I'm not surprised. — Banno

And your response to other things from last post (the ones that pertain to the arguments being made in this thread)?

You prefer a dualism? Then its over to you to explain the link between the two. How a decision moves a hand, and a bottle of plonk changes a decision. — Banno

A decision moves a hand intentionally, as we are capable of intentional action, and intoxication affects your judgement and also your motor skills.

Demonstrably, Isaac and his friends do stand outside of the act of cognition, looking in. — Banno

And that is cognitive science. It is an adjoining discipline, but not the same as philosophical analysis, although I do note a (recent?) element of circumspection in Isaac's posts.

(There is incidentally a scholar by the name of Andrew Brooks who has written a lot on Kant and cognitive science, see for instance this reference. )

The 'division between self and world' that I'm referring to elucidated more in this comment. The drift is to question the basic subject-object division that is apparent in science since Galileo and Descartes. That is what 'cuts things asunder' - as I've probably already quoted in thread earlier:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Nagel, Mind and Cosmos

That is where the whole 'problem' of explaining intentionality arises from (which is why 'intentionality' (or 'aboutness') was to become the main point of attack against physicalist reductionism by phenomenology.)

I'm not sure that what you are saying here is much different to what I phrase in terms of direction of fit. Except that the subject-object approach looks to lead to an irreparable divide, while direction of fit avoids such metaphysical difficulties.

So we might reject a division between self and world, seeing the self as embedded and capable of interacting with the world. Of changing how things are and being changed by how things are.

You want me to defend direct realism, but insist in misdefining it. I have no need to play with your scarecrow.

Consider:

In recent years, therefore, “direct realism” has been usually reserved for the view that perceptual experience is constituted by the subject’s standing in certain relations to external objects, where this relation is not mediated by or analyzable in terms of further, inner states of the agent. Thus, the brain in the vat could not have the same experiences as a normal veridical perceiver, because experience is itself already world-involving. — Stanford

Or instead of intentionalist or adverbialist views, should we we talk of disjunctivism, behaviouralism, functionalism?

Or embedded or embodied minds?

Or you could pay some attention to 's view, which will be more amenable to your anachronistic philosophical stand than anything I might offer you.

The transformations you listed are transformations of the perceiver, not the perceived. Until perceivers no longer have nerves and nerve signals, it cannot be said that these are transformations of anything else, let alone forms or sense datum. — NOS4A2

Yep. Those transformations are part of the process of seeing, not what is being seen. What one sees is the tree.

Your point is much the same as Searle's counter to the bad argument, of which @hypericin provides yet another example.

Cool, thanks, that's interesting to hear and I would have thought this (realism vs the others) was a perennial and serious philosophical question, but glad to hear it may not be the case. My big problem in all this is not knowing how significant the use or role of language is in all these confusions and categorisations.

My diagnosis is that hereabouts - that is, on this forum - there are folk who begin by dividing things into a private world and a public world. They sometimes phrase this as internal vs external, or object vs subject, first person vs third person, and so on. They then proceed to conclude that there are two worlds, or to collapse the whole of the "external" world to some internal characteristic - the will, for example. they think they have presented an argument for one of the varieties of idealism when all they have done is to assume idealism. — Banno

The role assumption plays in these kinds of discussions is fascinating. Cheers - T

The Philosophy of Perception and the Bad Argument. — Banno

A really nice article. This in particular stood out...

The crucial step in the argument from illusion as stated is step 4. The step that says you do see something even in the hallucinatory case. But that is a mistake. In the ordinary sense of ‘see’ in which I now see the tree, in the hallucinatory case I do not see anything. That is what makes it a hallucination. The visual experience in the two cases can be exactly the same, by stipulation. But in one case some-thing is seen and in the second case nothing is seen. But surely one might say you did see something. It was after all a visual experience.I think we can introduce a sense of ‘see’ to describe our visual experiences but that sense of ‘see’ is quite different from the ordinary sense because the truth of the statement does not imply that there really is an independently existing object seen. Indeed, I want to make a strong claim now. Though the visual experience definitely exists, it is not and cannot itself be seen. When you consciously see something you have a visual experience but you do not see it. This is not because it is invisible but because in the veridical case it is the seeing of the object. And the seeing cannot itself be seen. In the hallucinatory case the experience, by stipulation, is exactly the same, but it is not a seeing but a seeming to see. Because it is a hallucination nothing is seen. In the hallucinatory case, there is no independently existing object causing the experience. — Searle

It ties in really well with the understanding of perception I use (largely a Bayesian inference model). That model relies on an external (external to the system) world which the system is predicting. It relies on it because the prediction models are based on the Gaussian distribution of entropic forces external to a known system. If perception were based on internal states, then there would be no Gaussian distribution, no 'prediction', states would simply be transferred from node to node by linear functions.

It frustrates me when people use arguments from hallucination, or Bayesian modelling to promote any kind of idealism or disconnect from the external world when these theories imply the exact opposite. Mathematically, the 'free-energy' model, for example doesn't even work unless it is modelling an external state, the whole gradient climbing Lagrange equations the model is based on need an assumed Gaussian distribution of entropic variables - ie external data.

Anyway, rant over. The article sets out the error of such think really nicely, but I don't hold out much hope of it's penetrating the darkness here.

Then its over to you to explain the link between the two. How a decision moves a hand, and a bottle of plonk changes a decision. — Banno


A decision moves a hand intentionally, as we are capable of intentional action, and intoxication affects your judgement and also your motor skills. — Wayfarer

You were asked to explain how it does. Not repeat the claim that it does.

The contact between perceiver and perceived is direct, therefor his perception of the perceived is direct. — NOS4A2

It's this kind of wording that doesn't help the 'direct' account. there clearly are barriers and intermediaries. None of these change the object of the process (we perceive 'a tree'), but claiming there's nothing interfering along the route is the sort of ultra-veridical claim that makes this 'extremist' wing of direct realism look ridiculous.

You can perceive a tree in front of you in full colour despite the fact that there's a massive gap in the middle which you can't possible see (because your fovea is in the way) and the light values are constantly changing because of the effect of continual saccades. The periphery is of far lower granularity than the centre, the ambient light changes the colours throughout the day (yet you still know the leaves are green). And much more...

You literally make up what goes in the gaps, you make up much of the colour (by interpreting and making guesses about the effect of ambient light) and you make up edges that can't be seen as your saccades move about the scene. All of this is amply demonstrated in the literature. You make up a very large proportion of that to which you eventually respond.

The important point (which your naive version misses) is that this 'making up' is part of the process of perceiving the tree and is predictive of the tree. It's not an indication that we perceive something other than the tree because if that were the case, there'd be no inference, no modelling, no testing and improving of models because there's be no access to an external uncertain state against which to test the model.

We perceive the tree, not the model. But we do not have some kind of direct (as in unfettered) access to the tree, we make inferences within the constraints of the data we have. That's what 'seeing a tree' is, a continual process of inferring the external causes of sense data.

If you take away the inference part (as you seem to want to do), you're simply ignoring unequivocal facts about how perception works.

If you take away the external part (as the most vocal 'indirect realists' seem to want to do), you're left with a very big gap in explaining how inference equations are so very similar to Bayesian model selection equations when there's no source of Gaussian uncertainty.

Representations, what more can be/should be said about them?

but I don't hold out much hope of it's penetrating the darkness here. — Isaac

Yep.


Yep

The important point (which your naive version misses) is that this 'making up' is part of the process of perceiving the tree and is predictive of the tree. It's not an indication that we perceive something other than the tree because if that were the case, there'd be no inference, no modelling, no testing and improving of models because there's be no access to an external uncertain state against which to test the model. — Isaac

Yep.

You want me to defend direct realism, but insist in misdefining it. I have no need to play with your scarecrow.

Consider:
In recent years, therefore, “direct realism” has been usually reserved for the view that perceptual experience is constituted by the subject’s standing in certain relations to external objects, where this relation is not mediated by or analyzable in terms of further, inner states of the agent. Thus, the brain in the vat could not have the same experiences as a normal veridical perceiver, because experience is itself already world-involving.
— Stanford

Or instead of intentionalist or adverbialist views, should we we talk of disjunctivism, behaviouralism, functionalism?

Or embedded or embodied minds?

Or you could pay some attention to ↪Wayfarer's view, which will be more amenable to your anachronistic philosophical stand than anything I might offer you. — Banno

To be fair, I’m trying to play by the dichotomy setup by the OP. If he’s talking about a crude direct realism, whereby we have unfettered access to the external, then that’s what I’m debating. And yes, historically that is what it means. Your own reply here implies that even direct realists are mitigated direct realists. They are “direct-ish” and it’s a spectrum, but that is already drifting away from a fully direct view where we are pure window into reality.

Even with the more modern views you mention, surely “red” the visual qualia is not instantiated in the apple. A bat and a human perceive that apple differently. But certainly they are experiencing an apple. You change the ride and cones or cause aphasia, and that qualia changes. That’s not inverted qualia either as you can compare the two differences and note the change. And just by the nature of neurons, they are constructing perception via specific layers and neurons in the brain that are mapped. This mapping implies evolutionary response to stimuli that has constructed the object. Surely a slug constructing an apple is going to have a very different perception of the apple. The indirect doesn’t deny the apple simply that the access to the apple is not a window to the external object as it is in the world. And certainly it is unhelpful to object that the experience of an apple is still about the apple. The interaction of a table with an apple is no more direct access to the apple than a human. The table doesn’t perceive anything. Surely it is interacting with the apple in some way, or an aspect of it, but is that “access” to the apple? I’d be inclined to question interaction itself without perception but I step too far.

At the end of the day I may actually agree with your wanting to scrap the dichotomy setup here and this line if thinking but taking it at face value as this is what the debate at hand is and not changing it as Im going to suit a better framing. I’m just going with that original idea about directness vs indirectness.

You've been presented with a better way of viewing the problem. If nothing else, see Searle's account and the piece from .

Direct realism, how can it be proven to be better than idealism?

My understanding of indirect realism refers to my understanding of perception in relation to a third person subject, with respect to objects of my first-person world that I consider myself to directly perceive; for my frame of reference constitutes the very foundation of my understanding of indirect realism in other people.

The debate between direct and indirect realism is as misplaced as Galilean debates before Einstein as to whether an object is moving or not.

Representations, what more can be/should be said about them? — Agent Smith

That they aren't in the head.

Direct realism, how can it be proven to be better than idealism? — Agent Smith

Direct realism can be thought of as absolutised idealism, to recall Berkeley's 'Master Argument' that all acts of measurement, thought and observation are in relation to some perspective; if one denies or ignores perspectival relativism, one jumps from subjective idealism to direct realism.

That they aren't in the head. — bongo fury

That is one quality, but from what I can gather from the OP's posts, he doubts precisely that.

The reason why both have adherents, are alive as it were, is telling, no?

I'm not sure. I recall @Terrapin Station arguing for that kind of direct realism, and likening the alleged directness of his alleged mental representations awareness to the fidelity commonly attributed to photos over and above hand-drawn painting. If I read him right.

I'm curious whether the OP's point is the same (boo) or different (hooray).

... Having now checked: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/297414

@Terrapin Station denies his awareness-picture-in-the-head is a representation-picture-in-the-head. I never quite saw the difference. Shame we can't ask him.

In my mind the “internal stages” are a part of the perceiver and thus mediated by him. I don’t see why we need to include some other intermediary. If there is no intermediary the perception is direct. — NOS4A2

There is no mitigating factor or intermediary between perceiver and perceived, therefor the perception is not indirect. — NOS4A2

You seem to be stuck on this point, which is incorrect. We hear things which are far away, therefore there is an intermediary. We see things which are far away, therefore an intermediary is called for. Touch and taste appear to have no intermediary, but smell appears to have an intermediary.

Because of these differences between the various modes of perceiving, we cannot make any general statement about whether perception requires an intermediary or not. Therefore we need a more precise description as to how we perceive, one which would be inclusive of all five senses, before we can make any general conclusions about whether there is an intermediary or not.

Very difficult to keep track of all the different paths in this maze, eh mon ami?

One of the strengths that folk ascribe to this idea that we "directly perceive sense data" is the certainty that they can not be in error. This is the great appeal. However, I don't believe that the veracity of this idea can be proven, and the idea itself incoheren — Richard B

John Searle: The Philosophy of Perception and the Bad Argument

Searle's refutation of The Argument from Illusion is weak

One reason philosophers in the past have rejected Direct Realism is because of The Argument from Illusion, which is obviously a strong argument. It is argued that the hallucination and veridical experience can be type identical, such that if an hallucination can only be explained by seeing sense data, then a veridical visual experience must also be explained by seeing sense data.

John Austin was critical of sense data, and in his 1962 book Sense and Sensibilia took aim at the doctrine that we never directly perceive material objects but only sense data. However, Searle's refutation of the Argument from illusion is more recent, writing about the topic in the article above.

Searle calls his refutation of The Argument from Illusion The Bad Argument. However, his refutation is quite weak, and not persuasive.

He says that when one sees an hallucination and when one sees an object in a veridical visual experience, the word "see" is being used in two different ways.

However, he doesn't explain how one knows whether one's visual experience is an hallucination or a veridical visual experience, and if two visual experiences appear the same, such that we don't know which is an hallucination and which is veridical, then how do we know in which each sense "see" is being used.

Searle makes the statements " In the sense in which I see the tree, I do not see a sense datum." and " in the ordinary sense of ‘see’ in the hallucinatory case, I do not see anything", neither of which he backs up with any justification.

He writes " it is obvious that the argument is fallacious", to which the retort may well be ""it is obvious that the argument is sound", which doesn't get anyone anywhere.

Direct Realism would require backwards causation, causation from mind to world

My key argument against Direct Realism uses part of Searle's own article, where he discusses the hierarchy of perception, the direction of fit and the direction of causation.

He writes "Perception has the mind-to-world direction of fit and the world-to-mind direction of causation. That is just the fancy way of saying that the perception is satisfied or unsatisfied depending on how the world is in fact independently of the perception (mind-to-world direction of fit), but the world being that way has to cause the perception to be that way (world-to-mind direction of causation)"

It is true that an object in the world could cause a perception in the mind, such that an object in the world could cause the perception of a green tree in the mind, in that causation has a world to mind direction.

Searle writes that the direction of causation is from world to mind, not mind to world, in that there is no backwards causation.

One problem with Direct Realism is that it requires backwards causation, from perceiving a green tree to knowing that the cause of this perception was also a green tree.

For Searle, there is only a mind to world direction of fit, not a mind to world direction of causation. As regards mind to world direction of fit, a perception is satisfied or unsatisfied depending on how the world is in fact independently of the perception. The key is whether the perception is satisfied or unsatisfied. If satisfied the perception fits the world, if not satisfied the perception does not fit the world. There is nothing in this statement that the perception has to fit the world.

For the same reason that when seeing a broken window on one's walk to work, it is impossible to know just from the broken window what caused it to break, just by having the perception of a green tree in one's mind it is impossible to know what caused that perception.

As Searle himself writes, for perception, causation is from world to mind, not mind to world.

Yes and I think I rather like@RussellA’s response to Searle https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/782060

Can you elaborate on this, defining instantiation here, and property and why one instantiation of property is not property? — schopenhauer1

By definition, a property is any member of a class of entities that are capable of being attributed to objects, so there must be at least two things before there can be a property. My starting position is that properties don't exist in the world but only exist in the mind as concepts, along the lines of Conceptualism and Nominalism. It follows that if a "tree is green", the properties green and tree only exist in the mind and not the world. So what exists in the world. There is nothing left but space-time, elementary forces and elementary particles, along the lines of Neutral Monism and Panprotopsychism. Everything else exists in the mind, such as tables, mountains, apples, governments, morality, ethics and green trees.

"What is an event that is unperceived.................what does that even mean for space and time to be a placeholder for an event sans perceiver?" — schopenhauer1

In conceptual terms, what is most widely accepted today is the giant-impact theory. It proposes that the Moon formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, about the size of Mars. The debris from this impact collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon.

In reductionist terms, there were changes to the elementary forces and elementary particles within space-time.

Wasn't this an event in space-time without a perceiver ?

he doesn't explain how one knows whether one's visual experience is an hallucination or a veridical visual experience — RussellA

If you need that explaining you may want to seek professional help.

when seeing a broken window on one's walk to work, it is impossible to know just from the broken window what caused it to break, just by having the perception of a green tree in one's mind it is impossible to know what caused that perception. — RussellA

But there's nothing causal here. Not knowing whether A caused B has no bearing on the plausibility of an hypothesis that A causes B.

Barriers to what? Intermediaries to what? What is the perceiver interfering with? itself? With light? My fovea is in my own way? I am unable to perceive the tree directly because I have a fovea?

I’m not saying we see trees like eagles do or that we see things as if we didn’t have foveae. I’m saying we have direct perceptual contact with rest of the environment.

Nothing interferes along the route and nothing is made up because there is no end state or product of perception in the body. There is no model, no modelling, and nothing analogous to it occurring in there. There is no perception, sense data, bundle of sensations. There is no hypothesizing, constructing, inferencing, predictive processing occurring anywhere between the perceiver and the perceived, nor any in the perceiver as well. What we do have is the continuous anthropomorphism and computerization of the brain, which is absurd, and I could give a straw about any of that kind of literature.

The intermediaries you speak of are in the environment, which is still directly accessible, and therefor still entails direct realism. You seem to be stuck on this point.

Nothing interferes along the route and nothing is made up because there is no end state or product of perception in the body. There is no model, no modelling, and nothing analogous to it occurring in there. There is no perception, sense data, bundle of sensations. There is no hypothesizing, constructing, inferencing, predictive processing occurring anywhere between the perceiver and the perceived, nor any in the perceiver as well. — NOS4A2

If there’s no model or prediction then how can we learn a skill like juggling, for instance, and eventually learn it so well that it requires little if any conscious attention?

The intermediaries you speak of are in the environment, which is still directly accessible, and therefor still entails direct realism. You seem to be stuck on this point. — NOS4A2

Ok, I'm stuck on this point because you seem to be incredibly wrong to me. I see some stars very far away. There is obviously an intermediary between my perception and the stars which I perceive. What is this intermediary, space, light, ether? How do you think that any of these proposals to account for the apparent separation between me and the stars, would be directly accessible to be perceived? I see each and every one of such proposals as a logical construct produced as a means to account for the intermediary. Don\t you? If I could see the thing between me and the stars, it would block my vision of the stars.