SO, back to the OP. Do we behold a mental construct while perceiving?

How best to understand the question? "We" could be "I", perhaps; or is it "Do we each..."? I doubt that it is implied that we all behold the same mental construct - or is that something Hegel might agree with? Do we all behold in the same way?

To behold is to hold thoroughly. Taking this as seeing is primarily English. To perceive is perhaps to take entirely, to seize, to understand.

How is beholding different to perceiving?

All this just to show that there is a deal of ambiguity in the question.

I suspect that what happens is that the questioner realises that there is a process involved in seeing. However, they see the process as external to themselves - as not part of the we in the question. Hence they inadvertently introduce a homunculus as an invention to do the beholding.

But whatever mental construction is going on is part of, and not distinct from, the beholding. What is beheld, perceived, is the tree.

So is it an actual multiplicity of objects that is implied, or the irreducible self-referentiality of perception? Are we pointing at several kinds of tree, or is the issue - as I have highlighted - that any act of pointing is always a pointing in two directions. — apokrisis

That's not quite how I would say it, but not far from what I would say.

I spoke before about how what counts as simple or complex depends on what one is doing. If one is talking about trees, there is perhaps no need to talk of images-of-trees. If one is talking about eyeballs, there might well be. Not being clear about if one is talking about trees or eyeballs causes philosophy.

And pointing - naming - is, as I said earlier, not a part of the language game; it is rather putting the pieces on the board. But then, putting the pieces on the board is itself another language game.

And direct realism formally dies at that point. Only pragmatism remains. — apokrisis

I don't see how this conclusion follows. But then, from memory, we disagreed about what direct realism is.

All this just to show that there is a deal of ambiguity in the question — Banno

Nope. Now you are just trying to bypass the irreducible self refential complexity of language use to point in its other direction - thus hoping to point attention away from my demolition of direct realism just a post ago.

Look, you exclaim, over here we discover a lurking beholder. Ain’t that so homuncular.

Yes, Banno, reference is always self referential like that. A relation has two ends. There must be a context, a reference frame, which grounds any pragmatically successful ostensive act.

So, yes, look back from the thing being pointed at, and we discover the “self” that beholds it. The thing exists as an object of perception to the degree there is this anchoring other.

But is this self real? Well, it certainly develops a certain invariant reality as an interpretive habit.

So we are back into pragmatism as usual - the destination that Witti was trying to reinvent after having its truth whispered by Ramsey in his logical atomist ear.

That's not quite how I would say it, but not far from what I would say — Banno

So I am right. It just pains you to admit it.

What you call realism is simply pragmatism. Language use creates the observer along with the observable. Objective truth is simply belief that is fit for purpose.

So I am right. It just pains you to admit it. — apokrisis

If you like: @apokrisis is right, but says it wrong.

What you call realism is simply pragmatism. — apokrisis

I'm going to watch the Rorty/Davidson discussion again. Cheers.

Wow. The nuclear passive aggressive option! Yeah, go for it.

Rorty. The everyman’s punching bag. X-)

@apokrisisDoes the sun rise, or does the Earth just go around? Which is true?

My suspicion is that they mean the same.

Towards the end of part three.

Ground breaking. Wish I could be there.

So if I am on LSD, and my friend isn't, and we both look at a tree over there, is it the same tree we are looking at, even though our visual perceptions would be wildly different from one-another?

I think part of what makes these questions so confusing and leads to all these two world, two object paradoxes, is that our visual fields really feel like naive realism. It's hard for me to look around myself and not have this distinct sense that my eyes are windows upon an external world, as if I were looking *through* my eyes.

Is it coherent to ask something like, "if I am on LSD and my friend isn't, and we stand in front of a speaker playing a song, is it the same song we are listening to even though it would be sensed totally differently? Is there a song 'in-itself' separate from our experiences of hearing? What would it mean for a song to exist outside of someone's perception of hearing it? It's incoherent to imagine there's an externally existing song playing, with two internally experienced 'mental construct' songs existing within the minds of me and my friend.

It just feels odd to apply this same logic to the visual field, because it just feels so real and external. Naive realism is a hard feeling to overcome.

I think part of what makes these questions so confusing and leads to all these two world, two object paradoxes, is that our visual fields really feel like naive realism. It's hard for me to look around myself and not have this distinct sense that my eyes are windows upon an external world, as if I were looking *through* my eyes. — antinatalautist

Yes and that is a misleading idea that should be rejected. Taken literally, it suggests a homunculus (or a ghostly mind) that is looking through the window.

Instead, you are using your eyes and the things that you see are the primitives (or particulars) for higher-level abstractions and explanations. That is, since perception is veridical, that you saw a tree there implies there is a tree there. If, down the track, you find that you made a mistake, then you recategorize the prior experience as non-veridical (i.e., you must have imagined it, you didn't see a tree at all, etc.)

“Is it the same tree we are looking at, even though our visual perceptions are wildly different?”

“Is it the same song we are listening to even though it would be sensed totally differently?”

Note in both how strange is the relation between the first half of these questions and the second half: in the strange and unwarranted assumption that identity (the same tree, the same song) is indexed to our perception or our senses. But not identity but perception is in question: that one sees or hears X differently ought to lead to a question about perception, about our sight and about our hearing - how is it that we see or hear X differently? What does this say about perception?

Instead, it leads here - somehow, inexplicably - to a question about the 'thing' - is it the same X we see or hear? But this latter question already assumes the very anti-realism it aims to sow. Yet it would not have even occured to have asked this latter question had the identity of X not already been its starting point. The illegitimate slide from perception to existence: almost imperceptible, but once you see it, it can’t be unseen.

and we both look at a tree over there... — antinatalautist

and by that very fact, it is one tree, not two.

Is it so strange that you both look at the same tree and see something different?

To perceive a tree and to be conscious of a tree are different things. We perceive either a real or mental tree, but what we are conscious of is the perception of a tree. The perception is of the physical tree, but the physical tree isn't necessarily what we're conscious of.

Is it so strange that you both look at the same tree and see something different? — Banno

Yes, it's absolutely baffling!

Why?

The experience of seeing a tree when we're awake is not mental. The experience of seeing a tree in a virtual reality that is so realistic that it is indistinguishable from reality is mental. I think that everyone will agree on this point. — Magnus Anderson

I won't. Actually I could argue against either one of those points.

When perceiving a virtual reality, we'd perceive a physical image and get an external perception of it. I don't believe that to be mental.

Then again, I believe that we see and perceive a physical tree and that perception is physical, but the experience of that perception is mental. That'd of course mean that the experience of the perception of the virtual reality would be mental as well.

Any experience is a mental phenomenon. The perceptions themselves are not mental in either case.

...Whether perception is direct or indirect via a mental intermediary. — Marchesk

What counts as perception?

I stub my toe and have a pain in my foot, not my head. Does that count as perceiving the chair?

I can perceive the texture and contour of the chair with my eyes closed while imagining a tree.

I can perceive the texture and contours of a coffee tree while closing my eyes and beholding a mental construct of(imagining) an oak.

Of course logically there is only one tree. But the point is that it appears to each of us individually; and that is its living appearance. There is no collective living appearance of the tree; it's public appearance is merely an idea, an abstraction from the fact that it appears to each of us. Really the tree makes no actual public appearance at all.

I won't. Actually I could argue against either one of those points.

When perceiving a virtual reality, we'd perceive a physical image and get an external perception of it. I don't believe that to be mental. — BlueBanana

But there is no VR headset. You are not getting your VR experience from some kind of physical screen. The process is entirely biological. You took a VR pill, fell asleep and entered a VR dream. It's the ultimate VR experience.

But the point is that it appears to each of us individually; — Janus

While it may well look different to each of us, we do not each see a different tree.

That is, even in the Matrix, there is a difference between seeing a real tree and seeing a virtual tree. — Banno

So you don't think there can be a VR experience that has the same degree of fidelity that normal experience has?

Perhaps. Yet still, there would remain a difference between seeing a real tree and seeing a virtual tree; one is real, the other virtual.

For example, you don't think that video game graphics can ever become perfectly realistic? Even if you had all of the resources in the world, there is quite simply no possibility?

Again, even if they did, there would remain a difference between seeing a real tree and seeing a virtual tree; one is real, the other virtual.

An experience of an external object that results from use of your sensory organs.