I think that risible. Shall we give your perception of the plane a proper name - "Fred" perhaps?

Better, surely, to think of the plane as an individual, and your seeing it as something you might do, rather than as an individual. — Banno

Perceiving is the act, perception is the thing. I can't think of the phenomenal state I possess of the computer before me as a verb and something that is happening anymore than I can think of the actual computer screen as something that is being done. There is molecular movement in every event in the universe and nothing lies still, so I understand my perception is occurring in an ongoing sense, but so is the computer screen.

We will name my perception of the computer screen "phenomenal state" and we will name the computer screen itself "noumenal state." The former we call "Dell," but the latter has no name because we don't know enough about who it is.

Sure. But here's an important thing... those "phantom things" are not what we see, taste and touch; they are what our seeing, tasting and touching, at least in part, consists in. They are not what we see, but part of our seeing; not what we touch, but part of our touching; not what we taste, but part of what you have called the activity of touching. — Banno

Under this construct, there's a cup , and I impose upon it a certain shape and color, and then I have a phenomenal state. The cup is what we have imposed the shape and color upon. My phenomenal state is therefore a representation of the cup, with the shape and color added to it.

We then analyze precisely what the cup is. We determine it is the phenomenal state minus those attributes added by my acts of touching, tasting, and seeing. Since the cup is composed of only those things I can't sense, I cannot tell you anything about the cup because the only things I know about a thing are the things I sense.

How is this not indirect realism?

You fight a worthy battle.

— But here's an important thing... those "phantom things" are not what we see, taste and touch; they are what our seeing, tasting and touching, at least in part, consists in — Banno
I don't see a problem with that. It appears to be consistent with indirect realism, so inside the bounds of science. :up: — frank

That smooths over the discussion at the expense of putting off sober exploration of significant philosophical issues.

Most science is concerned with the mechanics and dynamics of what can be seen, for the purpose of description, prediction, and manipulation of the external world. There is no philosophy at present that covers that activity, and it is an activity. The closest we have are vague second-hand archaic Heraclitean aphorisms.

When scientists speak folk science they resort to a peculiar form of indirect realism, as you say. The peculiarity is that it is neither of the classical forms of realism, it is neither flat one-level Aristotelian nor two-level Platonist. Scientific realism is strictly pluralist with each science in its very own fly bottle.

Perception is an activity, not a thing. — hypericin

Everything in our lives is an activity, because our lives consist of interactions with our environment. We're not spectators of the world, we're participants in it. Perhaps you don't think of us as mere spectators, but you deny us the status of participants, as you separate us from the rest of the world by imposing a wall of "representation" or "illusion" which you assume precludes us from intelligent interaction with what we, in fact, interact with every moment.

imposing a wall of "representation" or "illusion" which you assume precludes us from intelligent interaction — Ciceronianus

No, I am assuming nothing. Perception is an illusion, in that the sensory phenomena that appears to inhere to the world, the experiences of the 5 senses, are in fact phantasmal mental products. And yet, sensation is the projection of real environmental inputs onto the imaginary plane of qualia. This projection is information preserving, and so we can make intelligent decisions on the basis of these illusions. If we couldn't, we wouldn't have them.

We will name my perception of the computer screen "phenomenal state" and we will name the computer screen itself "noumenal state." The former we call "Dell," — Hanover

But that's not what you have done. When someone else asks what size Dell is, they are not asking about your perceptions, they are asking about Dell.

That is, we do talk about the things that you claim we cannot talk about.

...and I impose upon it a certain shape and color, — Hanover

Can you impose just any shape and colour? What constrains your imposition?

You say the noumenal does, and proceed to incoherently talk about that about which you can know nothing.

I say the cup does. Here, you say the same:

The cup is what we have imposed the shape and color upon. — Hanover

And hence there is a cup. Realism.

those "phantom things" are not what we see, taste and touch; they are what our seeing, tasting and touching, at least in part, consists in. — Banno

So then we have a dualism. What we see/taste/touch, and what those consist in, for us.

As physical objects, we bounce around the world as well as any other. But as conscious beings, all we have direct access to is what our seeing/tasting/touching consists in. Anything more must be acquired by reasoning. This is the barrier of the op, and what is on the other side may as well be called things-in-themselves.

Perception is an illusion, in that the sensory data that appears to inhere to the world, the experiences of the 5 senses, are in fact phantasmal mental products. — hypericin

That's just poorly worded. An illusion occurs when the senses goes awry.

So then we have a dualism. — hypericin

No. You are reifying the process of seeing, touching and tasting.

But as conscious beings, all we have direct access to is what our seeing/tasting/touching consists in. — hypericin

Again, that's just poor wording. The word "direct" is not doing anything - except misleading you.

An illusion occurs when the senses goes awry. — Banno

An illusion is that which is not what it appears to be. Perception itself is an exemplary illusion.

The word "direct" is not doing anything - except misleading you. — Banno

Not at all. Qualia are the elementals of our waking lives. Qualia, and nothing else, are immediately accessible to our awareness. Any knowledge we have outside of them is necessarily indirect.

@hypericin, @Hanover,
1. A thing-in-itself about which we can say nothing is vacant. Since we can say nothing about it, it cannot enter into our conversations. It's no more than word play, along the lines of the little man who wasn't there.

2. Pretending that if we only ever see the things around us as represented to us by our minds, we never get to deal with those things, is Stove's Gem, The Worst Argument In The World. You are dealing with those things now, in the very act of reading this post.

3. We can and do make true statements about the things in the world. Here: This sentence is in English.

We are embedded in the world and deal with the bits and pieces that make that world up.

An illusion is that which is not what it appears to be. — hypericin

Indeed, that's quite right. But the things around us are as they appear to be, and hence not illusory. The cup has a handle, the laptop, a keyboard. These are not illusions.

Qualia. There goes the neighbourhood. A notion that only serves to further muddle the topic.

No, I am assuming nothing. Perception is an illusion, in that the sensory phenomena that appears to inhere to the world, the experiences of the 5 senses, are in fact phantasmal mental products. And yet, sensation is the projection of real environmental inputs onto the imaginary plane of qualia. This projection is information preserving, and so we can make intelligent decisions on the basis of these illusions. If we couldn't, we wouldn't have them. — hypericin

So our illusions, despite being illusions, contain (?) or perhaps transmit (?) "real environmental inputs" and so we can make intelligent decisions about our real environment.

It seems what you call our illusions aren't really illusions as commonly defined. If we were to call the perception of a chair an illusion, I think we'd mean that there is no chair. You, though, seem to assert that it would be an illusion but would nevertheless be an illusion which would reflect enough "real environmental inputs" for us to intelligently use what it represents as we would a chair.

Thus, we would intelligently use the chair as a chair for all intents and purposes, but nonetheless don't perceive the chair. When we think we see a chair we may (indeed should) treat it as chair but we don't really see a chair. Instead, we merely see something which is an illusion, but there are enough "real environmental inputs" for it not to be illusory.

I may sit in a chair but cannot perceive the chair in which I sit. I may drive a car but cannot perceive it. Is there nothing about these statements that seem problematic to you?

It's an odd disconnect from reality, taught in first year philosophy. It's a test to see who amongst the students can see beyond such poor arguments to move to second year Philosophy.

1. You presume that we can say nothing about that which we cannot access directly.
2. We are dealing with them, but indirectly, via an illusory interface. No different than what you are doing with your computer right now. Are you dealing with opcodes and interrupts directly?
3. Vacuous, nothing to disagree with there.

'Qualia' is merely a less ambiguous version of 'perception', 'sensory experience'. etc.

That post is trite. But as to this:

3. We can and do make true statements about the things in the world. Here: This sentence is in English. — Banno

3. Vacuous, nothing to disagree with there. — hypericin

If what we have access to is nothing but illusion, and we follow your definition of illusion as that which is not what it appears to be, then none of your statements about the world are true.

Not so. Imagine a hologram of say a city from an overhead view. It is illusory, there is no actual solid, miniature city in front of you. But if you have reason to believe that the hologram is not purely a synthesis, that it is a projection of a real city, then you can derive true statements about how to navigate the city from this illusion.

The analogy with perception is exact.

The analogy with perception is exact. — hypericin

No, it isn't, since you can interact with, verify, the city outside the hologram. If all of your perceptions are an illusion, you cannot interact with the world at all, and there can be no independent verification.

True, and so there is room for The Matrix/Philosophy 101 style doubts. This absence of independent verification is why these doubts cannot be disproven definitively.

Nor can they be shown to be true. They're basically bad grammar masquerading as metaphysics. Doubt can only take place against a background of certainty - you can doubt that the liquid in the cup is water only if you already suppose there is a cup and a liquid.

The issue becomes what it is reasonable to doubt.

Doubt can only take place against a background of certainty - you can doubt that the liquid in the cup is water only if you already suppose there is a cup and a liquid. — Banno

You can doubt that the liquid in the cup is water only if your working hypothesis is that there is a cup and liquid. This is not certainty, in the face of true certainty doubt is impossible.

The issue becomes what it is reasonable to doubt. — Banno

Exactly so. This is the quandary of beings who lack certainty about the world, because they do not access it directly. The best they can do is make hypotheses, and question the ones worth questioning.

t's an odd disconnect from reality, taught in first year philosophy. It's a test to see who amongst the students can see beyond such poor arguments to move to second year Philosophy. — Banno

Wild Bill James was right-a difference which makes no difference is no difference at all. For me, that's what the best of the claims in support of an unknowable "external world" amount to, in the end.

Of course we do. Science says we model the world. We talk about our models. — frank

If we are modeling the world then there must be a world that is being modeled, no? Or perhaps you are wanting to say the world is a model? Whose model would it be then?

If I am alone riding my bike out in the desert, is this all just a model? If I am driving my car through congested traffic in the city is this all just a model? If we each have our own models, then how come we can mostly coordinate such as to avoid collisions, if we are not all accurately modeling anything?

If we are accurately modeling something, then the issue comes down to just how we want to talk about whatever it is we are modeling; do we want to say there are cars, roads, trees, people, traffic lights, bikes, buses, trains etc, etc, or do we want to say that there are unknowable structures (or "somethings") that we (arbitrarily?) model as cars, roads, trees..."? What would be the advantage of the latter way of speaking?

Also the question I have posed twice now to Hanover has not been answered. How do we know the scientific picture of perception is right if we cannot know anything about what things are in themselves?

For me it seems more accurate and parsimonious to say that we don't talk about our models, we talk about the world via our models.

There are all sorts of resources for learning about the science of consciousness. For free, the SEP has some good articles. Nature magazine occasionally has some informative stuff. The average text on philosophy of mind will help, although make sure you're getting a recent view. It's a science that's rapidly changing.

Also, we have our good @Isaac who generously explains things if you ask nicely.

Check it out.

This is the quandary of beings who lack certainty about the world, because they do not access it directly. — hypericin

I don't quite agree. Overwhelmingly, we agree as to what is the case.

If that were not so, this conversation would not be possible.

However, we focus far more on the points of disagreement than on our agreements. We do not spend hours arguing about how many centimetres are in a metre or which city is the capital of Russia.

Nice bit of deflection. I'm already familiar enough with the literature thanks.

Nice bit of deflection. I'm already familiar with the literature thanks. — Janus

Great. So talk to us about how the brain processes vision.

Still deflecting? The question was how do we know that things in themselves are unknowable if we are basing that supposed knowledge on a story that assumes that we know how things like the eye, the optic nerve and visual cortex work. It's a performative contradiction.

I may sit in a chair but cannot perceive the chair in which I sit. I may drive a car but cannot perceive it. Is there nothing about these statements that seem problematic to you? — Ciceronianus

We perceive the chair and the car. We just don't perceive them as they are. It is the nature of perception that it necessarily an illusion.

'Illusion' doesn't mean that what is illusory is not there. An illusion is simply that which is not as it appears. An illusion is always something, it is simply not as it presents itself. A hallucination, on the other hand, is nothing, at least nothing in the physical world.

The fallacy of naive realism is that it takes what is illusion to be what really is.

Still deflecting? The question was how do we know that things in themselves are unknowable if we are basing that knowledge on a story that assumes that we know how things like the eye, the optic nerve and visual cortex work. It's a performative contradiction. — Janus

Yeah, there's no gotcha here. It's pragmatism. Think about all that literature you absorbed and you'll see why.