If we ask 'Where and when does this relation exist?' the answer must be 'Nowhere and nowhen'.

To ask of a relation presupposes a content; how can that which necessarily has content be nowhere and at no time?

I think Spinoza's solution, that there is only one substance with both attributes, works. — Janus

Of all those choices, this is provably closest to the case, but you know….that leaves us with phosphate and calcium ions, nanovolts and picometers that think. Or, a brain full of nothing but extended substances that don’t think.

We are well and truly screwed, ain’t we? (Grin)

I couldn’t remember where I found this, seems like ages ago, and your “dualism of substances” made me think of it again. So I dug it up, just to give maybe the first exposition of what the intent was behind it. Not meant to elicit a comment…just thought you might be interested, if you didn’t already know.

Hobbes’ objection:
“…. Hence it may be that the thing that thinks - the subject that has mind, reason or intellect - is something corporeal. Descartes assumes that it isn’t, but he doesn’t prove this. Yet the conclusion that he seems to want to establish is based on this inference….”

Descartes’ reply:
“…. I’ll explain the point briefly. It is certain that a thought can’t exist without a thing that is thinking; and quite generally no act or property can exist without a substance for it to belong to. But we don’t ·ever· come to know a substance immediately, knowing it in itself, but only through its being the subject of certain acts. This makes it perfectly reasonable and normal for us to use different names for substances that we recognize as being the subjects of radically different acts or properties, and then later on to consider whether these different names signify different things or one and the same thing. Now there are certain acts and properties that we call ‘corporeal’, such as size, shape, motion and all others that can be thought only in terms of spatial extension; and we label as ‘body’ the substance that they are in, i.e. the thing that performs the acts and has the properties. We can’t intelligibly suppose that one substance has shape, and another substance moves, and so on, because all these acts fall under the common concept of extension. There are other acts that we call ‘acts of thought’, such as understanding, willing, imagining, having sensory perceptions, and so on; these all fall under the common concept of thought or perception or consciousness, and we call the substance that has them a ‘thinking thing’ or a ‘mind’ or any name you like as long as you don’t confuse this substance with corporeal substance. That confusion would be very bad, because acts of thought have nothing in common with corporeal acts, and thought (the common concept of the former) is radically different from extension (the common concept of the latter). Once we have formed two distinct concepts of these two substances, it is easy, on the basis of what I have said in the sixth Meditation, to establish whether they are one and the same or different….”
(Descartes, Objections and Replies, Third Objections (Hobbes), Second Meditation: ‘The nature of the human mind’, 1642, in Bennett, 2017)

…..it is plausible to think….. — Janus

Yep, even Himself says we can think whatever we please. But honestly….what advantage is gained by affirming something as real without the possibility of demonstrating it? If it’s as simple as the real encompasses at minimum holding something in your hand, sheer parsimony on the one hand, and pure logic on the other, says if you can’t hold it in your hand, it ain’t real.

It’s all good.

I don't have a problem with the idea that there may be real things which we cannot deomstrate to be real. — Janus

I’m with you on that; there could be all sorts of real stuff just outside the limits of our intelligence. Still, for those things we cannot demonstrate to be real, we lose the warrant for calling them real. Possibly real is all we can say, and that’s pretty weak.

I would say it is real, although it cannot be directly observed. — Janus

I guess that’s the root of my discomfort: we have real things we can observe and we have real things we cannot even possibly observe. Seems to take something important away from being real. It isn’t that big a deal, though, until or unless one gets deep into the weeds, whereupon inconsistencies become apparent.

all meaningful experience consists of correlations drawn between different things. — creativesoul

Can we agree from this, that experience is a stand-alone entity?

Our differences may be a matter of taxonomy….. — creativesoul

Taxonomy. Hierarchal organization. Of correlations drawn between different things? In the interest of clarity, might this require a predetermination of domain of discourse? If a dialectic should follow here, seems imperative to be on the same page. You brought it up, so you should set the pace.

……Maybe not if you're a mind/body dualist or physical/mental dualist. — creativesoul

I gather from this our differences wouldn’t be merely a matter of taxonomy if I were one of those dualists. It has always been my position that simply the nature of our human intellect makes non-dualism impossible. Might be different with a greater knowledge base, but we don’t have it yet, so…..
—————

some language less creatures can see red cups in very much the same way we do, given similar enough biological machinery. However, that same creature cannot know that they're seeing a green cup — creativesoul

….cannot know they’re NOT seeing a green cup?
———-

If you refer to a dualism of aspects as opposed to a dualism of substances then I agree. — Janus

Cool. In this instance, I was.

You seem to count as real only that which the senses apprehend. — Janus

Depending on our agreement on “apprehend”, yes. Given as opinion based on parsimony based on theory, but, yes.

My point earler was that on that criterion causation is not real. — Janus

Is this to say you don’t agree? Your point would be that causation is real?

I’d use causality rather than causation, but in either case, these always represent a relation, or that under which the chronology of the concepts in a relation, is subsumed. As such, causality/causation is no more than a metaphysical explanatory device representing either the progression or regression of real things in relation to each other.

Yea? Nay?

Why must one know what it is they are perceiving in order to be perceiving it? That makes no sense. — creativesoul

It does make no sense. I for one reject the very idea.
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Senses include neural events. — creativesoul

Of course, but neural events are not that which is given to the senses to be represented. Neural events in the senses just are the representations the senses afford.
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…..the grim specter of dualism looms with all its problems and aporias. — Janus

HA!!! Brain blind. I like it. But ya know…..if brain blind is true, then dualism must be true, problems and all. I’d even go as far as to say, because brain blind is true, dualism is necessarily true, insofar as it is impossible dualism is not true. There is that which we live in as things, and that which we create merely because of the things we are.

To me, because it seems most plausible, because we seem to have no cogent reason to doubt, that thoughts are neural events, then I count them as real and causal. — Janus

You’re not alone, I’m sure. But the fact I keep harping on, is that we do not think in terms of that which makes neural events real. Or, if this shoe fits better, what the brain does in its manufacture of our thoughts, in no way relates to what is consciously done with them.

I’m sticking with the notion that my senses will never be given my neural events, from which follows I can never represent a real-time, first order neural event as a phenomenon. As for every single possible real object ever given to my senses, every single one of them will be represented as a phenomenon. Thoughts are represented, but as conceptions, not as phenomena, and this is sufficient to mark the validity of the distinction between the real of things, re: neural events, and the not-real of abstract conceptions, re: thoughts.

But, as you say, that’s just me I guess.

I am interested in dropping the description and unhelpful arguments about what's "real". Seems the approach I've offered allows that to happen and focuses upon the effects/affects. — creativesoul

I thought your approach was…..

Now, whatever shall we do with realism?
— Mww

That which is real has affects/effects. — creativesoul

….and because I don’t subscribe to that approach in toto, isn’t the onus on me to describe the disagreement and argue the support for it?

….the divorce of perception and reality has even less appeal to me. — creativesoul

Agreed, this being the starting point of our current discourse.

I also do not place much value on "the given". — creativesoul

Ehhhhh…..that just indicates we don’t have to go look for things perceived. They’re everywhere we are, which means for us there is nowhere they’re not, which is the same as being given. Epistemologists cherish the term, ontologists hate it.
—————

I’d eliminate abstract conceptions having affect/effect from being real.
— Mww

What if abstract conceptions only have effects if they are actually thought, and every actual thought is a neural (i.e. real) event? — Janus

Doesn’t that just say neural events are real? No one doubts that, but no one can map from such physical neural event to a metaphysical abstract conception with apodeictic certainty, either. Probably less chance of self-contradiction, if it be the case neural events can be real and causal, but abstract conceptions are limited to being causal.

Does this mean that abstract concepts such as beauty are real? — RussellA

I’d eliminate abstract conceptions having affect/effect from being real. — Mww

If you took beauty to be an abstract conception, why would you ask me, of all people, if it meant that such conceptions are real, when I just stated for the record the elimination of them as being real?

I assume it makes more sense of direct realism. — creativesoul

To me it does, but then, this quintessential yankeevirgobabyboomer likes each thing in its place. This goes here does this, that goes there does that, working rather that interfering with each other.

Your offer of realism being that which has affect/effect makes it so everything having an affect or being effected, is real. I’d eliminate abstract conceptions having affect/effect from being real. Of course, that conception having an effect or being affected, is only so through another abstract conception. Rather than call those abstracts having affect/effect unreal, it’s suitable just to call them valid and their relation to each other, logical.

Whether by parsimony or necessity, makes no difference to the occassion, that the real is directly given to that creature capable of receiving it, which is merely to be undeniably affected by it, and with respect to the human creature, the inverse holds the same truth value, insofar as it is impossible to directly receive that which is not real, for we would never be aware of an affect.

Now, whatever shall we do with realism?
— Mww

That which is real has affects/effects. — creativesoul

Ok, but I guess I’d favor a more eliminative version.

The representationalist ends up claiming that we only perceive our internal states…..

Mmm, no; no, he doesn’t. Or, rather, he shouldn’t.

the observer does not immediately perceive or experience the environment, but only her mental representation thereof.

The representationalist observer immediately perceives the environment, but only experiences representations of it.

getting a representation of the world into the head (…) sets up a logical regress analogous to the classic homunculus problem of picture-in-the-head theories

(Sigh) The representationalist sneers at this funny talk. Second-order talk about what goes on in the head creates the folly; the head, in going about its first-order business, on its own sine qua non cognitive methodology, is destroyed by logical regress, which makes it patently obvious that isn’t what happens. It is, then, if this foolishness does seem to go on, the talk about it is catastrophically wrong.

this returns us to Hume's problem, for interpreting a representation presumes prior knowledge of the environmental entities for which the representations stand

Hume’s problem was solved, so it’s a mistake to return to it. Interpreting a representation is a logical function manifest in conceptual relational consistency, re: judgement, which is not a presumption of knowledge.

One may perceive the environment (the object of awareness) by means of an internal state (the vehicle of awareness)

One doesn’t perceive by means of internal states, he understands his perceptions by internal states. He perceives by the sensory apparatuses. The vehicle(S) of awareness then, are the senses. The internal state is the representation of what the awareness is about, which presupposes it. The vehicle of comprehension, the internal state, is not the vehicle of awareness, the senses.

But the question persists: what goes on in the perceiver when she becomes aware of an environmental object, if not getting a description of it into her head?

Getting it into his head? This implies the description has already been determined and comes from someplace else, another example of funny talk. If the system determines the description, it isn’t gotten into the head so much as being born there.

What goes on is an internal construction relating the real object he perceives to what he shall know it as. Bye bye homunculus dude and his reservations in the Cartesian theater.

perception may be conceptualized as a relation between the perceiver and the environment, in which the perceiver is aware of or in contact with ordinary environmental objects.

Whoa. Finally. Something uncontentious. Sorta. Perception MUST be conceptualized as that relation, in order to prevent all that follows from stumbling all over itself, insofar as to be aware of and to be in contact with, is not to experience.

The contact is direct, so much so that light is absorbed by the eye, and utilized in such an intimate fashion that there is no way such a process could be in any way indirect…. — NOS4A2

Agreed, but restricted to the eye. Nothing internally and outside the eye uses light.

A functional internal carotid artery, for instance, which supplies blood to the head, is required for sight — NOS4A2

The carotid artery and assorted peripherals may be necessary, but are not sufficient for vision or any sensation predicated on a particular physiology; they aren’t involved in nor benefit from the various processes themselves.

For whatever each perceptual apparatus provides, there is that which is both sufficient and necessary for the process to continue, which reduces to a specificity congruent with the mode of sensation.

It just doesn't make sense to me that the perceiver can be the intermediary for himself. — NOS4A2

Depends on what one thinks is contained in a sensation. If he thinks mere sensation is not enough for knowledge, then it is reasonable to suppose the remainder is provided by the perceiver himself, in which case he is his own intermediary, even if only between the thing he directly senses, and that with which he complements the sensation indirectly, in order to represent its object to himself.

I don’t know how you could smell the cake more directly. Would it be without the causes? — Luke

The way this all makes the most sense, is if the point of the query here…..

In what sense is an olfactory sensation caused by odour molecules in the air stimulating the sense receptors in my nose the "direct" perception of a cake in the oven? — Michael

….is that you can’t get to “cake in the oven” from the mere effect of molecules on the receptor neurons, insofar as this is the direct causality for the sense of smell, but there is as yet still nothing given from this sensation alone, that justifies an experience. You’d be better off, I think, if you’d just said, “how you could smell more directly”, leaving the as-yet undetermined thing sensed by means of the olfactor process, out of it.

I mean….lots of times we come into a room, take in an odor, and have no idea what object the smell represents, right? Same with all the other senses, some to a greater degree than others.

Anyway….just sayin’.

Yes, quite right. — Leontiskos

Ha!!! Yeah, but who’s gonna believe it was that easy? Except us of course.

And good musings to you as well.

On an empirical analysis, from what I’ve gathered the only direct perceptual relationship one can have with the world is with himself. Man perceives himself, ie. his pain or his tastes, not so much any outside factors which might cause them. — NOS4A2

Am I correct in supposing you mean by direct perceptual relationship, is with one’s body? But that can’t be right, for to perceive one’s body under empirical analysis is not to perceive one’s pains and tastes, insofar as these are not perceptions at all, but qualitative, or, technically, aesthetic, feelings one has, as you say, without consideration of which outside factors which might cause them.

The indirect realist position says that subject perceives subject, or subject is both the subject and the object of perception at the same time. — NOS4A2

If that is the case, he is seriously under-informed, for there is an argument in which that condition is disavowed. It is disavowed because the subject when treated as object, and object when treated as subject, can only occur under conditions that contradict themselves. It is the proverbial transcendental argument, which may or may or garner any favor these days, to be sure.
————

Grammatically speaking, this throws the subject/object relationship out the window. — NOS4A2

Dunno about grammatically speaking, but it certainly jeopardizes the subject/object relationship metaphysically. Reason enough for me and logical/methodological dualists in general I’ll wager, to forsake the idea.

The only way out of this quagmire, I think, is to posit that the object of perception is something supernatural. — NOS4A2

Perhaps, but the best way to prevent the quagmire from arising in the first place, is to limit objects of perception to the external arena, or, which is the same thing, to limit the objects of perception to those things conditioned by space and time. The concept here, substituting for something supernatural, I’d call something immanent.

Hopefully I understood what you meant to say. If not, my bad and if you want, you’re invited to correct me.

Pardon me whilst I philosophize for a few minutes here; do with it as you will.

How can "perceptions of the world" be "direct", if the "of the world" must be inferred from the perceptions — hypericin

Is this rhetorical? Perceptions of the world is unintelligible, direct perceptions of the world, superfluous. Human perception is limited to things, and even if “of the world” is inferred as the conception representing that to which the totality of things belongs, there is nothing given from that suggesting the world is that of perception.

How can we perceive objects themselves if even the object's existence at all is not a part of the perception? — hypericin

Existence is not part of perception, but for that which is perceived the existence of it is necessary, insofar as the perception of that which does not exist, is impossible. Existence is denied as a property, but nonetheless necessary as a logical condition.
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perceptions are exactly what we are (directly) aware of. — hypericin

How is it not that things are what we are directly aware of, because of the perception of them? It does not follow that because perception enables our awareness of things, that we are aware of the perceptions.

Perception is that by which objects are directly given; sensation is that by which of objects we are directly aware. These together and by themselves, are both sufficient and necessary to justify the doctrine of direct realism. Indirect realism, then, is merely a consequence of, or perhaps a supplement to, that doctrine.

The feeling of heat on my skin, feelings of anger or contentment, the sounds and feeling of playing the drums, are all direct. — hypericin

Just like that, if you’d agree these feelings and sounds are all nothing more than sensations, the heat, the source and the playing, respectively, being the perceptions, the cause of the heat, the object of anger, the drums played, respectively, being the things in the world given to perception.
————

We certainly don't "just see" trees and chairs. — hypericin

I agree, even though without a critical analysis is certainly seems that way. The overall efficiency of the human intellectual system permits the disregard for normative methodological processes, sometimes called mere habit, even if their full operational capacity remains necessary. This is manifest generally in it not being not self-contradictory when we say we see a chair as such, that we are technically referencing a certain knowledge a priori, that what we actually are seeing has already been sufficiently represented and now resides in either memory, for Everydayman and psychologists, or for the pure metaphysician, in consciousness. In other words, one can only truthfully say he sees a chair iff he already knows what a chair is, commonly called just plain ol’ experience.
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Perceptions of objects are representations of these objects, and so our perceptions of the object is indirect, because we perceive via representations. — hypericin

Light comes in the front of the eye as perception of something, gets all jumbled around, something quite different from light goes out the back. Where, in the eye itself, is a representation generated?

Pressure waves come in the front of the ear as perception of something, gets all jumbled around, something quite different from pressure waves goes out the back. Where in the ear is a representation generated?

If that which comes out the back is very different from what came in the front, there is no intrinsic contradiction in denying perception to that which comes out the back. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to grant that the very difference coming out the back as a sensation, just is the representation of that which came in the front as a perception, regardless of what’s happening in between?

We don’t perceive via representation; we have representation because of what we perceive. It’s a matter of time, if not physiology, but better if both. It is, therefore, the representation of objects that are indirectly acquired with respect to direct perceptions of them.

The metaphysically correct term for the indirect acquired representation of objects given directly from perception followed immediately by the sensation from which we become aware of them, is phenomena. But phenomena do not belong to perception, but to sensation, which is technically what comes out the back side of perceiving apparatus, and is very different than what has come in the front of it. And insofar as the object perceived is real, the phenomenon that represents it, in its very difference from it, cannot be real in the same manner as the object itself.

End philosophizing. Have a smurfy day.

in agreement on direct perception — creativesoul

Absurd to deny, I should think, and thereby easily dismissed.

Now, whatever shall we do with realism?

I'd say there is ample evidence of perception and thinking being entangled. — wonderer1

And I’d agree. They are entangled insofar as they work in conjunction with each other, and that necessarily, but only for a specific end, re: experience or possible experience. But to be entangled with each other in a system is not the same as mingled with each other, which is implied by saying perception contains both sensation and cognition.

Maybe you misunderstood what I meant by "distant". I just meant "situated outside the body". — Michael

Yeah, I did. Sorry. Distant to me means far, so I just took that and ran with it.
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The known mechanics of perception make clear that objects outside the body and their properties are not present in conscious experience (which does not extend beyond the body), and so in no meaningful sense are "directly presented". — Michael

And I agree with that, iff it is the case the human intellect is strictly a representational system, which is to say there are no real objects nor are there properties supposed as belonging to them, as content of experience. But it remains, that something must be an effect on that system, in order to initiate its systematic procedure, whatever that may be. Pardon me, but I just gotta do this:

“…. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd….”

What if conscious experience itself doesn’t extend to that by which objects are sensed? If such were the case, external objects could directly appear to the senses without contradicting the predicates of a strictly representational system.
————-

Simply saying that they're direct isn't explaining what it means to be direct. — Michael

Should be obvious, given its complement, re: indirect. Direct simply indicates that which is unmediated, hence, regarding perception, direct perception merely indicates that which is perceived is not mediated by anything. There’s nothing between the thing perceived and the perception of it.

I guess what it means to be direct could reduce to….the effect one thing has on another, and affect on the other the one thing causes, are altogether indistinguishable.
————

Take the duck-rabbit. — Michael

HA!! You mean that perception where the cognitive part can’t make a decision? Or, can make two valid decisions given a single perception? But wait, he said!! If cognition belongs intimately to perception, why can I not cognize BOTH manifestations at the same time?

While it is of course necessary that perception and cognition work together to facilitate experience, it does not follow that one belongs to or is contained in or part of, the other. If sensation and cognition both belong to perception, it would then be impossible to cognize an object that wasn’t first a sensation. Which is exactly the same as saying I could never imagine an object that I’ve never seen. It goes without saying, we all can do exactly that.

All that is so obvious, I must not have the whole picture. Or, more likely, I don’t have the whole modern picture. (Sigh)

What sits between the lemon and the creature's smelling?
— creativesoul

A necessary relation, and some means by which it occurs. (??)
— Mww

Causal. Biological machinery(physiological sensory perception). — creativesoul

Pretty much what I had in mind, yep. The object, lemon, is given, the means for the occurrence, smelling, is necessarily presupposed, but neither of them by itself tells us anything we didn’t already know.

So, again, in what meaningful sense can we still say that perception of distant objects is "direct"? — Michael

First and foremost, because this….

There are (at least) two parts to perception; sensation and cognition. — Michael

….would seem impossible to justify. There is no cognition in perception; the senses don’t think. That being the case, the meaningful sense in which we can say perception of distant objects is direct, is given from the fact the purely physiological operational status of sensory apparatuses is not effected by the relative distances of their objects. For your eyes the moon is no less directly perceived than the painting hanging on the wall right in front of you.

There are two parts to experience, sensation and cognition; perception is not experience but only the occasion for it.

Anyway….two cents. I found that “two parts to perception” comment particularly noteworthy, is all.

First….thanks for the response. I’m not singling you out, honest.

…..I think such perceptual distortions are caused by special circumstances. — Janus

….while I have a hard time accepting, given physiologically proper operations, that there are any. Distortions, yes; perceptual distortions, nope. Mother Nature wouldn’t saddle us with such arbitrarily inconsistent devices.

I mean, think about it. That bent stick? Are we not perceiving reality explicitly in accordance with natural relations? I can’t justify receiving the lawful effects of light refraction while at the same time blaming my eyes for giving me blatant distortions.

It is easier and simpler, though, gotta admit to that.

Perceptual experience may be… — flannel jesus

Be that as it may, when I observe the statement “perception sometimes distorts reality” I have but two conceptions and a copula relating one to the other to work with, entirely dependent on my understanding of them, neither of which has to do with experience, both being methodologically antecedent to it.

The rejoinder should have been understood as affirming the notion perception cannot be causal with respect to reality, when it is necessarily the case all that belongs to reality alone, is all that can have an effect on it. That which is affected cannot at the same time be causal regarding the very thing by which it is affected.

Perception gives the undistorted reality manifest in the relations of material substances; mere convention, re: the path of least linguistic resistance, translates that into broken sticks and other various and sundry misconceptions.

For no particular reason….

”perception sometimes distorts reality. We know this to be so because mostly, it doesn't". — Janus

How do we go about proving whatever distortion there may or may not have been, is caused by perception? What is the nature of perception such that it is possibly causal, but not necessarily? If perception is causally distortive, what makes it only sometimes causally distortive, but not always?

Does it ever arise within me, that I begin to mistrust the report of my senses? And if it does so arise, at what point do I mistrust them entirely? And what wtf am I supposed to do if I can’t trust them at all?

Experience tells me I have no reason good enough to generally mistrust my senses, in that my knowledge of things, which always begins with it, is, for all practical purposes, both sufficiently constant regarding only me, and non-contradictory when in regard to others cognitively similar to me.

If there is some means by which I know reality is apparently distorted, why is it not therefore possible it is that knowledge itself that is distorted, perception having nothing whatsoever to do with it, doing nothing but pass downstream that which is given to it? And if perception merely passes on, and I know there is an apparent distortion, why can’t I say it is reality itself that is distorted, and if I allow that I’m in the same boat of mistrust as I was with my senses.

Is perception of a pinprick ever doing to be distorted enough to be the perception of a sonic boom?

What sits between the lemon and the creature's smelling? — creativesoul

A necessary relation, and some means by which it occurs. (??)

Reasonable, to be sure.

On the other side of that methodological coin, I kinda think endorsement of the LNC makes even beneficial scepticism over-rated.

Anyway….I was just curious, so, thanks.

Realism is what both sides agree upon… — hypericin

Doesn’t seem that way to me.

If all agreed on realism being the doctrine that describes a condition of a thing, what sense does it make for some to disagree on the criteria by which the thing meets that condition?

If a thing can be directly real under these conditions, but indirectly real under those conditions, realism is no longer the descriptive doctrine all agree upon, but is reduced to being itself conditioned by criteria having nothing whatsoever to do with a thing being real in accordance with the original agreement.

Or, on the other hand, the description is of something supposed as real but still something other than the real thing met with under the criteria of the original doctrine, hence not contained in the realism all agreed upon.

I mean….you said it yourself: realism is assumed under these conditions, but is known under those conditions, which puts realism itself right smack-dap in the doctrinal crosshairs.

Nahhhh…..if we are to append “real” to this only because of this, we are not legitimately allowed to then append “real” to this because of not-this.
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Once we hit page 20 we will surely be able to say what it is we are arguing about. — Leontiskos

Forever the optimist, are we? Ehhhh….even if you’re right, there’ll always be something else to take sides over. Like…..those gawd-awful qualia. (Sigh)

Even if all that’s fine, with respect to the direct/indirect dichotomy alone, how does that, or how does each of them, relate to realism? Realism is the concept in question, after all, its apparent dual nature, right?
———

We perceive the world via phenomenal experience.
— hypericin

The world is first in the chain of events leading to phenomenal experience, and the experience is last. Therefore, we perceive the world indirectly.
— hypericin — Mww

I won’t say I reject the assertion that the world is perceived indirectly via phenomenal experience, but I will say I’m having trouble with how that would work. Dunno why it should be that we perceive the world indirectly just because it’s first in a chain of events.

Differences in understanding of the related conceptions, I guess.

Anyway….thanks.

I think there is no real place for skepticism within the transcendental idealism, and I take this to be one of its flaws. — Metaphysician Undercover

“…. scepticism—the principle of a technical and scientific ignorance, which undermines the foundations of all knowledge, in order, if possible, to destroy our belief and confidence therein….” (A424/B452)

“…. Thus, the critique of reason leads at last, naturally and necessarily, to science; and, on the other hand, the dogmatical use of reason without criticism leads to groundless assertions, against which others equally specious can always be set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism….” (B23)

Apparently, there isn’t a place for scepticism in transcendental philosophy anyway, insofar as to support our belief or confidence in our knowledge is exactly what the a posteriori aspect of the thesis promises, and, the exposure of flaws in the use of reason without proper critical restrictions on its authority is exactly what the pure a priori aspect demands.

I suspect you might mean as one of the flaws in transcendental philosophy, insofar as the philosophy as a whole is dedicated to defeating scepticism, is the sceptical method….

“…..This method (…) of originating a conflict of assertions, (…) to discover whether the object of the struggle (…) each side strives in vain to reach, but which would be no gain even when reached—this procedure, I say, may be termed the sceptical method. (…) For the sceptical method aims at certainty….” (Ibid a)

….which is part-and-parcel of the nature of reason itself. I’m just saying I don’t think it responsible to fault a predicate of a philosophy that addresses the very thing the human intelligence is prone to doing, and in acknowledging it, guarding against its interference, is possible.

Might be interesting to be informed as to what you think scepticism actually is, and therefrom, where in transcendental philosophy it resides, as a flaw in it.

We perceive the world via phenomenal experience. — hypericin

What, then, of the senses?

The world is first in the chain of events leading to phenomenal experience, and the experience is last. Therefore, we perceive the world indirectly. — hypericin

Agreed on the first, but how does the second follow?

You think thought and communication are divorced from brain activity? — ucarr

Did I not say that brain activity, relative to the self, is given?

….the noumenal section…. — ucarr

The…what????

Reflexivity and redundancy are not synonymous. — ucarr

Your reflexivity is my reciprocity, and no, they are not synonymous with redundancy.

spending the rest of your days in solitary confinement within a white room would be for you a matter of indifference. — ucarr

Yep. Why not? Euphemistic escape: the white room is of my own design, laying in the dark, where the shadows run, not from themselves, but from me, because they are mine. You, being just as human as I, inhabit your own white room, in which you will be confined for the rest of your days.

Riddles, cleverly disguised as clandestine aphorisms, don’t interest me, although their construction is kinda fun. I mean, really…how can there be shadows, running or not, in a dark room. And if you’re laying in the dark, what does it matter if the room is white? Peter Brown needed his head examined. Or maybe just laid off the windowpane.

I think brain activity occurs in spacetime. — ucarr

Of course, but we weren’t discussing brain activity. If you wish to go there, you’re obligated to connect the self and its activities, a predominantly metaphysical paradigm, to the brain and its activities, a predominately scientific paradigm, with apodeitic specificity. That the self is impossible without the brain is given, but is at the same time far to general a proposition to be of any explanatory help.
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Guilt is an everyday example of the self judging its own actions and finding fault with itself. — ucarr

Such is the superficial appearance, but I disagree that the self is finding fault with itself. It is actually the self finding fault with an act a posteriori, as effect, but not necessarily with its antecedent judgement by which the act is determined a priori, as cause.
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The gist of my thesis is that the self is not reducible to a unitary person. — ucarr

I, on the other hand, hold the self is reducible to a unitary, or singular, rational identity.
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You seem to be implying self cannot be objectively aware of self. — ucarr

I’m familiar with arguments in which the self is both subject and object. This happens only in expositions of it, wherein what the self is in itself as object, is confounded with the manifestations of the self’s doings as subject. In other words, the self is necessarily reified when attempting to explain itself. Which gives rise to the inevitable absurdity of the self reifying itself. Still, conceptions, intuitions, morals, thoughts, subjects and objects and whatnot, are all required pursuant to expressions of the human kind of intelligence, but the self doesn’t use any of them to do what it does, except to manifest itself as subject.

So, yes, I submit the self not only isn’t aware of itself objectively, but is absurd to suppose it needs to be. In fact, I reject the notion that the self is aware of itself subjectively, hence the redundancy, while merely granting the availability of some mechanism by which it seems to be the case.

Is there any differential in space and time separating the self and its thoughts? — ucarr

There isn’t any space in a thought, and if the self just is that which has thoughts, one is temporally inseparable from the other.
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….a) a thought is about the judgment of the self in reaction to a perception of the world — ucarr

I don’t think of judgement like that. The self judges, so it can’t be that the self is judged. Using your terms, I’d only admit to judgement as being the self’s manifest reaction to a perception.

…..b) a judging self is self-aware in its acts of judgment….. — ucarr

Tautologically true, but congruent with every other aspect of what the subject does….

…..and self-awareness requires a separation of self (…) from self….. — ucarr

I personally don’t agree with that; I find it a mischaracterization of self, in its irreducible sense. Self-awareness is redundant. Awareness presupposes self, and, self is necessarily that which is aware.

…..if there is no separation of self from self…. — ucarr

I wonder how that can even happen. By what mechanism can a singular identity become detached? If self separates from self, what then becomes of self-awareness?
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this inter-communitive relationship — ucarr

Thought and judgement, because they are related to each other….communicate? Why can’t they just be specific components integrated into a particular process? It’s like saying the water communicates with the soil in which the plant grows.

Anyway, it’s become too psychological for my interests, so, thanks for the alternative perspective.

When the self has a thought, the content of the thought gets conveyed to the self having the thought. — ucarr

Conveyed….from where?

Given that there is no such thing as an empty thought, it follows necessarily that when a self has a thought, it must be that the content does not get conveyed to the self, but arises from the self in conjunction with the thought the self has.

The assertion, then, reduces to either the conveyance, not of the content, but of the thought itself, to the self that has the thought, a contradiction, or, there is nothing whatsoever conveyed to the self regarding thought and its content, that doesn’t already reside therein, such that, ipso facto, thought is possible.

Not to say there isn’t something conveyed to the self, as something must be in order to justify his experience. It just isn’t thought or its content.

the conception is posterior to the intuitions which Kant confirms are active in each person. — Paine

Absolutely. All conceptions are posterior to intuition, in Kant.

Sort of taking half of Descartes' certainty at the expense of the other. — Paine

You mean, cogito at the expense of substance? If so, then yes, I’d agree with that.

He does say at the beginning that it is an empirical proposition, so yeah, I'm disagreeing with that — Janus

So does he. The empirical proposition is initially a derivative of Mendelssohn's materialism; the disagreement is the evolution of the “Refutation of Idealism” in A, to the “Solution of the Psychological Paralogism” in B.

In short, the “I”, previously taken as Descartes’ “thinking substance” and Mendelssohn's “simple being”, cannot exist as conditioned by modal categories, but can only be represented as a non-contradictory transcendental object.

While we all might be quite happy to be informed our respective “I”’s can’t be really real, we still might be a little reserved in our happiness from being informed it’s no more than an intellectual conception.

….where is the "immediate" object? — Pez

Immediate appearance is before the processing. Object here just indicates that which is processed, depending on which sense is affected. The object for the ear is sound, for the tongue, chemicals, etc. The intellectual system, metaphysically speaking, the brain physically speaking, determines how the object of sense, referred to as sensation, is to be known by that system.