Wittgensteinian is interesting to the extent he lets you know the logical conclusions of analytic philosophy where the only objective is to define your terms and forget about the world — Hanover
If someone with normal color vision looks at a tomato in good light, the tomato will appear to have a distinctive property—a property that strawberries and cherries also appear to have, and which we call “red” in English. The problem of color realism is posed by the following two questions. First, do objects like tomatoes, strawberries and radishes really have the distinctive property that they do appear to have? Second, what is this property? (Byrne & Hilbert 2003: 3–4)
I really think everyone is over-thinking my initial thought. — Mp202020
Do you mean that he revealed this about analytic philosophy with his criticisms, or do you mean to characterize his own philosophy as exemplifying this "objective"? The former is an interesting take, but the latter seems obviously wrong. — Jamal
Well, we still have the hard problem to contend with here. If colors are not parts of pens, then how can they be parts of neurons, or neural processes?You seem to misunderstand my point. Dreams can be about things but dreams are still mental phenomena, caused by neural activity in the brain.
So your claim that distal objects are the intentional objects of waking experience and so therefore colours are mind-independent properties of these distal objects is a non sequitur.
Intentionality simply has no relevance to the dispute between colour eliminativism and colour realism. — Michael
I never was asserting direct realism. What I was asserting is that we can still get at what objects are by using only our experiences of them. Indirect realism coupled with determinism is how you do it. Causes necessarily determine their effects. Effect carry information about their causes. Only by interpreting the correct causal pattern can we get at the way things are.If you're conceding our perceptions might just be a pragmatic stimulus to navigate the world, which may or may not bear any resemblance to the object, then we're agreeing. If the pen is not red, but just appears red, then you're not asserting a direct realism. — Hanover
It seems to me that the distinction between direct and indirect realism is useless. Would you say that you have direct or indirect access to your mental phenomenon?I'm finding it hard to tell whether you're partial to an indirect, or a direct conception of perception. But, given my own position i'll respond to what I see:
The first part: Fully agree. Understanding that C fibres fire, travel to the brain, and hte brain creates an illusion of "pain in the toe" rather than "signals from the toe being translated to pain to ensure I address the injured toe" has nothing to do with whether there is pain "in the toe". There plainly is not.
However, these are scientific explanations: The way pain works shuts down the option of direct perception of it. Hanover has made a similar point, and also noted that it just goes ignored - hand-waved away instead of confronted.
The science of perception, optical physiology, psychology and (in this context) the mechanics of pain fly in the face of a 'direct perception' account. It isn't even coherent, which has been shown several times. I personally find it helpful to continue the discussion, because it helps to streamline and economize responses to clearly inapt descriptions of experience. Intuitive, yes, but as helpful as folk psychology in understanding what's 'really' going on.
BUT, even with ALL of that said, if the point is that perception is necessarily indirect, then science can only get us so far. Observations are all we have - and I think Michael and I hit a bit of a curvy dead end with this issue. But, personally, I'm happy to just say science is the best use of our perception in understanding regularities of nature. Not much more could be said, unless we're just going to take the socially-apt chats about it at face value for practical reasons. In that case "science is objective" makes sense - but is just not true. — AmadeusD
Well, we still have the hard problem to contend with here. — Harry Hindu
If colors are not parts of pens, then how can they be parts of neurons, or neural processes? — Harry Hindu
Was it using ONLY one sense? Did it involve ONLY using your senses? — Harry Hindu
Yes, but unfortunately there are many who take this view, that dreams cannot be identified, as proof of something metaphysical, even if they rarely state what. It's one of the most repeated memes hereabouts, usually followed by an ellipsis rather than a conclusion...Good thing I never made that claim then. — Lionino
You say you use words in some way other than saying them?
— Hanover
This seems telling. Yes, we all use words in ways other than to simply make statements. You know that. We use them to do all manner of things, from making promises to declaring war. — Banno
I changed it to show that language is more central to this issue than you seem to hold. To say that 'all we do with words is to say them' is to trivialise the way our world works.You changed what I said to salvage what you said. — Hanover
The definition of "red pen" is that thing that is out there that appears in my head as red. — Hanover
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