All stated rules are given their sense only by our application of them and not by their syntactical definition, since a stated definition is in itself a rule whose meaning must also be shown by application. — sime

A trivial corollary of this is that the "free will vs determinism" debate is utterly nonsensical. — sime

I agree. I still think it's reasonable to investigate the relationship of what we call information and what we call the physical, but you make an important point.

In math we can get a "formal enough" or syntax-driven dialogue going. We can do information theory objectively enough. But away from math we are dealing with interpretation. We are exploring how concepts are entangled.

That is what I called the subject matter, or content. But since information cannot exist without a physical form, physical form is just as essential as content. The physical form is what makes the information, information, and not something random. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm no Derrida expert, but I recall that he examined the complicated relationship between the materiality and ideality of the sign. This "ideality" is an abstraction. It's hard to imagine thinking without language, though perhaps some kind of thinking is purely spatial. And of course the materiality only exists in contrast to the ideality.

Is not the statement, " ...we still see red when the wavelength is not "red" ", a statement about reality independent of looking at it - as if you had a "direct" view of reality itself? If you say "no", then you end up discrediting the statement itself. If you say "yes", then you have finally seen the light and would be agreeing with me.

How do you know that the wavelength is not red if you don't have some "direct" knowledge that that is the case? — Harry Hindu

As I understand him, he's comparing the scientific-mathematical aspect of the wave to its sensual aspect. True, what is implied is that the same wave is involved. So the wave itself (as the unity of its aspects) is red. But its mathematical description is not red.

The object-in-itself (perhaps a red apple) is theoretically complicated/questionable but practically almost common sense. It makes sense that our experience of the object is mediated by human nature. Our eye catches reflected photons, etc.

Is the direct realism versus indirect realism debate about anything more than a differing preference for how the same process is described?

I have a phenomenologically grounded conception of the natural, physical world. To all appearances, minds belong to bodies, and mental activity is an activity of physical things; and what we might call products of mind (including concepts, abstractions, types, words, numbers, possibilities) are products of the physical things that engage in mental activity. To all appearances, it seems the mental emerges from and remains grounded in the physical. — Cabbage Farmer

I generally share this phen. grounded approach. But I think it's fair to add that the physical is also grounded in the mind. The world disappears when we sleep dreamlessly. We might speculate that this inspired the whole problem to begin with. Privately mind grounds matter, but publicly matter grounds mind. We experience the world after the deaths of others but seemingly not after our own.

since information cannot exist without a physical form, — Metaphysician Undercover

Begs the question.

Pythagorean Idealism...was refuted by both Plato and Aristotle — Metaphysician Undercover

But this is not so - Plato inherited mathematical idealism from the Pythagoreans; he was frequently referred to by Aristotle as being of 'the Italians', i.e. Pythagoreans. Certainly he adapted it. But it was the sense in which the Forms truly existed that was the point of difference between Aristotle and Plato. Plato held they exist eternally in the 'realm of ideas'; it was the literal existence of that abstract realm which Aristotle took issue with.

As I explained, it really doesn't make sense, because without the physical form, we have nothing to posit as the means for distinguishing one mathematical object from another — Metaphysician Undercover

You haven't explained it, you've made an assertion which I have taken issue with, by referring to pure mathematics, which is by definition a matter of the relationship between ideas, which (physical) symbols are used to denote. And ideas are mental, not physical, by definition. As you don't accept this, then we're back at square one.

Can you support your bold claim that we must "have the same thought" in order to communicate, instead of merely "similar thoughts" as I suggested? — Cabbage Farmer

Communication relies on the fact that language has common meanings. I can't see how that is contentious. Of course, the fact that we both understand 'apple' to mean the same thing, is culturally determined, and arguably biologically determined, but I don't understand how that supports the point I took issue with, namely, that:

You and I see the same apple, but we don't therefore have the same perception. You and I grasp the same fact, or refer to the same entity by name, but it's only a misleading convention that leads us to say we thus "have the same thought". — Cabbage Farmer

I can't see how whether our thoughts are the same aside from what can be communicated symbolically is even relevant to the argument. It is about the communication of ideas.

From another perspective I understand the relative nature of perception - that you and I will see things differently, due to all kinds of factors. So if you're saying that, then I wouldn't disagree, but I don't see how it has a bearing on the OP.

To all appearances, minds belong to bodies, and mental activity is an activity of physical things; and what we might call products of mind (including concepts, abstractions, types, words, numbers, possibilities) are products of the physical things that engage in mental activity. To all appearances, it seems the mental emerges from and remains grounded in the physical. — Cabbage Farmer

The idealist response: that 'the physical' is itself a matter of judgement, a way of categorising the data of experience. A certain range or kind of experience is categorised as 'physical' and then this is posited to comprise the fundamental, what truly exists, what is real, etc. As you yourself say: 'to all appearance'; but appearances are always interpreted by a mind.

I do know, in saying this, I'm skating over a huge topic, but it's a forum, and time is limited. But I'll try and spit it out regardless - our conception of 'the physical' is underwritten by the theories of stellar formation and biological evolution, which we suppose provides an account of how we got here, what our capabilities and attributes are, in physical terms, as understood by modern science. That is what 'physicalism' means. In this picture, 'the mind' is the product of this process, and to all intents, only appears in the last micro-seconds of terrestrial history. There's even arguments about 'why it exists', nowadays.

So the whole point of this OP is to try and show that if information is not physical, then there is something central to the entire physicalist account which is not, itself, physical. It is the argument that ideas are not merely 'something that brains do' ('as the liver secretes bile'.) In other words, this is an argument that ideas/information/meaning is real in its own right, and not as the product of a material process. So indeed it is an idealist argument. When people complain that 'naive idealism' is the same as 'naive materialism', I am pretty sure they don't grasp the import of idealism.

I don't think you could infer what the subject's brain was thinking, because I don't think it's 'in there' - any more than the characters of House of Cards can be found in your flatscreen television.
— Wayfarer

But there is a structure-preserving map from the actors on set to the digitally encoded signal that is transmitted to my TV. That signal carries information about what the actors were doing. Whether the actors are "only physical" or not, it is only information about their physical characteristics that is captured, encoded, and transmitted: how they looked, how they moved, what sounds they made, and so on. Television just extends the reach of my senses of sight and hearing, and it does so by each step between me and the source of the sounds and images translating in a structure-preserving way. — Srap Tasmaner

That's true. But recall the point of yours that I was taking issue with:

Information could be something else we embodied minds traffic in just as we do other physical stuff. — Srap Tasmaner

It's that 'structure-preserving map' I'm interested in. What is the analogy for the 'structure-preserving map' in reality? That is the activities of the mind. Television, as you say, extends the physical scope of the mind, but the mind is what continually (and generally subliminally) performs all of these transformations.

my reasoning tells me that [Peirce's] semiotic philosophy can only make sense if it reduces to a pre-theoretic foundation of meaning grounded in human perception or action that cannot be stated but can only be shown. — sime

That's my feeling also. As an inheritor of the Western idealist tradition, I think he assumed something very like a 'universal mind' which to all intents is something very like 'the mind of God'. However, his modern interpreters don't wish to incorporate this idealistic strand of his thought.

I am led by the force of logic to conclude, at least on the basis of my possibly incorrect understanding of these two philosophers, that Berkeley and Peirce must share the same idealism. — sime

As I understand it, Peirce broadly agreed with Berkeley, but fiercely criticized Berkeley's nominalism:

Peirce believed nominalism (including what he referred to as "the daughters of nominalism": sensationalism, phenomenalism, individualism, and materialism) to be seriously flawed and a great threat to the advancement of science and civilization. His alternative was a nuanced realism that distinguished reality from existence and that could admit general and abstract entities as reals without attributing to them direct (efficient) causal powers. Peirce held that these non-existent reals could influence the course of events by means of final causation (conceived somewhat after Aristotle's conception),[1]and that to banish them from ontology, as nominalists require, is virtually to eliminate the ground for scientific prediction as well as to underwrite a skeptical ethos unsupportive of moral agency.

Review, Paul Forster, Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism.

(I'm very interested by the remark that Peirce 'distinguished reality from existence', as this is about the only instance of that distinction I've encountered in recent philosophy.)

the whole point of this OP is to try and show that if information is not physical, then there is something central to the entire physicalist account which is not, itself, physical. — Wayfarer

Incidentally, by way of footnote, I have noticed there's a philosophical argument about the very topic of the 'indispensability of mathematics'. Why, you might ask, is it necessary to make such an argument at all? Because, says the IETP article on the topic:

Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.

This is because 'our best' epistemic theories always assume that the objects of knowledge are somehow reducible to the physical. However, awkwardly, it then goes on to say:

Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.

So the point of the 'indispensability argument' is

...an attempt to justify our mathematical beliefs about abstract objects, while avoiding any appeal to rational insight.

Emphasis added.

Source

Pierce also treated chance or spontaneity as real in this way. So vagueness, fluctuation or material potential are matchingly real, giving you a triadic metaphysics.

Yes, I got that - tychism, as he called it. That is why, it is said, he would have no trouble with uncertainty in quantum mechanics. That also came from his long experience of actually measuring things, by virtue of which he understood the difficulty of exactness in measurement, as I understand it.

It's that 'structure-preserving map' I'm interested in. What is the analogy for the 'structure-preserving map' in reality? That is the activities of the mind. Television, as you say, extends the physical scope of the mind, but the mind is what continually (and generally subliminally) performs all of these transformations. — Wayfarer

?

The way an object absorbs or reflects light is determined by its structure and composition, no mind needed.

When that tree falls in that forest, a wave is propagated through the air whether there's any minds, or indeed any ears, around.

The structure of the object is mapped to the structure of the light, sound, etc. it broadcasts without intention. Living things notice, is all.

When that tree falls in that forest, a wave is propagated through the air whether there's any minds, or indeed any ears, around.

The structure of the object is mapped to the structure of the light, sound, etc. it broadcasts without intention. Living things notice, is all. — Srap Tasmaner

You're assuming 'transcendental realism' - that there is a world out there, independent of anyone's apprehension of it. I take a generally Kantian view, that our knowledge is of phenomena, and that what the world is 'in itself', outside those cognitive capacities, is unknown to us. I know it's a can of worms; on Online Philosophy Club, the thread on 'if a tree falls' is in about it's 11th year, but there it is.

But this is not so - Plato inherited mathematical idealism from the Pythagoreans; he was frequently referred to by Aristotle as being of 'the Italians', i.e. Pythagoreans. Certainly he adapted it. But it was the sense in which the Forms truly existed that was the point of difference between Aristotle and Plato. Plato held they exist eternally in the 'realm of ideas'; it was the literal existence of that abstract realm which Aristotle took issue with. — Wayfarer

Plato did a deep analysis of Pythagorean Idealism, exposing the weaknesses. Since he spent so much time discussing this position many think that he adopted it. However, there is no doubt that in his dialogues he did expose the weaknesses, and some argue that he effectively refuted Pythagorean Idealism prior to Aristotle's conclusive refutation, in The Parmenides. In my memory, Aristotle refers to "some Platonists" as following Pythagorean Idealism.

Are you familiar with Plato's Timaeus? If not, you should read it. This is where Plato's beliefs concerning independent Forms are revealed. The independent Forms are particulars, each individual existing thing has a Form which is responsible for, as the cause of, that thing's existence. Aristotle is consistent with this, in his Metaphysics. He says that the question of why there is something rather than nothing is one which is meaningless to ask because it has no approach. Instead, he suggested that the important question concerning "being", is the question of why there is what there is, instead of something else.

The argument he produces, is that whenever something (a material object) comes into existence, it must necessarily be the thing that it is, otherwise it would be something other than itself, and that is impossible by contradiction. If the "whatness" of the thing were not prior to the physical existence of the thing, the thing would be something completely random, nothing. But this is not what is the case according to observation, things are particular things. Therefore the whatness (form) of the thing must be prior in time to the existence of the material thing. This allows for immaterial forms.

Notice that both Aristotle and Plato are consistent in arguing for a Form, or "whatness", of a thing, which is prior to the material existence of the thing, and therefore independent from material existence. But these Forms are the forms of particulars, they are not universal forms. Rejection of the notion that forms, as universals, or generalities, which was held by the Pythagoreans is implied by Plato's writings, and firmly refuted by Aristotle with the cosmological argument.

You haven't explained it, you've made an assertion which I have taken issue with, by referring to pure mathematics, which is by definition a matter of the relationship between ideas, which (physical) symbols are used to denote. And ideas are mental, not physical, by definition. As you don't accept this, then we're back at square one. — Wayfarer

Actually, I explained it, perhaps the explanation was deficient. Imagine pure information, in the sense of pure content, without any physical form. There could be nothing to distinguish one mathematical object from another. Consider the numbers 1,2,3. On the page, they are distinguished by the form of the symbol. So let's go to the ideas behind the symbols. Without referring to something physical, how can you distinguish the idea of one unity from two unities. "Two" implies some sort of separation, and this separation is necessarily physical. There is no way to conceive of separation which is not a physical separation. Without this separation, all the numbers, 1,2,3..., are all united as one idea. To separate 1 from 2 from 3, requires an appeal to something physical, space or time. It is the same with all the mathematical ideas, they only have meaning in relation to some physical reference. Remove the physical reference, and they are all meaningless, random nonsense, one cannot be distinguished from two or three or four. Without the physical reference there would be no meaning to one, two, three, four, so they would not exist as ideas.

↪Andrew M Thanks, very interesting. And I tend to think the ‘immateriality of information’ has tended to show up in physics, also. I don’t know if you noticed the article I linked from this post but it explicitly speaks of quantum physics in terms of the Aristotelian ‘potentia’. — Wayfarer

That's not really what Aristotle meant by potential. What the authors (and Heisenberg before them) are doing is replacing Descartes' res cogitans with res potentia. But res is a Latin phrase meaning an "object or thing; matter". A universal (whether it be mind or potential or color or number) is not a kind of thing. It's an abstraction of things. So res potentia is just a modern variant of the Platonism that Aristotle was rejecting.

The kind of information that physicists are interested in, at least in a quantum context, include which-way particle information and correlation information between entangled particle pairs.

So the Aristotelian approach would be to look for the concrete particulars that that information is an abstraction of.

Notice that both Aristotle and Plato are consistent in arguing for a Form, or "whatness", of a thing, which is prior to the material existence of the thing, and therefore independent from material existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think this is right. The form of a tree, say an oak, might be prior to the existence of any one particular tree, but the form of an oak is not prior to the existence of oaks in general. The unique form of a particular oak might be thought to be inherent in the acorn and thus prior to the existence of the oak as tree, but it would not be not prior to the existence of the acorn. This would be so, even if the unique form of the particular oak were entirely determined by the acorn. But this is not so, either, the form of the tree will depend on its environment with all its conditions as well.

I take a generally Kantian view, that our knowledge is of phenomena, and that what the world is 'in itself', outside those cognitive capacities, is unknown to us. — Wayfarer

Those phenomena, and those cognitive capacities-- it's all about information.

It was fun, Wayfarer! Let's do this again sometime.

Hey I thought your questions were pretty good!

Indeed, if we could draw concepts or visualize them physically in our imagination, then that would make concepts physical. The fact that we can't, supports the claim that they are non-physical.

... Unless your point was that if we cannot physically visualize them, then concepts are not real? This would presuppose the maxim that what cannot be physically visualized is not real. But this is a self-contradiction, because maxims cannot be physically visualized.

It was meant as a gesture toward what a theory of concepts might look like.

Suppose instead of some ideal abstract triangle, you had instead a rule about how to treat a particular triangle "as" a conceptual one. So you ignore its actual proportions, the measure of its actual angles. It still has those, just like any triangle, but you don't use them.

I can understand how that would work. I can see a procedure. I would like such a thing because I don't know what concepts are supposed to be, how we interact with them, etc. My little procedure gives concrete form to the idea of abstraction: it's a rule about what to ignore.

What the authors (and Heisenberg before them) are doing is replacing Descartes' res cogitans with res potentia. But res is a Latin phrase meaning an "object or thing; matter". A universal (whether it be mind or potential or color or number) is not a kind of thing. It's an abstraction of things. So res potentia is just a modern variant of the Platonism that Aristotle was rejecting. — Andrew M

I don't know if you're correct, although I'm probably not well equipped to argue. However, there is a essay I know from Heisenberg, which is relevant:

All the words or concepts we use to describe ordinary physical objects, such as position, velocity, color, size, and so on, become indefinite and problematic if we try to use then of elementary particles. I cannot enter here into the details of this problem, which has been discussed so frequently in recent years. But it is important to realize that, while the behavior of the smallest particles cannot be unambiguously described in ordinary language, the language of mathematics is still adequate for a clear-cut account of what is going on.

During the coming years, the high-energy accelerators will bring to light many further interesting details about the behavior of elementary particles. But I am inclined to think that the answer just considered to the old philosophical problems will turn out to be final. If this is so, does this answer confirm the views of Democritus or Plato?

I think that on this point modern physics has definitely decided for Plato. For the smallest units of matter are, in fact, not 'physical objects' in the ordinary sense of the word; they are forms, structures or—in Plato's sense—Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics. — Werner Heisenberg

The Debate between Plato vs Democritus

That was a speech given by Heisenberg, which foreshadowed many of the ideas that he developed more fully in his book Physics and Philosophy; however his tendency to favour idealist over materialist interpretations of physics is clear from this essay.

I also suggest your reading of Aristotle is too modernist - Aristotle doesn't believe that 'concrete particulars' have the kind of reality that I think you're imbuing them with. I think you're reading Aristotle as a modern realist, not as an ancient or medieval realist; his 'hylomorphic dualism' posited that particulars are composed of matter and form, where 'the forms' are indeed the Platonic ideas. He mainly differed with Plato concerning whether the Forms could be said to exist apart from concrete particulars; but the way you're reading it, it seems that they derive their reality from the particulars. Whereas, I think for Aristotle, as for all Platonists, objects themselves are only intelligible insofar as the conform to their originative ideas.

Aristotle's hylomorphic dualism was different to Descartes' substance dualism, to be sure because he didn't conceive of the mind as capable of existing in its own right. But it was still a dualism.

Regarding Heisenberg, Ed Feser has this to say:

Heisenberg contrasts “potentia” with “reality.” What Aristotelian Thomism says, though – and what Heisenberg himself clearly means, given the context – is not that potentials are not in any sense real, but rather that qua merely potential they have not been actualized. (Act and potency are in fact both real, but they are different kinds of reality.)

My underline, from this post

Now my basic argument is that this sense of there being 'different kinds (or degrees) of reality' is generally rejected by modern philosophy; that now there is only one 'kind of reality', and that is matter (strictly speaking, the matter-energy-space-time manifold).

Whereas the article I cited above says:

In particular, “real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime,but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence.

So there are real possibilities.

what a theory of concepts might look like.... — Srap Tasmaner

suggested article....

suggested article.... — Wayfarer

I got halfway through it. It's ignorant horse hockey.

It is medieval.

I don't think this is right. The form of a tree, say an oak, might be prior to the existence of any one particular tree, but the form of an oak is not prior to the existence of oaks in general. The unique form of a particular oak might be thought to be inherent in the acorn and thus prior to the existence of the oak as tree, but it would not be not prior to the existence of the acorn. This would be so, even if the unique form of the particular oak were entirely determined by the acorn. But this is not so, either, the form of the tree will depend on its environment with all its conditions as well. — Janus

Each material object is a unique physical thing, that is what is expressed by Aristotle's law of identity, a thing is the same as itself. In The Timaeus, Plato argues that the Form of every object is given to every object in the manner of creation. In The Republic, he could not escape the idea that an independent Idea (in the sense of a general idea) required a divine mind to support its existence. But under "the good", the divine idea is necessarily "the Ideal", and the Ideal, being the absolute, the best, is necessarily a particular. So "the good" puts Plato on a whole new path which is inconsistent with Pythaqoreanism, in which Ideas are universals. Plato develops this new path. In The Parmenides he starts to grasp the nature of time, and realizes that every particular material object requires an independent Form to account for its existence.

The argument which Aristotle makes, which I described above, indicates that the Form of each material object is prior in time to the material existence of that object. Any object is necessarily the object which it is, or else it would be other than itself, and this is contradiction. So, when the material object comes into existence in time, it must be predetermined, in some manner, what it will be, because if it were not, there would be no objects whatsoever, simply randomness. The material object could not come into existence as an object other than itself, and that it is the object which it is requires that its Form determines this prior to its existence.

So the argument is not that the form of the particular oak is determined by the acorn, it is determined by the independent Form of that particular oak tree. The acorn itself is a material object, and its existence is determined by its Form. There is a need here to distinguish between the potential for something, and the actuality of that thing, and this is provided by an understanding of the nature of time. The acorn provides the potential for an oak, in general. The independent Form actualizes this particular oak tree.

Precisely. Direct needs to said in scare quotes. Indirect is admitting that it is only “as if”. — apokrisis

No. I didn't use the word, "indirect" in my post. If I did, then that word would be in quotes as well because I put "direct" in quotes to refer to it's arbitrariness. "Indirect" is even more arbitrary as it refers to your little boxes that you've put everything in, as if everything isn't interconnected.

The point is, how is it "indirect" or "direct" when you end up getting at what reality is really like? What is the point in using these terms, "indirect" and "direct", when you end up getting at what reality is really like? They become meaningless, just like "physical" vs. "mental" and "inside" vs. "outside", when explaining how we know (are informed of) things.

If you can admit that you are getting at reality as it really is (and it seems that you've admitting that much) in order to make all these objective statements about reality, as if you had a direct line to how it really is, then what is the point in making a distinction between "direct" and "indirect", when you are getting directly at how reality really is in order to make any statement about how reality really is? Or are you saying that your statements aren't how reality really is? If the latter is the case, then what is the point in reading anything you say, as you what you say wouldn't be meaningful or informative.

To say that I got at it indirectly vs. directly is to say that you got to it in a certain amount of causal steps, your arbitrary boxes and categories that you've placed everything in to separate causes from their effects, as if everything is separate and not interconnected.

To even say that it is "indirect" is to admit causation, no? It is admitting that information flows by causal relationships - that you know (you have information about) what reality is really like by looking at an effect and following the "steps" back in time to the cause. I'm trying to get you to admit that you acquired the knowledge you have causally, but you refuse to answer the question. Instead you've resorted to cherry-picking and (purposely?) misinterpret my use of quotes. Your posts are losing their substance.

As I understand him, he's comparing the scientific-mathematical aspect of the wave to its sensual aspect. True, what is implied is that the same wave is involved. So the wave itself (as the unity of its aspects) is red. But its mathematical description is not red.

The object-in-itself (perhaps a red apple) is theoretically complicated/questionable but practically almost common sense. It makes sense that our experience of the object is mediated by human nature. Our eye catches reflected photons, etc.

Is the direct realism versus indirect realism debate about anything more than a differing preference for how the same process is described? — t0m

I think the mistake Apo made was making the distinction that a wave is not red. Apples are red or not red. Anyone who knows what they are talking about should know that waves are not red. Apples are.

The apple is what is red and it is red because it is ripe. It is black because it is rotten. Sure, knowing that the apple is ripe vs rotten is useful to human goals, but would the apple still be ripe or rotten if eyes, and the brains with goals that the eyes are attached to, never evolved? Of course it would. It just wouldn't be red or black.

My point is that we are getting at what reality is like (the apple being either ripe or rotten) independent of our goals. It is our goals that simply determine which information is currently relevant, not whether the information is actually accurate or not. Isn't survival the greatest catalyst for seeking knowledge - for being informed about how the world really works and how your body works and how it is all related? To be better informed about the world (how it works, it's current state, etc.) is to be better able to survive in it.

To even say that it is "indirect" is to admit causation, no? — Harry Hindu

But not your direct cause and effect. Instead my indirect causation which is the modelling relation.

what is the point in making a distinction between "direct" and "indirect", when you are getting directly at how reality really is in order to make any statement about how reality really is? — Harry Hindu

But my argument is indeed that we don’t get at what reality really is. The modelling relation is about regulation, not knowledge. What we want is the most efficient and useful image of reality.

You then want to claim there is a problem in that because now I’m making a claim about how things “really are”.

Well, partly we can know what is real about our own epistemic strategies. Science is about accepting the pragmatism of the modelling relation. But then also it is only you who is concerned about some absolute veridical knowledge of reality in the first place. The high bar you set doesn’t apply to me if my claim to know that this is how the mind works is itself just another testable pragmatic hypothesis.

I think the mistake Apo made was making the distinction that a wave is not red. Apples are red or not red. Anyone who knows what they are talking about should know that waves are not red. Apples are. — Harry Hindu

So how does colour constancy fit in here? You haven’t explained.

And this talk of apples is just misdirection. A laser beam could be tuned to the same hue as the apple as seen under white light. So trying to treat colour as some material property of an apple is nonsense when we can see red just from the pure shining of a light.

But not your direct cause and effect. Instead my indirect causation which is the modelling relation. — apokrisis

An effect is a model of prior causes, as it carries information about the cause. Does your model carry information? If not, then how can you even call it a model? If it is, then what is it that you are informed of when the model appears, or takes shape?

But my argument is indeed that we don’t get at what reality really is. The modelling relation is about regulation, not knowledge. What we want is the most efficient and useful image of reality.

You then want to claim there is a problem in that because now I’m making a claim about how things “really are”. — apokrisis

Well, you are. You just did it again by stating, "The modeling relation is about regulation, not knowledge. What we want is the most efficient and useful image of reality." Is this statement an accurate statement, or is it what is pragmatic and useful? Is it really how reality, or some part of it, is? If not, then you aren't saying anything informative. I just find it amazing that you keep making these kinds of statements without understanding what it is that you are doing. Every time you make your case for how you think things are, you are attempting to get at and inform me of how things really are.

Well, partly we can know what is real about our own epistemic strategies. Science is about accepting the pragmatism of the modelling relation. But then also it is only you who is concerned about some absolute veridical knowledge of reality in the first place. The high bar you set doesn’t apply to me if my claim to know that this is how the mind works is itself just another testable pragmatic hypothesis. — apokrisis

It applies every time you make those kinds of statements, like, "The high bar you set doesn’t apply to me if my claim to know that this is how the mind works is itself just another testable pragmatic hypothesis." It seems to me that you are concerned about some absolute veridical knowledge every time you state how things are, as in the previous statement and in "The modeling relation is about regulation, not knowledge. What we want is the most efficient and useful image of reality." Science is about seeking what is accurate, not pragmatic. We get what is pragmatic by it being accurate. It simply wouldn't be pragmatic or useful if there wasn't some semblance of accuracy to it.

So how does colour constancy fit in here? You haven’t explained.

And this talk of apples is just misdirection. A laser beam could be tuned to the same hue as the apple as seen under white light. So trying to treat colour as some material property of an apple is nonsense when we can see red just from the pure shining of a light. — apokrisis

Then talk of light and laser beams are just misdirection. I thought we were talking about waves, not apples, lasers or light. Again, do waves really exist, or are waves simply some pragmatic model that we use, and only exist in our minds? If you say that they are simply another model, then you are using models to explain models, which then makes the term, "model" meaningless.

If you say that it is indirect, or models, all the way down, while at the same time saying, "all we are able to get at is the model", or "all we can do is get at it indirectly", then you are saying that we are actually getting at the truth, as everything is indirect, or just models, then us having models is us having the truth! Your whole argument defeats itself AND relegates the terms, "model" and "indirect" into meaninglessness!

I didn't say color was a material property of an apple. I said it's ripeness and rottenness are. Colors are a material property of the mind. Colors are merely the effect of the state of the apple interacting with light and your visual processing system. If saying that the apple is red is the same as saying it is ripe and what kind of apple it is, then what am I missing? What is the point in saying the apple is red if it isn't to refer to some material property or some state of the apple? When you say the apple is red, are you talking about the apple in your head, or the apple on the table, and what would be your intent in informing me that the apple is red, if not to inform me of the kind of apple it is and what state of ripeness it is in?

Every time you make your case for how you think things are, you are attempting to get at and inform me of how things really are. — Harry Hindu

I’m telling you what I find to be a justified belief. I’m not pretending to have transcendent access to absolute truth.

Why do you find that so hard to follow?

Colors are merely the effect of the state of the apple interacting with light and your visual processing system. — Harry Hindu

Love the “merely”.

Anyway, you are still successfully dodging the question of how an apple can still look red to us even when the light it reflects is not in the normal red frequency range. It can’t be then a simple cause and effect relationship in terms of the actual light entering our eye and the way we construe the hue of what we see. What we imagine we should see, given our model of the lighting conditions, takes over.

The point here is that the indirect perceptual route is more accurate in that it sees the apple as it would be understood in ideal lighting conditions. It is the interpretation that can make allowances because the modelling isn’t simply driven in causal fashion by physical inputs.

If you say that they are simply another model, then you are using models to explain models, which then makes the term, "model" meaningless — Harry Hindu

Yes. And why not?

Of course they are also models at completely different levels of semiosis. Colour experience is biological-level perceptual modelling of “the world”. Talk about electromagnetic radiation and wavelength is socially constructed knowledge of the world.

One model can only change over eons of evolutionary time. The other we could reinvent tomorrow.

Thanks for the reference to color constancy. Don't know if I had ever seen this stuff before and it is way cool.