Direct Realism as both True and False
I accept that direct realism is the case when perception is non-conscious. I'm driving down the road on autopilot. My hands, eyes and ears are directly perceiving the environment as I successfully navigate the car down the road.
However, when I'm conscious of driving, the content of my perception is a conscious experience, which is mental. I'm no longer directly perceiving the car on the road. Instead, I'm perceiving a world of feels, sounds, colors, smells, and so on. The phenomenal objects of my consciousness are made up these sensations. The road, the car, the wheel, the air and so on are not made up of colors, sounds, smells and so on. They are not phenomenal objects, but rather real, physical ones.
Therefore, I cannot be directly perceiving the real, physical objects when I'm conscious.
However, when I'm conscious of driving, the content of my perception is a conscious experience, which is mental. I'm no longer directly perceiving the car on the road. Instead, I'm perceiving a world of feels, sounds, colors, smells, and so on. The phenomenal objects of my consciousness are made up these sensations. The road, the car, the wheel, the air and so on are not made up of colors, sounds, smells and so on. They are not phenomenal objects, but rather real, physical ones.
Therefore, I cannot be directly perceiving the real, physical objects when I'm conscious.
Comments (48)
Perhaps it would be helpful to say that the real world beyond our minds, and the symbolic world between our ears, are continually competing for our attention. The symbolic realm usually wins, which is probably why we often experience the real world as dull and boring etc.
There's a missing premise here. You assume the equivalence of the content of perception and the objects of perception.
But the content of perception--if it means anything at all--is the way things look, sound, taste, and yet it is the things that look, sound, and taste that way. To say that you are perceiving the way things look, sound, taste, is tantamount to saying you are perceiving your perception (one can attend to one's own perception, but this is not what you are talking about (or is it?)).
Also, in an ecological direct perception account, the "non-conscious" absorption in an activity in an environment is paradigmatic of perception. To be conscious of one's experience sounds to me like those cases where one attends so much to one's own experience that successful absorption breaks down--as when you focus so much on what your hands and feet are doing that you momentarily lose the ability to drive.
EDIT: maybe that means that I kind of agree with you, or at least with this: perception is sometimes direct and sometimes indirect
I can't get past the assumption where you say, that when you are not Consciously driving, that this means you are Directly Perceiving. Could you elaborate more on that?
What would it mean to directly perceive something? How would you perceive it? It seems to me that "perception" itself entails using real things (colors, shapes, feelings, etc.) to symbolize other real things (cars, roads, etc.), including other symbols (stop signs, red lights, etc.). The symbols are just as real as what they symbolize. Why would it matter if you get at the symbols or the real thing? Isn't the information what you need to get at - what those symbols symbolize (red apples mean ripe apples, black apples mean rotten apples)? Isn't it the information that is real and useful?
Isn't the sensations of colors, sounds, feelings, part of reality and you directly experience those things? It can't be indirect all the way down. Eventually you get at something real to even say that those things symbolize other real things. We directly experience the symbols.
Is it even clear what it means for one of them to be the direct object of perception? I think the direct and indirect realist can't even agree on that. I'm sure the direct realist will agree that the pain isn't the fire, but whereas they will say that the occurrence of pain is us directly experiencing the fire, the indirect realist will disagree. But what exactly is the substance of their disagreement? What does it mean for the occurrence of pain to be either the direct or the indirect experience of the fire?
This seems confused to me. The qualia of colors, sounds, smells and so on are the forms of conscious perception. The fact that your perception has such forms does not mean that it is not the perception of its object. We have essentially the same the same sensations whether or not we are aware of them. The fact that our awareness of various sensory modalities has correlative forms (qualia) does not change this.
While I agree with what you say about confusing the forms of perception with the thing perceived, I don't think that the difference between sensation without and with awareness has anything to do with whether or not perception is direct. To deal with the question of directness, we first have to agree on what "direct perception" means. It seems to me to be a matter of degree. If we perceive at all, then the object is acting on us, modifying our neural state. The fact that this involves the mediation of instrumental causes seems no more relevant to the role of the object than the sculptor's use of hammer and chisel to the agency of the artist.
I think this is close to the mark, except that ideas are not like other symbols. In the case of words and physical signs we first have to grasp the form of the symbolic object before we can discern its meaning. In the case of ideas, we do not have to grasp that we have an idea and which idea it is before it means its referent. Rather, mental signs (formal signs) signify directly, with no need for us to grasp what they are before they refer.
I don't think that perception can be non-conscious. I'm not sure how to make sense of the idea that it can be. I'm not disagreeing that we can do things like driving without thinking very much about what we're seeing, or without formulating memories about it, etc, but I would say that insofar as we're perceiving anything, we're aware of it to some extent. It's necessarily mental.
That doesn't imply that I'm not a direct realist. Direct realists believe that we consciously perceive the world as it is, directly. (Barring situations where we have good reason to believe that something is going wrong in whatever manner.)
And I don't buy sense-data theory, which is representationalist.
But we don't consciously perceive the world as it is. From science we know that it's not true.
The claim that you can know that it's not true presupposes that you can know the world as it is (via perceiving eyeballs, ears, nerves, brains, etc.) for comparison, where we can say which part is the world as it is and which is different from that.
So in other words, you can't make the claim "We don't consciously perceive the world as it is" without unintentionally pulling the rug out from under yourself via a claim that you can consciously perceive the world as it is.
We know that the scientific account of the world differs quite a bit from the world we perceive. We also know that our perception varies quite a bit, and that there are other organisms who have better senses or can sense things we cannot.
Therefore, we don't perceive the world as it is. We perceive it according to the kinds of animals we are, and as the individual we are in a particular environment.
When I perceive a solid table, I'm not perceiving the mostly empty space it's made up of, or the atoms forming the chemical bonds that make it appear solid to me. I'm also not perceiving the microscopic critters on the table's surface, or all the non-visible light that passes through the table.
How would we know that?
Run some experiment, gather observations, come up with models to explain the experiments and observations. That sort of thing I would imagine.
Sure, and when you make those observations, do you perceive things as they are?
The scientist perceives the outcome of their experiments and observations, which might lead them to suppose that there are large parts of the world we don't perceive, or that the world differs from how we perceive it.
Do they perceive them as they are or not? It's a yes or no question, or you can explain why you can't answer yes or no a la "It's not possible to answer that question yes or no because . . .
"
And by the way, you're adding another level there. Observations are things we perceive. Do we perceive them as they are or not?
No, they perceive things as they appear to human beings. But that doesn't stop us from learning about X-Rays and GR and germs and what not. But It might have taken a million years of cultural and technological evolution to get there.
Sure, so the premise is that we're not perceiving things as they are.
So how do we know that one perception has things right? Namely, the perception that suggests that the other perception has things wrong? Per the premise, no perception is of the world as it is. Yet we're claiming that the one set of perceptions has things right because?
We don't know for sure. The best we can do is come up with explanations that fit all of our perceptions as best as possible.
Thus the ancient skeptics, Hume, Kant, pragmatism, the empiricism of science, that theories are not true but only conditionally supported by observations to date, which could be falsified tomorrow, etc.
One thing we'd know for sure is that if we're going to claim that our perceptions do not tell us what the world is like, we can't use perceptions about what the world is like for support of that.
Kant, the pragmatists and the ancient skeptics would agree. Hume would agree at least about causation.
I don't think we have to go that far. We can just say that although perception doesn't show us the word as it is, it gives us enough information to infer what the world is probably like. But it takes a great deal of effort, which is why the scientific enterprise came so late in the game.
Take the totally naive view of vision. It seems like we're looking out onto the world through the eyes. But we know this can't be true. Light comes into the eyes. It's the opposite. But we didn't know this until we had some science of optics and vision.
Oy vey. ;-)
There's no "opposite" there.
One of these days you'll say something I agree with. ;-)
I'd explain why they're not opposite, but you'll end up basically ignoring the explanation and just asserting the same thing again. (Which is what you did with the explanation of why the argument above against direct realism completely fails,)
I'm sure one of these days I'll be wrong about something.
:razz:
Anyway, you are aware of your perceptions. So, what is this awareness, if not consciousness?
Well, it depends on what's meant by awareness. A computer program could be said to be aware of its inputs. A simulation of perceptual awareness could be built into a robot.
That's different from having a conscious perception.
I have long been convinced of the pointlessness of the question 'Is perception 'really' direct or indirect?'; whether perception is thought to be direct or indirect is just a matter of perspective, or different ways of talking about the same thing, isn't it? As far as I have been able to see there is no "one way it 'really' is".
As far as I see, you differentiate between conscious perception and the state of consciousness.
Could you define both rigorously?
No, I don't think so. Consider a brain in a vat, or Neo in the Matrix. Now regardless of whether we think such a scenario is feasible (whether the vat or Matrix could actually be built), we can conclude that BIVs and Neo inside the Matrix are not perceiving objects directly. Rather, their brain is being stimulated as if they were perceiving objects via their physical organs.
Now the indirect realist is saying something similar about actual perception. Which is that the brain being stimulated via the senses results in a Matrix/BIV-like experience in that it is brain activity that creates consciousness. As such, we're aware of a mentally simulated world.
The direct realist denies this. For one thing, it has skeptical connotations about how we can really know there's a world out there, or even that we're not BIVs with no actual bodies. It also makes idealism an attractive alternative.
And direct realists have their own reasons for thinking representations or ideas are faulty concepts.
But I can't get away from the fact that it's brain activity which results in colors, sounds and what not. The fact that BIV, Matrix or Boltzmann brain scenarios sound plausible (to an extent anyway) and that we have dreams, hallucinations, imagination, inner dialog and what not strongly suggests that all experience is brain generated, and that's what we're aware of. So why would perception be different?
When I'm dreaming, I experience seeing stuff, hearing stuff, my body moving around as if it were actual perception. That's why dream skepticism exists at all, and how sometimes I can be temporarily confused upon waking up as to what's real. I just don't see how the experience is somehow different (setting aside the ridiculous structure of dreams). Only the origin of the experience.
Firstly, I don't think BIV or Matrix scenarios are worthy of serious consideration; apart from their implausibility they just push the real world back one step, leaving all the questions unanswered.
Secondly, I don't think it is right to say that it is brain activity which creates consciousness. The brain is a part of the whole process to be sure, but there could be no (ordinary, at least) consciousness without the things we are conscious of. I don't believe the world is "mentally simulated", mental activity is just a part of the activity of the world, as far as we can tell.
So, I don't think it's right, or at least complete, to say that brains "result in colours and sounds...". If perception were of mere simulations and were not veridical, then the belief that there is a brain at all is thrown into question.
Dreams are distinguishable from waking life insofar as we usually wake from them; they generally have no continuity from night to night, and our waking life is coherently shared with others. Dreams, or my dreams at least, do not manifest these characteristics.
The brain is central to experience because it's the one component of the organism which is necessary for experience. Remove your eyes and you can still have color experiences. Remove your visual cortex and this becomes impossible.
The BIV and Matrix scenarios are plausible in the sense that we can already stimulate the brain to have experiences that seem real, but which aren't veridical perceptions. This can be done with drugs, meditative states, imagination, dreaming, electrodes in the brain, etc.
The body is necessary for experience; it's as obvious that you can't have experience without a body as it is that you cannot have experience without a brain. It's also obvious that you can't have an experiencing body without an environment.
I remain unconvinced by your reasoning that the BIV and Matrix scenarios are plausible; they are merely logical possibilities, insofar as they don't involve any logical contradiction.
You haven't tried to address my point that our knowledge of the brain would be altogether bankrupt if perception were not veridical, and I think that is the most telling point against what you have been proposing.
I didn't say perception wasn't veridical. I said it's not direct when we're conscious of a perception.
Looks like the OP is chock full of reference/ground that is highly questionable.
When perception is said to be informed by language... the result is a conflation of complex thought/belief and but one element therein. Perception is necessary but insufficient for thinking about a computer as a computer.
What would it mean to say that perception is veridical according to you? I mean it obviously wouldn't be veridical under the BIV or Matrix scenarios. Also to say that it is not (thought to be?) direct when we are conscious of (the 'machinery' of) perception (you say of "a perception" but this is not what I took you to mean) is just the same as to say that it is thought to be direct or indirect depending on how we think about it, isn't it?
Those scenarios were just meant to illustrate what an indirect realist means by being aware of a mental image instead of the physical object itself. And to lend credibility to the idea that it's the brain generated experience that we're aware of when having a conscious perception. Because the senses are performing the same roles as a vat in that they're stimulating the regions of the brain to have those experiences.
Quoting Janus
Empirically verifiable, unless we start out knowing what is the case, such as with BIVs and Matrices.
Quoting Janus
Depending on one's philosophical interpretation of perception.
This is simply because effects are not the same as their causes. This would be the case for any being with senses. The effects: conscious experiences, will never be the things they are experiencing. It is nonsensical to even think that could be the case, and to even ask the question: "How can we see things as they really are?" It seems to me that the only way to observe how something truly is, is to BE that thing. You are your mind and you experience your mind as it truly is. I can only infer what is in your mind through your behavior. But this is simply because of how vision works. Our visual systems make models of how things are. We see things as objects when everything is process and information.
While we don't see things as they really are, we can know things as they truly are. Is there an advantage of seeing things as they truly are as opposed to knowing things as they truly are? What would it be like to see the ripeness of an apple as opposed to "just" the redness of the apple? What advantage would one have over the other?
Yes indeed.
[quote=Wittgenstein, On Certainty]215. Here we see that the idea of 'agreement with reality' does not have any clear application.[/quote]
Do you genuinely believe that when you perceive a tree you are perceiving a "mental image"? The very notion of a "mental image" is based on a scientific explanation which assumes a series of real processes both external and internal to the brain. How can you you justify using such an assumption to undermine itself?
Appealing to the BIV scenario doesn't help, because it assumes the independent existence of brains and vats, i.e. it assumes the existence of an extra-mental world.
Quoting Marchesk
But that is not what your argument seems to be wanting to address. Empirical verifiability is just accordance with intersubjective experience; it says nothing about whether direct or indirect realism is the case. The idea of veridicality of perception, though, is the idea that what we perceive reflects (at least some) real qualities of mind-independent things. According to the direct realist view, when I see a tree, I see an actual tree that exists external to my body. The colour of the tree is a function of real processes; light, the surfaces of the leaves and bark of the tree reflecting the light, and the constitution of my eyes, optic nerves and visual cortex, the position of my body in relation to the tree and so on and on. All these processes are extra-mental; the seeing itself is the mental thing.
Of course none of this says anything about what the "ultimate reality" of the tree (or of my body) 'really is"; in a way such questions are senseless because they cannot be answered. The fact that they cannot be answered doesn't seem to have anything to do with whether things are directly or indirectly real, though (leaving aside so-called "naive realism'). We can look at what seems to be going on and declare it to be either directly or indirectly real depending on whether we choose to consider the question from one perspective or another, but I think the only cogent notion of reality, in the context of which directness or indirectness are irrelevant, is gained in contrast to the idea of the imaginary.
The indirect realist accepts the existence of an extra-mental world so he can appeal to the BIV scenario to explain his point, which is that although our experiences are causally covariant with external world stimulation the qualities of our experiences (the look, the feel, the taste, etc.) are not properties of these external world stimuli but properties of the mental phenomena itself.
The external world object has the property of reflecting light at a certain wavelength which isn’t the same as being red or green or whatever. That most people tend to have the same kind of colour experience when stimulated by light of this wavelength isn’t that the colour is a property of the external world object. That’s the naive view of perception that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
I tried to make another point there in my post, but I think you missed it.
Not only is "direct realism" impossible, it doesn't even make sense to make a distinction between direct and indirect in how we "see" things and how we know things. Seeing is a form of knowledge. You acquire knowledge of real-time events. Observation is a key part of the scientific method. The fact that we can reproduce and predict so many external events must mean that we see/know some things as they really are. It doesn't seem to matter enough to make a distinction between indirect vs direct.
I also pointed out that you have a direct experience of your own mind and your mind is part of reality. Our minds are affected by external events and can be causes of external events. Your mind is external, or separate from mine - and mine to yours. We each have direct access to something in this reality. You could say that you have a direct perception of what it is like for Marchesk to experience reading a post on a Philosophy Forum. It seems to me that we have both direct and indirect access to reality, so it makes no sense to make the distinction between direct and indirect. I find the term, "space/time" more useful in referring to the separation of causes from their subsequent events, and I guess I'm just a realist.
The contents of your mind is part of how things are. Psychology and neurology are scientific fields attempting to get at those parts of how things are.
Quoting Marchesk
Is it? What is a conscious perception and how exactly does it differ from a robot's perceptions within it's own "brain"? All you see is a brain when you look at a human being. How do you know that mass of tissue contains conscious perceptions?
Isn't it that that mass of tissue or silicon is just a model of what is actually there? Hasn't your argument been that it is naive to think that what you see is actually the way things are?