The fact so many are enamored by the thought of being brains in vats is disturbing, as it seems to amount to a rejection of the world in which we live. — Ciceronianus

Yet Descartes didn't reject the world in which we live, so that must not have been the implication of the evil demon thought experiment.

The trick in dealing with the noumenal is to understand that it makes no difference to anything you might choose to do. — Banno

The trick in dealing with the phenomenal is to understand that it makes a significant difference whether the phenomenal correlates to reality.

There is reality and then there is the perception of reality. How they correspond, I'm not sure, but I'm committed to the idea that they do, else we wouldn't continually try to get better and better perspectives of reality through the crude lenses we've been afforded.

Indeed, idealism reduces to solipsism. — Banno

And realism, once we strip it of its subjectivity, reduces to idealism. All slippery slopes lead to solipsism.

I can see that my projections are pretty smart and often clash with each other.

:cool:

Is the flower the way I see it or the way the bee sees it? If some creature sees it as a blinking light, is it a blinking light?

It's a tough question. I might be off here, but I would think direct realism would permit that different creatures, with differing biologies, see the same thing and that the experience is always veridical. So in both instances the flower is observed directly, without any mediating factor standing between seer and seen. In all cases and with all creatures they see the flower. As soon as we insert "the way something sees" (the flower as a blinking light, for example) in between seer and seen we presuppose indirect realism. So I think the question is somewhat loaded.

It's a tough question. I might be off here, but I would think direct realism would permit that different creatures, with differing biologies, see the same thing and that the experience is always veridical. — NOS4A2

Yeah, but you left out a key word here. Fill in the blank:

"I would think direct realism would permit that different creatures, with differing biologies, see the same thing _________ and that the experience is always veridical."

A. Similarly
B. Differently

If B, then what is veridical is not what is perceived but is something else, and you no longer have direct realism. What is "the thing" in this scenario?

If A, you're making a scientific claim about how varying species make observations, which means your theory of direct realism fails if the science contradicts you. If I can show that bee lenses could not possibly present flowers as human lenses do, does that defeat direct realism?

As soon as we insert "the way something sees" (the flower as a blinking light, for example) in between seer and seen we presuppose indirect realism. So I think the question is somewhat loaded. — NOS4A2

But there's no question that this happens in real life. I look at the eye chart to take my eye exam. There are the letters that are there and there are the letters I see. How can we speak of perceptual errors if there is no distinction between the object and the perception of the object?

Yet Descartes didn't reject the world in which we live, so that must not have been the implication of the evil demon thought experiment. — Hanover

I think an evil demon was having a bit of fun with him from the beginning.

So you think the thread about the external world is not about the external world. — Banno

I think the question in this thread is how we know what the external world is (which was the part of the survey I referred to) and to a lesser extent as to whether there is an external world to begin with (which is the part of the survey you referred to).

Overwhelmingly, there is agreement that there is an external world. The highest percentage of philosophers believe the external world is known through representations of reality, which I take to be indirect realism.

I'm not sure what percentage of philosophers agree with what the survey means. Maybe they need to vote on what their vote meant.

how we know what the external world is — Hanover

See how this assumes an external world?

Is the flower the way I see it or the way the bee sees it? — Hanover

You assume that the flower must be one thing for us, another thing for the bee.

There's a flower. We interact with it the way humans do. The bee interacts with it the way bees do. There's no reason to think it becomes something different depending on whether a human or bee is involved in the interaction. There's no reason to think it is something different than what we interact with and what a bee interacts with. There's not one flower for us, another for the bee.

There's no reason to think it becomes something different depending on whether a human or bee is involved in the interaction. There's no reason to think it is something different than what we interact with and what a bee interacts with. There's not one flower for us, another for the bee. — Ciceronianus

Of course there's a reason to think it's a different for us and for the bee. The lens of the bee presents it in an entirely different way. There's also reason to believe a bee presents differently to me than a bat, considering I don't have echolocation.

I also don't know where pollen is instinctively, yet a bee seems to, so our behavioral differences make me believe the bee sees the flower differently from me.

Does your position require that I actually believe bees and humans perceive in the same way? If it does, I think your position just fails to scientific evidence.

I think this is a good summary. What the bee is experiencing is of an entirely different nature to what the human experiences. Such a distinction is still at the level of common sense.

See how this assumes an external world? — Banno

"External world" simply references an object external to perception, which I assume you agree with, given your prior objection to solipsism.

There's not one flower for us, another for the bee. — Ciceronianus

If the perception of the bee of the flower is blue and the perception of the flower to me is red, what color is the flower?

The lens of the bee presents it in an entirely different way. — Hanover

How do you know that if we have, as you claim, no knowledge of the external world?

B is true: we see the same flower differently than the bee; our lenses and the rest of our biology is different than a bee’s; but the differences are with the creatures themselves and how they act upon the flower. Why must we assume some other thing?

In my understanding of direct realism there are no differing representations of the flower to present and there is no observer beyond the lens to present them to. I think at the very least indirect realists need to prove that there is some sort of barrier between observer and observed.

If the perception of the bee of the flower is blue and the perception of the flower to me is red, what color is the flower? — Hanover

Red.

my understanding of direct realism there are no differing representations of the flower to present and there is no observer beyond the lens to present them to. I think at the very least indirect realists need to prove that there is some sort of barrier between observer and observed. — NOS4A2

If the flower is 100 feet away, there's that barrier, especially if it's foggy outside or if a tree is in the way, and then there's the lens of the eye and then nerves and such along the way, any of which if you alter, so you'll alter the perception of the flower. Stick an electrode in the brain and that too will alter the perception, and actually could create the perception with no flower at all.

But everyone knows this, so I don't know why I'm having to recite it.

The perception is manipulated by all different parts of me, but not all. The flower looks the same with or without my gall bladder and I can sneeze out all sorts of internal mucus and the flower is the same.

The perception faculty, wherever it may be within me, is somewhere, but I'm not sure exactly where, but it seems like a bullet to the brain would stop the perceiving, so I'm thinking it's there somewhere.

If I wore rose colored glasses, you'd understand that my claim that the world is rose colored is mediated by my glasses. For some reason though if you sewed the glasses to my face so that it was part of me, you'd have to deny there was a homunculus waiting for the light to shine upon the optic nerve and insist the perception of the flower was unmediated.

Let me ask this: if there's a flower behind a 100 foot wall, would you agree that that barrier alters my perception of the flower? If yes, then we've established that what is between my perception faculty and the flower determines what I perceive. If not, then what's the difference between staring at a wall and looking at a flower?

If the perception of the bee of the flower is blue and the perception of the flower to me is red, what color is the flower? — Hanover


Red. — Tom Storm

If this were actually possible then the (same) flower would look red to me and blue to a bee. What's the problem?

To @Hanover: The problem I see with your position is that it is self-contradictory. You ask what if the same flower appears red to me and blue to a bee (obviously if they were different flowers then the argument would be totally vacuous) and yet you claim that this shows that the bee and I are not looking at the same flower. :roll:

We began to insert (as it were) something between us and the "external world" some centuries ago, for reasons I find difficult to understand — Ciceronianus

It should not be so difficult to understand. The abolishment of naive realism ("naive", because that is how we start out in life, prior to philosophical sophistication) is one of the few definite results of philosophy. You should know it.

The naive realist believes perception reveals the world as it is. This is simply not so. Any perception is necessarily a co-creation of both the perceived and the perceiver. It cannot be any other way.

For something to be consciously perceived, it must be mapped onto a perceptual plane. This perceptual plane is contingent, and has everything to do with the perceiver, nothing to do with the perceived.

When you hear a pure 440hz tone, it sounds a certain way to you. But that sound in your head has nothing to do with the vibration in the air. Rather, it is a mapping from that vibration to your auditory perceptual plane. Which happens over many complex steps and signal transformations, from the vibration of your eardrum to the conscious event.

Others might perceive pure 440hz tones differently. Other species certainly do. None of these perceptions are privileged, none hear the tone as it really is. "Hearing it as it really is" is a contradiction in terms. "The world as it is" may be conceptualized, but it is perceptually inaccessible, due to the nature of perception itself.

We live immersed in a world of perceptual symbols, from which there is no escaping. It is like living your life in a library. You read words all day, every day. These words point to your understanding of the words, and as you read this understanding grows, as does your understanding of the world. But it's all book knowledge. You can't get out into the world itself, ever, the doors to the library are locked.

I understand your argument and it has merit. Humans see red so it matters almost nothing that a bee sees something different. Why would it not - it has entirely different sensory equipment? I think this is what indirect realism affords.

Similarly, have you seen human skin under an electron microscope? It looks like the surface of the moon and is full of living creatures (mites) roaming over it, like marauding aliens. Does this mean that I am not seeing the same human skin as the microscope sees? If you say no then for me this is entirely a poetic use of the word.

You don’t need to explain the physics or biology. And It’s true that if we alter the physics or biology we perceive differently. I just think it more precise, leads to less problems, and is just plain easier, to think of these things in terms of direct realism, at least as far as my limited and naive understanding goes. I think we perceive the flower; I don’t think we perceive perceptions.

If a wall stands between an observer and a flower, we no longer perceive the flower, we perceive the wall. The environment is altered. If an electrode is inserted in the brain, and we are unable to view the flower in the usual manner, we still perceive the flower. The biology is altered. As far as I can tell the fact that we perceive or regard a flower is not altered.

I don’t know if any of this factors into it, but for me the locus of perception is the entire organism. With this I don’t need to evoke Cartesian theaters and brains in vats to understand how we perceive.

The naive realist believes perception reveals the world as it is. — hypericin

That doesn't sound like naivety to me. I think the naive realist believes that, when she sees a chair, then, absent any good reason for thinking she's the victim of trick, it's a chair she's looking at. She thinks that if she has four guests and three chairs then she's one chair short, just because there are three chairs to be seen and three chairs that she sees. If you ask a naive realist whether she thinks her perception reveals the world as it is, she will likely look at you blankly as if it's a question without much clear meaning - and I'm with her on that one.

If a wall stands between an observer and a flower, we no longer perceive the flower, we perceive the wall — NOS4A2

I think you overlook a serious problem here. If you admit that the presence of Y between object X and perceiver Z distorts, modifies, or alters the perception, then you admit to indirect realism as X is no longer what you perceive, but it's instead the conglomerate of everything between X and Z, including all biological processes prior to being perceived.

The wall example is just too obvious to deny, but it's no different in principle than any other impediment to direct perception. That is, it's not as if there is a vacuum of nothingness between the flower and your final perception. You simply don't see a flower. You see all sorts of walls, some in the environment and some in you.

I don’t know if any of this factors into it, but for me the locus of perception is the entire organism — NOS4A2

That's just scientifically incorrect. My nose doesn't see things, nor does my pancreas.

You do in fact, regardless of how messy it makes philosophical analysis, have a part or parts of your brain that perceive. The perception occurs when that faculty receives sensory input, either through impulses from your sensory organs, artificial electrodes in the brain, drug abuse, psychological disturbance, damage to the brain, or even through purely internal processes like dreams.

That's just the way it works. If it's easier to think it another way, do that, but it'll be wrong and you'll need to stay a philosopher, as opposed to a doctor.

I don’t know if any of this factors into it, but for me the locus of perception is the entire organism
— NOS4A2

That's just scientifically incorrect. My nose doesn't see things, nor does my pancreas. — Hanover

In a way, he’s right. We construct body schemes that participate in interpretating all of our perceptions.

The following article give a sense of how
“sensory and motor information, body representations, and perceptions (of the body and the world) are interdependent”.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00819/full

In a way, he’s right. We construct body schemes that participate in interpretating all of our perceptions.

The following article give a sense of how
“sensory and motor information, body representations, and perceptions (of the body and the world) are interdependent”. — Joshs

That there are multiple points of entry for the sensory data and that they are at some point processed into a single experience doesn't seem to offer support for the direct realist position.

You should know it. — hypericin

Why should I know anything, if what you say is correct?

Any perception is necessarily a co-creation of both the perceived and the perceiver. It cannot be any other way. — hypericin

What's this "perception" you refer to, and where is it? Granted that our lives are our interaction with the rest of the world, why does that mean the rest of the world is unknowable?

For something to be consciously perceived, it must be mapped onto a perceptual plane. This perceptual plane is contingent, and has everything to do with the perceiver, nothing to do with the perceived. — hypericin

If that's what you maintain, then it seems strange you believe "any perception is necessarily a co-creation of both the perceived and the perceiver."

When you hear a pure 440hz tone, it sounds a certain way to you. But that sound in your head has nothing to do with the vibration in the air. — hypericin

There's a sound in my head? Are sights and smells in there as well?

You can't get out into the world itself, ever, the doors to the library are locked. — hypericin

It's true we can't get out of the world. But you think the world is much smaller than I do.

Does your position require that I actually believe bees and humans perceive in the same way? If it does, I think your position just fails to scientific evidence. — Hanover

Humans are humans and bees are bees and flowers are flowers. The interaction of a bee with a flower differs from our interaction with it because it's a bee, and we're not. The bee has characteristics we don't have, so of course its interaction with a flower is different from ours. How could it be (sorry) otherwise?

But it doesn't follow that the flower alters when approached by a bee, and then alters when subsequently approached by a human. Neither would a car, or a river, or a mountain, or anything else.

The world is inhabited by various kinds of living organisms. Each has evolved through interaction with the rest of the world over thousands if not millions or billions of years. Organisms differ as a result of that interaction. This is what is indicated by scientific evidence. Scientific evidence, in other words, supports the existence of a world which includes us and other creatures and that our interaction with the rest of the world is exactly what should be expected given our interrelationship with it. Scientific evidence doesn't support the claim that we can't know, or interact with, the rest of the world in which we live. If we could not, we wouldn't be alive.