We perceive as much of the environment that is available to our periphery, including the flower. This environment is in direct contact with the perceiver. We can touch the flower, we can taste it, even passing the flower through our digestion system. You cannot get much more direct than that.

And once you start measuring the eyeball and neural networks, you’re measuring the perceiver, not any sort of space between perceiver and perceived.

We can touch the flower, we can taste it, even passing the flower through our digestion system. You cannot get much more direct than that. — NOS4A2

You're referencing how the brain is stimulated, which can occur by touch, but also by light or sound waves, so it's not direct, and differing senses provide inconsistent input. Lightening strikes are visible well before you hear their thunder.

And once you start measuring the eyeball and neural networks, you’re measuring the perceiver, not any sort of space between perceiver and perceived. — NOS4A2

Of course I am because a closed mouth doesn't taste, so I must assume you accept we don't taste until the food passes the teeth and at least reaches the tongue, although it is later than that because it has to get to your brain first. If we sever the nerves from your tongue, you won't taste, so I can assume the stimuli was traveling through my tongue but blocked before it reached the perception faculty of my brain.

How is what I'm saying at all controversial?

I’m simply referencing how the perceiver is in direct contact with the environment. Light hits the eyes directly; sound waves hit the ears directly; we touch and taste things directly. It’s all direct contact. Without it we wouldn’t perceive anything.

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that if you sever nerves or otherwise mess with the biology of the perceiver he will perceive things differently. To me, the act of perception is performed as much by the taste receptors and nerves as it is by the brain.

It’s all direct contact. Without it we wouldn’t perceive anything. — NOS4A2

It's direct contact with the lightwave, not the flower.

To me, the act of perception is performed as much by the taste receptors and nerves as it is by the brain. — NOS4A2

What about your ankles, are they part of the perception?

It's direct contact with the lightwave, not the flower.

The light wave is something in the environment. If we wanted to, we could touch the flower to our eyeball, though I don't think it's necessary.

What about your ankles, are they part of the perception?

You can perceive with your ankle, I believe. If I tap my ankle with a finger I can feel it.

The light wave is something in the environment. If we wanted to, we could touch the flower to our eyeball, though I don't think it's necessary. — NOS4A2

You can't see the flower without light. The eye detects light. That's just how it works.

You can perceive with your ankle, I believe. If I tap my ankle with a finger I can feel it. — NOS4A2

Not sure why you're telling me this. I said you don't taste with your ankle, which you don't.

I never said we see a flower without light. In fact, I clearly said light hits the eyes directly.

You asked me if ankles were a part of perception. I answered accordingly.

The use of senses is clearly mediated somatically. But it's also obvious that despite these same senses in animals, man has something distinct ie he is sentient and able to think further than those immediate senses. This is the basic reasoning behind a soul/spiritual consciousness

"When we look at a bird, we see the bird, not the activity in our brain." — Qwertyportne

I am confident that I have never seen the activity in my brain. I see no synapses firing or anything of that nature. Way too ghost in the machine like.

Though one could certainly argue that whatever it is I do see is related to the activity in my brain. But then one can argue that activity in my brain is related to the bird whose presence may have had a causal effect upon the activity in my brain.

So the presence of the bird is related to the activity in my brain which is related to the image I have of the bird and suddenly the notion the image must be related to only to either/or strikes me us unnecessarily binary.

So yes, I suspect the image of the bird is the product of the birds affect upon my brain and I have no problem with the notion that the product of the birds affect upon my brain may differ from the product of the birds affect upon my dog's brain.