He will happily talk about not seeing objects, but seeing light — Banno

Or, as is in fact the case, I've been very careless with my words and you have no interest whatsoever in anything but destructive commentary. Far be it from me, mate. You're allowed.

That thread is actually what made me realise interacting with you was pointless.

1. All knowledge comes either from sensory perception (e.g., visually perceiving a mountain) or reasoning (e.g., solving an algebraic equation).

2. Both perception and reasoning occur in our minds.

3. The external world is, by definition, “external,” which is outside our minds.

Therefore:

4. Because everything we know exists in our minds, we can not have any knowledge about the external world. — Thales

There's an (in)famous counter to this, from David Stove, a parody:
1. One only ever tastes oysters with one's mouth
2. Therefore one never tastes oysters as they in themselves
3. Therefore we do not know how oysters taste

Do you still think that argument you presented in the OP is convincing? Since you did present it, should we take it that you have some doubt?


Your account is muddled. Blaming me won't fix it.
And yet here you are...

if you read that as “blaming you” for anything but your own mistakes then, again, mate, far be it from me.
But it certainly helps to contextualise you.

Righto.

What is the light reflected/refracted by?
— wonderer1

No idea. My part in the process(and as such, the point at whcih I could say anything about it) comes after that, as best I can tell. I could say "the objects" but then im stuck with literally nothing else to say about it. — AmadeusD

Hopefully your philosophy poisoning isn't so deep that you can't recover.

My experience off this forum has me tending toward thinking the poison is quite well contained here :)

My experience off this forum has me tending toward thinking the poison is quite well contained here — AmadeusD

And yet here you argue that you don't know anything about the world around you. So I don't know why we should take you seriously when you talk about experience off the forum.

*shrug* If that's what you 'see', fair enough :)

And yet here you argue that you don't know anything about the world around you. So I don't know why we should take you seriously when you talk about experience off the forum. — wonderer1

In my view, everyone is equal in their worth. There are learning opportunities to be had from everyone, no matter if we agree or disagree with them. For example, what I learn from just a brief reading of these correspondences is that some people are quick to jump on the bandwagon when someone else's comments are not being valued or respected.

If I had any sway in anything, which I don't believe I do, I would tend to encourage people not to write comments that are too negative on here, especially if they are personally directed at specific people because then there develops a situation where people naturally become defensive. It is understandable. But the way I see it is that we are all here in our precious free time to enjoy thought provoking discussion. It seems unfortunate if that time is spent in a negative way. But I am also experienced enough to know that is what often happens in life.

My experience off this forum has me tending toward thinking the poison is quite well contained here :) — AmadeusD

I also learn that AmadeusD appears to have faith in the people in this forum, and since he has been using this forum for longer than me, I am encouraged to also see the good in people on here too.

using this forum for longer than me — Beverley

Heh - I am barely a fledgling - I just post a lot because I am able to, and am currently studying so it's useful. Plenty of regular users have been here going on a decade (and from a previous iteration!). I'm still in the 'driveby' window, by my lights haha... and, related, I was intimating the 'poison' was confined to the forum. But it was entirely jest - I don't know why people get so serious here.

I was intimating the 'poison' was confined to the forum. — AmadeusD

Ah okay, I may have misread this, thinking that you meant there may be poison on here but it is well controlled. But anyway, I had the feeling before that you seem to think generally that people are fair on here. Maybe I misinterpreted that, but it seems to have stuck in my perceptions of things.

Oh for sure. 7/10 posters I think are normal people. The other 3 (on avg) are the same 3 I would pick out of a house party as the obnoxious ones. The intimation was simply that "philosophical poison" seems well-contained within the forum, and hasn't come to me from without.

One thing I do note though, is that people here, versus any real-life philosophical context, seem very quick to anger, dismiss and generally be dicks if they're either not getting something, or someone else is doing something they don't like. More than likely, me included. And that counts against it.

Relax. All is not lost.

Might it help to examine whether the other senses meet the same criteria you’ve assigned to vision?

I mean…jeeeezzz, ain’t it nonsense to suppose actual basketballs impress the eyes? Imagine how much that would HURT!!! Nevertheless, on the other hand, it is actually quite necessary that actual oysters (technically, some thing conceived of, named by, and eventually experienced as, “oyster”) impress the tongue. How in the HELL would you even call that slimey mess an “oyster”….or whatever you did end up calling it…. if it never hit the sensory device which allows that kind of determination? Does one ever call it an “oyster” because it sounds like Ravel’s “Bolero”?
(Sigh)

Perception does not occur in the mind; it occurs in the senses. Why the fork else would there even BE senses? What is done with what the senses inform you of, is in the mind.
(Crap-on-a-cracker, I hate that word. There is no mind; there is only reason. Or something. Whatever it is that humans have. What kinda fool denies whatever it is that humans have, huh??? Except rabid physicalists, but they don’t count. Sorta like analytic philosophers. You know….forest-trees/map-territory paradigmatic deniers)
(Double sigh)
————-

Stove’s Gem? Ehhhh…don’t worry ‘bout that Happy Horse-hockey. Guy just wondered how stupid things could get, and to give an example of it, he did something stupid. Wanna defeat Stove’s Gem? Just don’t do what he did, which 99%…..ok, fine: 80%…..of otherwise intelligent humans never did do in the first place. DUH!!!!)
(Double-double sigh)
———-

Now that we got the attaboys out of the way, time for the awww-crap’s.

It make no sense to infer the existence of real, external objects, as the sole criterion of their reality. Kinda silly to trip over the dog, but only credit the dog’s existence to the inference there was something there to trip over. Which would you have done first? If you tripped over the dog it means you didn’t know it was there, so why bother inferring it’s existence from the floor onto which you’ve quite unceremoniously planted your face? Nahhh…the damn dog was already there, which makes explicit you didn’t need any inference at all for it.

And if that don’t blow your dress up, think of it this way: inference is a logical maneuver, and there is no logic whatsoever in perception. Aristotle said so, as did his somewhat chronologically removed protege. I believe him, or, them, and so should you. Trust me; I wouldn’t steer you wrong, Honest.

Anyway…just sayin’. Even if you don’t believe a word of it, wasn’t it more fun to read that what’s passed as philosophical discourse here recently?

Absolutely fantastic post; and I thank you immensely for hte tone and nature of it.

(Sigh) — Mww

To this point, I'm with you. I am about 99.5% sure that actual objects are presented, in some way, to our actual sense organs. I would need to ask though, is that enough for you to say we 'see' those objects? If so, alrighty. It doesn't do that for me.

Perception does not occur in the mind; it occurs in the senses. — Mww

I can't make sense of this. Where are 'the senses'? Are they in the sense organs? Or in the mind? I can't see that could be anywhere else. Additionally, perception seems to be defined in various ways. Most seem to begin post-sense - meaning, perception is what is done with the sensory information to create the experience it either constitutes, or initiates. Can you let me know where you see that as incorrect?

What is done with what the senses inform you of, is in the mind. — Mww

See above. This appears to be what perception is, on most accounts. But, aside from that, I suppose I do not see the mechanics the same as you do. I also then bring in to the discussion, the problem of inaccurate sensory perception. Meaning, there's weak reason to think that what you're "informed of" is necessarily information about any actual objects, as it were. It could be informing you that your eyes are fucked

Kinda silly to trip over the dog, but only credit the dog’s existence to the inference there was something there to trip over. — Mww

I really don't see a problem with doing so. I mean, adding that correlation with vision helps doesn't alter my argument, but would help on your end :) My problem with that restriction is that we don't have any other experience of the dog. Inference is the only available avenue to infer (in the "posit" sense) that it is an external, real, mind-independent object: That we have an experience of it.

If you tripped over the dog it means you didn’t know it was there — Mww

Not so. I could have run too fast, I could have slipped on something, I could have forgotten in preconsciousness, I could have been mistaken about where I was stepping or where the dog was etc... But more importantly, I find you to be describing experiences. Experiences occur in the mind.

Where is the mechanism by which we 'directly' access these objects? You nearly touched on it with the basketball quip - but, in actuality, it would need to impress on the visual experience itself, for the claim to hold. And that seems plainly impossible, as it's not physical.

inference is a logical maneuver, and there is no logic whatsoever in perception. — Mww

I do not think I agree here. I think, ala Kant, this is how we perceive. Using a priori concepts, logically consistent as to allow for possible experience, to organise sensory information into an experience.

wasn’t it more fun to read that what’s passed as philosophical discourse here recently? — Mww

105.33%

We are biological entities, engendered and evolved in a physical environment, governed by and dependent for survival on the same physical laws as are all the inanimate and animate entities in that 'outside world'. Being delimited by a thin layer of dermis and epithelium does not truly divide us from the physical world of which we are a product and in which we live.

Before we evolved to the point of being able to perceive and reason, we received sensory input and nourishment from that same physical outside; we responded to it, interacted with it, injected waste products into it, manipulated and altered it.

Why should be we not be able to say how we experience it, now that we can enhance, measure and articulate our sensory input? — Vera Mont

This was the very first response in the discussion and it might still be the best one. It eschews a direct engagement with the OP's argument and instead offers a better conceptual framework (or paradigm or what have you), one that can replace the worn out assumptions of the early moderns. Philosophical advances tend to be made that way, rather than with direct point-by-point refutations.

But some philosophers, or enthusiasts of philosophy at least, tend to cast such responses as philosophically naive, as if the modern scientific conception of lifeforms reciprocally engaged with their environments, while it might be okay for practical purposes, is inadequate to the higher demands of philosophy, where it obviously just begs the question (because evil demons and the Matrix and so on).

The OP begins in the head. Vera is saying, let's begin in the world. My question is for everyone here: is there a serious problem with this? If you say it's begging the question, that scepticism about knowledge and about the external world is still appropriate, then don't you need grounds for that doubt? In the face of our knowledge of the world, of the evolution of animals, of ethology, anthropology, and sociology, what warrant do philosophy enthusiasts have to carry on interrupting by saying, ah, but couldn't it all be a dream?

In any case, what justification is there for beginning in the head anyway? Developmentally, we are social first, and only later retreat into our thoughts.

I specifically mention philosophy enthusiasts rather than philosophers per se, because as far as I can tell, the latter indulge in this kind of scepticism as a teaching tool for the history of philosophy, and no longer take it very seriously. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong about that.

We've had two centuries* of philosophers rejecting the solipsistically-inclined philosophy of Descartes and Kant's epistemology of the independent bourgeois individual, etc. When is everyone else going to catch up?

* Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein all reject the Cartesian starting point in philosophy

and that’s a very, very good reason to reject that position.

I would need to ask though, is that enough for you to say we 'see' those objects? — AmadeusD

I prefer to say my sensory devices are affected by them. Any object is an effect on each sensory device according to that device’s physiology, and from which a corresponding sensation ensues in each, which just is to perceive.

….perception is what is done with the sensory information to create the experience…. — AmadeusD

Cognition is what is done with sensory information. Experience is cognition by conjoined perceptions. Each in its place, doing only its job, as a system should.

Where is the mechanism by which we 'directly' access these objects? — AmadeusD

Wasn’t that the whole point of my intervention here? We don’t directly access anything; we have the capacities and abilities by which things are given access to us.

And now the really cool part: do you see how the thread title is backwards?

"we can not have any knowledge about the external world." That is true. But, if we can not have any knowledge about the external world, then we can't even say that this "external world" exists. So there would only be an "internal" world. But how could there be an "internal world" without an external one? So it means that our so-called "internal world" is not "just internal", "sadly internal"... It is the world itself.
(source: Brief Solutions to Philosophical Problems Using a Hegelian Method, Solution 2)

This was the very first response in the discussion and it might still be the best one. It eschews a direct engagement with the OP's argument and instead offers a better conceptual framework (or paradigm or what have you), one that can replace the worn out assumptions of the early moderns. Philosophical advances tend to be made that way, rather than with direct point-by-point refutations.


The OP begins in the head. Vera is saying, let's begin in the world. My question is for everyone here: is there a serious problem with this?

:up: :100:

Agreed. As Steven Jensen says in his "The Human Person," if one begins in the "box" of the mind (or inside the "box" of language) one never gets back outside of it. The solution is "to not start out from inside the box in the first place." A paradigm shift is required. Ideas are not "what we experience," but rather "how we experience."

It is just like how we write using a computer. We do not say "we cannot write, it is impossible, because it is always a computer (or a pen, pencil, etc.) that does the writing, and a medium (computer, paper, mud, etc.) that receives the writing." We are the ones that write, the computer/pen/finger is the tool we use to perform this act, and the word processor/paper is the medium by which writing is recorded. To see the computer/pen as an insurmountable barrier between us and the capacity for writing is to fundementally misunderstand the relationships at work here.

It is a a fallacy of composition, the bad assumption being that things are infinitely decomposable, that one can take the whole of human action and break it down into "parts" without losing anything. The world is first removed from the analysis , and then we are shocked that the world is gone. It is, in a way, another one of the ways in which smallism, the dogma that all facts about larger wholes must be fully represented in facts about "smaller, and thus more essential," parts leads to a blind alley. "Neurons do not see, thus man is blind."

From the birth of semiotics, the study of meaning, as a distinct area of inquiry with Saint Augustine, we have seen the process represented in terms of a tripartite structure. There is the object known, the sign by which it is known, and that which interprets the sign. Getting stuck in the boxes of ideas or language requires presupposing that signs are an impermeable barrier between objects and interpretants, rather than the means connecting the two and transmitting the intelligibility of objects. The mistake lies in assuming that meaning must be totally reducible to just the interpretant (or in the case of positivism, that truth lies only in the object).


For me, a key realization was that the concerns over being stuck in such boxes are not remotely new. While these are often presented as horrible truths about the limits of knowledge that we stumbled upon after recognizing the "dogmas," of earlier ages, this is not the case. Radical skepticism, getting trapped in the box, the impossibility of communication, relativism — these all show up from the very birth of philosophy. They are in the Platonic Dialogues, and in the pre-Socratics as well. Aquinas comes up with Berkeley's position, but considers it to be a reductio ad absurdum.

They were effectively dealt with through philosophical anthropology, a field now unfortunately neglected. Human beings are essentially involved in veracity. The Sophists announcing the relativism of all concepts, the impossibility of communication or knowledge, the absence of anything that might be called "truth," nonetheless feels the need to convince others that these things "are true." Finding communication impossible, they strike out to communicate this to others. Finding truth impossible to grasp, they set out to make others grasp this truth.

In general, Socrates' strategy is to show how the Sophists don't even pretend to believe their own words. In their abandonment of veracity in principle, they come to stand on nothing, yet even still are spurred on by a vestigial sense of veracity in trying to convince others that "they are right that they cannot be right." The Sophists are generally not rebutted, rather they lapse into sullen silence after it is shown that, if they were right, they should not bother speaking, nor should they even trust in their own opinion.

Great post. I particularly appreciate two things: the analogy of writing, which I’d never thought of before (I’ll probably use that in future); and the idea that the back-and-forth between radical sceptics and their opponents is perennial, rather than just a debate of the modern period.

Cognition is what is done with sensory information. — Mww

I think its likely we are speaking the same metaphysical language here, but i can see i'm working from imprecise uses of those two words as i can find conflicted definitions/uses around the net.

On this usage though, I'm with you.

we have the capacities and abilities by which things are given access to us — Mww

I really, really like this formulation and it answers much of where my issues have been by removing the entire issue of "see/to see" linguistic indeterminacy. I guess this makes sense as you helped me through many passages that got me where I see myself now, in regard to this question of access.

do you see how the thread title is backwards? — Mww

I do, now. It didn't occur to me that that also solves my mental conflict around the different perspectives in the last couple of pages. Much appreciated :)

its likely we are speaking the same metaphysical language here — AmadeusD

Yeah, but you know…..even though we share a language, it remains we may hold with different systems into which that common language fits. For me, “perception” is this and only does that, for you “perception” may be something quite different. So it is with CPR: it is a system, thought out and written as complete in itself. Whether it is right or not is irrelevant, it only matters that it is complete, and…..well, you know….logically comprehensible.

I really, really like this formulation…. — AmadeusD

And it answers how the thread title is backwards: the real transition loss, is from world to mind. Even science grants that, in the exchange of energy forms always and necesarily involves loss of data or information or whatever you want to call it. It follows that anything given to the mind, meaning anything exchanging domain from the external as one energy form, to the internal in a very different energy form, something will be lost in the transition.

The secondary mark of truth is that for which the negation is also true. As such, it is true there is no possible loss of data or information or whatever you want to call it, from mind to world, re: the thread title, insofar as the mind creates or generates or composes of its own accord all the data with which it is concerned, it follows that a loss created from itself, is impossible.

Long story short….loss in transition from mind to world? There isn’t any. Or maybe better yet, it makes no sense to say there is such a thing.
————

Much appreciated — AmadeusD

Thanks, but, I gotta say…whatever you got from me I got from CPR, which reduces to, insofar as there’s no measurable qualifier to support I’m that much smarter than you, you could have got it from CPR on your own. Might just be a matter of time spent on study. Personal attachment of value. Relative significance. Dunno.

the back-and-forth between radical sceptics and their opponents is perennial, rather than just a debate of the modern period. — Jamal

Yes, the debate on skepticism is perennial, but the notion of consciousness is arguably modern, as is the conceptual separation of consciousness from the object that one is conscious of.

From this separation follows a skepticism that is radical enough for Berkeley to get rid of the object entirely, and keep only consciousness (or ideas). In this sense idealism is the result of a radically skeptic assumption. Also indirect realists assume that we never see objects and state of affairs directly, but typically play down the significance of the skepticism. My guess is that forthcoming periods won't be as skeptic as the modern.

It follows that anything given to the mind, meaning anything exchanging domain from the external as one energy form, to the internal in a very different energy form, something will be lost in the transition. — Mww

I think its more than is being allowed, on some of the conceptions in this thread, though. Reading a passage from North-Whitehead this morning struck me as highly relevant:

"The ultimate momentary 'ego' has as its datum the 'eye as experiencing such-and-such sights'. In the second quotation*, that reference to the number of physical points is a reference to the excited area on the retina. Thus the 'eye as experiencing such-and-such sights' is passed on as a datum from the cells of the retina through the train of actual entities forming the relevant nerves, up to the brain. Any direct relation of eye to the brain is entirely overshadowed by this intensity of indirect transmission"

*from Hume's Treatise, wanting to know how the eye is sensible of anything by coloured points (in space, assumably).

On this type of thinking (which is my intuitive mode, and has remained so even having sorted out many other problems in my thinking) gives me a distinct feeling that

the mind creates or generates or composes of its own accord all the data with which it is concerned — Mww

is true, and that arguments around "direct perception" don't even get off the ground, when it comes 'the external world'. I am loathe to present anything it seems your view is, but it appear you must conclude this from the bits and pieces you have proffered. I just cannot understand how Jamal inter alia, is able to talk about that "direct perception" with a straight face, anymore.

Might just be a matter of time spent on study. — Mww

This, and my dumb, uninformed, choice to get a second-tier translation of the A version.