Now that I think about it, maybe this might help without diverging too much.

What exists is what has causal power, or is part of a causal relationship.

Could you clarify that question, because I don't get it as it is formulated... How do perspectives and knowledge exist seems like an odd question to ask, because they don't, if we take existence to mean what it generally means, material or physical existence. — ChatteringMonkey

Well, then I guess we're opening a can of worms because I see the material/physical vs mental/experiential dichotomy as a false one.

"Wrong" is a bit harsh; misguided, perhaps — Banno

How exactly is "misguided" not the same as "wrong"? You say that it's "harsh", but if you're trying to spare my feelings, my feelings, and you trying to spare them, have nothing to do with what I said being wrong or right.

On occasions, I teach kids. I've several times been involved in setting up and running philosophy for children. It's never long before I start to question the wisdom of such a curriculum. So much of philosophy is bad or clumsy.

I also teach coding, and have found it a much more direct, effective way of teaching "thinking" - especially sits such as code.org, which comfortably straddle the concrete /abstract divide for eight year olds by using games. — Banno

A curriculum in philosophy for children should simply be a course in critical thinking, which a computer coding course could be a choice because coding teaches critical thinking.

The history of philosophy should probably be reserved for high school and college elective courses, or those majoring in philosophy - which seems to be not much different than a major in theology.

But following through on the analogy above, it seems to me that you do philosophy in much the way a programmer would program if they only used variables - it doesn't work. — Banno

I don't recall ever saying that programmers only use variables to solve problems, or that making sure words are clearly defined solves all philosophical problems. I think what I have shown is that this is part of the process, yet a necessary part, just as avoiding appealing to emotion is a necessary part of solving problems. All the rules are necessary and are dependent on the other rules to be followed in order to solve the problem. If I wrote a program that only showed a profit for a company because I wanted to spare the CEO's feelings, then that company wouldn't be a company for very long.

Don't know why you ask me that question. I though my point was clear from the first post I made addressing one of yours — ChatteringMonkey

Because we seem to have come to the answer to that question.

What we mean is "how do things (like perspectives and knowledge) exist"?

So there isn't a "how things are" when it comes to knowledge and perspectives? Then what on Earth have we been talking about all this time when saying or writing those words?

It's a question about knowledge rather then existence. — ChatteringMonkey

It's a question about the existence of knowledge and perspectives - their nature, especially as they relate to what they are about.

For indirect realists; the proof of indirectness is inferential representation.
For direct realists; the proof of directness is causal contact. — fdrake

Sounds like you can't really have one without the other. Every cause or effect is inferred.

Yeah that is at least the conclusion that Nietzsche for example drew from it... that if the true world, or how things really are, is an incoherent notion, what you are left with is perspectives. Everything is a allways viewed from a perspective. — ChatteringMonkey

What about the perspective itself? From where is it viewed to say that there is a "how things are" for a perspective? It creates an infinite regress of needing perspectives as the structure for the subsequent perspectives.
— Harry Hindu

I don't quite understand how get to the that infinite regress. But yes, you can be correct or wrong from a giving perspective, i'd say... which is to say, it doesn't have to lead to something like epistemological nihilism or relativism, or something like that. — ChatteringMonkey

I asked "what about perspectives?" - meaning, is there a how things are for perspectives? If there is, then how things are isn't an incoherent notion. How things are for your perspective relative to my perspective is a real difference, unless you are actually part of me when I read your posts (solipsism). If all that exists are perspectives, then we need to redefine "perspectives", as we commonly understand today that perspectives are of other things. If you are saying that they aren't, rather that perspectives are the only real feature of the universe - the only thing that there is a "how things are", then it really isn't a perspective that we are talking about are we?

Where is your perspective relative to mine? In answering this question would you not be describing "how things are" between our two perspectives?

Is there a your perspective relative to mine? If there are no other perspectives other than my own, then my "perspective" is really the universe itself, and there are no perspectives.

So, are you and Marchesk and Jamalrob parts of me when I read your(my) posts? Are we now understanding why the "you" needs to be defined in order to proceed forward on this topic?

It depends obviously, sometimes a difference will be due to having a different view on it, and you can be both 'correct' from a given perspective... but you can also, like I said, definitely be wrong about something.

This is what is often misunderstood about perspectivism. It's not the same as relativism or subjectivism, in the sense that every point of view is subjective and therefor equally valid or as correct as the next. It's just the acknowledgement that things are viewed from a certain perspective and that different perspectives are possible. And eventhough knowledge is allways partial in that sense, it nevertheless is 'objective' or 'about the nature of the thing', for lack of better words. — ChatteringMonkey

I don't understand how someone could be wrong or right about anything if all there are are perspectives.

Nouns engage in actions or functions, which verbs refer to. Adjectives refer to properties of the noun.

Variables are scribbles whose meaning can be customized on the fly, while the other words are used to perform functions on the meaning of the variables, what they refer to, not the scribble itself.

If a word doesn't refer then words are just sounds that make people do things, just as an alarm wakes you up from sleep.

If you want to address the specific examples I have provided or provide your own, then we can start there. But your amusement certainly isn't a good evidence that anything that I have said is wrong. You need to try a bit harder.

Programming is about automating the solution to a problem.

Programmers usually start off creating programs for themselves, to solve their own problems. It just so happens that others have similar problems, or that the algorithm can be applied to solve other problems. I often find myself copy and pasting code because I'm solving the same problem, or I just create a function that automates the problem solving when called, providing the output of one function as the input of the other function.

The problem isn't experts defining the terms on this forum. Is Aristotle an expert on the topics of this forum? Are we permitted to disagree with his use of terms? Who here is an expert on the topic at hand? You'd think that the computer programmer would be, but then look at all the people disagreeing with my use of terms.

What I find strange is the assertion that ambiguities can't be eliminated which seems to imply no ambiguity of me being wrong in claiming that they can, and should be for proper thinking.

If ambiguities can't be eliminated, then emancipate's and jamalrob's posts could actually be agreeing wholeheartedly with everything I have said.

Jamalrob and emancipate are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

The problem is not that some philosophers keep things ambiguous, but that some believe ambiguity can be eliminated. It is OK that there is still some fuzzyness around the edges!

Logic is just a tool. Useful, yes. But certainly it is only one aspect of thought. — emancipate

So do your words refer to the fuzzy edges or concrete center? If one is referring to the edges while another is referring to the center, are they talking past each other?

Is logic a tool or an aspect of thought? It doesn't seem coherent to claim it is both. If you could clarify, that'd be great.

It is a tool for proper thought. If you aren't interested in thinking properly, then can you actually claim to be doing philosophy considering logic lays out the rules for thinking properly about the other fields?

How do you distinguish between a delusion and fuzzy thinking? Delusions are thoughts that are uninhibited by facts.

This exactitude in communication between a computer and its coder is missing in philosophy because of the obvious reason that human language has more going on with the words and also with the way they're employed. — TheMadFool

If it were exact, there would be no bugs or glitches.

It's a matter of integrating each our private languages into a public one, just as the computer has it's language of 1's and 0's - machine language - that the higher languages have to be translated to via a compiler. Some series of 1's and 0's means the same thing as "If x > y then do z", just with different languages.

All to say, to apply the coding analog to philosophy, the first and supremely important question may be: what is the end objective of human life? — Frank Pray

Programming doesn't help you to think, it helps you to put limitations on thought. To set bounderies. — emancipate

Other programmers would agree with Frank, in that you program to solve problems, not to place limits on thinking, but to provide a means of solving virtually any problem by simulating with code. Variables allow you to define your own meanings, and produce your own conditions and ontologies, but they are only useful if they simulate the real world in some way.

I think the problem with some philosophers that question the use of logic to solve problems is that they like keeping things mysterious. Ambiguous term use is a means of keeping logic from attempting to solve the problem. If you can never define what it is you are talking about and are evasive and contradictory, then it seems to me that you like having the problem more than having a solution.

Taking this linguistic dilemma out of the laboratory and into the streets, I'm wondering if you have any "seat of the pants" tactics to use in daily conversation that helps the participants to come to common terms. Being pedantical with your lover is not usually the first best approach. — Frank Pray

Daily conversations usually don't include talk about "consciousness", "what it is like to be a bat", "direct vs. indirect realism", "metaphysics", and the other terms we use so often on this forum, so it generally isn't a problem like it is here, in the context of questioning the fundamentals of what we know. I think some of us come to this forum to escape the social games and roles that we play using words the way we do in our everyday lives. We take a break from being fake so that we can be real on these forums. Brown-nosing your boss can only be done so much before you begin to question your own integrity.

Yeah that is at least the conclusion that Nietzsche for example drew from it... that if the true world, or how things really are, is an incoherent notion, what you are left with is perspectives. Everything is a allways viewed from a perspective. — ChatteringMonkey

What about the perspective itself? From where is it viewed to say that there is a "how things are" for a perspective? It creates an infinite regress of needing perspectives as the structure for the subsequent perspectives (the infinite regress of homonculi).

Because what would a view from everywhere mean? That you view all perspectives at once maybe, i.e. a table from all sides, the molecules it is made out of, the protons and electrons and the wavefunction etc etc. ?

It think we see at least parts of the only world we have access to with our senses. And maybe you can learn more about it by looking at it from different perspectives. But the fact that there are other possible perspectives still, doesn't render the perspective we do have false or obsolete.... certainly not for our purposes. — ChatteringMonkey

Well, that was what I was saying when it comes to viewing the same thing with different senses. How something tastes as to how it appears is different, but is the difference a result of the difference in the senses, or different properties of the object? When we disagree, is our disagreement about the nature of the the thing, or the nature of our view of it?

Good question. What does Nagel mean when he says there is a how things are to be a bat? Is it the same thing?

Is "how things are" always a view from somewhere? What about a view from everywhere?

Why do we have multiple different types of senses? Is it to know different things about the object or event in question, or is there some level of fault tolerance involved which would be a means of minimizing unfounded assumptions - if we'd only interpret the various forms of sensations driven by our multitude of different senses as such.

Is the redness of the apple, the sweet taste, and the firmness of it's shape informing you that the apple is ripe? How does ripeness appear to different senses? Is the world less complex than we actually see it? Are we confusing the various forms that sensations from different senses take as different information about the object, when the difference has to do with the senses themselves, not the object being sensed? Different types of sensors can give you the same information in different forms, it depends on the type of sensor used. If the forms consistently occur together, then it is likely that they are providing fault tolerant information, not different information about the object.

And if how things look equates to how things are, then why do we have a multitude of different senses?

:kiss: Yep, syntax matters.

The difference between computer programming and philosophy is like the difference between making a table and making a sculpture: if you've gone wrong your code will produce an error and your table won't stand up right, but in philosophy and sculpture you never get that: it's harder to tell. In philosophy, there's no agreement as to what the proper objects, settings, and parameters should be in the first place. Philosophy is the practice of trying to work that out. — jamalrob

When do you have a sculpture? It seems that "sculpture" needs to be defined in order to know whether you've made one or not. If not, the the term is meaningless. I could call the way I slapped my mash potatoes on a plate a "sculpture". Picking my nose could qualify as "doing philosophy" if we aren't agreeing on what philosophy is and not agreeing is good. Is not agreeing a good thing or a bad thing when it comes to defining something?

Once it is defined you can create a program to use it, or a philosophy to work with it. If you haven't clearly defined what it is you are talking about, then what are you philosophizing about?

You claim that the parameters haven't been worked out, yet the only parameter that is used is logic - even when trying to show logic isn't the only parameter.

This is from the What is certain in philosophy thread:

If A is on B then B is under A
X is on drugs
Drugs is under X. — A Seagull
You're confusing the symbol with its meaning. The "on" in the second statement doesn't mean the same as the "on" in your first, therefore the conclusion doesn't follow. It's not really about the symbols, but what the symbols mean.
— Harry Hindu

Quite so, but when you apply 'mending' to logic or words you lose the rigour of the logic and it becomes indistinguishable form non-logic. — A Seagull

I like to try to solve these types of problems by simulating the problem by recreating it in a program.

One of the most fundamental laws of logic is the law of non-contradiction, along with the law of identity. Words are just scribbles or sounds when they don't mean something, just as variables are just scribbles when they aren't defined. What they refer to, or mean, has to be clearly defined for any subsequent logical parameters using them to be useful.

Some computer programs require you to not only define the variable, but what kind of variable it is, an integer, string, boolean value, etc. If you use the wrong type of variable in the wrong function, you will get an error. For instance if you use a string variable to perform a mathematical calculation it will generate an error.

Another type of error is if your variable is an array and you don't refer to a particular index in the array that exists, then you will generate an error. An array is like a word that has several definitions. If you don't refer to the right definition, you won't get the proper output. You might not get an error, but the output would be erroneous, as in it doesn't reflect reality.

So what I think has happened in Seagull's post is that the first statement one definition of "on" has been established - the opposite of "under".

The second statement is more like referring to the array without the index number - as if "on" only has one definition - the one used in the first statement. The index number was referenced in the first statement but not in the second, hence the ambiguity of which definition is being used. The identity of "on" is never maintained throughout the argument. The moment you lose the non-contradictory identity of what it is you are talking about, you are no longer talking about anything.

I understand that life is simply the result of evolution, but there is a reason to everything and that is what the issue is. We can debate purpose, but in the end purpose is meaning given by sentient beings to a reason behind a phenomenon and any reason can be interpreted as a purpose. When I say the universe would be fine without life, I mean that there would be no noticeable detriment to the universe if life never existed. In that case, why life? What possible reasons are there for the evolution of life from simple chemicals? This is where the debate is and without solid evidence we can continue to take our passes at what the reason or reasons could/can be.

My pass was that the universe simply called for an energy consuming component in order to do something with energy, a byproduct of time. When I say the universe called, I mean that the universe naturally produces uses for any existence, basically cause and effect, thus with energy came life. — Braindead

Purpose is certainly related to causality as people use the term to refer to the reason behind a phenomenon, or the cause of the phenomenon, and to the final cause, or effect, or the final state some process is trying to attain or become.

Either way, it's like you said, the starting line and finish line are both arbitrary. The Big Bang is just as necessary to life as the Earth is. But there would be a noticeable detriment to the universe if life never existed. The universe wouldn't be the same from the beginning.

I'm not saying that the universe was designed for life. If it were I'd think that life would be much more predominant in the universe than it is. It isn't designed for anything. It just is a certain way, and life is one of the many, many amazing and complex features of the universe.

What I am saying is that the universe is deterministic. It is a certain way and present states determine subsequent states. With an expanding space and matter/energy dispersed unevenly across it and billions of years of time, you are bound to get more unique and more complex configurations of matter/energy over time via causation. I think that we've only begun to touch the surface of all the different types of configurations that are out there, and their discoveries will bring into question our understanding of what life actually is, or how we define it. Think of what happened to Pluto.

Purpose is an anthropomorphic projection of one's own goals onto the causal process that has no goals. It just is a certain way that is determined by prior states and will determine subsequent states. Any particular focus on any particular cause or effect as the reason or purpose of some other cause or effect is arbitrary. They are all necessary in a deterministic universe. They are all part of the defining nature of the universe. This universe wouldn't be this universe without life or any of the other features it has.

Usually in context of illusions, you investigate further. If you walk five miles through the hot desert to the oasis and it isn't there, then you know your brain tricked you.
— Marchesk

I still don't understand this distinction between "you" and "your brain". How is it that the brain tricks something else that you identify as "you"? What is this "you" in relation to "your brain"?

Is "tricking" really the appropriate word? How about "misinterpreted" based on experiences presently stored in memory? "Learning" and "programming" might be other appropriate words to use when it comes to acclimating oneself with the correct interpretation. — Harry Hindu

Think about this scenario: Say "you" are remote controlling a robot on Mars that transmits it's video feed and information about the chemical composition of the rocks it "sniffs" to Earth. Where is the you in this process? It seems to me that "you" needs to be defined before we can determine what is direct or indirect and if the distinction really matters when it comes to knowledge.

I think jamalrob is arguing that how an object looks, tastes, feels only applies to perception. There's no such thing as what an object looks like without someone seeing it. The indirect realist goes wrong by assuming there is, and then proposing the additional mental intermediary. But there's no need for the intermediary if the act of seeing is what something looks like.

If that sort of argument works, then the debate is rendered moot. There's still a realist question of what objects are independent of perception, but they aren't like perceptions. — Marchesk

But this is nothing new. I've said as much several times on this forum - that to ask what something looks like independent of looking is nonsensical. However, I don't see a problem for the indirect realist if we are to ask if how something looks is how something is. How something looks is a relationship between the looker and what is being looked upon. Take away the looker, then what is the object like?

Thinking that things are exactly how they appear is a problem because the information in the sensation about the object is mixed up with the information about the looker. Separating the two as if the sensation is information about only one or the other is the problem. Thinking that how things appear is a model of the relationship between the system looking and what is being looked at isn't. As a matter of fact it fits with quantum theory in that incorporating an additional "looker", or measuring device, changes the outcome of the double slit experiment.

I thought people already passed that waypoint; after all the difficulty seems to be not the definition of "purpose" but actually that it (purpose) is missing in our lives. — TheMadFool

I'm asking where the waypoint you passed is. If you can't define it, then how do you know you passed it?

A purpose doesn’t imply that something was created on purpose. Things that just happen to exist by chance can still be put to a purpose, or serve a purpose.

A purpose is just what something is good for. So asking what the purpose of anything is, is asking what good can come about because of it. — Pfhorrest

Excellent. So a purpose is a manifestation of some goal?

It is surprising that we have an antonym for "purpose" viz. "purposeless" - and yet we are baffled by our own lack of purpose. Surely, that we have the word "purposeless" implies some things don't have a purpose. Why then can't we be among the things devoid of purpose? — TheMadFool

"purpose" and "purposeless" are antonym's only because the rule of English states that the suffix, "-less" means "without".

So by the rules of the language, they are antonyms, not by what the words refer to, like "above" and "below".

The reason why people are baffled is because "purpose" hasn't been clearly defined. What does "purpose" mean so that we can then understand what "purposeless" means?

Usually in context of illusions, you investigate further. If you walk five miles through the hot desert to the oasis and it isn't there, then you know your brain tricked you. — Marchesk

I still don't understand this distinction between "you" and "your brain". How is it that the brain tricks something else that you identify as "you"? What is this "you" in relation to "your brain"?

Is "tricking" really the appropriate word? How about "misinterpreted" based on experiences presently stored in memory? "Learning" and "programming" might be other appropriate words to use when it comes to acclimating oneself with the correct interpretation.

Our brains could have evolved to correct for that, if it had been advantageous enough. Our brains do corrections for lighting conditions, and of course sometimes our brains get angles, and lighting and motion wrong. Thus the various visual illusions.

The image on the retina is upside down and 2D, so the brain has to be making some inferences as it produces the perception. — Marchesk

It seems to me that in order to say that the brain gets stuff "wrong" is implying that you know what is "right". How did you know what is right or wrong if not using your brain - directly or indirectly?

I would be willing to bet that this thread was started because you didn't understand Jamalrob's usage of certain terms - particularly the distinction being made between "direct" and "indirect". Others have been displaying a similar reaction to his article.

It is because the words haven't been clearly defined. Jamalrob's usage isn't the same as other's usage, or understanding. Jamalrob is not getting at how they think of things and how they think of things isn't getting at Jamalrob's usage. When words are used ambiguously nothing can every been found to be agreed on because the symbols themselves haven't been provided a concrete meaning to them for the purpose of this discussion.

What would constitute indirect for a direct realist? Going back to the neural implant, let's say when you close your eyes the implant receives radio signals from a camera mounted on a robot moving about some environment. The implant translates that to electrical signals the brain can interpret as images, and the result is a visual perception of what the robot camera is recording.

The reason for brining that up is to ask whether any possible process of perception could be indirect for a direct realist. Because if the answer is none, then the direct realist is playing a word game. — Marchesk

What is the difference between your example of an implant and hearing someone speaking on the phone? Hearing them in person still requires air molecules as the medium for their voice to travel. We still hear their voice, and understand what they say. So again, what is being lost to say that indirect vs direct are somehow different? If hearing them in person is more direct than hearing them on the phone and hearing them on the phone is more indirect than hearing them in person, then we are simply talking about degrees of indirectness/directness. It would be the amount of causal steps it took to get to your awareness of it that we would talk about how direct and how indirect our knowledge of something is. How many steps qualify the process to be direct vs indirect? Does the process take more than one step? Are the steps themselves products of our mind?

(A) Perception is an active relationship between a body and its environment.
(B) Perception results from an active relationship between a body and its environment. — fdrake

Glad to see someone taking my point that the words we are discussing need to be defined, seriously. Everyone is talking past each other because we haven't defined "perception", "experience" "awareness", "consciousness", "indirect vs. direct", etc. No wonder the thread has become what it has - total confusion.

If the goal here is to find some level of agreement, then we need to define what it is that we are talking about, or else we will always disagree, as disagreeing is the result of talking past each other.

It's probably a bit of both. The state of the environment is a priori to our perceptions of it. So while our perceptions can be about the relationship between our body and the environment, I would say that the part of our perception that is about the environment is delayed as it takes time for someone's voice to reach our ears and time for our minds to interpret that a voice is being heard and what the voice is saying. But the actual process of the mind is in real-time - what it is about isn't.

Yeah, but we were not wrong because we trusted our senses... but because we inferred things from them, that we had no real justification to infer.

There's no need for example to assume flat earth from the surface we see being mostly flat... because a circle with a big radius also looks flat from the perspective of a smaller being. Both flat earth and spherical earth fit that observational data, but we just assumed that it had to be flat for a time (for understandable reasons, but that is not the fault of the senses).

There is no way to verify what we perceive, with some other real world data... like I said earlier in the thread, we only started to make scientific progress when we started to take observations seriously. — ChatteringMonkey

Exactly! Our senses don't lie. Our interpretations of what we observe are the problem. A bent straw in water is exactly what you are suppose to see given that we see light, not objects. We infer objects from the information in light. The problem occurs if you think that you see objects.

Seeing the Earth as flat vs round is seeing the Earth from different perspectives. It seems to me that when you place yourself apart from the thing you are talking about that you attain some real sense of the real shape of the world. It is only when you go out in space - separating yourself from the Earth that you see it's true shape. This is the distinction between subjective views and objective ones.

We perceive the world as it is relative to us. Something that is cold or hot is cold or hot relative to our body's surface temperature. Think about when you had a fever and a loved one touches you on the head. Their hand feels cool, yet they claim that your head is warm. You aren't aware of your temperature, only the relationship between your temperature and the environment's.

The feeling is about that relationship. This is why it is so difficult to distinguish between the two when we talk about our sensations. It's not that the sensation is only about one or the other. It is about both. You can know about the state of both via the feeling - that the campfire has a higher temperature than your body. So, trying to say that some experience is only about the experiencer or the experienced is nonsensical. It is about both. The sensation is an objectification of that relationship.

Ah yes, we do need to know that. The direct realists emphasize that perception is different from other experiences. I'm not as convinced. — Marchesk

Ok. So, we need to know the nature of perception. How do we do that - directly, indirectly? Does it matter? Is the indirect vs. direct distinction meaningful? I mean, if we can know about the Big Bang billions of years later, which is about as indirect as you can get, then what is the distinction between them when it comes to knowing about the object or event in question?

Let's say you had a neural implant which did two things:

1. It corrects refracted images so that the stick in water looked straight.

2. It occasionally receives video transmissions of objects otherwise out of sight.

Both of theses result in perceptions. Are they direct?

What if I hack the implant and refract straight light and send the wrong video? What is the nature of the resulting perceptions? — Marchesk

Right, so what we have here is a causal process, where an interaction of various things over time creates an effect later in something else, that then becomes part of the causal process to create more novel effects.

If the process were "hacked", it seems to me that I would eventually notice that - over time as some of my experiences would eventually lead me to interpret that something has gone wrong with my neural implant and I go see the surgeon who implanted it, just as we notice things gone wrong with our hearing or sight and we go see the appropriate doctor.

Well sure. There are a bunch of processes we're not aware of in conscious experience unless something goes wrong or we can't identify what we're experiencing. — Marchesk

Why would these processes be noticed only when they go wrong.

No, the external object. I'm asking how a perceptual experience is direct awareness of the external world. — Marchesk

What I was referring to is that your post seemed to be saying that we would need to know the nature of perception in order to understand the relationship between our awareness of objects in the objects themselves.

So I do have a perception of the building making noises, but my experience of footsteps was inaccurate. Of course that's an auditory illusion, but it does illustrate a mixed state. I can't be directly aware of footsteps if there are none, but I am aware of perceiving a sound. — Marchesk

You're confusing awareness with interpretation. You have to be first aware of something in order to interpret it. You are aware of sounds but it isn't until you integrate the sounds with the awareness of your knowledge about those types of sounds and what causes them, that you categorize the sound.

Just as you can hear someone speaking another language you don't understand what they're saying. Because you lack experience in interpreting those sounds as anything other than someone speaking based on your knowledge of sounds coming from people's mouth means dungeon is speaking.

If the two were not separate processes it seems to me that there wouldn't be experiences of not knowing what a sound is caused by between hearing the sound and categorizing it.

Direct realism would tend to avoid those issues. But only if we actually do have direct perception. — Marchesk

So we would need a direct perception of perception?

Or is the question what is knowledge? How do you know what you know is about what you know?

Quite so, but when you apply 'meaning' to logic or words you lose the rigour of the logic and it becomes indistinguishable form non-logic. — Harry Hindu

What is the relationship between the scribble "on" and the scribble "under" if not what they mean, as in they are opposites?

The second usage of "on" could have meant the opposite and still be coherent, but if using the other then you need to establish the identity of "on" that you are using, precisely because "on" can mean different things.

Actually, you did establish the identity of "on" in your first statement:

If A is on B then B is under A
X is on drugs
Drugs is under X. — A Seagull

as the opposite of "under", as in the first definition I provided above.

But then your second statement establishes an ambiguous identity of "on",

so your argument is invalid because you are not consistently using "on" the same way in both statements - a concrete identity vs an ambiguous one.

Yep. When watching a show on astrophysics for the layman, the scientists translate the math into words. You can say the same thing with words or with math, just like you can with any other language. They're just two different types of languages.

Partially submerge an apple in a large mason jar half-filled with water, and you change the shape of the apple.

Using Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities, apples have the shape we see them to have even when not being seen, and so shape-experience provides us with direct information about the apple, whereas it doesn't have the taste we taste it to have when not being eaten, and so taste-experience only provides us with indirect information about the apple. — Michael

The shape-experience is two-dimensional. You can't see the other side of the apple, only the side facing you. So shape-experience can't be a primary. The world is not located relative to your eyes, yet that is how the world appears.

Doesn't "bent" straws in water indicate that our shape-experience isn't primary?

I don't understand the point of "indirect" or "direct" when we can still use present states-of-affairs to understand states-of-affairs that happened billions of years ago (microwave background radiation and the expansion of space informs us about the Big Bang). The time between such events may simply be a product of how our minds process change relative to its own changing states.

Here's a good list of proposed agreements to form a basis for better discussion.

1 Some conflicts get resolved.
2 Sometimes the audience members are uncertain which side to believe(assuming two different opinions/narratives/explanations for the same events).

Do we agree that the two statements above report upon two remarkably different situations, consisting of remarkably different things?
— creativesoul
Sure.
— Harry Hindu

Perfect! — creativesoul

No. Not perfect, because I asked you a question regarding your statement that you avoided.

So when someone keeps asking you questions that you answer, yet they won't answer the questions you posed to them, is that not a great example of someone who will not change their mind, regardless of what they are presented with.

Do we agree that there are some conflicts involving people who will not change their mind, regardless of what they are presented with? — creativesoul

Sure. So which method is useful for determining which party is the on that is unwilling to change their mind, regardless of what they are presented with?

When someone continually contradicts themselves and avoids questions, or when the questions get tough they abandon the discussion, or just ignore the questions while asking their own, or continually attack the person rather than what they say (ad homs), then I think those are great examples of someone that doesn't want to change their mind regardless of what they are presented with. Think of how religious people cling to their religion. You, unenlightened and Pantagruel have exhibited characteristics of the religious that cling to their religion.

You seem to believe that because I use logic as a means to deny that logic is capable of discriminating between true and false statements, that that is somehow a problem for my denying that logic alone is enough to reliably determine and/or establish which competing/conflicting opinion is true.

I'm not sure what problem you think that that amounts to.

Could you explain how it is a problem that I use logic while denying it's ability to discriminate between true and false statements? — creativesoul

Do you know what a contradiction is? Do you know what a self-defeating argument is?

The problem is that you continually avoid the questions I ask and then later on act as if I never asked the question.

If logic is missing something, then what is it? What other methods are there? You haven't been able to provide any. I did and they were all logical fallacies.

The program you're using is faulty. — creativesoul

"I think everyone should learn how to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think."
-Steve Jobs

Quite so, but when you apply 'meaning' to logic or words you lose the rigour of the logic and it becomes indistinguishable form non-logic. — A Seagull
I don't know what you mean by "mending" in this statement.
— Harry Hindu

I don't know either! I think it must be a typo for 'meaning'. — A Seagull

OK, so your statement has been corrected in the above quote.

In X=a, does X mean a?

Think of it this way,

On1 = used as a function word to indicate position in contact with and supported by the top surface of

On2 = regularly using or showing the effects of using

If A is on1 B then B is under A
X is on2 drugs
Drugs is under X

You seem to think that "on" only has one definition. It has several, which needs to be considered when making such statements, and what meaning is appropriate in which context.

In each statement "on" is in a different context, which makes it means something different (i.e. you are using two different definitions of "on"), so the "under" is not part of the same context as "on" the second premise.

I mean, if you didn't mean the second definition in your second statement, rather the first, then someone can be in contact with and supported by the top surface of some drugs. You can stand on a kilo of cocaine as well as put it on your head to be under drugs. If this were the case then there is no logical problem.

So it seems to me that it is up to you to show which version of "on" that you meant, as it can be logical and visually coherent for you to mean it one way, but not the other.

It seems that I can never oblige you in any discussion we've had. So I am therefore asking you to please stop quoting me, because it is always an ad hom, emotionally and politically charged response.

It seems to me that 1) entails 2).

In doing 2) you are necessarily doing 1). If you question your own beliefs before exposing them to external criticism, then you are essentially putting your identity at risk, as you would be in the process of questioning what you actually believe is the right thing to believe.

I questioning the other's beliefs, I was asking the same questions they should have asked themselves before presenting them to me. If their answers contradict what they said before, then it stands that they would have a contradictory identity.

Harry, will you do me a favour?

Stop quoting me. It disturbs my peace of mind. — unenlightened

You do realize that you quoted me and referred to my statements first, which warrants a reply with the specific statements quoted. So, you're saying that you can quote me but I can't quote you?

Here's a good list of proposed agreements to form a basis for better discussion.

1 Some conflicts get resolved.
2 Sometimes the audience members are uncertain which side to believe(assuming two different opinions/narratives/explanations for the same events).

Do we agree that the two statements above report upon two remarkably different situations, consisting of remarkably different things?
— creativesoul
Sure. But in (2) how do we know that the two different opinions are about the same thing? — Harry Hindu

I'm going to go ahead answer this question myself since no one has been able to answer it without contradicting themselves.

The answer is that in disagreeing we aren't talking about the same thing - ever. We may use the same scribbles or sounds to refer to something, but it's not the same thing in each of our heads when we disagree. The implication here is that one is right and the other is wrong, or that we are both wrong and still not talking about the same thing in each other's mind.

Now the question is, how do we determine which is right and which is wrong, or if they are both wrong and there is some other option that is "best to believe"? Which statement is closest to a 1 to 1 correspondence with the actual state of affairs of what is best to believe? My answer, and several other answers in different forms but were all referring to the same thing, was "logic".

At least that is what I thought, because I thought that what fdrake and I were referring to was the same thing - logic, and I was confused when I received a contradictory response from creativesoul. They would have never contradicted themselves if they simply let my assertion stand without any rebuttal.