Does it imply that our perceptions are not direct? Could there be other factors involved in perception apart from the the object of perception, sensory organs, memories and experiences?
What does it mean for our perception to not exist in a material level? Our perceptions and dreams can have a causal impact on the world, no different than when a errant baseball smashes a window. — Harry Hindu
If it did shut down completely you wouldn't be able to wake up to loud (and possibly dangerous) noises in the world.Images in dreams are interesting in the sense that, the dreamer sees images that don't exist in the external world. Where do the dream images come from? You say, well from your memories, experience, and amalgamation of what you have seen before. But there are also images that you have never seen, experienced or the places that you have never been in your life previously in your life.
Where then those images come from?
Of course all the mental images you see and dream exist in your brain. Then while sleep, your brain is supposed to shut down too. — Corvus
But this goes back to what I said about thinking that humans are separate from the world. We are not. If the ideas in our mind can cause things to happen in the world then it seems to me that the mind is on the same level as the world. You are simply trying to make a special case for minds, but all that does is cause problems in trying to explain how the mind and world can interact causally when we know that they can - from experience.Let say, you are seeing a wall in front of you. You see the rows of bricks piled to make up the wall. But you also notice, the wall is level with the fence next to it. The walls and fence exist in the external wall in material level (materially, you can go and touch and inspect the walls and fences). But the levelness you perceive don't exist in the world. It exists in your mind or the perceiver's mind. — Corvus
Ideas exist. They have a causal impact on our behavior in the world. The idea of Santa Claus causes some people to behave in certain ways in the world. To say that Santa Claus exists in the world instead of in your mind is to simply make a category mistake, not that Santa Claus doesn't exist. It does exist - as an idea, and it exists on the same level as the world because the idea can cause things to happen in the world. That is not to say that the world is made of ideas. Ideas are a complex arrangement of information and it is information that is fundamental, not ideas.Likewise, absence of sound, emptiness of space don't exist in material level, but they are perceived by the perceiver in the mind.
Now, the levelness of the walls, absence of sounds (silence), emptiness of space don't exist. Are they then pure product of mind, which are caused by the external objects? Or are they something that exist in the world without being noticed until the perceiver notices them? Because everything we perceive must come from external world. — Corvus
If it did shut down completely you wouldn't be able to wake up to loud (and possibly dangerous) noises in the world. — Harry Hindu
The same type of thing you experience when you make predictions, goals, solve problems, etc. Imagining is part of the process that we use to make predictions and solve problems. One might argue that the more imaginative you are, the more intelligent you are, as you are able to come up with novel ideas to solve problems. When we are awake, most us are able to distinguish between what the world is informing us via our senses and what we imagine. Some with mental disorders like schizophrenia are unable to make this distinction.Seeing something means there was an object in the physical world, which came into your retina in the form of lights, and activated your neurons and converted into images, which was transferred into your brain. But in the case of seeing an object in your dreams, you have no external object, which causes all the seeing process.
So what are you actually seeing, when you are seeing a tiger trying to attack you in your dream? — Corvus
The same type of thing you experience when you make predictions, goals, solve problems, etc. Imagining is part of the process that we use to make predictions and solve problems. — Harry Hindu
Combining image 1 and 2? doesn't make sense to me. How do you combine images? Combine something means mixing something. To mix something you must add 1 substance to the other substance, which is only possible with liquid or powder stuff. If you put down image 1 to image 2, then image 2 will be invisible blocked by the image1. What is going on here?That's basically what amalgamate means. Combining image 1 with image 2 results in an image that is neither image 1 or 2. So, the answer is obviously, yes. — night912
You were talking about the images, but suddenly now you are talking a person called someone?Someone who isn't Elon Musk with Bill Gates, Taylor Swift or Madonna — night912
I don't. Do you? Why do you want to come up with a new image?To come up with a new image. — night912
Combining image 1 and 2? doesn't make sense to me. How do you combine images? Combine something means mixing something. To mix something you must add 1 substance to the other substance, which is only possible with liquid or powder stuff.
If you put down image 1 to image 2, then image 2 will be invisible blocked by the image1. What is going on here?
You were talking about the images, but suddenly now you are talking a person called someone?
I don't. Do you? Why do you want to come up with a new image?
That is why I explained in the same post that you cherry-picked that predictions are a type of imagining, and dreams are a type of imagining where you do not have the external world to ground your experience.Seeing a tiger attacking you in your dream is "seeing something" i.e. seeing an image and motion. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with making predictions, solving problems etc. — Corvus
Seeing images in your dreams and making predictions are totally different things happening in your mind. They are not the same activities. Seeing something is visual. Predicting something is imagining. There are two types of prediction. One by your hunch, and the other by inductive reasoning. Both activities involve your intention, will and inference.What it is like for you to make a prediction and to imagine things when you are awake? — Harry Hindu
Seeing images in your dreams and making predictions are totally different things happening in your mind. They are not the same activities. Seeing something is visual. Predicting something is imagining. There are two types of prediction. One by your hunch, and the other by inductive reasoning. Both activities involve your intention, will and inference.
Seeing visual images in your dreams is random events happening without any of above. Plus it is visual operation with no imagination, guessing or reasoning. — Corvus
I saw a tiger in my dream. I do vividly remember the image of the tiger, so that I can even draw it on a piece of paper how it looked. It is a visual experience, which is similar to the visual perception you have in your daily life.Imagine imagining something when you don't have the world imposing itself on your senses and mind. The imagining would seem real, like your dream does. The dream would take the place of the world precisely because the world is absent when you are asleep. — Harry Hindu
Hegel and Kant have written about the images we see in our dreams as "inner impressions" which are different type of impressions coming from the external world.You're not seeing anything when you dream. Seeing is the process of using your eyes to take in light. The existence of light is a necessary component of seeing. Can you see anything when the lights are out? You are simply misusing terms. — Harry Hindu
So where do the images come from? Does this phenomena implies that human perceptions could occur without actual existence of objects? Do human perceive things all differently?
Can humans perceive objects which don't exist? — Corvus
So it seems that our minds are not completely shut off from the world and we interpret external stimuli as part of the dream. — Harry Hindu
Which is a good explanation for our cognitive biases becoming more rigid the more we focus on just information that aligns with what we already know. And why broadening our knowledge is key to becoming truly wise. — Christoffer
However, the OP was more interested in discussing and find out the nature of the visual images we see in our dreams, rather than how dreams work, and why we dream. — Corvus
But some of the images are the ones that we never came across in daily lives, or have anything to do with our experience and memories. The white tiger I have seen my dream for example, was a clear vivid image of a tiger, but I have never seen it in my entire life in real world. — Corvus
So where does it come from? How is it different from the images we see in daily life from the real objects? Are they same type of images? Then how it does not have its real existence of the object? — Corvus
I'm not sure where you're going with the OP question, what you are aiming for, but there's not much more to it than what I described. Our experience is an hallucination bound by a flow of sensory data. Cutting that flow makes us hallucinate freely and our memorized concepts start to merge into new forms, shapes and concepts. The combinations of concepts stored in our memory has an almost infinite amount of combinations. A white tiger included. — Christoffer
I think the consistency of normal experience and our ability to compare to perceptive fabrications (e.g., hallucinations, dreams, etc.) are evidence that something normally is exciting your senses; but what that thing is in-itself is impossible to know. It very well could be a mere idea (like ontological idealists say) or a concrete object (like materialists will say) or an object (like physicalists will say) or something unimaginable. — Bob Ross
You did not see a tiger. You dreamed a tiger. This is how you are misusing terms.I saw a tiger in my dream. I do vividly remember the image of the tiger, so that I can even draw it on a piece of paper how it looked. It is a visual experience, which is similar to the visual perception you have in your daily life.
It has nothing to do with making predictions or imagining something for the reasons I have put down on my previous post. Please read it again, if you haven't. — Corvus
If Hegel and Kant used the term, "see" when talking about dreams they are misusing terms too. You seem to be making a plea to authority here, when it is just as likely that Hegel and Kant could be wrong, especially when they did not have access to the scientific knowledge we have now.Hegel and Kant have written about the images we see in our dreams as "inner impressions" which are different type of impressions coming from the external world.
I have not used any vague terms or fancy words in my posts, but just said seeing images in dreams are different type of images we see when we are awake in daily life.
You seem to be misusing the word "misuse" without knowing what the word "misuse" actually means. — Corvus
Yet again, isn't Hallucination totally different way of seeing non existent objects? You see images of the objects which are existent or non-existent in the external world, but the cause of the seeing is the abnormal state of your brain due to the chemically induced condition? — Corvus
Asking and discussing on seeing non-existence images in dreams and also daily life could tell us more on our perception how it works, which could allow us to explore on the way mind works. — Corvus
I am not too sure on the details of technicality of hallucination on why and how it occurs. But that is my idea on it. Anyway, it is not the OPs interest here. — Corvus
If you think it has no more scope of discussion than talking about hallucination and making predictions, then maybe you are not interested in the topic of the workings of mind and perception. — Corvus
You did not see a tiger. You dreamed a tiger. This is how you are misusing terms. — Harry Hindu
If Hegel and Kant used the term, "see" when talking about dreams they are misusing terms too. You seem to be making a plea to authority here, when it is just as likely that Hegel and Kant could be wrong, especially when they did not have access to the scientific knowledge we have now. — Harry Hindu
In essence, when you see a cup of coffee, it forms a constant stream of information that holds in place and time that shape and form while your memory has categorized what a cup of coffee from past experiences and the interplay between them forms a hallucinatory state of predictions about the next step in time we experience. — Christoffer
Do you mean that we never see a real cup of coffee, but images of constant steam of information from your memory, which is a hallucinatory state of predictions?
I recall debating on this topic before. The direct realists would say, you are seeing a cup of coffee in front of you, and indirect realist would say, you are seeing a sense data of a cup of coffee which seems sounding similar to your suggestion. — Corvus
You say it is a scientific facts, but is it tested, and proven fact? Or would it be just another hypotheses how seeing works? — Corvus
And the third part is the prediction function which they don't even include. — Christoffer
Predictions usually happen when the result of some events, movements of objects or processes are unknown to the predictor. But in visual perception of a cup of coffee, result of the perception is irrelevant with the unknown-ness or uncertainty. This tells us prediction is not relevant in most daily visual perceptions. — Corvus
The OP is also about "non-existing objects" and existing objects. How do we perceive non-existing objects, and what are the nature of non-existing objects? How are they different from existing objects? — Corvus
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