But he’s touching it, destroying it, consuming it. At no point are the interactions indirect, so we need not say the experience is indirect. — NOS4A2

Read up on the arguments presented in the SEP article. Nothing you’re saying here has any relevance to what is meant by direct or indirect realism.

Direct Realist Presentation: perceptual experiences are direct perceptual presentations of ordinary objects.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/#Dir

An apple is an ordinary object.

from what I understand it’s just Clark’s/Friston’s/Wilkinson’s theory and not something that has been scientifically demonstrated? — Michael

Active inference or Bayesing qualia?

The former is probably the leading theory in perception, it's standard in most cognitive science departments. Tons of experimental data confirming the utility of the model.

The latter, not so much. I haven't heard it talked about outside that paper. Other models are certainly out there (Bayesing qualia is not my favorite either, though I perhaps found it more persuasive than you did). None have qualia as real though, nor the subject of perception. None that I know of, that is, I don't know every theory out there, of course. The work coming out of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at Sussex is the closest I know of to a substantial body of actual experimental evidence on conscious awareness (qualia-like experiences). The work is still based on Friston's free energy model though.

It’s not about what people prefer but about what they find the evidence and reasoning shows. — Michael

Before evidence and reason, we need to understand what we are talking about. The private world of sense data has some problems getting us to this point.

Wittgenstein says the following "Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing is the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant."

Active inference or Bayesing qualia? — Isaac

The latter. The former doesn’t address the hard problem of consciousness and makes no ontological commitments as one of the papers I referenced explicitly says.

And seeing someone pick up and eat an apple shows nothing that supports Direct Realist Presentation.

the visual and auditory imagery is causally covariant with
— Michael

Yes that's much better than

the thing that we hear is causally covariant with
— Michael

But then what's indirect about it? — bongo fury

Maybe I chose the wrong bit to make the point about indirectness.

Not that "the visual and auditory imagery is causally covariant with" isn't much better than "the thing that we hear is causally covariant with". It's a lot better, at least when comparing with hallucination, for the same reason that referring to Frodo-discourse is better than referring to Frodo, in literal-minded analysis.

But causation is one of many varieties of (roughly speaking) binary relation that appear to warrant inference of indirectness, willy-nilly. Any cause and effect step is plausibly a causal chain or story. We need merely zoom in, to see more steps.

The other varieties sharing this apparent warrant include acquaintance, information, access, trace, [etc, suggestions welcome].

(I do think it's weird that making the theatre Cartesian by having an audience appears to satisfy a (vain?) urge to insert a properly direct step; but that may be beside the point.)

So, I shouldn't have to ask what's potentially indirect about "causally covariant with". Every step of causation might be a chain.

Whereas,

this visual and auditory imagery is isomorphic with — Michael

Yes that's much better than

the thing that we hear is isomorphic with — Michael

... for the same reason that it avoids equivocating between real and imagined. But it's also a better example of directness, in the relation between image and (if there is one) object. The isomorphism is perfectly direct. So are: conventional (i.e. an agreed pretence of) reference between word and object, and derivative notions of about-ness, such as Putnam's or Goodman's.

So, one reason to question the doctrine of indirect realism is to resist the one-way or "bottom-up" notion of learning, as a transmission of knowledge along a chain or channel or conveyer belt.

Admittedly, dispensing with causation, acquaintance, information, access, trace etc., might leave the success or truth of the imagery (and hence learning) unexplained. If reference (including pictorial reference, according to Goodman) is conventional and pretended, it can't convey anything intrinsic about objects. If perceptual imagery is the directly-about-history book re-writing itself, how does it get to be true, as well as direct?

Ok. But the notion of a causal or other chain-like process might still be wrong.

Someone contesting indirect realism doesn't necessarily want to claim that knowledge about the rock flows specifically from the rock to the person. It might result rather from the vast network of interactions and interpretations in the background.

Someone contesting direct realism doesn't necessarily want to claim that knowledge about the rock flows specifically from rock to TV screen to person. It might result rather from the vast network of interactions and interpretations in the background. — bongo fury

Advocates of causation, acquaintance, information, access, trace etc., may find the caricature in terms of chain and channel to be libelous. The author takes full responsibility.

Wittgenstein says the following "Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? — Richard B

The problem here is that Witt failed to apply his own arguement to the rules of language use, which would end up pulling the rug out from under his own arguement.

Language is composed of scribbles and sounds. If everyone had a different "beetle in their box" when reading the scribbles on this screen then we would never be able to communicate, or play a game. The rules for playing the game would be different for each person, just like the "beetle in the box".

The world is the box and we, along with beetles, are all in the same box. People are similar enough that we experience the world similarly, or else we'd never be able to communicate or play the game using the same rules.

Wittgenstein says the following "Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing is the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant." — Richard B

There’s still something inside each person’s box. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make.

There’s still something inside each person’s box — Michael

Yeah.....about that....

“.....Suppose everyone had a box with something in it....
“.....the box might even be empty...”

In what sense, given a box, can that box both have something in it and not have something in it?

(Sigh)

It's in superposition.

Okay, then it’s still the case that each person’s box is either empty or has one or more things in it, and that the thing(s) in one person’s box might be different to the thing(s) in another person’s box.

Ahhhhh...so Erwin plagiarized Ludwig. Bet they weren’t best of friends.

But the major is not an either/or propositional dichotomy. Everyone has a box with something in it, so the box that one has, has something in it.

The reconciliation is that “beetle” might be not anything (“...the box might be empty...”). Hence arises the absurdity, for then the box, being empty, still contains not anything.

(Double sigh)

I don’t understand what you’re saying. The boxes are either empty or have something in it. That’s just the premise of his thought experiment.

Everyone has a box with something in it.....major premise;
The something is a beetle....minor premise;
The box might be empty....minor premise.

Conclusion?

And seeing someone pick up and eat an apple shows nothing that supports Direct Realist Presentation.

It shows that he is directly interacting with an apple. Nothing appears to be mediating his experience or perception, or otherwise hindering his experience of the apple. The contact between him and the apple is direct, therefor the experience is direct.

If a schizophrenic says he is hearing voices, yet others do not, we can confirm that he is in fact not hearing voices or any other sounds from anyone’s mouth, but that something else is occurring somewhere in his biology.

It shows that he is directly interacting with an apple. — NOS4A2

The contact between him and the apple is direct, therefor the experience is direct. — NOS4A2

Bodily interaction is not phenomenological experience. The former being direct says nothing about the latter being direct. A blind man can pick up and eat an apple, therefore picking up and eating an apple is not evidence that someone has a direct visual perception of the apple.

If a schizophrenic says he is hearing voices, yet others do not, we can confirm that he is in fact not hearing voices — NOS4A2

This is just playing a word game. He has the phenomenological experience of hearing voices, the same as someone having a veridical experience. The difference between the two concerns the nature of the cause.

Given the Common Kind Claim that the phenomenological experience of an hallucination is of the same kind as the phenomenological experience of a veridical experience, and given that mind-independent objects are not directly present in an hallucination, it follows that mind-independent objects are not directly present in a veridical experience.

A causal connection does not entail direct presentation. Even the direct realist should accept this, given the everyday cases of CCTV cameras and mirrors.

Bodily interaction is not phenomenological experience. The former being direct says nothing about the latter being direct. A blind man can pick up and eat an apple, therefore picking up and eating an apple is not evidence that someone has a direct visual perception of the apple.

It is experience viewed objectively, from a view independent of any phenomenological account. From this view, to watch a blind man directly eat an apple on the one hand and say he is not experiencing the apple directly on the other is absurd. There is neither the evidence nor the reason to suppose that he is experiencing it indirectly.

There is neither the evidence nor the reason to suppose that he is experiencing it indirectly. — NOS4A2

Until you actually read, like, any science ever...

Surely you can name or point to what prohibits direct experience.

Surely you can name or point to what prohibits direct experience. — NOS4A2

Air.

From this view, to watch a blind man directly eat an apple on the one hand and say he is not experiencing the apple directly on the other is absurd. — NOS4A2

Does the blind man have a direct visual perception of the apple?

Does air prohibit us from directly experiencing air?



He's blind. He cannot see the apple.

He's blind. He cannot see the apple. — NOS4A2

Then picking up and eating an apple isn’t evidence that someone has a direct visual experience of an apple.

There are other senses, though.

There are other senses, though. — NOS4A2

Picking up and eating an apple isn’t evidence of a direct auditory experience, or a direct olfactory experience, or a direct taste experience, or a direct tactile experience, etc.

Sure it is. I’m watching him experiencing an Apple directly.

You’re watching him eat an apple. That’s not the same thing as watching an apple being directly presented in his visual or auditory or olfactory or tactile or taste experience.

You’re assuming that the apple is being presented in something called experience. But there is no evidence of such a place, let alone that apples appear in them.