while the direct realist is agreeing as to the science but pointing out the grammar. — Banno

Pointing out the grammar doesn't address the epistemological problem of perception, which is the problem that direct and indirect realists are trying to resolve. You seem to have just co-opted the label "direct realism" to describe something else entirely.

Pointing out the grammar doesn't address the epistemological problem of perception — Michael

Philosophy is mostly grammatical issues.

You seem to have just co-opted the label "direct realism" to describe something else entirely. — Michael

Funny, that. Yep, what I call direct realism is unlikely to be what you call direct realism.

The indirect realist almost has to invent the direct realist in order to get this debate going. So they think they are arguing against direct realists, when they are actually arguing against folk who reject the direct/ indirect realist framing of the problem.

The indirect realist almost has to invent the direct realist in order to get this debate going. — Banno

It's what direct realism always was, e.g. going back to Aristotle. Direct realists believed in things like A Naïve Realist Theory of Colour/primitivism, whereas indirect realists believed that colour is a mental phenomenon (which may be reducible to brain states).

Now that the science shows that the indirect realists are right, it seems that direct realists have retreated to a completely different position, consistent with indirect realism, but insist on calling themselves direct realists anyway.

One can imagine your creature's physiologist making the "discovery" that half the population sees things upside down, and their philosophers explaining carefully that no, they don't.
— Banno

The philosopher would be wrong. The scientist knows best. They're the ones actually studying how the world and perception works. — Michael

Some relevant science:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/12/improbable-research-seeing-upside-down

The professor made Kohler wear a pair of hand-engineered goggles. Inside those goggles, specially arranged mirrors flipped the light that would reach Kohler's eyes, top becoming bottom, and bottom top.

At first, Kohler stumbled wildly when trying to grasp an object held out to him, navigate around a chair, or walk down stairs. In a simple fencing game with sticks, Kohler would rise his stick high when attacked low, and low in response to a high stab.

Holding a teacup out to be filled, he would turn the cup upside down the instant he saw the water apparently pouring upward. The sight of smoke rising from a match, or a helium balloon bobbing on a string, could trigger an instant change in his sense of which direction was up, and which down.

But over the next week, Kohler found himself adapting, in fits and starts, then more consistently, to such sights.

After 10 days, he had grown so accustomed to the invariably upside-down world that, paradoxically and happily, everything seemed to him normal, rightside-up. Kohler could do everyday activities in public perfectly well: walk along a crowded sidewalk, even ride a bicycle. Passersby on the street did ogle the man, though, because his eyewear looked, from the outside, unfashionable.

Yeah, that sort of response why these threads are unceasing.

Again, there is no disagreement as to the science.

Have you noticed how little of the SEP article on the problem of perception has to do with either direct/indirect realism, or with the science?

The problem of perception is not about the science.

Yep. What does this tell us?

Have you noticed how little of the SEP article on the problem of perception has to do with either direct/indirect realism, or with the science? — Banno

It defines terms like:

Direct Realist Presentation: perceptual experiences are direct perceptual presentations of ordinary objects.

...

Direct Realist Character: the phenomenal character of experience is determined, at least partly, by the direct presentation of ordinary objects.

And the science shows that this isn't the case. Consciousness doesn't extend beyond the brain, so conscious experience doesn't extend beyond the brain, so objects beyond the brain are not present (and so are not "directly presented") in conscious experience at all.

Conscious experience is just a response to the body being stimulated by some external force like light, sound, or chemicals in the air. Our projection of this conscious experience and its qualities (such as colour) out into the world is simply a pragmatic fiction.

Righto. This is getting nowhere. I tried.

The empirical evidence suggests that perception distorts reality. — Michael

The very idea of a perceptual distortion of reality, or even of a distortion of reality per se, is suspect. As far as perception goes, surely only the perception of reality can be distorted—by earplugs or hallucinogenic drugs, for example—rather than reality itself. In other words, the signal can be distorted, but not what is sending the signal (I use this metaphor because it fits my point and because the concepts of distortion and signal go together so nicely–not because I think it's a very good description of perception).

If you mean, e.g., fire engines look red even though they are not red except as perceived by certain creatures like us, this does not amount to any kind of distortion, since the concept of distortion is meaningless without a conceivable neutral and undistorted perception to oppose it to. In this case a neutral and undistorted perception could only be seeing the red fire engine as red, not some super-perception without perspective and particular characteristics.

So I understand perceptual distortion, but I do not understand perceptual “distortion of reality”. So I have to ask: which evidence?

the science shows that this isn't the case — Michael

You haven't shown how. It doesn't.

It's "distorted" in the sense that objects appear to be coloured (in the sense argued by primitivist realists like Keith Allen), even though they aren't, as our science shows. Objects are just a collection of atoms that emit and absorb electromagnetic radiation of certain wavelengths, and certain organisms like us experience the colour red when the relevant sense receptors are stimulated by electromagnetic radiation of ~700nm.

You haven't shown how. It doesn't. — Jamal

Yep. Thanks.

Yep. What does this tell us? — Banno

I'd say it tells us that our brains, given time, can adjust our perceptions so that we see things in a way that allows us to behave in a way consistent with the way the world is, despite an added layer of 'indirectness'.

Here's a relevant paper I've referenced before.

The most common form of direct realism is Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR). PDR is the theory that direct realism consists in unmediated awareness of the external object in the form of unmediated awareness of its relevant properties. I contrast this with Semantic Direct Realism (SDR), the theory that perceptual experience puts you in direct cognitive contact with external objects but does so without the unmediated awareness of the objects’ intrinsic properties invoked by PDR. PDR is what most understand by direct realism. My argument is that, under pressure from the arguments from illusion and hallucination, defenders of intentionalist theories, and even of relational theories, in fact retreat to SDR. I also argue briefly that the sense-datum theory is compatible with SDR and so nothing is gained by adopting either of the more fashionable theories.

So could there be a species in which half the population see the world upside down?

Wouldn't they "flip" the image in the way your paper describes, seeing the world right way up?

Wouldn't they "flip" the image in the way your paper describes, seeing the world right way up? — Banno

There is no "right way up". There's just the way things seem to you and seem to me, determined entirely by how our bodies respond to stimulation.

For there to be a "right way up" would seem to require something like absolute space and/or a preferred frame which I believe is at odds with modern scientific theory.

Solubility is not a property of salt but a relation between salt and water.

Right, I would think the relationship to the topic would be that "smelling lemony" appears to be a relation between lemons and people.

I don't think changes in logic affect the larger issue, which is that, upon close inspection, relations don't end up being some sort of special case of properties, or somehow more ephemeral, they end up being the only type of property.

Epistemicly, there is no way to discover a non-relational property. Properties refer to how things interact with other things or how parts of one thing interact with each other. There is no possible means of discovering the properties any substance has when it interacts "with nothing." "In-itself" properties are a mirage, bare posits. The most common sort of these truly arelational properties proposed in modern metaphysics is that of the bare substratum, the sheer haecciety that universals or tropes are said to "attach to" so that substances aren't "just the sum of their properties."

But no one seems particularly happy with bare substratum. They are an embarrassment required to deal with the Identity of Indiscernibles. And in any event, if we believe they exist, we believe they are required to properly explain interactions and are revealed through them. Even bare substratum don't "exist in themselves" alone, they explain why discrete objects exist and can relate to one another.

Likewise, the Problem of the Many introduces a similar set of problems re substances, motivating mereological nihilism or various weird sorts of work arounds like the claim that when Tibbles the cat lies on a mat, there are actually billions of cats there (or no cat and just "particles arranged cat-wise").

I would think the mereological nihilists has a strong point if they didn't tend to rely heavily on the idea of truly fundemental "particles."

Primary qualities as single predications - the mass of the leaf; secondary properties as relations between the leaf and the observer.

If we take the indirect realists' concerns about anthropomorphizing seriously, I think we have to throw out the primary/secondary quality distinction. It is, after all, a distinction born out of the human nervous system. If a property shows up in one sense, e.g., color, it is deemed less real. If a property shows up in sight, hearing, touch, and the vestibular sense, e.g. extension, it becomes "primary." And in any case, primary properties require references to interactions to define.

How does one explain how an object is spherical without reference to either other things or how parts of that thing relate to the whole? Use of the terms "center," "surface," etc. have already begun speaking of how parts of the object relate the other parts. "A round plane figure whose boundary (the circumference) consists of points equidistant from a fixed point (the center)," speaks of relations. Where is the in itself that exists without reference to interaction?

Mass likewise is at the very least only known through interaction. I am not saying you can't have a well developed metaphysics where primary properties play a role, but they will be known through and defined by relations. And physics would tend to suggest that we could always claim that such knowledge ends of "mediated" in some ways. So the ideal of direct / "in-itself" doesn't seem like a good standard in the first place.

But we don't want a strange world of nothing but particles arranged x-wise or one undifferentiated process either. We'd like to say cats exist on mats (and just one at one time and place), that lemons are yellow, that rocks have mass and shape, etc. I am just unconvinced that these can be properly be dealt with fully on the nature side of the Nature/Geist distinction.

There is no "right way up". There's just the way things seem to you and seem to me, determined entirely by how our bodies respond to stimulation. — Michael

Think of two scenarios:

A. Contemporary science starts with the assumption that each person is a body responding to stimulation (and simultaneously altering the environment). The image is similar to a computer arrayed with analog to digital converters. The question scientists grapple with is how the computer is creating a seamless experience out of the flood of data.

B. Now compare this to Berkeley's view: the "stuff" isn't even out there until we turn our gazes upon it.

What draws one to accept A over B?

For no particular reason….

”perception sometimes distorts reality. We know this to be so because mostly, it doesn't". — Janus

How do we go about proving whatever distortion there may or may not have been, is caused by perception? What is the nature of perception such that it is possibly causal, but not necessarily? If perception is causally distortive, what makes it only sometimes causally distortive, but not always?

Does it ever arise within me, that I begin to mistrust the report of my senses? And if it does so arise, at what point do I mistrust them entirely? And what wtf am I supposed to do if I can’t trust them at all?

Experience tells me I have no reason good enough to generally mistrust my senses, in that my knowledge of things, which always begins with it, is, for all practical purposes, both sufficiently constant regarding only me, and non-contradictory when in regard to others cognitively similar to me.

If there is some means by which I know reality is apparently distorted, why is it not therefore possible it is that knowledge itself that is distorted, perception having nothing whatsoever to do with it, doing nothing but pass downstream that which is given to it? And if perception merely passes on, and I know there is an apparent distortion, why can’t I say it is reality itself that is distorted, and if I allow that I’m in the same boat of mistrust as I was with my senses.

Is perception of a pinprick ever doing to be distorted enough to be the perception of a sonic boom?

Think of two scenarios:

A. Contemporary science starts with the assumption that each person is a body responding to stimulation (and simultaneously altering the environment). The image is similar to a computer arrayed with analog to digital converters. The question scientists grapple with is how the computer is creating a seamless experience out of the flood of data.

B. Now compare this to Berkeley's view: the "stuff" isn't even out there until we turn our gazes upon it.

What draws one to accept A over B? — frank

Say we have a conveyor belt, and situated in the middle is a device that prints a dot on the conveyor belt at regular intervals. We watch it print three dots and then turn around. We wait a few seconds and turn back. We now see six dots.

According to (A), the conveyor continued to exist and the device continued to print dots at regular intervals.

According to (B), the conveyor belt and the device ceased to exist and then reappeared, albeit the conveyor belt now has six dots rather than three.

I would say that (A) is the more parsimonious explanation and so should be favoured, unless there's actual evidence to the contrary.

why can’t I say it is reality itself that is distorted, — Mww

Because when someone talks about something being distorted, it's *relative* to something else. In this case, it's generally taken as *relative to reality*. Reality isn't distorted relative to itself. Perceptual experience may be (and frequently demonstrably is).

I would say that (A) is the more parsimonious explanation and so should be favoured, unless there's actual evidence to the contrary. — Michael

That's a good answer. But say a community finds (B) to be more parsimonious. They would advise you to accept (B) unless there's actual evidence to the contrary.

The point is: fundamentally, there's no difference.

The point is: fundamentally, there's no difference. — frank

I don't understand this. There is a difference between something continuing to exist and something ceasing to exist and then coming back into existence.

But say a community finds (B) to be more parsimonious. They would advise you to accept (B) unless there's actual evidence to the contrary. — frank

Presumably one of us is wrong. Either (A) is more parsimonious or (B) is more parsimonious. I'm not sure that logic is relative.

But say a community finds (B) to be more parsimonious — frank

If you can measure how parsimonious a model is, then it wouldn't matter much what a community thinks. I think in this case, it's probably provable (not by me) that A is more parsimonious than B, because it takes fewer bits to describe a universe where A is the case than B.

I don't understand this. There is a difference between something continuing to exist and something ceasing to exist and then coming back into existence. — Michael

I meant there's no difference in terms of the force of the supporting argument. In both cases, it's a matter of taste. I think that's what you're disputing here:

Presumably one of us is wrong. Either (A) is more parsimonious or (B) is more parsimonious. I'm not sure that reason is relative. — Michael

I think the reason (A) seems parsimonious is that it conforms to a standard narrative, one we develop spontaneously in early childhood. (B) solves (or appears to solve) a number of philosophical problems, which is why it shows up perennially.

If you can measure how parsimonious a model is, then it wouldn't matter much what a community thinks. I think in this case, it's probably provable (not by me) that A is more parsimonious than B, because it takes fewer bits to describe a universe where A is the case than B. — flannel jesus

A couple of problems with (A) are Zeno's Paradox and the problem of induction. Fewer bits with a few giant holes.

So could there be a species in which half the population see the world upside down?

Wouldn't they "flip" the image in the way your paper describes, seeing the world right way up? — Banno

Yeah, a species in which half the population sees the world upside down doesn't seem scientifically plausible.

For there to be a "right way up" would seem to require something like absolute space and/or a preferred frame which I believe is at odds with modern scientific theory. — Michael

Ordinary language is tied to a frame of reference where the direction of the center of gravity of the Earth plays an important role. So it's not really a problem to translate, "Banno (in Oz) reached down to catch the cup falling off the table." to a frame of reference suitable for an accurate understanding of what happened.

I'm asking if "There are Cypress trees lining the bank" states the way things are if and when there are Cypress trees lining the banks? — creativesoul

I think it is right as you have done to distinguish words within exclamation marks to refer to thoughts and language and words not in exclamation marks to refer to things in the world.
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You and I are most certainly working from very different notions of "mind" and "perception". — creativesoul

Possibly. For example, I would say that "I am conscious of seeing the colour green", "I am conscious of tasting something bitter", "I am conscious of an acrid smell", "I am conscious of a sharp pain" or "I am conscious of hearing a grating noise".

Therefore, in my mind I am conscious of perceiving a sight, a taste, a smell, a touch or a hearing.
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You've always held false belief then. It is sometimes possible — creativesoul

I wrote that I can never know what someone else is thinking. However, sometimes I can guess. Though, I can never know whether my guess is correct or not.
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We need not know the meaning of "trees lining the banks" in order to see trees lining the banks. — creativesoul

You look at the world. Do you see a mkondo?

You obviously cannot know whether you are seeing a mkondo or not until you know the meaning of "mkondo".

IE, you have to know the meaning of "trees lining the banks" before knowing whether you can see trees lining the banks.

Ordinary language is tied to a frame of reference where the direction of the center of gravity of the Earth plays an important role. So it's not really a problem to translate, "Banno (in Oz) reached down to catch the cup falling off the table." to a frame of reference suitable for an accurate understanding of what happened. — wonderer1

In my scenario here, both groups use the same word to refer to the direction of the Earth's gravitational centre.

But what one group sees when standing on their feet is what the other group sees when standing on their head, and vice versa.

It's not the case that one of the groups is seeing things the "right way up" and the other isn't, because there is no "right way up". There's just the way each group ordinarily sees things given their physiology.

I don't really understand, sorry