Are hallucinations real? — Galuchat

Yes. They are real experiences potentially informing us of the reality of some neurological disorder. — Dfpolis

So, they are an encountered experience type of experience potentially informing us of the encountered experience of some neurological disorder.

This is nonsense.

The point is that phenomena that are present aren't actually always of one as a conscious being experiencing things. The only way to move away from realism with respect to experience is to introduce theoretical explanations for what's really going on. — Terrapin Station

But if you say that phenomena (experiences) refer to real things, as in the phenomenon of a tree refers to a real tree out there, and the phenomenon of consciously experiencing a tree refers to a real conscious being experiencing a tree, then the phenomenon of a ghost refers to a real ghost out there, and the phenomenon of water refers to real water out there.

You may never have encountered the phenomenon of a ghost but others claim to have, so are ghosts really out there but only some people can see them?

You may have encountered the phenomenon of water in the distance while encountering the phenomenon of a hot day, and then as you got closer the phenomenon of water started disappearing until it disappeared completely. Does that mean that there was really water out there but as you got closer it progressively disappeared?

First, you're missing the point that if you're positing an "out there" (versus an "in here") you're a realist.

If there is no object independent of perception, then it would simply be wrong to say that we perceive anything. — Harry Hindu

Saying there is no object that is perceived as it is independently of the perceiver is not saying that there is nothing beyond perception, of course if you assume there is nothing beyond perception you end up with solipsism, idealism doesn't make that assumption.

I'm not missing that point because in that post I put on the realist shoes, so to speak. Remove the "out there" if you want, the point still stands, in realism encountering the phenomena of a ghost or of a god or of water means that they refer to real things.

I'm not missing that point because in that post I put on the realist shoes, so to speak. Remove the "out there" if you want, the point still stands, in realism encountering the phenomena of a ghost or of a god or of water means that they refer to real things. — leo

That would have nothing to do with anything I was talking about, but it doesn't follow. Realists don't believe that we can't have false beliefs, that we can't experience hallucinations, etc.

To me a projection is first some aspect of reality existentially penetrating us -- projecting itself into us -- and second, our fixing on some part of that presentation and projecting it into our conceptual space. Each of these steps is represents a potential loss of content and so is a projection in the mathematical sense of a dimensionally diminished mapping. — Dfpolis

I actually think this might be a better model than Kant’s from Critique of Pure Reason. Df’s model isn’t saying that time and space are mental constructs projected on the world as Kant said, and I kind of have a problem with that aspect of CPoR.

dimensionally diminished mapping. — Dfpolis

Can you explain this, though?

So "In what way does 'this is something I'm perceiving' go beyond our experience?" doesn't make sense in the context of the question I asked and your initial answer to it. "Just a tree" is not the same thing as "This is something I'm perceiving."

That suggests that maybe you didn't really understand the question. — Terrapin Station

@Dfpolis

Terrapin, if I understand him, believes that there is a direct apprehension of the physical world. There is nothing lost in perceiving. He doesn’t buy the cognitive science theory of perception.

Did I get that right, Terrapin?

It's really simple. If there is no object independent of perception, then it would simply be wrong to say that we perceive anything. — Harry Hindu

So, dreaming does not count as perception, but imagination? This question has long been thematic in the East:

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

― Zhuangzi, The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang-Tzu

We seem to be perceiving when we dream, just as when we are awake. Of course it is a merely logical requirement that if we are perceiving something, then there must be something being perceived. But perception is the result of something acting upon us, as well as us acting upon what acts upon us, and what we seem to perceive is not necessarily precisely the same as what is acting upon us.

So, dreaming does not count as perception, but imagination? — Janus

A common connotation of "perception" is that it's referring information obtained via one's senses--via your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, or via touch.

Yes, that's an objectivist definition of perception, and, of course according to it dreams would not count as perception. A contrary phenomenological definition might be that we are perceiving when we think we are perceiving, that we cannot be mistaken about it, and under that definition, since we certainly seem to be perceiving when we dream, dreams would be counted as instances of perception.

Other questions might be as to whether proprioception, and introception are forms of perception. When we think how do we know we are thinking? Because we are aware of ourselves thinking and/or of the thoughts we are having, no? If so, then thinking might be counted as a kind of perception

I do not understand this sentence. — Dfpolis

Our reason is intentional (...). Thus, it points beyond itself. — Dfpolis

Close enough.
————————

...models combine abstracted and constructed elements. — Dfpolis

Abstraction has multiple meanings and applications, and as much as I detest running to a damn dictionary for clarification.....here I go running away, but only to forward a guess about your intention in using the word: “the process of considering something independently of its associations, attributes, or concrete accompaniments”. I submit that’s diametrically opposed to what we do when we think; all thought is associative, insofar as understanding is the synthesis of intuition with conception, the epitome of an a priori construct. That which is constructed, is the model of whatever object affects perception, better known as representation.
———————

Do you agree empirical realism does not diminish the theory that the human cognitive system is representational? If so, then I don’t understand how epistemological dualism can be denied.

But that’s OK. No worries. We hold with different metaphysical predicates, is all.

I actually think this might be a better model than Kant’s from Critique of Pure Reason. — Noah Te Stroete

Fine. It’s a free country, doncha know. Plus Brentano is all of half a century more modern than that crazy old fart from PRUSSIA, which doesn’t even exist anymore!!! (Grin)

Don’t mind me.....I’m just sittin’ here wonderin’.....what mechanism does reality use to project itself?

Don’t mind me.....I’m just sittin’ here wonderin’.....what mechanism does reality use to project itself? — Mww

Light?

Light? — Noah Te Stroete

And perception?

Ergo, reality ceases to exist when there isn’t any? Or reality is still all there, just doesn’t project itself in the absence of wavelengths we can see? I can experience the reality of electrical shock in the dark. Trust me on that one.

The eyes receive the light radiated or projected off of objects. The ears receive sound waves that moving and colliding objects create through the air. The nose receives compounds in the air, etc. Consciousness draws distinctions between different percepts by creating distinct objects, projecting borders onto reality from a mental construct, creating a visual field. Sounds are a kind of given phenomenal experience, but direction of where the sound is coming from can be determined by which ear the sound waves hit first. Smell is picking up projections from objects’ vapors so to speak, etc.

Thought I was dumb, huh?

can experience the reality of electrical shock in the dark. — Mww

That’s an electric field projected from certain objects. Duh!

:razz: :razz: :wink:

Gimme back those gold stars.

You haven’t said anything that isn’t reducible to human cognition. I asked for the mechanism for reality projecting itself, but I got back how it affects us, which is not its projection but is merely our own receptivity.

It’s projection from without and reception from within, while the mind makes sense of this bombardment through mental constructs, drawing borders between percepts. Thank you @TogetherTurtle

Of course that’s my take on Dfpolis’s theory. He might not have meant that at all.

My point being that space and time are just as much a projection from without as a mental construct? Oh, wait. Now I’m not sure. Maybe I’m still Kantian after all!

The eyes receive the light radiated or projected off of objects. — Noah Te Stroete

You presume realism here when you say that. Not saying it's wrong, just pointing that out.

You presume realism here when you say that. Not saying it's wrong, just pointing that out. — Janus

I don’t know what realism is.

Fine. Again. Square one.

So what mechanism does reality use to project itself?

Why don’t we just say reality appears to us, rather than projecting itself? That way we don’t need a projection mechanism for reality......it’s just there. Besides, reality can project itself to hell and back, but it’s completely irrelevant to us, until we are affected by that minuscule part of it we perceive, or can possibly perceive.

I guess I don’t really understand what Dfpolis means exactly by “projection.” I assumed he meant something like electromagnetic fields and the like, he being a physicist and all.

Why don’t we just say reality appears to us, rather than projecting itself? — Mww

That’s fine with me, too. Tomaytoe. Tomahtoe.