Michael

A depends on a but the is not a constituent of the . The constituents of the are just . And the constituents of hallucinations and dreams are just men...

The dispute between naive realists and indirect realists concerns whether or not experience provides us with direct knowledge of the mind-independent ...

The epistemological problem of perception concerns whether or not distal objects and their properties are given to us in experience; it doesn't concer...

Given what you mean by "proximal cause" the indirect realist agrees with the first part. But then the second part needs further explanation/justificat...

Veridical experiences are caused by some appropriate proximal stimulus, e.g. seeing the colour red when light with a wavelength of 700nm interacts wit...

I think you're reading something into the meaning of the word "seeing" that just isn't there. When we have a visual experience we describe it using th...

It's interpreted. When there's something ambiguous like the duck-rabbit I can switch between seeing the duck and seeing the rabbit without any change ...

The proximal cause is the entity that stimulates the sense receptors. With sight it's light, with hearing it's sound, with smell it's odour molecules ...

Well, certainly not when it comes to sight where the proximal cause is light. In the case of touch and taste they'd agree.

I'm not sure how that's relevant to the dispute between direct and indirect realism? I don't understand the distinction. Interpretation is a mental ph...

Are you arguing for something like substance dualism then, with consciousness being some non-physical phenomenon that extends beyond the body?

Then distal objects and their properties are not constituents of experience. The smells and tastes and colours that are constituents of experience are...

The difference is in what causes the experience, not in what constitutes the experience. There's a qualitative difference only in the sense that there...

I don't understand what you think indirect realism has to account for. Experiences, whether veridical or hallucinations, are reducible to (or superven...

I'm not sure, I only recall hallucinating once and that was patterns of colours and spatial distortions. I think a schizophrenic or regular user of ps...

Sure, but then you have to accept that you are not necessarily arguing against indirect realism. This is clear if you each replace the word "direct" w...

The indirect realist accepts that odour molecules from the chicken enter his nose, but denies that his perception of it is direct. Therefore, at the v...

Subjective idealism or phenomenalism perhaps?

How do you distinguish between veridical experience and hallucination? It certainly wouldn't make sense to say that you can distinguish them because t...

We see things when the visual cortex is active and we hear things when the auditory cortex is active. The cortical blind have functioning eyes but don...

According to what you mean by “hear”, but what you mean isn’t always what others mean, and certainly isn’t what they mean when they say that the schiz...

Because that's how the language is ordinarily used. I see colours, I feel pain, the schizophrenic hears voices. Why must the indirect realist restrict...

Saying that the schizophrenic hears voices is a perfectly ordinary and appropriate use of the English language. If you don't want to phrase it that wa...

There is a difference between visual and auditory hallucinations and using words like "see" and "hear" to describe that difference is perfectly approp...

This shows the crux of the misunderstanding. "Feel" does not mean "touch". I feel pain, I don't touch pain (rather, I touch the fire). Unfortunately, ...

I still see something when I dream and hallucinate, and that thing I see is a mental phenomenon. When I feel pain I feel something, and that thing I f...

I feel pain and see and hear things when I dream and hallucinate. You're reading something into the sentence "I experience mental representations" tha...

I don't claim not to have reliable knowledge of distal objects. I claim that mental representations are distinct from distal objects, that I have dire...

If you don't understand what naive realists are claiming then that's on you. They are saying much more than just "I see a cow" is true.

This is precisely the point I have been making since the start. The philosophical dispute between direct (naive) and indirect (non-naive) realists con...

When I say "I see colours and colours are mental phenomena" I am referring to the mental phenomena, not whatever else the term "colour" might be used ...

The argument was in that comment: Experience exists within the brain. Distal objects exist outside the body. Therefore distal objects (and their prope...

I'll repeat myself from an earlier comment:

I'll copy from What’s so naïve about naïve realism?: There's a distinction between a distal object being a constituent of experience and being a cause...

I see colours and feel pain. Colours and pain are mental phenomena. I see things when I dream and hear things when I hallucinate. You're reading somet...

But the indirect realist agrees that mental phenomena like smells and tastes and colours are causally determined by distal objects and their propertie...

No, according to indirect realists those statements are more specifically understood as: I directly see colours and colours are a mental phenomenon. I...

Neural representations of perceptual color experience in the human ventral visual pathway --- See Perception # Process and terminology:

As I have repeatedly said, "I experience X" doesn't just mean one thing. I see colours and colours are a mental phenomenon. I see trees and trees are ...

I feel pain, pain is a mental phenomenon, therefore I feel a mental phenomenon. I see colours, colours are a mental phenomenon, therefore I see a ment...

It seems to me as if my visual experience literally extends beyond my body and that distal objects are literally present within my visual experience. ...

To be presented is to be present. If some distal object is presented in experience then that distal object is present in experience. If that distal ob...

I only used the word "access" because it's the term Moliere used. He said "in terms of the epistemological problem of perception we have direct access...

The epistemological problem of perception concerns epistemology, i.e. knowledge. I might know that I see the colour red and taste a sweet taste but no...

Having a rational awareness/understanding of it. I can describe the colours I see as being red or green or blue or the taste I taste as being sweet or...

I have access to colours and pain and smells and tastes. These are all percepts. When I see things when I dream and hear things when I hallucinate I a...

Our access to the wider-world is indirect with those percepts being the intermediary. If those percepts are missing (e.g. where someone has cortical b...

Which is precisely why I have argued that the dispute over the grammar of "I experience X" is a red herring. The philosophical dispute between direct ...

We have access to percepts. Percepts are often the consequence of the body responding to some proximal stimulus (dreams and hallucinations being the n...

Which means what? It's a term used in the science of perception. See here: