Booo! More infighting and misunderstanding! :D

I think I'm tracking -- you're not a dualist in terms of substance or properties. Maybe a simpler way to put it: some entities which we speak about exist, and some entities which we speak about don't.

And upon coming to find out strange things like the dress, or the various other phenomena which have been mentioned to point out a difference in individual experience, one has a reason to doubt that our experience is like what we thought it was before, whatever that may have been.

My question to the Direct Realist is, if all observers are directly observing the same facts in the external world, then why do different observers make different judgements about the moment when one fact changes into a different fact. — RussellA

Because they're seeing different parts.

Suppose our senses are represented by a circle on a plane -- everything inside the circle is our mental-bodily-insides, and the outside surface of the circle is our sensual limit. This is a world defined by shape, line, space, and relative position. As the surface conforms to other geometric shapes we'll get a different description. In fact, one would actually have to be me the same circle to get the exact same description. But because all reality is perspectival, an unfolding surface, that's impossible. I'm tempted to claim that a phenomenological direct realism predicts that we'll see things differently, but that's not right either (because if it were a transcendental phenomenology, it'd be the opposite)

It's kind of hand-wavey, I'll admit. A loose notion of human nature to explain patterns, but I don't think we must be this or that way. The actual limits of social organization with respect to human nature are unknown, I'd say. which is why I think "feasibility" isn't the right way to look at it -- the right way is to look to one another, because that's how social organisms change is through collective action (rather than theorizing about plausible futures). Especially if we're interested in a realistic communism, or some other system that fulfills the good parts of that idea.

Is the claim that human nature is not fixed the same as the claim that there is no human nature at all? — Jamal

For myself, no. If pressed I'll say human nature leans bad, but contingently so. For one, it's not always easy to determine what is good, so there will be bad from ignorance, and for two, the societies that have tended to survive so far are intentionally built upon selfish desires which tends to make people, unsurprisingly, act more selfishly.

I'm a little doubtful of endless flexibility, but surely the evolutionary picture points out how we're not fixed biologically speaking. And the diversity of cultures shows that we're not fixed culturally speaking either. I think of it as loose constraints and tendencies, some of which are pretty heavily embedded.

But, hey, the Kings don't rule the world anymore either.

I'd separate the question of distinguishing direct from indirect realism and making that choice from the problem of consciousness. I'd also set aside perception from consciousness -- face recognition software perceives in a machine way, but I don't believe it is conscious. Similarly the old P-zombies start coming up the moment consciousness is deemed an illusion of some kind.
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In order to assert anything about consciousness we must be able to access it. If we have an indirect access to whatever that is that is not consciousness, then it seems we have a direct access to consciousness by comparison. In this set up consciousness is a real illusion which is indirectly related to whatever it is that is outside of consciousness, while consciousness itself is direct.

For what is consciousness direct? What is on the other side of conscious experience such that the real illusion is a direct relationship, and the real whatever is outside of the illusion is an indirect relationship?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_in_a_box

That's the highest I went in terms of classes in physics. Very fascinating stuff.

What I found in reflection is that none of the sentences in QM meant something like what I might mean when I'm talking about anything in my life, such as "I went to physical chemistry class today".

Further, QM equations of systems more complicated than hydrogen using this model are not analytically solvable. So there'd be no necessary relation, at least, between these absurdly complicated systems (when we consider them expressed in scientific physical terms) and, say, me walking to physical chemistry class, or my memory of walking to physical chemistry class.

And lastly, absolutely no one really understood all this stuff in their day to day life. So while it's fascinating and reveals unexpected things about reality, it surely can't be the case that it is all there is to reality because we have to grasp reality well enough to have survived this far.

Not so much a refutation as sharing why I am doubtful of scientific realism.

Epicurus' ontology is difficult to puzzle through. The relevant excerpt, I believe:

Further, the whole of being consists of bodies and space. For the existence of bodies is everywhere attested by sense itself, and it is upon sensation that reason must rely when it attempts to infer the unknown from the known. And if there were no space (which we call also void and place and intangible nature), bodies would have nothing in which to be and through which to move, as they are plainly seen to move. Beyond bodies and space there is nothing which by mental apprehension or on its analogy we can conceive to exist. When we speak of bodies and space, both are regarded as wholes or separate things, not as the properties or accidents of separate things.

Again, of bodies some are composite, others the elements of which these composite bodies are made. These elements are indivisible and unchangeable, and necessarily so, if things are not all to be destroyed and pass into non-existence, but are to be strong enough to endure when the composite bodies are broken up, because they possess, a solid nature and are incapable of being anywhere or anyhow dissolved. It follows that the first beginnings must be indivisible, corporeal entities.

Mostly noting the similarity between bodies and space, and everything is some small one-dimensional entity traveling through a multitude of dimensions (as the pop accounts would have it --I don't claim to understand such stuff)

For Epicurus he thought there were very fine atoms which made the mind -- so the mind was a composite of atoms, which isn't too far off from the mind being a composite of neurons.

Later:

We must also consider that it is by the entrance of something coming from external objects that we see their shapes and think of them. For external things would not stamp on us their own nature of color and form through the medium of the air which is between them and use or by means of rays of light or currents of any sort going from us to them, so well as by the entrance into our eyes or minds, to whichever their size is suitable, of certain films coming from the things themselves, these films or outlines being of the same color and shape as the external things themselves. They move with rapid motion; and this again explains why they present the appearance of the single continuous object, and retain the mutual interconnection which they had in the object, when they impinge upon the sense, such impact being due to the oscillation of the atoms in the interior of the solid object from which they come. And whatever presentation we derive by direct contact, whether it be with the mind or with the sense-organs, be it shape that is presented or other properties, this shape as presented is the shape of the solid thing, and it is due either to a close coherence of the image as a whole or to a mere remnant of its parts. Falsehood and error always depend upon the intrusion of opinion when a fact awaits confirmation or the absence of contradiction, which fact is afterwards frequently not confirmed or even contradicted following a certain movement in ourselves connected with, but distinct from, the mental picture presented—which is the cause of error.

For the presentations which, for example, are received in a picture or arise in dreams, or from any other form of apprehension by the mind or by the other criteria of truth, would never have resembled what we call the real and true things, had it not been for certain actual things of the kind with which we come in contact. Error would not have occurred, if we had not experienced some other movement in ourselves, conjoined with, but distinct from, the perception of what is presented. And from this movement, if it be not confirmed or be contradicted, falsehood results; while, if it be confirmed or not contradicted, truth results.

And to this view we must closely adhere, if we are not to repudiate the criteria founded on the clear evidence of sense, nor again to throw all these things into confusion by maintaining falsehood as if it were truth.

A fair interpretation of this translation is that Epicurus is a direct realist, in the sense that our perceptions and senses are directly connected to or apprehend real objects outside of the activity of the brain.

Nothing quite like bundles of properties, though, as I understand that. So different than your distinction where there are different properties, or maybe kinds of properties? Like a property-dualism?

I feel pain when I put my hand in the fire. The pain I feel is "in my head". Do you understand this much? Now just replace "feel pain" with "see red" and "put my hand i the fire" with "open my eyes and look in that direction". It's the exact same principle. — Michael

Yes. Different things have different properties. Pain is a type of brain activity, and apples don't have brain activity so don't have properties of pain. Red is a type of brain activity, and apples don't have brain activity so don't have properties of red. — Michael

So the brain has the properties of colour, shape, sounds, and smells.

The apple, insofar that its properties are one of those, is in the brain.

What are the properties of whatever it is that's not in the brain? And how do we ascertain those?

So it's real, but maybe conscious experiences' properties are different from the properties of whatever is outside of our bodies, and whatever is outside of our conscious experience?


That's the antinomy again. I feel I've already given the best account I can of my side, though I can see it's orthogonal to a lot of the concerns you've presented. I'm trying to puzzle through how you make indirect realism coherent.

Just how you avoid what appears to be the problem for indirect realism: perception is indirectly connected to reality. So how does science get directly connected to reality such that the inference that it is indirectly connected isn't self defeating, and doesn't lead one back to direct perception?

OK. So how do you get to the properties of objects outside of the body when shapes, colours, tastes, and smells are properties that are only inside conscious experience, which is restricted to brain activity?

possible (technically), sure, what about realistic/feasible (in light of observations)? You mentioned "not fixed", which might imply diversity, yes? — jorndoe

In my experience feasibility is an assessment from the perspective of the people in charge. But realistically we only need other people which we unite with, so insofar that enough people unite together for something that they want then you can obtain it. The main barrier to communism is how people don't seem to want it. The cultural antibodies are simply too thick at the moment, and we ourselves are too sick for such a beautiful idea.

But given that the world isn't static it doesn't have to stay that way. That's what I mean by not fixed. The way we relate to each other is ultimately up to us.

I think the distinction is that the direct realist believes that apples and their properties are manifest in conscious experience such that how an object appears is how it is (even when it doesn't appear), whereas the indirect realist believes that the properties which are manifest in conscious experience (e.g. shapes and colours and tastes and smells) are properties only of conscious experience, albeit causally covariant with (and perhaps in a sense representative of) apples and their properties. — Michael

"properties", "manifest", "conscious experience", "cause" -- these are what I'd term metaphysics. Not in the literal sense of the mind being above what is physical, but in terms of that discipline of philosophy which deals with ontology, and these are the sorts of words I'd use in talking about what exists and how we relate to them. There's a way of thinking that states -- this is what exists! And as far as I can tell you believe two things exist: science, and experience. Science is what is real, and experience is what is indirectly connected to science.

This way of using "science" though -- it's not scientific! "Science is real" is a political slogan, or an ontological assertion, but not a scientific truth deduced from the body of knowledge thus far generated, though widely believed. It's what I'd term a philosophical belief.

So what I'm asking is -- how do you get to the "Science is real" when you start with "experience is not-real though causally connected to what is real" ? That's the part I'm failing to understand. Why is science real, philosophically speaking?

Why bother with Kant. It's confused waffle. — Banno

Owie wowie.

Tho I do love waffles...

I'd be interested to know Chomsky's opinion on the IWW's relationship to the future of political activity, if he's willing to share such a broad sentiment.

A main problem I feel in doing philosophy outside of academia is that it's difficult to maintain the same level of rigor and discipline. While minutiae can feel detached, so can the popular. And there are limits to pushing on people's ideas which aren't part of the traditional set of concerns. Further, keeping interest -- given that philosophy does take work, though it's worthwhile work -- is part of it too. (I include myself in here, as I really ought to be reading and tapping out notes to Marx)

Which I think kind of goes to show that there's something of a choice going on between positions, and our choices are largely based upon faults we see in the other position (hence accepting our own)

It has the smell of an antinomy.

I think I am. I believe I've already explained and argued for this above. It's true however that I'm not a metaphysical realist as described in the quote you provided.

The key point is that one sees the apple and not an image of the apple. Hence 'direct.' — plaque flag

Yup.

I don't think perception has anything to do with metaphysics. Perception has to do with biology and psychology and physics. and so science is the appropriate tool to use. — Michael

Couldn't there be a metaphysics of perception? Isn't that the distinction between direct and indirect? Such as @RussellA's worlds, where there is an external world and an internal world?

I think that if science is an appropriate tool to understand reality, then we must have access to reality to be able to assert such a thing reasonably. And the indirect access adds a metaphysical entity in between ourselves and reality, which is directly perceived but not real.

So I'm not seeing how you connect yourself back to reality to be able to assert that science is an appropriate tool to use to understand it -- it seems that your perception will always directly be of something that is not real, and so your perceptions, at least, aren't reliable in judging whether science is a good tool for understanding reality.

I voted yes. I don't believe human nature is fixed, and I don't believe human beings are bound by necessity such that a "system" is in place to make them behave this or that way.

The future is open. And we can demand the impossible.

Do you think a new political system can be born from the minds of people beholden to the establishment? — Ying

Nope.

I don't think I could define philosophy proper, or the philosopher -- but I think philosophy is wider than a particular institution of philosophy in the same way that mathematics is wider than any particular institution of mathematics. And even more I'd say philosophy is wider than institutions -- that philosophy would continue on with or without the institutions.

Philosophy is something that people do. It's cross-cultural. And from my memories of running Socrates Cafe style meetings what I found was that people without technical background frequently had philosophical thoughts, but they didn't have a venue to express them in or a sounding board or exposure or access. We'd form reading groups of texts from people who regularly attended and were interested too, so it wasn't just discussing our own ideas but for people really turned on by philosophy we'd get to go back to some texts.

Nice. :)

Similarly my exposure to the academic world of philosophy, and really the tools of philosophy proper, was in my undergraduate days.

I'll note here though:

And how minimal did I claim it to be? I was referring to the historical body of written philosophy which does not indicate that contemplation of the beauty and the good were somehow the central themes of philosophy either before or after Plato. — Arne

But philosophical practice and philosophical writing are not the same. The ancient practice of philosophy was not about writing but a way of living. — Fooloso4

"The central themes of philosophy" isn't in the academy's jurisdiction. Its mission, though it ought to treat philosophy better -- at least that's where a lot of my motivation is coming from -- isn't the same as philosophy proper.

I genuinely believe that philosophy is good for an education. Rather than philosophy losing its way I'd say philosophy has a lot of unexplored fecundity.

But that's as an outsider, and someone interested in what philosophy is or can be outside of the academy.

Reminds me of this New York Times The Stone article.

One of my earlier thoughts on moral realism is a two-predicate analysis. "...is good" is simply a different predicate from "...is true". But if "P is good" is true, then that fits the form of the proposition. The way to make "P is good" is true is through action. So actions are the value-makers in moral propositions -- if you act to make it so, and it is also good, then moral realism is true -- because the good is now true.

Where are the objective moral judgments in their view? — Bob Ross

I wouldn't speak for @unenlightened, as I believe they've been making the case well. :D But I'll share my thoughts.

Any sort of moral realism which depends upon our nature, similar to your:

I do commit myself to the principle that I ought to fixate upon what is of my nature I fixate upon the objective, implicit moral judgments—so I act, in every day-to-day life, like a moral realist. — Bob Ross

will have to reconcile with some apparent difficulties like the naturalistic fallacy or the fact/value distinction. In so doing I think the classic picture of moral realism / moral nihilism is blurred, as you note. In a way what's being questioned are these old distinctions about objective morals or subjective choices and so forth.

I think the way I'm reading @unenlightened is the actuality of human realitionships require moral commitments to be shared overall in order for said set of human relationships to not deteriorate. And by and large I think there's some truth to that. And it makes for an interesting case where we are sort of combining values and facts together at once -- from the existential perspective we can always choose against some rule or value, and there are some who are smarter than others and can exploit the rules, but in actuality people are generally wise to who they can trust. If trust fades then relationships die, and trust is very important when it comes to keeping people together -- the very stuff of morality.

But it's in this blurry space where the objective/subjective divide doesn't fit so nicely.

I'm more coming at this from the continental side, where language-soup-as-reality isn't too far off (but put differently -- a reduction might put it the difference is between putting intension or pragmatics first)

But the notion of language is wider than English. It's sense-making. Perceptions of the world without words is thought to be a part of our overall meaningful experience -- so meaning, Big-L Language, is still a part of our cognitive apparatus just by the fact that we're able to discriminate at all. There are, after all, parts of the world we had to develop instruments to be able to discriminate. And those instruments get folded into Big-L Language and sense-making.

At least, that's where I'm thinking from.

Even if they don't have words to describe the colours, they nonetheless see them, just as I can distinguish between a variety of different smells despite not having words for each individual kind of smell. — Michael

I'm not so sure. It's not the sort of thing we can check, right? What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to not have language while we imagine that scenario with language?

On what grounds can we possibly say that the dress must either be Blue/Black or White/Gold as an external data point. Why cannot it be both? What fact do we know about the data points of the external world which we can use to say with certainty that they cannot be two colours at once? — Isaac

Yup.

The dress is black, white, gold, and blue. And we don't know what perception is like without language, due to our indoctrination into a linguistic culture.

In the categories I posited earlier, we're just looking at different parts of the surface of reality. And reality ends up being surprising.


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I feel like I'm approaching, in my stumbling way, Derrida's criticism of Husserl, as far as I understand it. (there's always this strange interplay between continental-analytic that I see. One of the reasons I doubt it's anything more than a historical category)

Though I think I have to add -- and that relationship is not identity, to address @RussellA

Nope.

PerceiverRPercipient was my thought. A relationship holds between sets. So there's the set of perceivers and the set of percipients, and the relationship between them is no more than 1.

Of course one can talk about apples and light and rods and signals and nerves and thalamus' and occiptial cortexes -- I'm not sure about the "sense data" bit, I'm usually suspicious of that. Also I'd push against conscious visual experience -- experience is bound together with all the senses, all the cognitive machinery, and so forth. Our focus can change, but experience is much wider than an organ by necessity -- they aren't possible to separate for us because we aren't cameras.

We know about the world we inhabit because we are able to access it. Mostly I was attempting a formal definition to see if that made things click. But I can see it doesn't.

The chains come later and depend upon us being able to access reality to be able to say

we know that there is an apple, that the apple reflects light, that the light stimulates the rods and cones in our eyes, that the rods and cones in our eyes send electrical signals along the optic nerve to the thalamus, and that the thalamus sends electrical signals to the occipital cortex, generating a conscious visual experience. — Michael

Which means what? What does it mean for a perception to be "directly connected" to the real? — Michael

"directly connected" I'd say means there is no more than one relationship between a perceiver and a percipient. The relation itself may exist, in the sense that consciousness is sometimes considered real, but there are no more relationships between the perceiver and the percipient than one. A relationship exists, but it's not a chain of relationships. The chains come later, and depend upon us being able to access reality to be able to check them. Then, upon putting ourselves into the scientific engine, we pick it apart -- but we must retain a direct relationship to reality to be able to assert that our experiences are indirect.

Ahh I thought there was a connection there then. I'll think more on the question.

Which means what? What does it mean for a perception to be "directly connected" to the real? All experience, whether veridical or hallucinatory or illusory or imaginary is a causal consequence of some real thing. — Michael

Exactly! That's what it means!

It's a metaphysical assertion rather than an explanation for error.

Only that our perceptions tell us about the real. They are directly connected to the real, in some relation. Because they are directly connected to the real we can utilize them to come to understand the real better.

I want to float an idea -- What if both experiences of the dress are Directly real? The direct realist is willing to sacrifice the old pedagogical explanation of the law of non-contradiction "Nothing can be black and white all over". Here we have a reason to believe that the dress is black, blue, white, and gold.

I like the idea of punk sages. Not the front men or the bands, but say a Pythagorean Punk.

We can think of reason as a network of semantic norms which is used on itself. Philosophy rationally articulates in an accumulating way what it means to be rational. Neurath's boat. We take most of these norms (meanings of concepts, legitimacy of inferences) for granted as we argue for exceptions and extensions to those same norms. — plaque flag

That's interesting! I think I'd say boats -- as a metaphor for a tradition. Then there are boat builders of various kinds.

I much prefer the maritime metaphor for terra incognita.

Well I think that is good rhetorical tactics; rather than get into an argument that China might be a more peaceful, internationalist, and socially responsible society, just suggest learning from the enemy because they are certainly learning from you. — unenlightened

Fair point.

Which is pretty much straightforward Kant. Lies need to be justified, and the truth does not. — unenlightened

There's a tension in Kant that's related to this -- the tension between the absoluteness of one's maxim, and the allowance of exceptions as a further maxim. This is where it gets kind of funny. You can technically write a maxim as specific as you want and it will remain universalizable -- any rational being like myself with these abilities and those resources and those ends in this situation would act in accordance with this maxim... :D

The reason why it works as a reductio, though, is because of the tension between reason and passion in early modern philosophy, especially. Since passion can't be appealed to and any free agent can will a maxim and act in accordance with it out of respect for it (I certainly respect myself) there's not a clear cut way to rule out super specific maxims.

But the tension is that Kant was such an absolutist about lying, as indicated by his correction of a contemporary enthusiast of his system that it was OK to lie to the axe murderer, so the spirit of the philosopher's own interpretation of morality seems to indicate that we shouldn't be able to get away with that.

So it seems, if universal objective categorical imperatives are real, we shouldn't be able to make exceptions. I think that might be some of confusion between yourself and @Bob Ross? Maybe? I'm just making a guess in the dark.

But I want to hasten to add that any attempt to argue for moral realism that I've seen and thought was right basically questions the objective/subjective, or the naturalistic fallacy, or synthetic-analytic -- there's a conceptual change purposefully being made to try and make the case. (As it would have to be done -- since if you simply accept that there's a difference between truth and goodness then it's pretty hard to put them back together again)

I'd say it feels like we need Platonic forms, but I'm not sure why I feel that. It's definitely a thought I've held at one point, but have come to let go of it somehow.

In terms of having a conversation, though, I'd say you have to have some kind of standard -- be it a Form or no -- that isn't just "yeah I like that" to count as a conversation in aesthetics. Not that sharing what one likes is bad or anything. Just different from what it takes to talk aesthetics.

. . . According to the video China contained AI, and somehow they are bad guys in the presentation while attaining what the researchers want. Worth noting when they want to build international organizations.


You've done a wonderful job of defending moral realism, from my perspective -- for what that's worth. I think for me I'm just more interested in anti-realist ethics. I live in a nihilistic culture, so they seem relevant.

Something of an afterthought on classifying myself as an anti-realist Direct Realist is that it seems to follow pretty easily from a denial of Kant's system while acknowledging the worth of his arguments. It's the transcendental structure part that's doubted, the noumenal realm as anything more than a locution given it having no relation to theoretical knowledge. And then if you read Kant's ethics in an anti-realist direction, where the moral law and action is important precisely because the kingdom of ends won't exist unless people actually follow the moral law, you have a reason to doubt the noumenal has a reality from the perspective of practical reason too.