The issue I pointed to earlier in the thread, is the nature of the assumed "mind-independent world". This world is not necessarily external, it might be internal, and we simply model it as being external. — Metaphysician Undercover
The experience consists of all the necessary elements. If some of it is internal and some is external, then the experience can rightly be called neither, for it is not the sort of thing that has such spatiotemporal location. — creativesoul
They are being emitted/reflected by something other than our own biological structures. Thus, the meaningful experience of seeing red leaves requires leaves that reflect/emit those wavelengths. Leaves are external to the individual host of biological machinery. — creativesoul
So, the leaves and light are external, and the biological machinery is internal. It takes both(and more) to have a meaningful experience of seeing red. — creativesoul
The experience consists of all the necessary elements. If some of it is internal and some is external, then the experience can rightly be called neither, for it is not the sort of thing that has such spatiotemporal location. — creativesoul
Perhaps we can agree that in general theoretical empirical orientations do impact on metaphysical
positions. While quantum physics doesn’t necessarily threaten realism as a whole , it does seem to be incompatible with naive (direct) realism. — Joshs
you divorce the biological machinery from the experience of seeing red when you claim that the machinery "mediates" the experience. — creativesoul
The mind-independent world is necessarily thought as being external to the mind (and body). — Janus
Imagine an air traffic controller looking at flashes of light on a circular screen and lots of numbers. Is the air traffic controller perceiving the planes he has so much information about and whose behaviour he can predict and direct? No. The air traffic controller is acquiring lots of true beliefs about some planes, but he is not perceiving them.
Or perhaps a better example might be a pilot. Pilots do not have to look out the window to fly the plane and navigate the landscape, as they have enough information from their instruments. But when the pilot is looking at the instruments they are not perceiving the landscape (unlike when they look through the window at it).
There is clearly a difference then between acquiring one's awareness via means that in no way resemble what one is becoming aware of and via means that do. And it is in the latter case that we can be said to be 'perceiving'. Or at least, that a necessary condition for perception has been met (resemblance isn't sufficient). — Bartricks
I think resemblance is a sensation. I sense x to resemble y. There is a resemblance sensation experienced when I sense or think about x and y. And by hypothesis, in order for that sensation of resemblance to be of actual resemblance, it would need to resemble it (otherwise I would not be perceiving it). — Bartricks
And only a sensation can resemble a sensation (a truth of reason) — Bartricks
Ok I agree with with this. But still, I'm not sure of what is meant exactly by "perceiving". I'm also not sure of how this is related to the thesis that the world is made up of sensations. — Hello Human
Ok I see. — Hello Human
This point seems to come back often. Is there any way for someone to accept it other than viewing it as "a truth of reason" ? — Hello Human
If there is no meaningful distinction between internal and external... — Janus
If the experience is considered to be an affect of the biological machinery insofar as it is the biological machinery that experiences red and not the leaves or the light, then it follows that we are thinking of the experience, by your own definitions, as internal. — Janus
Of course it needs the stimulus of external elements (light and leaves) but it does not follow that the experience is both internal and external on that account, Of course if you define experience as the whole process, then of course it, tautologically, is both internal and external, so these are just different ways of speaking, different ways of conceptually dividing and/ or sorting things.
...Is mediating something not 'part of'? The mediator in a discussion is part of the discussion, no? — Isaac
You might have to unpack that a little. I'm not really sure what you might mean by 'divorce'... — Isaac
I think I shall remain content that a complex thought doesn’t need words any more than does a simple thought. I affirm that complex thoughts are indeed possible, but deny the necessity of language as the ground of their possibility. — Mww
I think I shall remain content that a complex thought doesn’t need words any more than does a simple thought. I affirm that complex thoughts are indeed possible, but deny the necessity of language as the ground of their possibility. — Mww
Imagine a woman – let’s call her Sue. One day Sue gets a stroke that destroys large areas of brain tissue within her left hemisphere. As a result, she develops a condition known as global aphasia, meaning she can no longer produce or understand phrases and sentences. The question is: to what extent are Sue’s thinking abilities preserved?
Many writers and philosophers have drawn a strong connection between language and thought. Oscar Wilde called language “the parent, and not the child, of thought.” Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” And Bertrand Russell stated that the role of language is “to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.” Given this view, Sue should have irreparable damage to her cognitive abilities when she loses access to language. Do neuroscientists agree? Not quite.
This language system seems to be distinct from regions that are linked to our ability to plan, remember, reminisce on past and future, reason in social situations, experience empathy, make moral decisions, and construct one’s self-image. Thus, vast portions of our everyday cognitive experiences appear to be unrelated to language per se.
But what about Sue? Can she really think the way we do?
While we cannot directly measure what it’s like to think like a neurotypical adult, we can probe Sue’s cognitive abilities by asking her to perform a variety of different tasks. Turns out, patients with global aphasia can solve arithmetic problems, reason about intentions of others, and engage in complex causal reasoning tasks. They can tell whether a drawing depicts a real-life event and laugh when in doesn’t. Some of them play chess in their spare time. Some even engage in creative tasks – a composer Vissarion Shebalin continued to write music even after a stroke that left him severely aphasic.
Some readers might find these results surprising, given that their own thoughts seem to be tied to language so closely. If you find yourself in that category, I have a surprise for you – research has established that not everybody has inner speech experiences. A bilingual friend of mine sometimes gets asked if she thinks in English or Polish, but she doesn’t quite get the question (“how can you think in a language?”). Another friend of mine claims that he “thinks in landscapes,” a sentiment that conveys the pictorial nature of some people’s thoughts. Therefore, even inner speech does not appear to be necessary for thought.
Have we solved the mystery then? Can we claim that language and thought are completely independent and Bertrand Russell was wrong? Only to some extent. We have shown that damage to the language system within an adult human brain leaves most other cognitive functions intact. However, when it comes to the language-thought link across the entire lifespan, the picture is far less clear. While available evidence is scarce, it does indicate that some of the cognitive functions discussed above are, at least to some extent, acquired through language.
Perhaps the clearest case is numbers. There are certain tribes around the world whose languages do not have number words – some might only have words for one through five (Munduruku), and some won’t even have those (Pirahã). Speakers of Pirahã have been shown to make mistakes on one-to-one matching tasks (“get as many sticks as there are balls”), suggesting that language plays an important role in bootstrapping exact number manipulations.
Another way to examine the influence of language on cognition over time is by studying cases when language access is delayed. Deaf children born into hearing families often do not get exposure to sign languages for the first few months or even years of life; such language deprivation has been shown to impair their ability to engage in social interactions and reason about the intentions of others. Thus, while the language system may not be directly involved in the process of thinking, it is crucial for acquiring enough information to properly set up various cognitive domains.
Even after her stroke, our patient Sue will have access to a wide range of cognitive abilities. She will be able to think by drawing on neural systems underlying many non-linguistic skills, such as numerical cognition, planning, and social reasoning. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that at least some of those systems might have relied on language back when Sue was a child. While the static view of the human mind suggests that language and thought are largely disconnected, the dynamic view hints at a rich nature of language-thought interactions across development.
On your view... — creativesoul
Because unless our sensations resemble the world they are telling us about - and tell us about it in that way - they will not constitute perceptions of the world. — Bartricks
We do perceive an external sensible world. — Bartricks
If our sensations were merely providing us with information about the world, then we would not be perceiving the world by means of them (that was the point the air traffic controller example was designed to illustrate - acquiring information about a matter is not the same as perceiving it). — Bartricks
Sensations can only resemble other sensations. — Bartricks
For whatever it's worth, the indirect/direct dichotomy and/or debate is neither a necessary nor helpful tool for acquiring understanding of meaningful experience. It can be brushed aside, and ought on my view due to the inherent deficiencies in how they talk about experience itself. — creativesoul
The problem with 'direct' and 'indirect', which we're seeing here, is that both require a network model (a model of the nodes so that we could say "these two are right next to one another" (direct), and "these two are separated by intervening nodes"(indirect). But the intervening nodes must, by definition, be indirectly experienced (if they were directly experienced, they would not be intervening nodes). — Isaac
If direct realism is true then the mind-independent world is of the same character as one of these experiences. The eggs have the colour either we or the birds see them to have even when not being seen; they're either cream-coloured or they're red-coloured (or we're both wrong and they're some other colour). — Michael
This is where we run into the first problem: given that the character of the bird's experience differs from the character of the human's experience, one (or both) of these are "wrong" (in the sense that the mind-independent world isn't of the same character as one (or both) of these experiences). As such, at least one of the experiences isn't direct. — Michael
The second problem is that our best descriptions of the mind-independent nature of the world (things like the Standard Model) do not find that things have visual colours. — Michael
our ordinary experiences do not provide us with information about the existence and nature of the external world. — Michael
Why must the hidden state be either cream-coloured, or red-coloured, why can it not be both? — Isaac
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.