If I come along and find somebody who does not hallucinate, does this mean they don't have "sense data"? — Richard B
Searle sets out with great clarity the difference. When one sees a tree, there is a tree to be seen. When one hallucinates a tree, there is no tree to be seen...........He does take this distinction as granted. — Banno
You've mixed your intentionality with your causation. Knowing involves intentionality, rather than cause. That is, claiming to know something is adopting a certain intentional attitude towards that state of affairs: that this is true — Banno
The puzzle is, how can the mind, when perceiving an object, know the single cause of its perception, when the cause happened prior to the perception and at the far end of a long causal chain. — RussellA
I see ignorance as consisting, not in holding one view rather than another (except in the empirical context) but in being wedded to some (necessarily dualistic) view or other. For me sin, or "missing the mark", consists in not seeing the world non-dually. — Janus
As regards language, I would say that the machine is able to sense a wavelength but is not able to perceive it. — RussellA
It is apparently easy enough to be sure about world events that one can quite hysterically object to alternative interpretations of them, and yet strangely, they can never be sure they're really seeing the tree as it is. — Isaac
I'm afraid this bears little relation to anything I've written.I'll try one more time to show how this is a mischaracterisation of realism. — Banno
In particular, for you, "the tree has leaves" is not about the light reflected from the tree. — Banno
I see ignorance as consisting, not in holding one view rather than another (except in the empirical context) but in being wedded to some (necessarily dualistic) view or other. For me sin, or "missing the mark", consists in not seeing the world non-dually. — Janus
The tree wraps its roots around the rock, and takes from the rock whatever it can get. Unbeknownst to the tree, the rock is also active, and may roll, killing the tree. This is the way of interaction between living things and inanimate things. The living being wants to take all that it can get from the inanimate. But the living being's inadequate knowledge of the activity of inanimate things makes this a very risky activity. So the being must develop a balanced approach between taking all that it can get, and producing the knowledge and capacity required to restrain itself, according to the dangers involved with the activities of inanimate things.
Beyond the problem of interaction between living beings and non-perceiving things, there is a further problem of interaction between distinct living beings. This problem is far more difficult because when the basic problem is complex, and unresolved, the difficulties tend to mount exponentially. — Metaphysician Undercover
Searle writes about the mistakes of philosophers of great genius — RussellA
Great, I never said it was. My point, again, is that what is *directly* interacted with, by the body, (on one side of the table, in terms of the OP's metaphor), is something totally other than the tree: its imprint on light which has interacted with it. This is just one of the gaps I've described between perceiver and perceived which makes nonsense of the "direct" in direct realism.
Being wedded to the view that duality is sin and non-duality is virtue is extremely dualistic, and unrealistic, isn’t it? The best we can do is merely reduce anxiety by quieting our minds. To see non-dually is to not see at all. — praxis
Maybe I have you wrong but isn't this the kind of dogmatic position you were speaking against earlier? What do you mean by seeing the world non-dually? Do you mean holding a monist ontology like idealism? — Tom Storm
The problem is that some assumptions lead us toward understanding, while others lead us toward misunderstanding. Since understanding is what is desired over misunderstanding, it is appropriate to say that some assumptions are correct and others incorrect. — Metaphysician Undercover
We can also perceive it through other senses as well, including touching it. — NOS4A2
When they stop doing philosophy and pick up the pruning saw, things are presumably different. They have no trouble with only being to cut a branch indirectly.Likewise, here all are professing with some certainty the way the brain processes sense data (a very complex and as yet undecided model), yet still unsure about the tree. I find, among my colleagues, the majority are quite uncertain about how perception actually works despite being at the coalface of discovering new facts about it; yet none seem to have trouble with the tree in the courtyard. Here we have the exact reverse of that. — Isaac
Which list?In Searle’s list — Mww
Nice.Being wedded to the view that duality is sin and non-duality is virtue is extremely dualistic, — praxis
See my response to praxis above. I'm not taking about holding any ontology, but rather about letting go of all ontologies and concerns about ontology in order to experience the numinous; to see that all experience is, primordially, prior to subject and object and all the linguistically generated dualities that flow on from that. — Janus
Nice. — Banno
Ok. I don't think I have any idea of the numinous but I get your general point. I suppose I wonder how long does one sit in this 'letting go-ness' and where does it take you? Are you suggesting perhaps some kind of meditative experience with some eventual form of enlightenment?
This notion that - all experience is, primordially, prior to subject and object and all the linguistically generated dualities that flow on from that - seems to be arrived at through conscious judgment and rationality. — Tom Storm
With touch, your body is directly interacting with the perceived object. But touch is not special. Like other senses, touch, via sensory receptors, must induce nervous activity. And then this nervous activity must be somehow transformed to, or interpreted as, experiential content. You know what it is like to touch an object by way of this experiential content.
In what sense is this sequence "direct"? Certainly, a transformation or interpretation of nervous activity is not the same as the touched object.
But it's not important if you're not interested. What could it matter, if it doesn't matter to you? — Janus
If you want to let go, then you must practice, but you would need incentive. — Janus
It’s direct because there is nothing between perceiver and perceived. The transformation and interpretation of “nervous activity” is indistinguishable from the perceiver and the act of perceiving, so is therefor not in between perceiver and perceived. It’s the same if one places the intermediary outside of the perceiver. It is indistinguishable from the perceived. So indirect realism is redundant. — NOS4A2
Animals do not deploy dualistic language; do you think they do not see at all? — Janus
For the Indirect Realist:
1) We directly perceive sense data. — RussellA
I don't think it is accurate to assume that if someone has no experience of the numinous they are not interested in what people think it is. — Tom Storm
Just briefly, what do you mean by practice or incentive? — Tom Storm
They see in essentially the same way as we do. To see non-dually would mean to entirely lack the ability to distinguish anything. A tree, for instance, couldn’t be distinguished from the ground or the sky or any part of its surroundings. There could be no tree/not-tree duality, right? — praxis
Without knowing exactly what you mean, I tend to agree. However, it’s probably essential in understanding Marx to see that he was attempting a philosophy of praxis, a realization of philosophy in history: — Jamal
Your assumptions lead you towards your understanding and mine mine. So you are already assuming that there is a correct understanding, meaning your reasoning is circular. — Janus
How do you know there is a correct metaphysical understanding and how would you identify it as being correct? — Janus
How do you know there is a correct metaphysical understanding and how would you identify it as being correct? — Janus
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