An empirical question that would shed light is whether the brain uses the same resources to imagine, hallucinate, and dream that it does for perception. For visual experiences, is there a visual ability that gets used by all of them? If so, that lends credence to the brain creating a virtual world of sorts, and not direct perception.

'Direct realists' are simply those who take the 'testimony of the senses' on face value. There is no question of 'how the mind synthesises perceptions and judgements to arrive at the knowledge of what a tree is'. They simply want to dismiss any attempt to analyse the nature of knowledge, and say 'look, there it is'. Most likely they're not philosophers.

Life has dream-like aspects, but pain is real. I guess if you could get to a point where pain too was 'just a dream', either you'd be on opiates, or you'd be some kind of transcendent being. But for most of us the reality of pain is, in technical terminology, both apodictic, and first-person.

Why do I have to keep correcting the same misconceptions over and over here?

Anyway, direct realists do not deny perception. Direct realism is rather a stance in philosophy of perception. What does that mean? Well, it means that direct realists do not deny that perceptions are mental, that they're subjective experiences--that is, that perceptions are brain states. That's what perception IS after all, at least on a realist, materialist account: there's stuff in the world external to you and there's you as a sentient being; perception is the process of one's brain receiving information from externals. So what are direct realists saying differently than indirect realists such as representationalists? They're saying that what they perceive, that is, the information their brains process from the outside world, is "direct" and accurate (ceteris paribus--that is, in lieu of "defects," outside of illusions, etc.), contra a belief that their brains receive the information and then construct a representation, where there's no way to tell just how the representation is correlated to the external stuff.

The difference in a nutshell is akin to the difference between (unmanipulated) photography and painting, where with the paintings we have no way of knowing whether they're examples of impressionism, surrealism, Fauvism, abstract expressionism, photorealism, or anything else. In both cases we're talking about surfaces with images on them--photographic film or canvases, say, which is equivalent to the subjective experience aspect in this analogy, but in one case it's a matter of the image being a direct result of the light entering the camera and affecting the film, whereas in the other case there are interpretive, possibly transformational processes going on where the final result might resemble the source material only very abstractly.

Indirect realists are saying that we're only aware of the paintings, we're not aware of the processes leading up to the paintings, which are at least a couple processes removed from the source information. Direct realists say that we're aware of a photographic image which is a direct result of the source information. So it's still perception in direct realism's case. It's just a direct process.

Re dreams, hallucinations, daydreams and non-daydream, waking perceptions, for at least some of us, the non-daydream, waking perceptions have a very different quality to them than dreams, hallucinations and daydreams. And for some of us, there's always the concurrent awareness that something is a dream, hallucination or daydream. I can see where it would be confusing for someone for whom there aren't different qualities to each. But it's difficult for me to imagine what that experience would be like.

Indirect realists are saying that we're only aware of the paintings, we're not aware of the processes leading up to the paintings, which are at least a couple processes removed from the source information. Direct realists say that we're aware of a photographic image which is a direct result of the source information. So it's still perception in direct realism's case. It's just a direct process. — Terrapin Station

I thought it was about perception? So indirect realists are saying that we're only seeing the paining, not whatever processes lead up to the painting. We might be aware (via inference) of those preceding processes, but such things aren't being perceived.

I thought it was about perception? So indirect realists are saying that we're only seeing the paining, not whatever processes lead up to the painting. We might be aware (via inference) of those preceding processes, but such things aren't being perceived. — Michael

I'm not sure what you're clarifying or taking issue with. I agree with your comment.

You said "Indirect realists are saying that we're only aware of the paintings, we're not aware of the processes leading up to the paintings". I'm saying that this is wrong. Indirect realists are saying that we only see the paintings, not also the processes leading up to them. Which then means that direct realists are saying that we also see the processes leading up to the paintings. But that seems wrong. When I see a painting I'm not seeing the painter (even if I'm non-perceptually aware that there is/was a painter).

So the first issue is with the use of the phrase "aware of" rather than "see"? (seriously? haha)

Because otherwise, if you swap out "see" with "aware of," then "Indirect realists are saying that we only see the paintings, not also the processes leading up to them" is exactly what I said.

Re "aware of," if we're literally talking about paintings, how are you aware of them (normally, at least)? Well, by seeing them of course. Seeing is visual awareness.

Which then means that direct realists are saying that we also see the processes leading up to the paintings. — Michael

With direct realism, we're saying that it's NOT like painting, it's like photography. I explained that in the post you responded to. I explained why it's direct versus indirect, etc.

With direct realism, we're saying that it's NOT like painting, it's like photography. I explained that in the post you responded to. I explained why it's direct versus indirect, etc. — Terrapin Station

So you're saying that if I see a photo of Hitler then I am directly seeing Hitler, not indirectly seeing him via a photo?

It's the perception of the photo which is direct, neither more nor less. Likewise, one perceives the light of a distant star directly despite that the star "died" millions of years ago.

So you're saying that if I see a photo of Hitler then I am directly seeing Hitler, not indirectly seeing him via a photo? — Michael

For one, if you see a photo of Hitler, you're inserting another step in the process. In the analogy, your perception is the photo. Your perceptual awareness isn't another step on top of or behind that.