Why stick to mental representation? That just leaves us with phenomenal consciousness and leaves out the bulk of representational content. — frank
Because my comment, to which you replied, was made in the context of the GPT response posted by hypericin, which specifically referred to "mental representations". — Luke
Neither point of view shows the "correct" orientation of the external world because there is no such thing as a "correct" orientation. — Michael
The argument that there is no "correct" orientation or "correct' way of perceiving the world seems to me help make the case for direct realism rather than for indirect realism. Direct realists think it is possible for our perceptions of the world to be veridical, despite there being no "correct" way to perceive it (whatever that might mean). It is indirect realists who seem to think it is impossible for our perceptions to be veridical, and this seems to be because we either do not perceive the world "correctly" or because we cannot know whether we perceive the world "correctly". — Luke
It is neither a contradiction, nor physically impossible, for some organism to have that very same veridical visual experience when standing on their feet. It only requires that their eyes and/or brain work differently to ours.
Neither point of view is "more correct" than the other.
Photoreception isn't special. It's as subjective as smell and taste — Michael
You postulate that we (humans) have the experience with our kind of eyes / brain, so how come you say that another organism must have differently working eyes and brain to have the same experience? — jkop
What do you mean by saying that photoreception is subjective yet not special?
Where I disagree with you is in your apparent view that perception is merely "a passive reception of sensory data", which awaits our awareness (or not). I find it difficult to separate this view from the homunculus view. — Luke
Really? That's a bit surprising. It's been my experience that if you know someone for some length of time, it can happen that you can tell what they are thinking given a specific situation. Not that it's super common, but not a miracle either. — Manuel
There is always mediation though, even in our own case. — Manuel
What we "hear" inside our heads is not "pure" either, it's due to some processes in the brain of which we have no access to. If a person is angry or upset or is sharing an idea about something interesting or whatever, they can do what we are doing right now, putting into words what we think. — Manuel
I don't follow — Manuel
But it isn't even close to telepathy or 'knowing another's thoughts'. It is guessing based on familiarity. — AmadeusD
I'm not sure what this is in reference to, but given I don't take Telepathy as obtaining, I agree. There is mediation in every case of human perception. — AmadeusD
I am aware that this is how communication works. It's indirect. Could you outline what the bit to be discussed is? — AmadeusD
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." — Pierre-Normand
For them to see when standing what we see when hanging upside down it must be that their eyes and/or brain work differently. — Michael
I’m saying that whether or not sugar tastes sweet is determined by the animal’s biology. It’s not “right” for it to taste sweet and “wrong” for it to taste sour. Sight is no different. It’s not “right” that light with a wavelength of 700nm looks red and not “right” that the sky is “up” and the ground “down”. These are all just consequences of our biology, and different organisms with different biologies can experience the world differently. — Michael
You may be a good mind-reader. Or you have special powers! — Manuel
But the distinction is abstract and has no empirical grounds. All one has to do is observe a perceiver and note that only two parties are involved in the perceptual relationship, and all the indirect realist has really done is implied that the perceiver mediates his own perception, which isn’t mediation at all. — NOS4A2
We have to give a good account of telepathy — Manuel
I suppose that reading someone's diaries is as close as one can get, right? Then direct/indirect do not arise here. — Manuel
I am only pointing out what I think are issues with how these issues are discussed. — Manuel
I don't deny that there is such a thing as indirectly knowing something — Manuel
It pertained to the idea - not said by you, but could be assumed by others, that if we had the ability to enter someone's heads, like we are inside ours, we would have "pure" access to thought: mediation is a must, so we agree here. — Manuel
Communication can be indirect, but often is not — Manuel
that people know what their partners or close friends will think about certain things — Janus
They don'tknow it, though, do they? — AmadeusD
I wasn't referring only to myself. I have observed many times that people know what their partners or close friends will think about certain things. This is simply because they know them well, no special powers required. — Janus
Fair. "Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels" — AmadeusD
Well, this isn't accessing someone's thoughts Directly or Indirectly. This is accessing someone's writing. Unsure how to relate it... — AmadeusD
I am. That's inference (using your example to inform me of context - I think is simplistic and under other criteria you can indirectly know something (the shape of something causing a shadow)). You infer from someone's body language that maybe their utterance is veiled, or sarcastic or whatever. Indirect. Agreed. But, it's an inference, not knowledge of anything (you would need to directly confer with S to confirm their actual meaning). — AmadeusD
There is zero space or time between the thought of the other and yours. They are one and the same. No perception involved. This is, as far as I can tell, the only apt version of Telepathy. All others are just further mediation - so, I actually 'agree' with you, but think your example is misleading. — AmadeusD
Could you outline 'direct' communication on your terms (let us simply jettison telepathy for this exercise)? I'll see if, as you likely allude in your concluding passage, that this disagreement is an error in terms rather than in ideas. — AmadeusD
One thing is to have a general indication of what they may be thinking, the other is those moments of knowing exactly what they are thinking. But sure, point taken. — Manuel
which renders it open to investigation. — Manuel
I know of no better way of knowing what someone thinks than reading what they think. — Manuel
We should be able to say that, at least at the time of writing Sam or Sarah thought what they wrote — Manuel
I can say I directly see how a person is behaving and using this information, I can directly ascertain what they are thinking. — Manuel
It's all direct. — Manuel
Another option is to say, I indirectly see how a person is behaving based on my mental architecture I have (I am a human being, not God) to try to get what the other person is indirectly thinking - since I have no access to any mind but my own, thus everything is indirect. — Manuel
an honest report of what a person is thinking is not direct. — Manuel
What you and I are doing right now. This is direct communication between my thoughts and yours. I am writing down what I am thinking at the moment I am writing these words, and you read them in real time and respond with what's in your mind. — Manuel
I disagree, but thats important. This does nothing for the discussion. If there is no better way to 'hear someone's thoughts, all we're doing is concluding that Direct Perception isn't possible wrt to another's thoughts, in these terms. It doesn't mean we have to call it Direct because we can telepathise. That seems to be a semantic issue — AmadeusD
I'm unsure that's true. What of Automatic writing? Stream-of-consciousness? Is it a matter of degree? I have written things down months after thinking them (in the proper sense) and only recalled the thought I had initially. Is my writing an accurate depiction of the thought? I think not (hehe). — AmadeusD
If someone tells me what they are thinking, how could I possibly know that this represents their thought? Well, actually, I know that it doesn't. They have told me the thought the had about telling me about their thought. Not their thought. See what I mean? — AmadeusD
I quite strongly disagree, and think this framing is a mere convention to avoid people constantly doubting the honesty of an interlocutor. As an example of why I think your account (this specific one) fails, is because I could be lying to you. — AmadeusD
What terms? — Manuel
I mean you are expressing your thoughts right now by posing these questions. — Manuel
that is, non-linguistic thought, but we don't have a clue on how to do that. We end up expressing our thoughts with words. — Manuel
You could present to me an image of a flower, and say, I was thinking about this, and point to the flower, indicating a kind of visual thinking. But I take that your "thinking about", was about the phenomenon flower, but it must be expressed linguistically. — Manuel
you wrote something down, you weren't thinking about these things. — Manuel
or something along these lines. — Manuel
Sure, but why would you in this case? — Manuel
It is indirect realists who seem to think it is impossible for our perceptions to be veridical, and this seems to be because we either do not perceive the world "correctly" or because we cannot know whether we perceive the world "correctly". — Luke
You can't say that it doesn't matter if these are indistinct, because otherwise your position becomes direct realism. If the "taste" and your "awareness of the taste" were indistinct then there would be no intermediary and they would both be directly of the object.
In other words, you claim that we have indirect awareness of external objects because our awareness is mediated by our perceptual experience, but you also find no problem in collapsing the distinction between our awareness of our perceptual experience and our perceptual experience. If you collapse this distinction, then you lose the indirectness. — Luke
. If you collapse this distinction, then you lose the indirectness — Luke
I don't see this as a problem. The common factor theorist, presumably an indirect realist, would simply say that there is no fool proof way to establish veridicality. That veridicality is established by inference and probabilistic reasoning, and so is never 100% certain. The fact that challenges to veridicality such as simulation theories can never be put to rest attest to this. — hypericin
The key is that the apple itself and the patterns of light it reflects toward me are not just external facts that I'm inferring or approximating through an internal representation. Rather, they are environmental realities that I am actively making use of, and attuning my visual experience to, through the exercise of my embodied skills. — Pierre-Normand
Must they, though? — jkop
I'd say seeing a colour is neither right nor wrong, it's just a causal fact, how a particular wavelength in the visible spectrum causes a particular biological phenomenon in organisms that have the ability to respond to wavelengths in the visible spectrum. — jkop
Reading through, the play for indirect realism seems to be to pick two supposedly distinct aspects of a perceiver and to have one mediate perception for the other. This gives the impression that there are 3 parties, a relationship that is necessary for mediation, and for indirect realism.
But the distinction is abstract and has no empirical grounds. All one has to do is observe a perceiver and note that only two parties are involved in the perceptual relationship, and all the indirect realist has really done is implied that the perceiver mediates his own perception, which isn’t mediation at all. — NOS4A2
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