Nothing in the child's whole environment would be real though, of course, entirely real to the child. — Barry Etheridge

Only under your false assumption that the child would never see the real environment. In the arguments from illusion and hallucination representational perception is assumed, which makes them bad when used against arguments in which representational perception is not assumed.

In any event Ryle's argument need not apply at all in the case of the dreamworld for it is not necessary to even posit that it is a counterfeit of anything. — Barry Etheridge

Sure, but that was not asked in this thread. All can't be a dream, for then there would be nothing left to dream of.

In the argument from illusion it is (incorrectly) assumed that we'd never see reality as it is, which basically explains away the possibility to distinguish an illusion from the veridical case of perception, and then skepticism is off and running. But no such assumption is made in Ryle's counterfeit argument, and you don't get to sneak in unwarranted assumptions.

. . life . . sure feels real! But, the problem for me is so do my dreams. — saw038

The life that feels real to you feels real because it is the reality of life that you feel. The dream that feels real to you feels real because it is the reality of your memories and empathy that you feel, which makes it different.

It's a logical fact that all of something cannot be counterfeit

. . you cannot state as incontrovertible fact that it is any more than you can prove that we're not all just a figment of God's imagination. — Barry Etheridge

But as Gilbert Ryle once argued: all of something can't be counterfeit, for then there is nothing left it could be counterfeit of. Seems fairly incontrovertible to me.

Dreams are but experiences of representations of life (memories, beliefs, pictures, descriptions). Life, however, is not a representation: e.g. it is not detachable by waking up, it is here and now, and flows continuously.

What do you think this states about the human mind and our ability to comprehend the world? — saw038

We've improved our ability to comprehend the world. I recall Gödel was a platonist.

. . it logically follows because we can imagine going to sleep and never waking up (at least, crudely); therefore, we should be able to imagine the inverse; that is, waking up without ever having gone to sleep. — saw038

No, there is no such thing to imagine, because the ability to identify what something is like is acquired when one is awake. If you have never been awake before, then there can be no such thing to imagine as waking up without ever having gone to sleep. Also "crudely" it would be a fictional story of what something was like but which couldn't have been like anything.

If we see things directly there are no illusions. — Barry Etheridge

Also in the case of illusions we see things directly: e.g. optical effects such as refraction, or two lines whose ends make their lengths appear different and so on. Without seeing these things directly there would be no illusion.

The only reason that optical illusions work is that the brain overrides the evidence of our eyes to impose its own expectations upon the image. — Barry Etheridge

In optical illusions it is always the case that something is seen, hence 'optical'. Yet you omit optics and instead pass a figment of brain and expectations for vision. You're on your own.

One photon: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-human-eye-photon-20160719-snap-story.html

Except that is exactly what happens in one of the most famous optical illusions. We simply do not see an exact map of the photons received at the retina. . . . — Barry Etheridge

Don't you get it yet? There is no need for an exact map when we see objects directly. From illusions it does not follow that all we see would be illusions.

We do of course know that the visual cortex can and does operate without photons because we have visual dreams and hallucinations. — Barry Etheridge

Without photons your visual cortex "operates" only hallucinations, in which nothing is seen. That's why they are called 'hallucinations'.

. .what we see is a construct bearing little or no resemblance to what is actually sending photons toward us. — Barry Etheridge

And how could you see that it has a different construction than what we actually see? Divine vision? Or is it somehow implied by the trivial fact that we sometimes mistake the things we see for something else?

I think it is obviously true that what causes an object to appear rectangular is its real construction. The brain does not fabricate a rectangular picture of an object explained away as invisible.

What does fine art do for you? — Bitter Crank

It provides things worthy of respect.

Which part of receptor (eye) in combination with signal interpreter (in this case the cerebrum) did I fail to clarify? — Barry Etheridge

The important part: their cause, which you explicitly omit:

"You don't see light. You respond to an electrical signal transmitted from a receptor in your eye which obviously isn't light at all." — Barry Etheridge

(..and obviously no-one claimed that light would somehow occur inside the nervous system.)

One photon is sufficient to cause a detectable signal and response, but without photons you'd see nothing. Instead you assume a "signal interpreter" fabricating mental "movies" with lights etc., of a world in the dark, which is as absurd as solipsism.

With what organ do you see the alleged things inside your head, hm?

Why would experiences "need interpretation"? Seeing light is a 'basic action' by way of which anything visible is seen, but one does not need to interpret, nor see something else, in order to see light.

Seeing light "as it really is" is to see light without an assumed intermediate representation.

Sure, why? And no, they didn't experience some false behaviour of neutrinos, it was their interpretation which was false due to a screwed up cable or the like. The possibility to mess with the conditions of observation to mislead the observer is no reason to believe that all observation would be unreliable. An optical illusion wouldn't be possible without seeing light as it really is, refraction as it really is, etc.

It is trivially true that beliefs or expectations could be wrong. Likewise, some beliefs or expectations could be right. Experiences, however, are facts. There is no good reason to be unsure of whether this web page exists as one's eyes are interacting with it.

Ok, but are you sure of fallibilism? Granted that statements and beliefs can be wrong as they are representational. But experience is presentational. What you see, hear etc under such and such conditions couldn't be anything but what you see, hear etc (despite the possibility to interpret it, i.e. form beliefs about it in various ways).

What's an example of an alternative? The objective world is not manufactured by experiencing it.

Again, to also revolve around other things wont make 'The earth revolves around the sun' false

You wish. But to also revolve around other things wont make 'The earth revolves around the sun' false.

Objective truth means that a statement has the property of referring to something which is the case independently of our beliefs or statements.

For example, "the earth revolves around the sun" is true by referring to what is the case, and objective by being true independently of whether anyone says or believes it.

By asking "what is the nature of truth" we might want to investigate and discuss conditions which satisfy the possibility that a statement is true. It is pretty much the nature of philosophy to ask questions about the nature of things.

To see "..the real mind-independent apple as it is..." means to see it directly. The apple of your mind-dependent experience is the mind-independent apple that you experience. — jkop

This is circular. I asked what it means to see a thing directly and you said it's to see a mind-independent thing as it is. I asked you what it means to see a mind-independent thing as it is and you say it's to see a thing directly. So, currently, the very notion of seeing a thing directly – of seeing a mind-independent thing as it is – is vacuous. — Michael

There's "currently" a seeming circularity in your refereeing of my replies, but not in my replies.

it's largely just a debate about how we should use words? — Hoo

If there is ambiguity in our talk we should debate how we should use the words. Or else we'll just end up talking past each other, using words in different senses without realising it.

All perception is veridical, unlike hallucinations, in which nothing is perceived, only experienced. It would be unnecessarily ambiguous to speak of 'non-veridical' cases of visual perception, for example, when there is no vision, only experience of vision. In veridical cases something is both seen and experienced.

Also optical illusions are veridical in the sense that something is both seen and experienced, such as light, reflections, refractions, atmospheric effects and so on. A brain in a vat would never see, for example, the optical illusion in a photo-realistic picture, because seeing the illusion requires seeing something which is really there, such as real light, real patches of paint etc..

To see "..the real mind-independent apple as it is..." means to see it directly. The apple of your mind-dependent experience is the mind-independent apple that you experience.

If it's orange but it appears to you as red then you're seeing it wrong. — Michael

Seeing it directly means that it couldn't appear red when it is orange. Only appearance as representation could be wrong, but naive realism denies that perception would be representational. So, evidently, you have yet to understand naive realism.

The "perception" possessed by a brain in a vat would only be representational, i.e. a simulation.

And its theory on perception is that, in the veridical case, the properties we perceive an object to have are properties that the object has even when we don't see them. — Michael

Its theory of perception is obviously not a theory about the properties we perceive an object to have but about the nature of perception: that it is direct.

For example, that when we see a red apple we're not seeing an intermediate representation of an apple inside our minds but the real mind-independent apple as it is. This does not mean that the apple would somehow have to appear red also when we don't see it, in the dark, for instance. If this is what you believe of realism, then you simply don't understand realism.

What is mind-dependent is perception: e.g. seeing the apple is to be consciously aware of its presence in your visual field, for instance, and its colour. It's possession of the colour, however, only means that it will reappear under the same or similar conditions which satisfy the possibility to see colours.

on whether or not the apple being red is perception-independent. — Michael

Category error. Being is not seeing. Apples are seen as red. Naive realism is a theory of perception, recall, not ontology.

That's a false dichotomy, for neither realism nor naive realism reject perception or its dependence to there being something with which we can perceive the world (e.g. a mind and certain background capacities). Realism (concerning ontology) states that what exists is not dependent on the existence of a mind. Naive realism (regarding perception) states that we perceive objects and states of affairs directly, i.e. not via some copy or picture conformed inside our minds. "Meanings just ain't in the head." with regards to Putnam. But one might add that without the head there ain't any perception.

He started as a naive realist, moved on to internal realism, and then ended up defending natural realism. — Michael

..or in his own words: How to Be a Sophisticated "Naïve Realist" (2011)

That's a selective truth when referring to the book, but misleading when referring to Putnam's stance on realism. As I said, he ended up defending naive realism.

Like a true philosopher Putnam was guided by argument, not intention, and ended up defending naive realism.

Feminism is, or ought to be, activism for increasing female literacy, social recognition of problems of sexual harassment and domestic violence, and for changing rape law, unequal land laws etc..

But instead of working practically with changing legislation, educating the population, funding safe houses for persecuted women, etc. many "feminists" seem to believe that speaking seditiously among themselves at conferences or in feminist publications would matter somehow.

This is arguably the result of the influence of bad philosophy (e.g. Foucault and other formerly fashionable postmodern thinkers).

Obviously naive realism is true.

Putnam decisively refutes the skeptic idea that we might just be brains in a vat. For example, in Reason, truth, and history (1981).

Apparently it's available online at https://www.archive.org/stream/HilaryPutnam/PutnamHilary-ReasonTruthAndHistory_djvu.txt

The rejection of meaning has some illegitimate benefits which might explain its appeal. Without meaning anything goes, and any criticism can be dismissed as "meaningless" and so on.

Hilbert's hotel is also fully booked, recall, and a paradoxical thought experiment. Moreover, if a finite hotel has nowhere to expand to, then an infinite hotel is simply impossible.

A finite hotel which expands can be fully booked at time t1 and take more guests at time t2. In Hilbert's Hotell of infinite rooms, however, it seems that all rooms are booked at any time.

It occurs to me that most of us are first attracted to philosophy out of genuine curiosity, for truth and beauty as ends in themselves, not means for power as preached by marxist or freudian ideologues. For them there is neither truth, nor beauty, only the power of sophistry or satisfaction of attitudes.