impossible for the content of the link not to change if the form of the link changes. From Leibniz’s Law, the Principle of Indiscernibles, two distinct things, such as two links of a causal chain having different forms, cannot share the same content, the same properties.
As the form of these links in the causal chain change, the content of these links must also change. But it is the content of these links that is cognised.
Therefore, the content of the link at initiation cannot be the same as the content of the link when perceived, but as it is the content that is directly cognised, what is cognised in the link at perception cannot be what would be cognised in the link at initiation.
The SDR is saying that in order to directly cognise the stick, even though the form of the links in the causal chain change, the content of the links must remain the same, as it is the contents of the links that is cognised, but this is a logical impossibility.
I don’t doubt we view things from a certain place in space and time. I just doubt that we’re watching things occur in our skull.
We aren't watching things occur in our skull, just as when we feel pain we aren't touching something that occurs in our skull. You're misinterpreting the grammar.
Then what are you watching when you point your eyes towards distant objects?
The distant object.
But you color it and give it shape, no? even though you cannot reach it?
The distant object reflects light into our eyes which triggers neurological activity which causes conscious experience with phenomenal character, with features such as shape, colour, depth, etc., and then like a phantom itch it's seemingly projected out beyond the body, despite the fact that conscious experience does not extend beyond the body.
Then what are you coloring and shaping if not something in your skull? Are you playing with the light in there?
I explained it clearly above.
Projected outside beyond the body. That’s not what science believes nor is there any evidence for that.
I said seemingly projected out beyond the body. Look up phantom itches and phantom pains. It seems as if there's an itch or a pain located where one's arm used to be, but which is in fact now "empty" space. Obviously there is no itch or pain actually there.
But it doesn’t seemingly do that. Rather, it looks like objects are already colored.
And it seems as if this coloured object exists beyond the body, but it is in fact a feature of the phenomenal experience that emerges from brain activity and does not extend beyond the body. Similar to how when playing a VR game it seems as if there's a monster standing 100 feet in front of you.
Presentism does not say there is only one time, it says that entities exist only at the "present" time.
Quoting RussellA
No, I would say that the spatial relation is not "perceived" in the sense of being a datum of experience.
Quoting RussellA
The capacity to experience colors and shapes is innate for people born with "normal" perceptual systems. But "yellow" and "circle" are more than just names, they are concepts that have to be understood through personal insight and stabilized through social practice.
Quoting RussellA
Here is some feedback regarding your argument. I'll go step-by-step stating whether I accept or reject along with some brief notes about why:
1. Accepted.
2. Accepted.
3. Rejected: I would not claim that “content travels unchanged” through the chain. I would claim that perception is of the object [I]via[/I] the chain, not that the chain preserves representational content.
4. Accepted with qualification: I accept sensory dependence, but deny that this entails mediation by inner objects or representations.
5. Rejected: This establishes at most epistemic underdetermination, not logical impossibility; the examples show fallibility, not impossibility.
6. Rejected: Fallibility or inferential uncertainty does not entail logical impossibility; this confuses limits on reconstruction with limits on knowledge.
7. Rejected: Non-sequitur. Even if causal origins cannot be reconstructed with certainty, it does not follow that the object of perception is an inner phenomenal item rather than the external object.
8. Granted.
9. Rejected: False attribution. I do not claim we can logically reconstruct prior causal links; I claim that perception is world-involving without requiring such reconstruction.
I'd be interested in what you think @Esse Quam Videri. I don't intend to start a new debate so won't argue against anything you say, just curious.
Sure. Feel free to respond or not at your discretion. I don't mind seeing the conversation continue, though I suspect we'd probably end up at the same place again. :smile:
Very briefly, I would say that when using a bionic eye to play a VR game we see a virtual environment populated with game-world objects. I would say that we do not see things like "phenomenal qualities", "mental pictures" or "electromagnetic radiation", but the virtual objects and environments themselves.
Ok, cool. Much more direct in terms of what to discuss. That's fair. I'm unsure its a theoretical commitment more than a (admittedly, semi-folk) default position of epistemic presentation, rather than something derived from theory. But I do see:
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
as totally valid, and probably not amendable to true litigation. For me, experience is primary. It is the only (i.e the singular, only, there are no other) avenue to gain data from the world. I cannot understand where else we could place the priority, epistemically, unless we're giving up on human faculties as inefficient or inaccurate or something else. There's a tension here, but hte IRist has to accept the latter is trivially true - but I think the DRist does too, so you're right - there's no deal breaker. Thanks very much for this exchange my man - really, really fun.
What is the ontology of these virtual objects and environments? Are they material things situated outside the body? Are they the software running on the eye's hardware? Are they neurological? Are they phenomenal?
I'm saying their meaning, insofar as the terms are usable in public discourse (and do understand that you can have an internal language that does not violate the PLA so long as the language was created through public criteria) are entirely derivable by use. I'm not saying anything else, so you cannot equate this to me suggesting you don't actually have a headache. What your headache is certainly nothing I can see or verify. I learn usage from living in the world of users and seeing how things are used and that is what I rely upon. I gain nothing from reference to the invisible referent. So when you say "my headache" and you mean the actual pounding you're feeling right now, how am I to know what you're talking about other than how you use the term consistently with others who I have seen use the term, which must be related to behaviors and the use of other terms I am already familiar with.
That is, when you tell me that your headache is the pain in your head, I understand how we use pain and head, but I surely don't see the pain. If you tell me the boat is out at sea, even you have no idea what that boat is because you've already told me the color is imposed by the perceiver and maybe the shape isn't really its shape. So, what do you add by telling me the ship or the pain is the referrent if you can't tell me what those things are? My assertion that meaning is use is NOT some discovery about the world. I'm not telling you what I've uncovered. I'm telling you that philosophy is therapuetic, not a statement about the world. It tells you how you can have clarity about your statement and terms and how grammar is to be used. So, (1) I don't need your reference to know what "really" is because I can rely upon how terms are used, and (2) I don't know what "really is" means.
Consider this conversation:
Michael: "I saw a boat at sea."
Me: "Oh, you ate a rabbit?"
Michael: "No, I saw a boat."
Me: "Right, a hat was on backwards?"
Michael: "I'm talking about a boat"
Me: "Thanks, but the cat jumped there, so you know."
Michael: "What's this got to do with the boat?"
Me: "That's what I said, there is vessel out at sea."
Michael: "What?"
Me: "Mastedon!"
Michael: "We're talking about a boat."
Me: "That's what I saidn't."
What just happened is that we had a coversation in which I followed no rules. What I said did not match any known usage. We do not refer to this as a private langauge I was having in my head because there are no such things as private language. We call this not language at all.
If you do obtain meaning from my use, you would contextualize it, including what we're talking about, what you know about me, and the entirety of the context, and you might well say, "I know exactly what Hanover means. He means to make a joke. He means to be annoying. He means to make some obscure point only he follows." That might be true, but there no referents there, and no what I "really" mean that comes into play. You are just interpreting meaning from use.
Then you say, but it was the meaning that I knew privately that determines what I meant, and that claim is empty because a privately known meaning cannot determine correctness unless there already exists a public standard for using the term correctly. Without that public standard, "what I really meant" collapses into whatever seems right to me, which is exactly what Wittgenstein shows cannot count as meaning at all. If that gibberish can mean "I had chicken for lunch" when I want it to and "I saw a movie" when I want it to, and I can use words however the moment hits me to mean what I'm thinking, how do those words hold any meaning at all? How is a language only I speak, not translatable into a language anyone speaks, language?
Why all this blather? It's to make the point that tying meaning to the mental state as you want to doesn't work. But again, I'm not saying anything about what goes on in your mind.
Again, keeping it very brief, I would say that the virtual objects are intentional objects. They are not reducible to material objects situated outside the body, computer software or neurological activity, though they are realized via the interaction of all three. Intentional objects are constituted within a rule-governed, publicly accessible practice of perception and action. They are subject to constraints of normative correctness, public criteria of identity, action guidance and counter-factual robustness.
Are these intentional objects something the mind creates or are they mind-independent? Do these intentional objects only exist when the bionic eye is being used to play a VR game, or do they also exist when the bionic eye is being used to help their wearer navigate the real world? If the latter, and if intentional objects are not reducible to material objects, then would it be more accurate to say that their wearers have direct perception of (mind-dependent?) intentional objects rather than direct perception of (mind-independent) material objects, and so that their wearers only have indirect perception of material objects? And presumably whatever is true in this respect with a bionic eye is also true with an organic eye?
I disagree. Philosophy is us trying to reason about the nature of the world and its workings.
Then let's reason, using indirect realism, about the world.
X is the veridical ship.
Y is the phenomenal perception of the ship.
Z is X minus Y, the delusive ship
Using this picture, itemize X, Y, and Z so we can reason about the world:
I don't understand what you're asking.
At the moment there is no ship, only a collection of pixels on my computer screen emitting various wavelengths of light that cause my brain/mind to construct a two-dimensional appearance that somewhat resembles how a ship on water would appear to me were I to look at one in real life.
I need to know what the pixels really look like so I compare them to how they look to you, so I can measure your delusion.
Both Chomsky and Kripke offer good reasons to doubt that you learn language purely by watching others use the terms. Your own childhood language acquisition happened too quickly to be explained that way. More likely there is an innate component to linguistic capability, although exactly what that means is still being fleshed out.
It's possible that meaning is based in part on empathy and projection. You put yourself in the shoes of the speaker. You know what Michael means about his headache because you know what it means to have a headache yourself, and the ability to recognize your own pain and speak of it is something you were born with, not something you learned.
I'm not saying this fully reveals other people's beetles to you. But it would mean you can discern the nature of other beetles because of an innate ability to feel what others feel. And this brings us back around to science versus philosophy. A scientist wouldn't just assume that there's only one way that meaning can work. Why would the philosopher do that?
How do you distinguish the case of someone who knows the behaviors and rules surrounding the use of the word "headache", who can use the term competently, without having ever experienced a headache, from someone who does have the experience?
The meaning of "headache" is surely not the behaviors. Someone can be perfectly stoic about their headaches, yet still have them. The meaning is the experience. Which is epistemically private, but not strictly private, since others have the experience, and we infer they have the same experience, rightly or wrongly.
@frank
These issues are actually specifically addressed by Wittgenstein.
Innate syntactical limitations and even an innate semantical recognition would not challenge Wittgenstein. As in, hiding when there is thunder, running from snakes, all based upon a priori programming doesn't respond to him.
He offers no description of and makes no assumptions regarding language acquisition. A reflexive response incapable of being corrected upon private practice and a lack of contextual variation removes it from Wittgensteinian langauge.
Quoting frank
I'm open to alternative theories, but I'll consistently reject scientific alternatives because they it's a category error to argue how a scientific theory of reality can replace a grammar theory.
The term "intentional object" describes a role rather than an entity. I realize that the terminology in my previous post was ambiguous, so I'll try to spell it out more clearly.
The VR game has virtual game-objects. The game-objects are entities in their own right, realized by (but not reducible to) hardware, software and norm-governed social practices.
We also have the agent who is perceiving the game-objects. Like the game-objects, the agent is an entity in its own right, realized by (but not reducible to) biological processes and norm-governed social practices.
When game-objects are perceived and interacted with by the agent they function as intentional objects. This function is realized by the norm-governed relation between the game-object, the agent, and publicly accessible practices of perception-and-action. This relation is itself not reducible to the physical processes that realize either the game-object, the agent or their physical interaction.
So in cases of veridical perception the intentional object just is the game-object under a mode of access.
No, they weren't. People use the PLA to conclude that meaning is dependent on public verification in the form of successful social interaction. I learn a rule about the use of the word "salt" and I verify that I'm using the right rule because you pass me the salt when I ask for it.
This conclusion is based on a set of assumptions about the basis of meaning and how language is acquired, both of which are undermined by Chomsky and Kripke. That would make a couple of threads.
Quoting Hanover
The PLA is not a grammar theory, and philosophy and science intimately relate and temper one another. There is no category error.
But I also think it's entirely a category error to equate root causes to description. If I stimulate the image of a goat through electrical brain stimulation, I'm not going to commit to the electricity being a goat.
So if @Michael argues the pixels are one way to perceive the ship, I can agree, but reject it's the only way. If he argues, and he can clarify if he's not, that raw sense data is the veridical ship modified into a delusive perception, I'd say he's committing a category error.
In either event, pressing for the delusive elements in the perception that don't exist in the veridical version should make the point that what is the really real version of the ship is just not a meaningful question.
Quoting Banno
This is imprecise, somewhat deceptive and does absolutely nothing for sorting these things out. This is the standard approach from that side of things. It's a shame really. "in a sense" is a weasels hole to slip out through. It is bunk.
It's up to you if you want to think otherwise and go on that way.
Yep, this in keeping with the mention of Markov Blankets and also fitting in with Mary Midgley. Works for me.
I'd add that it is true that the ship is a galleon, and not that the pixels, painting or mental image is a galleon; and derive from that, using existential generalisation, that something is a galleon; and hence, that there are galleons.
We’ve looked and nothing of the sort has emerged from brain activity. Everything does in fact indicate that any given environment and things we can see are external to the body, features of the environment, not of anything called “phenomenal experience”, which is neither place nor thing so ought not the be treated like one. VR games also exist beyond the body, and the fact that we put headsets over our eyes ought to indicate this, so is not similar in any way.
I'd cite to PI 1 to I don't know 20 or so for that not being right.
Quoting frank
Grammar means something different to Wittgenstein. Under that definition, it is a grammar theory.
I'd be curious to know how you interpret that text if not in the way I described.
Quoting Hanover
Oh good grief.
@Frank has apparently accepted Kripke's rule-skepticism, but also notes that it's the doing, the "carry on in this way..." that is the key.
Any thoughtful examination of the PLA will produce Kripke's same insight. If you don't have that insight, there's some thoughtfulness missing. :razz:
Kripkenstein is not skepticism. That's your first failure to understand it. It's merely the insight that the issue uncovered by the PLA generalizes. It's not just beetles in boxes that defy expression due to the unavailability of fixed rules. It's all language.
Quoting Banno
That would work if there was any fact of the matter about what rules anyone has been following up to now. There isn't.
Meaning is not dependent on rule following. It's something else. I think we're officially off topic now, but it just goes to the previous baloney associating the PLA with matters of perception.
I think we agreed here:
Quoting Banno
But please, start another thread if you like.
We see the colour red when looking at a wavelength of between about 620nm to 750nm. We have the concept of the colour red through personal insight. We learn the word “red” through social practice.
As with the chicken and egg, which came first, i) we have the concept of the colour red through personal insight and then we learn the word “red” through social practice or ii) and we learn the word “red” through social practice and then have the concept of the colour red through personal insight?
I think i) is more reasonable.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
You agree that the form of each link and the content of each link in the causal chain can change.
But all information about what initiated the causal chain must be contained within each link.
If both the form and content of each link can change, how exactly is this information about what initiated the causal chain expressed within each link?
======================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
As there is an arrow of time, there is an arrow of causation. We can remember the past but not the future.
During a game of snooker, we observe snooker balls at rest on a snooker table. It is logically possible using the laws of physics to determine the position of the snooker balls a moment in the future. However, it is logically impossible to determine the position of the snooker balls a moment in the past.
This is not epistemic undetermination, this is logical impossibility.
===================================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
My argument in 1 to 9 is that causal origins cannot be reconstructed at all, not reconstructed with uncertainty.
How can causal originals be reconstructed even with uncertainty when you agree that not only the form but the content also of each link in the causal chain can change, especially when you accept 8.
==================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
How does the Direct Realist know what initiated the causal chain, if we only know about what initiated the casual chain because of the causal chain itself, and you agree that we cannot reconstruct prior causal links.
What else is there?
You're still not explaining what it means for a biological organism to "see" a distant object. You're an eliminative materialist so there are no mental phenomena or first-person subjective experiences, just skin and bone and muscles and organs, with sense receptors absorbing the electromagnetic or kinetic or chemical energy they come into contact with and converting it into other forms, often causing the body to move.
That you want to be both an eliminative materialist and a direct realist (about distant objects) strikes me as being entirely inconsistent. You could maybe get away with this if you limited direct realism to touch and taste — as you did before when you tried to explain direct realism in terms of the body being in direct physical contact with the object perceived — but it just doesn't work when you include sight, hearing, and smell, where somehow the body’s reaction to proximal stimuli counts as “direct perception” of distal objects.
So when the bionic eye is being used to play a VR game, the direct object of perception — the "object" acting as intentional object — is not a mind-independent material object?
Is this also true when the eye is being used to help the wearer navigate the real world?
So we have sensory data that is defined with the single quality as having the ability to create a qualitative state, which is the phenomenal state. So you have a perception that is created by your mind, with all sorts of internally created properties in addition to the stimulus because a bee sees the ship differently from the way I see it, for example. That's to say different minds impose different properties on this sensory data when it's perceived.
So then the ship in my mind's eye is a product of the external stimuli plus whatever is added by the measuring device (i.e. my eye, my nerves, my brain). There are certain stimuli that my internal components are not capable of interpreting, so we use external devices, like glasses, hearing aids, and even a Geiger counter. We can't see or feel radiation (unless in high enough amounts), so we hear the clicks of the Geiger counter, but do we say the clicks are the radiation? That seems strange that we would, considering the radiation has been translated. So maybe the unseen radiation is the radiation, but all our measurements and perceptions are just something else.
So, applying this reasoning, the sensory data of the ship is the ship and what we see is just our interpretation, modified in various ways to make it perceivable by us. The bird may or may not be red, may or may not be whatever shape it is (and it varies in flight as well), but the bird is that unprocessed data. We now know the bird for what it's not (as in not having any identifiable quality), but it's just an underlying causative substratum. I will call that bird "Polly", the underlying causative substratum that wants a cracker.
What this means is that I feel like the bird I see in my head is what I'm calling the bird, so now I'm confused as to what is the actual bird (the external sensory data) or the bird in my head (the one with the beak and all that). Are they both the bird?
So now I'll shift gears and change my mind. The bird is not the underying substratum, but is just my phenomenal state. But if that's the case, then the noumenal element does no semantic work and doesn't fix any standard of correctness, so in what sense is it relevant to a discussion of meaning at all rather than just a background causal hypothesis? That is, my dictionary doesn't seem to say anything about causative substratum when I look up "bird," so why are we talking about that when seeking meaning. That is, how does this answer the grammar question in how we use words? Why are we even talking about metaphysics for this inquiry?
That is, the exploration was is in finding out how to find the meaning to words (grammar), which you're changing into a search for understanding how things exist (metaphysics). And to be clear, I've not suggested any of the in and outs of how our brain sees objects I've set up above are false. I'm just saying they play no role in this inquiry for how we assign meaning to words.
I'm very confused.
I'm saying that some of our words (e.g. "red") are referring to phenomenal states and some of our words (e.g. "bird") are referring to the mind-independent object that is causally responsible for phenomenal states.
At first you seemed to be saying that the word "red" doesn't refer to phenomenal states because meaning is public use and nobody knows anyone else's phenomenal state, whereas now you appear to be saying the opposite and that all words refer to phenomenal states and none to the mind-independent objects that are causally responsible for phenomenal states.
But then at the same time @Banno appears to agree with you even though my understanding of him is that he claims that the word "bird" refers to the mind-independent object and the word "red" refers to one of its mind-independent properties (e.g. a surface that reflects 700nm light?), and so that you and him are arguing for opposite positions, whereas I'm arguing for a middle ground.
So I really don't know what to make of any of this, or which claims of mine you are disagreeing with. Do you accept that the words "red" and "pain" (can) refer to phenomenal states (even if they can also refer to other things)?
I was just running through the consequences of your position, not offering mine.
Quoting Michael
I'm pretty sure I've not attached meaning to either the phenomenal state or the noumenal state, but that I've consistently attached it to use.
So, we have the ship picture I sent. You told me it was composed of pixels. You told me the pixels didn't look like anything unless it was being looked at. You deny idealism. You say the pixels are actually there, but all we can say about them is what we can't perceive about them because what we perceive about them is dependent upon their perception. So is the ship I uploaded the ship I see when I look at my screen, or is it the pixels? If it's the pixels, why are we assigning word meaning to something we know nothing about? Why can't I say the ship picture came from certain underlying things without having to ascribe the cause to the word?
It's not a consequence of my position. Direct perception of a mind-independent object is not required for our words to refer to it. I've never met Trump — only seen photos and videos of him — and yet when I use the word "Trump" I'm referring to the man, not the photos or videos. This way in which words can refer to things that aren't directly perceived does not change simply by moving the direct object of perception back "into the head", as the indirect realist does.
Quoting Hanover
And I disagree. Words do, in fact, refer to things. The name "Donald Trump" refers to the man who is President of the United States. The phrase "Napolean's first wife" refers to Joséphine de Beauharnais. And the words "pain", "pleasure", "red", and "sour" refer to different types of first person phenomenal experience. If Wittgenstein and Austin disagree then they are wrong. If they don't disagree then whatever you're saying does not refute my claims.
I may regularly perceive in my mind a grey circle, which I infer to the best explanation has been caused by a regularity in the mind-external world
Such regularities of perceptions in the mind become concepts in the mind, where a concept is a regularity of perceptions in the mind.
Concepts, because they are regularities in the mind, may for convenience be given a name. The name is not important, but could be “bird”, for example.
The name “bird” therefore refers to not only i) a regularity of perceptions in my mind (aka concept) but also to ii) an unknown regularity in the mind-external world that causes such regularities of perceptions in my mind.
Such is the basic relation between concepts in the mind, naming in language and objects in the mind-external world.
I would say that the virtual game-object — the "object" acting as an intentional object — is:
(1) materially realized, but not reducible to a set of material objects, processes or structures
(2) socially constituted within norm-governed practice, but not a private mental item
Quoting Michael
No. When the bionic eye is used to help the wearer navigate the real world, the direct object of perception—the “object” acting as an intentional object—is a mind-independent, material object under a perceptual mode of access within norm-governed perception-and-action.
What varies between the two cases is the ontological category of the object. What remains invariant is that:
(1) there is an agent
(2) there is an object
(3) there are public norms of perception and action
The object functions as an intentional object when those norms are satisfied.
I’m not really sure what that means. Does the game object exist if the eye is functioning normally but the wearer is brain dead? Does it exist if the wearer is a p-zombie? Or does it only exist as a phenomenal and conceptual construct, i.e created and understood by a sufficiently intelligent mind during high level brain activity?
It means that, although the existence of the virtual object is materially realized, it cannot be explained entirely in terms of the material processes that realize it. An adequate explanation of its existence must also appeal to the norm-governed practices that brought the system about and that are embodied in the system's structure.
So, I would say that the game object still exists if the wearer is brain dead, is a p-zombie or even if human beings were to be eradicated, as long as the VR system is still running. Virtual objects exist when the VR system is running because the criteria of existence that originated within a norm-governed practice are now being realized by the system itself, even if no agent is present to participate in or interpret those norms.
Isn't there a difference between the "virtual object" as a collection of transistors turning on and off and the "virtual object" as the thing seen with shape, size, colour, and behaviour? I wouldn't say that the monster I see running towards me continues to be "materially realised" if I remove the eye and leave it on the table. Something essential seems to be missing if you subtract the phenomenal aspect. Our bodies and brains (and minds) are as much a part of the system as the eye itself is.
That doesn't follow. The sensory data of the ship is (repeat oneself). Entering a new form into a straight descriptor doesn't really work. If you're talking about the sensory data derived from "an object, we know not what, but call a ship" then that's what you're talking about. Not the ship. This is the key problem for any version of this game which supposes we have access to the ship itself. We simply label our representations. This doesn't seem amenable to disagreement, really. The disagreement comes in when you try to get around this by just shifting the epistemic benchmark. I'd prefer not to. The assumption is there's an actual object out there. Our perceptual system surely puts us in direct contact with the objects in order to derive stimulus (and, I take it, to avoid Idealism) - but that does not carry through to the images we receive. Nor could it. Banno makes this mistake talking about his wife on the phone.
That you hear your wife through the phone (and are directly in touch with that voice you know to be your wife's voice) does not mean that hte audible sensation you receive is her voice. Nor could it.
Quoting Michael
Exactly this is in play.
I would expect you would reject naive referentialism, appreciating that there is no referent for "one," for the generic "vegetables" I mention, and surely not purely phenomenal states like "wish" (even though this mention of "wish" refers to no particular wish in any particular person, so it's not actually a phenomenal state).
Does it therefore not follow that the statement "Michael is from England" logically could also have meaning in the very same way without reliance upon reference? That is, sure, there is a Michael and there is an England, both of which have referents, but the meaning of that sentence needn't be reliant upon those referents. The sentence "Bjanglo is from Habversam" also has meaning, despite there being no referent. We know what could count as it being true or false and what sort of claim it is, even though it is in fact false.
What this means is that sentences of the same logical form can have meaning with or without referents.
And the point of that is to show that meaning is not dependent upon referent, which means there is something else underwriting meaning that is always there, even where there are also referents available.
If usage is that always present as a non-referent that supplies meaning, can I not then ignore the referrent and still obtain meaning?
And so you've not pointed out anything that has to do with what it means to say "ship." You've just told me about the hopeless difficulty in distinguishing the noumenal from the phenomenal. When I ask "what is the ship" my very point was to avoid the conversation you just had about how metaphyics gets us no where. I'm not suggesting you can't amuse yourself with those conversations, but I am saying that we don't have to reach any metaphysical conclusion as to whether @Banno's wife's voice is the vibration in her larynx, the sound waves as they leave her mouth, the electronic goings on in the phone, the vibration of the ear drum, the nerves doing whatever they do in the brain, or the magical presentation of phenomenal state. It's all good stuff, but it has nothing to do with what "voice" means.
If "voice" meant all the complex underwriting that causes voices to exist, do you suggest we use the term that way? Isn't it problematic that the word means something entirely different from the way we all use it? The issue here is not (to be very clear) that the voice as science might describe it might be entirely correct. I am not, nor have I ever made a metaphysical claim here. My point is that it is irrelevant. Meaning is a grammatical term regarding how we speak and it based upon use.
I agree that this is what indirect realism is saying, but it makes more sense to me to say that pixels is one way to divide up the world. There could be others.
butQuoting Banno
Not quite. I don't use "mind independent", it's a term of philosophical art, not at all useful
"Bird" refers to the bird. Red is the colour of its head, chest and back, it being a male rosella.
These sentences are extensionally true.
We do not need a metaphysical contrast between “mind-dependent” and “mind-independent” to make sense of any of this. Doing so is philosophical hokum.
Ok? I'm not sure why you're repeating that.
Yes, there is a difference, but I would say the difference is not explained by positing two different objects, one worldly and one mental. There is only one virtual game-object, considered under two different explanatory roles.
There are two different questions we can ask about the game-object:
(1) what kind of thing is the game-object?
(2) in what manner is the game-object phenomenally present to an embodied agent?
Answering the first question involves appealing to hardware, software and the normative rules embodied by the system that constitute the conditions of the object's identity, persistence, affordances and counterfactual constraints.
Answering the second question involves appealing to shape, size, colour, salience and motion. These are features of the perceptual episode not ingredients of a second "thing" over-and-above the game-object.
When you remove the bionic eye and set it on the table the game-object does not cease to exist as a virtual object: it's identity conditions do not disappear, its behavior in the game-world does not vanish. What disappears is its perceptual presence, its phenomenal articulation, its being-a-threat-for-you.
This is too good.
Moore took the bait from idealist, but at least he included showing us his hands.
Half the problem here is that those who are advocating indirect realism think the only alternative is a naive direct realism.
That, and mistaking a causal chain for an epistemic chain, make up most of the conceptual difficulties.
Which, as should have been clear, doesn't seem to me to be a move open to anyone playing this game. It's a form of setting aside the issue. Which i'm not saying is necessarily hte wrong approach, but it quite clearly (to me) just ignores the issue - you use the term avoid, which is fine.
Quoting Hanover
I know. IT should be clear I think this is giving up and retreating into Banno's world. It isn't one i, or many, recognize. It is setting aside the problem.
There are things we do, and then there are the actual things. Calling the voice on the phone "my wife's voice" is what's known as an **idealization (ironically). You are hearing something different to your wife's voice. You can just shift this to be listening to a recording of your wife's voice. There isn't even a tenuous connection, at the time, to your wife uttering anything. Your wife's voice is the vibrations in the surrounding air upon her larynx engaging and producing sounds.
The recording cannot be your wife's voice. It can be a recording of it. But that's unweildy, so we idealize to get through conversations more efficiently.
This is why philosophers routinely use different meanings for words - to make them more consistent and accurate. You don't have to accept my position, I'm just explaining why the move to forego sorting this out isn't attractive to me.
** it is possible heuristic, in an awkward use, fits slightly better.
It’s not inconsistent because the rest of the world is full of mediums through which to view, hear, and smell distant objects. Dealing with those mediums counts as direct perception of the world because our senses are in direct contact with those mediums, whatever information they afford us, and those mediums are features of the environment. The molecules in the air, the wavelengths in the light, the soundwaves in the water, come from the distant objects, affording us information about those distant objects.
On the other hand, you can’t show any of the mediums you deal with directly, and your words appear to have no referent that we can examine one way or another. You speak of things and places and their features as if they existed and expect others to believe the same, even impugning them as children or uneducated if they don’t. In fact, we have to take drugs or fall asleep or have our wires crossed in order to experience the things which are sure to lead us to indirect realism, and I don’t think being in those states counts much as a reliable description of anything, to be honest.
Just a clarifying point: Are you saying that the astronomer looking through a scope (or, lets go further: having generated an image from mathematical data) is in direct contact with the objects lets say lightyears away? Can you explain that? It seems to be the key example of indirect contact to me (and so dovetails into a perceptual account more generally). Just want to be sure that's what you're saying..
My charitable reading is that direct realists believe a representational theory of mind entails mind ghosts.
No, it’s clear from what I wrote that we interact with the environment around us directly, not indirectly. For instance your eyes are in direct contact with the light from that generated image.
This does not dovetail into an indirect perceptual account at all because we do not have anything like computer generated images or telescopes in the brain. In my opinion the indirect realist ought to stop leaning on metaphors and analogies using “mind-independent” examples and finally tell us what medium they are interacting with directly in their brain. What is the telescope or computer screen supposed to represent in your analogy?
Wittgenstein’s “meaning is use” suggests that the meaning of a word is determined by how the word is used in language in a language game. Each language game exists within a “form of life”. A “form of life” means human activities within the world and social interactions between humans within this world.
Wittgenstein is presupposing a world. If there was no world then there would be no form of life and no language game.
So what is the meaning of the word “world”. On the one hand, its meaning comes from how it is used in the language game, but on the other hand, its meaning is presupposed in order to have a language game in the first place.
Therefore, its meaning cannot be found within the language game, as its meaning is presupposed in order to have a language game in the first place.
Then how can the meaning of the word “world” be found if not from the language game itself. Only within the philosophy of metaphysics.
The homunculus infinite regress problem arises when the mind is assumed to be a separate entity to the brain, and the mind is looking at the neural activity in the brain.
When it is agreed that the mind is the neural activity in the brain, then this problem disappears.
John Searle pointed out the nature of identity in The Philosophy of Perception and the Bad Argument
You're still not explaining what it means for a biological organism to "see" a distant object. If eliminative materialism is true then there is just skin and bone and muscles and organs, with sense receptors absorbing energy and converting it into other forms, often causing the body to move. So how do you get from "the rods and cones in my eyes are reacting to electromagnetic radiation" to "I see the distant object that reflected the light", and what does the latter even mean without reference to first person phenomenal experience?
And your account of direct realism is rather vapid. If I place mirrors all around my house such that I can be in the attic and see what's happening in the basement, does this count as direct perception of the basement because my senses are in "direct contact" with the light that "affords me information" about what's happening in the basement? What if I replace the mirrors with CCTV?
You’ve gone from defining direct realism in such a way that we only directly see light to defining it in such a way that we directly see World War II when watching a documentary on the History Channel.
So shape, size, colour, and motion are "features of the perceptual episode". Do you accept that I am aware of these shapes, sizes, colours, and motions, and so that I am aware of the "features of the perceptual episode"? Do you accept that this perceptual episode and its features are visual in nature? Do you accept that to be aware of visual features is to see these features?
Then replace "mind-independent" with "exists at a distance to my body and has such properties even when nobody is looking at it".
So there's an organism that exists at a distance to my body, and this organism is referred to by the word "bird", and it has properties even when nobody is looking at it, and one of these properties is referred to by the word “red”.
I agree with the first part, but not the second part. The bird certainly has properties even when nobody is looking at it, and one of these properties is to reflect 700nm light, but the word "red" as ordinarily understood doesn't refer to such a property. Rather, 700nm light stimulates my eyes in such a way that it triggers certain neural activity in my brain, from which first person phenomenal experience emerges, and this first person phenomenal experience has various qualities, one of which I refer to using the word "red".
We naively think of this phenomenal quality as being one of the properties that the bird has even when nobody is looking at it, but our science has confirmed that it isn't. This naive view is mistaken. A sentence like "the bird is red" to be literally true ought be interpreted as "the bird appears red", where the word "red" refers to the quality of the first person phenomenal experience it causes to happen. Much like with "the dress I see is white and gold" — it really does appear white and gold to me, with the words "white" and "gold" referring to the very real quality of my first person phenomenal experience (and not something like wavelengths of light).
A person is thought of as being in a relation to a mental state, such as believing a proposition, imagining Paris, etc. Conceiving of thought as having the character of relationship naturally implies a separation between believer and belief, or in the case of perception, between the witness and the thing witnessed.
The difference between direct and indirect realists as represented in this thread, comes down to how we want to describe that perceptual relation. Is it between perceiver and a mental state? Or is it between perceiver and physical object?
I'm not denying that "sense" and "reference" are two different things. I'm not saying that one needs to understand the referent to understand the sense. I'm not saying that every word has a referent. I'm saying that the word "red" as ordinarily understood has a referent, and that this referent, like with the word "pain", is a mental phenomenon, and not a mind-independent property of the world (e.g. a surface that reflects 700nm light).
If you want to ignore reference and only consider sense then you're welcome to, but then that's just pretend, because reference is real. And in the context of the debate about the nature of perception, the referents of words such as "red" and "bird" matter.
There is a relation between perceiver and physical object.
But there is no relation between perceiver and a mental state if the perceiver IS the mental state.
No, not as stated. I would not say that I am "aware of" these shapes, sizes, colours, and motions as objects of awareness. I would say that I am "aware that" they are the way in which I am "aware of" the object. It is the game-object that I am aware of, not the phenomenal qualities themselves. Those qualities characterize the manner of presentation, but they are not what is presented.
I would add that a mental state isn't really just one thing. There's the "sensory" mental state, but then also the "intellectual" mental state. I think it quite appropriate to say that my intellect is aware of and tries to make sense of the sensations.
Then I think this is our fundamental disagreement. As above with my reply to RussellA, I think it quite appropriate to say that I am aware of these phenomenal shapes and sizes and colours. I recognize them as being present, as differing from one another and other things not present, as having names, and so on. And to return to my earlier argument with John and Jane seeing the box to be a different colour, I do make use of these phenomenal shapes and sizes and colours (in conjunction with any background knowledge) to make inferences about what's going to happen next in the game, or about what sort of things are interacting with my body when not playing a game, and so on.
I take this to be a problem for cognitive science. If they end up agreeing with you, they'll at least have to explain the expectation of the duality of perceiver and perceived.
I can't really do anything with the mere suggestion that there is no duality.
Yes, perhaps this is where we must diverge.
I do want to clarify that I do not deny any of the following:
For me, it is about whether "objecthood" is required to make sense of those facts. Whereas the game-object satisfies public, normative criteria of objecthood - identity, persistence, affordance, counterfactual robustness - phenomenal qualities do not. This doesn't make them illusory. They are subject to other norms - the norms of perceptual description and articulation - but they don't meet the qualifications of "objecthood" in the way that the game-object does.
For me, to be the "object" of perception is just to be the X in "I perceive X". If I feel pain then pain is the object of perception, if I see colours then colours are the object of perception, and if I hear a truck then the truck is the object of perception. I don't read anything more into the word "object" in this context.
The relevant philosophical questions concern a) the ontology of pain, colours, and trucks, and b) which of these (if any) are "directly present in" (i.e. literal constituents of) phenomenal experience.
I think this clarifies our disagreement nicely. When I talk about “objecthood,” I am not using it in the purely grammatical sense of whatever can occupy the X-position in the statement “I perceive X.”
The issue I’m pressing is whether phenomenal qualities satisfy the same kind of public, normative criteria—identity, persistence, affordance, counterfactual structure—that we ordinarily use to count something as an object in a robust sense, such as a game-object or a truck. My claim is that they do not.
That does not mean they are unreal or inaccessible; it means they belong to the structure of perceptual episodes rather than to the ontology of objects of perception. So while I’m happy to grant your grammatical usage of “object,” my denial concerns whether phenomenal qualities should be treated as objects in the same ontological sense as the things we ordinarily perceive (trucks, boats, people, etc.).
Well, phenomenal qualities are essentially private, so obviously they can’t satisfy public criteria. You’ve defined “direct perception” in such a way that indirect realism is ruled out a priori. This is why I think you’re just using a different definition, because I think the traditional dispute is something that can only be resolved a posteriori.
I actually reject this. While I would agree that phenomenal qualities are private in their occurrence, they are not private in their intelligibility, assessibilty, or normativity.
So I wouldn't say I've ruled out indirect realism a-priori. I'm just challenging a background assumption that is usually taken for granted in the debate.
EDIT: this is where I would, perhaps, differ from @Banno or @Hanover
Yes, there is the sensory mental state “I feel pain” and there is the intellectual mental state “I reason that the pain was caused by something mind-external.”
Question one = Is the mind separate from the brain’s neural activity or is the mind the brain’s neural activity?
To avoid the homunculus straw man problem, the mind is the brain’s neural activity.
Question two = Am “I” separate from my mind or am “I” my mind?
Again, to avoid the homunculus straw man problem, “I” am my mind.
Therefore, because “I” am my mind, and my mind is my brain’s neural activity, “I” am my brain’s neural activity.
This means that the brain’s neural activity can process both sensations and reasoning.
This should not be unexpected, as even the most basic of light sensors can detect the intensity of surrounding light and choose whether to turn the light on or not.
Even the basic £10 light sensor can process both sensations and reasoning about what action to take based on these sensations.
I perceive my pain. I am the perceiver and my pain is what is perceived.
If there was a duality between perceiver and perceived, a duality between me and my pain, this would suggest that I am separate to or outside my pain, and it is my choice whether to feel my pain or not.
But we know that this is not the case. I am not separate to or outside my pain. I am my pain. There is no duality between me and my pain. There is no duality between me as perceiver of my pain and what is perceived, my pain.
I don’t know whether eliminative materialism or true or not. What I know is is that none of the things you claim are there are not. So why do you believe in them?
You’re starting to conceive of body parts in a void again, or maybe it’s a vat. I believe that only human beings engage in human seeing and human beings are more than eyes, rods, cones, brains. So my concept of perception is holistic. And I believe all descriptions of seeing are wrong or incomplete unless they include the entirety of the entity, all of its organs, and every moving part involved in the act of seeing.
As for “first-person phenomenal experience”, that phrase is a meaningless piece of casuistry that serves as the idealist’s placeholder for that human organism. You see from a certain elevation, for example, as determined by the height of your organism, not by anything called “experience”.
Yes, we directly see the environment. That includes the things in that environment. That’s what the idealists call the “mind-independent world” and is the only thing under discussion in the debate. But the question is what are we directly seeing. I say the mediums that come into direct contact with the eyes, and are in fact absorbed by them. Indirect realism postulates sense-data, representations, and so on. We can examine light. We cannot examine sense-data.
But that’s why these little metaphors and analogies are fallacious. If you want to say we’re indirectly watching wW2 but directly watching the TV you can easily prove it by pointing to the TV, turning it on and off, and so on. Can you do that with “first-person phenomenal experience”?
You’re still not explaining what it means for a biological organism to see a distant object.
Your first account entailed that we only have direct perception of proximal stimuli, e.g. light, because these are the only things in direct physical contact with our body’s sense receptors. This defeated your own claim that we see distant objects.
Your second account entailed that we have direct perception of the basement when watching it on CCTV because our body’s sense receptors are in direct physical contact with the light that “affords us information about” the basement. This is both vapid — as even most direct realists will accept that we only have indirect perception of the basement when watching it on CCTV — and makes use of the very same folk psychology that you keep denying; what is this “information about the basement” and can you point to where in the light and the body this thing exists?
If you're going to argue that "first-person phenomenal experience" is a meaningless phrase then all you have left is a physical object being moved by the matter and energy that it comes into direct contact with (and by its own internal energy), and so the concept of this physical entity — whether rock, plant, toad, or human — "seeing" some distant object makes no sense. This object no more "sees" the distant object that sent light its way than it "feels" the distant object that threw a ball at it.
No, I said the light comes from distant objects and afford us information about distant objects, not mental phenomena. My other point was we directly see the “mind-independent world”, which is where the conflict is. You say we do not see the environment. Light is of one and not the other. These two points you have yet to address.
It does not entail anything of the sort. You’re grasping onto false analogies, as I’ve already said. Yes, your analogy involves the indirect viewing of the basement, but I can go into the basement and perceive it directly, and even look at and point to the camera. Moreover, you explicitly said your account of perception does not require a little man viewing screens, yet here you are using analogies of men watching screens. Why is that, I wonder? If you want to continue with these analogies, you might as well try to explain what your screen is supposed to represent, what your man is supposed to represent, and get on with it.
The information is frequency, direction, intensity, etc. and yes, we can touch light.
That’s not true. Some physical objects can act without external forces pushing them around. On the other hand, all you have is words and analogies.
Which means what?
Here's a non-human biological organism with skin and bones and muscles and organs and photosensitive receptor cells. What does it mean to say that electromagnetic radiation "carries information" about some distal object, and what does it mean for this biological organism to "see" this distal object? Because all that's happening is photosensitive receptor cells are reducing the release of glutamate in response to absorbing photons. Everything else you're taking about is meaningless folk psychology. Point to where in the light and the body this supposed "information about the distal object" is.
Quoting NOS4A2
It's not a false analogy because it's not an analogy; it's the literal topic of discussion. Under what conditions is direct perception satisfied? Is it direct perception if I see an object through CCTV? Why or why not? If I see it through my phone's camera? If I see it through a periscope? If I see it through a pair of binoculars? If I see it through a pair of glasses? Even the direct realist must accept that some of these count as indirect perception, and so if your account cannot suitably exclude these then your account fails. Earlier you said that our perception is direct if "our senses are in direct contact with ... the wavelengths in the light ... affording us information about those distant objects", but this does not suitably exclude those situations which everyone ought agree is indirect, e.g. with CCTV. You've gone too far in the opposite direction after your previous attempt left you unable to directly see anything other than light.
The duality is necessary for evaluation. Some part of your cognitive system evaluates mental states for things like truth, accuracy, and appropriateness. This is how you may wonder if you saw something correctly.
This is the computational theory of cognition. It's the scientific status quo, so to speak. Other theories will explain themselves relative to it. An example of an alternative theory is behaviorism, which says there are no mental states. It's just behavior.
Its not clear at all, which is why i asked LMAO.
What you're claiming doesn't make any sense. Your account is literally indirect. You are claiming that mediated perception is direct. You aren't even making Banno's argument.
I don't know what you mean by the bold. There are no metaphors or analogies in hte basic description of the perceptual system. A car does not have "redness" as a property. To suggest so is totally unwarranted. Redness exists solely in minds. If you want to claim that the red you want to exist in the object is the same red that exists in your mind, you are essentially claiming that every object in the world is interconnected physically. But our internal images are not objects, nor are they physically connected to anything but maybe hte brain.
The "medium" you want is a total red herring. We have experience as the medium. What we experience is data. Data comes from somewhere. This is not hard to grasp.
That' doesn't cut it. You continue to suppose that colour terms fundamentally refer to phenomenal qualities, while I and others maintain they are part of a public, world-involving practice.
So see Quoting Michael
The bird is still red after it flies away. You account is obliged to interpret this with the obtuse explanation that it would be red if it were being observed, even though it isn't being observed. But that's importing more philosophical hokum. The bird is red.
For you the colourblind would not be able to agree that the rosella is red, since they do not have the requisite experience. And yet they do, because they participate in the practice.
The disagreement as to that dress is a case in point for colour not being fundamentally phenomenal. Folk are arguing about what colour the dress is, not merely about how it appears to them. The dress was black and blue. It looked gold and white. Folk are willing to say “I was wrong about the colour once I saw it in different light”. That makes no sense if “white”, “blue”, “gold”, etc. name phenomenal qualities. The case shows that colour concepts are not anchored in private experience, because private experience alone cannot sustain disagreement, correction, or explanation.
Your talk of the "naive" view just shows you're continuing to respond on an argument that is not being made.
I don’t see how absorbing light into the eyeballs counts as indirect. Maybe you can explain it.
It’s hard to grasp for me. Experience is the medium? Is it anything like traditional mediums like light, clay, air, or paint, where some sort of tangible substance is required?
As far as I know light provides information about an object's composition, temperature, motion, shape, texture, or distance by revealing how it emits, absorbs, reflects, or refracts different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. We’re limited to visible light, but that proves to be good enough here on earth.
No, I agree, looking at something through a cctv camera on a screen counts as viewing that something indirectly. I’m fine with that. But the “distal object”you’re actually, directly viewing is the screen and your surroundings. So you’ve gone too far in pretending the images on that screen is the “distal object” you’re perceiving. The question remains, what does the screen, the light it emits into your eyes, and all of your visible surroundings in whatever room you’re watching this screen supposed to represent in your analogy?
Yes, this is the crux, I think between Banno's approach (which is sound, i don't want to sounds dismissive. I just htink its wrong and Mine (and i presume Michael's) is that absorbing light into the eyes is not, at all, contact with the object which the light reflected off. There is nothing of the object in the light which enters the eyes. For Banno's approach, that's a red herring. For mine, it's the whole point.
Quoting NOS4A2
Totally understandable. I think the key here is that the felt presence of immediate experience is not an object. It is not a "something" in the sense of your examples. Its certainly far cleaner and easier to just sort of say "I see clay" and in a sense (Banno's) that's true. But trivially, and possibly ideally (as in "i see" is idealized). To me, there is no direct contact with objects. That doesn't seem possible by virtue of any hypothetical involving perception as a fundamental element of the relation between object and perceiver (tautological? Recursive? That's sort of the point). We'd have to posit a hypothetical where there is no difference between the object and the perception. But that's simply not available on the information we ahve about how light and perception work and we do not know of any speculative biology which could 'see' in any other way.
Quoting NOS4A2
I think we just go one step further - you've gone too far in pretending the distal objects are in the images you receive, whether CCTV or through your eyes. Bare rejection of this is sound.
Austin, “First of all, it is essential to realize that here the notion of perceiving indirectly wears the trousers - ‘directly’ takes whatever sense it has from the contrast with its opposite…”
But what sense can we make of directly seeing a ship when we are told that we only indirectly see a ship in our minds. What are we supposed to envision so to set up the comparison. Indirect realists describe the same process of perception we all probable admit, yet they insist calling it “indirect”. Don’t we deserve to understand what we are supposed to call “direct” when described as well.
Maybe taking a more naturalist's position could help in the matter. I think you would admit that we are all “direct realist” when it comes to the biological processes of hydration, digestion, and respiration. So, the good news is there are biological processes that have “direct” contact with the external world.
There is no temptation to say such things as:
1. “You are only indirectly digesting food via representations of nutrients.”
2. “You are only indirectly hydrating via representations of cells being hydrated”
3. “You are only indirectly having oxygen enter the lungs via representations of gas exchanges.”
Now the question arises, if perception is a biological process continuous with others, why would it uniquely require a mental veil?
Perception is biological relation to the environment just like other bodily processes. The fact that errors, like illusion and hallucination, occur does not imply mediation by mental objects.
Take this analogy about grasping. You can successfully grasp a cup, but you also can try to grasp when the cup is not present. But we don’t say, “What you really grasp is an inner grasp-image.”
Thus, there is no need to metaphysically isolate perception from other biological processes.
So, as naturalists we are committed to the idea that organisms are directly related to their environment through evolved biological processes. So, perception is how organism process light. But this is not the whole story, this light is structured in such a way that the organism is receiving information about the environment. Processing light does not make perception indirect any more than processing oxygen makes breathing indirect. One proponent of this view of perception is James J. Gibson. In, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, he presents his theories of perception as an alternative to mentalism or conditioned-response behaviorism. That light is not just for stimulating receptors but transmitting information that can activate the system of the organism.
Alright, perhaps we’re talking about different things. My understanding of the problem of perception is whether I can directly perceive the mind-independent world, or if I directly perceive some mind-dependent intermediary, like representations or sense-data. I didn’t know we were arguing about whether we were directly or indirectly seeing mind-independent things through other mind-independent intermediaries. For now, I’ll leave that one for you guys to has out.
Light is of the mind-independent world; it is absorbed by the eyes; and therefore each of us has direct contact with the “mind-independent world”. Since this contact is direct, so is access to the “mind-independent world”, and there is zero room in space and time for any intermediary. That’s my whole point, basically.
The Direct Realist falls into the duality of the Homunculus Strawman problem: “If a homunculus (a little person) is needed inside the mind to process information, then who processes the information for that homunculus?"
The modern Cognitive Revolution overcomes any need for the duality of a homunculus by using the scientific method and treating the mind like a modular computer. Mental processes are handled through algorithms and mechanisms without the need for any central homunculus. (Wikipedia - Cognitive Revolution).
Logically speaking, if I cannot see what is on the other side of the door then I cannot see it. Similarly, if I cannot perceive what is on the other side of my mind, then I cannot perceive it.
It logically follows that as I can only see what is inside the room, I can only perceive what is inside my mind.
It is not the case that there is the duality “I” am separate to my mind, but rather “I” am my mind.
In my mind there is not the duality of a homunculus looking at my mind. As the modern Cognitive Revolution shows, mental processes are handled through algorithms and mechanisms without the need for any central homunculus.
There is philosophical language, “I directly perceive phenomenal experiences in my mind enabling me to indirectly infer that there is a ship in the world.”
Things go wrong when in philosophical language a word is used having an ordinary language meaning.
I am in a room with the door closed, I hear a sound. I infer that the sound came from outside the room. I may be wrong, but I infer it.
In this case, is it the correct use of language to say “I have direct contact with what is outside the room”?
Surely what you are seeing is the image of the ship via telescope, not the ship itself?
There is ordinary language and philosophical language.
In ordinary language, when looking at a ship in front of them, both the Direct and Indirect Realist could say “I am directly looking at the ship”. When looking at the ship through a telescope, both the Direct and Indirect Realist could say “I am indirectly looking at the ship in front of me”
However, in philosophical language, when looking at a ship in front of them, the Direct Realist could say “I am directly looking at the ship” and the Indirect Realist could say “I am indirectly looking at the ship”. When looking through a telescope, the Direct Realist could say “I am indirectly looking at the ship” and the Indirect Realist could say “I am directly looking at an image of the ship”
It gets difficult when ordinary and philosophical language are mixed up.
So point to where in the light and the organism's body I can look to see this "information"? If I open up your head can I see the information you have about the object's composition?
Quoting NOS4A2
Then your account is insufficient, because you said that we directly see an object if "our senses are in direct contact with the wavelengths in the light affording us information about those distant objects". This would entail that if we look at something through a CCTV camera on a screen then we are viewing that thing directly, which you admit we aren't. Therefore, direct perception isn't just "our senses being in direct contact with the wavelengths in the light that affords us information about those distant objects".
The words "gold" and "white" in the above sentence refer to the phenomenal quality of the experience that some people have when they look at the photo. They don't refer to wavelengths of light or any other property of the pixels on the computer screen.
Quoting Banno
I believe my example with the visors demonstrates otherwise. Repeated from here:
The visors have been constructed in such a way that when the sensors on the outside detect 700nm light they output on the screen 500nm light and vice-versa. Their wearers use the word "red" to describe the colour of strawberries and associate the colour red with 700nm light and use the word "green" to describe the colour of grass and associate the colour green with 500nm light.
Then when they're asleep we fix their visors so that the light emitted by the screen matches the light detected by the sensors. When they wake up do they go about their day as if nothing has changed, continuing to use the word "red" to describe the colour of strawberries and associate the colour red with 700nm light and to use the word "green" to describe the colour of grass and associate the colour green with 500nm light? Or do they immediately ask "why are strawberries now green?" and "why is grass now red?" and then be very confused when nothing about strawberries, grass, or the light they each reflect has changed?
I think the latter is obviously what will happen, showing that even though the use of the words "red" and "green" was public the words primarily referred to the colours on their private screen (assuming direct realism for the sake of argument) and not whatever was happening in their shared environment. The same reasoning holds when we remove the visors and instead surgically alter their eyes and/or brain to switch which wavelengths of light cause which phenomenal experiences.
Sunflowers don't see. They react to and move towards the sunlight but they lack first person phenomenal experience. The dispute between direct and indirect realism is uniquely an issue for organisms that have first person phenomenal experiences like ours, and concerns the exact nature of the relationship between these first person phenomenal experiences and distal objects; are these distal objects "directly present" in first person phenomenal experience as direct realism claims, or are they only causally responsible for them?
But that aside, how do you get from "the organism processes light" to "the organism has direct perception of the distal object that emitted and/or reflected this light"?
Yes, worth reading up on fictionalism:
In ordinary life we talk about ordinary objects as being coloured, but it's a fiction that we ought recognise in the philosophy (and science) room. Ordinary objects only reflect various wavelengths of light, which is something very different.
Some here seem to think that how we speak in ordinary life is the answer to all the questions. They're just burying their heads in the sand.
Why is it something very different? Why can't "that object is orange" mean the same thing as "that object reflects the wavelengths of light required for me to see it as orange"? I don't see those sentences as having fundamentally different meanings, the second one is just more verbose
You’re right. “Information” is a verb-to-noun derivation. There is no referent. If I was to be more precise (and careful) I’d say “The molecules in the air, the wavelengths in the light, the soundwaves in the water, come from the distant objects, informing us about those distant objects.” There is no need to go on multiplying entities, after all.
My account is quite different. Here’s what I actually said:
“Dealing with those mediums counts as direct perception of the world because our senses are in direct contact with those mediums, whatever information they afford us, and those mediums are features of the environment. The molecules in the air, the wavelengths in the light, the soundwaves in the water, come from the distant objects, affording us information about those distant objects.”
It would help me understand what my claim entails if you were to tell me what mental object the cctv is supposed to represent in your analogy, so that you can demonstrate that your analogy isn’t false.
No, but you would have direct contact with the medium through which the waves travelled, the air. The air comes from and is a feature of the mind-independent world.
I am in a room with the door closed. I hear a sound I infer is from outside the room that sounds like a bark.
You say that hearing this sound means that I am in direct contact with whatever is outside the room.
But how can I be in direct contact with what is outside the room, when I have no idea what is outside the room that made the noise?
For example, the noise could have been made by a dog, wolf, coyote, fox, seal, bird, human, tv program, radio program, truck, car, toy, horn, alarm, cuica percussion instrument or numerous other things..
Even in ordinary language, should we say that we are in direct contact with something when we don't even know what we are in direct contact with?
However, on the other hand, the Indirect Realist would agree with you that we are in direct contact with the sound, regardless of what the cause was outside the room.
It can. But what does the word "orange" mean/refer to in the ending phrase "for me to see it as orange"? It refers to the phenomenal character of your first person experience and not a mind-independent property of the object.
You just need to make sure you don't conflate. This is why I think it's clearer if we interpret "the object is orange" as "the object appears orange". The grammar of the first suggests that this phenomenal character is a property of the object (naive colour realism), which is false.
A thrown ball hitting my head informs me about a person throwing a ball at my head, but that doesn't mean that the ball hitting my head is direct perception of the person who threw it. There's something missing from this account.
Quoting NOS4A2
All of which happens when I watch a prisoner via CCTV. Yet I don't directly see the prisoner when watching him via CCTV. So the above account does not suitably exclude situations which we ought all agree are indirect perception.
Yes it means both things. Contextually you should be able to tell when someone is talking about orange as a property of the thing and orange as a qualia.
No. Not at all on my view. (I think this is a really weird thing to ask though - what does 'deserve' mean here?) It may not be something available to the human mind. I suggest this is the case, and attempts to get around it into DR-ist theories are simply a reaction to that discomfort. Most response amount to hand-waving, anyhow so that seems relatively simple to understand, even if it's not accepted in your view.
Funnily enough, potentially the best, most well-described system which tried to do this was Kant's CPR in response (fear, really) to Hume's problems of perception and identity - and that resulted in an IR position properly understood. Quoting Richard B
No, but hte well-understood facts do support that. This is why its so hard to understand DR arguments. They seem to fail at the first, empirical, hurdle.
But this appears to be an incorrect analysis of how that works.
Light does not appear to you. It enters your eyes and, after some other intermediary activity mental images appear to you. Light stops being light at your eyes. Your brain literally constructs images from the data which your eyes derived from that light, as electrical signals, within your brain. This is why you can get after images, because your brain is still constructing an image due to an excess of light enter the eye and distorting the objects its reflected off. This should be sufficient to at least give you pause. You cannot see an object witout light - light is a medium which is not in or of the objects it reflects off of. There is no possible room to call mental images direct, unless you do the thing of saying "direct representations" which is a misnomer because representation already infers intermediacy.
I definitely misspoke in one regard earlier: We are in direct contact with the mind-independent world. I am not an idealist. I apologise for any confusion that caused. But that does not mean that our perception of it is direct. They are two different things. It may be that you and others do not see the distinction, which was why I said it's sound to reject this. If that's your model, then your take will result in a 'direct' description. I think this is empirically incorrect and misleading myself.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is correct. I hope the above clarifies that I'm addressing this specific, and imo, entirely erroneous concept that we do in fact 'directly' perceive.
You simply keep repeating this same error. No, they do not refer to "phenomenal qualities", because such "qualities" are never just "phenomena", they are always public.
Your visor example has been adequately responded to, by myself and others. The visor story feels compelling because it trades on an illicit slide between disruption of discriminatory capacities and reference to private qualia. Once you separate those, the argument collapses.
My headache isn't public. Neither are the colours I see. The example with the faulty and then fixed visors is a simple and intuitive demonstration that there is more to language than you seem willing to admit. Time to move on from Wittgenstein and Austin.
Quoting Banno
You never responded to it.
That's irrelevant. The question is not whether experiences are private. The question is whether the meaning and reference of colour words is fixed by those private experiences. “Red” is not like “my headache”, colour words are not avowals of inner states, they are world-directed predicates governed by norms of correctness.
If colour terms worked like headache reports, then disagreement, correction, and error about colour would be impossible. But as the dress demonstrates, plainly they aren’t.
I replied to your visor example here, here and here.
This is probably the most salient bit:
Quoting Banno
And
Quoting Banno
The most recent of those was from 13 days ago. The post I referenced (and repeated) was from 8 days ago.
Quoting Banno
It's not if you want to continue to claim that words don't refer to private experiences. Do you at least accept that the word "headache" does?
Quoting Banno
The dress demonstrates the opposite, and it's absurd that you think otherwise. The reason some people say "I see a white and gold dress" and others say "I see a black and blue dress" is because they are having different visual experiences, and they are using the words that they associate with the character of their visual experiences. Any "disagreement" about the colour of the dress is a tacit endorsement of the naive view that the phenomenal character of their experience is a mind-independent property of the dress, which is a fundamentally mistaken view. Common (and understandable), but still mistaken.
Then, with "they are using the words that they associate with the character of their visual experiences", you slide from experience causally influences word use to experience fixes meaning and reference.
If causal influence were sufficient for reference, then “loud” would refer to cochlear activity, “heavy” to muscle strain, and “square” to retinal stimulation. But they do not. We hear the sound, feel the weight, and see the shape.
You suppose that any “disagreement”, be it bent stick, visor, dress or whatever, is a tacit endorsement of the naive view that the phenomenal character of their experience is a mind-independent property. But disagreement presupposes shared norms of correctness, not naive metaphysics. People disagree about whether something is funny, whether a painting is balanced, whether a sound is too loud, without supposing that their experiences are literally properties of objects. The disagreement is about how public concepts apply under given conditions, not about whose inner screen mirrors reality.
The very intelligibility of the disagreement shows that “white”, “gold”, “black”, and “blue” are not names for private qualia. If they were, each speaker would be infallible. Your example works against your account. We can ask “Which colour is it really?”, “What lighting was it under?” “Why do cameras show it differently?” “What colour is the fabric?” only because colour terms are world-directed and corrigible. If they were nothing but private sensations, these questions would be useless.
You would maintain that
1. Colour terms refer to private phenomenal character.
2. Speakers can disagree about colour.
3. Speakers can be wrong about colour.
4. Colour talk is public and communicable.
But (1) is incompatible with (2),(3) and (4).
Two people can disagree about whether the bath is hot or cold. It does not then follow that the bath either "really is" hot or "really is" cold, and that one of them is feeling it wrong. The reality is that the bath causes one to feel hot and the other to feel cold, and the words "hot" and "cold" are referring to their private sensations.
And, once again, the example with the faulty and then fixed visors is a simple demonstration of this with colour. Colour talk is public, they agree or disagree about the colour of strawberries, but then when something changes with their visor they ask why strawberries are now a different colour, and continue to ask this even after confirming that strawberries are still reflecting 700nm light. Evidently whatever is showing on their private screens cannot be dismissed as irrelevant.
Yes.
And what scientists are trying to understand is the color judgment inconsistency with the dress, not demonstrating the accuracy of private color experiences.
A similar example is that cats can see in conditions that a human would describe as completely dark. Is it dark or not? It depends your sensory apparatus.
Read that again, carefully.
Yes, one person feels hot, the other cold. Yes, that experience is caused by the bath. But the example does not support the phenomenalist claim. It only illustrates that words are influenced by perception and physiology, not that influence is reference.
Disagreement, surprise, and correction remain intelligible because meaning is not fixed by private sensations, but by shared, world-involving practices. That they disagree makes no sense unless the bath has a temperature that both feel. If it were not public, it would be as if you said "I have a headache" and I replied "No I don't!"
Get out the thermometer.
Yes, so the words "hot" and "cold" refer to those sensations they feel — even though they predicate them of the bath and "disagree".
Quoting Banno
That tells you the temperature, not if it's hot or cold.
Indirect realism isn't disputing this. Remember that it is realism.
Quoting Michael
Saying “the bath is hot” is world-directed. The word “hot” functions as a normative, public concept. What each person feels merely mediates access to that standard — it is not the referent. Again, if two people report opposite sensations, hot and cold, and if “hot” and “cold” referred to private sensations, disagreement would be impossible. The very notion of conflict about the bath would evaporate. But disagreement does occur. You again slide from “experience influences word use” to “words refer to experience.”
Quoting Banno
Yes, and the question is, is your use of "cold" only about some mental image, or about the water? The disagreement only makes sense if we are talking about the bath water and not just our sensations.
I'm afraid if I answer this, our disagreement will disappear. :grin:
As it should, because the words "hot" and "cold" really do refer to each person's private sensations. John says "the bath is hot" because he feels hot sitting in it and Jane says "the bath is cold" because she feels cold sitting in it. Both are correct. Their "disagreement" is a fiction. We have a tendency to think that the way we experience the world is "right" and so anyone who experiences the world another way is experiencing it "wrong". It's the naive view that any person educated in physics and physiology should reject when considering the science and philosophy of perception. Your continued appeal to ordinary language and ordinary norms just doesn't work as a refutation of indirect realism.
Again, we might agree entirely as to the physics and psychology. None of which serves to fix the reference of "cold", in the way your account insists. Jane and John can disagree only because the words they use function in their shared world.
And that would be bad? End of the thread, I suppose.
This is false. The words "hot" and "cold" refer to the sensations that John and Jane feel when sitting in the bath and yet they disagree on whether the bath is hot or cold. This is a very straightforward and common sense proof that we can disagree even when our words refer to private sensations. Rather than accept this as proof against your interpretation of language, you blindly commit to your interpretation of language and deny the obvious.
Quoting Michael
Here you are not presenting an argument, but blandly restating your opinion. That's not a proof af anything.
The bottom line is that John and Jane are not disagreeing as to their sensations. Jane can agree that John feels the water is hot, and maintain that she feels the water is cold, and vice versa, without inconsistency.
What happens next? Do they add hot, or add cold, or wait? Or dot hey talk about why one feels cold and the other hot? The incident is not isolated, it's part of an ongoing and historical discussion. Sensation varies across people, while meaning, reference, and disagreement persist because words are embedded in a public, normative, world-directed practice. It’s not an isolated utterance; it’s a system of practices over time.
Yes, and the word "hot" in "John feels the water is hot" refers to the sensation John feels when sitting in the water and the word "cold" in "Jane feels the water is cold" refers to the sensation Jane feels when sitting in the water. It's certainly not the case that the words "hot" and "cold" refer to two mutually exclusive properties such that the water either has one or the other and that either John or Jane is feeling it wrong.
This is why their "disagreement" is over a fiction (assuming it isn't a faux disagreement). They act as if the way the water feels to them is something else; something "really" true of the water. It's naive, and it's wrong, and the fact that they "argue" over which of "the water is hot" or "the water is cold" is true does not entail that the words "hot" and "cold" don't refer to the sensations they feel in the water.
It never ends. :smile:
It certainly won't, if all can do is repeat his assertion that "hot refers to the sensation".
John and Jane's disagreement is not a fiction; perhaps they really do differ in their beliefs. That Michael denies this shows the poverty of the insistence that "hot" is nothing more than a sensation. Treating it as a fiction does not help decide what to do.
Quoting RussellA
It doesn’t need to be encoded in each link as representational content. On Direct Realism, the causal chain is a means of acquaintance, not a carrier of descriptive information. The chain enables perceptual contact with the object; it does not transmit a message that must be decoded.
Quoting RussellA
This is still epistemic, not logical. The laws of physics do not entail a contradiction in the past state having been thus-and-so; they only show that the past is not recoverable from the present state alone. Logical impossibility would mean no possible world in which the past state is known—which is false.
Quoting RussellA
Direct Realism does not claim that causal origins must be reconstructed—at all. This is the repeated mistake. Perception is not an inference from present effects to past causes; it is a current perceptual relation to an existing object.
Quoting RussellA
I don't accept it. I was simply granting it as an expression of your own commitment: "as an IR, I accept this impossibility". This is simply a statement of your position, not an argument against DR.
Quoting RussellA
The inability to infer causal history does not imply that the object of perception is internal. That conclusion only follows if one assumes—without argument—that perception requires inferential access to causal origins. That assumption is exactly what Direct Realism rejects.
Quoting RussellA
What else is there is perceptual acquaintance itself. On Direct Realism, we know the Sun because we see the Sun, not because we infer it from causal data. The causal chain explains how perception occurs, not what is perceived.
Needing causal reconstruction to know the object is an Indirect Realist requirement, not a neutral constraint.
Doesn't it sound odd to add "directly" and "indirectly" on these statements, when they perfectly make sense without these words?
Quoting RussellA
Really? How do you tell the difference between the two?
So be it. Onward we move..
That is why posts on the Forum get confused when people mix up ordinary language and philosophical language.
The expression “I am a Direct Realist” would mean something different to the person in the street and a philosophy person.
:up:
Ordinary language
As the SEP article on Fictionalism points out, ordinary language uses figures of speech, metaphors, exaggerations and fictions in general.
For example “I see a ship directly in front of my eyes, I can smell its anger and feel its pain as it wanders aimlessly across the dark and mysterious ocean”
Ordinary Language Philosophy (OLP)
For example John Searle and the later Wittgenstein. John Seale is a Direct Realist and in his 2015 book “Seeing Things as They Are” argues against the “Bad Argument” of Indirect Realism”. He maintains that humans are able to directly perceive physical objects in the world, such as apples, because “apples” is already a Category within a public “Language Game”. For Searle, as a Direct Realist, such apples exist in the world even if never seen by a human. OLP argues that once everyday expressions are carefully analysed, many so-called philosophical problems disappear. OLP is an inquiry into meaning as use, rather than meaning as truth, whereby the meaning of an expression in language is inseparable to its use in the language game that is part of a Form of Life.
For example “I see a ship directly in front of my eyes”.
Metaphysical philosophy
One problem with OLP as a philosophy is that it does not question its own presuppositions. It does not question its own presupposition that objects such as apples exist in the world even if never observed by a human. Given such a presupposition, OLP can then make a valid case about the relation of language to the world. This is where the metaphysical philosopher comes in, to question such presuppositions.
For example, OLP is presupposing that relations ontologically exist in the world, which is not necessarily the case. There are many reasons why relations cannot ontologically exist in the world, If relations don't exist in the world, then neither can apples, as an apple can only have an identity if there are relations between its parts.
OLP is assuming that apples are discovered in the world, tending to support Direct Realism, whereas apples are invented in the mind supports Indirect Realism.
It is the metaphysical philosopher that thinks about people’s presuppositions.
It sounds really confusing when you say that you see a ship directly or indirectly, when you can say you see a ship. Why add those words, and make the statements unclear and muddled?
Quoting RussellA
It is not what you call yourself, which makes you a philosopher. It is how you think, see, understand and explain on the world and mind, which makes you one. Wouldn't you agree?
How does that work? I am acquainted with an apple in the world even if I cannot describe it?
==============================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
If the laws of physics show that the past is not recoverable from the present state alone, then why does the Direct Realist believe that an apple as it existed in the past is recoverable from our present state of perceiving an apple?
======================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
How can we know about the apple in the world independently of any causal chain from the apple to our perceiving it?
=================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
We seem to agree that:
1 - We can only know about a Sun in the world because of a causal chain from it to us
2 - There is a change in both form and content of each link in this causal chain
3 - We cannot know either the form or content of a prior link even if we knew a present link
4 - All our information about the external world comes through our five senses
5 - The causal chain is temporal, in that what initiated the causal chain is temporally prior to our perception in the mind.
6 - Something in the external world initiated this causal chain
7 - The Indirect Realist believes that we can infer to the best explanation from the final link in this causal chain to what initiated the causal chain.
Yet you say that the Direct Realist knows what initiated the causal chain. How?
Pardon the interjection, but I think your reply here nicely captures the nub of the ongoing disagreement. There is a distinction that is being collapsed here. Words like "hot" and "cold" can be used in two different ways—(1) as sensation reports or (2) as world-directed predicates.
I think the mistake here is treating all uses of “hot” and “cold” as sensation-reports. Of course John and Jane can agree without inconsistency that John feels hot and Jane feels cold. But that is not what is at issue when they say “the bath is hot” or “the bath is cold.”
In those cases they are applying a public, world-directed concept governed by norms of comparison, measurement, and practical response. That’s why it makes sense to add cold water, wait, or get out—and why a thermometer is relevant. The disagreement is not fictional; it concerns how the bath should be described and dealt with under shared standards, not whose private sensations are correct.
Sensations may causally influence what we say, but they do not fix meaning or reference. If “hot” and “cold” referred only to private feelings, then disagreement, correction, and error about temperature would be impossible. But they plainly are not.
In Ordinary Language, we say “I see a ship”. In Philosophy Language, the Direct Realist says “I see a ship directly” and the Indirect Realist says “I see a ship indirectly”.
Words need to be added because the Direct Realist, Indirect Realist and person in the street understand the world in different ways.
======================
Quoting Corvus
:up:
Yes, they can add these words in their sentences, but it seems making the meaning of the sentence more confusing. It is ambiguous on telling why they are seeing a ship directly or indirectly. The sentence begs for more explanations on why these folks are seeing a ship in those ways.
If you say, well because they are DRists and IRists, then it doesn't make any sense, and tells nothing meaningful, because it is not explaining why they see and understand the ship they are seeing in that way.
Yes — and this is not controversial.
On Direct Realism, acquaintance is not description-dependent. Infants, animals, and non-linguistic humans perceive objects without possessing concepts or the ability to describe them. Even for adults, perception typically outruns description: you can see a face you cannot describe, hear a sound you cannot characterize, or see an apple without knowing its variety, chemical composition, or causal history.
So acquaintance works like this: (1) you are perceptually related to an object, (2) that relation does not presuppose propositional knowledge, (3) description, classification, and judgment are subsequent cognitive acts
This is a standard point even outside Direct Realism. If acquaintance required description, perception would collapse into conceptual judgment, which neither IR nor DR actually wants.
Quoting RussellA
It doesn’t. This is the central misfire. Direct Realism does not claim that we can recover past states from present perception, or that perception gives us epistemic access to past events as such. What it claims is that perception is a present relation to a presently existing object, even though that relation is enabled by a causal history.
Recovering the past is a task for inference, science, and explanation — not for perception itself. You are projecting a retrospective epistemic demand onto a theory that is about current openness to the world.
Quoting RussellA
We can’t — and Direct Realism does not say we can.This question rests on a false contrast:
Direct Realism rejects both horns. The correct picture is:
You don’t need to know anything about optics, photons, or neural signals to see an apple. The causal chain enables perception; it is not something you reason from.
Quoting RussellA
See above. This is not what is being claimed. Direct Realism says that we know the object we are perceptually related to, not the full causal history by which that relation was produced.
Yes, Direct and Indirect Realism are just names which need further explanation.
Isn't it the case that anyone can see a ship directly or indirectly depending on the circumstances or the way they see a ship? A folk see a ship with his bare eyes, then he is seeing it directly. If he picks up a binoculars, and sees it, then he is seeing it indirectly?
Surely there are no such folks as DRists or IDists from their births, who must see a ship always either directly or indirectly no matter what situation under they see a ship?
As an IR, I agree.
But how does the DR know what initiated a causal chain when such knowledge is a logical impossibility?
===============================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
So, DR does not claim we can recover past states from present perception, and recovering the past is a task for inference. As an IR, I agree.
I agree when you say that perception is a present relation to a presently existing object, which is the position of the IR
=======================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Totally agree. But how does the DR know the object that initiated the causal chain when logic shows us it is impossible to know what initiated a causal chain?
Quoting RussellA
How does DR overcome what is a logical impossibility?
Yes, I had never heard of Direct and Indirect Realism ten years ago.
You keep asking "How does the Direct Realist know what initiated the causal chain, given that this is logically impossible?". I've addressed this multiple times.
Direct Realism does not claim to know what initiated the causal chain. That’s not a weakness of DR; it’s a basic feature of any sane theory of perception.
Even if the DR grants your claim that it is impossible to know what initiated a causal chain (and I don't), IR still doesn’t follow. This is because:
Perception is current openness to what is causally presentable right now.
The object does not need to be known as initiator in order to be known as perceived. Otherwise, absurd consequences follow:
But that's obviously wrong. You seem to think that IR avoids the problem by saying that we infer what initiated the causal chain, but that only shifts the problem. The inference itself still depends on perceptual contact with something, and that perceptual contact is still not knowledge of causal initiation.
So even by your own lights, IR does not escape the alleged logical impossibility either — it simply relabels perception as inference, which only leads to a regress, as we’ve already identified.
Both John and Jane agree on the temperature. Is 37°C hot or cold? What do the words "hot" and "cold" mean in either case? I think it quite obvious that they refer to the different sensations that 37°C water causes John and Jane to feel.
It's up for debate. That's the point.
“Hot” and “cold” are not names for sensations and temperatures. They are evaluative predicates whose application depends on:
That’s exactly why the question “Is 37 °C hot or cold?” is intelligible, even if underdetermined.
Yes, and this evaluation is inextricably tied up in the sensations they cause us to feel. That's why even Banno says "John feels cold in the water" and "Jane feels hot in the water". What do the words "hot" and "cold" mean in the phrases "feels hot" and "feels cold"? You appear to accept that the sensations occur but then for some reason think that they have nothing to do with the meaning of the words we use. And I think that's ridiculous. We can talk about anything in the world — and even things that aren't in the world. Sensations are no exception. The word "sensations" is proof enough of this.
I don’t deny that sensations occur, that they matter, or that we can talk about them. What I deny is that their occurrence fixes the meaning or reference of words like “hot” and “cold.”
When we say “John feels hot,” we are not redefining “hot” as a private sensation; we are reporting that John is undergoing the kind of bodily response that ordinarily counts as evidence for calling something hot under normal conditions. That’s why we can intelligibly say things like “It feels hot, but it isn’t,” or “It is hot, even if you don’t feel it.”
Sensations play a causal and evidential role in our evaluative practices, but meaning is fixed by public, world-directed norms of application, not by private feelings. The fact that we can talk about sensations doesn’t show that evaluative predicates are names for sensations any more than the fact that we can talk about muscle strain shows that “heavy” means “causes this feeling.”
Saying, you see a ship directly or indirectly sounds like, if there are any obstacles in the middle of the path of the seeing, rather than seeing the ship itself. It just sounds like it is a statement something unnecessarily confusing.
You would only say that when asked - how do you see the ship? Was there anything between you and the ship, not blocking the view?
As far as I know, DR is exactly the claim that they know what initiated the causal chain. In our example, they claim that they know the Sun initiated the causal chain. That is why it is not a “sane theory of perception.”
From IEP - Objects of perception
=================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Totally agree.
===============
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
For the IR, perception is not inference. First there is perception and later there can be inferences made about this perception.
Suppose I regularly perceive a yellow circle. Using my reason I can then infer using best explanation that my regularity of perception was caused by a regularity in the world. For convenience, yellow circles can be named “Sun”, though it could be named anything. The word “Sun” then refers to not only i) perceived yellow circles but also ii) an unknown regularity in the world causing such perceptions.
I don’t see where any regress comes in.
Which means what?
1. John feels hot[sub]1[/sub] in the water
2. The water is hot[sub]2[/sub]
Are you saying that "hot[sub]1[/sub]" does not refer to the sensation John feels in the water?
Are you saying that "hot[sub]1[/sub]" and "hot[sub]2[/sub]" do not mean the same thing? If so, then what does "hot[sub]2[/sub]" mean? We've already established that being hot[sub]2[/sub] is distinct from being of a certain temperature — given that John and Jane "disagree" over whether 37°C water is hot[sub]2[/sub] or cold[sub]2[/sub] — so what other property does the word "hot[sub]2[/sub]" refer to, i.e what does the neutral third-party scientist have to look for to either verify or falsify John and Jane's "conflicting" claims?
When the IR says “I see the ship indirectly” the word “indirectly” is not referring to the space between the person and the ship but rather is referring to what is happening in the mind of the IR.
I don't have a problem with your using the modifier "real" to describe certain voices and "fake" other voices, but those words, like all others, gain their meaning through use, not by imposing some special metaphysical status to it. That is, if I speak falsetto, you can say that is not my "real" voice. If you want to say that my real voice is what you hear when we're next to each other talking, but a recording of my voice isn't my real voice, that's fine. But none of that suggests there is this metaphysically true voice that can be meaningfully (and by "meaningfully" I mean that can be identified and discussed coherently) identfied.
Identifying that "real" voice is impossible. Is it the vibrations, the way you hear it, the way your ear drum vibrates? Is it still "real" if through helium?
I’m not introducing “hot?” and “hot?,” nor am I saying that “hot” has two meanings. The word “hot” has a single, public, evaluative meaning. Sensations play an evidential role in its application, but they do not fix its reference.
When we say “It feels hot, but it isn’t,” we are not distinguishing two senses of “hot.” We are saying that the usual evidential route to applying the concept—how it feels—is defeated in this case by other considerations (context, comparison, purpose, measurement). That’s why the statement is coherent.
The neutral third party does not look for a hidden property called “hot?.” They look at the network of public criteria that govern correct application: temperature, exposure, human responses, safety norms, and practical context. That’s exactly why agreement on temperature does not settle whether something is hot, and why disagreement about whether it is hot is real rather than fictional.
The sentence “John feels hot” is a true description of John and the sensation he is feeling, and contrasts with the false description “John feels cold”. The word “hot” obviously refers to the sensation John has and the word “cold” obviously refers to the sensation he doesn’t have, which is why the former sentence is true and the latter sentence is false (and regardless of what the rest of the world believes about John).
If you can’t agree with this then once again we’ve reached an impasse, because your continued appeal to “no it’s about norms of public assessment etc.” is utterly unconvincing.
I can understand theism and moral realism and even direct realism - even though I disagree with them - but I cannot understand this approach that you and Banno are taking. It just seems so patently absurd.
This seems the crux of the problem, where cause is summoned to determine meaning. Cause can be admitted without attaching it to meaning.
No. Direct realism says: "the object perceived is the mind-external object itself, not an intermediary". It does not say: "perception includes knowledge that the object caused the perception". That is an extra thesis you keep tacking on.
Quoting RussellA
But this doesn’t solve the problem; it relabels it. The question is not about how we name things. The question is about how our judgments are constrained by the world rather than free-floating regularities in experience. Naming does no epistemic work unless perception already puts us in touch with something that can make judgments true or false. Otherwise, the “unknown regularity” is doing all the work with no epistemic access—which collapses into skepticism or instrumentalism.
Quoting RussellA
You seem to be arguing something like:
But the regress is not about when inference happens. It’s about what grounds reference and justification.
The inference to a “regularity in the world” must be answerable to something. That “something” cannot be the inferred regularity itself, or the bare perceptual appearances alone (since those are compatible with many worlds).
So the inference presupposes that perception already places you in epistemic contact with the world in a non-inferential way, but that is exactly what Direct Realism claims.
So IR does not eliminate the regress; it pushes it back a step and then quietly assumes the very contact it officially denies.
Yes—exactly. Admitting a causal role for sensation doesn’t entail that sensation fixes meaning or reference. Confusing those two is what generates the illusion that disagreement must be fictional if experiences differ.
I agree with you that “John feels hot” is true when John has a certain sensation and that “John feels cold” is false in that case. I don't deny that. What I deny is that this shows that the word “hot” refers to a sensation, rather than that sensations make certain uses of the word “hot” true. Conflating those two is exactly the point at issue.
You are repeatedly sliding from the claim that sensations make certain reports true to the claim that sensations fix the meaning or reference of the predicates used in those reports. That inference is exactly what’s in dispute. Truth-makers are not meanings.
On my view, sensations play a causal and evidential role in our use of evaluative predicates, but meaning is fixed by public, world-directed norms of application. Simply restating that sensations are involved does not address that distinction—it assumes it away. If you reject that distinction, then yes, we’ve reached bedrock disagreement.
The sensation he has makes the use of the word “hot” true because it refers to the sensation he has, and the sensation he has makes the use of the word “cold” false because it refers to the sensation he doesn’t have.
It certainly has nothing to do with “public norms of assessment” because John can feel hot even if everyone else believes he feels cold.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I’ve never used the word “fix”. I’ve only ever said that words like “red” and “pain” and “cold” refer to sensations, just as I say that the word “Michael” (as has been often used in this discussion) refers to me. Am I saying that I “fix” the reference of the word “Michael”? I don’t even know what that means if it means something other than that the word “Michael” refers to me.
Once the image you saw enters into your mind, shouldn't you then consult neurology or brain science in order to find out what is happening with the perceived image in your mind, rather than calling it Indirect Realism?
This nails your mistake exactly.
1. John says "I feel hot" because John is hot
is not equivalent to
2. John says 'I feel hot' means John is hot.
I feel hot because I have a fever <> "I feel hot" means I have a fever
I feel hot because I have a sensation of heat within me <> "I feel hot" means I have a sensation of heat within me.
Note the quotes to make clear I'm referring to the grammar of the sentence.
How could we know we've used the sentence "I feel hot" correctly if we have to rely upon an invisible private state?
has put his finger exactly on the issue.
The fact that a sensation makes a sentence true does not show that the words in that sentence refer to the sensation. That inference is precisely what I deny.
“I feel hot” can be true because of a sensation without “hot” meaning or referring to that sensation. Otherwise we could not distinguish truth from correctness, could not explain learning or misuse, and could not make sense of disagreement or error.
I’m not asserting (2). I’m asserting (1) and that the word “hot” in John’s utterance “I feel hot” refers to the sensation he feels.
Quoting Hanover
My private state isn’t invisible to me. I am intimately familiar with the sensations of feeling hot and cold. I can recognize and name which one I am feeling in any given environment — and even if I’m alone.
DR says that they directly perceive the Sun
If the DR says that they directly perceive the Sun, then it logically follows that it is their belief that the Sun caused their perception.
If the DR directly perceives the Sun, but it is the Moon that caused their perception, then this is one argument the IR makes against DR. The illusion argument.
This is not an extra thesis I keep adding on. It is a logical consequence of what the DR believes.
==========================================================================Quoting Esse Quam Videri
The IR avoids scepticism about an external world using inference to the best explanation.
=====================================================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Yes, from a regularity in perception one can infer that there is a regularity in the world causing such regularities in perception. The inference that there is a regularity in the world causing regularities in perception is answerable to regularities in perception.
It is not necessary to be in epistemic contact with the world in a non-inferential way in order to make inferences about the world. That is why they are inferences. If one was in epistemic contact with the world in a non-inferential way then it would not be necessary to make inferences about the world, as you would already know about the world.
A person regularly perceives yellow circles.
Person A infers that their regularity of perception was caused by a regularity in the world.
Person A infers that their regularity of perception was caused by random events in the world.
Person C infers that their regularity of perception was caused by a God in the world.
Person D infers that their regularity of perception was caused by hallucinations.
We can then use reason to narrow these down to the best explanation.
All these inferences are answerable to something, a regularity of perception, and none involve any regress.
If I inferred from my inference then that would be a regress. In other words, if I inferred from my inference that my regularities of perception are caused by regularities in the world that there are regularities in the world, then that would be a regress.
I don’t think that neurologists or brain scientists can currently observe thoughts in the mind.
At the moment it is up to philosophy.
The step you keep taking is from:
to
That step simply does not follow. Direct Realism requires causal dependence as a metaphysical condition of perception, not causal knowledge as part of perceptual content.
This is precisely why illusions are possible: one can perceive as of the Sun without knowing what actually caused the perception. So the illusion argument does not show that DR is committed to knowing causal initiation; it presupposes the opposite.
On inference: I’m not denying that we can infer from regularities in perception. I’m pointing out that inference to the best explanation presupposes some non-inferential constraint by the world in order for explanations to be better or worse at all. Otherwise, the regularities you cite are equally compatible with indefinitely many hypotheses. The regress is not inference-from-inference, but inference with no account of how perceptual appearances are answerable to the world in the first place.
Philosophy is largely about semantics and logic. It doesn't deal with the cells, neurons and brain chemistry how it works with the entered images into it, does it? These are the subject for Neurology and brain science.
I know, and (1) doesn't have the word "mean" in it, and I was trying to figure out what words meant, not what caused certain things.
Quoting Michael
And that's the problem. You're talking about your private langauge by reference to things I have no exposure to. I'm not questioning whether you can introspect. I'm saying your introspection can't ground meaning.
Nicely stated.
Quoting Hanover
I'm talking about reference. The word "headache" refers to the sensation we tend to feel after a heavy night of drinking, the word "cold" refers to the sensation we tend to feel in low temperatures, the word "hot" refers to the sensation we tend to feel in high temperatures, and the word "pain" refers to the sensation we tend to feel if stabbed. This is so obvious that I don't get why there is so much objection. It's really not difficult to understand. You don't need to have access to another person's first-person phenomenal experiences to accept this. It's common sense, and in this case common sense is correct.
Sensations exist, and our words can refer to them — with the word "sensations" being the most obvious.
Philosophy is also about the brain and how it relates to the mind.
Alright, 25 pages in and there's no question we both know what one another are saying. You are talking about reference.
Do you acknowledge that I can speak with you fully coherently by relying entirely upon the usage of the terms without having any idea what the consitution of the internal referent is? That is, can I understand "red" without reference to the referent, but instead just to usage?
I'm not clear on what your objection is. Is it (1) you don't think "meaning as use" works because if we rely upon use entirely , we'll be hopelessly confused or (2) you acknowledge "meaning as use" fully works, but it is dishonest and incomplete because it fails to consider the underlying nature of reality.
which is all in the realm of inference. There is no conclusive objective details of proof or demonstration how physical brain relates to the mind yet.
My objection is to your objection to my claim that the words "red", "pain", "cold", etc. refer to the phenomenal character of first-person experiences.
Quoting Hanover
You can speak about it, but you might not understand it. A blind person "knows" that strawberries are red, but they don't understand colours in the way that you or I do. A person with CIPA "knows" that being stabbed hurts (other people), but they don't understand pain in the way that you or I do. There is more to the meaning of these words than just their "public use". There is also the sensations they refer to.
I do not say that. I have only said that we are in direct contact with the air or atmosphere. That is the medium through which the soundwaves travel. Direct contact entails no distance, so I’m not sure why anyone would assume I am speaking of direct contact between a perceiver and distant objects.
Step 1 - If I perceive the Sun, and my perception is veridical, there must be a Sun in the world
Step 2 - If a DR perceives a Sun, they know that the Sun caused their perception. If an IR perceives a Sun, they don’t know what caused their perception.
As far as I can see, both 1 and 2 are correct.
=====================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Both the DR and IR require causal dependence as a metaphysical condition of perception, because they both believe in Realism.
=====================================================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
On the one hand, when the DR perceives a Sun they know that the Sun caused their perception, which is why they are DR’s. On the other hand, the DR accepts that when they perceive a Sun it may be an illusion. DR seems to be a contradictory position to hold.
It is the IR who accepts that what we perceive may not be veridical.
=====================================================
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
I regularly perceive a yellow circle. I can infer infinite possible causes, such as an illusion, hallucination, God in the world, Sun in the world, Moon in the world, mind in a vat, etc.
Why choose one possibility rather than another. What constrains one’s choice?
The constraint comes from other perceptions, such that there is a logical coherence in all my perceptions. Perceptual appearances are answerable to the establishment of a coherent set of perceptions from which a logical world can be inferred using reason to the best explanation.
:100:
If humans don’t see light why do we have lightbulbs?
It’s interesting stuff, sure, but it is not sufficient to give me pause because humans have looked in the brain and have seen no images or anything that constructs images.
Moreover, I do not rely on first person accounts to explain mental phenomena, including my own, because that view is inherently limited. If I’m having hallucinations I’m going to get a second opinion. I’m going to get someone to look in there and trust that he has a better grasp than I do.
While you and Michael claim there is the proverbial veil blocking us from direct access to the world, I say that the veil blocks your access to the goings on of your own brain. I say this for the simple reason that the senses point outward. I cannot even see my own ears, let alone what is occurring inside my head. All I can do with such a limited view of “mental phenomena” is to try to make sense of the fleeting feelings given to the closest sense receptors, and those are often unreliable. Again, this is why we have sophisticated imaging contraptions, specialized doctors, and brains in jars: so that we can better understand what is occurring in there.
So I believe you guys are the naive realists, not only for claiming there exists things in the head that cannot be proven to exist, but because you believe you have a superior epistemological grasp of what is occurring behind your senses rather than in front of them.
That's not my argument. My argument is that I don't know anything about your beetle and I don't speak about it. It's entirely agnositc as it relates to your first person experience and what it might be. Quoting Michael
Well, of course. I might not understand anything you say because it's as impossible to know what your beetle looks like or for you to know what mines does. Do I know what you mean when you say "red"? Sure, based upon the way it is used. Do I have any ability to see your red and compare it to mine? Of course not.
But this is beside the main point I'm making here. If we can all communicate as well as we do without reference to the phenomenal state, it drops out as an irrelevant epiphenomenon of meaning. That is, if we say that meaning is fully derivable by usage and public correction and I agree with you that for each and every usage there is a private referent that also fully provides meaning for that term, then what follows is that we can derive the meaning from either of the two independently. Since that follows, and the private referent is a hidden and inaccessible entity that cannot be shown or known to the person receiving the communication, then if we wish to derive meaning, we must turn to usage.
P1. Headaches are private sensations
P2. The word "headaches" refers to headaches
C1. Therefore, the word "headaches" refers to private sensations
I don't know if you're trying to argue that P1 and/or P2 is false, or that C1 doesn't follow, but nothing you've said has convinced me that this argument isn't sound.
Phenomenal states just aren't irrelevant. There is more to colours and pain than the public use of the words "colours" and "pain"; there is also the phenomenal states that the blind and those with CIPA don't have and that we do.
You probably have quite a bit of confidence in your ability to read routine motivations without any episodes of language use.
On reflection, you may be skeptical about this reading ability, but "use" or successful social interactions don't really confirm anything for you. You're doing some special pleading in that you respect beetle skepticism, but ignore the larger looming skepticism that threatens everything you think you know.
In other words, how do you know what other people feel? The same way you know anything.
I do get the impression you both feel that scientific discoveries demand that we should accept the metaphysical picture that indirect realism seems to draw. However, I have attempted to show science gives little to no support to such a philosophical theory. As indirect realism retreats into private first person experiences, science needs to find consensus in the public realm. Much of the foundation of science starts with basic human agreement. We start to learn color concepts not by private introspection, but by being presented with color standards, community reinforcement of color language, and general consistency in color judgement. If we don't have this general harmony, the whole language game of colors may have never gotten off the ground for us to create alternate descriptions of color like the use of wavelengths. Additionally, I attempted to present a picture of science where we may want to use the word "direct" if we view perception as a biological processes like hydration, digestion, and respiration. If hydration directly processes H2O, why can't we say perception directly processes light?
I like to present one more argument that science does not support indirect realism. In fact it actually ignores it all of the time. Science does not treat observables as private introspection mental phenomena but as public, stable, and law governed. Science manipulates and predicts these observables and does not consider them mental accidents. Hallucinations do not come into play if scientific outcomes result in variance. Others considerations are given weight like, measurement error, experimental set-up, statistics, and theoretical framing. Mental phenomena, like hallucinations, serve no global explanatory role and methodologically irrelevant. You might say, we should keep "realism" and drop "direct/indirect" and understand we are causally embedded biological organisms whose process of perception supports interventions, coordinations, and manipulations of our environment.
To repeat an earlier quote from A Problem with Color:
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
We differentiate quite simply between the bath being hot and it's feeling hot.
We might add that it sometimes makes sense to say that the water is cold but feels hot - when you have been out in the snow, perhaps, or due to erythromelalgia.
If @Michael's view were accepted, such that "hot" refers only to the sensation and not the water temperate, then this would not be possible. For him, if the water feels hot, "hot" refers to a sensation, and not to a fact about the water. So for him if the water feels cold, it is cold. And this is so regardless of wha the thermometer shows.
So he could have water at 5? and it still be true that the water is hot, because "hot" refers to a sensation, not a temperature.
Now this might even be consistent, at least with itself, and might explain why Michael is so enamoured with this view. Except that it is not how we do talk.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Nor do I. The point here is that "the water is hot" is about the water, not about how the water feels. The re is a difference between "The water is hot" and "The water feels hot" this cannot be made in your account, Michael.
The example neatly shows a natural language differentiation between two locations for the Markov Blanket. The language track two loci, world-side features and subject-side sensations, effortlessly.
Quoting Michael
Michael asks if 37°C is hot or cold. Now if being hot or cold is exactly a sensation, this would be the same as asking "Does 37°C feel hot or does it feel cold?" But it isn't. Therefore the presumption that "hot" refers to a sensation is mistaken.
Yep. @Michael doesn't seperate the epistemically and causal chains. Quoting Michael
Again, "headache" is not like "hot". John and Jane can disagree as to the water being hot, but not as to John having a headache: We get John saying "the water is hot" and Jane saying "no it isn't", but not John saying "I have a headache" and Jane saying "no I don't".
Your analogy misfires. Quoting Michael
This is an interesting move, in that you here allow for a public use as well as reference to sensations. Your previous accounts have insisted that words such as "hot" refer to the sensation alone. That's progress. No one here, so far as I can see, is saying that we do not have sensations. They are pointing out that we can refer to how things are, as well as how things feel: that there is a difference between "The water is hot" and "The water feels hot"; between "The ship looks red" and "The ship is red"; between "That is my wife's voice" and "That sounds like my wife's voice". And that we can talk about how things are as well as about how things appear to us. Indirect realism has to do work in order to explain this, usually by saying we make an inference from the sensation to the fact; but this is nonsense. We certainly do not actively, consciously infer from "That feels hot" to "That is hot", or from "That ship looks red" to "That ship is red". And if it is supposed that the inference is made somewhere beneath consciousness, then we must have a discussion about why we should call it an inference at all. What we feel is the water, what we see is the ship.
So you've moved slightly. Now you must either retreat further and accept world-directed predicates, or
double down and deny ordinary disagreement, authority, and usage.
You keep bringing this quote up. It shows pretty clearly the confusion of the epistemic and the causal accounts that you rely on, ignoring the difference between "It looks red" to "It is red", treating these as if all we ever have is "It looks red" and never "It is red". This is the account given by the "indirect realist", who then supposes that anyone who disagrees with them must think that if it looks red then it is red, and calls these folk "direct realists".
The rest of us see the muddle, and recognise the difference between "It looks red" and "It is red".
There is a great critique by Norman Malcolm of the thought experiment that there could be Martians who have our "sensation of heat" when exposed to cold and our 'sensation of cold' when exposed to heat. He said,
"What sort of behavior on the part of the Martian would justify us attributing to them "sensation of heat and cold' in this sense? Are we to imagine that when they enter a hot room or stand near a hot fire they begin to massage themselves and to put on more clothing? But this would be unsuitable behavior for the Martians. Massaging one's body and donning more clothing is warming because it increases the heat of the body. If the Martians adopted those measure they would show themselves to sensitive to heat as heat, which they are not supposed to be. This description of the Martians would seem to be contradictory. On the one hand, they are not sensitive to heat; on the other hand, they are sensitive to and grateful for the increase of bodily heat produced by putting on more clothing."
He goes on to show the incoherence of the opposite view as well. The ultimate conclusion Malcolm draws is to show the conceptual connection between a sensation and the natural expression of that sensation in behavior. To sever this connection is to cease to employ the concept of sensation.
Another escape from Oxbridge natural language philosophy. Yes, good stuff. The formalisation of this came with Davidson, and then the partial dissolution. Davidson disarmed the metaphysics, but the itch remains.
John sits in water, feels a private sensation, sees the thermometer read 30deg C, and says “I feel hot”. Jane sits in water, feels a private sensation, sees the thermometer read 30deg C, and says “I feel hot”.
It may well be that John feels the same private sensation when sitting in “hot” water that Jane feels when sitting in “cold” water.
No one can know, because no one can know another person’s private sensations.
The Indirect Realist accepts that it may well be that John feels the same private sensation when sitting in “hot” water that Jane feels when sitting in “cold” water.
The Direct Realist has the untenable position that i) John cannot possibly feel the same private sensation when sitting in “hot” water that Jane feels when sitting in “cold” water and ii) John must feel the same private sensation when sitting in “hot” water that Jane feels when sitting in “hot” water.
The word “hot” refers to both i) John’s private sensation and ii) the temperature of the water. The word “hot” does not mean that i) John’s private sensation and ii) the temperature of the water are the same thing.
If just one word refers to private sensations then this argument that you and Hanover keep pushing that meaning is just public use, that private sensations must drop out of consideration because we can't know each other's experiences, etc. is shown to fail. Clearly you understand what the word "headache" means even though it does refer to a private sensation. You might want to argue that colours aren't like headaches, e.g. take the naive colour realist approach, but no deference to Austin or Wittgenstein (or language) suffices to prove this.
Quoting Banno
But people do say "stop exaggerating, it doesn't hurt that much". This idea you have that our everyday way of talking to each other and about the world has bearing on phenomenology or perception or physics or metaphysics just doesn't hold up.
If John and Jane both agree on the water's temperature but disagree as to whether this temperature is hot or cold then what is the actual substance of their disagreement? What does it mean for 37°C to be hot or to be cold? What does it mean for an injection to be painful? The common sense and parsimonious answer is that it concerns how such things feel to us, i.e. the types of first person phenomenal experiences they cause. Any "disagreement" stems from the naive (and mistaken) assumption that there's a "right" way for 37°C water or an injection to feel — or it's faux disagreement that ought not be taken literally; they're just describing how the water and the injection feels to them and acknowledging that they feel different to the other.
Can you give me an instance where use does not suffice to provide meaning?
What is it?
's point was to show that the use of the word "headache" is not like the use of the word "hot". The latter is a world-directed predicate, while the second is an avowal of a condition of a subject. The difference is that while John and Jane can disagree over whether the water is hot, Jane can't intelligibly deny that John has a headache, unless she's challenging John's honesty or sincerity.
But even so, the word "headache" is not an example of "reference to private sensation" in the way you want/need it to be. Semantically the word "headache" is bound up with location, duration, causes, remedies, norms of exaggeration, medical correction, etc.
That's not to deny that private sensation can play a causal or evidential role. The headache causes me to say "I have a headache" and it is evidence [I]for me[/I] that what I say is true. But it does play a constitutive semantic role. The private sensation is not (and cannot be) the referent of the word "headache" because they (being private) cannot be part of what makes it correct to incorrect to apply the word here and now.
If public use + correction + practice are already sufficient to fix reference, then adding private sensation does no semantic work.
It does. There are no headaches without the private sensation.
See above.
Where am i looking?
No one denied this. The issue isn’t whether sensations are involved; it’s whether private sensations are what words mean or refer to.
Again, if public use + correction + practice are already sufficient to fix reference, then adding private sensation does no semantic work.
I'll repeat what I said to Hanover.
P1. Headaches are private sensations
P2. The word "headaches" refers to headaches
C1. Therefore, the word "headaches" refers to private sensations
I don't know if you're trying to argue that P1 and/or P2 is false, or that C1 doesn't follow, but nothing you've said has convinced me that this argument isn't sound.
But really, all this talk about language is irrelevant to the topic of perception. P1 is sufficient to understand what is meant when we say that things like smells and tastes and colours are private sensations.
Just an obvious category mistake at this point, refusing to distinguish ontological cause from grammatical meaning. That a given X owes its existence to Y doesn't implicate Y as the definition of X.
It's about to rain here, and rain means what rain does, without regard to it being caused by a pressure differential. To say this rain is that does not mean rain means that. To conflate meaning with cause at this point seems to ignore all that has been said.
Headache can mean the pain in one's head even while there is no pain in the head. Headache cannot mean the pain in one's foot if it is used to mean pain in one's head.
The word "rain" refers to the water falling from the clouds, and the word "headache" refers to the sensation I feel having to belabour this very obvious truth.
Again, where is this word "means' in your proof?
Where have I ever used the word "means"? You keep bringing it up, despite me repeatedly saying that I am only arguing that the word "headache" refers to a private sensation.
Still in a category mistake. You're not talking about meaning.
Then the disconnect is clear. You are not addressing the claim that meaning is use at all.
You are not offering a theory of meaning. YOu are offering a causal or scientific point about the origins of sensations. No one in this discussion has denied that internal states exist or have causes.
The issue was never whether headaches have an internal basis. The issue was whether appeal to a private sensation contributes anything to meaning. It doesn’t.
So if you’re explicitly disavowing any claim about what words mean, then we’re simply not having the same argument.
Yes, I have explained this so many times now. I am concerned with perception and colours and smells and tastes and headaches. I don't give a damn about language because this isn't a discussion about language. It is you and Banno and others that seem to think that language and Austin and Wittgenstein have any relevance here. You can't refute indirect realism or the claim that colours and smells and tastes and headaches are private sensations by saying "nuh-uh, meaning is use and so words like 'red' and 'pain' can't refer to private sensations". This matter is a matter for physicists and physiologists and neuroscientists and psychologists to resolve, not linguists.
Seems clear.
If people had no private sensations - having a headache, feeling pain, feeling hot, smelling something, seeing something, tasting something, etc - then there would be no public language.
A public language only exists because people have private sensations.
Words, such as "headache", would have no meaning if people had no private sensations, such as headache.
Of course, so what is your thesis here, that philosophy is science? Mine is that science is not philosophy.
Quoting Michael
That's so not the argument. Quoting Michael
That wasn't suggested. It was that whether it's true or not leaves meaning unaffected and so it has no philosophical role.
That our scientific understanding of the world very clearly supports the indirect realist's account of perception over the direct realist's.
Quoting Hanover
That conclusion doesn't follow. If indirect realism is true then indirect realism is true and direct realism is false. Two competing philosophical accounts of perception have been tested, with one shown to be correct and the other incorrect.
P1: accepted
P2: rejected
We must distinguish between what a headache is (a private sensation) and what the word "headache" does in our language. The word "headache" is not used to pick out a private sensation. It is used to pick out a condition people complain of, treat, excuse themselves from work because of, and diagnose. The sensation realizes the headache, but it is not what gives the word "headache" its meaning. How could it? How could something that you've described as being "essentially private" serve as a standard for correct and incorrect use in an essentially public practice (language)?
This is incoherent. If a) headaches are private sensations then b) the word "headaches" in (a) is being used to refer to things which are private sensations — those things being headaches. That's what makes (a) true. If the word "headaches" in (a) is being used to refer to something else (e.g. cats) then (a) would be false.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
That condition being the private sensation that they are experiencing.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
The sensation is the headache.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Why would it be a problem? I don't need to see Genghis Khan for the name "Genghis Khan" to refer to the man who led the Mongols to conquer Asia, so why the insistence that if our experiences are private then our words cannot refer to them? Clearly the phrase "private experiences" does, else you'd have to argue that the phrase "private experiences" is incoherent, and so that there are no such things. It's really not difficult. When I say "I have a headache" the word "headache" is being used to refer to a sensation that I claim to have and when I say "you have a headache" the word "headache" is being used to refer to a sensation that I claim you have (and which I assume is much like mine).
That doesn't follow because it assumes a grammatical theory of direct realism speaks at all to the a scientific view of indirect realism. They operate in seperate categories.
The strawman naive realism isn't argued anywhere. To the extent you've proved indirect realism, it was never challenged. The question was philosophical (or so I thought) as to what statements, like "I see a boat" meant. You're just telling me how retinas bend light.
Which is another thing I have repeatedly argued. The traditional dispute between direct and indirect realism concerns phenomenology. The new semantic direct realism has reappropriated the term "direct perception" to mean something else — something that prima facie does not contradict indirect realism. I haven't been arguing that semantic direct realism is false; I have been arguing that phenomenological direct realism is false and that indirect realism is true.
See all the way back to the first page.
It is you and Banno and others that are using semantic direct realism or something like it to argue that indirect realism is false.
That’s just not true. When someone has severe hypothermia they can get so cold that their blood rushes to the surface in a last ditch effort to warm the body, and they begin to feel hot; so hot, in fact, that they often strip off their clothes. This occurs precisely when their body is losing heat at fatal levels. So it is just a natural phenomenon that someone can feel hot when they are measurably cold.
I have a friend with severe neuropathy in his legs. One time he rested his foot on a heater of some sort and burned his foot. He said he noticed his foot burning only when he could smell his burning flesh. He never felt the sensation of heat but his foot became so hot that it burned.
These types of occurrences are well known and I’m not sure anyone holds the position you claim they do.
The fact that one feels hot when freezing, or not hot when burning, is a sign that something isn’t working in their body and it’s time to seek a doctor. We can understand that the hypothermic man feels “hot” but he is in fact cold. We can understand that a person with neuropathy can feel nothing but is in fact hot. We understand that it is a problem of the perceiver and not the perceived.
The sensation is private, but the associated behaviors (furrowed brow, clutching the head, expressions of distress) are not. These behaviors, like the word 'headache', indicate the private sensation without being it.
Words that refer to private sensations are comprehensible because we all share these (presumably similar) experiences. By linking past experience with another's present behavior, it is possible to understand what headache means. Whereas if someone had never experienced a headache they might never understand what people are complaining about.
Do you agree with this last point? If sensation-words don't refer to private experience, then why does it seem that having the private experience oneself is necessary to understand the word?
There is a difference between truth-makers and referents. Private sensations can act as truth-makers, not referents. Reference does not float free of meaning. In order for something to act as a referent, it must be able to contribute to fixing the correctness conditions of a word's usage. Private sensations cannot fulfill that function. Hence, they cannot act as referents.
Quoting Michael
Proper names like "Genhis Khan" refer via public anchoring mechanisms like historical records, testimony, chains of communication and and shared criteria for re-identification. The word "headache" is not like this. It is not publicly identifiable. There is no independent criterion for checking whether reference succeeded.
Quoting Michael
The phrase "private experience" does not refer by pointing to a private object. It refers by functioning in a public contrast. It's meaning is fixed by how the phrase is used, but not by anyone having access to someone else's experience. Ironically, we can only talk about private experiences because meaning is not fixed by private access.
Quoting Michael
Notice what is doing all of the semantic work here: claiming, assuming, inferring from behavior. None of that is fixed by the sensation itself. Again, an essentially private "entity" can't act as a public standard of correctness.
Because the word "understanding" has more than one sense. Having the experience may be necessary for empathetic or imaginative grasp, but not for semantic competence. The meaning of “headache” is fixed by public criteria; private experience enriches our appreciation of what those criteria track, but it is not what makes the word meaningful.
But in this sense, ChatGPT understands "headache" just as well as we do, at least in the purely verbal domain. But this cannot be the relevant sense in a discussion on direct realism, can it?
There are two things to keep separate here: (1) semantic/linguistic understanding and (2) phenomenal acquaintance. ChatGPT has the former without the latter. This actually proves the point rather nicely that semantic competence does not require phenomenal acquaintance.
You are right that direct realism is not a thesis about semantic competence or linguistic meaning. The reason we got onto this topic is because the indirect realist needs private "entities" (sensations) to do explanatory work as perceptual intermediaries. That commitment raised questions about how such items are individuated and talked about. At some point in the discussion it was stated that sensations do not satisfy public criteria for "objecthood"—re-identifiability, persistence conditions, independent checkability, etc.— and, therefore, are not best understood as "entities" in any robustly ontological sense. Pushback was given and hence the subsequent discussion about meaning and reference.
Point out where I argued indirect realism is false. I've consistently taken an a-metaphysical stance. I've argued it's irrelevant from a perspective of meaning.
And yet, I can talk about my headaches just fine (which is not talk of behaviors, norms, etc). Whereas, ChatGpt simply cannot. ChatGpt can perfectly reproduce the verbalization of someone talking about their headaches. But, it cannot talk about its headaches, because it has none.
If I can talk about my headaches, and ChatGpt cannot, there seems to be something I have that I am talking about, that ChatGpt will always lack. If that something can be discussed, and it is mine alone, this seems enough to talk of this something as an entity, if not a physical "object".
Quite right. To my knowledge no one here denies that we have something ChatGPT lacks. The question is whether this "something" is an "object" or a "mode of access". Humans can have first-person experience that ChatGPT lacks without that experience being a privately identifiable entity. What ChatGPT lacks is subjectivity, not a hidden "object" to refer to.
The idea here is that objects of perception like trucks, people and virtual game-objects satisfy public, normative criteria of ontological objecthood— identity conditions, persistence, affordances, counterfactual structure—that phenomenal qualities do not. Phenomenal qualities are real, vivid and describable, but they are not the objects of perception in the same ontological sense as trucks and people. They are the manner in which an object is given in perception, not what is given. Phenomenal qualities characterize the episode of perceiving (salience, articulation, affective grip, etc.). They are not ingredients added to the world, but dimensions along which world-directed perception is organized.
That something is the your body. After all, it is the only object under discussion in any of these matters.
Rather, It is the nominalization of abstract terms in combination with the grammar that is leading us astray, since we know, just by looking, that when your “head aches” it does not thereby produce an object called a “headache”.
So I fear that the whole effort of indirect realism is to prey on the cognitive error of reification so as to rescue a waning subjectivism and idealism, finally in its death throes.
That we can talk about your headaches doesn't suggest the meaning of "your headaches" is underwritten by those headaches, nor does it mean your head doesn't hurt nor that ChatGpt has an ache in the head it doesn't have.
The very fact I can talk about your headache is proof I am not talking about something available only to you.
Yes they can, they're doing it right here. You're using the term "private sensations" to refer to things that you say can act as truth-makers but can't act as referents. It's incoherent. What exactly do you think "reference" means in this context?
It is available to me directly, and to you, indirectly. To me, it is immediate, to you, it is accessed through discourse and behavior and your own prior experience of headaches.
.
What is this "a-metaphysical stance" other than the stance that metaphysical stances are false? This is a discussion about perception, not meaning, so why bring up Wittgenstein and Austin at all unless you think that their analysis of language proves or disproves either direct or indirect realism?
The indirect realist claims that we only have indirect perception of distal objects, mediated by direct perception of other things like mental phenomena — with things like colour and pain being types of mental phenomena — and you respond by saying such things as "[internal states don't] offer explanatory power". What is this response saying if not that the indirect realist's account of perception is false?
So either you're arguing that indirect realism is false or you're interjecting with a red herring and fabricating a conflict that doesn't exist.
Either way, my position is that "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is" and that "[colors are] a psychological property of our visual experiences when we look at objects and lights, not a physical property of those objects or lights" — as I have made very clear since the first page. If you don't think that either of these claims are false, what are you objecting to?
For me, reference is a normative achievement: a term refers only insofar as its use is governed by standards of correctness within a public practice. Whatever counts as a referent must therefore be capable of fixing such standards. The question, then, is whether private sensations can play that role. My answer is no—private sensations cannot fix standards of correctness in a norm-governed practice, and therefore cannot function as referents.
Quoting Michael
The use of the term "private sensations" in my sentence was an example of mention not reference. For a term to qualify as a "mention" is for it to satisfy the norms that govern the correct usage of that term. However, satisfying those normative requirements does not imply that there is also something in the world that satisfies the additional normative requirements of being a referent. This is what allows us to correctly use terms like "private sensations" without achieving reference.
The meaning if "headache" is not fixed only by some collective for private sensations. It is found in behaviour, avowals, characteristic causes, typical remedies, patterns of use in diagnosis, excuses, and so on. It's not private in the sense that is required.
But further, there's something your account seems not to acknowledge. Your headaches differed markedly from being cold or being red, in that while we can check the truth of what you claim about the latter, yet the claim you have a headache is much the only evidence we have that you do indeed have a headache. The grammar for headaches is quote different to that for looking, touching, smelling.
The argument about “meaning = public use” never claims that words cannot be about inner states. It claims that reference to an inner state cannot be what fixes meaning.
Understanding is displayed in correct use, not in possession of a matching quale. This is demonstrated by the fact that someone who has never had a headache may nevertheless use the term correctly.
"private sensations" is an English term that refers to private sensations.
The first (quoted) use is an example of mention, the second (unquoted) use refers to private sensations. And the above sentence is true.
Much like: "cats" is an English word that refers to cats.
I haven't claimed this. For the umpteenth time, I am only saying that the word "headaches" refers to headaches, and that headaches are a sensation.
First, can you see that the grammar of "headache" and the grammar of "cold" are very different?
But doesn't indirect realism suggest that there is no unmediated account? And therefore truth is going to be relative to life form?
For instance, cats see in conditions humans would call "darkness.". So is the room dark? It depends on what life form you are.
If there is no unmediated account, there's no unmediated truth.
I’ve been explicit about how I’m using “reference,” “mention,” and “referent”—they are components of a semantic theory on which reference is a normative achievement within a public practice. Simply insisting on a thinner, grammatical use of “refers to” doesn’t engage that theory; it just declines it.
But declining it isn’t yet an alternative. The standing issue is still unanswered: how, on your view, can something essentially private function as a standard of correctness within a public practice? Until that role is explained, the appeal to “reference” does no explanatory work.
Yes, and? I'll repeat my previous post, as both the part you quoted and the part you didn't quote are still relevant:
If just one word refers to private sensations then this argument that you and Hanover keep pushing that meaning is just public use, that private sensations must drop out of consideration because we can't know each other's experiences, etc. is shown to fail.
...
But people do say "stop exaggerating, it doesn't hurt that much". This idea you have that our everyday way of talking to each other and about the world has bearing on phenomenology or perception or physics or metaphysics just doesn't hold up.
If John and Jane both agree on the water's temperature but disagree as to whether this temperature is hot or cold then what is the actual substance of their disagreement? What does it mean for 37°C to be hot or to be cold? What does it mean for an injection to be painful? The common sense and parsimonious answer is that it concerns how such things feel to us, i.e. the types of first person phenomenal experiences they cause. Any "disagreement" stems from the naive (and mistaken) assumption that there's a "right" way for 37°C water or an injection to feel — or it's faux disagreement that ought not be taken literally; they're just describing how the water and the injection feels to them and acknowledging that they feel different to the other.
That's because this "thinner, grammatical use" suffices. The word "pain" refers to pain, and pain is a sensation. The word "thoughts" refers to thoughts, and thoughts are private mental phenomena. Nothing justifies making this any more complicated.
Your argument is that the meaning of "headache" is fixed by reference to a sensation. It isn't. If it is 'fixed" at all, its fixed by use. And that use is communal.
No one is claiming:
- No word may refer to a sensation.
What is being claimed is:Esse Quam Videri is. I think Hanover is as well. I thought you were too, but happy to be wrong.
Quoting Banno
No it isn't. I'm getting sick and tired of repeating myself. I am only claiming that the word "headache" refers to a sensation.
I'm not surprised.
If you do not think reference fixes meaning, then you agree with Hanover and I and the objection collapses. If you do think reference fixes meaning, then you are committed to a private-language-style semantics and have to face all the familiar problems — which you have been carefully avoiding.
The reason you keep repeating yourself is that your claim is orthogonal to the debate.
Depends on the claim. Something like "being punched is painful"? Sure. Something like "the Earth's mass is greater than Pluto"? I don't think so.
If “refers to” is exhausted by the grammatical schema “the word ‘X’ refers to X,” then reference does no explanatory work. It cannot distinguish correct from incorrect use, successful from failed reference, or meaningful disagreement from mere verbal repetition. That thin notion is harmless for everyday talk, but it cannot support the ontological conclusions you want to draw about sensations being objects of awareness. If reference is to underwrite those conclusions, it has to be normatively constrained—and that’s exactly what an essentially private item cannot be.
It's not orthogonal.
Here are two propositions:
1. The 37°C water feels cold[sub]1[/sub]
2. The 37°C water is cold[sub]2[/sub]
My claim is that "cold[sub]1[/sub]" refers to a sensation and that if (2) means anything it means the same thing as (1).
If “X is cold?” just means “X causes cold? sensations in me”, then:
That is not how the language works, and it is not how science or ordinary life proceeds.
That is orthogonal to the earlier dispute.
As I keep saying, whether or not perception of distal objects is direct has nothing to do with language. We can quite reasonably ask if plants, non-human animals, human babies, primitive cavemen, or quadriplegic mute hermits have direct perception of their environment. We can even ask if any of these have perception at all, as perception might require the kind of first-person phenomenal experiences that we have but that plants probably don't.
Correct, they measure temperature. A thermometer can't tell you if 37°C water is hot or cold.
Quoting Banno
Correct, unless these people are naive realists and believe there to be a "right" way to feel things, in which case they are also making false claims about the world.
Quoting Banno
For the words "hot" and "cold", yes, but not for "37°C".
Quoting Banno
Yes, it's a fiction.
They don't explain our use of words. That's what I'm saying. If you say that photons bounce off the ship and enter your retina, why would I debate the validity of that in the context of what "ship" means?
And why would I enter into a debate as to what your phenomenal state is or isn't when I have no access to it? How does it help me to track back all the physical and biological processes as physical substance meanders about until it finally provides you a private state I have no ability to know? How does it help me know what ship means from your telling me all the steps that preceed the magic of experience?
And even more important, since I have at my disposal knowledge of the use of the word, and from that I can obtain meaning, why involve myself in your mission? Particularly when you acknowledge reference doesn't impart meaning? You admit your inquiry doesn't tell us what "ship" means.
Suppose you want to know meaning, do you rely on use?
I know I would rely upon an optometrist if I saw double.
The point here is that the person you need to be discussing this with is the neuro-scientist who can better correct all your claims about neural processing and vision, not a philosopher.
This is just to say your argument of indirect realism is orthogonal to the question of meaning, which is why I needn't comment on its validity, and why you're incorrect to assume I've rejected explicitly or implicitly your metaphysical claims. I've said all along, yours is a category error, and I'm being consistent to avoid engaging in it too.
I agree that perception doesn’t depend on language. But our theory of perception does. And the question I’m pressing is whether your theory commits you to entities—private sensations as objects of awareness—that lack intelligible criteria of objecthood.
The moment we claim that perception involves “objects of awareness” or phenomenal intermediaries, we are making an ontological claim, and those claims are accountable to criteria of objecthood and individuation. My appeal to semantic normativity isn’t meant to explain perception; it’s meant to constrain what kinds of entities a theory of perception can coherently posit.
Again, this is exactly what I have repeatedly argued; on the first page quoting the Wikipedia article on direct and indirect realism which says "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is"; here where I reference the SEP article on what science tells us about colour; and here responding to you, saying "I said that empirical study trumps armchair theorising, i.e. that if the two are ever in conflict then we ought accept the results of empirical study over the results of armchair theorising".
You are making an ontological claim when you accept that headaches are mental phenomena. Yet you then say that the word "headaches" does not refer to these mental phenomena. Your own reasoning has drawn a clear distinction between a theory of meaning (or reference) and a theory of ontology.
So you can go on and on about how words like "headaches" and "colours" and "whatevers" cannot refer to mental phenomena; by your own account it would be invalid to then conclude that headaches and colours and whatevers are not mental phenomena.
As soon I stop quoting words you're left with no ammunition. You say that the word "red" doesn't refer to a mental phenomenon? Fine; red is still a mental phenomenon. It sounds ridiculous but it's a ridiculousness of your own making.
My appeal to reference is meant to constrain theoretical reification, not to deny phenomenology. A theory that treats mental phenomena as objects has to make sense of their individuation and explanatory role. Pointing out that such items cannot function as objects or referents doesn’t show they aren’t real; it shows they aren’t the kind of things certain theories want them to be.
I think you're reading too much into it. The word "pain" refers to pain, pain is a mental phenomenon, and if I perceive pain then pain is the object of perception. There's no need to think of objects or referents as being anything more complicated than this — and this suffices for indirect realism (although strictly speaking the first part of the sentence is irrelevant). You're welcome to understand objects and referents in another way, but unless you can show that indirect realists mean it in this other way then your objections are guilty of equivocation.
I agree that one can use “object of perception” in a thin, grammatical sense: whatever fills the X-slot in “I perceive X.” On that usage, one can say “I perceive pain,” and nothing I’ve said denies that.
But if “object” is understood that thinly, then indirect realism ceases to be a substantive thesis about the structure of perception. Historically, indirect realism was meant to posit intermediary items that explain illusion, hallucination, and perceptual error by standing in for distal objects. That requires a thicker notion of objecthood—something with an explanatory role and some criteria of individuation.
My argument is conditional: if indirect realism is meant to be more than a verbal redescription of experience, then it owes an account of such intermediaries. If it isn’t meant to be more than that, then the disagreement with direct realism largely evaporates.
If “hot”, “cold”, “painful”, “harmful”, etc. were mere fictions, then safety thresholds, medical advice, engineering tolerances and so on would all lose their point. Science would be answering questions no one had.
That John and Jane disagree as to the temperature of the bath is not a fiction; it's something to be explained. This is lost in your account.
We have on the one hand: Science refines and explains ordinary concepts; meaning is fixed by public use; sensations play a role without grounding semantics.
And on the other: Ordinary predicates are systematically mistaken; disagreement is illusory; language misrepresents reality; only physical descriptions are real.
Now I think this latter view is plainly impoverished.
Definitely. It's not unusual that a person with a temperature of 103 F will ask for a blanket because they feel cold.
It might be said that they feel cold even though they aren't. But this is not to say they're experiencing an illusion. They really do feel cold. This is an excellent moment to see how words take on meaning in context.
Another interesting point is how this comes to light only when there is a disagreement. If John and Jenny had agreed that the water was just right, that's an end to the discussion. And what this shows is the opposite of what Michael is suggesting: that all there is to hot and cold is the sensation.
Right, but when the feverish person says "I'm cold.". I don't tell her she's wrong. I believe she's telling the truth. The content of experience isn't private in the Wittgenstein sense.
It isn't? Can anyone other say how cold the feverish person is?
They say they feel cold. I understand what they're saying. What else is needed?
A doctor will attempt to relate "I'm cold" to their Wittgensteinian meaning by asking "on a scale of 1 to 10 how cold do you feel?" That number is only on a relational scale, but it is still meaningful assuming the patient was sincere (which is not a given).
So it's not private. We understand what they're saying.
No, we don't understand either one. There are two distinct notions 'orthogonal' to each other plus a scale measure to create a rough translation from one language-less feeling to a public technical language that can be charted for other doctors to see.
I very explicitly said that John and Jane agree that the bath water is 37°C but disagree as to whether this 37°C water is hot or cold.
You seem to be intentionally engaging with a strawman.
I think you're equating indirect realism with the sense-datum theory. As I said before, there are two distinct claims:
1. We only have indirect perception of distal objects
2. We have direct perception only of mental phenomena
The sense-datum theory may treat the mental phenomena in (2) as being objects in the substantial sense that you mean, but it does not follow that if they're not then (1) and (2) are false.
My take is that (1) is true because distal objects and their properties are not "directly present" in the character of first person experience, of the kind that would entail that if some distal object appears blue then it "really is" blue in the naive realist sense, and that (2) is true in the thin sense that I am aware of the character of my first person experience — including its features of pain and pleasure and colour and shape and smell and taste — and that being aware of this is the means by which I have indirect perception of their causes; they are also the things I am aware of when I dream and hallucinate, with dreams occurring when I'm asleep and hallucinations (caused by drugs or illness) lacking the "appropriate" stimuli.
Regardless, no deference to language or Austin or Wittgenstein is going to resolve this dispute. It's a matter for physicists and physiologists and neuroscientists and psychologists; and I think it's clear that "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is".
You don't understand what a person is telling you if they say they're cold? Odd.
I'm not sure why this is the question. Suppose we conclude that phenomenal experience is a mode of access. What is changed?
I look at a stone. I am aware of the stone, and I am aware of the visual experience of looking at the stone. Either awareness can be discussed. Ontologically the two are clearly different.
The indirect realist would then claim that the awareness of the visual experience is prior to the awareness of the stone. That awareness of the stone occurs secondarily, by way of, awareness of the visual experience . Is this move invalidated if the visual experience is deemed a mode of access?
Once “mental phenomena” in (2) are understood thinly—as features of experience rather than objects in their own right—then (2) becomes perfectly compatible with direct realism, and it no longer does the work needed to support (1). To get (1), one needs the further premise that only phenomenally present items can be directly perceived. That premise isn’t delivered by science; it’s a philosophical assumption that, so far, has not been successfully argued for.
There have been many appeals to science in this discussion, but the philosophical question at issue is underdetermined by the science. Such appeals will never decide the issue since both sides fully accept it.
It is odd from an everyday ordinary language (an other 'orthogonal') perspective to say that I don't know what you mean by cold. Actually I do understand from recalled personal experience of sitting on the peak of bald mountain mid-January night star gazing trying to avoid frost bite. That was cold.
But that content of the sensation of cold remains forever private. You can repeat what I said, but you cannot know how cold I felt.
Ordinary language is as broad and vague and ambiguous as is necessary to adopt it to a specific situational common context of discourse at that time and place. That context might or might not be reproducible for ostensible purposes. All red apples are red enough, but words for sheep clouds or a gorgeous sunrise do not convey the picture.
1) The stimulus-response conditioning of a particular individual, which fully explains that particular individual's verbal behaviour; he is indeed referring to a beetle in a box that only he can see.
2) An inter-subjective protocol for coordinating verbal behavior, where the correctness criteria defining the protocol is invariant with respect to every speaker's stimulus-conditioning, and so has no conception of beetles in boxes.
Hence if we say "In Michael's opinion, the water is cold", it would be a grave but popular philosophical misconception to think of this "opinion" as referring to a belief-state of Michael's in relation to a universally accessible truth; for every speaker can only accesses their private truth conditions and nobody elses, as determined by their personal and bespoke mental conditioning.
So instead, we should think of the above sentence as distinguishing Michael's stimulus-response conditioning from the rules of the protocol.
However, we might in accordance with our use of the protocol, decide "Michael is wrong, for the water is actually hot". In which case, we aren't talking about an epistemic error on behalf of Michael in the absolute sense of Michael having a false belief state in relation to a universal truth, rather we are simply referring to Michael's remarks being in violation of the rules of our protocol:
For if we accept that Michael's verbal behaviour is the causal expression of Michael's stimulus-response conditioning, then Michael cannot be literally intepreted as having a false belief in relation to a universal truth. All that we can allege when alleging epistemic errors, is that a person's verbal behaviour was in violation of our lovely communication protocol.
Yes, I think it is. Treating phenomenal experience as a mode of access invalidates the priority claim because it disqualifies it from playing the intermediary role that indirect realism requires it to play.
In order for indirect realism to go through it must posit something that can:
A "mode of presentation" cannot do that job. To say that phenomenal experience is a mode of presentation is to say that it characterizes the presentation of something else. This makes it derivative, non-intermediary and non-inferential.
Is there an example you can give of this kind of "mode of presentation"? A TV is a "mode of presentation" of something else. Yet it also fulfills all the criteria for indirect realism you outlined.
A TV is not a mode of presentation in the sense I mean; it’s a mediating object. It has identity conditions, can be attended to independently of what it displays, and literally interposes itself between viewer and distal events. This is exactly the kind of ontological intermediary that indirect realism posits, and that direct realism rejects.
A phenomenological mode of presentation is different. It doesn’t add an object or act as a stand-in; it characterizes how an object is present. Seeing something as blurry or sharp, red or orange, looming or distant are not things you perceive first and then infer the object from. They are ways the object is given—features of the perceptual episode that can be thematized only upon reflection, not items that perception is directed at per se.
Might you be confusing the phenomenological impression of immediacy with actual immediacy?
For instance, consider an angry person. Their jaw is clenched, their brow furrowed, their face is reddened, their speech is loud and clipped. When a (neurotypical) observer sees an angry person, they don't think to themselves, "Hmm, these facial features, this tone of voice, is signaling anger to me". Rather, the anger appears immediate. Only on introspection can the observer articulate how they apprehended anger. But, this does nothing to disprove the ontologically indirect relationship between the observer and the anger. The observer apprehends anger only through apprehension of physiological cues, whether or not this apprehension is consciously visible to the observer.
I agree that there may be unconscious cue-integration or subpersonal inference involved in perceiving someone as angry. But that doesn’t establish ontological mediation. An inferential process does not by itself introduce an intermediary object of awareness; at least, not in the way required by indirect realism. The cues are not things I am aware of instead of the person; they are constitutive of how the person is perceived. So even if the perception is inferentially structured, it is still world-directed rather than mediated by an intervening object. Indirect realism needs more than hidden inference; it needs an ontological intermediary, and nothing like that has been shown.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Why not? If there is an inferential process, there must be something upon which the inference is made. The precise characterization of the ontological status of phenomenology is difficult to resolve. But does indirect realism need to make this characterization? I say it only needs to claim that phenomenology has ontology, distinct from the distal object it stands in relationship to. And, that it can be attended to, distinctly from attendance to the object.
I do think this is a dis-analogy, but I agree that someone can press it to its logical conclusion if they’re willing to accept the consequences. My point isn’t that no coherent position can be built on top of that assumption, but that adopting it involves a substantive philosophical commitment—namely, treating perception itself as evidential and inferential in the same way we treat our access to other minds. That move isn’t forced on us by the phenomena or by science; it’s an optional interpretation with significant costs. My claim is only that indirect realism requires taking on that commitment, not that it’s internally inconsistent.
Quoting hypericin
I agree that if there is inference, there must be something the inference operates on. What I deny is that whatever plays that subpersonal or experiential role thereby functions as an epistemic intermediary. Indirect realism requires more than ontological distinctness and reflective attendability; it requires that phenomenology be what perception is of in the first instance, and that access to the world be achieved by way of it.
My objection isn’t that phenomenology lacks ontology or structure—it’s that treating it as an intermediary rather than a mode of access is a substantive philosophical claim that needs justification. Simply asserting that inference operates on phenomenology does not yet establish indirect perception unless phenomenology is shown to occupy that mediating role rather than merely implementing perception.
No straw man - I was questioning why the topic came up... it is the fact of their disagreement that is salient.
You appear to have stoped addressing the actual material before you.
Lets examine the case of ambiguous sensory input.
You are in a friend's apartment while she is away. You hear wind chimes. You are puzzled, the apartment is on the 10th floor. Could that be her phone? No, she wouldn't leave it behind. Ah, it must be her door bell. You open the door, and indeed someone is waiting.
Do you agree that in this case:
* The phenomenology, the sound of wind chimes, is ontologically distinct from the distal object, the doorbell.
* Awareness of the phenomenology is distinct from, and prior to, awareness of the distal object.
* Awareness of the distal object occurs through awareness of the phenomenology, by way of inference.
The thing that makes this discussion so difficult is that both parties accept the same underlying causal story, but interpret it in different ways.
Consider the following crude diagram of the situation you described above where D = doorbell, C = causal medium, S = sound, Ch = chiming, I = inference, H = hypothesis and V = verification:
D ? C? ? C? ? … ? C? ? S ? Ch ? I ? H ? V
Basically what this diagram says is that there is a causal chain originating at the doorbell (D), moving through a series of causal mediums (air molecules, sound waves, neural activations, etc.) to the production of a sound (S) that is experienced as a chiming (Ch), after which the agent infers (I) the hypothesis (H) that the doorbell caused the chiming and verifies (V) that hypothesis by opening the door.
I can't speak for everyone here, but I'm guessing pretty much everyone would accept this chain more-or-less as-is. The part where things get messy is in the epistemic interpretation of this chain. We can see this in the way that a direct realist and an indirect realist might answer the following questions:
What is directly perceived?
What is the role of inference (I)?
What is the role of the hypothesis (H)?
What is the role of verification (V)?
What is the epistemic base?
I realize that my answers on behalf of the IR above will likely be seen as a straw man. That isn’t my intention. The goal here is not to put words in anyone’s mouth, but to offer an analysis of why this discussion keeps looping despite broad agreement on the causal story.
I think I explained it quite clearly here:
Quoting Michael
You then responded with the below strawman:
Quoting Banno
That's the definition of "direct perception" as used by traditional direct realists and indirect realists. When they say that "we (don't) have direct perception of ordinary objects" they are saying that "ordinary objects are (not) phenomenally present". This is why these traditional direct realists were naive colour realists.
The epistemological concern was that we can only be justified in believing that the world "really" is as it appears to us if ordinary objects are phenomenally present. If they're not, as indirect realists claim, then the world might be radically different to how it appears. We now know both that ordinary objects are not phenomenally present and that the world is radically different to how it appears, hence indirect realism being the scientific view of perception.
I'm willing to be incorrect, but my understanding of indirect realism is not that visual (or auditory e.t.c.) experience is an illusion per se, but more that it is not the exact same as the object that is experienced. If I perceive a cat on my windowsill then that is a mental event that is completely separate from (although far from necessarily an inaccurate representation of) something real.
Either you believe we literally take images into our heads from the outside, or we have absolutely, 100% without a shadow of a doubt, seen, in the brain, the infrastructure for creating mental images/representations. One of those needs to be true (but this doesn't determine an IR/DR perspective. It just is the two options available based on the fact that we aren't the images we 'see'). It would be helpful to know which you think is the case..
Quoting NOS4A2
I'm not quite sure what work this question is doing? Light provides the eyes with data. Without the light, there is no data. Though, it does seem we can literally see light in the form of photons. Not sure that changes anything - the point is that without photons bouncing off an object, we wouldn't become visually aware of it. If that doesn't give you pause, I guess I feel like you're not sufficiently in touch with the problem. Onward...
Quoting NOS4A2
How would you know you were having an hallucination? How would you know the second opinion was 'accurate' and as against what? Consensus? That's fine, and also what I would do - but it's not supportive of a DR position.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is quite clearly incoherent: If we are veiled from the actions of our brain, we have no possible access to the outside world. We do not see things in our eyes - our eyes literally ships electrical signals to our brain. Without hte brain there is no possible mental image (or whatever you'd like to call it). Eyes (i.e the sense organ) objectively see/present nothing but "code" for lack of a better term. They do not contain or receive images. This much is an empirical truth and not part of the philosophical disagreement - which is why it seems to me you (and others) are not quite coming into contact with the facts prior to trying to determine some epistemic situation (there is a big spanner to this approach, but its not hard to overcome).
Quoting NOS4A2
A clear mistake. Our senses are still our only access to any of this. None of it brings us closer to the objects we study in the epistemic sense. If there's a veil in the sense you want to call it (we don't), then that's present when you look down a microscope or interpret dye results etc..
Quoting NOS4A2
I don't even think you're in touch with the competing view point.
There are no "objects" in the head. That has never been claimed, so let's be clear: The images we see are there, whether or not you claim they are generated by the brain or not. If you're claiming they are not generated by the brain, you have a world of philosophy and neuroscience to battle against and an incredibly uphill battle it is, to explain how it is the apple on my table gets into my head(read: experience, i guess, noting hte empirical facts of perception).
Banno has understood this and made a different, more successful argument. I'd look there.
Quoting Richard B
Not quite, but it gives a default understanding which we would do well to be skeptical of displacing on philosophical grounds imo.
Quoting Richard B
This is an extreme error. Science doesn't 'need' to find anything, whatsoever. It follows a method and 'come what may'. In this case, we now understand that we do not receive images from without, but light which is turned into electrical signals, which go the brain - and then we have work to do. This isn't controversial. The fact that humans have private experiences is a fact, and not one which discussions of perception can do much for. There is no way for me to have your experiences.
Quoting Richard B
Because they are in no way similar processes, physically speaking. Different forms, substances, substrates, organs, results etc... It's a really bad analogy, is the reason this probably was not picked up.
Quoting Richard B
You might, but this would be to entirely miss the point of the question (which i think you're entire point about science does) by completely and utterly ignoring the fact that there is no answer anywhere in this discussion as to where we are to consider factually mediated perception direct or indirect. This is a matter of comparison and "the best we can do, in this particular realm where language is important for stability".
You're not even wrong. And I should stress this more clearly: When practicing science, with other scientists, consensus is king. That says nothing about the state of DR/IR theories. That we have shared perceptions (assuming everyone's system in a given thought experiment works right isn't controversial either). If DR is 'true' (or, the best description) this would be how it happens. If IR is 'true' (or, the best description) then this is how things work.
Neither theory runs against reality. That's why it's such a tense question. I understand the temptation to say what you're saying, but it just doens't touch anything. You're talking about standards and method. The thing Michael and I are, at the least trying to get you guys to deal with properly, is the fact accepted by both camps that there is no possible way for the apple on my desk to be in my head, and it snot possible that my mind is included in the objects it perceives. So there's gap - simple as.
Quoting Hanover
Hmm, I got you. I don't think this is doing a lot, because I can simply say your examples require other modifiers "speaking voice" in the first, or "tessitura" to be more technical.
It seems to me there is nothing missing or hard to grasp (i.e to talk about) in these uses. But i recognize 'use' gives meaning to things - I just, personally, hold that htis is an absolute cop out. If there were truly the way words 'worked' then no words would have shared meanings because anyone's personal use would be valid. But we correct each other. So there is some epistemic primacy to some uses, and I think thats far more widespread and meaningful than a lot do.
What you do call the difference between hearing your wife's 'real' voice when you're two feet away, and a recording from 2022 when you're on another continent?
Quoting Hanover
This is exactly my intuition and experience. I can't understand what you think leads to this ambiguity? Either i'm hearing your voice, or a recording of it (which a phone call technically is). Nothing weird or airy fairy there, to me?
Yes, it's pretty clear. You want to finesse the grammar of cold into cold? and cold?, a contrast which is marked in by differentiating being cold from feeling cold. I would instead draw attention tot he fact of disagreement that makes making the contrast notable.
No straw man, but a different discussion.
That's what is behind my
Quoting Banno
as well as:
Quoting Banno Collapsing cold? and cold? renders "cold" impotent.
That is a glaring misstep. Temperatures do not have 'cold' to refer to. Neither hot, nor warm or any other experientially-bound concept.
I believe neither of your two options. Why do you think we see images, take images into the head, or create images/representations, when neither of the above have been found in any skull in the history of mankind?
Data, code, images. It seems to me you (and others) are just making stuff up because you have yet to tell me what those words refer to, their properties, or describe a single thing about them. If you’re beholden to the facts and I am not, then it should be easy; there are plenty of things in the body you could list that are worthy of those terms. We have fairly comprehensive, anatomically correct diagrams, scans, images of brains, so why won’t you educate me of those facts and point out what the image, the code, and the representation is? If it’s not an object, then what is it?
The images we see are there…where? Grab an image of the brain (a real one and not one generated by your brain), and show us. It should be simple because you claim to already have these so-called facts.
If the cat came to you, and you patted him, then he is real. But if you saw the cat, and it either vanished into nowhere, or became a dragon, then it could be your mental event for illusion. There are different cases of seeing and hearing depending on the circumstances of perception and sensation.
Well, the word 'experience' (or 'perceive', 'aware of' etc) has two different senses. In one sense, there's this mental event that arises in your brain when your sense organs respond to light or sound etc. That's what constitutes an experience. But the experience is also about something, such as the cat that you see or hear. Your brain does not construct the cat, its features, the light rays, or sound waves etc. Your sense organs respond mechanically to the way available light reflects, or the way available sound waves propagate, depending on the physical features of the cat. The cat that you see or hear is the experience in its intentionalistic sense.
Now use the word 'experience' ambiguously between the two different senses, and it might seem as if the cat that you see or hear somehow still depends on your mental event. Indirect realism is the assumption that you never experience the cat, only your own mental representation. It's a fallacy of ambiguity.
Quoting Nichiren-123
The perceiving is a mental event, but the cat is not. You see the cat, not a representation. The question whether your experience is accurate, partly accurate, or inaccurate is therefore dissolved.
A statement like "I feel hot." is about one's own bodily state and the content of sensation. It has nothing to do with the world outside one's own body and mind. There is no truth or falsity value in that type of statement.
If one heard that statement, one can only conclude his/her body is feeling hot. That is all there is to it.
This deflates the traditional claims of indirect realism to the point of triviality. Nothing you've said here is incompatible with a direct realism that acknowledges both that phenomenal qualities are not properties of worldly objects and that perception is casually mediated. Neither of these is sufficient to decide the issue.
This is because the question is not about casual mechanisms or color realism, but about what kind of thing can play the role of the object in acts of perception. Indirect realism requires that a private mental intermediary play this role, whereas the direct realist rejects this as both inadequate and unnecessary. It is inadequate because it can't explain the normativity of perception, and it is unnecessary because worldly objects are perfectly capable of playing this role themselves.
I'm afraid that philosophers are not immune from the temptation to coin descriptions of doctrines they disagree with that have a rhetorical effect on those who believe in them.
Quoting Michael
How do we know that the world is radically different from how it appears? From our senses, that is, from the way the world appears to us.
Quoting jkop
Exactly. The idea that the world is actually different from the way it appears does not come from comparing it with anything, which is impossible.
Quoting Corvus
Well, there is behaviour as well.
Behavior is random and would be too subjective for interpretation. But when Jane says cold, and John says hot, Jane can infer that John's bodily sensation for temperature is different from Jane's, and vice versa. That is all there is to it.
That's odd. That's exactly how I feel about what people say. I would much rather trust how they behave. Actions, as they say, speak louder than words.
If you were in the bathroom where John and Jane were feeling the temperature of the water in the tub, yes their behavior could be part of the interpretation. But how likely is that? :)
Plus, folks don't always show their minds via behavior or actions. They tend to use words. And of course, philosophy deals with words, semantics and logic mostly. Behavior and actions would be more of psychological topic.
This is to misunderstand, entirely, even the fundamental basis for what we're talking. You seem to think you do not have any images of any kind available to you. That's fine. But it means the rest of this conversation is utterly pointless.
... and they don't always show their minds via what they say. Feeling the water and reporting feedback is one thing. Putting on (or taking off) clothes is another. Shivering, sweating. All sorts of clues.
Quoting Corvus
What we say is also behaviour. I don't understand why you regard non-verbal behaviour as outside the scope of philosophy.
Whether they say their minds or not, a statement has clear meanings. Behaviors can have many different interpretations. And even if you interpreted with mos likely reasonable way, they could say, I didn't mean that at all, or how could you possibly imagined that?
Quoting Ludwig V
Too broad claim to be meaningful I am afraid. I am not denying philosophy of action. But just saying it doesn't seem to go well with this thread. :)
Let me provide another example, this one from the biological world. I have read that certain species of snake can detect heat signatures from animals. Biologist have identified a “pit organ” around the eyes that senses infrared radiation. The heat the snake is interested in and detects is the heat emanated from warm bloodied mammals. This is not a private sensations the snake is detecting, it is a property of the mammal. No mental images need to explain what is going on here. So, is the snake a direct or indirect realist when it comes to infrared energy? Do we really need to use either expression?
If neither, cant we do the same with colors and homo sapiens?
Statements do not always have clear meanings and sometime people deliberately mislead us and sometimes we just get it wrong. But not always. The fact that it is possible to get it wrong does not mean that we never get it right, nor does it mean that we cannot correct our mistakes. You are a victim of philosophical scepticism.
Quoting Corvus
I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree, then. I agree that it's a bit on the fringe of this topic.
Quoting Richard B
I like that example. I'm also fond of the case of our balance perception. Sometimes we are aware of sensations from it, but most of the time it works without our perceiving any sensations at all.
Thanks, just a steady diet of many examples.
Statements have explicit meanings, and in most cases it carries truth or falsity value too. Actions don't have these characters I am afraid. All you can do about actions are inferring and imagining what it could have meant. Plus, folks from different cultures and age groups and different backgrounds tend to have different behaviors on the situations. You cannot bring behaviors into analytical discussions because it just won't work.
Quoting Ludwig V
No one is a victim of anything. We are just discussing on these topics speculating and reasoning.
You have all the facts so it should be easy to explain, but you cannot even describe where this images are located, what these images look like, or describe any of their properties. That’s fine. I already knew the answer.
Strictly speaking I didn't do this. I said that a) the word "cold" in "the 37°C water feels cold" refers to a sensation and that b) if "the 37°C water is cold" means anything it means "the 37°C water feels cold".
You haven't offered any compelling reason to believe that either (a) or (b) are false.
I don't know why any of this would make the word "cold" impotent. Is the word "painful" impotent?
It's not trivial in the sense of being obvious. The naive view that ordinary objects are "phenomenally present" and are (usually) exactly as they appear to us (even when unperceived) is how everyday people think of the world, especially children and the uneducated. As Simon Blackburn says, it's the view of "philosophers when they are off-duty".
That our modern understanding of physics, physiology, neuroscience, and psychology so thoroughly refutes naive realism isn't proof that indirect realism must mean something else — it's just proof that indirect realism is right, hence indirect realism being "the scientific view of perception".
As I've suggested before, it's not clear how your non-naive direct realism is incompatible with indirect realism; all I see is that you mean something else by "direct perception" and "object of perception".
It's extremely likely (I will look into it while replying and see if I can glean a good determination) that the "heat" here is not a idealisation. And, as it goes, even your description betrays this: infrared radiation is not what is called 'heat' in every day use. The photons the pit detects slightly warm a membrane within the organ - that is a private sensation which other animals (say., mammals) do not enjoy. It is a private, at least semi-subjective sensation.
A better exampel from biology, which I think runs counter to this, is that my wife and I have very, very different ideas of what 15 degrees celsius means. For me, it's barmy - perhaps even crisp.
For her, it's slightly warm.
We are not detecting anything inherent in the air around us, clearly.
You refuse to give any account whatsoever of how it's possible to see anything. I think perhaps you need to reflect on your way of going about these things. You literally haven't answered a single thing.
In my experience? I don’t see any images, mate. Perhaps I have aphantasia, or whatever it’s called, but I am absolutely ignorant to what you’re talking about. I can see, but my periphery consists only of what lies outside my skull, not inside. For instance I can see my own nose. My nose isn’t in a place called “experience”; it’s on my face. Things and places have locations in space and time, properties, and so on, but you can’t give me a single account of something you confidently assert is there. How is that possible?
So, you keep making claims like this.
What do you call the images (there is literally no better word) of objects you perceive?
This is why I held you to the fire earlier - you only have two options if you do not consider the apply you 'see' as an image: It is either in your mind, or your mind is attached to the object. Appearance cannot occur other ways, askance a mediated perception (which we factually have, so its a tough road, i'll give you that).
You are simply dodging the questions here and its getting tedious. I've asked you directly to answer and you have refused. That is a very loud silence. And its loud because you are entirely ignoring, leapfrogging and pretending you've answered a question you havent even demonstrated an understanding of. Read some of Banno's posts.
OK, That's cool mate, as long as you are not a blind internet info worshiper, or a clueless apostle of guys with the white gown (doctors & medical folks) or someone who calls everyone stupid just because his own life is going bad. I have no time for folks like these, sorry.
If you thought the point with your own reasoning, and came up with your own logical conclusion to disagree with the others points never relying on ad hominem, then you are good to go. :)
I perceive the objects themselves. I don’t perceive images. I don’t know how else I can answer your loaded question.
Everything seems to be the exact opposite of what you claim. I can walk to an object and touch it, confirming its location and distance from my body. I can see and feel that a coffee cup, for instance, isn’t an image. It has a position in space and time, weight, shape, and absolutely zero properties of what you claim is an “image”, something you’re unable or unwilling to describe in the first place.
The images you claim exist and are facts have zero such properties. You cannot make your claims any truer by sheer force of repetition, and all you have left is the most blatant fallacy. You can huff and puff about how all tedious this is but that doesn’t change the fact that you have no argument or evidence.
I'll repeat a thought experiment from earlier in the discussion.
Let's assume that we live in a world in which the air is thick and light has mass and travels at a slow 1m/s. An apple is placed 10m in front of you. After 5 seconds it is disintegrated. After a further 5 seconds the light reaches your eyes and you see an intact apple for 5 seconds.
In those 5 seconds in which you see an intact apple do you have direct perception of the now disintegrated apple? If the apple is now disintegrated then what is the intact apple you see if not an image?
There's simply no way NOS4A2 thinks he's seeing the sun directly without making such an egregious error in almost every relevant domain as to perhaps think he's trolling. I wouldn't be surprised.
You just ignore the question. That's why it's repeated. If you continue to refuse to answer, you will either be pushed to answer, or you will be dismissed. There is some incredible ignorant in these responses, if we're not going to assume you're trolling. So dismissal seems most reasonable to save me time.
:meh:
This part matters, Banno. When you cast your eyes to the Sun, you literally are not seeing the Sun. You're seeing light from the sun which is eight minutes old. Nothing interesting about this, except trying to get around it to say you're directly aware of hte Sun in any given moment. Just stupid.
:meh:
:meh:
I would be seeing the light reflected from the intact apple before I see the light reflected from the disintegrated apple.
In any case we don’t need to believe that a copy, image, or facsimile of the apple exists in the light, because light isn’t a copy of anything. It is its own thing.
We also don’t need to believe that an image of an apple stands between me and the actual apple because there is already plenty of verifiable things and substances that do. It is these things, not images, that mediate our perception of the apple and everything else in our periphery. It is why you have to alter the light and air in your thought experiments. They have properties we can discuss and alter in our imaginations. You can also do it with visors, mirrors, weird glasses, or any other mind-independent thing or substance.
I would much rather know what mind-dependent thing or substance the light or thick air or any other environmental mediator is supposed to represent in these analogies, because that is what the indirect realist proposes he is directly perceiving. What are their properties, their mass, their speed. Give us a thought-experiment about those things, if you wouldn’t mind.
Then let's extend the thought experiment. The apple is disintegrated after 20 seconds.
P1. The direct object of perception cannot be something that doesn’t exist
P2. During the second 10 seconds there is not an intact apple 10m in front of me
C1. Therefore, the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds is not an intact apple 10m in front of me
P3. The direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds is the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds
C2. Therefore, the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds is not an intact apple 10m in front of me
P4. The direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds when the light travels at 1m/s is the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds when the light travels at 5m/s, 10m/s, 100m/s, or 299,792,458m/s
C3. Therefore, the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds when the light travels at 299,792,458m/s is not an intact apple 10m in front of me
So of these three distinct claims we must rule of (1):
1. The direct objects of perception are distal objects
2. The direct objects of perception are proximal stimuli
3. The direct objects of perception are mental phenomena
Your response to my thought experiment is that (2) is true, yet elsewhere you argue that (1) is true. Are you now willing to admit that (1) is false? (2) at least is prima facie consistent with the eliminative materialism you seem to favour.
It's certainly stupid if "direct awareness" is defined as "by introspection" - perceptions that are guaranteed correct, even if they are wrong. But, if all perception is by introspection, how do we ever know that it is wrong?
I have another problem with this. I don't think I see light as such. Surely, light is what enables me to see whatever it is that I see. Compare the role of air when we hear sounds. We don't hear the air; it is what enables us to hear.
Why can't I just say that I see the sun as it was eight minutes ago?
I'm sure you are aware that a similar argument applies to everything that we see (or hear).
Quoting AmadeusD
I expect you mean that what we see is an image of the sun. But an image of the sun is not an entity that exists independently of the sun. It is defined by its relationship to the sun. So I can only know that I'm seeing an image of the sun if I know what the sun looks like. Scrutinizing images will never tell me that.
Quoting NOS4A2
I expect you know that there is no answer to that. These objects go by many names, which have in common that they are not reality, but are defined by their relationship to reality. To get anywhere with this debate, we have to look more closely at these various objects (concepts) and understand how they work, what jobs they do.
Quoting Michael
I agree that the exact time it takes for the light to travel to my eye is not really relevant. But this looks to me like a fancy way of saying that I do not see the apple in front me instantly. It does not follow that I don't see the apple, but something else. Compare how we deal with the time it takes for sound to travel to my ears.
Quoting Michael
Any of these might be acceptable, depending on how "direct" (and "indirect") are defined. Perception is a complicated process, which can be be analyzed in many different ways. A major difficulty is that there is no physical entity - a perception - that is the product of the process.
Do you disagree with C1?
Surely if I see an intact apple 10m in front of me but there is not an intact apple 10m in front of me then the direct object of perception is not an intact apple 10m in front of me?
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, a point I've argued at length with Esse Quam Videri. I think indirect realism is best understand in contrast to the naive realism it disputes. Whereas "semantic" direct realists might mean something else by "direct" I think both naive and indirect realists mean the same thing, and our perception of distal objects is not direct in the way that naive realism says it is.
Quoting Ludwig V
I think there is a perception; it's what exists/occurs when the visual cortex is active in the right kind of way. Although whether this thing is physical or a non-physical emergent phenomenon is the biggest question in the philosophy (and science) of mind.
I have never argued that we can directly perceive an object unless there is contact with the object, for instance touching it or eating it. And I don’t think anyone is disputing that the light reflecting off an apple has to travel to the eye, and so our sight is at the mercy of its speed. This is also true of odor molecules and sound waves, as well. Nonetheless, the light, odor molecules, and soundwaves travel from a specific and unique location in space and time, occupied by a certain object, your apple.
Can any of this be said about the image of the apple? Where is its location? With what sense are we perceiving it? What is its weight? Smell? Taste?
We’ve also shown that these analogies are false because they use mind-independent mediators to represent mind-dependent ones—one can be shown to exist while the other cannot. Are we to believe that some sort of similar process with light and distance and reflection occurs in the mind?
I’d be interested in understanding what ulterior motive lies behind their promotion. What do we stand to lose if we lose these concepts? I suspect it’s something like losing Zeus when we came to better understand the skies.
Subject-as-organism: Nothing inside the organism can mediate between the organism and the world. These interior features are a part of the organism that does the perceiving. Direct realism follows.
Subject-as-conscious-subset: The environment of this subject is an environment provided by the brain. The brain itself, in particular phenomenal states, stand between this subject and the world. Indirect realism follows.
Neither of these perspectives on the subject is intrinsically wrong. Am I the organism, or the conscious agent? They are both valid ways of looking at what counts as the subject. And so neither direct nor indirect realism is intrinsically wrong. If so, the debate will never end until both sides understand this fact.
This brings up an interesting point. There are some questions which are not subject to one definitive answer, call them "Type A" questions. I.e. Is the bag heavy? Which coordinate system should be used? Is the picture of an old or young woman? It is wrong to insist on one answer to Type A questions.
Then there are "Type B" questions, where errors indicate misunderstanding or mismeasurement: How much does the bag weigh? Which coordinate system is being used? Is the picture also of a squirrel? It is wrong to allow for multiple answers to Type B questions.
I suspect direct/indirect realism is a Type A question. But how do we know? In general, how do we know if we are dealing with a Type A or Type B question?
There is a problem from the start here. You think that "the direct object of perception" refers to something. If I've understood you, you don't know what the something is. But I'm not convinced that the phrase does refer to anything. But it seems you are looking for something that it exactly what it seems to be, about which I cannot be wrong. That sounds like introspection of a phenomenal object, so that's how I am interpreting you.
It is clear that if there is not an intact apple in front of me, I am not perceiving or seeing an apple. I think that is true whether we are talking about direct or indirect perception. But it is very tempting to think that even if I am not seeing an apple, if I believe that I am seeing an apple, then I must be seeing something apple-like.
I am a bit confused about this example, so I will propose another case. When I watch the start of a horse-race, I can see the tape go up and hear the starting gun. But, if I am some distance away, I may hear the gun some time after the tape goes up. But I see no problem in saying that I hear it. Similarly, in the case of the sun, I see no problem in saying that I see the sun as it was eight minutes before I saw it. I can't see any problem that is resolved by proposing that an image is involved in the process.
Quoting Michael
This is a bit confusing. Direct and indirect realism are opposites, but linked in that direct and indirect are defined in opposition to each other. So you would have thought that they could agree on what the issue is. But I don't really understand what naive realism is. (Nor do I know what "semantic" direct realists are.) So I doubt that I can say anything much about this. But what is the thing that both naive and indirect realists agree about?
Quoting Michael
You are moving between thinking of a perception as an entity and as a process, which makes this rather hard to understand. I guess everyone agrees that there is a physical process involved, and it is worth noting that when this debate started, with Bishop Berkeley, those processes were more or less completely unknown. I think that the issue here is how we regard the internal processing that goes on.
Quoting NOS4A2
I expect you know about the scene in Shakespeare's play about Macbeth in which he thinks he sees a dagger in front of him and makes a long speech about how guilty he feels about the murders he has committed. It's a hallucination, so he doesn't see a dagger. But yet, we want to say, he must be seeing something dagger-like.
Quoting hypericin
That's very plausible. But I think there is a bit more to be said about how and why the debate arises and why one position or the other is more attractive to adherents.
For sure. Couldn't it just be that we tend to favor one perspective over the other in our daily lives? That one of them is viscerally lived, while the other is more intellectual abstraction? I am an indirect realist. Perhaps as a reflection of introversion, I tend to think of myself as a conscious subset. I am the entity residing behind these eyes. I am these thoughts, I am the self which undergoes sensations and feelings. Only at rare moments do I have a more holistic conception of myself. Maybe I am just unenlightened.
Perhaps those with a more integrated default feeling of selfhood tend towards direct realism. How about you?
There may be some level at which our personality favours one kind of theory over others. Scepticism seems to be a good candidate - a yearning for certainty.
I'm not sure how one would describe the personalities that make for direct or indirect realism. Perhaps indirect realists like a safe distance between themselves and the world?
Quoting hypericin
A few days ago, I would have said I was a direct realist - possible even a naive one. Now, I'm not so sure. It turns out that I don't really know what direct realism is - and consequently I don't know what indirect realism is. I think I may be a survival from the good old days when almost all philosophy was thought to be meaningless nonsense.
I wouldn't have described myself as an integrated person. I spend most of my life muddling through. Perhaps it is not an accident that I like clarity a lot more than I like solutions.
Quoting hypericin
Wittgenstein would certainly agree with that.
In the Blue Book, he is clear that he is looking for a diagnosis of our philosophical temptations, but he seems to see that as a matter of temptations to misunderstand language. He doesn't, so far as I know, ever get into personality types.
While I agree that IR is not incoherent in the sense of entailing a contradiction, I personally wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s equally correct. In my view, the downstream consequences of IR are not merely distasteful but amount to genuine explanatory failures. And those failures matter because they undercut what a theory of perception is supposed to explain in the first place—namely, the normativity of perception, the possibility of error, and the criteria of perceptual objecthood.
Quoting hypericin
It's an interesting question, but I'm skeptical that it can be boiled down in this way. The reason I would resist this framing is that, as a DR, I wouldn't wish to deny or diminish the reality of the subject-as-conscious-subset, provided that this notion is not cashed out in a way that already presupposes an IR answer to the question at issue. If anything, I would argue that the fault-line in the debate runs all the way through how the subject-as-conscious-subset is to be best understood—specifically, whether it must be characterized as an observer standing behind a curtain of phenomenal intermediaries, or as an embodied mode of world-directed access.
As such, I personally don't see this as a Type-A question, because I think that there are some clear explanatory criteria by which each position can be judged.
You previously said "Yes, we directly see the environment. That includes the things in that environment."
You now seem to be saying that we do not have direct visual perception of a distant apple — only direct visual perception of light — and so I assume only indirect visual perception of a distant apple?
Maybe you missed the earlier post. This is the thought experiment:
Let's assume that we live in a world in which the air is thick and light has mass and travels at a slow 1m/s. An apple is placed 10m in front of you at 10:00:00. It is disintegrated at 10:00:20.
I would say that given the speed of the light and the distance of the apple that you see an intact apple for 20 seconds between 10:00:10 and 10:00:30 — even though an intact apple doesn’t exist after 10:00:20.
If you disagree then what do you say you see between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30?
Quoting Ludwig V
See Semantic Direct Realism.
For what it's worth, I would reject this premise as stated. What is directly perceived at one moment need not be numerically identical to what is perceived at another, even if the subject experiences continuity over that interval, since phenomenological continuity does not fix numerical identity of perceptual objects. The fact that residual stimulation or neural persistence continues after the apple disintegrates explains why the experience continues; it does not show that the apple was never the object of perception when it existed.
Likewise, changing the speed of light changes the causal conditions of perception, not its object. Otherwise we would have to say that wearing glasses, anesthesia, or retinal processing changes the object of perception, which seems obviously absurd.
Nothing in this forces the conclusion that we directly perceive proximal stimuli. Causal mediation does not entail perceptual mediation. The argument only succeeds if one assumes that perceptual objects must be invariant across causal descriptions — an assumption I reject. Rejecting that assumption allows us to accept causal mediation and temporal lag without reifying proximal stimuli as perceptual objects.
I think we need to distinguish between "object of perception" and "direct object of perception".
The apple was the object of perception when it existed but not the direct object of perception. Whatever is the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds is also the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds; it's not as if the latter only came into existence or only became the direct object of perception after the apple was disintegrated.
And I should clarify that I didn't mean to suggest "numerical" identity. I mean to say that the type of thing that is the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds is the type of thing that is the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds.
Contextomy is a fallacy where you rip a phrase from its context in an attempt to distort the meaning. You can tell from what I wrote after the phrase quoted that my opinion hasn’t changed. You’re trying to create the illusion that I’m being inconsistent, flip-flopping, all while avoiding any and all questions and criticisms of your own view. This bad faith suggests to me that you’re running out of reasonable options. Amadeus had to do the same thing after not being able to produce the very facts he claimed to be in possession of.
Here is the context of the quote for posterity.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1036606
Given the prevalence of this behavior by the indirect realists, the debate must move on to the question of “Why”? Why do this? What beliefs do you stand to lose with the repudiation of indirect realism?
These are three distinct claims:
1. We have direct visual perception of apples
2. We have direct visual perception of light
3. We have direct visual perception of mental phenomena/qualia/sense data
Even if (2) is true it does not follow that (1) is true and even if (3) is false it does not follow that (1) is true. You clearly believe that (2) is true and that (3) is false; but I'm asking you if (1) is true, and if so to make sense of this without resorting to (2).
Here you say "But the 'distal object' you're actually, directly viewing is the screen and your surroundings", suggesting that you believe that (1) is true but here you say "I have never argued that we can directly perceive an object unless there is contact with the object, for instance touching it or eating it", suggesting that you believe that (1) is false. It's perfectly reasonable for me to be confused and to think you're being inconsistent.
So: is (1) true or false?
We’ve already gone through this weeks ago. But you interjected about your belief in “images” before falling back into bad faith when you were asked to describe their properties.
Is this image in the light or in your brain?
And evidently you refuse to provide a consistent answer, and seemingly conflate (1) and (2). It's a simple question: is (1) true or false? I can't address your questions until I understand what you think "direct perception" means, and to do that I need an answer to this question.
I’ve already shown that I have never have conflated the two. I’ve explained that the directness of perception is the contact between the environment and our senses.
That leaves you with the answer that we directly perceive the light that directly reflects off the apple. If that does not provide enough information we directly pick up the apple, directly feel the apple, directly smell the molecules of the apple, directly taste it, and so on. This is possible because we have direct perception of the environment. But you knew this already.
So would I, except that I would specify that you see the apple placed in front of you. The delay in transmission does not affect this. I don't see what all the fuss is about.
Quoting Michael
This begs the question. One can only distinguish two objects of perception of the same thing if one has already accepted indirect realism.
Quoting Michael
Back when modern science was being invented, a decision was taken to ignore anything that could not be included in mathematical representations. That is not the same as proving that colours don't exist. All it proves is that modern science cannot recognize them.
Just as we hear sounds as being located at the origin of the sound waves, so we see colours as being located on the surface that is reflecting them. That's part of the phenomenal quality. A system that did not give that information would be pretty useless, don't you think?
The bird is reflecting the light waves that we see as red. We see not only the colour, but where the relevant light waves are coming from. The phenomena are not accurately described unless we acknowledge that the bird is red and red is not in our head.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
It is possible to think of the subject as a dis-embodier observer. That happens when we think about the observer in a picture as we are deciphering the perspective in the picture. It's also implicit in the concept of the "point of view" in cinematography. That's the concept that allows this problem to get hold of us. The embodied subject allows us to see perception as part of a system, linked to other activities as part of an internal control system, which cannot sensibly be thought of in the same breath as anything going on outside or beyond or independently of the system. This avoids the temptation to think of perception as a process with a terminus - the "experience". I admit this is all a bit rough-and-ready, but I have little doubt that it is more constructive that trying to establish a direct-indirect distinction in a conceptual vacuum.
But do we directly perceive the apple? Is (1) true or false?
The "fuss" is that between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30 I see an intact red apple 10m in front of me even though there isn't an intact red apple 10m in front of me — because it was disintegrated at 10:00:20.
So what is the direct object of perception between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30? I say that whatever is the direct object of perception between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30 is also the direct object of perception between 10:00:10 and 10:00:20, and that the direct object of perception between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30 isn't the apple because it no longer exists.
Quoting Ludwig V
It doesn't beg the question because it doesn't assume that the apple is not the direct object of perception; it only asserts that something can be the object of perception but not the direct object of perception, e.g. if I'm watching something on CCTV then the thing I'm watching is the object (or "event" if you prefer) of perception but not the direct object of perception. It's important that we don't conflate "object of perception" and "direct object of perception" so as not to equivocate.
Can you "directly perceive" D without knowing you perceive D at all? This seems to strain any notion of directness. The observer knows they perceive Ch. If you ask them what they perceive, they would reply, "a chiming sound, I'm not sure what it is." But they do not know they are perceiving D, a doorbell.
Either, your notion of directness must surmount this disjunction, so that both are directly perceived. If so, you are working with a very different notion of directness than we are. Or, you must deny (as I suspect) that Ch is perceived at all. But, this contradicts how we speak of, and understand, Ch. You are forced to refute this folk understanding that would say, "I perceive a chiming sound". But I have not seen this explicitly done.
What one sees is the apple with a ten-second delay. What one does not see is some mental representation of the apple as it was ten seconds ago.
This is the claim I don’t accept. Phenomenal continuity does not entail the ontological continuity of the perceptual object. Since I deny that perception is reducible to phenomenology, this shouldn't be much of a surprise.
Insisting on type-invariance rules this out by stipulation. But the only reason to impose that requirement is if one already assumes that direct objects must be internal, continuously present, and phenomenally given—which is precisely the indirect realist conclusion the argument is meant to establish.
So the apple disintegration case doesn’t show that apples are never directly perceived. It shows that if one defines “direct object of perception” in a way that requires invariant intermediaries, then only invariant intermediaries can qualify. That’s not an argument for indirect realism; it’s a restatement of it.
Quoting hypericin
Take a close look at what the observer says in response to your question about what they've heard: "a chiming sound, I'm not sure what it is".
That uncertainty is doing real work here. The phenomenology of the event is such that the chiming is presented as of something else. The observer hasn't yet identified what this "something else" is, but they've clearly grasped that the chiming as-such is not it. The chiming is not presented as a self-standing object of perception, but as the manner in which some other (yet to be identified) object is presented.
— I think this is exactly right about where the temptation comes from. Once perception is understood as an embodied, world-regulating activity within a control system, the idea that it terminates in an “experience” isn’t just unhelpful—it’s a category mistake. In that setting, error and justification are inherently object-directed, embedded in ongoing action and correction. Reintroducing phenomenal intermediaries isn’t a neutral alternative description; it reinstates the very picture that made perception seem epistemically problematic in the first place.
— Agreed. Well said.
What experiment would prove the validity of direct realism as you define direct realism?
H'm. Perhaps we agree, then. What is perceived is the same object in both time periods. I see the apple during the first time period, so I also see the apple in the second time period.
Quoting Michael
OK. So you are really watching the TV, not the event shown on the TV? It sounds a bit daft. A TV just sits there and does nothing. In other words, to describe the object of perception as the TV in this case excludes the point of the exercise, which is not to watch the TV, but to watch the match. So I'll agree that I'm watching the match by means of the TV, if you'll agree that to say that one is watching it indirectly misrepresents the point of the exercise. To repeat, watching the match is the point - the TV is just the means to an end.
Quoting Banno
Yes. I like the quote marks. I've decided that calling it direct realism is not helpful.
It would have to show that the world is actually a dream. You directly perceive the world because there's no interface. The world is created by you, from the contents of you. It would have to show that you're God.
I mean lay out the methodology of this experiment, show me what we're measuring, and show me the results we have to arrive at to prove direct realism is true.
My point just being that the question is nonsense. It can't be proved in principle. It's unverifiable, just as is indirect realism is unfalsifiable. You would have to assume indirect realism to even perform an empirical analysis, considering empirical measurement relies upon perception.
For some reason this thread conflates "physical" with "metaphysical." Telling me we describe apples in the physical world as X doesn't tell me the fundamental nature of things. It can't.
You are conflating "self standing object" with "self standing object of perception". The chiming is the latter but not the former. Chiming indicates something it is not, a doorbell or chime. Yet it can be discussed, contemplated, appreciated on its own, independent of object.
The best example is music. People don't spend thousands of hours and dollars on music because of some distal object it might represent. The music itself, the phenomenology, is what is attended to and enjoyed.
Some people wouldn't be able to accept what you're saying because it would mean they have to accept that the world may be a dream. We really don't know. It's emotion that makes them cling fiercely to a particular worldview, so they don't care if what they're saying is nonsense.
I think there's an incomprehensibility field around Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Even after a person understands it, they'll say yes, but.. the world is this or that. Emotion drags the mind around. The only way to free the mind is to admit: I don't know.
Not with our eyes. There is light and space in between the apple and the perceiver.
What is the light and other mind-independent mediators supposed to represent in your analogy of mind-dependent perception? What does the indirect realist directly perceive?
Yes, but in the second time period the apple is not the direct object of perception because there is no apple.
Quoting Ludwig V
I don't know what you mean by "really watching".
I am saying that a) I am watching someone rob the store and b) the direct object of perception is not someone robbing the store.
Even the direct realist will likely admit that (b) is true; he will likely say that the images on the screen are the direct object of perception.
It's still the case that (a) is true, showing that "object of perception" and "direct object of perception" do not mean the same thing, and that something can be the former even if it's not the latter.
It's not the indirect realist conclusion. It's the meaning of the term "direct perception" as used by both indirect realists and their direct (naive) realist opponents. As I said before, when they say that "we (don't) have direct perception of ordinary objects" they are saying that "ordinary objects are (not) phenomenally present".
From Martin (2004):
Using this account, the naive realist must accept that the apple is not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the second 10 seconds — because no such apple exists — and so is not the direct object of perception. My claim is that if it's not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the second 10 seconds then it's not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the first 10 seconds. It existed and was causally responsible for the experiential episode, but even the naive realist acknowledges above that this alone is insufficient.
Again, you clearly just mean something else by "direct perception" and "direct object of perception", and other than the use of the label "direct" it's not clear how the substance of your position is incompatible with the substance of indirect realism.
As I said to NOS4A2 there are (at least) three distinct claims:
1. We have direct visual perception of apples
2. We have direct visual perception of light
3. We have direct visual perception of mental phenomena/qualia/sense data
Even if (3) is false it does not follow that (1) is true.
The argument with the slow light is merely to show that (1) is false; not to show that (3) is true. It is true that the sense-datum theorist must also defend (3), but it's also true that the direct realist must still defend (1). The more minimal indirect realist (with respect to sight) need only defend the rejection of (1).
Either way, what you mean by "direct perception" isn't what most other direct realists mean by it. They will say that we do have direct visual perception of apples even though our sense organs are not in direct physical contact with the apples.
So we have the following proposition:
1. "I directly perceive X" means "my sense organs are in direct physical contact with X"
You seem to be saying that (1) is true, whereas both traditional direct realists and indirect realists will say that (1) is false.
In other words, you are talking past everyone by meaning something very different by "direct perception" and so your arguments are red herrings and your interpretations of indirect realism are strawmen.
Given what both traditional direct realists and indirect realists mean by "direct perception", both of these are non sequiturs:
2. My sense organs are in direct physical contact with X, therefore I have direct perception of X
3. My sense organs are not in direct physical contact with X, therefore I do not have direct perception of X
I don't think there's any such thing as direct perception. The only perception there is is indirect.
I'd say I directly perceive pain, colours, smells, tastes, etc.
The experience of pain is generated the same way the experience of seeing an apple is.
I have no idea. Science primarily relies on falsification, not verification. If direct realism claims that ordinary objects are "constituents" of experience (see here), and if science has falsified this claim — as I believe it has — then science has refuted direct realism.
That doesn't sound right to me. I don't deny that the chiming can become the focus of reflective attention in its own right; I deny only that it is the object of perception in the first instance. I would argue that this reflective stance is second-order and derivative upon the original perceptual episode. To insist otherwise is, I think, to get the phenomenology backwards.
When the chiming is first heard, it is not given as a self-standing auditory object, but as a mode of appearance of something else. The experience is not "I hear a sound and infer a cause", it is "something is chiming—what is it?". The sound is already presented as the manifestation of a thing in the world, even though which thing has not yet been determined. That is to say, the object-that-is-chiming is presented as determinate in existence, but indeterminate in sense or meaning. It is precisely this structure that gives rise to the question “what is it?”
When we hear environmental sounds we have an impicit, hard-wired understanding that these sounds represent something. Our interest as organisms is in what the sound is of. But you seem to be elevating this biological and contextual feature to a philosophical importance it does not have.
The world-directedness of perception is a stance. It is a default, but it is not exclusive. One can take a meditative stance, and focus on the phenomenology, not the object. Or, in other contexts the phenomenology itself is what is important, and what we are attuned to by default. I already mentioned music as an example of this.
The point is that the phenomenology and the object are distinct. The fact that we, organisms in a threatening world, are object-oriented does not obviate this.
Yes, and if both sides accept that usage, then both sides are already confused in the same way.
Quoting Michael
Yes—I mean something else, because the traditional usage is theoretically confused. We must sometimes revise or discard inherited meanings when those meanings collapse distinct cognitive operations, smuggle metaphysical conclusions into definitions, or block the intelligibility of error and inquiry.
Quoting Michael
I would likewise reject the claim that the apple is a "constituent" of the experiential episode during either interval, but for a different reason. To talk of "constituents" of experience is already to reify experience in a way that smuggles in the representationlist picture that IR depends on because it already assumes that intentional contents are contained within— or internal to— experience as reified.
I reject that picture. In my view, experience is not an inner entity and phenomenology underdetermines objecthood. So in the apple scenario the phenomenology continues but the perceptual intention is no longer fulfilled by anything in the world. Strictly speaking, insofar as the apple has disintegrated, there is no direct object of perception during the second interval. So while the intentional content persists, the perceptual act goes unfulfilled. Nothing in this requires denying phenomenal continuity; it only denies that phenomenal continuity fixes perceptual ontology.
But the intentional content that persists throughout the scenario does not, in my view, meet the qualifications of ontological objecthood. And it seems to me that this is, perhaps, where we diverge most deeply. You seem to want to deflate objecthood to the fulfillment of a grammatical schema, whereas I think that is insufficient to explain the normatively of perception as a public act.
I don’t think I’ve elevated anything here. I’ve simply tried to describe the phenomenology of the event as accurately as I can.
Furthermore, I don’t deny that we can take a reflective or “meditative” stance toward experience—I explicitly conceded that in my previous post. What I deny is that this shows phenomenology to be the object of perception in the first instance. World-directed perception is the base; epoché is a withdrawal or bracketing of the world-directedness intrinsic to that base. In that sense, it is epistemologically derivative, not fundamental. I would argue that meditation and music don’t undermine this structure; they presuppose it.
1. I don’t really care
2. That’s not entirely true.
According to everyone’s favorite, the SEP:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem
So I understand the problem similar to “most authors”, according to AD Smith. If I take a different approach to solving that problem that shouldn’t be an issue, at least for someone who doesn’t require other people’s arguments to pad their own.
So my solution is something like this. We directly perceive light. Light is a member/instance/object of the mind-independent world. Therefore, we directly perceive the mind-independent world.
I say the “directness” of perception is simple contact because it leaves zero space for mediation. As you show with your false analogies, once you allow space between objects there is a necessary mediation because light has to travel through that space and is at the mercy of anything in there (air, water). Contact is the only situation where there is nothing standing in the way of, or in between, the perceiver and the perceived. This relationship is “unmediated”, by which I mean there is no intervening thing or object. If you can come up with a better account of “directness”, by all means, I’d love to hear it.
On the other hand, you say you directly perceive sensations, or “images”, or “characters of experience”and a whole host of objects that no one else could ever perceive but you promise are there nonetheless. But that, to me, just means you consider yourself perceiver and the object of perception at the same time, a relationship that contradicts any realist position, and one that looks silly given the simple fact that the senses point outward, away from the mind-dependent world towards the mind-independent world.
We can phrase the dispute without using the words "direct" or "indirect".
Group A believes that a) mind-independent objects and their properties are "phenomenally present" constituents of first-person experience.
Group B believes that b) mind-independent objects and their properties are not "phenomenally present" constituents of first-person experience and that c) the "phenomenally present" constituents of first-person experience that Group A believes to be mind-independent objects and their properties are in fact sense-data (sense datum theory) or mental representations (representational theory) or qualia or other mental phenomena.
Your position seems to be that "perception is direct" and "perception is indirect" mean something else, above-and-beyond (a), (b), and (c), such that perception can be direct even if (a) is false and (b) is true. This is where I disagree. I think that in the context of the dispute between traditional direct and indirect realism, "perception is direct" just means that (a) is true and that (b) and (c) are false, and that "perception is indirect" just means that (a) is false and that (b) is true, and that "we directly perceive sense-data/mental representations/qualia/other mental phenomena" just means that (c) is true.
You don't solve the problem because "most authors" (who are direct realists) also say that we have direct visual perception of apples. You appear to accept that we don't have direct visual perception of apples, and so you must accept either that a) we only have indirect visual perception of apples (mediated by light) or that b) we do not have visual perception of apples.
So even if you disagree with the positive thesis that we have direct visual perception of mental phenomena (sense datum theory or representational theory) you appear to agree with the negative thesis that we do not have direct visual perception of distal objects (minimal indirect realism).
Is light not a “distal object”?
We directly perceive light. Light is a member/instance/object of the mind-independent world. Therefore, we directly perceive the mind-independent world.
No, it's a proximal stimulus. Distal objects are things like apples that reflect the light.
Quoting NOS4A2
When the traditional direct realist says "we directly see the mind-independent world" they mean more than just "we directly see mind-independent light"; they also mean "we directly see mind-independent apples and trees and people, etc.".
If you accept that we don't directly see mind-independent apples and trees then you accept either that a) we only indirectly see mind-independent apples and trees or b) we do not see mind-independent apples and trees.
Light is not a “distal object”. So beyond the “proximal stimulus” there is no light? You’re repeating phrases, that’s it, making distinctions where there are none. It’s pure nounism.
Of course there's light beyond the proximal stimulus, but according to your theory it isn't directly perceived because it isn't in physical contact with our sense organs. According to your theory something is directly perceived only when it's in physical contact with our sense organs, in which case it is no longer a distal object but a proximal stimulus.
But you seem to be deflecting. According to your theory you do not have direct visual perception of apples or trees or people. Therefore, according your theory either a) you only have indirect visual perception of apples and trees and people or b) you do not have visual perception of apples or trees or people. It's a bizarre brand of direct realism, very different to what is ordinarily meant, with (a) being consistent with the negative thesis of indirect realism.
How does meditation and music presuppose this? When I listen to music, or meditate, I lose awareness of the object, and focus on the phenomenology. The phenomenology becomes the first-order subject of perception, the object secondary, if it is present at all. And so your idea of object-first perceptual structure must explain this. It certainly receives no support from it.
We are able to flexibly attend to phenomenology, or to object. But our attentional stance does not speak to the epistemological relationship between phenomenology and object.
It will be in physical contact with our senses, just as the apple will be when we pick it up and eat it.
But you can’t know any of this because you can only directly perceive yourself.
Objects don’t turn from one thing to another according to its proximity of the body. It’s a distinction without a difference.
That doesn't follow. You claim that we only have direct visual perception of light, and yet presumably you think that this allows us to know about the distal object that reflected the light, even though it is not directly seen. So you accept that we can know about things even if we do not have direct perception of them. This doesn't change under indirect realism.
Quoting NOS4A2
What are you talking about? I am simply using the proper terminology, e.g. from here:
Obviously you disagree with all the talk about "mental re-creations" and "images" and "percepts", but there's nothing objectionable about the use of "distal object" to refer to the object that reflects the light and "proximal stimulus" to refer to the light absorbed by the photoreceptors in the eye.
But, once again, you are deflecting. You accept that we don't have direct visual perception of apples, and so you must accept either that a) we only have indirect visual perception of apples (mediated by light) or that b) we do not have visual perception of apples. Even if you disagree with the positive thesis of something like the sense datum theory you agree with the negative thesis of minimal indirect realism, and your so-called "direct realism" is nothing like what is ordinarily meant by the term.
You’re right that in meditation or music one can lose awareness of the object and focus entirely on phenomenology. I don’t dispute that phenomenological salience can shift. What I deny is that this shift in attention alters the intentional structure of perception itself.
Losing awareness of the object is not the same thing as phenomenology becoming the object of perception. It shows only that object-directedness can be bracketed or backgrounded, not that it was absent or secondary to begin with. A withdrawal of awareness presupposes something withdrawn from. That’s precisely why I say these cases are derivative rather than foundational.
Put differently: changes in attentional stance show flexibility in what we attend to, not a symmetry in the epistemological roles of phenomenology and object. The fact that phenomenology can become focal does not entail that it is what perception is of in the first instance—any more than the fact that I can attend to my visual field entails that my visual field was the original object of sight.
If you include the assumption that direct perception requires temporal coincidence between perceiver and perceived. There is no need to do so.
What one does not see is some mental representation of the apple as it was ten seconds ago.
But even to entertain that scenario is a step too far. Temporal lag does not introduce a new object of perception. We see the apple as it was, and not a memory, a sense datum, a representation, an image,
or anything “in the mind”.
I think we agree that indirect realism means that (a) is false and that (b) and (c) are true. This is why I don't consider myself an indirect realist; I reject both (a) and (c) outright, and my acceptance of (b) is qualified by my rejection of the reification of consciousness implicit within its framing.
So yes, my understanding of "direct" means something different than what naive realists traditionally meant by the term (as I have admitted from the very beginning), but I still reject indirect realism insofar as it entails commitment to (c) and also to the reified conception of consciousness implicit therein.
What does it mean to see the apple as it was?
Given the scenario as described, both of these are true:
1. At 10:00:25 I see an intact red apple 10m in front of me
2. At 10:00:25 there is not an intact red apple 10m in front of me
Given that (2) is true, an intact red apple is not the direct object of perception at 10:00:25. At 10:00:25 there is just first-person phenomenal experience, with "I see an intact red apple 10m in front of me" describing the subjective character of this first-person phenomenal experience. This is all there is to the positive thesis of indirect realism (e.g. the sense datum theory).
Just that.
Again, what we see is the apple, and not a memory, a sense datum, a representation, an image,
or anything “in the mind”. Sure, the causal chain that is seeing the apple includes a delay, but so what.
Your argument is merely rhetorical, a play on the word "direct". What one sees is the apple with a ten-second delay. What one does not see is some mental representation of the apple as it was ten seconds ago.
Yours is the rhetorical argument. You are misrepresenting the grammar of "seeing a mental representation". Once again, the grammar is to be understood in the same way as "the schizophrenic hears voices" and "synesthetes see colours when listening to music".
At 10:00:25 there is no apple, only first-person phenomenal experience with subjective character — described as "seeing a red apple" — and this first-person phenomenal experience with subjective character is a mental representation of an apple that no longer exists.
Seeing an apple is constructing a mental representation, if you like - it depends where one places the Markov Blanket. But one does not see a mental representation. One sees an apple.
Indirect realism means that (a) is false and (b) is true. The sense datum and representational theories say that (c) is true.
As before, there are two distinct claims:
1. We do not have direct perception of distal objects
2. We have direct perception of mental phenomena
It is entirely possible that (1) is true and (2) is false.
If (1) is true — i.e. (a) is false and (b) is true — then either our perception of distal objects is indirect or we do not have perception of distal objects.
Notice that the conclusion, that we see "only first-person phenomenal experience with subjective character", is not argued for but merely asserted? You are repeatedly presuming that what we see is a "first-person phenomenal experience with subjective character", and not an apple.
That's not how language works. We can talk about the first-person phenomenal experience, but that does not mean that we cannot talk about the apple, including seeing the apple.
Your example continues to confuse the causal chain with the epistemic outcome.
I'm not saying any of that. In fact I explicitly said several times that at 10:00:25 I see an intact red apple 10m in front of me.
The issue is that you seem to think that this suffices as direct realism and as a refutation of indirect realism. It is neither.
That's indirect realism.
Very well, then how do we falsify indirect realism as you've defined it?
If direct realism (as it is absurdly defined here) requires a part of the apple perceived actually be in your head, even if we found that constituent part in your head, indirect realism wouldn't be falsified because you'd have to say the constituent part you found may not be the apple itself because it is but a mediated perception.
As in, if all you see are shadows, you can't ever know if you have the real thing.
If your position is unfalsifiable, it is not scientific.
No, it says that seeing an apple is not the "direct presentation" of an apple, where "direct presentation" is understood in the naive realist sense:
[quote=Martin 2004]On [the naive realist] conception of experience, when one is veridically perceiving the objects of perception are constituents of the experiential episode. The given event could not have occurred without these entities existing and being constituents of it in turn, one could not have had such a kind of event without there being relevant candidate objects of perception to be apprehended. So, even if those objects are implicated in the causes of the experience, they also figure non-causally as essential constituents of it... Mere presence of a candidate object will not be sufficient for the perceiving of it, that is true, but its absence is sufficient for the non-occurrence of such an event. The connection here is [one] of a constitutive or essential condition of a kind of event.[/quote]
We do see apples; just not directly. You always conflate "I see an apple" and "I directly see an apple". The addition of the adjective "directly" involves additional conditions that the naive realist (wrongly) claims are satisfied and the indirect realist (rightly) claims aren't satisfied.
That's not how it's defined.
This is the naive realist view that indirect realism disputes:
[quote=Martin 2004]On [the naive realist] conception of experience, when one is veridically perceiving the objects of perception are constituents of the experiential episode. The given event could not have occurred without these entities existing and being constituents of it in turn, one could not have had such a kind of event without there being relevant candidate objects of perception to be apprehended. So, even if those objects are implicated in the causes of the experience, they also figure non-causally as essential constituents of it... Mere presence of a candidate object will not be sufficient for the perceiving of it, that is true, but its absence is sufficient for the non-occurrence of such an event. The connection here is [one] of a constitutive or essential condition of a kind of event.[/quote]
Represented as a picture, it would be this:
Naive realists aren't saying that apples are "in the head"; they say that experience isn't "in the head" but an "openness to the world", i.e. there are no "mental representations" or anything of the sort; there's just the strawberry being presented to me.
Hokum. You conflate "I see an apple" and "I indirectly see an apple".
Again, that "naive realist" is no more than a foil against which to draw the supposed "indirect" account. That indirect account is misleading. What one sees is the apple, not a mental image or whatever.
Notice how you here work with the merely philosophical construct "the-strawberry-as-it-is-in-itself"? We never get to taste or see "the-strawberry-as-it-is-in-itself" not becasue of any limitation on our senses, but becasue it's not a thing. "the-strawberry-as-it-is-in-itself" is already interpreted.
As being grey, apparently.
No I don't. "I see X" is true if we directly see X or if we indirectly see X.
Quoting Banno
It's not a "foil". It's a very real philosophical position, and is the intended target of indirect realism. Naive realists say that apples are "constituents" of first-person phenomenal experience, and indirect realist say that they're not; that the "constituents" of first-person phenomenal experience are only sense-data/qualia/mental representations.
Good. then the two collapse into one. And you have now agreed that "I see the apple" is true, and "I see a mental image of the apple" misleading. "first-person phenomenal experience" is philosophical fluff.
Quoting Michael
So indirect realists say that apples are not "constituents" of our seeing apples? How's that?
No they don't.
Quoting Banno
I always did. Why is it so difficult for you to just read what I write?
Quoting Banno
As per the thought experiment, both of these are true:
1. At 10:00:25 I see an intact red apple 10m in front of me
2. At 10:00:25 there is not an intact red apple 10m in front of me because it was disintegrated at 10:00:20
So, given that no apple exists at 10:00:25 no apple is a "constituent" of my experience at 10:00:25.
So "I see X" is true if we directly see X or if we indirectly see X and yet they do not collapse into one? Not following that at all.
So you say "I see the apple" is true, and so is "I see the mental representation of the apple", and you want to claim these are the same? But it is clear that an apple is different to a mental representation of an apple. You can't make a pie with a mental representation.
Going over the already dispelled though experiment doesn't help you here.
Given that "I see X" is true if "I indirectly see X" is true, it is a non sequitur to argue that if "I see X" is true then "I directly see X" is true.
Quoting Banno
I could say "I saw Alcaraz defeat Djokovic in tennis" or I could say "I saw images on my computer screen".
Quoting Banno
It's an example of seeing an apple without an apple being a constituent of the experience. You asked how it was possible, I provided. I don't understand who you're trying to gaslight here.
But the argument is not that I directly see X, because that is little more than a rhetorical ploy on the part of the indirect realist. At issue is whether one sees the apple or a representation of the apple.
And the answer is that one sees the apple by constructing a representation of the apple.
Quoting Michael
Yep. Different placements of the Markov Blanket.
What we should not say is that we never saw Alcaraz defeat Djokovic, only ever images of Alcaraz defeating Djokovic.
Quoting Michael
:meh: This gaslights itself.
In your example, the apple causes the pattern of light that is seen ten seconds later. Hence the apple is a constituent of the experience.
Quoting Ludwig V
That's not quite what's being suggested here. All i was doing was putitng paid to a patent stupidity in this discussion - not suggesting there's an out-and-out solution. But i do note that the objections still just fall back on "well that's weird" or "I have a hard time talking that way". In any case, this is one of hte uncomfortable realities of, at least leaning, IR. How can we explain actual error in perception? You can't. You can discuss agreement, and statistical likelihood one has accurately reported the world around them. We can approximate to an extremely close degree, when this has occurred. We do not need direct access to objects for that system to work. It just means that one event which violates expectation in a certain way could up-end whatever we think is the underlying reason for thinking this (i.e, if it turns out objects we interpret as curved are actually angled in some odd way which human perpcetion interprets weirdly, or some other speculative fabulation).
Quoting Ludwig V
You probably could. But that would be admitted that you're essentially looking at a pale imitation (although, pale seems entirely inapt here lmao). If that's the case, and there's a significant difference between seeing the Sun let's say from 200 miles away (impossible physically, but i'm sure you see where I'm going...) and from the Earth, then we need to get a grip on what that is. At any rate, we're having to admit (rather, we should, if being honest, admit) that there is an unavoidable chasm (in this case, physically as well as epistemically) between our object and the experience which presents it to us. Its awkward, but that's no reason to retreat into simplicity for comfort sake, imo.
Quoting Ludwig V
More-or-less. Quoting Ludwig V
What's the problem with that? Labels don't operate as apodictic reportage. "the Sun" can only possibly refer to that which humans, under normal circumstances, agree to call "the Sun". Whether this is eight-minute-old light or an "Actual" star so many millions of miles away isn't determinative. If humans are, as this seems to make clear, restricted to an experience of light reflected from the sun eight minutes ago, we can never be sure and that's fine.
Quoting Ludwig V
You're right. Which is why, to me, it seems an attempt to claim DRism is bound to fail, and everyone needs to just get comfortable with the fact that we don't experience an object, but light which is highly relevant to it.
That's a tangent. The central question was:
Quoting Hanover
Same question.
There's a need to be clear here that representation is Michael's word. Neural nets of course do not function by representing one thing as another. they function by modifying weightings. It’s just a pattern of activations and weights, with no intrinsic “aboutness” or semantic content.
Better to say they model, in a statistical, functional sense.
If indirect realism is a scientific theory, then it must be falsifiable. It"s obviously not. You can't describe which part of your perception is not modified by the processes you claim modifies all your perceptions. That is, if indirect realism is meta (an underlying axiom) to physical explanation, why am I being educated in neurobiology as an attempt to prove your meta theory?
That is to say, none of this discussion is responsive to the metaphysical question of what the fundamental constitution of reality is. As in, what is the apple in the noumena?
Since that question is fundamentally unanswerable (in fact, the noumena describes the limits of what we can know), we turn to the question of what is an apple, and we realize (1) we have no idea what an apple is via metaphysical analysis, yet (2) we amazingly are capable of speaking fully coherently about apples.
This ought lead us to the conclusion that it must not be metaphysics that underwrites what we mean by "apple."
Because it doesn't need or want to. However, the DRist must have a way to do this. IRists reject it. The noumena is as it is - not as we see it. And that is not because they don't match. It's because they are fundamentally different things. We just have words for one and not the others.
All I see are IR descriptions being given as DR descriptions. That's why I started just replying to discreet issues. I can't make heads or tails of saying what Banno does and then saying "Direct". Baffling. I hope that's where it ends, personally.
That is correct. Both sides of this argument start with irrational confidence in our ability to discern what is true and real. Neither side proposes to build a bridge to that confidence. As you noted, there is no bridge to it. You just have it.
Starting with that confidence, we observe by way of anatomy and physiology that perception of the world appears to be constructed by the brain out of discreet electrical impulses. As you note, this is not a metaphysical argument, it's a scientific fact.
Wait, what?
Quoting frank
So yeah, rejecting that because its absurd (in the technical sense).
Quoting frank
Which is why IR is so attractive to those not bent to fall away into impractical discussion of how things feel.
As to each:
(1) Kant convincingly tells us we can't know.
(2) scientists offer us all sorts of explanations
(3) philosophers tell us how meaning is assigned to terms.
We seem stuck on discussing #2, which is non-responsive to 1 or 3. We remain in a category slide.
You don't have confidence that you can tell what's true and real?
1 - yep, I agree there
2 - I don't think that's accurate. They offer descriptions. and based on the 1 and 2
3 - we think we might have a grasp on this in a way that avoids certainty often gleaned from 2, which is betrayed by 1.
But as noted earlier, using a public system of checks and balances we can get on with it. And science to me, appears to be the art of getting this done - and likely explains why its so successful: You could think whatever you want, in terms of 3, and 2 would roughly speaking remain the same. Its helpful. But not something we could, on metaphysical levels, call veridical, I don't think (because 1). Maybe i'm just easier with discomfort.. indeed...
Quoting frank
Not really. I tend not to think about it. But I also have ways of using those words that don't result in madness when I do fall into that. But admittedly, maybe once of twice I year I have a really tense hour or two.
According to the definition you provided, light is a distal object, an “object in the real world”.
If the “proximal stimulus” is the “stimulation”, you’ve begun to talk about the perceiver, in this case what he does when he contacts light with his retina. There appears to be no other referent for these terms once we’re able to scratch through the cloak of neologisms. It’s clear to me, at least, that we’re no longer talking about the object of perception, which is the light bouncing off an apple.
Are you saying that the apple is a constituent of the episode during the first 10 seconds? I would then point out that the relationship of the apple to the light signal during the first 10 seconds and the second 10 seconds is identical. You have no ground for distinguishing between the two.
Quoting Michael
Interesting. There is the introspective perception, in which whatever seems to be so, is so. But truth and falsity don't apply in the usual ways. Perception of actual objects is different, of course, in that our experiences can be corrected. But our perceptions of colours etc. can also be corrected. "That grass isn't really brown - it just looks that way."
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Speaking even more strictlly, the undisintegrated apple stands in exactly the same relationship to the light during the first interval and in the second interval.
Quoting Michael
But surely "I see X" is also true if "I directly see X" is true.
Quoting AmadeusD
I thought the selling point of IR is that it can explain error in perception where DR cannot.
Quoting AmadeusD
Well, we need to assess whether given indirect perceptions are veridical by some means that is independent of them. What do you suggest?
Quoting AmadeusD
I certainly am not. Ex hypothesi, the light waves are derived from the sun and demonstrate to us exactly what the state of the sun was eight minutes ago. There's no better way of knowing what's going there.
Quoting AmadeusD
I don't think there's any reasonable ground for doubt - and we can be sure that if we are wrong, we will know all about it in the next eight minutes.
Quoting hypericin
Yes, we can attend to either. But I don't understand the second sentence.
Quoting Banno
That's why scrutinizing brain waves is not likely to tell us much about how perception works. The computer analogy does not help with this.
Quoting Hanover
On my understanding, it is unknowable and therefore not perceivable. That's why I think that Kant may have had a point here, but went wrong in suggesting that the noumena is a class of objects. Almost everything that we know about is only partially known. Very few things are either completely known or not known at all.
Kant convinces us….as much as metaphysical doctrine is convincing at all….apple is precisely and only what we do know; what the mere invented word represents, on the other hand, we do not.
You are free to stipulate indirect realism in this purely negative way if you wish, but it’s unreasonable to expect others to adopt this stipulation given that indirect realism was traditionally a substantive, positive thesis about perception, rather than merely the rejection of one particular type of direct realism.
Moreover, this move overlooks the fact that there are other ways of cashing out what “direct” means that are neither dependent on the reification of consciousness nor reducible to deflationary semantics.
Finally, redefining indirect realism in this way leaves all of the substantive explanatory questions untouched—about perception, error, objecthood, and normativity. In that respect, the view begins to look less like indirect realism as traditionally understood and more like a form of quietism or eliminativism about perceptual explanation.
This doesn't sound quite right to me. While the distal causal history of the light may be the same across both intervals, the fulfillment conditions of the perceptual act are not. In the first interval, the act is fulfilled by the apple; in the second, it is not. That asymmetry is not captured by describing the light alone, and it’s precisely what distinguishes veridical perception from residual or empty intentionality. Treating the two intervals as standing in “exactly the same relationship” to the object abstracts away from the normative dimension that makes perception what it is, rather than mere stimulation.
I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Most direct realists say that we have direct visual perception of apples and trees and everything else that emits or reflects light into our eyes, whereas your account is that we only have direct visual perception of light. Yours is a strange kind of direct realism.
The relevant issue is that when I see the tennis match on television I do not have direct perception of the tennis match. In the context of the dispute between direct and indirect realism, "direct perception" means something substantive, and the dispute cannot be "deflated" simply by saying "I saw the tennis match" or "I see the apple".
Quoting Banno
That the apple causes the experience isn't that it's a constituent of the experience. I'll repeat the quote from Martin, with emphasis:
[quote=Martin 2004]So, even if those objects are implicated in the causes of the experience, they also figure non-causally as essential constituents of it... Mere presence of a candidate object will not be sufficient for the perceiving of it, that is true, but its absence is sufficient for the non-occurrence of such an event.[/quote]
Given that the apple does not exist at 10:00:25 it is not a constituent of the experience at 10:00:25.
No, I'm saying that:
P1. If the apple is not a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds then it is not a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds
P2. The apple is not a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
C1. Therefore, the apple is not a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds
Yes, as I have tried to explain several times, e.g. with the distinction between phenomenological direct realism and semantic direct realism. It is possible that perception is direct[sub]1[/sub] but not direct[sub]2[/sub], where "direct[sub]1[/sub]" and "direct[sub]2[/sub]" mean different things.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Then forget the terms "direct realism" and "indirect realism". We have two theses, one negative and one positive:
1. We do not have direct perception of distal objects
2. We have direct perception of mental phenomena
I am primarily interesting in arguing that (1) is true, where "direct perception of distal objects" is to be understood in the traditional way, i.e. mind-independent objects and their mind-independent properties are "constituents" of first-person phenomenal experience, such that things "really are" as they appear to us (e.g. coloured in the sui generis sense) even when not being perceived.
As for (2), I'd like to refer back to something you said here:
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
Clearly something is happening during the second interval; I am having a visual experience with phenomenal character, described as "seeing a red apple 10m in front of me". If you don't want to say that qualia or sense data or mental phenomena are the "constituents" of this visual experience then I don't really understand what you think this visual experience is (are you an eliminative materialist?). It's clearly not nothing, else I'd be saying "I don't see anything". I suspect that, once again, you just mean something else by "direct object of perception", and so are misinterpreting what is meant by (2).
I don't know, and it's not how I've defined it.
This is the scientific account of perception:
This is clearly what indirect realism argues, as contrasted with their naive realist opponents, hence why it says here that "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception".
What? Maybe someone else is positing that. I think its patently clear that there is no way to assess error beyond error as a mathematical/statistical exercise or a purely practical one (trial and error, i guess) no matter which theory you prefer. The DRist, I think, wants to say that a mediated perception is direct enough to capture error. I just disagree.
Quoting Ludwig V
No we dont Is my position. I don't see why. And given the above, I can't see why we would try (but that's baked into the disagreement, so just noting for completeness).
Quoting Ludwig V
Exactly. So you're admitting you're seeing light which presents the sun as it was eight minutes ago. I shall leave this there and just see if it lands.
Quoting Ludwig V
Which is batshit insane on the facts, to my mind. Not concluding error might be reasonable, but denying any reason for doubt is just... good god. Not sure i'm cut out for such a wild claim. The following doesn't help, because its entirely recursive.
...and yet you saw the tennis. Thank you for such an apt example. The indirect realist is the one insisting that you never saw the tennis, only every pixels on a screen. For the rest of us, those pixels are part of watching the tennis. The causal chain is not the epistemic chain.
Quoting Michael
This and your quote appear to be a constipated way of saying that one only sees the apple if there is an apple. Sure. At issue is whether one sees the apple or a "representation" of the apple. In your now well-beaten dead horse, one sees the apple as it was ten seconds ago. But somehow you conclude that one is therefore not seeing the apple. How that works escapes me.
The physical question of how we see things isn't metaphysics. You're just telling me how scientists say we see things. That's not in dispute.
The metaphysical question deals with the fundamental ontological composition of the entity. Your post makes no reference to that.
To the question, "what is an apple," you tell me that there is a distal X that comes through my retina, into my brain, etc. I want to know what X is. I don't need to know the various points in the road where X traveled. I want to know what X is if I'm asking the metaphysical question.
Someone else says that direct realism is the case and that X appears suddenly just as X as a phenomenal state. You deny that is the case, but you have no idea what X is, so it's not clear how you deny it. You then admit you can't falsify indirect realism, which makes it non-scientific. If you don't know what X is, the scientific inquiry only tells us there is an unknown X going about the unknown world and that it appears as a phenomenal state at some point. Your conversation is physics, not metaphysics.
You assume some direct knowledge of the real, which makes you a direct realist, but you just want to explain intermediate steps as directly known and not the distal X.
That is, this conversation about what is X (i.e. the metaphysical question) is unanswerable. That you can tell me about apples, lights bouncing off apples, neurons firing is all part of the same scientific, physical conversation. You are no closer to proving what an apple is by describing the various noumenal events, which includes not just the apple, but the photons, the neurons, and all else.
So, what is an apple? We know what an apple is because we talk about it. That's what the apple is. What the X is is unknowable. It's why we needn't mention it in our conversations about apples.
And this doesn't deny a metaphysical reality or that there is a great big mystery of the unknown or that we don't have phenomenal states. It just denies that the meaning of "apple" is underwritten by the X, even if it is the X that is the hypothosized cause of the apple.
Why not? There is no relevant difference between the information carried by the light in the first ten seconds and the second ten seconds. The presence or absence of the apple when the light arrives is irrelevant. IMO.
Quoting Esse Quam Videri
The destruction of the apple is too late to influence what has gone out; it cannot have any effect until tn seconds have elapsed, i.e. until the third ten seconds. You seem to think that the disappearance of the apple after the light has been sent on its way makes a difference to what is seen. But the apple was there when the light started its journey and so it carries the information that was accurate at the time of dispatch.
Quoting Michael
I must have drafted something very badly. My position is that I only see objects that reflect or emit light. I don't know what it would be to see light as such - in transit, so to speak.
Quoting Michael
If that's a good argument, then what's wrong with this?
P1a. If the apple is a constituent of the experience during the first ten seconds, then it is a constituent of the experience during the second ten seconds.
P2a. The apple is a constituent of the experience during the first ten seconds.
C1a. Therefore, the apple is a constituent of the experience during the second ten seconds.
Quoting AmadeusD
Quoting AmadeusD
I had in mind the ordinary ways in which we realize we didn't see what we thought we saw. Which essentially means an inconsistency in the stream of perceptions that we experience. (This is a very rough sketch, because I expect you know what I'm talking about.) Philosophers tend to look for decisions on the spot. In real life, sometimes additional information comes in later or from a wider perspective.
Quoting AmadeusD
Not quite. I'm seeing light from the sun that carries information about it as it was eight minutes ago.
Quoting AmadeusD
Well, perhaps I over-stated the point. I can see the reason for doubt but don't think that it carries much weight.
And this assessment that "they are broadly equivalent" is not science but philosophical befuddlement.
In normal perception, the object of awareness is the physical object itself, not a representation of it. We perceive objects and states of affairs in the world, not internal representations. In science, neural processes enable perception; they are not what is perceived. Science provides an alternative description of perception by incorporating ideas of diachronic and constitutive causation. Once the brain's causal powers are are accounted for by physical processes and constitutive structure, there is no explanatory gap left for "representation" to fill, like "sense data", "mental phenomena" or "inner images". If representation is just the function of neural states, your philosophical view stops being indirect and becomes more of scientific direct realism.