That is, does it offer protections against rascim, sexism and violence in the workplace? Are the benefits promised (like vacation time, daily work schedule) honored? Do you receive credit where due and are you now blamed for things you did not do? Are you treated with respect and given honest feedback? That it what an ethical environment is to me. — Hanover

Ditto. My current work environment meets all of these criteria and more. My previous workplace met none of them. And that is why i left.

I do think capitlistic systems grow more ethical over time, making life in a 21st century factory a more ethical work environment than one built when the industrial revolution was first underway. — Hanover

This comes back to my point to Tom - If we speak about systems outside of Western Capitalism, absolutely not. The lack of ethical regulation is rife. Within Western Capitalism, it's a mixed bag but I do agree we're getting there. The problem is Western companies exploiting non western, non-capitalist economic systems for value. Which has, for some reason, been entirely missed by anti-Capitalist drivel. That said, they often exploit us right back (ME oil trade, for instance). Ironically, usery is a big no-no in the ME and compared to Capitalism, that's probably a plus on paper.

I had avoided pointing this out (and I had this example in mind because of its ubiquity). Thanks for doing so. It's a real issue for 'direct'ness of any kind. "Blue" is definitional, in terms of wavelengths and we ascertain an aberration from that definition. Not from disparate experiences themselves.

I can't see that you're interacting with my claim.. Which is that 'the work environment' as a concept is literally a tool that appears in infinite forms. It is not a moral concept. It couldn't be, at this stage of analysis.

Whether a workplace is ethical/unethical obviously is apt. Every example of a work place has its ethical boundaries, and they are to be discussed in context. The concept is not moral or ethical unless you think 'work' is an ethical or moral proposition.

Maybe this is intended as a conversation about the ethics of Western capitalism. — Tom Storm

I tried to avoid assuming this because almost all comparators are very, very much worse, making a discussion without that being pointed out probably an unintended political argument.

It's the organization that's similar between jobs that make "working conditions" coherent. — Moliere

I reject your premise. That is not a catch-all description of all work places. That's my entire point, though, so I'll it there.

I have very much enjoyed the spirited discussions going on here. But, surprising and alarming no one, I take my leave.
This has become a roundabout of unhelpful disagreements about facts, with everyone pretending to agree on the facts.

G'luck fellas :)

You might like Process & Reality NWH posits that consciousness only arises in a prehension of contrast between a nexus of physical fact and negated potential, borne out of the nexus of the 'actualities' that formed the nexus proving the physical fact (i think i have that right!).

Basically, consciousness isn't required for any kind of comprehension, until a 'decision' has to be made ABOUT the valuation of a physical feeling. Weird stuff, but i'm liking it.

But we do not feel the impulses, we feel the sandpaper. — Banno

Nothing can be done for you. Enjoy.

You have it backwards: I'm saying you cannot rely on empirical facts to support any conclusion at all if you assume we have no access to empirical facts — Janus

Then i have it completely right and cannot grok how its possible you could be saying something so opposite to the reality of this discussion. I'll leave it there.

If you were consistent, you would say we have no access to empirical facts — Janus

I do. And yuou've just responded to the comment in which I had to point that out, because no one seemed to be capable of figuring out that if you claim empirical knowledge, yet accept the 'fact' of our sight system scientifically, you are incoherent in your position. I have no clue how you could miss the intensity of the self-own you're putting forth here.

I've been using your own terms to defeat your posiition. And here, you're pretending to do the same in reverse? incoherent. However:

I think the very framing of perception in terms of 'direct' and 'indirect' is wrongheaded from the get-go. — Janus

Yet you (in the same comment) accept that sight is ipso fact indirect. So, yeah. Incoherent as anything posted here. If there were actually your position, I'd like to hear how you then deal with the issues we're talking about. But, your comments betray that this is essentially an attempt to get around your already-established reliance on the empirical facts to (erroneously, you'll notice) support a Direct Realist position. So weird.

That said, I'll leave you to the sophistry so appropriate to the lower quarters of your profession — Janus

It was inevitable you'd have to give up at some point. And here we are. Ad hominem and all.

We feel the sandpaper, not the electrical impulses. — Banno

Nope. This is factually not the case. We 'feel' electrical impulses. That is the case. No idea how you're supporting a pretense that this isn't the case, and i've been asking for your(and others) account of that for pages and pages and yet nothing but obfuscation. The only reasonable response to this is to outline how it is the case that you feel ANYTHING without those electrical impulses. And you don't. So, maybe just adjust your position instead of having a short-circuit on a forum :)

You do not say :"the impulses here have a finer character than the impulses there"; you say "This sandpaper is finer than that". — Banno

Because you're having to simply reality in order to get on with things. But pretending that the fact isn't |Touch -> nerve->brain via electric impulse is either dishonest or so intensely wrong that I cannot take you seriously. (you'll need to see above for why this is so incredibly funny).

To feel electrical impulses, try sticking your fingers in a light socket. — Banno

Are you denying that nerves work by ferrying electrical impulses to the brain? Ha....ha?

My point to Amadeus was that if he denies we have access to the world, to empirical facts, then he has no justification based on the science of perception to claim that perception is either direct or direct. — Janus

Which is the exact case for you "realist"s. You rely on the exact same form of sense. For some reason, you do not get that using your own account is how to show your account as incoherent. We cannot access empirical facts. I know this. Because we cannot access objects as they are. You seem to accept hte latter, and deny the former. Suffice to say, this is not a reaosnable position and you're not saying anything other than 1+1=54. Unfortuantely, though, you're still wrong. As an indirect realist I am able to claim there are actual objects in teh world, but that we do not have reliable data about them.
I cannot grasp why you are so intense resistant to the obvious. Unless you have a physically coherent account of how our experience is informed by objects, rather than our sense data, I can , again, do nothing more than laugh. It is silly, on its face, and on further investigation.
|
You might even be right - You'll notice, i'm not claiming to be 'right' - i'm making it patently clear that the position od Direct Realism is self-contradictory. You rely on 'sight' to establish it, while accepting that sight is indirect. Patently incongruent. So weird. Indirect Realism allows for both knowledge OF objects, and rejecting empirical knowledge ABOUT objects. Again, that this has been missed seems to me obtuseness rather than that you and Banno aren't capable of moving beyond your commitments. I don't have much more time for plum contradicting yourself,

So if you'd like to move on from accepting that our sight system is indirect, and yet claiming a direct realist account of hte world, I'm all ears. But if you continue to hold two contradictory positions in service of laying out adhominems, I'm out my dude, unless you want to stop fucking about and actually put forward you position (since, you apparently reject this entire formulation).

This doesn't seem to be anything more than some rambling (not in a negative sense) about the topic. I don't think you've said anything that addreses what i've pointed out at all.

I'm hedging nothing. Without further context "the work environment" refers to nothing that can be discussed. So, If the point was to ttease out biases in the response, sure this is reasonable. But if the point was to discuss "the work environment" with anything approximating value or meaning, then this is a dead end thread.

The fact is the concept presented for discussion differs from case-to-case-to-case in such wildly intense degrees that this is not a coherent concept in and of itself. Not really apt to be discussed other than....

Giving up your biases and personal desires/offenses in response to OP seems to me the exact opposite of what would be helpful to the poster.

This is an extremely unserious objection.

"Nothing" excludes boredom or stasis. Clearly. So, not sure how you think I would respond, but im laughing.

I'm unsure how to approach this without just saying 'Well, it appears rto me you are clearly wrong and you're not paying much attention to my posts. I recognize very little of what I've said in your replies'.

But that's basically a tantrum, so I want to avoid it. Unfortunately, you have not pointed out any inconsistency at all - rather, you have made it quite clear you are not actually engaging with the account on the terms i've put forward. So, i'll ignore that little discrepancy and see if I can't tease something out of you instead...

If what you mean to say is that I cannot rely on the "empirical facts" of our sight system to deduce that we do not directly experience an object (of sight) then you've proved my case far better than I ever could. We cannot. And if we cannot, then the entire concept of 'Direct Realism' is laughable.

So, either you accept that our sight system is factually an indirect system (which, on what's considered the empirical facts, it is without debate) or you think there's something other than what is considered the empirical facts of our system of sight is going on.

in either case, I can do little more than wait for your life raft to arrive :)

Decision does not precede the registering of sense data. — Leontiskos

As noted, that doesn't appear to be the case. And, either way, that's not actually operative here. A space for a decision need exist only prior to experience, not 'registering sense data' whcih can be entirely unconscious.

I've never held another position, so if i've misspoken, apologies. I don't see it though. This just seems like you spitting the dummy a little given that I've never pretended that 'objects' are what we receive in experience. That's Banno's position, and my points about language solve the daylight between our collective comments.
No idea why such resistance has been met with on an empirical fact coupled with an attempt at congruent and accurate language to represent it.

Well, no. I feel the different grit of the sandpaper. I don't feel my nerves. I feel using nerves — Banno

No. You don't. You feel electrical impulses taking on a certain character when decoded into conscious experience - and given we don't know anything abou tthat process, your conclusion is wanting for support. So is mine, though. Its just more parsimonious on the facts.

Feeling only one's nerves would provide you with no information about the sandpaper. — Banno

Luckily, you've missed what i'm trying to say here. Whether that's my fault or yours, you have. This hasn't been suggested. You feel the experience, not the object. That much is plain - it could be no other way without the intercession of magic. The process in getting there is the problem of direct/indirectness.

Very true. But, this reconsideration is the aim I take and it tends ot be successful.

From your post, I couldn't know what you actually want a response to.

What work place? What environment? What factors are relevant to your assertion? Is this just anecdote about where you work?

At base, I vehemently disagree with Moliere there - fundamentally 'the work environment' is not an object of ethical value. It is functional, to my mind. What one does in that environment, though, is obviously ethically-informed and in that sense I'd need some detail about what behaviour or structure you're having a go at..

No need to overthink it mate - nothing is factually less of a burden than something. How you feel about that could be considered depraved. But I didn't say how I felt :)

(Another odd presupposition here is that everything a parent subjects their child to is necessarily a burden.) — Leontiskos

This isn’t in any way odd. Compared to not existing, it’s inarguably a burden to be, do or know anything

:ok:

To everyone- I’m replying on my phone after a lecture and am not being massively seriously. But I welcome serious responses as I do believe my comments are apt as reductios in most cases

pparently knowledge of the sandpaper without fingers, nerves, and brain processing would be direct? — Leontiskos

Yes. And it’s not possible, so case closed.


Heheheheheh

Again, instead of violating natural language — hypericin

*brings eye brows back from nape”

I don’t know what you could possibly be aiming at. The use of language here is imprecise and unhelpful. So I’ve changed it. That’s how language works.

but you don’t. Empirically. I’ll leave you to it ;)

No, what I have been discussing is whether an 'is' means an 'ought' or whether a 'how' entails a 'meant' — Apustimelogist

In this case you’ll need to let me know whether I should reply.

We are clearly discussing biological determinism and not ethics

How can You convince someone, who thinks that philosophy is just idle talk, that at least not all of this kind is mere empty stream of words? — Pez

Listen to them be wrong, and explain why they are, on something very important like an ethical position or their understanding of reliability of the senses.
The one that has always worked for me, in terms of pointing out what phil. is and getting some interest going, is running over the synthetic/analytic propositions. People tend to review most of their life decisions once this hits home.

This is a fiction. — Leontiskos

Absolutely not, per the majority of what i've put forward in this thread, completely ignored.

The confluence of the senses ("common sense") and their registering is not preceded by any form of decision-making. Others have pointed to the infinite regress at play in this. — Leontiskos

It is precedent TO the 'decision-making'. This has been shown by experiments subsequent to Libet, also. There's a window of decision between receiving data and having an experience of the data.
Unless you can outline how our physically indirect system of sight grants us direct experience, there is no way around this fact. THe fiction is the particularly perniciious habit of ignoring the empirical facts when discussion perception. This has been ignored.

Presumably if the eye sees objects, then the ear also hears objects. — Leontiskos

This goes directly to my attempts to use these words usefully, instead of ways that are useless for this discussion. If 'seeing' is done by the eyes, then 'to look at' means absolutely nothing in contrast to the experience of representations (which is unavoidable, making the distinction the fundamentally important one in this discussion.. more on that below). We experience representations, not objects, in terms of sight. That seems inarguable, and therefore there is no way to pretend what we see is the object. No one but philosophers posit this, anyway, and so we can be fairly sure there's hide-the-ball going on. Obviously, hiding hte ball here is the process between the object/light/refraction/photoreception/electrical impulse/synaptic activity/experience. There are at least five obstacles to the direct conception of sight.

It seems to me that we should be consistent and either talk about media (light/sound) or else mediated objects (the object which is seen/the object which is heard). — Leontiskos

This is getting there, but if your position is to take the 'thing-in-itself' are genuinely un-speakable, im unsure where to go. We must be able to refer to ab object to be able to speak of the 'media' objects can 'aim' at our sense organs. That said, I think your distinction here is at least much, much further toward reality than is a pretend notion that objects in thought (i.e experience) are the objects out in the world rather than some version, at best, of them.

Distinguishing direct from indirect realism is not a matter of terms — Leontiskos

You'll, probably, note on re-reading, that you are not addressing my point at all. Distinguishing anything in a way that has any meaning relies on best-fit terminology and terminology which is consistent, not illogical, and as best we can, exclusive. I have tried to do so - it doesn't touch the concepts. It touches our ability to discuss them and the use of 'seeing' throughout this thread has, on my account, cause the vast majority of dumb quibbling over positions that seem to just be different words to describe the empirical facts, adjusted merely for hte comfort of the speaker. The commitments entailed by avoiding discomfort could be overcome with better words being used, or at least, better use of the words involved.

The glove is a fine example. Here, indirect touch or feel makes sense — Banno

(on your terms) yes, I can see that this is a fine example for you. For me, it's another level of mediation. A different kind, for sure, though.

Is there something similar for smell or hearing? — Banno

Again, the 'data' actually enter the sense organs as-they-are rather than by essentially shadow, as is the case with touch. The space indented into the skin is reflected in the electrical impulses, rather than the actual feel and shape of the object. But, you can know you're touching something via the other senses. You can't know you're seeing something, or hearing something, based on the other senses. There seems to be something unique about touch. With the other four, there is material entering the body by way of light, sound waves or chemicals(smell and taste) physically interacting with the sense organs. Touch works by a kind of inference - which is probably why its so prone to mistake vs other senses that tend to be construed as 'delusive' or 'hallucinatory' if they don't comport with the world around us. We just accept that some people feel cold differently, for instance, but not that we all hear the note E4 differently. There is measurable data input that can be measured without hte sense organs. Not so with touch.

I don't agree with that at all. Of course you feel the sandpaper - 200 grit is very different to 40 grit; a fact about sandpaper, not about nerves. — Banno

You feel the differential effect of sandpaper of varying grit on your nervous system. That can be aberrant, as an example of why this is obviously mediated. You may touch the sand paper directly, but what you experience is not that touch. And that is just a fact about our sense systems. Its not a philosophical argument. For every sense, despite disparate types of input, electrical impulses in the brain are what constitutes an experience subsequent to the sensitivity in question.

I'm thinking its possible you don't deny this, but you're saying that 'well, what else could we possibly experience?" and call that direct.

I can accept that, but just don't think its accurate enough for a proper discussion.

I certainly agree on your grounding. I just note that the usage of seeing that way plays right into Banno's hide-the-ball

"Experiencing" is the most apt general language term that points to the subjective representation component of perception — hypericin

Definitely. That much seems clear on either account, if one is to be honest with themselves.

I think using the term 'seeing' that way (that you describe) is misleading. If 'seeing' is defined as the entire process, then it's a useless term in this discussion because there's no difference between a 'direct' and 'indirect' version of 'seeing'. The difference between the accounts would be lost in the process. Though, I would understand this 'version' as a direct realist conception because it assumes that any process getting from light reflection to experience is by its result direct, instead of by its process. UNless im not groking you entirely.

How do you touch something indirectly? What to make of an indirect realist account that has one feeling a representation of the sandpaper, not the sandpaper itself? — Banno

Through a glove hehe. That said, again, there are two bodily physical events there, which isn't the case with sight, in the same way. The physical interaction (finger touches sandpaper "out in the world"), and the experience of, lets just use, texture, which is an experience in mind. .

I don't think it's right to say you 'feel' the sandpaper itself, anyway. You feel it's impression on your nervous system, shunted through your nerves, into your brain where it is constructed into an experience.

You could be right.
I think it may be harder to describe, simply because we've had far less experience trying to nut out those problems with other senses.

But, using sound as an example, you're right in that 'sound' consists in the sound waves which enter the ears and physically affect parts of the head resulting in an experience. Objects don't consist in the light bouncing off them, on any accounts i've seen.

Nobody is saying that representation is the thing seen. — hypericin

I actually take quite a number of statements throughout the thread, on the indirect side, to be attempting this claim. Banno nailed me on it some time ago, and i've tried to work through it.

The "seeing seeings" comment from (i think) Janus was addressing this. I ran into the same wall Banno is pointing out, linguistically, and it required a better use of terms to make any sense.
If "see" is the act of one's eye falling on/turning to an object, then "perception" must be the further event (i.e experiencing a representation). Otherwise, nothing occurs in consciousness.

But, if "to look" is used for the physical act of turning one's eye to an object, then "to see" is free to symbolize the experience of a representation in the mind. This reduces the problem to whether or not its reasonable to consider "seeing" as a direct experience of a representation (which is not the object), or an indirect experience of an object via that same representation in consciousness. Ooof.

the word "idiot" to describe non-participants, or in a derogatory sense; its most common use was simply a private citizen or amateur as opposed to a government official

Seems similar to the use of 'vulgar' in 18/19C philosophy.

and so commit themselves to being forever segregated from the world — Banno

This doesn't follow at all.

The fact that I cannot see an object directly doesn't mean I can't interact with it. The idea that a blind person is somehow 'forever segregated' is to use your term "of course, a nonsense". Whereas:

And their answer might well be "as it is in itself" - but this is of course a nonsense, since the hand is aways already an interpretation — Banno

Is not, in any way at all a nonsense, unless you just plum don't like the idea that objects are beyond direct access via the eyes. Which they are. Even by your own lights.
You're just quibbling with words here. Our vision system s indirect. You have to ignore this fact and assign the property of 'directness' for reasons of comfort, or ease, to an indirect process. Fine. But that's not what the attempt to delineate between the two is assessing, as best I can tell. This is, patently, also Austin's problem. We're not trying make sensible sentences about sight. We're trying to figure out what the heck to say about vision which is inherently mediated. If we can't directly see objects, so be it. My emotional state has precisely nothing to do with that.

There are a lot of Consolations of Philosophy lol.

Currently reading parts of Parfit's Reasons & Persons for school.

Unfortunately, yes. Almost all heavy left-leaners like A.C Grayling, Justin Weinberg, Carrie Jenkins, Helena Cruz etc... largely, the 'culture war' related philosophers in my experience.

Brian Leiter is a decent inroad, if you want to check it out. I don't recommend beyond some comments on the Leiter Reports

:ok: :ok:

I haven't had time to come back on other replies unfortunately. Writing for school.

Currently writing for University on this topic under one of Parfit and Williams PhD students.

Interesting thread

in reverse, I did no such thing. Please don’t make accusations like that up.

I didn’t miss anything. I agree, but that’s not what suffering consist in. Suffering is not a “bad feeling”. It is the state of being emotionally perturbed by an experience to the point you cannot integrate it. It precludes a silver lining type framing, without further fact.

Negative experiences can be sublimated. Suffering is the end state of failing to sublimate an experience. Most people choose to do this first, unfortunately. But nevertheless I am not nitpicking at all. Suffering and “having a bad time” are not synonymous and can be separate in some sense

"I see Mars" is a figure of speech meaning "the photons which cause me to recognize that I am seeing Mars — RussellA

I note the recursion.

If “I see mars” is a figure of speech “I am seeing mars” can’t be what it symbolises without an endless circle of self-referential justification.

I’m sure you can work out which two words in my response can be swapped out to meet any potential challenger

to suffer is to have a bad experience.

And the argument would go like this: you are delusional.

Interesting. I can’t see how an obligation to bring humans into existence is a serious point to be argued.

I am an antinatalist and it is patent to me so perhaps that’s just par for the course

this is great fodder for the OP

hehe… well, I’m getting there