We're still not on the same page, because I claim contradiction within the system, therefore I cannot conclude that the existence claims are valid. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand. I do not see a formal contradiction. It sounds like you do. I think this is where we must part ways.

Well, phenomenal qualities are essentially private, so obviously they can’t satisfy public criteria. — Michael

I actually reject this. While I would agree that phenomenal qualities are private in their occurrence, they are not private in their intelligibility, assessibilty, or normativity.

So I wouldn't say I've ruled out indirect realism a-priori. I'm just challenging a background assumption that is usually taken for granted in the debate.

EDIT: this is where I would, perhaps, differ from @Banno or @Hanover

I think this clarifies our disagreement nicely. When I talk about “objecthood,” I am not using it in the purely grammatical sense of whatever can occupy the X-position in the statement “I perceive X.”

The issue I’m pressing is whether phenomenal qualities satisfy the same kind of public, normative criteria—identity, persistence, affordance, counterfactual structure—that we ordinarily use to count something as an object in a robust sense, such as a game-object or a truck. My claim is that they do not.

That does not mean they are unreal or inaccessible; it means they belong to the structure of perceptual episodes rather than to the ontology of objects of perception. So while I’m happy to grant your grammatical usage of “object,” my denial concerns whether phenomenal qualities should be treated as objects in the same ontological sense as the things we ordinarily perceive (trucks, boats, people, etc.).

Then I think this is our fundamental disagreement. As above with my reply to RussellA, I think it quite appropriate to say that I am aware of these phenomenal shapes and sizes and colours. I recognize them as being present, as differing from one another and other things, as having names, etc. — Michael

Yes, perhaps this is where we must diverge.

I do want to clarify that I do not deny any of the following:

• that phenomenology is real
• that experience is vivid
• that we can talk about colour, shape, etc.

For me, it is about whether "objecthood" is required to make sense of those facts. Whereas the game-object satisfies public, normative criteria of objecthood - identity, persistence, affordance, counterfactual robustness - phenomenal qualities do not. This doesn't make them illusory. They are subject to other norms - the norms of perceptual description and articulation - but they don't meet the qualifications of "objecthood" in the way that the game-object does.

So shape, size, colour, and motion are "features of the perceptual episode". Do you accept that I am aware of these shapes, sizes, colours, and motions, and so that I am aware of the "features of the perceptual episode"? Do you accept that this perceptual episode and its features are visual in nature? Do you accept that to be aware of visual features is to see these features? — Michael

No, not as stated. I would not say that I am "aware of" these shapes, sizes, colours, and motions as objects of awareness. I would say that I am "aware that" they are the way in which I am "aware of" the object. It is the game-object that I am aware of, not the phenomenal qualities themselves. Those qualities characterize the manner of presentation, but they are not what is presented.

Isn't there a difference between the "virtual object" as a collection of transistors turning on and off and the "virtual object" as the thing seen with shape, size, colour, and behaviour? — Michael

Yes, there is a difference, but I would say the difference is not explained by positing two different objects, one worldly and one mental. There is only one virtual game-object, considered under two different explanatory roles.

There are two different questions we can ask about the game-object:

(1) what kind of thing is the game-object?
(2) in what manner is the game-object phenomenally present to an embodied agent?

Answering the first question involves appealing to hardware, software and the normative rules embodied by the system that constitute the conditions of the object's identity, persistence, affordances and counterfactual constraints.

Answering the second question involves appealing to shape, size, colour, salience and motion. These are features of the perceptual episode not ingredients of a second "thing" over-and-above the game-object.

When you remove the bionic eye and set it on the table the game-object does not cease to exist as a virtual object: it's identity conditions do not disappear, its behavior in the game-world does not vanish. What disappears is its perceptual presence, its phenomenal articulation, its being-a-threat-for-you.

I’m not saying that’s all there is, I’m asking how else can this be understood. — Tom Storm

Here's one possible alternative framing that I think would be endorsed by someone like Allison. I'm not going to try to defend this framing, I'm just going to offer it:

Crucifixion in the Roman world was a state execution designed to humiliate, terrorize, and erase. It was reserved for slaves, rebels, and the socially disposable. It was not a religious ritual. It was political violence, publicly justified as “law and order.”

The Gospels go out of their way to show that Jesus is innocent, the legal process is corrupt, religious and political authorities collude, and the crowd is manipulable. The cross is not staged as a sacred offering; it is staged as a miscarriage of justice.

The agents of violence are the state, institutional religion, respectable authority, and the crowd. This is what the world does to truth, fidelity, and love: violence is normalized, justified, and sanctified by “order”.

But the gospel story insists that God is found not on the side of power, but on the side of the executed. That’s not sacralizing violence. It’s exposing it. The cross says: this is what our systems do when they feel threatened.

The New Testament sometimes uses sacrificial imagery, but that imagery is metaphorical, drawn from Jewish covenantal language and morally reworked, not mechanically applied. When early Christians say Jesus “gave himself,” the emphasis is on self-giving, not divine requirement. A key shift happens here: God is not the one demanding blood; humans are the ones shedding it. That’s the inversion many later atonement theories obscure.

If the story ended on Friday the cross would simply be another example of justified brutality: suffering would be ennobled and violence would win.

But the resurrection functions as a reversal of meaning: the executed one is vindicated, the judgment of history is overturned, the logic that “might makes right” is exposed as false.

So the resurrection does not say: “suffering redeems because suffering is good”. It says: “the world was wrong to do this, and God does not side with those who did it.”

That’s why the resurrection is not an optional decoration, but a moral key.

It means that, although the existence of the virtual object is materially realized, it cannot be explained entirely in terms of the material processes that realize it. An adequate explanation of its existence must also appeal to the norm-governed practices that brought the system about and that are embodied in the system's structure.

So, I would say that the game object still exists if the wearer is brain dead, is a p-zombie or even if human beings were to be eradicated, as long as the VR system is still running. Virtual objects exist when the VR system is running because the criteria of existence that originated within a norm-governed practice are now being realized by the system itself, even if no agent is present to participate in or interpret those norms.

How I interpret this, is that you believe it exists by stipulation. if something is stipulated to exist, then it does. I have a problem with this, because it circumvents the judgement of truth, allowing you to employ premises (axioms) without the requirement of truth. Ultimately the conclusions are unsound. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think we are on the same page now. I personally don't think that the axioms of ZFC are "true" in any metaphysical, transcendental or empirical sense. However, I accept that existence claims derived from those axioms are nonetheless valid within the formal system. This is formal/heuristic truth, rather than metaphysical or empirical truth.

Is this a form of pragmatism? Yes, I think it probably is. I am not adopting the axioms because they are "true" in any robust sense, but because they enable so much interesting, beautiful and indispensably useful mathematics.

That said, I don't deny that your critique may have real bite against those who would take the axioms to be true in a more robust sense.

So when the bionic eye is being used to play a VR game, the direct object of perception — the "object" acting as intentional object — is not a mind-independent material object? — Michael

I would say that the virtual game-object — the "object" acting as an intentional object — is:

(1) materially realized, but not reducible to a set of material objects, processes or structures
(2) socially constituted within norm-governed practice, but not a private mental item

Is this also true when the eye is being used to help the wearer navigate the real world? — Michael

No. When the bionic eye is used to help the wearer navigate the real world, the direct object of perception—the “object” acting as an intentional object—is a mind-independent, material object under a perceptual mode of access within norm-governed perception-and-action.

What varies between the two cases is the ontological category of the object. What remains invariant is that:

(1) there is an agent
(2) there is an object
(3) there are public norms of perception and action

The object functions as an intentional object when those norms are satisfied.

The issue with the definition of "countably infinite" is that the procedure cannot be carried out. The formula states something which is impossible to correctly finish, therefore the numbers cannot exist. — Metaphysician Undercover

This seems to be the crux of the issue for you, and I can appreciate the tension that you are raising, but personally I don't see this as an issue. I see the logical proof of the bijection as adequate to accept its existence, but scoped only to within the "game" of ZFC set theory.I'll try to explain my reasoning as clearly as I can.

For many on this thread, to say "the bijection exists", is literally to say nothing more than:

(1) the bijection is formally derivable from the axioms of ZFC in combination with the inference rules of classical first-order logic.

That's it. So when we say "the bijection exists" we are saying something more like "the bijection exists within ZFC".

For many of us on the thread, (1) is straight-forwardly true. So when someone denies "the bijection exists", we hear it as a denial of (1), since that is all we mean, whereas I think the people making the denial are (perhaps?) not intending it in this way. Hence all of the confusion.

What are your thoughts on this?

I think the second quote is an articulation of the first. It would make sense for the religion of one's cultural background to capture something the others don’t. Not that the reverse isn’t sometimes true for some people. — Tom Storm

I see what you mean, but I would say that this is a bit overly reductionistic. People choose to align themselves to religious traditions for many reasons that cannot be reduced solely to the influence of their cultural backgrounds.

have never understood the resurrection story, or, as some put it: God sacrificed Himself to Himself to save us from Himself because of a rule He made Himself.

That may be a bit glib, but the blood sacrifice element never made sense to me. The fact Jesus could walk away from it just demonstrated how little was sacrificed, he was omnipotent to begin with. No doubt there are innumerable theological exegeses to offer to redeem (sorry) this account. — Tom Storm

Again, I would say that this is probably overly reductionistic and perhaps even a bit uncharitable. I think that "blood sacrifice" is not the best historical description of how the earliest Christians understood the crucifixion. The language of sacrifice is indeed one of several interpretive strands running through the tradition, but (as far as I know) it was not understood by early Christians as an expression of primitive blood magic. The crucifixion (and the resurrection) were seen primarily as a symbolic condemnation of violence, not a sacralization of it.

That said, I lean more toward the first analysis than the second. Is it possible to doubt whether I have two hands? Yes. Do we know the general sorts of things that justify our (comparative) certainty about two-handedness? Yes. — J

My analysis would actually be closer to the second than the first, and I largely agree with 's reply, though I framed it differently. The basic idea is that some "why?" questions misfire because they try to put into question that which makes questioning possible in the first place. Framed like this, it can be seen as a retorsion argument, or argument from pragmatic contradiction.

Cheers. I saw your farewell in another thread and won't tether you to the forum with another reply. I wish you the best of luck with your novel. Hopefully we'll get the chance to converse again sometime in the future. It's been a pleasure. Take care.

I often wonder, in such cases, why Christianity rather than Hinduism, Islam or Buddhism. When read deeply, they too offer cast contemplative opportunities. — Tom Storm

Indeed they do, and it's a good question. I'm guessing that Allison would concede that his affinity for Christianity is rooted in his cultural background. I know that he has engaged honestly with other traditions and I don't think he would try to say that Christianity is demonstrably superior to them according to any neutral, public criteria. That said, he also seems to think that the Christian tradition captures something unique that helps him to make sense of the world in a way not replicated by other traditions, and that the resurrection plays a role in that. I'm not sure if he'd be willing to say anything stronger than that.

The term "intentional object" describes a role rather than an entity. I realize that the terminology in my previous post was ambiguous, so I'll try to spell it out more clearly.

The VR game has virtual game-objects. The game-objects are entities in their own right, realized by (but not reducible to) hardware, software and norm-governed social practices.

We also have the agent who is perceiving the game-objects. Like the game-objects, the agent is an entity in its own right, realized by (but not reducible to) biological processes and norm-governed social practices.

When game-objects are perceived and interacted with by the agent they function as intentional objects. This function is realized by the norm-governed relation between the game-object, the agent, and publicly accessible practices of perception-and-action. This relation is itself not reducible to the physical processes that realize either the game-object, the agent or their physical interaction.

So in cases of veridical perception the intentional object just is the game-object under a mode of access.

I've met similar people and even identified as one for a short time. I get the impression, though, that Allison would likely reject he NOMA label. While he denies that historical method can establish the resurrection, I think he would accept that historical method nevertheless constrains belief. I think he is saying something more like "history places limits on what can responsibly be believed, but it does not exhaust rational judgment". My impression is that he would reject the resurrection if, say, the skeletal remains of Jesus were to be found. Barring something like that, he sees his belief as responsible judgment under evidential underdetermination, constrained by history but not produced by it -- or something like that.

Again, keeping it very brief, I would say that the virtual objects are intentional objects. They are not reducible to material objects situated outside the body, computer software or neurological activity, though they are realized via the interaction of all three. Intentional objects are constituted within a rule-governed, publicly accessible practice of perception and action. They are subject to constraints of normative correctness, public criteria of identity, action guidance and counter-factual robustness.

If a bionic eye, as well as being able to help the otherwise-blind navigate the real world, can be used to play VR computer games, then what, if anything, do we see when we use it to play VR computer games?

I'd be interested in what you think @Esse Quam Videri. I don't intend to start a new debate so won't argue against anything you say, just curious. — Michael

Sure. Feel free to respond or not at your discretion. I don't mind seeing the conversation continue, though I suspect we'd probably end up at the same place again. :smile:

Very briefly, I would say that when using a bionic eye to play a VR game we see a virtual environment populated with game-world objects. I would say that we do not see things like "phenomenal qualities", "mental pictures" or "electromagnetic radiation", but the virtual objects and environments themselves.

- I've been meaning to return to this for a while now, but just haven't had time. You're already juggling multiple interlocutors; hopefully this won't be interpreted as "piling on".

For example, imagine that there is forty chairs in a room somewhere. There is simply an existing bijection between the chairs and the integers, so that the count is already made without having to be counted. It's just a brute fact that there is forty chairs there, without anyone counting them. This is a form of realism known as Platonic realism. The numbers simply exist, and have those relations, which we would put them into through our methods, but it is not required that we put them into those relations for the relations to exist. — Metaphysician Undercover

I see what you are saying here. I was coming at this from a slightly different angle.

I take it that you are aware that there are several different axiomatizations of set theory. Some examples are: ZFC, ZF, Z, CZF, IZF and various Finitistic and even Ultrafinitistic systems.

The argument about measurement that you provided in your reply is interesting, and I can see how it is relevant to question of whether (or in what sense) a countably infinite set can be said to "exist". But the word "exists" can have different meanings depending on the context. Within the context of ZFC set theory, to say that a countably infinite set "exists" doesn't imply that it exists in some Platonic heaven. That's not to say that you couldn't interpret it in a Platonic way, just that nothing in ZFC itself forces this interpretation.

Now, I see that a few others on the thread have raised a similar point and that you have not been convinced. That's fair. I doubt that I will be able to convince you either, but I will try to explain how I see it and then you can let me know what you think.

The way I (and many others) interpret the word "exists" with respect to ZFC set theory is something like "there is a derivation from the axioms of ZFC using the inference rules of classical first-order logic, of the formula ∃x P(x)". Or, more compactly, ZFC ⊢ ∃x P(x).

So to say that "a countably infinite set exists" is just to say "ZFC ⊢ ∃x CountablyInfinite(x)". The actual derivation follows very simply from the axiom of infinity in combination with the definition of "countably infinite".

In my view, accepting this does not mean that you have to believe that countably infinite sets "exist" in any other sense, whether that be in a Platonic heaven, in the mind of God, or as an actual collection of objects somewhere within the physical universe.

What are your thoughts on this?

Are you saying that when you look at a table, you perceive the spatial relation between the table top and table legs indirectly? — RussellA

Presentism does not say there is only one time, it says that entities exist only at the "present" time.

I don’t understand how the Sun can persist through different times when in Presentism there is only one time, namely the present. — RussellA

No, I would say that the spatial relation is not "perceived" in the sense of being a datum of experience.

We need to learn the names "yellow" and “circle”, but I would have thought that our ability to perceive yellowness and circularity are innate, something we are born with. — RussellA

The capacity to experience colors and shapes is innate for people born with "normal" perceptual systems. But "yellow" and "circle" are more than just names, they are concepts that have to be understood through personal insight and stabilized through social practice.

I would appreciate it if sometime you could find any flaws in my main argument against Direct Realism (both Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR) and Semantic Direct Realism (SDR)). — RussellA

Here is some feedback regarding your argument. I'll go step-by-step stating whether I accept or reject along with some brief notes about why:

1. Accepted.
2. Accepted.
3. Rejected: I would not claim that “content travels unchanged” through the chain. I would claim that perception is of the object via the chain, not that the chain preserves representational content.
4. Accepted with qualification: I accept sensory dependence, but deny that this entails mediation by inner objects or representations.
5. Rejected: This establishes at most epistemic underdetermination, not logical impossibility; the examples show fallibility, not impossibility.
6. Rejected: Fallibility or inferential uncertainty does not entail logical impossibility; this confuses limits on reconstruction with limits on knowledge.
7. Rejected: Non-sequitur. Even if causal origins cannot be reconstructed with certainty, it does not follow that the object of perception is an inner phenomenal item rather than the external object.
8. Granted.
9. Rejected: False attribution. I do not claim we can logically reconstruct prior causal links; I claim that perception is world-involving without requiring such reconstruction.

But I’m not sure about this; so many skeptical challenges can be interpreted not as questioning a hinge proposition but simply as demonstrating that our language allows us to ask “Why?” about pretty much anything. — J

I am not responding on behalf of Sam26 here, but I would say that asking "why?" is not itself an epistemically "innocent" act. It assumes that there is something to ask "why" about, admits the possibility of finding an answer, and presupposes that some answers will be better than others, among other things. To ask "why" is already to make a move within the game. Would you agree?

Thanks for the very well-written OP.

I'm curious how you think your argument would land with the historian Dale Allison. Are you familiar with his book on the resurrection?

My understanding is that Allison would largely grant everything that you said with regards to the weakness of the testimonial case for the resurrection, but would push back is on the implicit assumption that if a claim fails to meet public historical standards of testimonial knowledge, then that belief lacks adequate epistemic warrant simpliciter.

He seems to argue along the following lines:

(1) The resurrection is not an inference to the best explanation
(2) The resurrection is a singular event that resists historical capture
(3) Belief in the resurrection arises from a convergence of factors, not historical evidence alone

With regards to (3) specifically he seems to say that belief in the resurrection is more akin to committing to a total vision of reality or interpreting history through a larger horizon. He often frames belief as a reasonable risk in light of the moral vision of Jesus, the coherence of Christian hope and the way the resurrection belief "fits" into a total viewpoint, etc.

What are your thoughts on this type of approach?

:up:

I'm familiar with the diagram you presented and with McDowell's position. Although I am heavily influenced by McDowell, I part ways with him on the question of perception.

I don't accept your claim that we are forced to choose between naive realism and indirect realism as you have laid them out. Neither do I accept your claim that my view qualifies as SDR as defined by the paper you've referenced. I'm not sure where that leaves us.

I think you're reading too much into the word "object" — and note that I didn't even use the word "object" in the context of mental phenomena. — Michael

I'm just trying to interpret your language, which I find to be a bit opaque. In (2) you said that colours and pain are directly "present to" something -- "the mind" -- and that they are present "in" phenomenal experience. This language is strongly evocative of objects being present in a space to some observer. I'm just trying to figure out why we would use any of this language if we don't mean something like this.

Whatever pain is, it is a literal constituent of phenomenal experience, unlike the fire that is causally responsible for this phenomenal experience by burning the nerve endings in my skin. — Michael

Just trying to understand: you said in (1) above that pain is a mental phenomena. In the quote directly above, you've said pain is a "constituent of" phenomenal experience. This evokes a part-whole relationship. Is pain one part of a larger composite "thing"; namely, phenomenal experience?

Are you saying that direct and indirect realists are using the word "perception" wrong?

...Or are you saying that direct and indirect realists are...are wrong about what would satisfy "direct perception" and about what would satisfy "indirect perception"? — Michael

Neither. By "misdefined", I'm saying that the whole traditional debate presupposes a mistaken "object-presentation" model of experience. By "wrong level", I mean that I don't think that "experience" is the level at which object-directedness occurs.

I don't know how to answer that. — Michael

I’m not asking how information is causally transmitted or how the brain interprets signals. I’m asking how experiential data bear epistemically on judgment—i.e., whether they function as reasons, conditions for insight, or merely as causes.

For there to be a token identity between the features of the experience and the features of the thing experienced. — Michael

I'm puzzled by this. How does this definition apply to the white circle? What is the white circle token-identical with such that it can satisfy your criterion?

The IR is saying that i) there is no stick in the mind-external world in the first place, ii) the fact there is no stick in the mind-external world is what implies indirectness, iii) the stick we perceive exists as a concept in the mind, not as a fact in the mind-external world. — RussellA

Yes, but none of this follows from anything else you've said so far. I don't deny the IR the right to believe these things, I only deny that they are rationally compelling.

For the DR, the Sun exists in the mind-external world. Accepting Presentism, an object cannot persist through different times when only one time exists. The tensed truth “The Sun exists now” is true now has no relation to “the Sun persists now”. — RussellA

Tensed truths are not only about the present, but about the past and future as well. Presentism doesn't rule out tensed truths about persistent objects.

I would appreciate it if sometime you could find any flaws in my main argument against Direct Realism (both Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR) and Semantic Direct Realism (SDR)) — RussellA

I will try to get back to this when I get some time.

Suppose that many times I perceive the combination yellow circle. — RussellA

I think that your account of experience, understanding and judgment is overly simplistic and elides many important distinctions. For example, what does it mean to "perceive" the "combination" or "yellow" and "circle"? A "combination" is a relation. Are you saying we can perceive relations directly? "Yellow" and "circle" are classifications. Do these just "appear" within consciousness without any effort or learning on the part of the subject?

Reject what specifically?

1. That colours and pain are mental phenomena
2. That colours and pain are directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience
3. The transitive law that therefore mental phenomena are directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience
4. That distal objects are not directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience
5. That the phrase "to directly perceive X" as used by traditional direct and indirect realists means "X is directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience" — Michael

I pretty much reject all of them as stated. I'll be brief:

(1) Rejected because it reifies experiential data into mental objects.
(2) Rejected because experience is not object-presentation.
(3) Rejected because the ontology and the inference both misdescribe consciousness.
(4) Rejected because experience is not object-presentation, whether distal or proximal.
(5) Rejected because it misdefines perception at the wrong level of analysis.

Are you asking about the binding problem? We don't have a good explanation of that yet. — Michael

No, I'm not asking about neural mechanisms, I am asking about the epistemic relationship between the two.

Taken from the problem of perception, "the character of your experience is explained by an actual instance of [a white circle] manifesting itself in experience". — Michael

On this view, what is the difference between a white-circle "manifesting" itself within experience and a boat "manifesting" itself in experience?

The DR agrees that they perceive a Sun because of a causal chain, but as it is logically impossible to know what initiated any causal chain arriving at our senses, what the DR is perceiving cannot be something in the mind-external world.

If the DR is not perceiving a “worldly object”, then they can only be perceiving something in their mind. — RussellA

This does not follow. You are trying to argue from epistemic limits to an ontological conclusion. Even granting the contestable claim that it is "logically impossible" to know what initiated the causal chain, all that follows is that we can't be certain of what we perceive. Fallibility doesn't imply indirectness.

But how can something persist in a mind-external world, if persists means exists at different times, and in Presentism only one moment in time exists — RussellA

Persistence on Presentism is cashed out in terms of tensed truths and causal continuity, not simultaneous existence at multiple times.

I thought that DR requires that perception is grounded in a mind-external object. This mind-external object may in fact initiate a causal chain, but it is not the causal chain that the perception of the DR is grounded in. — RussellA

The causal chain doesn't interpose something between subject and object; it's the means by which the object is perceptually available.

In what sense is judging that in the mind-external world there is a Sun different to inferring from my sensations that in the mind-external world is a Sun? — RussellA

Judgment is the movement from sensory data to existential affirmation by way of insight and understanding, whereas inference is a movement from premises to conclusion by way of logical rules.

The indirect realist's claim is that pain and colours are mental phenomena and are directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience, whereas a truck is a machine that exists at a distance from the body and is not directly present to the mind in phenomenal experience, and so therefore perception of mental phenomena is direct and perception of trucks is not direct (is indirect) — with perception of trucks only made possible by the perception of mental phenomena. — Michael

I believe this is where we keep talking past each other. I reject the above.

Out of curiosity, for the indirect realist described above, what is the relationship between multi-modal sensory data (redness as-seen, loudness as-heard, etc.) and the judgement that expresses the claim “that’s a truck”?

Also, what does it mean to say that multi-modal sense data are “directly present” to the mind?

Once again, this shows that you are arguing for semantic direct realism, which is distinct from phenomenological direct realism and compatible with phenomenological indirect realism. — Michael

And once again, I disagree for reasons we have already discussed.

First, I don’t categorize myself as an SDR; at least, not in the way that Robinson defines it.

Second, in the traditional debate both direct and indirect realists assume that some kind of object is directly present to the mind through phenomenal experience, whether worldly or intermediary. I reject that assumption.

That’s why the painting analogy fails. For me, experience does not represent or manifest the world at all. Experience supplies data within a normative structure of inquiry; it does not function as a representation or as an object of awareness in its own right.

Also, the analogy obscures my point about normativity. Paintings can misrepresent because there's a convention connecting paint-patterns to subjects. But perceptual error is not a failure of representational convention, but a failure to satisfy correctness conditions—conditions that are constitutively world-involving, not products of representational convention.

Why? You're just begging the question again. I'll just respond by saying that in (2) the strawberry is the object of intentionality and the visor is part of the causal infrastructure that realizes the intentionality. Where do we go from there? — Michael

If you respond that way then the dispute has been elevated from a question of where the visor fits into the causal chain to a dispute over what counts as the intentional object of perception. At that point, the only coherent way to adjudicate the claim is by taking an "intentional stance" toward the system - treating it as a normative, agential entity rather than as merely a causal chain. It is only at that level of resolution that the question "what is the object of the system's perception?" makes any sense, since questions of aboutness, reference, and error only arise at that level of analysis. They are not facts that drop out of wiring diagrams.

Now, you could refuse this move, but then the burden would be on you to explain intentionality without appeal to normative or agential notions—or else to accept some kind of eliminativism.

In (1), the visor is not itself the object of intentionality. It is part of the causal infrastructure that realizes intentionality.

In (2), the visor is itself the object of intentionality. The subject’s perceptual state is about what the visor presents.

My point is that intentionality is not reducible to causal structure, though it is realized by it. That’s why adding or removing links in a causal chain is irrelevant unless it forces a change in what the perceptual state is about—that is, in the boundaries of the intentional system itself. And because intentionality is not reducible, there is no principled way of cashing that distinction out purely in causal terms.

The Indirect Realist (IR) and Direct Realist (DR) agree
1 - There is a temporal causal chain that follows the laws of physics from a mind-external something to perceiving the Sun in the mind. — RussellA

I don't accept this phrasing "perceiving the Sun in the mind" if it implies that perception is of some sort of mental item.

Beliefs of the IR and DR
1 - The Direct Realist believes that there is a one to one correspondence between the Sun we perceive in the mind to a Sun that both exists and persists in the world. — RussellA

Likewise, I didn't accept this. It suggests that what is perceived is a mental item (a Sun-in-the-mind) and that perception involves matching that mental item to a worldly object.

Something in the mind-external world that is constantly changing cannot persist. — RussellA

This doesn't follow. Physical systems persist precisely by changing in structured ways.

2 - In the arrow of causation, given a present event, we can determine a future event using the laws of physics, but it is logically impossible to determine a past event. — RussellA

DR doesn't require this. It requires only that perception be grounded in lawful causal dependence on the world.

As knowing a past event using a temporal causal chain is logically impossible, only by inference from the present can a past event be hypothesised. This is the position of the IR. — RussellA

I think you are missing the point of the regress argument. At some point, something must count as non-inferentially present to the mind, or explanation never begins.

I don't understand what you mean by saying that the standard is normative. — Michael

I'm making a distinction between error and malfunction. Error is about failure relative to how the world is. Malfunction is about failure relative to how a system normally operates. I'm saying the former is not reducible to the latter.

The reason it can feel like the goalposts are shifting is that your scenarios quietly presuppose that all failure is just malfunction. But that’s exactly what I’m denying. Whether a device (organic or bionic) is constitutive of perception or merely instrumental within it depends on the role it plays in making representation—and therefore error—possible at all with respect to the subject. Causality can only explain malfunction. We need normativity in order to explain error.

The criterion is normative, not causal: a system is constitutive if it fixes what perceptual correctness means for the subject, instrumental if its outputs are assessable against an already-defined standard. Here “fixes” is not meant causally, but normatively: it determines what counts as seeing correctly rather than incorrectly for the subject. Wiring diagrams underdetermine this, which is why your cases (3)–(6) can't be resolved by causal structure alone—each could go either way depending on which system, if either, fixes the perceptual norm.

So 'fixed at birth' and 'bypasses' don't answer the question; what matters is whether there's an independent standard against which the system's outputs are intelligibly assessable. If you reject that distinction—if you think causal covariance exhausts perceptual normativity—then the question dissolves, but so does the notion that any system could misrepresent rather than merely malfunction.

This still seems like special pleading. You're arguing... — Michael

I think there’s a misunderstanding here about what I’m actually committed to, and it’s generating the appearance of an asymmetry that I don’t accept.

I’m not committed to the pattern you attribute to me. On my view, the symmetry holds at the level of replacement. In particular:

(1) Starting with only a visor → direct perception relative to the visor.
(2) Starting with only eyes → direct perception relative to the eyes.
(3) Replacing a visor with eyes, where the eyes now fix perceptual normativity → direct perception relative to the eyes.
(4) Replacing eyes with a visor, where the visor now fixes perceptual normativity → direct perception relative to the visor.

So there’s no device-based asymmetry here at all. Eyes and visors are on a par in principle. I've not been denying this.

What I’ve been denying is a different claim, which your formulation runs together with (4):

(4*) Adding a visor that intervenes on an already-functioning eye-based perceptual capacity—without replacing it as the system that fixes perceptual normativity → indirect perception relative to the visor.

The crucial distinction is not eyes vs visor, but replacement vs intervention. A system counts as constitutive of direct perception only when it defines what counts as perceptual correctness for the subject at that time. A system that operates against the background of an already-defined perceptual capacity is instrumental, and its outputs are intelligibly assessable as succeeding or failing relative to that background.

This applies symmetrically. If someone initially perceived only via a visor, and eyes were later added in a way that merely intervened on that visor-based capacity, then perception would remain direct relative to the visor and indirect relative to the eyes. There’s no privileging of biology here.

What’s been doing the work in our disagreement is that your original case (4) was underspecified between replacement and intervention, and I think that you and I have been reading it differently. Once that ambiguity is resolved, the alleged inconsistency disappears. The view is role-relative, not device-relative, and it treats eyes and visors in exactly the same way.

I think the “if and only if” formulation still overgeneralizes, and the reason is that it abstracts away from the role a system is actually playing at a given time.

What I’ve been claiming is this: at any given time, whatever system is fixing the space of perceptual normativity for the subject constitutes direct perception relative to that system. That does not imply a biconditional across all possible rewiring histories.

So yes:
– If a subject initially has only eyes, perception is direct relative to the eyes.
– If a subject initially has only a visor, perception is direct relative to the visor.

But it does not follow that (2) is direct perception if and only if (4) is direct perception in the original cases you described. In (4) as originally formulated, the visor was introduced as an intervention on an already-functioning perceptual capacity, not as the system that fixed perceptual normativity for the subject. That is exactly what made it instrumental rather than constitutive in that case.

Your rephrasing changes the scenario in a substantive way. If the visor genuinely bypasses the eyes and wholly replaces them as the system that fixes perceptual correctness for the subject, then yes, in that revised scenario, perception would be direct relative to the visor. But that is no longer the original (4). It is a different case with a different role-assignment.

So the disagreement is not about whether eyes and visors can ever be on a par in principle—they can. It’s about whether, in a given setup, a system is functioning as the constitutive basis of perception or as an intervention on one. Once that distinction is kept fixed, the “if and only if” claim does not go through.

More generally, this is why I’ve been resisting the idea that directness can be decided by gadget-swapping alone. Directness is not a property of devices considered in isolation, but of the normative role they occupy in the subject’s perceptual economy at a time. Changing that role changes the verdict; holding it fixed does not.

In the scenario you describe, I agree that the eyes count as part of direct perception. And more generally, I’m happy to grant this: any system—organic or artificial—can count as constitutive of direct perception if it fixes the space of perceptual normativity for the subject at the time. What matters is not what the system is, nor which came first, but whether it defines what perceptual correctness even amounts to for that subject.

So if a subject initially has only the visor, then perception is direct relative to the visor. If the subject later acquires eyes that bypass the visor, then the eyes now constitute the perceptual capacity instead. In neither case is the constitutive system assessable as misrepresenting, because there is no independent perceptual standard against which its outputs could be evaluated. Altering or removing it would undermine perception itself, not merely change its outputs.

The contrast with the original visor cases is that there the visor operated against an already-defined perceptual capacity. That is what made misrepresentation intelligible. When a system intervenes on a perceptual capacity whose identity conditions are already fixed, its outputs become assessable as correct or incorrect relative to that background. That’s the sense in which the visor was instrumental in those cases and constitutive in the one you’ve now described.

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At this stage, I think it’s worth noting that once the distinction is understood in these role-relative, normative terms, it’s inevitable that there will be borderline and hybrid cases. I don’t see that as a defect in the view; it’s exactly what one should expect if perceptual normativity is not reducible to causal structure alone.

What the edge cases are really testing is not whether a particular gadget counts as “direct,” but whether there is any principled distinction between systems that establish perceptual standards and systems that merely operate within them. If one thinks that any lawful causal mapping to neural states fixes intentional content, then my distinction will inevitably look arbitrary. If one thinks that perceptual capacities fix standards of correctness that other systems can intervene on, then the distinction is principled even if it resists sharp boundaries.

So I’m happy to keep discussing cases, but I think we’re now very close to a foundational disagreement about normativity versus causal covariance—one that further edge cases will merely illustrate rather than resolve.

I apologize for the length of my replies. I don't feel I can do justice to your questions without going into detail.

No it doesn't. The visor doesn't purport to do anything. — Michael

I’m not attributing intentions, purposes, or design to the visor. “Purport” here is not a psychological or teleological notion. It doesn’t require anyone to think, intend, or even know that the visor exists. It marks a normative role a system plays relative to perceptual correctness, not an attitude the system has.

To say that a system’s outputs “purport to present the environment” just means this: the outputs are assessable as correct or incorrect relative to how things are, independently of whether the system is functioning normally or as designed. No intentions are required for that assessment to make sense.

That’s the crucial difference.

An organic visual system—even if it arose by chance, even if it were unknown to the subject—does not answer to an independent standard of perceptual correctness. If Jane’s eye maps 700nm light to a certain phenomenal character, that mapping fixes what red looks like for her. If the mapping were different, that would not make her perception false; it would make her a different perceiver. Biological malfunction is possible, but misrepresentation in the intentional sense is not separable from what it is for her to see at all.

By contrast, the visor’s mapping remains assessable as misrepresenting even if it arose spontaneously and even if no one knows it is there. We can coherently say: the visor is causing the subject to see the strawberry as blue even though, absent that device, it would appear red to that very same subject. That counterfactual comparison is what makes the visor’s outputs normatively assessable. No design, intention, or awareness is needed—only the fact that the visor intervenes on a perceptual capacity that is already defined independently of it.

So the distinction is not about what the visor “means to do,” but about whether a system defines perceptual correctness for a subject or is answerable to such correctness. “Purporting” names that answerability, not any inner purpose.

If you deny that distinction, then you are committed to the view that there is no principled difference between a system that constitutes perception and a system that merely alters its outputs—that all such systems are on a par as long as they are causally lawful. That is a coherent position, but it is precisely the internalist thesis at issue, not something forced on us by physics or by the absence of design.

So it's a question of whether perceptual normativity can be reduced entirely to causal covariance, or whether some causal systems fix the space of perceptual correctness while others operate within it. That’s the real fork in the road.