I think it's really interesting that Representationalism is claimed by both direct and indirect realists in various contexts. — flannel jesus

Searle, for instance, distinguishes representation from presentation. For example, believing x is a representation, seeing x is a presentation..

If I believe that it is raining I can separate my belief from the fact that it is raining, but when I see the tree I cannot separate the visual experience from an awareness of the presence of the tree. This is true even if it is a hallucination and even if I know that it is a hallucination.

Link to source.

If nothing is experienced then what is the distinction between having an hallucinatory experience and not having an hallucinatory experience? — Michael

I can evoke the experience of seeing a sudden flash by poking my eye (not recommended), and I suppose that the experience could be subjectively identical to seeing a real flash. But when I poke my eye it is just the experience without its object, the flash.

In the hallucinatory case nothing is experienced, because imaginary objects don't interact with sense organs. Hallucinations are not experiences in the same sense as veridical experiences. Hence the names hallucinatory and veridical.

Under any normal use of language, things are experienced when we hallucinate (and when we dream); it's just that the experience isn't a consequence of external stimulation of the relevant kind. — Michael

Right, seeing something when there is nothing to see is normally called 'hallucination'. Such an experience is not about something, but the psychological ability running amok.

Dreams are interesting. Unlike veridical experiences of a recalcitrant continuous reality dreams are gappy or collage-like, and cease to exist as soon as one wakes up. Granted that a dream of waking up could be subjectively identical to waking up. But not for long, because of the differences between dreams and veridical experiences.

hallucinatory and veridical experiences would be subjectively distinct — Ashriel

What makes them distinct is that in the hallucinatory experience nothing is experienced.

In the premise that one can't see whether an experience is veridical or hallucinatory it is assumed that the veridical is indirect. Hence the doubt on whether it is what it seems to be, veridical or hallucinatory. From this we're supposed to "conclude" indirect realism. But the conclusion is hidden in what is assumed in the premise.

Direct experiences, however, don't represent anything, and therefore they are not subject to doubt on whether they are what they seem to be.

what postmodernism has to say about mathematics. — Tom Storm

I found a link to an old article about a postmodern way of doing math.

"Thus, by calculating that signification according to the algebraic method used here, namely: "

Followed by a conclusion that the erectile organ "..is equivalent to the of the signification produced above, of the jouissance that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of lack of signifier (-1)."

Attributed to the french psychoanalyst Lacan..

the back-and-forth between radical sceptics and their opponents is perennial, rather than just a debate of the modern period. — Jamal

Yes, the debate on skepticism is perennial, but the notion of consciousness is arguably modern, as is the conceptual separation of consciousness from the object that one is conscious of.

From this separation follows a skepticism that is radical enough for Berkeley to get rid of the object entirely, and keep only consciousness (or ideas). In this sense idealism is the result of a radically skeptic assumption. Also indirect realists assume that we never see objects and state of affairs directly, but typically play down the significance of the skepticism. My guess is that forthcoming periods won't be as skeptic as the modern.

What we don't agree on is whether or not it is correct – or even sensible – to say that the colour red is a property of that external world object. Indirect realists say that it isn't, whereas direct realists (or at least naive colour realists) claim that it is. — Michael

Right, I recall something Hilary Putnam wrote on color realism, that surface properties of objects have dispositions to appear in such and such ways under such and such conditions. Searle is more brain-oriented and although he is a direct realist he thinks of colors as systematically occurring hallucinations.

The surface properties of the materials of a building, for instance, systematically reflect certain wavelengths of light that observers identify as the colors of those surfaces under ordinary conditions of observation (e.g. daylight). When the light conditions change the colors that we see also change (e.g. dusk, night, dawn, cloudy etc. ), but the surfaces typically remain the same, including their disposition to reflect the same colors under the same conditions.

To expect accuracy is to assume that seeing something is a re-presentation of something, which it isn't.

A Sunday painter might have the intent to re-present Lisa accurately, assuming there is a certain way she really is. But what could such a way possibly be? A human, female, friend, foe, happy, sad, still or in motion in various projections all at once? The assumption of accuracy is based on bad philosophy of perception.

By convention there are ways to paint objects in more or less useful ways, e.g. photorealistically or contextually. But there is no accurate way to see Lisa, just different ways under different conditions in which Lisa can be seen. Visual experiences of Lisa are different from, say, beliefs of what Lisa looks like. A visual experience arises in the observer's conscious awareness, and so does a belief of what Lisa looks like. The belief is subject to doubt, and it can be refined and elaborated depending on use, but the visual experiences are biological facts that arise under certain conditions of satisfaction.

There is no analogy between 'pain' and 'actual objects'. — AmadeusD

The analogy is between feeling (pain) and seeing (objects).

Pain is the experience of certain biophysical causal chains. Not so with visual data, imo. — AmadeusD

Is visual data not the result of certain biophysical causal chains? Or do you just mean that it's the result of other causal chains? What Is an example of positive empirical evidence for visual data?

Is someone claiming there's 'pain' out there not being experienced? — AmadeusD

Searle's analogy (pain) shows how absurd it would be to assume that you never feel pain as it really is, only via your own sense-data. Likewise, it is absurd to assume that you never see objects, only your own sense-data of them, hence leaving the objects out there unseen.

When a bundle of light rays reach your eyes, the eye's lens projects the bundle upside down. So, the photoreceptor cells are responding to a projection that is upside-down relative to, say, a visible object that reflected the light.Yet the object does not appear upside-down in your visual experience.

That's a simple example of how visual experiences adjust themselves to the relative orientation of objects as they are. The experience has a mind-to-world direction of fit.

It also has a world-to-mind direction of causation, e.g. from visible objects, light, photoreceptor cells etc. to the experience that arises in the brain.

These two relations give us access to the perceivable world.

I would certainly be open to exploring whether that latter issue is actually additional and sans aberration there's some way to assert reliability in perception. I've yet to see that though. — AmadeusD

You might be interested in reading this short but concise text by John Searle: Philosophy of Perception and The Bad Argument

Searle was a student of Austin. Austin famously deconstructed the idea of sense-data in the book Sense and Sensibilia.

Could you please let me know what you mean by the contingent here? — jkop

According to this article on Time and Physics there might not be a temporal structure at a fundamental level (referring to recent theories of quantum gravity).

If they're right, then time may be an emergent property, or contingent as in being relative to observers, time-symmetry, or detachable from causation (as described in that other article on Backwards-Causation).

I think P1 is valid no matter how fast is the process. — MoK

Speed is irrelevant. At the level of fundamental physics the temporal order of cause and effect is, arguably, contingent.

If the temporal order is contingent at some level, then there is change without the need of time as we know it.

I'm wanting something from Kant that indicates he thinks we have an access to things-in-themselves. — AmadeusD

The short answer is that Kant is an empirical realist, but the thing-in-itself is not an empirical thing. It's a conceptual construction, a thing imagined as having no properties, and as such a limit beyond which there is nothing more to know. We should not expect to have access to such a thing.

Regarding possible knowledge of empirical things, Kant is a scientific realist, not unlike many contemporary scientific realists. However, one might add that scientific realism is typically an indirect kind of realism based on the dubious assumption that we never see things as they are, only figments of our own perceptual faculties or brains.

Unlike sound skepticism that assumption explains us blind, and keeps us busy with the problem of explaining how we as blind can access things.

A better assumption is, I think, that the processes that occur in our perceptual faculties and brains constitute the accessing of things.

For example, when I move my head and, say, a tree appears in the visual field, a process arises in my brain that is the conscious awareness of what I see. My visual access to the tree is direct in the sense that the tree is not seen via something else that represents the tree. The tree presents itself in my visual field, and that's how I access it. It's direct realism.

Unlike a belief which can be separated from what it is a belief of (hence subject to doubt), conscious awareness cannot be separated from what it is awareness of, e.g. a tree.

That looks similar to Kant's definition of analyticity. Quine's objection refers to Carnap's definition, not Kant's. Putnam criticized Quine's objection for mixing these two different definitions.

P1) Time is needed for any change — MoK

At the planck scale P1 is arguably meaningless or false. For example, does it take time for particles to pop in to, or out of, existence?

Realistically, I do think that there are some objective elements of humor, and that while, in practice, people may find it subjective, that there are probably better or worse ways of viewing and opining on it, akin to art or aesthetic theories — IvoryBlackBishop

The involuntary act of laughter was then exploited by those who were good at making people laugh as a way to gain acceptance within the group. — Pinprick

In the film The Death of Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev is portrayed as a talkative joker who is good at making Stalin laugh. After their meetings Nikita analyses the jokes together with his wife, to clarify what had worked, so that he can maintain or improve the outcome next time, thus reducing the risk of getting Stalin dissatisfied (which at that time could mean a death sentence).

If we compare humour with beauty, it seems fairly clear that both can be exploited and used as means for other things. For example, to seduce, distract, and entertain. Yet beauty is disinterested pleasure, and I think also humour is disinterested pleasure. For example, you can find something funny regardless of whether it is appropriate or useful.

Good jazz radio
https://www.jazz24.org/

I'd less characterise these as paradigm shifts (which represent progress and no loss of territory) and more as straightforward redrawing of the boundaries of philosophy. — bert1

It occurs to me that the word 'progress' is used in related but different senses in science, philosophy, and art.

In all three there is a shift in the use of available methods, or in the understanding of the subject matter, that it is significant enough to influence many or most practitioners in their forthcoming work.

What is different is that progress in science is understood in terms of utility, i.e. the most recent science is typically more useful, efficient, advanced etc. than previous science. In philosophy progress is, for example, clarification of concepts (e.g. sense and reference), which may result in new ways to work with and understand philosophical questions. But it's debatable whether it is useful (a philosophical question). In the arts utility can be the opposite of progress, e.g. beauty being disinterested pleasure even. But it can be useful too, for example, the shift that occurred when artists learned how to construct perspective pictures.

Good description, and you're right, there is no analogous method in philosophy. However, there are analogous shifts.

For example, philosophy used to be the general name for various sciences, but when these sciences specialized there was a shift in philosophy towards questions that didn't concern the sciences, such as ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and some left-over questions from psychology. Then with the linguistic turn there was a shift towards the nature of language.

Analogous shifts occur also in the arts (not to be confused with traditions or fashions). For example, before the invention of photography most of all graphic and sculptural art were more or less used in a scientific manner for depicting the natural world. When photographs became useful for that, there was a shift in the arts towards symbolization of whatever couldn't be photographed, i.e. invisible phenomena, mental or abstract objects etc. later a lot of art became conceptual.

I don't think they know the causes of psychosis or even claim to know. It's like they are sure it must be physical but they can't show the mechanism. — Mark Nyquist

Let's compare psychiatry with cosmology. Currently only 5% of the known universe is sufficiently explained by the standard cosmological model. It might seem like a bad result, but the subject matter is huge, and partly beyond reach. Under these conditions 5% is probably a reasonable result, and now the James Webb telescope might help us improve that result a bit. I don't know if some non-physical approach could help, but some say that the universe is fundamentally mathematical.

The treating professions are biology oriented and drug treatment oriented and often do horribly at treating these patients.

On the subject of physicalism, I take this as an example of physicalism gone wrong.

So in trouble shooting psychosis cases the professions should be looking at this relation between physical brain and mental content. ... — Mark Nyquist

Are mental content oriented treatments doing any better? I'm asking, because I don't know psychiatry.

I scrolled through this article at SEP. Seems that committment to an underlying physical structure is not so important after all. And why would it be important? Treatment of mental illness is a practical matter, no?

Regarding the relation between brain and mental content, the term 'mental content' is, arguably, misleading, because far from all content is mental.

For example, when you see a tree, there is a brain event in your head that really is the seeing, but the tree that you see is not inside your head. Your brain is not constructing a mental replica of the tree. Nor is the brain event sufficient for seeing the tree. There has to be a tree, and from its appearance in your visual field arises the conscious mental state of seeing it. The brain event is constitutive for having that mental state, but it is not constitutive for what happens to appear in your visual field.

The assumption that your brain would somehow construct mental replicas of every single thing that happens to pass by the visual field is obviously false, yet surprisingly common. Perhaps because there are other kinds of things that the brain does construct, such as imagined trees, or fictions composed of memories or fantasies or hallucinations.

One more thing regarding numbers and mathematical structures. As potential things they're arguably not physical. But when they actualise in thought and application, they appear not so unlike the actual things that pass by one's visual field.

Must an unknown number preexist in the same sense that, say, an unknown galaxy preexists before its discovery? The galaxy is actual, the number is potential. Both are objects that we can discover, but they have different modes of existing.

Is this something that you think you can demonstrate? — wonderer1

Perhaps, see below.

Numbers existing outside of brain state?...does that have a defense? — Mark Nyquist

We could start with the intentionality of conscious states. A thought is not just a thought, it is about something, which means that there is a reference relation between the thought and what is about. We can think about anything, regardless of the nature or ontological status of those things. We can construct fictions as well as facts, but we can also discover abstract things and facts.

Granted that some things are dependent on thought. Money, for instance, has a mode of existing that depends on our beliefs, and in this sense money supervenes on the physicality of out beliefs. Money is a human construct, but numbers are arguably discovered.

From the fact that thinking is physical it doesn't follow that all of the things we think about are physical.

Whether you're a physicalist or not, what do you think the best arguments for it are? — frank

The argument that everything is or supervenes on the physical is arguably falsified by the fact that things have different modes of existing.

For example, abstract objects such as numbers and mathematical structures have a mode of existing that is different from the physical mode in which thought exists. Thought is supervenient on brain events, but numbers are not.

So, I am asking to what extent does the existence of 'God', or lack of existence have upon philosophical thinking. — Jack Cummins

Well, the existence of god would obviously settle the question whether god exists. So, it would no longer be a philosophical question, and that's one effect it would have on philosophical thinking.

Another effect might be that if god is omniscient, then philosophy would disappear. The explanatory power of arguments would be replaced by the authority of god's omniscience. Eventually we would forget how to think.

If god doesn't exist, then it's business as usual. Philosophical thinking thrives on argument.

An interesting question is whether it's possible to return to a previous paradigm. — J

Yes, for example a return to a paradigm* before Descartes proposed a separation between mind and body. A lot of philosophy has since then been obsessed with explaining away or trying to bridge the assumed gap between mind and body or other objects of knowledge.

But philosophy is not a science — Banno

Right, it's different in many respects, but it is also similar. Science, philosophy, and art are activities that challenge and sometimes increase understanding.

*edit

What are such paradigm shifts in Philosophy? — SpinozaNietzsche

The linguistic turn might be an example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn

It’s common sense to believe what we observe is real but anything common sense is worth questioning. — Tom Storm

I agree, but the questioning of common sense realism is often limited to a superficial or willful rejection, perhaps because it just seems too banal or mundane for an intellectual to take seriously.

Allegedly Hume rejected naive realism by poking his eyeball so that the object in his visual field was doubled. But since the object had not duplicated itself he rejected naive realism.

almost all of us behave as realists the moment we engage with what we know as the external world. Even the idealists. — Tom Storm

Right. Many live as realists while defending anti-realim or the relativism or nihilism that follow from it. Kant's transcendental idealism is probably one of the most impressive attempts to solve the skeptical challenge, but his solution is complicated and arguably inconsistent. He too rejected naive realism :cool:

The colours we 'know' are created by our biology. Other animals see different colours, less or more than humans. Or none. If this realism, it is not external to human experince. — Tom Storm

Some are born blind even, but that's no good reason to reject the reality of visible things. Colours are partly created by the biology of various visual systems, and partly by the properties of the light or the surfaces that reflect it. For example, a clear sky in daylight is disposed to be seen as blue by any animal with the appropriate visual system, because of the causal relations between the wavelength of the light and the biology of the visual systems. Granted that some lack the ability, but again, that's no reason to reject the reality of the conditions under which the sky is seen as blue.

Is it possible that there is something logically unsound with the following proposition – a proposition that some skeptics embrace?

“We can never know anything about an external world because all we have when we make such an assertion is our perceptions ... .” — Thales

One thing that is logically unsound is when the word 'perception' is used ambiguously between two different senses: (1) for the object that you percieve, and (2) for the mental event in the brain that is constitutive for having the perception.

(1) provides us with the perceived object, but there is a lot of philosophy and science telling us that we never see objects as they are, but only (2) our own seeing somehow (or sense-data). Hence skepticism.

The philosopher John Searle says that such skepticism is one of the greatest intellectual catastrophes in modern philosophy (starting with Descartes and onwards). He identifies the argument from illusion as being the main cause for the rejection of seeing objects as they are, and he thinks it's a bad argument.

Well, skeptics often use optical illusions to show that there is a difference between what you see and the object that you see. For example, you get to see a straw that looks bent in a glass of water, and from this you're expected to conclude that you don't see the straw as it is. That's a bad argument, because it is the real straw that you see, including the optical effect of the refraction that makes the straw appear bent. That's exactly what you should see under those conditions.

Hilary Putnam is another philosopher who defends perceptual realism. For example, from fundamental physics one might want to conclude that colours don't exist, it's just electromagnetism, so the colours that we see must be illusions or hallucinations. Yet being insignificant in physics is not a failure in being real in biology where colours are significant. Hence colour realism.

Beside perception you mention reasoning, which is also a set of events inside the brain in one sense, and in another sense about things external to those events. Failures to distinguish between the two senses lead one to choose between a banal kind of naive realism, or being stuck inside the head. But no deep thinker wants to appear banal, hence the popularity of skepticism in philosophy.

What Searle and Putnam and others show is that there are sophisticated versions of naive realism that are neither banal nor lead to skepticism.

Plato: Only philosophers can sense what's beyond the shadows.
Aristotle: (imagines)

You can investigate anything scientifically. But you cannot scientifically answer questions that are asked incorrectly. — Wolfgang

I agree :up:

Many believe that one can combine the first and third person perspectives of consciousness simply because they are the same term, consciousness. But both have nothing to do with each other, they are completely different levels. — Wolfgang

Not only is the term 'consciousness' used in two different senses but also 'perspective'. A first person perspective is indeed a perspective, but a third person perspective isn't. There is no such thing as a third person perspective.

You cannot objectify qualia, therefore you cannot examine them scientifically. — Wolfgang

Wait a minute. We epistemically objectify mental phenomena all the time by talking about them, studying behaviors etc. despite their mode of existing (first person) which makes them ontologically unavailable for other kinds of examination (third person).

From defining mental phenomena as "subjective" and science as "objective" it doesn't follow that mental phenomena is unavailable for science. ´

we cannot even explain how the taste of chocolate could be explained neurophysiological. — Manuel

Perhaps the taste of chocolate is not in the neurophysiology of the brain but in the chocolate :cool:
There is, of course, neurophysiological activity going on in the brain that is constitutive for tasting the chocolate, i.e. experiencing the taste, but the chocolate that you taste is elsewhere, not a part of the brain activity.

the can of worms known as the Philosophy of Language, which is at the heart of Philosophy of Mind — sime

:up: Philosophy of Language + Philosophy of Science + Metaphysics

As long as the philosophy of mind does not make use of a sharp and categorically clear approach to the theory of science and instead loses itself in all kinds of irrationalities, it can be called dead. — Wolfgang

The fact that Philosophy of Mind overlaps with Philosophy of Science doesn't prevent philosophers of mind from using a sharp and categorically clear approach to science. One philosopher of mind that I sometimes read is John Searle. His naturalist approach is fairly clear, I think (although I'm aware that it's been criticized for being covertly dualist.)

..all sentient beings are animals, but not all animals are sentient.

Article

A sea urchin has no nerve system, yet it can identify the presence of a predator and scoop sand and gravel on top of itself as camouflage to reduce the risk of detection. So one might ask if and how important is the complexity of a nerve system for something to be conscious?

I dance lindyhop. It's a fun dance from the 1920s-40s to swing jazz and bebop. Nowadays there are regular social dances, courses, camps, and competitions world wide. One good thing about it is that it doesn't feel like exercising, more like partying, yet a whole nights dancing (4-5 hours) is comparable to running a marathon. And it's social.

.. a) is it constructive or destructive to your mental wellbeing? — Benj96

The interaction between contemplation and its expression in text, pictures, music etc. is often reported as constructive for the mental health of writers, graphic artists, musicians etc.

b) how does one know for sure if the insights from meditation are useful — Benj96

If you want to know for sure whether something is useful, try to use it. Also inconsistent and false insights can be useful, for example, in political or religious contexts (iseful doesn't necessarily mean good).

c) ... ..boundary ... ..between introspective thought processes and extrospective thoughts meet. In essence an understanding of what the “self” In question really is. — Benj96

.
There is thought, and there are various kinds of objects that one thinks about (e.g. actual, fictional, abstract). Thought and object are separated by the intentional relation between them (one being about the other, or directed towards it). That's a two part relation, not a boundary.

If contemplation is thought about itself, the thought adds itself as the object, as if it would be like other objects of thought. But it is a construct of the thought. I don't think one could think of one's own thought in the same sense that one thinks about, say, a cat or a triangle or the effects that one's thinking has on one's wellbeing.

Likewise, one could argue that the 'self' is a name we give the assumed thinker, regardless of its nature.

Contemplation in itself is neutral, it is literally just vision. Vision is good or bad depending on the object of intentionality of vision. I have witnessed "hell" or the vision of logical contradiction, but I also have the vision of logical order. As such, this requires prudence and wisdom to do. — IP060903

One thing that separates contemplation from vision is that you don't see a visible object. The object of contemplation is thought, imagined, felt etc. but it is not intentional in the sense that a visual object is. A visual object is intentional in the sense that it is actual, open to view, like these letters on this web page that we can see. The object of contemplation is never seen, only thought, imagined, felt etc.

When I look out the window, I see the same things that everyone else does. Depending on what I'm seeing, and how others around me see those things, we might disagree on what they mean, or even what they are — Wayfarer

Exactly. One might add that we often use words that refer to perception (e.g. see, experience) in two different senses, and sometimes ambiguously, like above.

I think there's a greater diversity of dialects in Norway than in most countries. — Ø implies everything

I thought so too but then compare Norway with UK, for instance. There are no mountains or fjords that separate groups of people, yet there are many diverse dialects. Possibly because groups of people are kept spart by social barriers.

Contrary to some posts, reaction to the environment as mediated by metabolism (chemistry) is not consciousness. — Lionino

Intentionality, however, is a widely accepted property possessed by conscious beings. The property of being directed towards something, as in behavior or speech about something.