The trick in dealing with the noumenal is to understand that it makes no difference to anything you might choose to do. — Banno

The trick in dealing with the phenomenal is to understand that it makes a significant difference whether the phenomenal correlates to reality.

There is reality and then there is the perception of reality. How they correspond, I'm not sure, but I'm committed to the idea that they do, else we wouldn't continually try to get better and better perspectives of reality through the crude lenses we've been afforded.

The fact so many are enamored by the thought of being brains in vats is disturbing, as it seems to amount to a rejection of the world in which we live. — Ciceronianus

Yet Descartes didn't reject the world in which we live, so that must not have been the implication of the evil demon thought experiment.

This seems to be to simply beg the question. Why should we assume the blinking light is all we see? — Ciceronianus

This misunderstands the analogy. We don't see the blinking light. We see the flower. The car sees the passing car and a blinking light is activated.

Direct realism holds that the flower and the perception are indistinct. What you see is what there is.

Under direct realism, when I see a flower, the flower is whatever I see. We don't distinguish between "flowers" and "perceptions of flowers" as that would lead us down the path of having to explain which part of the flower is real and which is subjectively created. We also don't bother with things like qualia, as that would ask us to explain the difference between cognitive substance and external physical substance and it might suggest there are two flowers (the real and the perceived).

Now to my car:

The car sees a passing vehicle. Under direct realism, its response isn't to interpret the passing car, but to simply perceive it. Perceptual events aren't mysterious events, but they are simply behavioral responses offering direct impressions of objects. So, a car sees a passing car and it offers a behavioral response to it, namely to blink a light. The passing car, under direct realism, to my car, is a blinking light.

If passing cars are not blinking lights, but are something far more substantial, and include doors, windows, and seats and you know this because you've seen them, then my question is why your behavioral responses can be said to be accurate, but not the car's.

Back to bees and flowers:

Is the flower the way I see it or the way the bee sees it? If some creature sees it as a blinking light, is it a blinking light?

If we adapt to environment A, we will avoid B if we're not adapted to it because we'll not compete well there. That's why tigers don't find a nice warm cave to compete with the bats.

The article was too long, but am I correct in interpreting that it says an experiment with mice showed the mice tried to avoid surprise, so that finding was theorized to be the driving force for all animal behavior, but when they looked at how animals actually behaved in the world, their theory proved shitworthy?

And if there is disagreement about what those properties are? — baker

I get @Banno's comment, suggesting that if all properties are subjectively imposed, then how can we speak of those properties of the thing in itself. The noumenal is by definition unknowable, so I'd agree that we can't know what those properties are, but realize that a property free entity is nothing at all.

My only non-Kantian response is to say that the object is whatever creates the experience, but I don't know what that is. To state otherwise must result in an idealism or anti-realism.

So, if we're realists here, we need to start allowing for this "external" talk, else we slip into a purely imaginative world. It would be ironic if the direct realist who prides himself as having the common sense approach ends up denying external reality.

This will set a precedent for young male vigilantes, if it did not already exist. — _db

Self help is the predictable consequence of failed law enforcement. The decision of law enforcement to respond to street violence (whether justified protests or not) in a passive way, has to gain acceptance in all communities or some will feel justified to take the law into their own hands.

Busting heads and taking names won't stop looting and violent protests, nor will it stop the counter protestors. Big problems need big leadership, which we didn't see from Trumo and not seeing from Biden.

When I see a flower, I don't see a perception of a flower. I see a flower. Do you claim I see something else? — Ciceronianus

My car has this feature that causes a light on the side mirror to light up when another vehicle passes into my blind spot. Unless you wish to speak if qualia, which I understand you don't, the car's perception of the passing car elicits the behavior of a light blinking on.

My question is whether the blinking light is the passing car.

To clarify my analogy: the flower is the passing car and my internal experience is the blinking light. That is, a flower elicits a physical response and it is my phenomenal experience. Is that experience the flower? I'd say no, unless you're willing to commit to the idea that the side blinking light is a passing car?

Idealism doesn't seem to provide any explanation as to how the flower I see can be the same flower you see, hence it doesn't cohere with everyday experience, which seems to show that we can both look at, smell, and touch particular flowers (among many other wonderful things which I won't mention here for the sake of brevity and decorum).. — Janus

Idealism wouldn't require anything external to the mind, so I'm not sure it's worried about other minds and what they see.

In any event, if your basis for realism is to provide an external causative object so that we'll have an explanation for consistency of perception from person to person, that object need not bear any resemblance to the perception. It need only be some noumenal whatever. The flower, for example, could be an algorithm that causes such perceptions in that scenario and nothing more.

Is idealism coherent? What about my perception of the flower, or the bees? Being different how can they all be the same flower — Janus

There's a flower in your head and you're asking about the bee in your head. Idealism is strange, but not incoherent.

suppose you are right. Hanover appears to be fixated on the picture that he is a homunculus looking out at a seperate, external world, and hence thinks all there are, are perceptions, and hence that perceptions are what has properties. — Banno

No, objects have properties.

Words are multiplying unnecessarily here and causing you some confusion it seems. Your perception of the flower is neither a representation of the flower nor is it the flower. You perceive the flower, you don't perceive a representation of the flower. The flower is presented to your perception, is present in your perception, not represented by it. It is your thought or talk about the flower that represents the flower, if anything does. — Janus

If my perception and the flower are the same thing, that's idealism. There is no external to speak of, so you can eliminate that word as well.

If we accept we're part of the universe along with everything else, how does the question whether there's an "external world" even arise? — Ciceronianus

"Uni" verse means one. It means everything that there is. That something is "external" could not mean external to the universe. If it did, the universe would only be part of what there is. This distinction you make is not one that needed to be made because no one argues otherwise.

That the blender is separate from the cupboard is separate from the coffee maker is entirely possible even if all the world is the kitchen.

When I say there are objects external to me, I don't mean external to the universe because that, well, wouldn't make a whole lotta sense.

Knowing this now, I say there is me, and then there are flowers and I have a perception of the flower. The question then is whether my perception represents the flower or is the flower. If the former, we're not direct realists. If the latter, we are. The latter makes no sense to me.

He was trying to get R's gun off him after R had just threatened a crowd and shot a man, yes. R's defense was that he fel — Kenosha Kid

"KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The first man shot by Kyle Rittenhouse on the streets of Kenosha was “hyperaggressive” that night, threatened to kill Rittenhouse and later lunged for his rifle just before the 17-year-old fired, witnesses testified Thursday.

The testimony at Rittenhouse’s murder trial came from two witnesses who had been called to the stand by the prosecution but gave accounts often more favorable to the defense in the politically polarizing case."
https://apnews.com/article/kyle-rittenhouse-wisconsin-shootings-george-floyd-kenosha-3b74864f491347cfdd09cfc22ffdf557

These witnesses were prosecution witnesses. This evidence is not in controversy.

It's entirely possible to admit that there are serious problems with the US judicial system as it pertains to racial disparity AND acknowledge the Rittenhouse trial isn't evidence of it.

Two violent criminals are dead. I'd say the world is better off for his presence that day. Who knows what other violent crimes those two would have committed in their lives. Just look at the Wisconsin parade killer. — Harry Hindu

No, neither deserved death if justice were served in a deliberate way. That is, had they not been shot, they would have faced some charges, not none deserving terribly long sentences, and certainly not death.

Saying the self defense was justified is not equivalent to saying he got his just dessert.

That he took a machine gun to a protest against police murdering black people? That the group he approached with said gun was largely black? That said, I did cause a mispeak in my edit. I originally wrote "shoot people". So to clarify, he "did shoot people — Kenosha Kid

This conversation would be more meaningful if you read the facts. Instead it's just a continual correction of your factual errors.

What data do you have that the Kenosha protest was mostly black?


Kenosha is 80% white.

It wasn't a machine gun. Are you now arguing he was spraying the crowd with an automatic rifle, as if those are actual legal?

I was talking about his second victim. — Kenosha Kid

The second person had knocked him to the ground, beating him in the neck with a skateboard and was wrestling his gun away when shot.

Yes, I shot an unarmed man, but only because I was worried he'd take the gun I brought to threaten him with off me and shoot me with it." — Kenosha Kid

Bullets has just been fired, so your insistence that R just opened fire on a peaceful civil rights crowd doesn't reference this case. They were also trying to stomp his face in.

Again, R's arrival as a counter protestor before a volatile mob brandishing a military grade firearm in order to protect the streets was stupid as shit and it cost lives, and almost his own. The world is worse off for his presence that day.

An apt analogy would be if I choose to wander the poorest gritiest part of town drunk wearing a Rolex, money falling from my pockets and then complaining I got robbed. Sure, robbery is robbery, and I acted legally and they acted illegally, but I'm a screaming dumb ass.

. It seems fairly obvious (to this non-American, at least) that verdicts like this one are an inevitable byproduct of a society which has normalised both the carrying of guns and the ideology that the right to guns for self-defence is inalienable. I mean the constitution literally talks about the need for militias. So why surprise when a 17 year old wants to playact being in a militia and ends up shooting people? — coolazice

The protestors were armed as well. The first guy who got shot was next to a person who shot a handgun as they charged him and the third guy who got shot admitted on the stand he has his pistol pointed at R's head when he got shot. The other person shot was wrestling him for his gun on the ground.

There was insanity on the streets to be sure (literally, actually, as the 2 dead had histories of mental illness), but R didn't commit a crime. He's an idiot no doubt though.

. Less obvious and perhaps more technical is that the prosecution didn't have to go after a murder charge here and could conceivably have pinned Rittenhouse on a lesser offence. Once witness testimony began to poke big holes in the prosecution's case, there was too much doubt to convict. Prosecutors overcharged and underproved. — coolazice

The jury did consider lesser charges.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/12/jury-rittenhouse-lesser-charges-521226

Trite, I know, but there is this:

External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?

Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism 760 / 931 (81.6%)
Other 86 / 931 (9.2%)
Accept or lean toward: skepticism 45 / 931 (4.8%)
Accept or lean toward: idealism 40 / 931 (4.3%)
— PhilPapers Survey — Banno

This isn't the survey result that applies to the questions within this thread. From the same survey:

See #21.

The first shot fired was by a pursuer and Rittenhouse shot back 2.5 seconds later. It was entirely self defense.
— Hanover

That doesn't even match Rittenhouse's testimony. — Kenosha Kid

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/580073-detective-shot-fired-before-rittenhouse-began-shooting%3famp

That Rittenhouse got off scotch free is bullshit, underage possession of a firearm + reckless endangerment should have been maintained — _db

The Wisconsin law allows a minor to possess a rifle as long as it's a certain length, so he violated no law there.

The first shot fired was by a pursuer and Rittenhouse shot back 2.5 seconds later. It was entirely self defense.

I'm just puzzled as to how you know that both bees and people perceive flowers, even if differently, and yet you also know that what flowers are is unknowable. — Banno

Well, that is the Kantian position.

I tend to believe a causative link between the thing and the experience. So, if the flower is knowable, it can only be knowable from an analysis of all perspectives, recognizing that each of our perspectives is mediated by our peculiar filters. This is precisely how we all navigate the world by the way. Science requires we eliminate subjective bias.

Whatever objections persist related to indirect realism or subjectivism, they at least avoid the incoherent position of the OP. It argues for a holism, yet it describes seperate entities, but then insists because there is just one universe, all must be one. As if

The world" cannot be "external" to – ontologically separate from – itself, which includes its constitutents (Spinoza). To wit: — 180 Proof

None of this makes much sense. That nothing can exist external to the world is tautological, considering "the world" is being referred to as all that is in this context. Even in Spinoza speak, objects have attributes, which makes them distinct within the universe. Bees, flowers, people, and even thoughts of bees, flowers, and people are things with different attributes and can discussed as separate entities, all within the world, even if we hold there is some mega underlying monism.

The universe is one, as the prefix "uni" demands, but that says nothing about what a flower is. If I conceive a flower as X and you as Y, what is the truth value of the proposition "the flower is Y"?

Can someone answer the bolded question?

Odd. Not sure what the point is. — Banno

Must you be able to do something with the truth for it to be true?

The flower is knowable in a multitude of ways, or in other words, via a multitude of different kinds and instances of encounter. It is not exhaustively knowable, but that does not entail that it is unknowable. — Janus

Very well, what is the flower in and of itself?

There are many constituents of the world. Some are human, some are bees, some are flowers. None of them exist in an "external world" apart from anything else. None of them is an "external object" in that sense. There is no "thing" called a perception which exists somewhere inside of us. — Ciceronianus

I'm open to understanding this, but I really don't follow what's being proposed. If a "constituent" is a part, it is distinct from other parts, which logically demands that bees, flowers, and people are apart from each other. By "apart" I mean not a part of, which means it's separate from me, thus being external.

It is my experience that my perceptions cease upon my unconsciousness, yet it seems the object of my perception is unaffected by unconsciousness. Do you believe otherwise? When I sleep, does my bed cease to exist now that I no longer perceive it?

This is slipping into pure idealism. Is that an accurate description of your position?

Bees perceived flowers differently to us.
Therefore flowers do not exist.

Something's missing. — Banno

No one has argued that.

What I'm arguing is that the approach of the OP is not naive (direct) realism. It sounds Kantian to me. Per the OP and subsequent clarifications there are said to be external objects and then there are perceptions. How the perception correlates to the external object is left to the unknown. It's being argued that bees have phenomenal states of flowers and people do as well, but they need not be at all similar.

I ask how this is not identical to saying the flower itself is noumenal and unknowablre, yet the experience is the phenomenal and all that is knowable?

The flower itself most certainly exists under this construct, but it's unknowable. That's what saves Kant from pure idealism as it does the OP.

I think something like the Thomas Reid quote better describes naive realism than what is argued here.

For me, there's no "external world." There's a world of which we're a part. There isn't one world for us and another world for everything else. We see red because we're a particular kind of living organism existing in the world which, when interacting with certain other constituents of the world, see them as having what we call a "red color." That takes place in one and the same world. It's a function of what the world is and what it encompasses. — Ciceronianus

I don't take this to be direct realism/naive realism. It implicates the noumenal and doesn't correlate it to the phenomenal. If you allow that the actual flower is causative of the phenomenal, then the variations of perception among species can only be accounted for by how each mediates the external object, this leading to indirect realism.

Direct realism I take to be something like Thomas Reid's statement:

"The sceptic asks me, Why do you believe the existence of the external object which you perceive? This belief, sir, is none of my manufacture; it came from the mint of Nature; it bears her image and superscription; and, if it is not right, the fault is not mine: I even took it upon trust, and without suspicion. Reason, says the sceptic, is the only judge of truth, and you ought to throw off every opinion and every belief that is not grounded on reason. Why, sir, should I believe the faculty of reason more than that of perception?—they came both out of the same shop, and were made by the same artist; and if he puts one piece of false ware into my hands, what should hinder him from putting another? "(IHM 6.20, 168–169)

This eliminates any argument from reason that what you perceive lacks existence in the form in which you experience it because it refuses to allow reason to over-rule perceptions.

I'm not sure I find this persuasive, but this I take as a defense of the naive realist position.

Of course the bees seeings and our seeings are not the same; but it does not follow from that that we don't see the same flowers as the bees — Janus

What is the flower other than how we perceive it? If it's something else, what is it?

It's unsurprising that our interaction with a flower (which results when we see it, smell it, grow it, etc.) differs from that of a bee and a flower. The difference is the result of the fact we're entirely different creatures, but living in the same world. — Ciceronianus

What do you mean by "the same world"? This implies the flower is the same to me and the bee, but you've said otherwise. The question then is to describe those features of the flower that are the same regardless of the perceiver.

All living things incapable of immediate experience of the universe, yet living in it. It's a remarkable belief indeed, one that is premised on a belief that we can't "really" know anything. We somehow stumble through our lives ignorant of the inaccessible real, it seems. — Ciceronianus

Only if you define knowing what a thing is as that which you can successfully interact with do you avoid the problem that bees perceive objects differently from humans, and perhaps treat and react to them quite differently than humans, do you avoid the problem that they know the objects differently.

It's undisputed that bees perceive flowers differently than humans, and it's undisputed that both are fully able to navigate flowers successfully. That a flower is X to a bee but Y to a person begs the question of what is a flower. Is it X or Y? Is it whatever I believe it to be so long as it facilitates my survival?

Meaning is what we discover when we look. Days pass and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.

I don't take credit for that last sentence.

I'll just add in for whatever it's worth that there are distinctions from jurisdiction to jurisdiction within the states (under US law) and differences between pizzas and commercial paper (like holders of fraudulent checks). So, it just all depends.

You might recall when Bernie Madoff was handing stolen money from one innocent nvestor to another, they were required to return it to the rightful owner, so being a good faith holder of funds doesn't protect you just because you're in good faith.

The 5th Dimension brought in the Age of Aquarius.

It's a question of scale. — Banno

It's all a question of degree. All nations imprison people. Removing me from my loved ones, eliminating my ability to contribute anything to the world, dictating my every move, housing me with those who wish me harm, is that not the worst torture imaginable? Is that more humane than 20 lashes?

Still the question remains as a plurality of gods allows for more specific investigation though. — I like sushi

I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of metaphysical pragmatism where you posit the existence of something because a belief in that thing might make your life more meaningful or understandable, but I would reserve such pragmatics for instances where it would not violate other beliefs I adhere to.

What I mean by that is that typically we say something exists because we have some evidence of its existence. I believe the cup exists because I see a cup. I don't say that I believe a cup exists because I one day may need to have a drink, so it would be comforting to know there is a cup out there somewhere.

What you've done is to say you have no particular evidence of various competing gods existing in the world, but it would helpful in your understanding of the world to think that such gods do exist, so you therefore do. Such is pragmatism. The problem is that if you posit these actual physical gods engaging in battle with one another and existing in human form, you need to show them to me, tell me where they live, explain their reproductive systems, and all sorts of other matters. Because you can't do that, your positing their existence violates the epistemological system you use for knowing other similar matters. That is, you know the cup exists by seeing it, but you don't know these gods exist by seeing them; therefore, you have no consistent standard for knowing. I would not allow for a pragmatic solution that makes no sense when compared to my overall worldview.

And this is actually one very good reason for monotheism and a highly abstracted god. By not demanding any physical property or anything that would otherwise be provable in the mundane universe, a belief in such a god avoids violating the epistemological system you use to know other things in the universe. God, under this definition, would be unlike all else in the universe and could therefore be accepted as existing for pragmatic reasons without violating my epistemological system and so could be believed just because his existence makes your life more understandable.

I'd also point out that the acceptance of God for pragmatic reasons sounds as close to a secular basis for religion as might exist. It avoids mysticism or faith, but, if God is truly believed to exist for pragmatic reasons, it then must be actually believed. That is, you would say God exists in a true metaphysical sense just because you feel better thinking he exists. You would know God exists just like you know the cup exists.

In polytheism the gods engage and interact. They are alive and never completely right or wrong. They are relatable to human life. In monotheism we are expected to believe something beyond comprehension (which is contrary) whereas in polytheism we can view the theatre of the gods as reflecting human culture and express each human item more readily and carefully. The overarching problem of the monotheistic cultures is that they are considered ‘beyond’ human experience yet we’re meant to live by the rules and doctrines of that which is literally ‘above us’. — I like sushi

You are drawing a distinction between anthropomorphic gods and non-physical gods and perfect gods and flawed gods, but you are not drawing a distinction between polytheism and monotheism. It is entirely possible for a monotheistic god to have all sorts of flaws and to be in human physical form, and it's entirely possible for a particular polytheistic god (or gods) to be omnipotent and entirely non-physical.

Yahweh is given human characteristics in the Bible and it can be argued he was far from perfect.

To those concerned with being banned, I do want you to know that, barring some extreme behavior, it's usually a process where you receive a PM and there's a discussion and eventually a warning and then a ban. It's not like you're going to try to log in one day and not know why you can't get through. I say that just so you know we're not trigger happy and we do want people to be here and enjoy the site and we're not just looking for a reason to make your life difficult.

The internet is a great big place and not everyone comes here with the purest intent, so we have to police it for those who are here and want a quality place to visit.

The rules are pretty clear and getting banned takes some amount of intentional effort. We've not really had anyone surprised by their ban.

An observer is needed in order to make an observation.

Reality doesn't care if you are looking or not. — Banno

We know then that reality is unimpacted by the observer. Do we know whether the observer is impacted by reality?

Are reality and observations parallel universes are is there some interactionism between the two?