This is from Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible. I find it moving and helpful on these issues and thought I'd share.

We see the things themselves, the world is what we see: formulae of this kind express a faith common to the natural man and the philosopher— the moment he opens his eyes; they refer to a deep-seated set of mute “opinions” impli­cated in our lives. But what is strange about this faith is that if we seek to articulate it into theses or statements, if we ask ourselves what is this we, what seeing is, and what thing or world is, we enter into a labyrinth of difficulties and contradic­tions.

What Saint Augustine said of time— that it is perfectly famil­iar to each, but that none of us can explain it to the others— must be said of the world. [Ceaselessly the philosopher finds himself] obliged to reinspect and redefine the most well-grounded notions, to create new ones, with new words to desig­nate them, to undertake a true reform of the understanding— at whose term the evidence of the world, which seemed indeed to be the clearest of truths, is supported by the seemingly most sophis­ticated thoughts, before which the natural man now no longer recognizes where he stood. Whence the age-old ill-humor against philosophy is reanimated, the grievance always brought against it that it reverses the roles of the clear and the obscure. The fact that the philosopher claims to speak in the very name of the naïve evidence of the world, that he refrains from adding any­ thing to it, that he limits himself to drawing out all its conse­quences, does not excuse him; on the contrary he dispossesses [humanity] only the more completely, inviting it to think of itself as an enigma.

This is the way things are and nobody can do anything about it. It is at the same time true that the world is what we see and that, nonetheless, we must learn to see it— first in the sense that we must match this vision with knowledge, take possession of it, say what we and what seeing are, act therefore as if we knew nothing about it, as if here we still had everything to learn. But philosophy is not a lexicon, it is not concerned with “word-meanings,” it does not seek a verbal substitute for the world we see, it does not transform it into something said, it does not install itself in the order of the said or of the written as does the logician in the proposition, the poet in the word, or the musician in the
music. It is the things themselves, from the depths of their silence, that it wishes to bring to expression.

Blueness and pain are qualia. They are unnecessary subjective experience. and unexplained.
— Patterner

In my view, blueness and pain are actually just as caught up in the causal nexus as everything else. Pain is used to explain behavior. Aspirin is used to explain the cessations of pain. As I see it, there's only one network of concepts whose meanings are radically interdependent. — plaque flag

But we have made machines with visual sensors that take different actions when presented with different colors. If they don't see blue, then something extra is going on with us. If we give them sensors that detect physical damage, and program them to move the part that is being damaged, but they don't feel pain, then something extra is going on with us.

There is a way in which there is something it is like to be me that does not apply to our machine that distinguishes colors and reacts to them in different ways, and senses damage and moves away from whatever is inflicting it.

These things have not been answered by any theory of physical reductionism. If they had been, Christof Koch would be arguing the point, and would not have given Chalmers a case of wine. He admits that he does not have the answer. No, the fact that we have not gotten an answer from physicalism, neurology, etc., does not mean we never will. But it certainly doesn’t mean we will. So far, it’s all just speculation on everybody’s end.

I don't really understand how this is an answer. Why do you believe in "conscious experience", blueness, pain etc.? — goremand

You do not experience blueness or pain?

Why believe there is anything "unneccessary" to explain in the first place? — goremand

Because things work just fine without our subjective experience of them, and because the mechanisms that explain perception, memory, behavior, etc., don’t also explain our subjective experience of those things. if any physical process, or group of physical processes, suddenly demonstrated signs of consciousness, we would be fairly shocked. Balls on the pool table, bouncing around in the only way they can due to the initial conditions and the laws of physics. The grand gigantic number of things going on inside of a hurricane. The earth itself is a system made up of an incalculably high number of smaller systems. Every kind of energy is bouncing around, parts of more feedback loops than we can imagine. But we don’t suspect the earth is conscious. If we did, we would wonder how on earth it is happening. How do physical processes bring that about?

Why should we be less surprised or curious when purely physical systems bring about consciousness for us?

There is a way in which there is something it is like to be me that does not apply to our machine that distinguishes colors and reacts to them in different ways — Patterner

Yes, I believe in consciousness or subjectivity, but I'm a direct realist (which is maybe the source of the misunderstanding?) I think of consciousness as being, as awareness of the world. The world exists for me. If I daydream, then even that is part of the world with the firetruck and the cloud. It just exists differently--but still in the same and only causal-semantic nexus of interdependent entities.

You do not experience blueness or pain? — Patterner

No, not as defined by you.

This what I meant by "laying claim to words" earlier, you have claimed the word "blueness" and "pain", and now I look stupid by having to deny that I experience color or pain. It is very important that you answer my question directly, no matter how stupid it sounds: why do you believe that you feel pain or that you experience blueness?

You do not experience blueness or pain?
— Patterner

No, not as defined by you.

This what I meant by "laying claim to words" earlier, you have claimed the word "blueness" and "pain", and now I look stupid by having to deny that I experience color or pain. It is very important that you answer my question directly, no matter how stupid it sounds: why do you believe that you feel pain or that you experience blueness? — goremand

I know you're coming at it from a position other than stupid. I know you have something in mind.. But you’re not saying it. or I’m not understanding what you’re saying. But you know when you ask why I think I feel pain, eventually, you’re going to get the question that you got.

I don’t think I feel pain. I feel pain. If you think I don’t, I would like to hear your argument. If you think I am laying claim to the words, I would like to hear what you think a more accurate claim for them is. I feel fairly confident in my belief that you feel pain. I suspect you fell down as a child once or twice, skinned, your knees, and it hurt. At the moment, I’m not claiming or defining anything. I’m just looking for common grounds. Do we both feel pain? I do.

Yes, I believe in consciousness or subjectivity, but I'm a direct realist (which is maybe the source of the misunderstanding?) I think of consciousness as being, as awareness of the world. The world exists for me. If I daydream, then even that is part of the world with the firetruck and the cloud. It just exists differently--but still in the same and only causal-semantic nexus of interdependent entities. — plaque flag

I can’t say I understand, everything you’ve written. But I agree with everything I understand.

I can’t say I understand, everything you’ve written. But I agree with everything I understand. — Patterner

:up:

The key point is that all entities only make sense in terms of one another, that toothaches and thunderstorms are part of the same semantic 'blanket.' As Brandom stresses, we are creatures who demand and offer reasons, and anything that plays a role in that reason-giving exists, even if there are many modes or styles of existence.

The main argument for direct realism is that indirect realism (dualism) implicitly treats the sense organs and the brain as the creations of the sense organs and the brain. It's only because we are common sense direct realists that we could fret that maybe we are trapped behind some illusion thrown up by the brain that would absurdly be part of that same illusion.

This what I meant by "laying claim to words" earlier, you have claimed the word "blueness" and "pain", and now I look stupid by having to deny that I experience color or pain. It is very important that you answer my question directly, no matter how stupid it sounds: why do you believe that you feel pain or that you experience blueness? — goremand

I think Husserl is correct in that we have a sort of categorial intuition. As humans, we live among concepts as much as colors. Certain traditional forms of empiricism simply assume a narrow concept of experience, along with (I claim) an ultimately absurd methodological solipsism.

The point is that claims like 'my tooth hurts' or 'your jacket is green' might be relatively irreducible. 'Experiencing blueness ' is not so absurd in my view. We can see a blue object and conceptually abstract its color. Our intentional focus in then on the blueness as a targeted aspect of the object.

I don’t think I feel pain. I feel pain. — Patterner

This is a performative contradiction, if you say "I feel pain" then you must think you feel pain.

Perhaps you meant "I don't just think, I know I feel pain"? But I'm not interested in how confident you are, I want to know how you know.

If you think I don’t, I would like to hear your argument. — Patterner

To make an argument, I would need something to argue against. If you just say "I feel pain" and don't provide any justification for that statement, then what can I do? Your belief is dogmatic, it's not open to discussion.

If you think I am laying claim to the words, I would like to hear what you think a more accurate claim for them is. — Patterner

It's not a matter of which definition is "better", I'm just giving you a heads up, don't be surprised to hear me say weird things like "I don't feel pain" because that is simply the consequence of defining pain as having qualitative character.

To illustrate with a different example, let us say that I defined "thunder" as an act of god. That would mean all the atheists of the world would have to say "I don't believe in thunder", which would make them look pretty foolish.

I think Husserl is correct in that we have a sort of categorial intuition. As humans, we live among concepts as much as colors. — plaque flag

Ok but well, that intuition is bound to vary from one person to another. If we want meaningful discussion and not just sit around in a room and think (though I guess Husserl loved that) we can't insist only on our preferred way of conceptualizing. If someone has a problem with how you conceptualize experience you can't get around this by saying "it's irreducible".

Perhaps you meant "I don't just think, I know I feel pain"? But I'm not interested in how confident you are, I want to know how you know. — goremand

Yes, that’s what I meant. And I know because I feel it. How doI know I have five fingers on both hands? Because I see them. How do I know the toast is burning? Because I smell it.

To illustrate with a different example, let us say that I defined "thunder" as an act of god. That would mean all the atheists of the world would have to say "I don't believe in thunder", which would make them look pretty foolish. — goremand

It doesn’t matter what the origin of thunder is. You can claim it’s an act of god. That doesn’t stop an atheist from hearing thunder.

Not thinking pain is qualitative doesn’t stop you from feeling pain. If someone sneaks up behind you and jabs you with a needle, you’ll know it.

Ok but well, that intuition is bound to vary from one person to another. If we want meaningful discussion and not just sit around in a room and think (though I guess Husserl loved that) we can't insist only on our preferred way of conceptualizing. I someone has a problem with how you conceptualize experience you can't get around this by saying "it's irreducible". — goremand

Have you looked into Popper's idea of basic statements ? Inquiry has no choice but to sometimes take some claims for granted. It can always return to problematize them.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#BasiStatFalsConv

In essence, basic statements are for Popper logical constructs which embrace and include ‘observation statements’, but for methodological reasons he seeks to avoid that terminology, as it suggests that they are derived directly from, and known by, experience (2002: 12, footnote 2), which would conflate them with the “protocol” statements of logical positivism and reintroduce the empiricist idea that certain kinds of experiential reports are incorrigible. The “objectivity” requirement in Popper’s account of basic statements, by contrast, amounts to a rejection of the view that the truth of scientific statements can ever be reduced to individual or collective human experience. (2002: 25).

Popper therefore argues that there are no statements in science which cannot be interrogated: basic statements, which are used to test the universal theories of science, must themselves be inter-subjectively testable and are therefore open to the possibility of refutation. He acknowledges that this seems to present a practical difficulty, in that it appears to suggest that testability must occur ad infinitum, which he acknowledges is an operational absurdity: sooner or later all testing must come to an end. Where testing ends, he argues, is in a convention-based decision to accept a basic statement or statements; it is at that point that convention and intersubjective human agreement play an indispensable role in science:

Every test of a theory, whether resulting in its corroboration or falsification, must stop at some basic statement or other which we decide to accept. If we do not come to any decision, and do not accept some basic statement or other, then the test will have led nowhere. (2002: 86)

In the past, I've argued pretty reductively against a focus on subjectivity, and it's true that rational norms and concepts are primarily public and ego-transcending, or philosophy would be impossible.
So I'm with you on a fidelity to the tradition of critical thought. We cannot, except at the risk of performative contradiction, argue against the conditions for the possibility of rational discourse.

But we must also avoid simply adopting yesterday's ontologies and milking them for therefore unjustified epistemologies. (Truly ontology and epistemology look endlessly entangled.)

I think there's a strong argument that the world that humans can talk about without spouting nonsense is only given through or to human beings. This world is real, and not our dream, but we can't say anything about it apart from our entanglement with it. Its mode of being given to us is something that we aren't going to put under a microscope. The world is there, it has being. As John Berger puts it, seeing transcends concepts. I can look around and yet not put my seeing as seeing into words, though I can of course report what I see.

I claim that an honest look at your own experience will reveal that you, like me, see objects right away as of a certain kind. I see apples, not red lumps. I can focus on the redness of the apple, ignore everything else, peel that redness off. None of this is more or less strange than 'intuition is bound to vary from one person to another.' You trust in our sharing, more or less, in a realm of public concepts. Should I ask you to put these concepts under a microscope ? That's like putting a smell under a microscope or holding a microphone up to a picture. The world is given in different dimensions or aspects simultaneously, including a conceptual dimension or aspect. If someone wants to play skeptic and deny it, it's hard to take them seriously, for don't they offer universal concepts that are supposed to bind me as a rational agent ?

For human beings in general, as normative subjects, responsible for their utterances, and for philosophy in its deepest intention and essence, the 'space of reasons' (Sellars) comes first. It's a performative contradiction to argue otherwise. So we need not construct it from or justify it in terms of something else. At most we can explicate/unfold its way of being.

It doesn’t matter what the origin of thunder is. You can claim it’s an act of god. That doesn’t stop an atheist from hearing thunder. — Patterner

Yes it does, technically. If thunder is an act of god, by definition, then if god does not exist then no one can hear thunder. The "thunder" we would hear would not be thunder, as it did not come from god, but something else.

I think you need to consider the difference between defining something and describing it, the two are very different.

Have you looked into Popper's idea of basic statements ? — plaque flag

No, but I don't think Popper would say you can dodge skepticism of a statement by declaring it to be "basic". If you make a contentious claim you have to be prepared to justify it, if you refuse then you are really only pretending to argue.

It doesn’t matter what the origin of thunder is. You can claim it’s an act of god. That doesn’t stop an atheist from hearing thunder.
— Patterner

Yes it does, technically. If thunder is an act of god, by definition, then if god does not exist then no one can hear thunder. The "thunder" we would hear would not be thunder, as it did not come from god, but something else.

I think you need to consider the difference between defining something and describing it, the two are very different. — goremand

Yes! Exactly right. Describing it and defining it are very different things. We couldn’t guess all the different definitions/explanations/theorized causes for pain that are believed throughout the world. But we felt pain when we were babies, not knowing anyone believed any explanation at all. And we still feel pain when someone sneaks up on us and jabs us with a needle.

What we feel doesn’t change every time we hear a new definition that we don’t accept. I still hear thunder even after hearing what I think is a crazy explanation for it.

Well it's really just a tangential point, I will rephrase the question so we get back on track: why do you believe that pain has a qualitative component? As you know I view pain only as functional, what is the problem with this?

.

Contentious claim indeed, sir ! Could you justify it carefully with one hand in an open flame ? — plaque flag

Sure, and then I'd probably pull the hand back and start screaming, as that is the usual functional response. The functionalist account is in no way lacking in terms of explaining human behavior.

Sure, and then I'd probably pull the hand back and start screaming, as that is the usual functional response. The functionalist account is in no way lacking in terms of explaining human behavior. — goremand

I don't resent functionalism as a mapping strategy, but on a more serious ontological level it looks absurd to me.

You seem to imply that your words are as empty of meaning as those of a stochastic parrot. You talk of 'explaining' but (respectfully) seem to be reluctant to admit the existence of concepts (the experience of meaning.) Am I to believe you when you speak like the dude in Roadhouse? Is it true that pain don't hurt ? Do you not see that you are making the bold controversial claim here ?

'You don't hear that music...you just think you do. But you also don't have the thought that you hear that music. You have no interior. Not even the illusion of the interior is in there. This conversation never happened. You are an algorithm, because that's convenient for me.'

You seem to miss that science and philosophy exist within a 'field' of normativity. Speaking of human speech acts as merely causal is a self-subverting psychologism. Such an assumption is an analogue of 'I am lying' or 'nothing is true' or 'logic is irrational.' Husserl's critique of psychologicism is illuminating, as is Karl-Otto Apel's description of something like a minimal foundation of assumptions which are already implicit in the concept of philosophy.

In short, there's a line beyond which skepticism is confused performative contradiction, and it's easy to cross that line. One is sure one is being careful, yet the fear of error is the error itself (alluding to Hegel's critique of methodological solipsism.)

I don't resent functionalism as a mapping strategy, but on a more serious ontological level it looks absurd to me. — plaque flag

Knee-jerk incredulousness is a common response, but I generally find there is not much of substance to back up the sentiment. Which is to say I don't mind "looking absurd" if that is your main objection.

You seem to imply that your words are as empty of meaning as those of a stochastic parrot. — plaque flag

Not to worry, "meaning" too can be accommodated by the functionalist account. Pretty much any useful concept can.

Do you not see that you are making the bold controversial claim here ? — plaque flag

I didn't mean to imply it's wrong to make bold claims (what a boring place this would become then). You just have to be prepared to defend them.

You seem to miss that science and philosophy exist within a 'field' of normatively. Speaking of human speech acts as merely causal is a self-subverting psychologism. — plaque flag

Really? That's not obvious to me, you'll have to elaborate.

Really? That's not obvious to me, you'll have to elaborate. — goremand

The notion of being 'rational' is essentially normative (ethical). One prides oneself on not being credulous, on [autonomously] thinking for one's self. One is ashamed to contradict oneself, embarrassed to find oneself caught in a performative contradiction. One resents being described as a kind of 'machine' that did not reasonably (autonomously) decide but was rather 'programmed' by its environment. 'You are just saying that because you are white/black, male/female, rich/poor, straight/gay.'

This folk psychologism is a twoedged sword. If I'm an irrational robot, then why aren't you ? Precisely when you make such a self-cancelling claim ?

Rationality is universal. It applies to all of us in the rational community. You don't get your own logic. Neither do I. It's an aspect of a humanism which has liberated itself from scripture. Both the species and its individuals are grasped as autonomous beings, ideally subject only to the laws they themselves recognize as legitimate. Basically, rational people all agree that they have a sort of better self in common, namely a rationality that binds them all. 'May the best human win [ may we fallibly defer for now to whoever makes the best case.]'

Brandom focuses on this sort of thing. He calls it scorekeeping. As discursive subjects, we all hold one another responsible for our claims. The basic rule is that you can disagree with me, but you can't disagree with yourself. For the notion of the rational self is precisely of its logical cohesion or unity.

Kant’s most basic idea, the axis around which all his thought turns, is that what distinguishes exercises of judgment and intentional agency from the performances of merely natural creatures is that judgments and actions are subject to distinctive kinds of normative assessment. Judgments and actions are things we are in a distinctive sense responsible for. They are a kind of commitment we undertake. Kant understands judging and acting as applying rules, concepts, that determine what the subject becomes committed to and responsible for by applying them. Applying concepts theoretically in judgment and practically in action binds the concept user, commits her, makes her responsible, by opening her up to normative assessment according to the rules she has made herself subject to.

The responsibility one undertakes by applying a concept is a task responsibility: a commitment to do something. On the theoretical side, what one is committed to doing, what one becomes liable to assessment as to one’s success at doing, is integrating one’s judgments into a whole that exhibits a distinctive kind of unity: the synthetic unity of apperception. It is a systematic, rational unity, dynamically created and sustained by drawing inferential consequences from and finding reasons for one’s judgments, and rejecting commitments incompatible with those one has undertaken.

Here's another one.

The essential point is that in characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says. — Sellars

Well it's really just a tangential point, I will rephrase the question so we get back on track: why do you believe that pain has a qualitative component? As you know I view pain only as functional, what is the problem with this? — goremand

Your belief that an atheist cannot hear thunder if someone says it is god's will is probably an important topic. But, yes, a different topic.

The problem I see with viewing pain as only functional is that it is not functional. If my awareness of these things and my conscious thoughts about them are not causal, because everything that happens happens because of, and is explained by, your functionalist account - ultimately, nothing but the properties of particles and laws of physics - then what we (in your view) mistakenly believe to be qualitative serves no function. If the same events would take place due to the laws of physics if I did not have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant, then why have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant? It is difficult to understand why evolution would select for this.

It is also difficult to understand how a system comprised of nothing but physical events can have false beliefs.

Well it's really just a tangential point, I will rephrase the question so we get back on track: why do you believe that pain has a qualitative component? As you know I view pain only as functional, what is the problem with this? — goremand

Phantom pains exist. Those aren't functional. Also, it's easy to distinguish the functional part of the system from the experience of pain. We do it all the time for organisms we doubt are conscious. And we can do it for machines. You can have a program behave like it's in pain without there being any reason to suspect if feels pain. You could build a robot to do so as well.

It's also possible to imagine a painful enough scenario to feel discomfort. And there's emotional pain as well.

But the thing is the image does not "contradict what we know". To those who understand how light travels through water, the image is a straightforward representation of reality, no-one is getting fooled. — goremand

It actually does contradict what we know, you know need to know how light works to know that's an illusion. This is just wrong and we know the water is fooling us by "bending" the stick.

The problem I see with viewing pain as only functional is that it is not functional. — Patterner

It is functional, evidence shows that organisms without a pain response don't live long (as do people who have a condition that prevents them from feeling it). But it can be both functional and not functional, though mostly it is functional.

The problem I see with viewing pain as only functional is that it is not functional.
— Patterner

It is functional, evidence shows that organisms without a pain response don't live long (as do people who have a condition that prevents them from feeling it). But it can be both functional and not functional, though mostly it is functional. — Darkneos

Yes, I agree. I was speaking for those who say consciousness is only our observation/recognition of what is happening. A byproduct. (I'm not wording that well...) It does not have any causal power. It merely observes that nerves are sending a signal that damage is being done to some part of the body. But the physical chain reaction that is set in motion would move the body so that it is no longer in contact with whatever is causing the damage. In that scenario, pain is not functional.

Well that also is only what consciousness is. It is awareness of and recognition of what’s happening.

I also didn’t think they really rebutted the objection that illusion only makes sense if you have a reality to compare it to. If you don’t know what reality is then the term illusion looses all meaning. The same would apply if you said everything is an illusion, the term would be meaningless.

Overall this seems to have been a very pointless conversation. I mean OP even got that bit about the water wrong. But yeah, reading through this gave me the sense the convo went nowhere fast.

The notion of being 'rational' is essentially normative (ethical). One prides oneself on not being credulous, on [autonomously] thinking for one's self. One is ashamed to contradict oneself, embarrassed to find oneself caught in a performative contradiction. One resents being described as a kind of 'machine' that did not reasonably (autonomously) decide but was rather 'programmed' by its environment. 'You are just saying that because you are white/black, male/female, rich/poor, straight/gay.' — plaque flag

Well I cannot speak for the thoughts and feelings of "one" but I see no contradiction whatsoever between being a product of my environment and being rational. To be rational is just to act in accordance with the norms of reason, which have nothing to do with being "autonomous" or any other strange fantasy. I also don't see how this directly relates to qualitative properties.

Rationality is universal. It applies to all of us in the rational community. You don't get your own logic. Neither do I. It's an aspect of a humanism which has liberated itself from scripture. Both the species and its individuals are grasped as autonomous beings, ideally subject only to the laws they themselves recognize as legitimate. Basically, rational people all agree that they have a sort of better self in common, namely a rationality that binds them all. 'May the best human win [ may we fallibly defer for now to whoever makes the best case.]' — plaque flag

Well as far as I can remember I never signed such a contract, but in your view I did so implicitly when I joined the rational community? Could you be more specific about how denying my autonomy results in self-contradiction?

If the same events would take place due to the laws of physics if I did not have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant, then why have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant? It is difficult to understand why evolution would select for this. — Patterner

Personally I don't believe evolution is to blame, I think the concept of qualitative properties is the product of culture. But I also don't believe that qualia is the result of some vestigial or useless "ability" as you seem to do, I think it is simply a mistaken idea that can be gotten rid of just by changing your mind.

Phantom pains exist. Those aren't functional. — Marchesk

Yes they are, anything that has an effect also has a functional component. For example, if you go to the doctor for help with your phantom pain, that is an effect. That the concept of "phantom pain" is even used at all is also an effect.

It actually does contradict what we know, you know need to know how light works to know that's an illusion. This is just wrong and we know the water is fooling us by "bending" the stick. — Darkneos

Sorry, are you being literal here? You think that the water is deceiving you intentionally?

I maintain the water is innocent, it is simply behaving in accordance physics just as everything else. If you are "fooled" by this, the problem is with yourself.

If the same events would take place due to the laws of physics if I did not have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant, then why have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant? It is difficult to understand why evolution would select for this.
— Patterner

Personally I don't believe evolution is to blame, I think the concept of qualitative properties is the product of culture. But I also don't believe that qualia is the result of some vestigial or useless "ability" as you seem to do, I think it is simply a mistaken idea that can be gotten rid of just by changing your mind. — goremand

I would not have thought that I have been giving the impression that that’s what I believe. I was stating a position that some people believe that makes no sense to me.

It actually does contradict what we know, you know need to know how light works to know that's an illusion. This is just wrong and we know the water is fooling us by "bending" the stick. — Darkneos

The light traveling from the stick to our retina is behaving as we know it should according to physics, when a stick in the water appears bent. It is not behaving wrongly. It is only our intuitive interpretation of this light that causes confusion.

To be rational is just to act in accordance with the norms of reason, which have nothing to do with being "autonomous" or any other strange fantasy. — goremand

Hush now, child. Let me tell you how things are.