The epistemological problem is a dead end. It's not like there is an other way than via the senses that we can access this real world to verify if our senses are telling us something of that world. So there is no way to 'address' it, other than just assuming that our senses do tell us something about it and getting on with our lives... or not.

The epistemological problem is a dead end. It's not like there is an other way than via the senses that we can access this real world to verify if our senses are telling us something of that world. So there is no way to 'address' it, other than just assuming that our senses do tell us something about it and getting on with our lives... or not. — ChatteringMonkey

So much for philosophy then.

I don't think there's a category error, just different people using the word "experience" in different ways. — Michael

It's not just a one word problem.

Simply saying that "experiences are things happening to people" doesn't address this epistemological problem at all, not even as an attempt to explain the problem away. — Michael

It's not intended to explain anything except the category of the term. Thus one talks of people having experiences of various sorts, but one does not generally talk of fingers having experiences. For example I might say "I experienced a painful splinter in my finger", whereas I would not say "my finger experienced a painful splinter", or "my brain experienced a painful splinter". Similarly "I thought I saw a pussy cat" not "My neurones thought they saw a pussy cat, or my eyes thought they saw a pussy cat.

What this means is that once you use terms that fragment the person into parts, such as that the blindman's fingers detect the pressure changes of the stick as it encounters the kerb stone and the sensor nerves transmit the information to the brain... you cannot then add back in the experience as another part of this process.

Whenever there is an experience, necessarily, someone has the experience. So if neurones produce experience, someone has to be experiencing the experience that the neurones produce. And there is no such homunculus. It cannot either be the person the neurones are part of, because that person has no knowledge experience or awareness of their neurones. This is the tangle that results from the category error.

So much for philosophy then. — Michael

Philosophy is about examining our assumptions, yes, and getting by with as few unjustified assumptions as possible... but sometimes there is no way forward, and this is one of them I'd argue. Well, you could veer off into all kinds of metaphysical speculation, but I prefer not to. I assume that my senses tell me something about the world, because it think it will make for a better live... and that's it essentially.

What this means is that once you use terms that fragment the person into parts, such as that the blindman's fingers detect the pressure changes of the stick as it encounters the kerb stone and the sensor nerves transmit the information to the brain... you cannot then add back in the experience as another part of this process.

Whenever there is an experience, necessarily, someone has the experience. So if neurones produce experience, someone has to be experiencing the experience that the neurones produce. And there is no such homunculus. It cannot either be the person the neurones are part of, because that person has no knowledge experience or awareness of their neurones. This is the tangle that results from the category error. — unenlightened

I don't understand how this relates to the distinction between direct and indirect realism and the epistemological problem of perception. You seem to be discussing the notion of identity (that the self is not separate from experience?). That's a different question.

I assume that my senses tell me something about the world, because it think it will make for a better live... and that's it essentially. — ChatteringMonkey

The indirect realists do as well and so do the idealists. It's only the skeptics who think our senses aren't telling us something about the world. The indirect realists would say we have to infer the knowledge instead of getting it directly. Which does raise the possibility of being wrong. And humans have been plenty wrong about the world over time.

This video was posted in the, "Is Daniel Dennett a Zombie" thread. Right around the 10:30 minute mark he starts talking about color representation and brain states. They begin a discussion using the example of perceiving a blue door. That would tie into this discussion.

So Dennett is some kind of representationalist regarding consciousness. At other times, he sounds like a direct realist. I've never heard or read him say anything about this particular debate (direct versus indirect). Regardless, how does a direct realist handle consciousness?

Dennett does go on to say that color and consciousness are real, they just aren't what we thought they were.

Which does raise the possibility of being wrong. And humans have been plenty wrong about the world over time. — Marchesk

Yeah, but we were not wrong because we trusted our senses... but because we inferred things from them, that we had no real justification to infer.

There's no need for example to assume flat earth from the surface we see being mostly flat... because a circle with a big radius also looks flat from the perspective of a smaller being. Both flat earth and spherical earth fit that observational data, but we just assumed that it had to be flat for a time (for understandable reasons, but that is not the fault of the senses).

There is no way to verify what we perceive, with some other real world data... like I said earlier in the thread, we only started to make scientific progress when we started to take observations seriously.

I'm a generally a sceptic (not of the absolute kind), not because I don't trust the senses, but because I generally don't trust what people make of them... because of biases, preconceptions, dogma's and generally because there is no guarantee that the world is knowable, in the sense that we always should be able to derive general abstract principles from particulars. I think the reliability of sensory information is the least of the worries of a sceptic, but maybe that's just me.

if neurones produce experience, someone has to be experiencing the experience that the neurones produce. And there is no such homunculus. It cannot either be the person the neurones are part of, because that person has no knowledge experience or awareness of their neurones. This is the tangle that results from the category error. — unenlightened

We say a record player produces the sound made by the record (yet the player's plastic cover actually plays no part in producing the sound), we say the tree grows toward the light (yet it's roots are not photophilic), we say a house needs a good paint (yet we don't intend to paint every single part of the house), we say a car is a red car (yet clearly some parts of it are black).

So what exactly is the problem with saying that a person has an experience, in general, and then on more detailed specific analysis, isolating which parts of the person are actually playng a role in the having of that experience and which parts seem disjunct from it?

Either we cannot say

So if neurones produce experience, someone has to be experiencing the experience that the neurones produce. And there is no such homunculus. — unenlightened

How do you know there is no such 'homunculus'? If there is a part of the brain responsible for conscious awareness then that is the part whose activity constitutes what we think of as 'someone' (in terms of an entity having an experience). We don't say that 'I' experience my kidneys filtering blood. No signals get sent from them to the parts of my brain responsible for conscious experience so 'I' do not experience it. Yet it clearly takes place in my body, so 'I' (in terms of an entity having an experience), must be something different from my kidneys. An arm might 'belong' to that entity, but not constitute that entity. It makes perfect sense to be able to talk about 'a person' in more than one different way depending on the subject matter at hand.

If I invite 'you' round for a cup of tea, I expect the whole of you, not just the parts of your body responsible for conscious experience, but if I'm a neuroscientist investigating the effects of neurons on reported experience, why can't I talk about parts of the brain which seem constituent of that experience and other parts which don't. Why shackle language that way? It's not as if the neuroscientist is going to get confused and start inviting parts of people's brains round for tea. Apparently they're quite clever, I think they can handle different meanings in different contexts.

I didn't get what the article was trying to argue for or against. Perception seems pretty straight forward to me. The visual field is a great example. Light hits your cone and rod receptors, is converted into electrical signals, and is processed by the occipital lobe where a 3D model is generated to represent the outside world.

The 3D model or visual field is the map, not the territory. And the difference between the 3D model and the territory is a bit like a cartoon. Much of the details are removed. We don't see the individual atoms or cells that make up our bodies. We don't see all the lifeforms living on the skin. We see a very simplified model.

Also, our visual field uses color-experience to represent reflected electromagnetic radiation. However, our 3D model does not represent it one-to-one. The checker shadow illusion is a great example of this, so is the dress meme that some people saw as blue and others saw as gold.

A properly working visual field, illusions, and dreams are all experiences generated by the brain. As far as most of us believe, one of them represents the outside world. But it cannot be proved. The brain in the vat hypothesis is unfalsifiable.

I find that this kind of talk misses the point. When I paint a person I'm painting a person, not painting paint, and when I write about a battle I'm writing about a battle, not writing about words. So when I see an apple I'm seeing an apple, not seeing an experience. But that doesn't address the epistemological problem of perception. What is the relationship between the paint and the person? What is the relationship between the words and the battle? What is the relationship between experience and the apple? What does it mean for the former in each case to be about the latter in each case, and to what extent is any information given in the former a product of that medium rather than a true, independent, property of its subject?

I brought up blindsight earlier. The body responds to external stimuli in a manner that lacks conscious awareness. What the direct/indirect realist wants to know is the extent to which visual percepts (that thing that's missing in cases of blindsight) "resembles" the external world object that is said to be the object of perception. Simply saying that the external world object is the object of perception or that experience just is the stimulus-response event (one or both of which you and unenlightened seem to be saying) doesn't address this question at all. — Michael

First, "we see room furniture, not head furniture" might not address the point you're interested in here, but it addresses Marchesk's point that what we know of the mechanisms of perception make it impossible that we see only room furniture and not head furniture.

Otherwise, maybe I'm not even interested in the question of how what we see "resembles" the external world. In fact I don't really know what that means. Or rather, I think it's a bad question.

214. What prevents me from supposing that this table either vanishes or alters its shape and colour when on one is observing it, and then when someone looks at it again changes back to its old condition? — “But who is going to suppose such a thing?” — one would feel like saying.

215. Here we see that the idea of 'agreement with reality’ does not have any clear application. — Wittgenstein, On Certainty

Asking how much our perception resembles reality, or gives us information about it, is akin in this context to asking, "what do tables look like, independently of how they look".

The question as to how much the appearance of things is a product of the perceptual medium presumes the possibility of appearance without perception. What you call a medium is what I call the stuff and processes and behaviours that constitute perception.

Answering the question as to how much information we get about things through perception more charitably, I might say things like... quite a lot, it depends, often as much as we need, etc. I don't think this has much to do with the big problem that you see. We don't get much information about the shape of a building without walking around to the back.

But to get to what you're interested in and state my positive position more explicitly: we always perceive under an aspect. We perceive affordances, what is relevant. Perception is a coupling with the environment in ways that depend on perceiver and environment. This might be a form of correlationism and so not as realist as you'd expect, but in the same way that Kant didn't think of himself as an idealist, neither do I.

Asking how much our perception resembles reality, or gives us information about it, is akin in this context to asking, "what do tables look like, independently of how they look". — jamalrob

This is only true in a very self-centred sense though. To ask the extent to which our perception resembles reality does not dissolve to a question about tables when we're not looking at them the moment we start to have concern for other people. What about the schizophrenic? When he sees the table is a monster coming to devour him, should we help? Is that what the table really is, or has he made some mistake? Now the question of whether our senses deliver us information about how the table 'really' is becomes crucially important, we need to know whether to treat the man's illness or help him beat off the ravenous table with a stick.

Next, the question of how we can help. Where, in his brain, is he getting the idea that the table is a monster coming to devour him. Are his eyes broken, is his occiptal cortex broken, his frontal lobes? If we stop at simply saying it doesn't matter, the table just is what it is, we've failed to help the man.

I don't understand how this relates to the distinction between direct and indirect realism and the epistemological problem of perception. You seem to be discussing the notion of identity. — Michael

Then I think I'll give up trying to explain. I think I've made it as clear as I can, over many posts.

I'll just say that a person does not see an image of an object in their brain, because it is dark in there and their eyes point the other way. This not to say that there may not be all sorts of magic going on in there, but what one sees is what is in front of one's eyes, not what is behind them. Shall I make a pantomime of it?

But to get to what you're interested in and state my positive position more explicitly: we always perceive under an aspect. We perceive affordances, what is relevant. Perception is a coupling with the environment in ways that depend on perceiver and environment. This might be a form of correlationism and so not as realist as you'd expect, but in the same way that Kant didn't think of himself as an idealist, neither do I. — jamalrob

The question would be in what sense is correlationiism a "direct awareness"? It sounds like the correlation is generating an experience of a table that is not what the table is like at all, since physical objects don't look, sound, smell, taste or feel like anything. They lack those properties, since those are affordances of perceiving.

Maybe an alternative would be to propose that perception is a direct awareness of a relationship to an object. That would allow for doing science without skepticism. But it wouldn't be what direct realists are arguing, which is a sophisticated form of stating a naive view of reality. The table looks like a table.

Well, the issue of directness, certainly as played out in the realist vs realist debate, is mostly bypassed by the way I've described perception. One can say perception is direct in that you perceive things directly rather than perceive mental objects or something similar--Gibson's theory is very much pitted against the idea that what we perceive is a model or whatever. One is coupled with one's environment, and what could be more direct than that?

On the other hand, if by direct you mean to perceive something as it is beyond possible experience, yeah, that's not a road that I go down. I want to say that's incoherent.

Maybe an alternative would be to propose that perception is a direct awareness of a relationship to an object. — Marchesk

No, it is a relationship to an object, one that constitutes perceptual awareness.

On the other hand, if by direct you mean to perceive something as it is beyond possible experience, yeah, that's not a road that I go down. I want to say that's incoherent. — jamalrob

Sure, however, I think that's what the direct realist is trying to say. The world basically looks the way it looks to us, once you account for lighting conditions, angles, and all the stuff we can't see.

One can say perception is direct in that you perceive things directly rather than perceive mental objects or something — jamalrob

I can't post images so I'll have to link to the whole document Here, but what I want to ask you is about the model of perception on page 18. Note the suppressive feedback within the Hippocampus and between the Striatum and the Ventral Tegmental Area (marked VTA). These are measured, confirmed events.

If perception is of the object, not the mental event, then on what are these suppressive feedback loops acting prior to our awareness (in either prefrontal lobe)? It can't be the actual object (that's outside the brain), but they're acting on something, and it's that something we become aware of an later act on. So, if you want to have a direct realist model, what would you refer to that something as?

This might be a form of correlationism and so not as realist as you'd expect, but in the same way that Kant didn't think of himself as an idealist, neither do I. — jamalrob

Right, but what sort of realist was Kant? He thought there was an external reality of some kind, but we can't say anything positive about it, thus terming it the noumena.

Most realisms try to establish a connection between human thoughts, words, perceptions and the "furniture" of the world. The realist is saying that our minds carve up the world more or less at nature's joints. Get rid of the joints and for all the Kantian knows, reality could be the equivalent of a BIV, or some mystical godlike thing, or a damn sphere.

I'll just say that a person does not see an image of an object in their brain, because it is dark in there and their eyes point the other way. This not to say that there may not be all sorts of magic going on in there, but what one sees is what is in front of one's eyes, not what is behind them. Shall I make a pantomime of it? — unenlightened

That's not what people mean when they say that the object of perception is in the head, and I'm sure you know that, so this is an obvious strawman. The claim is that the properties present in perception are properties of the mental phenomena that emerge from brain activity and not properties of the external world stimulus. My words are not the things they talk about, the paint is not the person being painted, and my conscious awareness is not the thing being seen.

Your approach is akin to arguing that I'm wrong to say that I read words because I'm actually reading about the battle of Trafalgar. It completely misses the substance of the claim.

Right, but what sort of realist was Kant? He thought there was an external reality of some kind, but we can't say anything positive about it, thus terming it the noumena. — Marchesk

No, that's not what he says. External reality is the stuff we see in everyday life, the empirically real. The noumenal is that which can only be thought, not known in experience. His philosophy is much more subtle than this direct-indirect realist-idealist stuff.

That's not what people mean when they say that the object of perception is in the head, and I'm sure you know that, so this is an obvious strawman. — Michael

If the object of perception is in my head, how do I see it? simple question How do I see what is in my head? If you don't mean that what do you mean that isn't an abuse of language?

There is even a picture that literally shows a head with an image in it that purports extraordinarily to be a direct realists idea of what is happening. And it is as you realise completely ridiculous to suppose that anything whatsoever in the head can be seen. So what's the indirect theory?

No, that's not what he says. External reality is the stuff we see in everyday life, the empirically real. — jamalrob

So the categories of thought which organize the sense impressions into the empirical are mirroring the world outside the mind?

If the object of perception is in my head, how do I see it? simple question How do I see what is in my head? If you don't mean that what do you mean that isn't an abuse of language? — unenlightened

The same way you see a tree in a dream. It's a mental image. The difference being the causal chain that produced the mental image.

The same way you see a tree in a dream. It's a mental image. — Marchesk

I have never, ever to my knowledge dreamed of a tree in my head, or any other object in my head. As I never experience anything being in my head, it doesn't feature in my dreams. I do not have images in my head because I cannot see in my head, even in my dreams.And anyway it is foolish to base a theory of vision on fantasies. Try again.

If the object of perception is in my head, how do I see it? simple question How do I see what is in my head? If you don't mean that what do you mean that isn't an abuse of language? — unenlightened

Yes, it could be considered an abuse of language because language didn't develop to properly explain the true nature of perception, it developed according to the naive view that the properties present in the experience, like a red colour, are properties inherent in external world objects.

And that's why I try to explain that arguing over whether we see external world objects or see something "in the head" misses the point, just as would be arguing over whether we read words or read about the battle of Trafalgar. What we want to know is if the properties present in the experience (a red colour, a sweet taste, a round shape) are perception-independent properties that external world objects have (the naive view) or if they're properties of the mental phenomena (again; the thing that's missing from patients with blindsight and machines designed to respond appropriately to stimulation) that emerge from certain kinds of brain activity (the representational view).

So trying to counter with just "I can't see anything in my head because it's dark" is meaningless deflection.

I have never, ever to my knowledge dreamed of a tree in my head, or any other object in my head. As I never experience anything being in my head, it doesn't feature in my dreams. — unenlightened

Where do you suppose the dream is taking place?

And anyway it is foolish to base a theory of vision on fantasies. Try again. — unenlightened

So perception is unlike all our other experiences? Some people think dreams are a form of hallucination.

just as would be arguing over whether we read words or read about the battle of Trafalgar. — Michael

Yes. That would be a category error. You don't have to explain that to me.

Where do you suppose the dream is taking place? — Marchesk

And that question is another category error. It's a dream; it doesn't take place at all. It happens in the magical land of unicorns.

Yes, it could be considered an abuse of language because language didn't develop to properly explain the true nature of perception, it developed according to the naive view that the properties present in the experience, like a red colour, are properties inherent in external world objects. — Michael

Exactly this. So for example we say the sky is blue without taking into account what that actually entails, because it's pragmatic to say skies are blue, not scientific or philosophical.