This seems like the perfect time to allow Kant to place apo's latest/most recent ad hom's in proper perspective. — creativesoul

That was what was written originally. Ah well. Once again, rather than focus upon the substance of the post (that time it was Kant) some would rather talk about others on a personal level...

It's not redundant Sap. Greater understanding results from being able to talk about something in more than one way. It increases the ability of a reader to relate.

Once again, rather than focus upon the substance of the post (that time it was Kant) some would rather talk about others on a personal level... — creativesoul

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You are making your own credibility central to any discussion as you admit this is all your own personal theory, your own terminology, your own concepts.

You are welcome to ad hom me. It's against forum rules but I think it is a big part of the fun. I won't complain.

However the difference is that I always have some kind of citation to show where any claim might be coming from. So if you attack my views, I don't have to take it personally. I can show you the context within which those views arise. And that is just basic scholarship. If you don't like what I say, I say well go attack these other guys. Come meet my big brother. :)

My credibility ought be based upon the brute justificatory strength of the position I argue for. Kant's words served well as counter/negation of the ill-conceived value judgments that you continue unimpeded.

Not my problem.

It's not redundant Sap. Greater understanding results from being able to talk about something in more than one way. It increases the ability of a reader to relate. — creativesoul

No, it's redundant and counterproductive. You should listen to the feedback. Being able to do something is one thing, but actually doing it isn't necessarily the right thing to do. I might be fluent in ten different languages, but that doesn't mean that actually providing nine alternatives alongside my native language is the right thing to do. This is what dictionaries, thesauri, and translators are for. How about you talk like a normal human being, and we will check a dictionary or request clarification if need be?

It's not redundant Sap. Greater understanding results from being able to talk about something in more than one way. It increases the ability of a reader to relate. — creativesoul

So let's stack that up against a more scholarly view - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleonasm

Pleonasm (/ˈpliːənæzəm/; from Greek πλεονασμός (pleonasmós), from πλέον (pleon), meaning 'more, too much') is the use of more words or parts of words than are necessary or sufficient for clear expression: for example black darkness or burning fire. Such redundancy is, by traditional rhetorical criteria, a manifestation of tautology. However, pleonasm may also be used for emphasis, or because the phrase has already become established in a certain form.

...Some pleonastic phrases, when used in professional or scholarly writing, may reflect a standardized usage that has evolved or a meaning familiar to specialists but not necessarily to those outside that discipline. Such examples as "null and void", "terms and conditions", "each and every" are legal doublets that are part of legally operative language that is often drafted into legal documents.

...as is the case with any literary or rhetorical effect, excessive use of pleonasm weakens writing and speech; words distract from the content. Writers wanting to conceal a thought or a purpose obscure their meaning with verbiage.

So any standard notion of good writing would cross out your redundant terms as being more confusing than enlightening.

You may think it is a habit that makes your thoughts clearer. But for me, the redundancy just halts the flow.

I don't know which/what word/term I/myself am/are meant/intended to/at be/am attending/focusing on/at at/on any/every particular/specific moment/instant.

[Phew. Small round of applause please.]

I don't know which/what word/term I/myself am/are meant/intended to/at be/am attending/focusing on/at at/on any/every particular/specific moment/instant. — apokrisis

Clarity par excellence! (Or a confusing mess that is a strain to read).

Jeesh...

The irony.

An astute reader can look to the above example that apo has somehow judged to be rightfully applicable to the situation at hand, and clearly see that it is an example that doesn't apply to what I've written. Kant's explanation looms large...

Small round of applause please. — apokrisis

Vanishingly my dear planck.

Indeed, the grand and only use of examples, is to sharpen the judgement.

Given you don't seem to take Kant's meaning here, the point is that you do have to internalise the proper habits of conception. Just being able to parrot words is meaningless. You have to come to understand them in a way that is intentional.

Which would be why you can't reject what you haven't mastered. You can't reject the words of scholarship because "they just don't make sense to you". You have to show first that you understood what those other guys really meant to say. And then communicate - unfortunately, also through the skillful use of language - your own "better" way of conceiving of whatever that thing was.

Philosophy and science rely on logical or mathematical language to ensure the maximum possible level of correct communication. Ordinary everyday speech carries too much ambiguity when the going gets tough.

So it really is a scholarly game with its rules for communicating. There's things you do, and things you don't do, because that is what has been found to work.

I'm calling you out for not accepting those rules ... even after posting Kant's own words.

The fact that you bolded and highlighted any passing phrases that you felt gives licence to your claim not to need to connect with active scholarship, or follow norms of philosophical writing, goes straight to your state of mind.

Kant wasn't actually whispering down the generations, "Creative, go you good thing. Stick it to the unbelievers in your special language."

That was what was written originally. — creativesoul

Actually, not quite. The "latest/most recent" was me. :D

I used an unorthodox method to try to teach you a lesson.

Vanishingly my dear planck. — Janus

Ah, but the more localised the applause, the more immense is its energy. Heisenberg's principle rules.

An astute reader can look to the above example that apo has somehow judged to be rightfully applicable to the situation at hand, and clearly see that it is an example that doesn't apply to what I've written. Kant's explanation looms large... — creativesoul

But where is the astute reader who can make sense of your linguistic quirk? If Kant is there beside you, can you put him on the line?

Otherwise, I can only call upon you again to stop being bashful and explain yourself at last.

Love you too Sap...

I do keep that in mind. At least you openly admitted to making my original post much more confusing than it was originally. Gave the dog something to chew on as well, even if it was based upon mistaken false belief(that I wrote that garbled mess).

Uncerntainty? Vanishingly constant or constantly vanishing?

Actually, the "latest/most recent" was me. — Sapientia

Oh right. So I was punk'd on that one. :)

Apologies to Creative there. But it was so believable...

belief(that — creativesoul

That's another thing that you do. There should be a space there!

And don't start with a capital letter after a colon! (Actually, it turns out that that one's an Americanism, so I'll let you off).

Okay, I'm done. Sorry to derail the discussion. Love you too, creativesoul. :)

I'm calling you out for not accepting those rules — apokrisis

This is too rich. Pots and kettles. I'm not interested in your rhetoric apo.

Vanishingly constant or constantly vanishing? — Janus

All quantum mechanics can tell us is that it sure started small yet intense.

But then under a thermodynamically extended view of QM - decoherence - we could predict that the joke/applause will indeed evolve state from the vanishingly constant to the constantly vanishing. It will spread, yet dilute, as time passes.

Ah physics jokes. Surely the best!

This is too rich. Pots and kettles. I'm not interested in your rhetoric apo. — creativesoul

Evasion, evasion, evasion.

You've been haranguing me for definitions. I've given them. To the degree I could given your refusals to clarify what it is exactly you might question about those definitions.

And now - as has always been the case - you run for cover when I insist on some kind of sensible definition of your own terminology.

I'm actually fascinated in a horrible car-crash way. I want to see what you come up with eventually.

So, with regard to the topic at hand...

The question and/or issue revolves around whether or not our perception is mediated by our mental ongoings or whether it is not.

The correct answer is both, depending upon the notion of perception. If it is based upon a minimalist criterion, then it would not involve language, and it would be a more physical notion. If it is based upon a criterion that requires complex linguistic notions, including awareness of our own fallibility, then our perception would most certainly be indirect, because it would amount to the affects/effects of one's worldview and would be a more mental notion.

The OP removes the notion of worldview, and yet still shows that the neural networks do indeed perceive things external to the networks themselves. Thus, it seems to me that that ought provide grounds for re-thinking the notion of what counts as direct perception, and in turn what counts as indirect perception...

The correct answer is both, depending upon the notion of perception. If it is based upon a minimalist criterion, then it would not involve language, and it would be a more physical notion. If it is based upon a criterion that requires complex linguistic notions, including awareness of our own fallibility, then our perception would most certainly be indirect, because it would amount to the affects/effects of one's worldview and would be a more mental notion. — creativesoul

Finally you spell out a position. And I agree with the gist. It is why I say humans introspect but animals extrospect. Animal perception is direct in the sense that they have no choice but to be plugged into the here and now. Their minds are run by their immediate environment and the circumstance it presents. The capacity to detach from that is very limited - even if chimps, dolphins and ravens can do some planning, some abstracting, some deeper level of analysis.

Then humans can completely detach from the world to have a socially-constructed inner world due to the semiotic mechanism of symbolising language. Language creates an epistemic cut. Mentality gets divided into linguistically scaffolded notions of self and world. Consciousness becomes a self-consciously regulated thing. Introspection adds a further internal dimension where a “self” resides.

So it is the epistemic cut, the semiotic machinery of a symbolic code, that makes human mentality and perception indirect compared to the “trapped in the moment” directness of the biological animal mind.

Yet then, the thread is really about computers only aiming to achieve a conscious animal level of perception. DeepMind claims to replicate something of the neural architecture of brains, not the socially-conditioned being of human minds. It is only the programmers who know DeepMind is seeing cute kittens. No one pretends the machine is making a linguistic classification in unsupervised learning fashion.

So that is why your attack on my usage of “perception” was so out of place. It suggested you didn’t really understand the meaning of my language within the context of the thread.

But anyway, I also then would make the further point that animal perception is still indirect even in its directness. It remains the case that animal consciousness is also founded on an epistemic cut - the mediating semiotics of neurons.

So the whole semiotic argument applies with equal force, just at this more foundational level. That is why while it is true human consciousness is even more indirect than that of non-linguistic animals, here that is inessential to the indirect realism position.

So, with regard to the topic at hand...

The question and/or issue revolves around whether or not our perception is mediated by our mental ongoings or whether it is not.

The correct answer is both, depending upon the notion of perception. If it is based upon a minimalist criterion, then it would not involve language, and it would be a more physical notion. If it is based upon a criterion that requires complex linguistic notions, including awareness of our own fallibility, then our perception would most certainly be indirect, because it would amount to the affects/effects of one's worldview and would be a more mental notion. — creativesoul

I'd like to add a bit to the above. What I mean by "correct" is important here, particularly to another point I aim to make that ought add some depth to our understanding.

There is more than one sense of the term "perception". All are correct, because what determines the correctness is established by how a group uses the term. Sensible language use correctly follows conventional norms, the latter of which is established solely by virtue of 'enough' people using the term in the same and/or similar enough ways. Most of us are aware of the difficulty that can arise when incompatible and/or oppositional senses of a term are being employed in a debate based upon that term.

I think that it is important to consider the 'best move' when these sorts of circumstances become the case.

In order to effectively critique an author's position, the reader must understand that position. Understanding requires granting terms and seeing them through. When it comes to discourse regarding whether or not perception is direct or indirect, what counts as either is key to understanding one's position. Both sides offer notions of perception, but are both sides talking about the same thing, and if so on what 'level'?

Because indirect perception is mediated, whatever mediation is existentially contingent upon, so too is indirect perception. Mediating perception requires metacognition. Thus, indirect perception requires metacognition. Metacognition requires written language. Thus, indirect perception requires written language. So, we arrive at the following conclusion:No creature without written language has indirect perception.

That there is neurological/cognitive machinery for perceiving objects directly is understood. That machinery is only a problem if it generates a mediating idea.
— Marchesk

Only if it generates an idea that mediates the physiological sensory perception itself...

Doing that first requires becoming aware of such a thing. Language is required for becoming aware of one's own physiological sensory perception. Language is not required for being born with neurological/cognitive machinery(physiological sensory perception).

Thus, drawing correlations, associations, and/or connections between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception can result in a mediating idea and still pose no problem whatsoever for a direct realist like myself. The attribution and/or recognition of causality is one such correlation/association/connection.

One can learn about what happens when one touches fire without ever having generated an idea that mediates one's own physiological sensory perception. One cannot learn what happens when one touches fire without attributing/recognizing causality. — creativesoul

From earlier on in the discussion. It is well worth repeating...

Because indirect perception is mediated,... — creativesoul

Perception isn’t mediated. It is the mediation. Radiant energy gets turned in colour experience. Floating fragments of organic matter get turned in the scent of a rose.

The gap or epistemic cut is between the physics of the world and the qualia of the mind. Perception is our way of talking about the fact that “we” - the linguistically constructed introspecting observer - have to accept basic experience as brute fact. That part of what our brain does - processing the world as a pattern of sensations - is hardwired.

So perception is the primary mediating step. Then secondary linguistic habits can mediate that biological level experience. We can talk about lovely sunsets and try to put a name to the particular variety of rose we might be smelling.

So, we arrive at the following conclusion:No creature without written language has indirect perception. — creativesoul

Nope. Metacognition is dealing with already mediated experience.

And crickey, why written language?

Because indirect perception is mediated,...
— creativesoul

Perception isn’t mediated. It is the mediation. — apokrisis

What's being mediated?

Amended for accuracy...

Because indirect perception mediates, whatever mediation is existentially contingent upon, so too is indirect perception. Mediating requires metacognition. Thus, indirect perception requires metacognition. Metacognition requires written language. Thus, indirect perception requires written language. So, we arrive at the following conclusion:No creature without written language has indirect perception. — creativesoul

Your experience of the world. That is why folk were talking about indirect vs direct perception.

You can google the dictionary definition if you like -https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mediate

technical with object Bring about (a result such as a physiological effect)
‘the right hemisphere plays an important role in mediating tactile perception of direction’

Metacognition requires written language — creativesoul

Citation? Explanation?

Perception isn’t mediated. It is the mediation.
— apokrisis — apokrisis

What's being mediated? — creativesoul

Your experience of the world. That is why folk were talking about indirect vs direct perception. — apokrisis

So, you're arguing that all perception mediates an agent's experience of the world, and it is indirect as a result...

Because perception mediates, whatever mediation is existentially contingent upon, so too is perception. Mediating requires metacognition. Thus, perception requires metacognition. Metacognition requires written language. Thus, perception requires written language. So, we arrive at the following conclusion:No creature without written language has perception. — creativesoul