Also, in order to know that something is an illusion in the first place, you'd need to be able to know what it's really like in contradistinction to what you thought it was like. — Terrapin Station
Also in the case of illusions we see things directly: e.g. optical effects such as refraction, or two lines whose ends make their lengths appear different and so on. Without seeing these things directly there would be no illusion.If we see things directly there are no illusions. — Barry Etheridge
In optical illusions it is always the case that something is seen, hence 'optical'. Yet you omit optics and instead pass a figment of brain and expectations for vision. You're on your own.The only reason that optical illusions work is that the brain overrides the evidence of our eyes to impose its own expectations upon the image. — Barry Etheridge
It is what a white wall looks like, as it really is, when it is seen through blue shades. — jkop
It is misleading because one does not strip the eye in order to see things as they are. — jkop
I didn't say anything about your vision per se in my comment.This is nothing like what I see things to be — Michael
No one has a view that posits that one accurately knows noumena 100% of the time. So any argument based on that idea would be a straw man.If we see things directly there are no illusions. — Barry Etheridge
Yes, I'm a realist, but first I just want to clarify this: earlier you'd said, "There is no reality apart from what we perceive and think about what we perceive." Now you're using the word "can."I think you identify as a realist, so tell me what kind of reality you think is there apart from the kind we can perceive and think about. — John
Do you believe that you can accurately know what the ruler says?In the most basic line length illusions for example you simply get out a ruler and measure the lines or in the case of false convergence you measure the angles. — Barry Etheridge
Do you believe that you can accurately know what the ruler says? — Terrapin Station
That I'd agree with, of course, since it's a tautology. But it's a different issue than whether that's all there is, and whether all there is is exhausted by either (a) what we actually do perceive and think about, or (b) (more broadly), what we potentially can perceive and think about, even if we're not currently perceiving and thinking about it.I would say that what we perceive and think about it just is what we can perceive and think about. — John
That I'd agree with, of course, since it's a tautology. — Terrapin Station
But it's a different issue than whether that's all there is, and whether all there is is exhausted by either (a) what we actually do perceive and think about, or (b) (more broadly), what we potentially can perceive and think about, even if we're not currently perceiving and thinking about it. — Terrapin Station
Yes, and this again is different:But, you were claiming earlier that I had changed what I was saying. — John
Sure:But, in any case you have not answered my question which challenged you to identify in what sense I am not an ordinary realist, — John
I asked you, since the implication seemed to be that you are an ordinary realist, what kind of reality could exist that we cannot (now or could not ever come to, just to be clear) perceive and/ or think about. — John
This is why it's relevant to note what I posted earlier: No one has a view that posits that one accurately knows noumena 100% of the time. So any argument based on that idea would be a straw man.Your conclusion it seems to me holds good only for the most extreme version of representational theories, ie. those which posit that our perceptions are totally unrelated to what's out there. I have never proposed any such thing. Indeed I'm not sure how anyone could realistically hold such a view and not go bonkers! — Barry Etheridge
Those are three different claims. I only agree with (C). — Terrapin Station
Again, to be able to answer this, I need to know your answer to (D) above. Your answer on that will prompt different answers from me to the question you're asking. — Terrapin Station
And of course scientific instrumemts are either direct augmenters of our senses (telescopes, microscopes) and /or things that are believed to be such (spectroscopes, cloudchambers, electron microscopes and so on). — John
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