It does follow that we experience the world directly and that there is a connection between oneself and the object for the same reasons I stated earlier. Real, physical connections, for instance light touching the eyes, hands touching the object etc. occur in these interactions. — NOS4A2
I'm assuming when I see and handle an apple, my perceptual apparatus provides matter (the apple) with all its qualities - colour, size and shape, smell, texture, even taste. This is all an elaborate construction work that humans seem to (largely) share. A bat would have a different range of experiences with this fruit, but it would still be of the apple, right? (....) Where have I gone wrong? — Tom Storm
That shows only that we contact the world directly. To show that we 'experience' the world directly, using that argument, you'd have to also show that what we call 'experience' is the sum total of all processes from the sensory receptors onward.
Do you mean to say that only a part of them are experiencing? — NOS4A2
I mean to say we can only experience that with which we are in direct connection — NOS4A2
If someone is to experience a doorknob he must see it, touch it, turn it, etc. — NOS4A2
I followed a little this recent exchange of yours with @NOS4A2. I'm not sure what tou both mean by or undestand with "direct connection". Is it a physical connection, involving perception via our senses? From your answer I undestand that we can also experience other things thn external objects, e.g. feelings/emotions/sensations, is that right?What the latter shows is that direct connection is necessary to experience a thing. It does not then follow that all things we experience are external world objects, nor that we experience all external world objects. — Isaac
Is this what "direct connection" implies or requires?You've yet to show that this teacup is also the thing in contact with my nerve endings. — Isaac
You’ll need to figure out a better argument because you’re still viewing the TV screen directly. — NOS4A2
It does follow that we experience the world directly and that there is a connection between oneself and the object for the same reasons I stated earlier. Real, physical connections, for instance light touching the eyes, hands touching the object etc. occur in these interactions. — NOS4A2
I'm not sure what tou both mean by or undestand with "direct connection". Is it a physical connection, involving perception via our senses? — Alkis Piskas
I undestand that we can also experience other things thn external objects, e.g. feelings/emotions/sensations, is that right? — Alkis Piskas
What I didn't understand was "nor that we experience all external world objects". Do you maybe mean "nor that we can experience all external world objects"? — Alkis Piskas
You've yet to show that this teacup is also the thing in contact with my nerve endings. — Isaac
Is this what "direct connection" implies or requires? — Alkis Piskas
Not everyone can do that. The inability is called aphantasia. — Tate
If I see a rock through a TV screen then I'm seeing a rock, but I'm seeing it indirectly. — Michael
aphantasia
I dismissed the latter as there would be no possible way of knowing if thoughts could exist without meaning as we would be unaware of them. The argument then begs the question.
So we're left (by my reckoning) with the former. That 'inherent' means that the thought has meaning regardless of the interpreter (inherent), as opposed to meaning assigned by an interpreter as external objects like ink marks, trees, structures etc.
Hence the counterargument to Feser shows that thoughts do not have inherent meaning in this particular sense. Whether thoughts have inherent meaning in any other sense of 'inherent' is irrelevant to the argument at hand. — Isaac
What do you think ? Is materialism right ? Is idealism right ? Is it some mix of the two ? Can we even settle the question ? Is materialism a good explanation for patterns in different experiences ? — Hello Human
I am not, then - and this is a point to be clear about from the beginning - going to maintain that we ought to be 'realist', to embrace, that is, the doctrine that we do perceive material things (or objects). This doctrine would be no less scholastic and erroneous than its antithesis. The question, do we perceive material things or sense-data, no doubt looks very simple - too simple - but is entirely misleading (cp. 'Thales' similarly vast and over-simple question, what the world is made of). One of the most important points to grasp is that these two terms, 'sense-data' and 'material things', live by taking in each other's washing - what is spurious is not one term of the pair, but the antithesis itself. — Sense and Sensibilia - J.L. Austin
The reading bit is about raising the point that perhaps distinctions such as direct, indirect, internal, external, subjective, objective, realist and idealist are inadequate to the task set in the OP. Perhaps they misdirect us.
— Banno
I agree. Those categories assume a Cartesian framework which is so embedded in our culture that we forget that it's problematic.
We probably keep returning to it and trying to use it as a foundation because we really want to know what we are and it's all we've got. — Tate
The reading bit is about raising the point that perhaps distinctions such as direct, indirect, internal, external, subjective, objective, realist and idealist are inadequate to the task set in the OP. Perhaps they misdirect us.
— Banno
I agree. When I look at a mirror I'm looking at a mirror and I'm also looking at my reflection and I'm also looking at myself. The painting might be of a woman but it's also just paint. We can describe things in a number of different ways, all of which can be correct. — Michael
I think direct and indirect realists are just talking in different ways. There's not necessarily any conflict. — Michael
Isn't it clear by now that this is a muddled question?...do you accept that the fundamental furniture of the Universe is material in nature? — Wayfarer
To a fruit-fly, an apple is host to its eggs. If I throw an apple at an annoying bird, it's a weapon. To fruit bats and primates it is food, whereas it wouldn't necessarily register to a carnivore. Which is 'the real apple'? — Wayfarer
Isn't it clear by now that this is a muddled question? — Banno
If you are going to talk about something's being fundamental, you have to be clear about what it is you are doing. — Banno
They don't address existential questions. — Wayfarer
mind is a different substance to the other things around us. — Banno
That leaves wide open the problem of how mind interacts with those other substances - the basic problem for dualism. — Banno
That isn't an answer. — Banno
Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".
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