↪Banno It is only via extroceptive sensation viz. seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting of things, and interoceptive sensation of thoughts, feelings and emotions and so on that we come to know anything such as to call it real, isn't it? — Janus

So you think of yourself as a little mind inside a head, looking at a screen? A homunculi?

You don't have your thoughts, you have sensations of your thoughts?

You don't have your thoughts, you have sensations of your thoughts? — Banno

You seem to be introducing an unnecessary "middle man" here. We experience or have "external" objects by sensing them. Similarly, we experience or have "internal" objects by sensing them. It's nothing to do with homunculi.

'Sensing' is a verb and you seem to be reifying that as a noun 'sensation' which you think I think represents something we "have" or "experience". In other words you are projecting your own presuppostions into my thinking.

You seem to be introducing an unnecessary "middle man" here. — Janus

Not I; that was your doing.

But yes, I heartily agree he is not needed.

Not I; that was your doing. — Banno

It wasn't my doing; see what I was adding as you responded. Perhps the confusion was caused by my use of "sensation", but remember that word may be considered to be an objects or an act; it can be read as either "a sensation" or "the general act of sensing".

Cleaning this up: which is correct:

a) One has a sensation of seeing the cat.
b) One sees the cat.

You said:

We experience or have "external" objects by sensing them. — Janus

One sees the cat is equivalent to one senses the cat. Sensing the cat is an act of sensation.

You said:

We experience or have "external" objects by sensing them. — Banno

Yes, and what exactly is wrong with that?

One sees the cat is equivalent to one senses the cat. — Janus

So you are saying that one has a sensation of seeing the cat.

What is wrong with that is the unnecessary middle man, in which we agree.

So you are saying that one has a sensation of seeing the cat. — Banno

No I am saying that seeing the cat just is sensation (sensing) of the cat. I mean of course you could say that one has or experiences the sensation of the cat, but that is just a different way of saying the same thing and should not be taken to be introducing anything other than, or "over above" having or experiencing the cat, except perhaps if it refers to the sense that being reflexively aware of yourself seeing the cat might be introducing something extra to merely seeing the cat.

No I am saying that seeing the cat just is sensation (sensing) of the cat. — Janus

Yeah, you want to keep your cake and to eat it, too.

So let's take your account at face value.

Can you see a cat, yet there be no cat? Don't we then say things like "I thought I saw a cat, but I was mistaken"? Or more to the point, perhaps we say that the cat we thought we saw was actually an illusion?

In contrast, one might say one senses a cat, yet there is none - again, it was a mistake or an illusion...

But you are trying to claim that seeing the cat just is sensing the cat...

I suspect your analysis is fraught.

I suspect your analysis is fraught. — Banno

You're beginning to sound like creativesoul! :razz:

I'm not saying anything like that the existence of the cat is dependent upon our seeing, or sensing it or whatever locution you want to use.

But you are trying to claim that seeing the cat just is sensing the cat... — Banno

I'm not trying to claim anything other than "seeing the cat" and "sensing the cat" mean the same provided we are talking about visual sense of course.

My original point was just that we know anything that we might call "real" only via sensing or sensation of one kind or another.

So, it remains unclear to me as to what your objection is.

You're beginning to sound like creativesoul! :razz: — Janus

No - @creativesoul sounds like me.

I'm not saying anything like that the existence of the cat is dependent upon our seeing, or sensing it or whatever locution you want to use. — Janus

Sure.

I'm not trying to claim anything other than "seeing the cat" and "sensing the cat" mean the same provided we are talking about visual sense of course. — Janus

And presumably you would now take into account the difference demonstrated above.

My original point was just that we know anything that we might call "real" only via sensing or sensation of one kind or another. — Janus

And when you tried to fill that in, you included thought as a sensation:

...interoceptive sensation of thoughts, feelings and emotions and so on — Janus

We don't sense our thoughts, we think them. We don't sense our feelings and emotions, we feel them.

So you are either wrong, or you have simple extended the notion of sensation beyond it's common ground.

And you are not alone, as this thread hangs on such misconstrual.

What would be the difference between an illusion of consciousness and consciousness, or an illusion of an experience of color, etc. and just an experience of color? — Terrapin Station

Yep.

For example, we perceive water on the road up ahead, but it turns out that there's no water in the road; it's just refracted light due to road/air temperature differences on a hot day. — Terrapin Station

@Janus This is perhaps the same point as I am making.

We see water on the road up ahead, but it turns out that there's no water in the road, and we were mistaken...

We perceive water on the road up ahead, but it turns out that there's no water in the road, is our perception mistaken?

Seeing and perception are not the same.

It's even more basic than that. Colour is a real phenomenon by any account and not a merely "mental" phenomenon. — Janus

...as if mental phenomena - pain, grief, thought... were not real.

Compare this to feeling hot or cold, which relates to the amount of energy the particles in a volume of space has. — Marchesk

Actually, what is felt is not the temperature of the material - how much energy it has - but the material's capacity to transfer heat to or from the skin. That's why metal feels cold.

In the case of a mirage we do not see or sense water on the road, we think we do. What's the problem?

Nothing is quite like we experience it. All vision shows things from an angle based on where our eyes are, rather than, say, from all directions at once. Everything is filtered, selected, interpreted. This would mean that nothing that we refer to is real. — Coben

That inference is just invalid.

Everything is always, already interpreted...

Every thing.

Hence, there are things.

↪Banno In the case of a mirage we do not see or sense water on the road, we think we do. What's the problem? — Janus

Your obtuse use of language. Despite my having shown that it is an error to do so, you insist on treating sense and see as if they are the same.

And when you tried to fill that in, you included thought as a sensation: — Banno

Yes, thinking thoughts is the same as sensing objects. If we are not aware of our thoughts how would we know what they are?

Sure, I haven't said that pain etc are not real or that they are not mental phenomena. The point is that they are not merely mental phenomena. There is no clear and definitive separation, or even distinction, between the mental and the physical.

Yes, thinking thoughts is the same as sensing objects. If we are not aware of our thoughts how would we know what they are? — Janus

Yeah, might have to leave it there. Others might choose to pick appart this argument for you.

That's better.

Your obtuse use of language. Despite my having shown that it is an error to do so, you insist on treating sense and see as if they are the same. — Banno

So you are claiming that we do see water on the road, but we do not sense water on the road, or what? Apart form your mere dismissal by insult of what I have been saying descent, what is the difference between visual sensing and seeing in your opinion?

One way: Did you sense water on the road? Yep. Did you see water on the road? No.

Others might choose to pick appart this argument for you. — Banno

Why leave it to some "others" you imagine will agree with you? Do you refer to others because you are trying to suggest normatively consensual support for your view over mine rather than argue for it or is it because you are not able to pick apart the argument?

Why leave it to some "others" you imagine will agree with you? — Janus

Because it's time for a pie and some shopping.

Is the only way to be aware of something, to sense it? That's the hidden assumption in your argument. Is it true?

I don't think it is right to say either if there is no water on the road. What is the reasoning that justifies the distinction between sensing and seeing that you apparently want to maintain?

Is the only way to be aware of something, to sense it? That's the hidden assumption in your argument. Is it true — Banno

How else would we be aware of anything? The distinction between kinds of interoceptive sensing and kinds of exteroceptive sensing is fairly uncontroversial I think.

For example how do you know you are thinking? You can say you are aware of it, but that doesn't amount to saying more than that you know it. What does that knowing or awareness consist in?

No - creativesoul sounds like me. — Banno

That's quite right at times...

I don't know about you, but I am able to be reflexively aware of (at least some of) what I am presently experiencing, including the sense of experiencing of it. What could experience be other than either the sense or the idea of it? — Janus

Certainly - but I still say it's a metaphorical sense of 'object'. It's not an actual object, because 'experience' by its very nature is inseparable from a subject; experience always requires an experiencer. It's not objectively real - which, I think, is another facet of the hard problem of consciousness.