So, your argument is that other folk, including robins, see things differently to you, and hence... no-one sees the world as it is.

Why hasn't anyone pointed out that this conclusion does not follow from the premiss? — Banno

Not only that, the conclusion undermines the premises. How does he know that robins see differently if no one, including him, sees the world? To know that would entail seeing the world in the reaching of that premise.

I'll add also that the issue is not binary. It's not either we see the world perfectly or we don't see the world.

And then what you said.

Everything that exists, exists simultaneously in various dimensions of reality. For example, you take a cow “Ah, the cow is a biological being!” well and isn’t she a chemical being? Isn’t a physical one? Or an economic one? Is it not a sociological being? She belongs to all of this at the same time! This thing has different aspects and dimensions that intersect, this is what is called the concrete being. Concrete comes from concrescere, that is to say that which grows together despite having nothing to do with the other. Has an example, there is no science of the concrete object, science only studies an abstract object, an object as such that exists only for it. It is not the same object that exists for another science.

I mean, even color blind men can often run through a field with holes, grass lumps, and cow poop and thistles and reach the other side, even after running at great speed, with no injuries and still shiny nikes. It sure seems like to some degree they are seeing the world. And to that degree or in those ways also incredibly well. — Coben

Yes, but what if Sarin gas, deadly radiation or Smallpox were released on the field. Would a person see that?

The sparrows dancing from one bit of snow to another are real. Being able to observe that is real.
I am not sure what is being asked for beyond that. — Valentinus

All the stuff sparrows and humans can't sense. Also, how sensation is a relation based on the interaction between reflecting light, eyes and brains, for example. The photons of a narrow range of light look like they are combination of three primary colors for normal sighted humans, because we have three kinds of rods in our eyes. Some birds and other animals have more, and can see a wider range.

These I call original or primary qualities of bodies . . . solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number.

Secondly, such qualities which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e., by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts

http://www.wutsamada.com/alma/modern/lockquo1.htm — John Locke

Sounds, colors, heat and cold, according to modern philosophy are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/color/ — David Hume

People universally believe that objects look colored because they are colored, just as we experience them. The sky looks blue because it is blue, grass looks green because it is green, and blood looks red because it is red. As surprising as it may seem, these beliefs are fundamentally mistaken. Neither objects nor lights are actually “colored” in anything like the way we experience them. Rather, color is a psychological property of our visual experiences when we look at objects and lights, not a physical property of those objects or lights. The colors we see are based on physical properties of objects and lights that cause us to see them as colored, to be sure, but these physical properties are different in important ways from the colors we perceive. (Palmer 1999: 95)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/color/ — Stephen Palmer

If sensations of perception are generated by our biology, then the world we perceive is not the way the world is, but rather the way we humans interact with the world based on the kind of sensory organs and nervous systems our ancestors evovled.

Ah, you mean we don't see ALL of reality. Or that we miss things. Or that our perception is limited.

Well, sure. But I still think the statement that we don't see reality doesn't hold. There's no need to treat it as a binary issue. Further, if you mount an argument, supporting that statement, it will be based on what you think are accurate observations of reality.

I was responding to...

I conclude that nobody can see the world as it is. — Daemon

That contradicts itself. I mean, how would this completely blind person know what others see. I suppose if he was a Rationalist who could make the claim in any case. But an empiricist is on thin ice and what would the Rationalist be talking about. What do any of his or her words refer to)

But I still think the statement that we don't see reality doesn't hold. — Coben

Don't see reality as it is. The bolded part is the key part. We do perceive reality. But we do so from a certain perspective.

will be based on what you think are accurate observations of reality. — Coben

The best we can do is rely on what science reveals about the world. That's an abstracted view, but it gets at the properties and processes of things as they are, if imperfectly.

"Dimension" is an unfortunate word here. I nearly didn't read your post because I thought it would be yet another divergence into quantum shite. But I agree with much of what you say, except the suggestions that these various ways of speaking have nothing to do with each other.

If sensations of perception are generated by our biology, then the world we perceive is not the way the world is, but rather the way we humans interact with the world based on the kind of sensory organs and nervous systems our ancestors evovled. — Marchesk

Stove's Gem. We can only see the world with our eyes, therefore we cannot see the world.

Stove's Gem. We can only see the world with our eyes, therefore we cannot see the world. — Banno

We cannot see the world as it is, only as it looks to us.

Remember the black cat radiating heat? You don't see a thermal cat.

Illuminating, that you bolded as it is. So, do we see the world as it isn't?

If sensations of perception are generated by our biology, then the world we perceive is not the way the world is, but rather the way we humans interact with the world based on the kind of sensory organs and nervous systems our ancestors evovled. — Marchesk

And then there’s the faculty of reason, which, arguably, is not reducible to biology, even though it’s an evolved capacity. In any case, the contention that we see the world as it appears to us, but not as it is in itself, is basic to Kant’s critique of pure reason. Furthermore it’s indubitable that the ‘act of seeing’ comprises a synthesis, ‘the act of putting different representations together, and grasping what is manifold in them into one cognition” (A77/B103); it is a process that “gathers the elements for cognition, and unites them to form a certain content” (A78/B103).”

I don’t really get why any of this is regarded as controversial or mysterious on a philosophy forum, it’s fundamental to critical philosophy.

So, can we make statement about the world that are true, and know that they are true?

'The world'? You might narrow it down a bit. I can make true statements about all kinds of things, but statements about 'the world' are by their nature going to be very broad, aren't they?

Don't see reality as it is. The bolded part is the key part. We do perceive reality. But we do so from a certain perspective. — Marchesk

Well, the guy who runs through the field, in the first post you responded to, is to some SERIOUS degree seeing that field as it is. Or he would not make it across. It's not binary.

The best we can do is rely on what science reveals about the world. — Marchesk

Not for running across a field. For running across a field I need to go on what I have learned by seeing the world, to a very useful degree, as it is. My experience and bodily intuition. Bringing science into that run would probably just distract me. And we were seeing the world, in part as it is, long before science.

That's an abstracted view, but it gets at the properties and processes of things as they are, if imperfectly. — Marchesk

Sure, it is also a perspective, based on observations. So, it can't be binary. Whatever evidence there is that my seeing is limited, filtered, interpreted, comes from other sensory experiences that one must take as correct or significantly correct or they would not be of use in determining how reality is. Science is an empiricist process. So, it relies on seeing (or at least the senses, I don't want to excluse blind scientists, but even those will be sensing somehow or relying the observations of assistants.

And how would he know?

Indeed.

'The world'? You might narrow it down a bit. I can make true statements about all kinds of things, but statements about 'the world' are by their nature going to be very broad, aren't they? — Wayfarer

For you, yep.

We cannot see the word as it is, so the claim goes.

So, is water constituted by hydrogen and oxygen? Is California on the edge of the Pacific Ocean? Is Covid19 a bit of a problem? Do we know stuff about how things are? Anything?

I acknowledged that. We know all kinds of facts about all kinds of things.

Let's cut to the philosophical issue here. What we're discussing has been described under the heading of the Cartesian anxiety.

Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

This has been the subject of quite a bit of commentary, but I think it identifies the root problem.

...and?

You acknowledge that there are true statements about the world but insist that we cannot see the world as it is. How is this not a contradiction?

There’s a SEP entry on the problem of perception. It’s as old as philosophy. The short of it is people noticed that we’re subject to illusions, hallucinations and perceptual relativity. Add to that the science of how perception works, and how often science has overturned our intuitions about the world, and it’s clear that the world appears different than it is.

So, can we make statement about the world that are true, and know that they are true? — Banno

Empirically speaking? Not really. We have less than certain facts and theories explaining those facts, subject to further revision and new facts.

You acknowledge that there are true statements about the world but insist that we cannot see the world as it is. How is this not a contradiction? — Banno

Ah, but the demanded condition for being able to see the world as it is, is to be able to see it free from all perspectives; which would mean being able to make absolutely true, that is completely context independent, statements about it. The true statements we are able to make are all relative to various contexts, which just isn't good enough, dammit! :rofl:

— Marchesk
Sure, it is also a perspective, based on observations. So, it can't be binary. Whatever evidence there is that my seeing is limited, filtered, interpreted, — Coben

Then we cannot be perceiving it as it is! I echo Wayfarer in that this pretty standard philosophical
fare, and not new at all.

There is no, non-relational, context free "as it is" to be seen.

There is no, non-relational, context free "as it is" to be seen. — Janus

Agreed. Perceiving is relational. It’s also conscious.

But then it isn't saying much to say that we cannot see the world as it is if there is no world as it is. That would be like saying that we cannot see a colour that does not exist.

Add to that the science of how perception works, and how often science has overturned our intuitions about the world, and it’s clear that the world appears different than it is. — Marchesk

There’s a SEP entry on the problem of perception. It’s as old as philosophy. The short of it is people noticed that we’re subject to illusions, hallucinations and perceptual relativity. — Marchesk

Yes, I've noticed that also. I've acknowledged that in different words. Notice, for example, the word hallucination only makes sense when contrasted with something that is not a hallucination. In order to determine it was a hallucination, one needs to trust other perceptions.

Two, you never really respond to the points I make. You reiterate your position. You do not address how we do see the world, even 'as it is', in my examples. Nor do you explain how science avoids basing its conclusions without using observations. Which the scientists then trust. (with provisos for revision).

Add to that the science of how perception works, and how often science has overturned our intuitions about the world, and it’s clear that the world appears different than it is. — Marchesk

Science has not overturned all our intuitions about the world. One one they are not is that we can use our senses to draw correct conclusions about the world. Like the guy running through the field.

So we have @Wayfarer acknowledging that we can have true statements about the world, while @Marchesk doesn't have the courage to do the same, choosing instead to dither. That's really more about Marchesk than about truth.

Ah, but the demanded condition for being able to see the world as it is, is to be able to see it free from all perspectives; — Janus

Rubbish. One does not have to "see the world from all perspectives" to see that the cup is on the table.