If everything I have experienced counts as direct knowledge, and assuming is experience, then it only follows that assuming that dinosaurs lived in the past counts as direct knowledge.

It does not follow.

What does not follow?

It does not follow that an assumption that dinosaurs lived in the past counts as direct knowledge.

What's happening here is I am not expressing myself precisely and you are taking advantage of this to make conclusions that do not follow.

I'm just trying to understand the distinction you're drawing.

As always, despite common misconception, I'm trying to be helpful.

Okay then. Do you see a difference between an imagination that dinosaurs lived in the past (that may or may not be based on evidence) and a memory of you seeing with your own eyes dinosaurs living? The former is indirect knowledge. The latter is direct knowledge.

How are we to distinguish between a memory of past experience and an imagination thereof?

I think that attempting to qualify knowledge as direct and/or indirect is useless.

Perception is either direct, indirect, or both. That all depends upon one's criterion for what exactly counts as perception. Historically, it has included everything from simple thought and belief to complex conceptual notions.

How are we to distinguish between a memory of past experience and an imagination thereof? — creativesoul

Are you saying that you cannot differentiate between a memory (e.g. what you wrote to me just a few minutes ago) and an imagination (e.g. what you may write to me in the future)? Or are you asking by what mechanism do we know what is a memory and what is an imagination?

I think that attempting to qualify knowledge as direct and/or indirect is useless. — creativesoul

So you think there is no difference between seeing that it is raining at some point t in time (direct knowledge) and assuming that it rains at some point t in time (indirect knowledge)?

How are we to distinguish between a memory of past experience and an imagination thereof?
— creativesoul

Are you saying that you cannot differentiate between a memory (e.g. what you wrote to me just a few minutes ago) and an imagination (e.g. what you may write to me in the post)? Or are you asking by what mechanism do we know what is a memory and what is not? — Magnus Anderson

Perhaps the latter, although the term "mechanism" isn't part of my normal dialect.

I'm asking what the difference between an imagination of past experience and a memory thereof is. I suppose the question could be put differently:What is the difference between imagination and memory, and more importantly how can we distinguish between them?

I think that attempting to qualify knowledge as direct and/or indirect is useless.
— creativesoul

So you think there is no difference between seeing that it is raining at some point t in time (direct knowledge) and assuming that it rains at some point t in time (indirect knowledge)? — Magnus Anderson

Sure. The former(seeing) is direct perception. The latter(inferring) is indirect(by historical accounts). Both are experience.

Are you privileging the distinction between accounting for past experience and predicting future experience?

If I’m stating a fact, I’m speaking in signs.

And yes, I can mean to speak of the facts of the world. That is the realism in the indirectness. — apokrisis

To say that there is "indirectness" is to imply that there could be "directness". What would it be like to have "direct" awareness or knowledge, as opposed to "indirect" awareness or knowledge?

Say some being has direct awareness of everything, and I only have indirect awareness of everything, (which, BTW, leads to an infinite regress, as how can I access anything, including the signs, if I'm always indirectly getting at it all? I must be able to get directly at something, which is the signs themselves). If we both end up stating the same facts, then what is the difference? If we end up getting at the SAME facts anyway, whether it's "indirect" or "direct", then what is the difference? And don't we have "direct" access to the "signs" themselves? The "signs" are just as real as everything else.

That's what Stanley thought about Livingstone. In fact Livingstone knew exactly where he was.