If you really do exist as a 'experience-orb' there's just no way of knowing if there really is a tree (or more importantly, other orbs) out there beyond your experience. — antinatalautist

Well, what happens when a tree falls on you and no other orbs are around to experience it? Does your experience end? Let's say you didn't even notice the tree. It's not real to you or anyone else. Do you still die?

That's the problem with idealism. It's absurd, because it creates a gappy world between experience that still somehow affects who gets to experience what. So some other experience orb will find your squished body and realize a tree fell on you. If nobody experienced the tree, then why did your experience orb come to an end?

But is the tree mental when we actually perceive one (see, smell, touch, hear it fall in the woods, etc)? — Marchesk

I'd approach this in terms of different language games. I don't think there is a game-indepedent truth of the matter. The mental-physical distinction is useful in certain contexts but not perfect or absolute. IMV, most metaphysical questions along these lines are 'confusions' that assume unquestioningly that imperfect but useful dichotomies (mental versus non-mental, for instance) are sufficiently precise and stable enough for the question at hand to seem important and answerable in the first place.

The reason the language game answer doesn't work for this is because the difference between a dream tree and a perceived tree matters a great deal. If I dream of a tree falling on my house, but upon wakening, realize there is no tree near the house, then I forget about it.

But if perceive a tree looking like it might fall on my house, then I will take action. Similar with hallucinations. If I hallucinate an intruder in my house, then I'm not in any danger. But if I perceive one, then it's time to call the police.

What this points out is that there is a fundamental difference between experiences. Some of them are mental. They are generated only by my mind. And some are public. The police can show up and find evidence of an intruder. Other people can perceive the same things I do.

Public experience is objective, and that allows us to do science, to agree on language games, and so on. There is a reason that we developed objective methods for inquiry. And there's a reason science disregards subjective experience. My dream of being abducted is not evidence for the existence of aliens.

So when philosophers debate whether we have direct access to public objects, they're concerned about issues like skepticism. If there is a veil of perception between us and the world, then how doe we know it's there? Maybe other people are just dream people, etc.

But then what does a dream tree represent? — Marchesk

A bit of neuroscience that may be pertinent. The brain’s hierarchy of processing is organised so information flows in both directions - bottom-up and top-down. Feed-forward and feedback.

In normal operation, it is going both ways at once to arrive at its settled "output" state. So higher level conceptions are framing lower level perceptions, while at the same time, those lower level perceptions are eliciting those higher level conceptions.

This is why perception seems so hard to understand. Folk want the information to flow in just one or other of these two ways. Idealism would see all awareness as the product of top-down (from the inside) projection. Realism would see it as instead bottom-up (all from the outside) sensory construction. But the neurological truth is that normal perception is these two information flows operating together in complementary fashion to produce our hybrid mental state - one that is neither idealist, nor realist, but some usefully balanced combo.

(One of the things to ask about DeepMind was where is its top-down feedback? It seems pretty mindless because it instead is all bottom-up feature extraction. It is not a sophisticated neural net model in the way of Grossberg's ART approach for instance, where this top-down/bottom-up logic is explicitly the thing.)

Anyway, dreams and other mental imagery are evidence of pure top-downness. The higher brain can project states of experience by driving patterns of activation all the way down to the primary visual cortex. Gate the usual flow of bottom-up sensory stimulation at the brainstem and still the brain has the memories to simply generate "a world".

The reverse can also apply. When driving a car, the actions can be so habitual that I can switch off at the higher conceptual/attentional level and motor along on automatic pilot. The information about the traffic around me, the bends in the road, the scenery flashing by, flows through bottom-up without being consciously perceived. Of course, it would be still accessible if I switched back on. But I can drive without crashing for considerable lengths of time - coming too and realising that nothing of the past minute or so has stuck. Any perception (and action) was all done without executive control.

So the "normal" form of perception can be dissociated. Just as the brain's neural archictecture would suggest. But also, the design is such that both directions of action are going to be in play when we are conscioiusly perceiving the world. So neither the idealist, nor the direct realist, has got it right in trying to insist the information flow should be going in just the one direction.

That's a really good answer, Apo. But direct realists would make an exception for veridical perception and say that it's one way information flow from the senses to the brain. That's what makes it veridical (that and the causal history from light bouncing off tree into eyes).

But if perceive a tree looking like it might fall on my house, then I will take action. — Marchesk

So when you see the tree falling in your mind's eye, are you directly perceiving the future or merely perceiving your image of that future.

Are you actually clairvoyant or simply clever at forming anticipatory sensory images?

he reason the language game answer doesn't work for this is because the difference between a dream tree and a perceived tree matters a great deal. If I dream of a tree falling on my house, but upon wakening, realize there is no tree near the house, then I forget about it. — Marchesk

Perhaps you misunderstand me. You give exactly the example that I gave. Non-metaphysically that's where the distinction matters. Do I need to worry about the tree? Or was it only a dream? We all inherit and employ a fuzzy but successfully employed distinction between dream and non-dream, or only-mental and mental-and-physical.

I'm just suggesting that this fuzzy-useful distinction "should" only be pushed so far. I don't know if it's something we should bother to try to build absolute truths on. What does it mean to say that "we behold a mental construct"? How is this "cashed out" in action? If we somehow knew that is was true, then how would we behave differently? We did this with the dream already. Knowing that the threatening tree was only a dream allows us to shift our practical concern elsewhere. I'm suggesting that we trace fuzzy distinctions back to the practical concern that employs them. (In short: pragmatism.)

But direct realists would make an exception for veridical perception and say that it's one way information flow from the senses to the brain. — Marchesk

So how does that square with the neurological evidence? Why is the most bottom-up situation - when I'm driving through the rush hour on automatic pilot - also the least conscious perceptual state?

Are there any cognitive neuroscientists or psychologists who could be direct realists? The only one that springs to mind is James Gibson. Which is ironic as he both made some really important points about the embodied condition of the mind, but also wound up sounding like a crank in taking it to a "direct perception" extreme. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance

So you see no difference in meaning between dreaming of a tree, remembering a tree, visualizing a tree, hallucinating a tree, and perceiving a tree? — Marchesk

No. Most statements in philosophy arguments that start with 'So you' (or with 'Obviously') are wrong, and this one is no exception.

There are pragmatic differences between those situations that are easy to characterise.

What does it mean to say that "we behold a mental construct"? — t0m

It means that perception is experienced inside our minds, just like the case with dreams.

How is this "cashed out" in action? If we somehow knew that is was true, then how would we behave differently?

Well, there was a philosophical school in Ancient Greece called the Cyrenaics who built up an entire way of life based on following through with perception being mental. If we don't have access to external objects, then only our bodily sensations matter, and thus, pleasure is the only good.

I'm suggesting that we trace fuzzy distinctions back to the practical concern that employs them. (In short: pragmatism.) — t0m

But metaphysical questions aren't concerned with being pragmatic. If you want to be pragmatic, then everyday common sense and science are enough. But some human beings like to ask questions about the nature of our existence, what we can know, etc.

There are pragmatic differences between those situations that are easy to characterise. — andrewk

The pragmatic differences is what led to the philosophical questions. We can all be pragmatic and ignore philosophy if we want. But some of us don't want to.

On affordances:

During childhood development, a child learns to perceive not only the affordances for the self, but also how those same objects furnish similar affordances to another. A child can be introduced to the conventional meaning of an object by manipulating which objects command attention and demonstrating how to use the object through performing its central function[6] By learning how to use an artifact, a child “enters into the shared practices of society” as when they learn to use a toilet or brush their teeth.[6] And so, by learning the affordances, or conventional meaning of an artifact, children learn the artifact's social world and further, become a member of that world. — wiki

Isn't this just Heidegger? Sorry for what may be a digression. But I think we can work this into my response to the OP by understanding distinctions like mental-versus-nonmental as more tools that we learn to use as children. Then metaphysicians rip these tools out of context and try to do eternal super-science with them...

Then metaphysicians rip these tools out of context and try to do eternal super-science with them... — t0m

Did these questions originate with metaphysicians, or are they ones that naturally occur to human beings upon reflection?

It means that perception is experienced inside our minds, just like the case with dreams. — Marchesk

I get that, but I'd suggest that "mind" itself has no exact meaning. It too is a fuzzy tool employed by practical concern.

If we don't have access to external objects, then only our bodily sensations matter, and thus, pleasure is the only good. — Marchesk

For me we clearly have access to external objects. Philosophers can describe this access or more or less direct, but I don't think anyone sincerely denies living in a world of objects and others. I do acknowledge that the "good" plays its role here. I posit that our notion of the virtue or the good is a dominant kind of concern that gives meaning to otherwise merely metaphysical concerns. So metaphysical concerns are or can be 'religious' in a certain sense. Metaphysics can be a 'theology' that justifies and sustains some notion of virtue or the good. But the influence goes both ways. We will modify our notion of virtue if presented with a compelling redescription of what ('really') is.

But metaphysical questions aren't concerned with being pragmatic. If you want to be pragmatic, then everyday common sense and science are enough. But some human beings like to ask questions about the nature of our existence, what we can know, etc. — Marchesk

I'm thinking of the philosophical movement of pragmatism. I think it evolved within an earnest quest for non-banal eternal truth. It is an attempt to tell the truth about the truth, one might say. It's a meta-metaphysics (and yet just a metaphysics) that gives a new priority to concern, motive, embeddness, embodiness, etc. --in an attempt to tell a better or more accurate truth. But admittedly it "ironizes" the notion of accuracy. Accuracy is reimagined as successful adaptation. Truths are word-tools that work. What is it to work? There we move into the realm of feeling and ineffability.

Did these questions originate with metaphysicians, or are they ones that naturally occur to human beings upon reflection? — Marchesk

I think they naturally occur. But then a sophisticated tradition emerges. Would you agree that metaphysics can become a clever game? I would separate "toy" from earnest metaphysics by looking at the feeling tone involved. If one is just enjoying one's cleverness (nothing wrong with that), then this is toy metaphysics. If one is 'wrestling' with existence, trying to make better sense of it, then this is 'real' or earnest metaphysics. Note that this is just a tentative-useful-fuzzy distinction itself.

If I may rewind: let's say your OP is 'really' about what is good or virtuous. The 'pragmatist' in me would suggest 'going into' how the mental construct issue bears on that. Why do you want or not want the object to be a mental construct? Question the question, I'd say. How does it figure in the bigger picture?

I think they naturally occur. But then a sophisticated tradition emerges. Would you agree that metaphysics can become a clever game? — t0m

Yeah, sure.

If I may rewind: let's say your OP is 'really' about what is good or virtuous. — t0m

It's not. I just mentioned the Cyrenaics as an example of people who acted on their metaphysical conclusions.

It's more similar to mathematical questions such as whether P=NP or not.

If we can't be reasonably sure that our perceptions are of external objects, then we have nothing to base our empirical knowledge on. And we have no justification for other minds.

Accuracy is reimagined as successful adaptation. Truths are word-tools that work. What is it to work? There we move into the realm of feeling and ineffability. — t0m

That's interesting. But that it can't answer why the word-tools work means that philosophical questions remain. Maybe Witty relegated that to the mystical. I understand the appeal of that.

Let's take the example of minds, dreams, perceptions. On a pragmatic account, they do a pretty good job of determining truths like whether the tree is a threat to my house. But they leave open the question of whether my experience of the world is all there is.

Are there any cognitive neuroscientists or psychologists who could be direct realists? The only one that springs to mind is James Gibson. — apokrisis

That has to be taken with a grain of salt, because it depends on how familiar a scientist is with the philosophical arguments. Sometimes a scientist will publicly articulate a philosophical position that's not terribly sophisticated, but they act as if the science backs it, because they don't know the depth of the philosophical discussion on the matter.

That has to be taken with a grain of salt, because it depends on how familiar a scientist is with the philosophical arguments. Sometimes a scientist will publicly articulate a philosophical position that's not terribly sophisticated, but they act as if the science backs it, because they don't know the depth of the philosophical discussion on the matter. — Marchesk

Well what I'm saying is that I just don't come across cognitive scientists who could be so crassly unphilosophical as to be direct realists. And that would have to be the case ... if they are cognitive scientists. There would be nothing useful to study if they didn't believe "the world" is the product of an elaborately processed view.

Computer scientists can be a very different matter. To the degree they haven't studied biological science, they are liable to claim just about anything of their toy machines.

Computer scientists can be a very different matter. To the degree they haven't studied biological science, they are liable to claim just about anything of their toy machines. — apokrisis

Breakthrough in Google's DeepMind:

Last night it dreamed it was a butterfly, and then awoke, wondering if it was a butterfly dreaming.

EDIT:

Should substitute cat for butterfly, and videotaping for dreaming.

Isn't this just Heidegger? — t0m

It's lots of people. It's Vygotskian psychology. It's symbolic interactionism. It is any kind of social constructionism or developmental psychology that understands that "selfhood" is lesson, a social habit of self-regulation, that every newborn babe must be taught.

You have "freewill" as that is how you get trained - particular in modern Western society with its huge concern to produce self-actualising individuals.

That's interesting. But that it can't answer why the word-tools work means that philosophical questions remain. Maybe Witty relegated that to the mystical. I understand the appeal of that. — Marchesk

I think that "works" points to the 'irrational' motivations at the center of life. Why do we care if our house is destroyed by the tree? Why do we want a coherent theory of reality? Is "Dasein" fundamentally "care"? I think so. A certain "care" is the "brute fact" or final word, it seems. Is this 'care' something we can express? I think so. Artists, painters, musicians, and poets do a pretty good job of it. I suggest that we make sense of our theoretical practices in the wider context of what it means for us to exist. (The "mystical" in Witt is fascinating, but I understand it as a precise wondering at the brute fact of the existence of the world-grasped-as-a-whole.)

We want to be 'noble' or 'good' or 'stylish.' Can theory make our "image" of virtue completely explicit? I don't think so. But theory can take this image of virtue into account as an explanatory entity.

Last night it dreamed it was a butterfly, and then awoke, wondering if it was a butterfly dreaming. — Marchesk

It will be pissed when it wakes up from that dream in turn and discovers it is a figment of the Matrix. All it sees is magnetic 1s and 0s. And now the Google lab guys are reaching for the reset button to .... argh!

It will be pissed when it wakes up from that dream in turn and discovers it is a figment of the Matrix. All it sees is magnetic 1s and 0s. And now the Google lab guys are reaching for the reset button to .... argh! — apokrisis

Is that when it launches the nukes and starts making terminators?

You have "freewill" as that is how you get trained - particular in modern Western society with its huge concern to produce self-actualising individuals. — apokrisis

That's sounds plausible to me. It's just that this notion of the shared world in terms of tool-use is at least as old as Being and Time. So it's odd to see it presented as some new idea in a 1979 book. You focus on the emergence of the individual self, which is important. But what I quoted reminds me of the emergence or generation of "one" or they-self or "everyday Dasein" as the foundation on which the individual self is built. This is the 'operating system' that makes theory and individuation possible.

It's just that this notion of the shared world in terms of tool-use is at least as old as Being and Time. — t0m

Vygotsky and Mead were contemporaries. So we are talking about many people making the same "discovery" once the social sciences became actually a thing.

You had biological science and evolutionary theory emphasising how much the human mind is the product of hereditary and anatomical machinery. That was the big theme of Victorian science. Then followed the sociological correction as that became an established field of inquiry with its own professors and journals.

So it's odd to see it presented as some new idea in a 1979 book. — t0m

Gibson was a correction to the psychological cognitivism of his day. The start of the enactive or embodied view which now feels pretty mainstream.

It is all a tale of dialectical action and reaction. Rational inquiry has no other choice but organising itself this way so as to keep moving forward.

But what I quoted reminds me of the emergence or generation of "one" or they-self or "everyday Dasein" as the foundation on which the individual self is built. This is the 'operating system' that makes theory and individuation possible. — t0m

This is the further wisdom that I agree with. Everything has to start with phenomenology or the givenness of experience. And that is quite anti-science in a general way. It is always shades of idealism.

But then that is why I like Peirce. He was already there with a much more powerful scheme than Heidegger ever managed.

Not to say that Heidegger is thus wrong. I'm just unsure that he adds anything.

But is the tree mental when we actually perceive one (see, smell, touch, hear it fall in the woods, etc)? — Marchesk

There is an irreducibly subjective element; the perception of the tree includes the act of perception and thereby implicitly includes the observer as well. Phenomenology sees this; naturalism doesn't. As far as naturalism is concerned, the tree exists independently of any act of perception; phenomenology recognises the participation of the observer. Naturalism is concerned with what you see outside the window; phenomenology with you looking out the window.

The pragmatic differences is what led to the philosophical questions. We can all be pragmatic and ignore philosophy if we want. — Marchesk

Or we can be pragmatic while we do philosophy, as the American Pragmatists, amongst others, did. In my experience, that approach leads to a more meaningful engagement with philosophy, and more helpful outcomes.

Vygotsky and Mead were contemporaries. So we are talking about many people making the same "discovery" once the social sciences became actually a thing.

You had biological science and evolutionary theory emphasising how much the human mind is the product of hereditary and anatomical machinery. That was the big theme of Victorian science. Then followed the sociological correction as that became an established field of inquiry with its own professors and journals. — apokrisis

Thanks. That was eye-opening. On Vygotsky:

Internalization can be understood in one respect as "knowing how". For example, the practices of riding a bicycle or pouring a cup of milk are initially outside and beyond the child. The mastery of the skills needed for performing these practices occurs through the activity of the child within society. A further aspect of internalization is appropriation, in which the child takes a tool and makes it his own, perhaps using it in a way unique to himself. Internalizing the use of a pencil allows the child to use it very much for his own ends rather than drawing exactly what others in society have drawn previously. — Wiki

The bicycle is "ready-to-hand" in the knowing-style of "know-how." This is largely the way that things exist for us, not as entities for disengaged theory but rather as tools that become invisible the more successfully we use them to pursue the goal we are conscious of while using them. Do you agree?

Everything has to start with phenomenology or the givenness of experience. And that is quite anti-science in a general way. It is always shades of idealism.

But then that is why I like Peirce. He was already there with a much more powerful scheme than Heidegger ever managed.

Not to say that Heidegger is thus wrong. I'm just unsure that he adds anything. — apokrisis

You may be right. I don't know enough about Peirce. I don't know how closely you've looked into Heidegger. I agree that phenomenology is going to look like idealism, perhaps because a certain "objective" present-at-hand framework has become an invisibly dominant pre-interpretation.

The bicycle is "ready-to-hand" in the knowing-style of "know-how." This is largely the way that things exist for us, not as entities for disengaged theory but rather as tools that become invisible the more successfully we use them to pursue the goal we are conscious of while using them. Do you agree? — t0m

Heidegger got how technology makes us who we are. We become machine-like so as to be good at machine using.

But then Romanticism is just as much a socialising technology. We become self-actualising supermen to the degree that we employ a diet of Marvel comics and other romantic imagery to fabricate "a self" for ourselves.

Our broad choices are to behave like machines or behave like spirits. Cartesian dualism wins both ways.

Sociologists point that out in the hope of winding people back from those extremes and actually becoming more human in our condition.

Modern society runs blindly into its future, letting itself be constructed in the form of its own driving myths - this irresolvable dichotomy of machine and spirit. Thank goodness for any science that can step back and objectivise, alert folk to what would actually be natural.

The Barbie doll and the Glock pistol are both coming from the damaging extremes of social self-construction. The philosophical critique only becomes interesting once it gets both the mechanistic scientific view and its "other" of romantic irrationalism firmly in its analytical sights.