I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Most direct realists say that we have direct visual perception of apples and trees and everything else that emits or reflects light into our eyes, whereas your account is that we only have direct visual perception of light. Yours is a strange kind of direct realism.

What we should not say is that we never saw Alcaraz defeat Djokovic, only ever images of Alcaraz defeating Djokovic. — Banno

The relevant issue is that when I see the tennis match on television I do not have direct perception of the tennis match. In the context of the dispute between direct and indirect realism, "direct perception" means something substantive, and the dispute cannot be "deflated" simply by saying "I saw the tennis match" or "I see the apple".

In your example, the apple causes the pattern of light that is seen ten seconds later. Hence the apple is a constituent of the experience. — Banno

That the apple causes the experience isn't that it's a constituent of the experience. I'll repeat the quote from Martin, with emphasis:

So, even if those objects are implicated in the causes of the experience, they also figure non-causally as essential constituents of it... Mere presence of a candidate object will not be sufficient for the perceiving of it, that is true, but its absence is sufficient for the non-occurrence of such an event. — Martin 2004

Given that the apple does not exist at 10:00:25 it is not a constituent of the experience at 10:00:25.

Are you saying that the apple is a constituent of the episode during the first 10 seconds? — Ludwig V

No, I'm saying that:

P1. If the apple is not a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds then it is not a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds
P2. The apple is not a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
C1. Therefore, the apple is not a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds

Moreover, this move overlooks the fact that there are other ways of cashing out what “direct” means that are neither dependent on the reification of consciousness nor reducible to deflationary semantics. — Esse Quam Videri

Yes, as I have tried to explain several times, e.g. with the distinction between phenomenological direct realism and semantic direct realism. It is possible that perception is direct₁ but not direct₂, where "direct₁" and "direct₂" mean different things.

You are free to stipulate indirect realism in this purely negative way if you wish, but it’s unreasonable to expect others to adopt this stipulation given that indirect realism was traditionally a substantive, positive thesis about perception, rather than merely the rejection of one particular type of direct realism. — Esse Quam Videri

Then forget the terms "direct realism" and "indirect realism". We have two theses, one negative and one positive:

1. We do not have direct perception of distal objects
2. We have direct perception of mental phenomena

I am primarily interesting in arguing that (1) is true, where "direct perception of distal objects" is to be understood in the traditional way, i.e. mind-independent objects and their mind-independent properties are "constituents" of first-person phenomenal experience, such that things "really are" as they appear to us (e.g. coloured in the sui generis sense) even when not being perceived.

As for (2), I'd like to refer back to something you said here:

Strictly speaking, insofar as the apple has disintegrated, there is no direct object of perception during the second interval. — Esse Quam Videri

Clearly something is happening during the second interval; I am having a visual experience with phenomenal character, described as "seeing a red apple 10m in front of me". If you don't want to say that qualia or sense data or mental phenomena are the "constituents" of this visual experience then I don't really understand what you think this visual experience is (are you an eliminative materialist?). It's clearly not nothing, else I'd be saying "I don't see anything". I suspect that, once again, you just mean something else by "direct object of perception", and so are misinterpreting what is meant by (2).

Very well, then how do we falsify indirect realism as you've defined it? — Hanover

I don't know, and it's not how I've defined it.

This is the scientific account of perception:

The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, known as the distal stimulus or distal object. By means of light, sound, or another physical process, the object stimulates the body's sensory organs. These sensory organs transform the input energy into neural activity—a process called transduction. This raw pattern of neural activity is called the proximal stimulus. These neural signals are then transmitted to the brain and processed. The resulting mental re-creation of the distal stimulus is the percept.

To explain the process of perception, an example could be an ordinary shoe. The shoe itself is the distal stimulus. When light from the shoe enters a person's eye and stimulates the retina, that stimulation is the proximal stimulus. The image of the shoe reconstructed by the brain of the person is the percept. Another example could be a ringing telephone. The ringing of the phone is the distal stimulus. The sound stimulating a person's auditory receptors is the proximal stimulus. The brain's interpretation of this as the "ringing of a telephone" is the percept.

This is clearly what indirect realism argues, as contrasted with their naive realist opponents, hence why it says here that "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception".

I thought the selling point of IR is that it can explain error in perception where DR cannot. — Ludwig V

What? Maybe someone else is positing that. I think its patently clear that there is no way to assess error beyond error as a mathematical/statistical exercise or a purely practical one (trial and error, i guess) no matter which theory you prefer. The DRist, I think, wants to say that a mediated perception is direct enough to capture error. I just disagree.

Well, we need to assess whether given indirect perceptions are veridical by some means that is independent of them. What do you suggest? — Ludwig V

No we dont Is my position. I don't see why. And given the above, I can't see why we would try (but that's baked into the disagreement, so just noting for completeness).

There's no better way of knowing what's going there. — Ludwig V

Exactly. So you're admitting you're seeing light which presents the sun as it was eight minutes ago. I shall leave this there and just see if it lands.

I don't think there's any reasonable ground for doubt — Ludwig V

Which is batshit insane on the facts, to my mind. Not concluding error might be reasonable, but denying any reason for doubt is just... good god. Not sure i'm cut out for such a wild claim. The following doesn't help, because its entirely recursive.

The relevant issue is that when I see the tennis match on television I do not have direct perception of the tennis match. — Michael

...and yet you saw the tennis. Thank you for such an apt example. The indirect realist is the one insisting that you never saw the tennis, only every pixels on a screen. For the rest of us, those pixels are part of watching the tennis. The causal chain is not the epistemic chain.

That the apple causes the experience isn't that it's a constituent of the experience. — Michael

This and your quote appear to be a constipated way of saying that one only sees the apple if there is an apple. Sure. At issue is whether one sees the apple or a "representation" of the apple. In your now well-beaten dead horse, one sees the apple as it was ten seconds ago. But somehow you conclude that one is therefore not seeing the apple. How that works escapes me.

Very well, then how do we falsify indirect realism as you've defined it?
— Hanover

I don't know, and it's not how I've defined it. — Michael

The physical question of how we see things isn't metaphysics. You're just telling me how scientists say we see things. That's not in dispute.

The metaphysical question deals with the fundamental ontological composition of the entity. Your post makes no reference to that.

To the question, "what is an apple," you tell me that there is a distal X that comes through my retina, into my brain, etc. I want to know what X is. I don't need to know the various points in the road where X traveled. I want to know what X is if I'm asking the metaphysical question.

Someone else says that direct realism is the case and that X appears suddenly just as X as a phenomenal state. You deny that is the case, but you have no idea what X is, so it's not clear how you deny it. You then admit you can't falsify indirect realism, which makes it non-scientific. If you don't know what X is, the scientific inquiry only tells us there is an unknown X going about the unknown world and that it appears as a phenomenal state at some point. Your conversation is physics, not metaphysics.

You assume some direct knowledge of the real, which makes you a direct realist, but you just want to explain intermediate steps as directly known and not the distal X.

That is, this conversation about what is X (i.e. the metaphysical question) is unanswerable. That you can tell me about apples, lights bouncing off apples, neurons firing is all part of the same scientific, physical conversation. You are no closer to proving what an apple is by describing the various noumenal events, which includes not just the apple, but the photons, the neurons, and all else.

So, what is an apple? We know what an apple is because we talk about it. That's what the apple is. What the X is is unknowable. It's why we needn't mention it in our conversations about apples.

And this doesn't deny a metaphysical reality or that there is a great big mystery of the unknown or that we don't have phenomenal states. It just denies that the meaning of "apple" is underwritten by the X, even if it is the X that is the hypothosized cause of the apple.

Sorry. Premature post by mistake.