please rephrase, I don't get it. — Olivier5

I mean, if you implemented the functions in humans responsible for the conscious experience of a red apple in a robot or some other non-biological system, would it necessarily be conscious?

I didn't mean p-zombie humans. More basic as in the functions themselves responsible for consciousness. Which means anywhere those functions are implemented.

LOL @ the title change. I guess we have strayed too far from the paper, but the topic naturally leads to the wider discussion.

or The Walking Dead, starting around season six.

At this juncture, it is clear that the bulk of the evidence supports the claim that visual mental imagery not only draws on many of the same mechanisms used in visual perception, but also that topographically organised early visual areas play a functional role in some types of imagery.

Sounds similar to the hallucination argument in favor of indirect realism.

Do you reject the notion of p-zombie functions as logically impossible?

As brain shivers — bongo fury

Sounds suspiciously like a zombie!

But is it reasonable to expect that any animals without language ever "recall a scene to mind"? — bongo fury

I wouldn't be surprised if apes, elephants, whales/dolphins and some birds did it.

Physics provides an account of it, but it doesn't account for it. — Wayfarer

Well, yeah. That gets into Chalmers metaphysical (or was it natural?) versus logical supervenience. The physics doesn't entail consciousness, although it provides the conditions for it.

But also whence comes distance, mass, time, motion, molecules, plant life and lower organism sentience? — Andrew M

Physics, chemistry and biology already account for that stuff.

These features are all defined in reference to our human perspective (consider Einstein with his measuring-rods, clocks and observers giving an operational meaning to his relativistic theories). — Andrew M

That has to do with the speed of light and inertial frames, not perceivers. Perceivers are only used for thought experiments to show their clocks and measuring-rods are different, but there's no need for that. Happens for any objects and events.

As with the train speed example, there is no "view from nowhere". — Andrew M

But there is, because life evolved long after the universe was around, and science can detail the universe in places where there is no life and no perceivers.

However, if you're arguing from a Kantian/correlationist position and not a realist one, then that's another matter. I'm pretty sure Dennett is a realist/physicalist, as is Chalmers, except for consciousness.

I'm not sure the consciousness debate matters for Kantians, since the empirical world includes all the colors, sounds, etc. So I get why you would deny Nagel's "view from nowhere". The consciousness debate seems to only matter for physicalism, pun unintended. At least that's how Chalmers approaches it, with his talk of supervenience and p-zombies.

So let's say a technology like Neuralink is used to treat blindness. Images from a headset are sent to a chip surgically implanted in the brain which encodes the image data as electrical signals for the brain such that the patient can see again.

In this case, technology is acting in place of the retina and optic nerve to provide the brain with what it needs to form visual perceptions. Let's say no problem with direct realism so far.

But then as the technology advances, additional information in the form of digital overlays are also sent such that the patient sees various enhancements such as text, additional images and colors to highlight information not readily available to normal vision. Similar to the terminator's perspective from the Terminator movies. This would be like the Hololens technology. The indirect realist might say this is kind of what the brain is doing anyway.

Further advances allow complete digital environments to be sent to the patient. So now it's full on VR being beamed into the brain. Basically the visual part of a BIV. In all three scenarios, the indirect realist would challenge the direct realist to justify saying what's a mental image and what's direct awareness, since there is a causal relation from outside the body via the tech.

Third, the claim that perceptual experiences are essentially relational articulates the distinctive phenomenological character of perceptual experience, or ‘what it is like’ for a subject to have an experience. Fourth, given that veridical perceptual experiences are essentially relational, they differ in kind to non-veridical experiences such as hallucinations. — Allen

The indirect realist is going to disagree that perception being relational makes the experience different from hallucinations and other non-perceptual experiences. Particularly if the same neural circuits are used for visual experiences of all kinds.

I gather that the direct realist is saying that when we have a hallucination, we are aware of the hallucination, but when we have a perception, we're aware of the external object. The difference being the content of the experience. Same for dreams and imagination.

The indirect realist might question why perceptual experience is different, other than the causal chain, which of course the indirect realist agrees with.

Agreed that Kantian perception would be direct regarding empirical objects, but are the empirical objects the mind-independent ones realism is concerned with? Idealism also endorses direct perception, because the ideas are right there in the mind.

But if you just mean that they should be allowed to say, speaking loosely, "tables are not really solid", and "we don't really see apples", then I guess it's a way of getting their point across. It seems far too misleading to me, and I've only seen it from bad popularizations. — jamalrob

It means the world is different than it appears to us. Now whether that's a problem for direct realism is what the debate is about. I say the evidence is the world isn't colored the way we perceive it to be, and this means that naive realism (or primitivism) about visual objects is false, although a more sophisticated causal argument for direct realism could be true.

So...when I'm looking at the the moon I can cover it with my hand, but the moon is too big to be covered by my hand, therefore I'm not seeing the moon, but just a mental object. Is that about right? — jamalrob

I quoted eight objections to direct realism from a paper countering those objections a few posts back, while making what the author thought were some necessary concessions to defeat all eight. I'm not sure which objection your example falls into, but it's not a very convincing one in my book, and not what the color argument is about. Some of the objections are stronger than others, and some of the concessions made to defeat all eight are more troubling for direct reaiism than others.

I think that this is as confused as saying that solid things are not actually solid. — jamalrob

They're not solid in the way old-fashioned materialists thought they were. It being mostly empty space held together by electromagnetic bonds would have blown their minds.

Following unenlightened, I think that our scientific investigations, rather than being a substitute for seeing, explain it, i.e., explain how we see red apples. — jamalrob

It doesn't explain how there's a red experience, only that there is a strong correlation with our biology of vision.

And anyway, the world is different than how it appears to us, at the very least because we don't have the sensory capabilities to perceive most of it. Our vision, as useful as it is, doesn't capture most of the light, which would make the world look colored in quite different ways, assuming that's how we saw all those radio and microwaves and what not. Which would be a function of our biology that we don't understand.

don't know what we're talking about here. — jamalrob

One of the challenges to direct perception is that if the object appears differently in some ways to us than it is, then we're directly aware of a mental object, and only indirectly the physical cause.

I may have used Kantian terms, but that wasn't the substance. — jamalrob

I'm got to two current threads confused. Was the substance that we have direct access via perceptual sensations? That seeing color is what makes us visually aware of objects?

If I recall correctly, those of us involved came to an agreement on Kantian terms, not Dennett's. But if we're talking in terms of the modern consciousness debate, I'm more inclined to side with Chalmers.

I don't doubt I've once again phrased some of this poorly; it is genuinely awkward to talk about, but I'm not convinced there's philosophical hay to make of that awkwardness. — Srap Tasmaner

The problem is how is there a conscious experience at all? We have detectors that can discriminate light and sound, yet they're not conscious. When we examine our brains, no consciousness is found there. It's not like some neural pattern is colored red.

A human being has a perspective of the world. The distinctions we make and our representations of the world presuppose that human perspective. But that perspective doesn't itself have properties (qualia) or a substantial existence (res cogitans), contra dualism. — Andrew M

However, if that perspective is is coloring in the world, adding sound, taste, smell and various feels, then we're still left with something that needs to be explained, because the rest of the world isn't colored in, doesn't have feels and tastes and what not. It's only that way to a perceiver. So somehow the perceiver adds those sensations to their interaction with the world. The hard problem remains in some form until there is some way to account for these sensations.

Maybe the concept of qualia is problematic, but the term itself was derived from an inability to account for consciousness, which is made up of those sensations, plus proprioception, feelings and any other internal sensations. All Dennett has done in Quininq Qulia is highlight some issues with the traditional definition of qualia, while leaving the core of the hard problem.

And yes, perceivers are part of the same world, not walled off from it, but still the question needs to be answered: from whence comes the colors, sounds, etc?

We could ask where the colors live instead.

Perception doesn’t occur on the forum. And we don’t have to rely on individual definitions as this isn’t a new topic.

Brains analyse the data and resolve it into a meaningful landscape. — unenlightened

I'm gong to second Olivier5 here and say this is where the dispute takes place. That meaningful landsacpe the brain resolves, what does it mean for it to be direct?

I can't make sense of the question. — jamalrob

Where is the perception formed? On the forum, at your eyeballs, or in the brain?

Did you meet him on this forum, or in your mind? — jamalrob

Did the perception of meeting him in this forum occur in the mind, or on this forum?

If there are reasons, you haven't made them understandable to me — unenlightened

The eight main arguments against Direct Realism are the Causal Argument, the TimeLag Argument, the Partial Character of Perception Argument, the Perceptual Relativity
Argument, the Argument from Perceptual Illusion, the Argument from Hallucination, the
Dubitability Argument, and the Objective Feature Argument. In what follows below,
each argument will first be exposited and then subjected to a Direct Realist rebuttal.

https://owd.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/DR_web.pdf — Pierre Le Morvan

You can read the details of each argument in that paper, but I'm confident you're already acquainted with most of them. Instead you want to caricature indirect realism with statements like "perceptions being perceived", which is not what is being claimed. The claim is about the nature of the perception, and why there are reasons to doubt it is direct. It's not a linguistic confusion.

That's what I was trying to get at. Earlier lockdowns in other European countries did not prevent the need to lockdown yet again, so I'm not sure Sweden's strategy was worse just because now they decided to it was time to lockdown.

There is no possibility of "I watch my brain receiving sense data and comparing it to representation in the brain."

There is no possibility of perceptions being perceived.

And this is what the indirect realist is continually pretending to do. like this — unenlightened

What makes you so certain? This is an ongoing philosophical debate, not a settled one. And even one where some neuroscientists and psychologists come down on the side of indirect perception. Why are you being dogmatic? Maybe direct perception ends up being right, but what makes you so sure it is? It's not like there aren't reasons motivating the indirect side of the debate. I just read a paper defending direct realism that lists eight challenges presented by indirect realists. The author defends direct realism against all eight, but has to make a few concessions to do so. I'm not so sure the concessions amount to direct perception.

Is Sweden any worse off than some of the notable European countries like Italy or France who did lock down? Sweden is 25th in European countries per million for cases, and 11th in deaths. Then again, Norway and Finland are much better.

It's like the perception of red. — unenlightened

What about when the color perceived is the result of the brain adjusting for lighting conditions, which differs from the color normally perceived from the wavelength being reflected? Is this not evidence the brain is coloring in the resulting image?

I literally live in the world — unenlightened

What’s that like?

Speaking for myself, I experience looking out at the world from my eyes. But I know that's not how it works. I also know the colors I see are just a small part of the EM spectrum, and if I could see the entirety of it in colors, the world would like quite different. The apple would not be quite so red and solid looking.

Moral of the story is just because the world is experienced a certain way, doesn't mean it is that way.

If all else us the same, the apple, the light, etc, then why are there color blind people? — Harry Hindu

It's not all the same. Color blind people either have a defect in their eyes or in their brains.

The "difficult thing" is resolved by thinking of everything as information, not "physical" objects. — Harry Hindu

I'm not sure how this works for consciousness.

The apple isn't red. It is ripe. The light isn't red. Its an EM wave that has a 650nm wavelength. — Harry Hindu

Agreed. So where does the red come in to play? I agree that information comes into the brain from the senses interacting with the world. But then what?

Some of us are trying to grasp how we tell a red apple from a green apple, and think the difference is somehow in the brain. — unenlightened

The colors we see are in the brain, because that's where the perception is formed. The cause comes from outside, but the cause is different from the colors seen. That different wavelengths activate different cones in our eyes, sending the resulting signals to the visual cortex, allowing us to discriminate red and green apples (as we call the color difference). But that gets turned into a color experience.

How do we know your red and my red are the same? We don't. We just know we can discriminate the same.

Dude, you know it's the wavelength of the photons. I don't know what telepathy has to do with anything. The difficult thing to account for is the redness, not the causal chain.

By telepathy? or by some feature of the apples? — unenlightened

Electrical signals from the cones in their eyes.

Explain how everyone knows to add red to the same apples. — unenlightened

Their brains are stimulated to see red.

Does this image of direct perception work for you?



My problem with it is the implicit assumption that the apple is red the way it looks red to the perceiver. In my view, the awareness of red is added by the perceiver.

An inference from what? Experiences in your head lead you to infer that the things you experience as outside your head are experiences in your head? — unenlightened

Where else would the experiences be? They're not out there in the objects. They're not on our eyeballs, ears or skin. We have good empirical reasons to think the brain is responsible. That's why dreams, illusions and other experiences are possible. The flow of sensory information comes into the brain, not the other way around.

But yes, it does require an inference to a physical world responsible for our having a body that perceives the world. However, metaphysically speaking, there are alternatives. It's just the physical one fits science best.