This is a position that I believe is refuted by our scientific understanding of the world and perception. Colour is "in the head", not in apples (or light). — Michael
No. You can see five different colours there. That they are all shades of 'red' is something you were taught by the culture you grew up in. different cultures have different groupings and distinctions. — Isaac
First person conclusions are what science is built on. As in every theory and hypothesis was someone's original individual first person conclusion or suspicion about reality that then was proven consistent for others too. — Benj96
They're both correct. Distinction can be at any stage from input, through processing or perception, to output or response.
The input (wavelengths) can be the same and the output can be different (reaching for colours words like green, red, brown or grey)
Or the input can be different and the response can be the same. Two people looking at two separate shades of yellow and saying yellow. — Benj96
My experiences aren't self-evidence of gravity, but they are self-evidence of my experiences. That's common sense. — Michael
This thesis is implausible; how could culture determine whether I or anyone else would class something as red or as purple or orange when it comes to edge cases? — Janus
Upon the completion of the experiment, an indirect realist walks in to see the results. They are not sure what to think. Surely, they thought that even though they are reporting the community accepted color word for each object correctly, they must be having different a “experience” of color since different neuron cluster are lighting up for each individual...........The indirect realist has no way of knowing which color individual A or B is having in any of these “private experiences” of color based on these results. But how could they ever make sense of these results since there is no private language we could use to understand anyway of what is going on inside their “heads.” As Wittgenstein says in PI 293, “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
The fact remains that the dress appears differently to different people. The same stimulus triggers different, even conflicting, private experiences, and it is these private experiences that directly inform our understanding (hence why people use different words to describe that they see). — Michael
The same stimulus triggers different, even conflicting, private experiences, and it is these private experiences that directly inform our understanding (hence why people use different words to describe that they see). That is clear evidence of indirect realism. — Michael
And as Wittgenstein pointed out in the first few pages of PI, you would thereby, already be participating in a language game, and so trying to explain meaning by making use of meaning. Then he cut to the chase: Stop looking for meaning, and instead look at use. — Banno
If we assume that we do have eyes and brains, and that the mechanics of perception is as we currently understand it to be, then the explanation above shows indirect realism to be the case. — Michael
Scientific scripture, in its most canonical form, is embodied in physics (including physiology). Physics assures us that the occurrences which we call ''perceiving objects'' are at the end of a long causal chain which starts from the objects, and are not likely to resemble the objects except, at best, in certain very abstract ways. We all start from "naive realism', i.e., the doctrine that things are what they seem. We think that grass is green, that stones are hard, and that snow is cold. But physics assures us that the greenness of grass, the hardness of stones, and the coldness of snow, are not the greenness, hardness, and coldness that we know in our own experience, but something very different. The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself. Thus science seems to be at war with itself; when it most means to be objective, it finds itself plunged into subjectivity against its will. Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.
This is not a fact, it's completely unsupported conjecture. Where is your evidence? — Isaac
The same experiment triggers conflicting conclusions. It is clear evidence of direct realism. The dress is a duck-rabbit. Everyone can see the same duck-rabbit dress, and that is indeed the assumption on which the experiment stands. If they didn't see the same thing, there would be nothing to explain. Because it is only an image, it can be ambiguous; if it were even a short movie, let alone a live encounter, the illusion could probably not be maintained, any more than anyone is deceived for long about ducks and rabbits, (or frogs and horses). One can mistake what one sees for something it is not, but this is no reason to deny that one sees it. — unenlightened
The fact that two people, fluent in English, describe the colours of the dress differently is evidence that the colours the dress appears to have to one are not the colours the dress appears to have to the other. — Michael
Again, all you're showing evidence of is responses. — Isaac
Why is it, do you think, that when shown the actual dress in normal lighting conditions the overwhelming majority of people will see that it's blue and black. What explains that extraordinary convergence? — Isaac
Yes, and different private experiences are the best explanation for the different responses. — Michael
It is reasonable to assume that most people are being honest and that, like me, first the dress appears to have certain colours and then (if they choose) they describe the colours. — Michael
in normal lighting conditions objects which reflect a certain wavelength of light always appear to have a certain colour to me, and always appear to have a certain colour to you, and as children when shown such objects we are told that it is blue, and so we come to associate the word "blue" with the colour we see. — Michael
But you were arguing earlier that even language-less creatures see colours. Now you're saying the only reason we're the same is that we were taught the language. You're using our response again (saying 'blue') and then just inserting this other element (a colour experience) in between the actual light and our response to is without any need for it to be there. — Isaac
It's not 'reasonable' at all. It don't understand from where you're getting this assumption that assuming the world to be the way you think it is is reasonable, but for others to disagree isn't. — Isaac
b) There's something wrong with my brain - in which case it's perfectly possible for brain to interact directly with the world, and so no reason to think indirect realism is necessary. — Isaac
You're talking to someone who disagrees with you about these 'private experiences' and yet are wanting to use their apparently self-evident nature as evidence. It's directly contradicted by the fact that I don't feel that way. — Isaac
The fact that two people, fluent in English, describe the colours of the dress differently is evidence that the colours the dress appears to have to one are not the colours the dress appears to have to the other. — Michael
Why is it, do you think, that when shown the actual dress in normal lighting conditions the overwhelming majority of people will see that it's blue and black. What explains that extraordinary convergence? — Isaac
es, and different private experiences are the best explanation for the different responses. — Michael
At the very least, the indisputable (to me) reality of my first person experience is proof enough (to me) that me seeing red and me saying “I see red” are completely different things. — Michael
However, I think you would agree that you can't say to me that "I actually see a blue object when I say "I see red object." This make no sense. — Richard B
The indirect realist may want to posit "sense data" as the explanation for the difference between people reporting different colors, and claim it the best explanation. Unfortunately, I would have to break the news to the indirect realist that this is an unnecessary explanation. The car was painted with a pigment called ChromaFlair. When the paint is applied, it changes color depending on the light source and viewing angle. In this example, this was intentionally done, and I am sure this can happen un-intentionally too. — Richard B
My theory has the additional benefit of actually explaining why it is that we sometimes use different words to describe what we see, despite the shared external stimulus — Michael
We can argue over whether this thing is some non-physical mental phenomena like "qualia" or simply physical brain activity, but we need to at least agree that something different is going on in our heads to explain the different descriptions. — Michael
It is certainly insufficient to argue that it is just the case that we use different words, and that there's no further explanation as to why this is. — Michael
And I don’t understand how you think you can gaslight me into rejecting the reality of my first person experience. It is the foundational truth upon which all my other empirical knowledge rests. — Michael
I can see red things without saying so. I can lie about seeing red things. There are no rational (or empirical) grounds for me to deny this about myself. — Michael
Given that your brain is inside your head and the apple is on the table in front of you, in what sense does the brain “interact directly” with the apple? — Michael
Then perhaps you are, in fact, a p-zombie, which would also explain your inability to make sense of p-zombies. Someone who doesn't have anything like first-person experience/qualia isn't going to understand the proposed distinction between something that has them and something that doesn't.
So at best you can argue that it's unreasonable of me to assume that other people are like me rather than like you. Maybe everyone else is like you, and I'm the only person in the world with first-person experience. — Michael
The example of the dress is one such example that cannot be explained away the way you do here. — Michael
I just meant that there's no intermediate object, no 'representation' of an apple. — Isaac
Arguing that sometimes the differences can be explained with reference to the light source and viewing angle doesn't disprove that sometimes the differences must be explained with reference to something other than the light source and viewing angle. — Michael
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