You tell me, Socrates. If you're interested, have a think about it and let me know what you come up with. I reckon it could be an interesting avenue.

Well I didn't say that every orientation is a belief.

Doesn't a tree have an orientation toward its environment? But we wouldn't say a tree believes it should grow toward the sun. — frank

You got me.

Maybe something got lost along the way. I agree with jamalrob's statement that a belief is the linguistic rendering of an attitude or a mental state. — Luke

I'd just like to clarify for anyone reading this that when I say "attitude", I don't mean it in the sense of a way of thinking (although it can be that), but more in the sense of an orientation: a bearing on or comportment towards one's environment, other people, and so on.

Just what I was thinking.

So Parmenides, but a soup instead of a sphere. It's weird how philosophy eventually circles back around to its roots, in modern drab. Or maybe Thales? Soup is watery. — Marchesk

You never eat the same soup twice.

Sounds reasonable.

Off the top of my head, yes, so long as we're not talking about the environment as it is beyond a possible perception. I could try to work out a better answer but I don't want to go down that rabbit-hole right now.

Well, for my taste you put too much weight on the synthesizing of the manifold, and not enough on the environment. Too much about the perceiver and not enough about the perceived (or about the relation). I mean, it's not "arbitrary", as you said it was (uncharitable perhaps).

There's no such thing as what an object looks like without someone seeing it. — Isaac

The way I see it, this is just a truism. Maybe you're interpreting it more strongly. I'm not saying the cup in the cupboard doesn't look like anything because nobody can see it.

Knew I'd get through to you one day :grin:

I think jamalrob is arguing that how an object looks, tastes, feels only applies to perception. There's no such thing as what an object looks like without someone seeing it. The indirect realist goes wrong by assuming there is, and then proposing the additional mental intermediary. But there's no need for the intermediary if the act of seeing is what something looks like.

If that sort of argument works, then the debate is rendered moot. There's still a realist question of what objects are independent of perception, but they aren't like perceptions. — Marchesk

Aye I think that's roughly where I stand.

I mistook your critique of indirect realism as a defense of direct realism, even though you briefly mentioned some correlationist stuff at the end. So if I understand you correctly, within a correlationist understanding of the empirical world, we do have direct awareness. But it's a relational one, because that's how perception works.

There isn't a veil of perception hiding us from the world, there is just the empirical world we all live in. The transcendental stuff outside of humans is another matter, and we can't use perceptual talk to reference it. — Marchesk

That's pretty much it, yes, but I want to say that this as a pretty strong realism. The talk of transcendental stuff could be misleading.

However, currently I don't know what my position is regarding realism vs correlationsim, given that there is some obvious conflict there.

Because you're not a direct realist. I don't know why you defend it. — Marchesk

I think the article is quite clear that I'm attacking indirect realism more than advocating direct realism. Indirect realism is a way of thinking about things that does a horrible injustice to the way we perceive the world. Direct realism is better, almost by default.

We await @fdrake's monster post with eager anticipation.

It means the perception is not a faithful mirror of the object, and therefore can't be direct. If we're not aware of objects as they are, then we don't have direct awareness. That's the point. — Marchesk

I get the point, but I think it's not a good one. There is no mirroring going on. Why would you expect direct perception to produce faithful reflections? That's so far from my position I'm not sure how to address it.

But to have a perception of an object which is modified in some way (and even fabricated to some extent) from the real-world source of the sensations which precipitated the perception, is most definitely 'indirect'. — Isaac

I think you go wrong here. What exactly is modified? Taking you at your word, you mean the perception is modified. I don't know what this means. The perception is the result of, or is constituted by, modifications of light, electrical impulses, and so on, but that doesn't say anything about a modification of perception or experience as such. Is there a raw, unmodified perception?

I address this in the "Sensation" section of the article:

http://articles.thephilosophyforum.com/posts/the-argument-for-indirect-realism/#sensation

By the way, I think my argument here works even if what you meant was that the source is modified in the process of perception, and that the perception is somehow a modification of the object.

Maybe.

No! A belief is not a metal state. — Banno

Yes, I see that now. Maybe I was pandering to the masses.

That's a sad story.

I wanted to take the AI course at university when I first started learning programming but they abandoned it at the last minute and I ended up doing tic-tac-toe in C++.

Yeah, I see linguitics, AI, and cognitive science as areas in which philosophy really makes a difference today.

so I deflect — JoeyB

So we're just deflecting at each other now.

One way you could go is to argue that because it's possible, as far as I know, that I am just a brain in a vat hooked up to some cables, or just an encoded consciousness in your computer, as you described, then there's always some doubt about the reality of reality. There is nothing I can point to that proves definitively that this is not the case.

But in my view, that unfalsifiability is not a strength.

I feel honoured to be have been here at the moment you posted this, possibly the longest post in your forum career. I also agree with it--as far as it goes.

I've just realised this is your forum :lol: I'll see myself out — JoeyB

I'm a benevolent caretaker. Carry on.

EDIT: Welcome to the forum :-)

Disagreement is all right. Don't take it personally.

I think I did answer it. If nothing speaks for your hypothesis, and everything against it, then why am I the one who's gotta do all the proving?

There's a difference between computer science and programming. It's like the difference between pure mathematics and engineering. I'm not educated in computer science but I learned how to code through experience. There's nothing about programming that feels relevant to philosophy, to me. I'm an engineer, or craftsman. For others, doing more comp sci kinds of things, I imagine it's different.

It might be the case that the way I think even in everyday software engineering is somehow useful as a way of training me how to think in a disciplined way that might be helpful for philosophy, but it doesn't really seem that way. When I'm programming, it doesn't feel like I'm thinking as such, as much as it feels like working on an engine with a toolbox. If it feels like thinking at all, it's like thinking with my fingers.

The point was that you cannot be sure you are "a body, which very importantly includes a brain." — JoeyB

I think I can, and I am. And I answered this already.

Now you have something that speaks against it. — JoeyB

No, I think what you've given me is a popular idea from science fiction, which some "pioneers" think might be actually possible, but which we have no reason to think actually is.

That's a surprise. I seem to remember having pretty much the same debate with him since I joined the old forum.

I guess that means I've been making the same arguments for years as well.

How can you be so sure you are a body "which very importantly includes a brain"? — JoeyB

Everything speaks for it, and nothing against it.

Agreed.

It seems you are rather stuck — Marchesk

Coming from the guy who's been making the same arguments for at least 5 years. :wink:

No, I think that's wrong. The widely known fact that dogs don't see colours as we do does not put a dent into anyone's conception of perception.

The difference between computer programming and philosophy is like the difference between making a table and making a sculpture: if you've gone wrong your code will produce an error and your table won't stand up right, but in philosophy and sculpture you never get that: it's harder to tell. In philosophy, there's no agreement as to what the proper objects, settings, and parameters should be in the first place. Philosophy is the practice of trying to work that out.

I suppose I would have thought, in my naivety, that the very fact that the aspect of perception we actually experience is filtered, summarised and condensed, would make it de facto indirect. If not, then I'm lost as to what indirect might be referring to. — Isaac

Allow me to jump in here. Let me use the word perspective to encompass all of this, meaning just the way perception works, given that perception is of things and is not the things themselves. We perceive from a point of view, and in a certain way, as you describe. We cannot perceive otherwise, so what is the asserted or possible non-perspectival perception to oppose your "indirect" to? It looks like Russell's argument that because the light reflected from a rectangular table-top projects a non-rectangular patch on to the retina, perception must be indirect. But would anyone demand that to be direct, the table-top would have to project a rectangular shape on to the retina? Is there actually a naive position that is somehow corrected by the idea that perception happens from a perspective and in a certain way?

A Naïve Realist Theory of Colour by Keith Allen is an example — Michael

Point taken. I'd be interested to read his argument.

What would life be like without a body i.e. you are just a brain/mind/consciousness.

You might find this easier to visualise as;

You are born in a body without any senses. You are kept alive by artificial means, but you don't know it. — JoeyB

When you say "you", you're referring to me, and I am a body, which very importantly includes a brain. Are you presuming, without argument, that I and you are brains or minds first, and only bodies by a lucky accident of evolution?

This post is mostly an attempt to get us closer to disagreeing about the same thing. — fdrake

Beautifully put.

I'm not sure any more. I may come back to it.

Yes, good point, and a good example: was the article even committed to or advocating some positive doctrine called direct or naive realism? I gathered not. — bongo fury

You gathered pretty much right. The article is mostly demolition, not construction. On the other hand, if perception is not generally indirect in any significant sense, or is at least not indirect in the sense that Hume and Russell and others have used, then I guess it's direct. In some sense.

Can't we be questioning mental representations altogether? — bongo fury

Yes please. I only gestured towards that in the article when I mentioned the significance of the debate for cognitive science: computationalism vs embodied/enactivism/connectionism/dynamical systems and all that.

Give me an example.

EDIT: Ah, you edited to give an example. In that case, can you find a relevant quotation?