I'm not really clear on what you are saying here. Prescribing oneself exercise or medicine is a conscious, willful act and cicatrisation isn't voluntary at all, but simply a response to certain environmental conditions and the body is the mind's immediate and most important part of the environment to have information about.

The integral parts of consciousness are simply memory and attention. Memory is what allows the temporal flow of consciousness as it retains and forgets certain bits of information over time. Attention is what provides the "subjective" feel of consciousness - of focusing on certain bits of sensory information over others that relate to the goal currently present in the mind. That is all that is needed. Self-awareness is simply a group of sensory impressions that are the focus of the attention as opposed to not being the focus. It isn't necessary for defining consciousness, as we are merely talking about the focus of one's attention on certain bits of sensory information. A cat or a mouse can both be conscious if they have a memory and attention. A computer has memory and a central executive that focuses on certain bits of information in it's memory at any moment in order to accomplish a certain goal. They are self-conscious when anything their attention focuses on is related to their mental or bodily processes.

Cats may not be able to recognize themselves in the mirror, but they certainly seem to recognize their own "meow" and smell, as they don't act like there's another cat in the vicinity when they hear there own "meow" or smell their own urine and feces. It is simply a categorization of certain sensory impressions as belonging to the self, and not others.

And then I think that it is difficult to be conscious of something else and not to be conscious of myself or to be conscious of myself and not be conscious of other things. I think that one implies the other. You mean that these philosophers say that self-consciousness is not about that? — mew

No, I think you're right about that. Your being aware (i.e. having the perceptual knowledge) that there are objects in the world that exist independently of your perception of them requires awareness that you can potentially experience them -- i.e. that they be potential objects of experience. You arrived at this conclusion without Kant's help. Congratulations! — Pierre-Normand

Don't you have to first establish that the sensations and experiences you have are about, or of things that exist independently of your perception of them to even say that awareness is happening? For instance, idealists and anti-realists state that their experiences aren't about some world that exists independently of their mind. The contents of their mind aren't representations of some external world but are things themselves - similar to how a universe with no observers would be. If there is no aboutness to the sensations you experience, then how can you say that you are aware of anything? What would you be aware of?

Many conflate self-awareness with consciousness. Being aware of yourself is simply one of many things to be aware of. I am also aware of my wife, a tv show, a philosophy forum, scribbles on a screen, etc. At any moment my attention is focused on certain things. What I'm focused on is what I'm aware of, so it seems to me that to be conscious requires attention - of filtering out certain sensory impressions in favor of others in order to accomplish the current goal.

I believe that animals with a central nervous system as opposed to a nerve net (like jellyfish or starfish) are conscious. The brain provides a central location where all sensory inputs come together into a whole experience - or an information architecture that represents the immediate environment. Humans seem to have accomplished the feat of turning their thoughts back on itself - of thinking about thinking - of being aware of being aware.

We could possibly design a robot to be conscious like humans. If they could create a model of sensory information and use that model to navigate the world and to contemplate themselves being aware of their world, then why would we say that this robot isn't conscious, or self-aware?

What's stupid about having a sex change, or choosing to wear clothing typically associated with those of the opposite biological sex? — Michael

What's stupid about cutting off your arm because you think it doesn't belong to you?

The stick is straight. Looking at a stick does not change its shape. — tom

Thank you, tom. I've been trying to make this clear to Terrapin, but he seems to be bent on tip-toeing around the answer by writing nonsense.

Actually both of those would be situations where you're not understanding something. It's just that you're hinting at the idea that if something is understandable, then you'd understand it. — Terrapin Station

Isn't that what "understandable" means? Duh.

You'd need at least two for location to make sense. — Terrapin Station

Okay then reference points exist apart from each other. What is the medium in which reference points exist? What is it that ties two reference points together for location to make sense?

The set of all spatio-temporal locations is a reference point, and not a privileged one. It's just one set of many. We can only talk about properties from the context of a particular set rather than subsets (of the given set) when the properties of the object or phenomena in question are consistent among those spatio-temporal locations. You can still call a larger set a reference point, but an object or phenomenon can have conflicting properties per subsets of a larger set. It's not that some of those properties are incorrect; it's just that they're relative to particular subsets of spatio-temporal locations. — Terrapin Station

The god's eye view must be a privileged one for it is the one that maintains the properties of reality for other smaller reference points to access. This is no different from the idealist view that God is necessary as the eternal observer to maintain the properties of reality that the smaller reference points access. For if there is no eternal reference point from everywhere, then how is it that your post maintains it's properties until someone else reads it? Your post isn't being read non-stop 24-7, that is unless you want to amuse me with your arrogance that your posts are constantly being read.

The problem I see is you have only described delusions that might apply to some but not all transgender people. You wield your position as if it applies to all of them, but as I have been continuously pointing out all of the example delusions you have put forward are in no way a necessary part of transgender psychology.

For instance "believing you have a penis" when you actually have a vagina is a delusion. But what about transsexuals who know they have a vagina, and then have a surgical operation to create an artificial penis?. Afterward they know they don't have a "real" penis, but they know they have something that approximates one, and that fits well with their desire to live out life as a male.

Where is the delusion? — VagabondSpectre

Easy. The delusion is the belief that you are a man when you were born a woman, not that you have a penis when you have a vagina. Having a vagina is what causes them stress. It flies in the face of the reality they built for themselves, which is why they have a "sex-change". This is no different than a man who believes his arm doesn't belong to him, and cuts it off. Like I said before, people with delusions can behave normally but when it comes to their delusion, they seem crazy, like attempting to cut off your arm, or having a "sex-change".

When a transgender says that their outside doesn't match their inside, ask them how they know the problem isn't on the inside. Question them about what it is on the inside that is different. Do they believe in souls and is it the soul that is different than the body. If the say no, then what else could it be other than a mental problem? My point about souls is that they either believe they are a soul in the wrong body, or they have a mental problem. What other reason could you use to account for their belief and behavior when it comes to their delusion?

It seems to me that too many people go straight to the ethics and politics of transgenderism, when we need to first address the cause of transgenderism.

I'm not entirely interested in ferreting out all available somatic delusions for analysis. When it comes to souls, I don't believe in them, but if you're going to try and argue that wanting to be the opposite gender is necessarily a somatic delusion, I'll happily start pointing out what else might be a somatic delusion in order to force perspective. — VagabondSpectre

Please do. I started it by using the alien arm as an example.

Hence you not understanding my comments--which is what I said in the first place, but which you denied. — Terrapin Station

Me not understanding isn't the same as someone writing gibberish. Non one can understand gibberish, except for maybe a lunatic.

Reference points are non-null sets of spatio-temporal locations — Terrapin Station

What does this even mean? Care to clarify? It seems to me that you are describing reference points as something that doesn't need other reference points to exist. Is a reference point material, mental, or something else? Obviously our own reference points can interact, so reference points are something tangible.

The idealist doesn't claim otherwise. They just claim that trees need to be seen for there to be trees. It doesn't require that I'm the one doing the seeing. For the umpteenth time, there's a difference between "to be is to be perceived" and "to be is to be perceived by me". — Michael

And for the umpteenth time, there needs to be a consistent shared world for you to mean anything when you use the term, "other", or else there isn't other minds, only one mind.

How is it that we both experience the same tree from different perspectives (I can see your eyes looking in the same direction as mine and we both agree that there is a tree.) Where does your post on this forum reside when no one is reading it? How does it keep it's spelling, grammar and meaning when no one is looking at it for these things to appear when someone does read it? There must be some way that your post exists and maintains its properties for me to read it and understand what you are attempting to communicate.

For the same reason that the materialist's answer isn't applicable to other things like magic or souls or eldritch abominations. That there's evidence for other minds is not prima facie that there's evidence for something else, i.e. a non-mental substance that constitutes a world of objects that exists independently of anyone seeing them. — Michael

There must be something else because I don't direct access to your mind. There is some barrier preventing me from accessing your mind. I can only access it indirectly through your posts or seeing your person. Again, for me to believe there are other minds means I must also believe in something separating them that isn't a mind.

And my point is that it doesn't matter. I don't need to see other minds for there to be other minds. The idealist's claim isn't simply "only the things I see exist". Rather it's "only mental phenomena exists", with us seeing bodies being the occurrence of a particular type of mental phenomena. — Michael

Then you don't need to see other trees for there to be other trees. This is why the idealist is inconsistent until he follows his own arguments where they lead - to solipsism.

The only mental phenomenon you have access to is your own. How do you know that other mental phenomenon exists besides yours? And then how is your answer not also applicable to other things, like trees and forests?

No I don't. That one thing is not another thing does not require some third thing to separate them. Else what fourth thing separates this third thing from the first two things? And so on. — Michael

Like I said, use of the term, "other" implies the existence of something to separate these things. If I don't use the term "other" in describing a world, then I'm not implying a 4th thing to separate worlds. It is you using the term other to describe minds. No one has used the term, "other" to describe worlds. If they did then they'd have to explain what it is that separates worlds. But no one has, so your point is ridiculous.

None of this makes any sense.
This creates an infinite regress of reference points. Do reference points need other reference points for any reference point to exist?

What you are saying is that for anything to exist, there must first be a reference point. But what is a reference point without a perspective, or without a mind?

What about a view from everywhere (God's-eye view)?

As far as I can tell they desire to have a body of the opposite gender. That they might say they were born in the "wrong body" has more to do with their personal preferences than any possible "somatic delusions". They simply make a choice about what makes them happy. — VagabondSpectre

Of course it is a choice that makes them happy. This is what a delusion is - a false belief that is desperately held onto in an effort to ignore a reality that doesn't make them happy. Delusions are a defense mechanism. They are psychological strategies brought into play by the unconscious mind to manipulate, deny, or distort reality in order to defend against feelings of anxiety and unacceptable impulses and to maintain one's self-schema.

Do you actually think the soul exists? I would call that a somatic delusion. — VagabondSpectre

You really need to read my other posts in this thread. If you think that is a somatic delusion but not believing you are in the wrong body, then I'm not sure that you're capable of being consistent.

Most transsexuals (the one's i've met) don't offer up completely retarded explanations along the lines of souls or insides and outsides or any of the like to explain why they are transgender. They will tell you that they are happier living as the opposite gender. and that's their founding reasoning.

Are you really questioning "delusions"? Or are you just questioning a lifestyle choice that you don't fancy? — VagabondSpectre

You really need to research what delusions are before you enter this conversation. I provided a link in my first post. Here is another:
http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/delusional-disorder

"People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner."

Delusional people can function normally but when you question them about their delusion, they cease to be reasonable. The become incorrigible. This is a symptom of a delusion - of rejecting reality and replacing it with your own.

I am questing the validity of their claim which you don't seem to have a problem with questioning my claims, or the claims of the religious which are also delusional, but aren't consistent in questioning transgenders. This is what I mean by being inconsistent.

If objects don't exist outside of a perspective then that is solipsism.

If objects only exist in minds as a result of some external cause that isn't a object, then indirect realism would be the case.

That's objective idealism, yes. But that's not what I meant. What I meant is that the (non-objective and non-solipsistic) idealist can accept that only minds exist without having to accept that only one's own mind exists. So you exist and I exist and seven billion other people exist, all with our own independent thoughts and experiences (but which are able to causally influence one another), but that a material world of trees and rocks does not exist independently of anyone experiencing them. — Michael

So then what is the medium in which these other minds exist? To say that other minds exist implies a separation of minds. What is it that divides minds apart from each other? What exists between minds if not a shared world? By using the term, "other", you automatically imply the existence of some medium that separates them.

Seeing a body is just the occurrence of mental phenomena. It's a bundle of qualia that is then interpreted as being a single object (in the same sort of way that the materialist will say that a bundle of subatomic particles is interpreted as being a single object). — Michael

My point was that you don't see other minds, only other bodies.

As I explained a couple times, "from no reference point" is impossible. — Terrapin Station

So then the stick doesn't exist outside of a reference point? You aren't arguing for direct realism at all. You are arguing for solipsism.

You can't equate idealism with solipsism. As we've gone over many times before, they're not the same thing. The idealist's position is that all things are mental in nature; it's not simply the position that all things are a product of one's own mind. There can be other minds, each with their own thoughts and experiences, that continue to exist even when you're dead. — Michael

OK, so your explanation of idealism is that idealism is actually realism in that things continue to exist even when no mind is accessing it via the senses. It's just that the primary substance is mental rather than physical. Is every realist then a materialist or physicalist? Your definition seems to make idealism into realism with the only difference being the what the primary substance of reality is (and does this even matter the label we use in naming the primary substance if it follows scientific laws?)

So if everything is mental and can exist without senses accessing them, then does that equate to direct realism or indirect realism? The problem with this is why do I experience your text on a screen and not your mind if everything is mental? Does your posts exhaust everything about your mind? When I read your posts, am I reading your mind?

You only experience other bodies, or their text that they type, and then infer that these bodies and text are evidence of other minds. You never experience other minds directly.

What about when you look in a mirror? Why is it that you don't see your own mind? Why do you see a body?

I don't believe that you're understanding me. Let's try it this way:

We're talking about the shape of the stick from what reference point? — Terrapin Station

No, it's you who aren't understanding me. I've asked this question numerous times and you've ignored it.

From no reference point. What is the shape of the stick when no one is using any senses to observe it?

Surely you realize that the phrase "born in the wrong body" (or the idea in general) isn't necessarily to be taken literally and doesn't need to include any beliefs about souls or spirits? It can just be a way of saying "a big incompatibility with sense of identity and physical body" in a way which, I suppose, might better describe what it feels like to oneself — zookeeper

"A big incompatibility with sense of identity and physical body" is a type of somatic delusion - just as feeling as if your arm isn't your own so you end up cutting it off.

If people get offended when you suggest that really they might simply be delusional and wrong about it, that probably has something to do with the fact that they know that regardless of what you call their condition, they can't just make it go away. Calling something a delusion can be useful if there's a realistic possibility of actually dispelling the delusion, but if everyone involved knows that it's a more or less permanent delusion, then insisting on a negative word like delusion is to be a bit of an ass about it. — zookeeper

This is the typical liberal response to someone asking valid questions and making valid points. They always resort to name-calling when they don't have a legitimate argument to make.

If people get offended because they can't make it go away (meaning they can't make their belief that they are in the wrong body go away) then isn't that the definition of incorrigible? Isn't that an example of believing it with absolute certainty? Isn't that what I've been saying is a symptom of having a delusion?

Wow, I didn't expect to hear a very concise and accurate description of this considering your post in my other thread:

"Your pathetic attempts at insulting me just show me that I'm wasting my time with a loser. The list of reasonable people on these forums is shrinking. Yep, Im wasting my time"

Jesus man, dealing with you is like going from the north pole to the equator in 2 seconds. — intrapersona

Really? :-| Why don't you quote the rest of the post instead of cherry-picking in another pathetic attempt to insult me.

Maybe you should think about how you seem to think I'm providing a concise and accurate description when you agree with me, but I'm not being concise and accurate when you don't agree. Maybe you're letting your emotions dictate your search for truth.

But this is just what I was talking about in my comment. The properties of everything extant are relative to the reference point we're talking about, and there are no "reference point free reference points." In other words we're always talking about some reference point or other, and that reference point is different than other reference points.

And we are talking about different properties, because we're talking about light waves and how they react with something as part of a system versus "topological" surface qualities and how they interact with different things. That's what the world is really like. It's not really like some abstracted simplification where you pretend that properties are not relative to reference points and so on. — Terrapin Station

We're not talking about different properties. We're talking about one property - the shape of the stick. What is the shape of the stick independent of any senses accessing it? Does the stick have a shape independent of any sensory system accessing it? Does the stick exist how it appears in my mind or is it something else? Does the stick exist when I'm not accessing it via any sensory system?

If that is what the world is really like then you're an idealist/solipsist? It seems to me that it is what perception is like, not the world, and perception is only one process out of many that make up the world - a process that creates colors and sounds which don't exist in any other part of the world except right here in our heads.

It isn't necessary to got to the extreme of solipsism though if by 'there is no forest' we mean rather that something is there that only becomes a forest when observed by a forest-perceiver. This rightly puts the emphasis on the namer as the source of a thing's 'name' (by which of course I mean every aspect of identity) rather than any inherent quality of the thing itself. — Barry Etheridge

If there is anything out there that exists independently of the mind's experience of it, then that is realism, not idealism/solipsism. It doesn't matter if the experience is different than what the thing is (this would be indirect realism). If the thing continues to exist when I'm dead, then realism is the case, not idealism/solipsism.

And from this idealist statement it can only follow to be skeptical of the existence of other minds. What would keep you from taking that last step into solipsism? If you are skeptical of the existence of the forest without experiencing it, then you must also be skeptical of some other mind in the forest (essentially being part of this forest), for a sound to occur. — Harry Hindu
— dukkha

Does my mind need to be perceived by another in order for it to exist? No, so why would it be any different for other minds? — dukkha

This doesn't address my point that you have never experienced another mind. You only infer that other minds exist through the behavior of bodies. Why can't you infer that trees continue to exist without you experiencing them. When you look at a tree, then close your eyes, then open them again and see the tree again, you don't infer that the tree continued to exist despite not appearing in your experience for a brief moment?

Idealists who haven't taken that last step into solipsism are inconsistent in that they claim to believe in the existence of things they have never experienced (other minds) while not believing in things that they have experienced before but aren't experiencing right now (trees). — Harry Hindu

But this argument only works if you conceive of the world you inhabit as being completely private to your perceptions, which would beg the question of solipsism. I think that when for example you 'meet someones gaze', it's a direct encounter of minds. And not say a private to myself perception of a person which may or may not be a representation of the actions of another person which exists in an independently existing 'mind-bubble', depending on whether you're a solipsist or not. — dukkha

This isn't consistent with what you said in the "See-Through" thread. You argued in that thread that your experience is always indirect. So how can you have a direct encounter with minds? When you look into someone's eyes, you are having a direct encounter with a representation of their body. You never experience someone's mind. You can experience it indirectly via their body's behavior, just as you infer the existence of atoms from the behavior of matter on the macro scale.

(there is a brute distinction between a sound and a visual). — Harry Hindu

What about when you 'see someone talking to you'? Your experience was a cohesive whole, and the two senses only become separate afterward when you separate them intellectually. — dukkha

You missed the example of talking to them on the phone. You don't separate them intellectually then. You do link the two sensations together intellectually because you've established a pattern of seeing them speak before. But my point was that if solipsism/idealism is the case and sounds and visuals aren't representations of other things, then they aren't representations but real things themselves. Are you the same dukkha that I was conversing with in the "See-through" thread because you are basically contradicting everything you said in that thread.

That's the thing; they don't believe that they have a penis. That's why they identify as a transgender man, not as a cisgender man. — Michael

What if they're post-op? — VagabondSpectre

You both didn't seem to get the gist of my post.

They believe that their body doesn't match their "inside". They believe that they were born in the "wrong" body. In other words, they believe something is wrong with their body when there isn't anything wrong. This is a somatic delusion. People with somatic delusions are incorrigible and absolutely convinced that the delusion is real. So when you question them about their delusion, as if they could be wrong, they get easily offended - you know, just like those religious types.

Just think about it for a second without getting caught up in the politics and ethics of it. These people believe that they have a soul or spirit that is somehow imbued with either masculinity or femininity that is opposite of their body's masculinity or femininity. Do souls or spirits have a quality of masculinity or femininity about them, and can souls be placed in the wrong body?

To ask how something appears independent of looking at it, or independent of how light interacts with it, is a nonsensical question. How something appears has to do with how it interacts with light for some visual processing system to then have access to that reflected light and process it for some purpose. All of this has to occur for any appearances to occur.

So the real question is, is how something appears how it really is? We're asking about the difference between a representation and reality. What we have direct access to is the representation, not the reality. The reality can only be accessed indirectly through it's representation. So if it is your argument that we see exactly how some thing appears then you are still saying that all we have direct access to is a representation, not the reality. So, at best you can call your stance direct representationlism, not direct realism. There could never be anything like direct realism. Effects are not their causes. Effects are the result, or the emergent property, of various causes coming together.

How an object appears doesn't just provide us information about the object, but also about the amount and wavelength of light in the environment and also about the state of your visual system. All of these things are represented in the experience of the color blue.

If you can only get at the "realness" of an object by how it interacts with other things then either the object doesn't exist independently of it's interactions with other things, or you can never get at the object as it exists independent of it's interactions with other things. This why direct realism can never be the case.

The point is, and this would have been clear had you understood all of my comment, that the information doesn't contradict. For one, when we're talking about different senses, obviously we're talking about different information-- visual information is different than tactile information, for example; light waves are different that surface textural properties, etc. Hence why I noted that we perceive information about some properties, where that's different on different occasions, etc., and via a "complex" or a system--things aren't in, and we're not perceiving them in, vacuums. — Terrapin Station

We're not talking about different information. Both senses provide different representations about the same thing - the shape of the stick. What is the shape of the stick?

Are you equating gender with biological sex? Because I don't know if many transgender men, for example, believe that they have a penis despite the fact that they have a vagina. — Michael

That sounds like a somatic delusion. What happens when you tell them that they have a vagina when they believe they have a penis? Don't they become offended?

Did you read the part in my link, "Delusions can be difficult to distinguish from overvalued ideas, which are unreasonable ideas that a person holds, but the affected person has at least some level of doubt as to its truthfulness. A person with a delusion is absolutely convinced that the delusion is real."

Wikipedia goes on to say that delusional people are incorrigible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusion

Well what's the latest science on that? Do transgender people have actual physiological differences in their brain or is it purely a psychological thing? What kind of treatment or therapy could "cure" them, and would that tend to be easier or harder than undergoing a sex change, or just living as transgender without a sex change?

Surely the answers to your questions depend on those. — zookeeper

I don't know. Are there any physiological differences in the brains of the religious who have delusions of grandeur (that they are important to a god, or that they continue to exist independent of their body)? Did you bother reading the link I provided that shows all the various kinds of delusions one can have? And after reading it did you think about asking what the physiological differences would be for all those different kinds of delusions? This is why I asked if people are going to be consistent. So far, people aren't. It seems like many people on these forums could be categorized as having some of these delusions. Just look at any political thread and you will find people scared of being persecuted by some other political party, or a nihilistic thread where the feeling the world is going to end, or other threads where insignificant remarks, events, or objects are given more importance than other remarks and events.

What kind of cure could there be for the religious?

But in ontological terms, there exists no forest in the absence of mind. At least that's my opinion. — dukkha

And from this idealist statement it can only follow to be skeptical of the existence of other minds. What would keep you from taking that last step into solipsism? If you are skeptical of the existence of the forest without experiencing it, then you must also be skeptical of some other mind in the forest (essentially being part of this forest), for a sound to occur.

Idealists who haven't taken that last step into solipsism are inconsistent in that they claim to believe in the existence of things they have never experienced (other minds) while not believing in things that they have experienced before but aren't experiencing right now (trees).

When you begin to question the your mind being an effect of other causes, then you throw out the aboutness of the experience. You are no longer informed of anything because information is the relationship between cause and effect. You'd no longer be able to categorize sounds and visuals together because there would be no correlation between the sound of a friend and the visual of a friend because they can often occur without each other (you can hear your friend on a the phone but not see them) and they are different kinds of experience altogether (there is a brute distinction between a sound and a visual).

**color is also an object category, but I use it to just denote the raw sensation/raw quality of visual experience — aporiap

Exactly. So the brute distinctions of color are themselves evidence that some rules are being followed even before the rules of categorizing them. There also seems to be the raw feeling of attending to certain colors and shapes - of amplifying certain colors and shapes over others (the colors and shapes at the edges of our peripheral vision are less distinct and less focused that the ones at the center of our visual field and bringing them into focus requires moving them into the center. Many philosophers, when talking about perception, seem to gloss over attention, as if it weren't important). There seems to be this raw feeling of certain colors and shapes being more important than other colors and shapes - but why? important for what? Our goals. Our goal-oriented behavior seems to be just as raw as the shapes and colors themselves. To explain the existence of one without explaining the existence of the other seems to leave out the necessary information to explain it all. To talk about colors and shapes in some visual field without trying to explain those brute distinctions that occur before any categorizing seems to go nowhere at all. Distinctions are made subconsciously in order for the conscious to even hope to make and categorizations and groupings of similarities.

This is what's entailed by indirect realism. You don't have indirect access with some senses and direct access with others. Rather the brain produces a cohesive onboard self/world model, which is what you have epistemic access to only. The world around you, your body, other people, it's all an internal (private) representation. You exist entirely cut off from the physical world. — dukkha

If I were entirely cut off from the physical world, then how do I experience it? You are promoting dualism without the explanation as to how the mental can interact with the physical.

There is no mental vs. physical in the world other than as categories in the mind. The world is just one substance - one of information - where information is simply the relationship between cause and effect. The cause is not the effect but they are linked by time and space and exist together within the same medium. What we experience is the effect. The cause is "out there" in a different place and time. We can only experience the effect and never the cause, which is why indirect realism is the case, yet they are linked so as to prevent any separation that would require an explanation of how one can rely on their experiences being informative.

Well, how do you know you're touching an object? Through sight. — dukkha

Then how does a congenitally blind person know when they are touching an object?

Well, first it's important to remember that direct realism doesn't claim that there are no illusions, or that there is no faulty perception. But aside from that, re "which perception is accurate," the answer is "all of them." — Terrapin Station

This doesn't make any sense. If different senses provide different information that contradict, then they both can't be right. You can only be right if you say that you are experiencing two different things - one is you are experiencing a straight stick via touch and you experiencing bent light via vision. It seems that direct realism has simply co-opted indirect realism and renamed it "direct realism".

Direct realism redefines illusions out of existence. If illusions are what you are suppose to experience as a result of particular causes, then you aren't experiencing an illusion. In fact there are no illusions. There are simply misinterpreted sensory experiences.

There seems to be another popular straw man in discussions about direct realism online that has it that direct realists are for some reason asserting that one perceives the "entirety" of the objects and phenomena that one perceives. No one is claiming this. For example, when we say that we directly/accurately perceive the moon visually, no direct realist is saying that they also perceive the dark side of the moon visually (with the naked eye on Earth). — Terrapin Station

That isn't my argument. I'm not arguing that we don't see an object in it's entirety and that entails indirect realism. I'm arguing that we have contradicting information about one object and that is evidence of indirect realism.

Transgenders have what is called a somatic delusion - where one believes that there is something wrong with their body.
http://www.minddisorders.com/Br-Del/Delusions.html

Why is it that we seem to allow some people to continue to hold their delusions, or even promote their delusional state, while others we try to "help" them overcome their delusions and see things as they truly are (that they are actually the gender they were born as). It comes down to "Is it moral to allow someone to continue believing in a lie, or to make them face the facts?" Would it be immoral to help reinforce their lie to themselves?

I would like to know how consistent people are in this. Why do we find it okay to tell the religious that they believe in a delusion, but not okay to tell this to a transgender?

Why do we find it okay to allow doctors to make money off mentally ill people to perform a sex change when that essentially counts as mutilating their body as a result of their delusion?

It doesn't seem like philosophers are trying too hard to sound smart. They seem to be trying too hard to be artful (rather than accurate) with their use of language.

Sounds for example, are located within the world. The ear and brain just allow the direct realist to perceive the sounds in the external world. — dukkha

No. Sounds only exist in the mind. Vibrating air molecules are located within the world and sound is a representation of those wavelengths of air molecules. Just as colors don't exist out in the world, they only exist in the mind as representations of wavelengths of light. We don't see wavelengths of light, nor hear vibrating air molecules. If we did, that would be direct realism. We don't, which is why indirect realism is the case.

Your perception occurs in your brain, or it "occurs of your brain." Again, direct realists are not saying that perception doesn't involve perception. If you believe that they're effectively denying perception, which is a mental process, then you don't understand what direct realism is. — Terrapin Station

And what I've been saying is that perception comes in many different forms. We can perceive the world visually, audibly, and via our sense of touch, taste and smell. I have already pointed out that different perceptions can give us different information about an object - like the straw visually appearing bent, but our tactile perception informs us it is straight. If direct realism is true, then why would we have two different perceptions of the same thing? Which perception is accurate?

Direct realism conflates the way things appear and the way they actually are. We don't see wavelengths of light. We see colors.

When Nagel asks "What is it like to be a bat?" Is he asking what it is like to actually be a bat, or what is it like to appear to be a bat?

A machine without an owner is a contradiction in terms. — wuliheron

So then if there is a God that made us, then that would make us machines? Is god a machine?

As usual in a philosophical discussion, terms need to be clarified before the discussion itself can have any meat to chew on. What is a machine?

Oh, by the way, Welcome to the Machine.

To me, the indirectness or directness of perception isn't based the difference of the image compared to what it represents. It should be a given that the image isn't what is represented. The image is an outcome of various causes and we experience the same image at the end of the same string of causes. We always experience blue when a particular wavelength of light strikes our retina. If it didn't then we'd never be able to make heads or tails of what it is we are experiencing.

The directness/indirectness comes into play as a result of the length of the string of causation. How many steps are there from point A to the last step?

As I explained, our sense of touch is more direct than our sense of vision because we physically come into contact with the object when we touch it. This isn't the case when we see the object. The object doesn't touch our eye (that would hurt). Light touches our eye and we are informed of the object's properties and state via the light that reflects off of it.

The reason why we can rely on the image representing the object's state fairly accurately is because the whole process is lawful, not random. Just as tree rings indirectly inform us of the tree's age, the tree rings were caused by the lawful process of the tree growing throughout the year. So we can rely on tree rings representing the tree's age accurately because they were formed by how the tree grows, which is a lawful, non-random process. We can also rely on our sense of vision because the whole process is lawful and non-random and the same string of causes ends up leaving us with the same experience.

What about when we are outside on a sunny day and attempt to look through a window inside a dark house? We can't see what is inside because there is less to no light coming through the window from inside, and the light outside doesn't reflect off the window (because it's transparent) back into our eyes, which is why it appears dark.

Turn the lights on inside and now you have light traveling through the window outwards towards your eye and you can now see inside. Being inside the dark house, you can see through the window because the light is outside traveling through it, but me being on the outside there is no light traveling through the window towards me because I'm on the opposite side of the direction of light.

Transparent objects appear dark when there is no light traveling through, nor being reflected off of them (because they are transparent) from the other side towards my eye. So it all depends on where you are relative to where path of light.

Why is it that you can't see anything, transparent or not, when there is NO light and why you see such vividness and detail when there is plenty of light? Why does the level of detail and vividness seem to correlate with the level of light in the environment? — Harry Hindu

What point are you getting at? — dukkha

That the amount of information we acquire about our environment visually is directly tied to the amount of light in the environment.

No, there's a huge difference between seeing a physical object directly, and seeing a representation/model of a physical object. It's the difference between a map and a territory. No matter how accurate a map is, it's still not the territory. — dukkha

What would it be like to see an object directly? Seeing entails using light as a source of information about the world? If you are experiencing the object directly, then you aren't seeing it, you're touching it, and even then that isn't direct, but is more direct than our sense of vision. We can see both the map and the territory thanks to light. No light, no map or territory - at least visually.

"Mistaken impressions" just means "mistaken ideas" not "mistaken perceptions"; when we see the bent stick, our seeing of it is exactly what you would expect given that the light reflected off the surface of the stick is refracted by passing from one medium to a different medium. Even when we know the stick is really straight we continue to see it as bent, but this is not a mistake; that is just how it should appear.

We can have wrong ideas about how things work; in fact none of our ideas about how things work are absolutely infallible. That is because our ideas about how things work are ideas of causation; that is ideas of forces which cannot be directly observed.

On the other hand we cannot have mistaken ideas about how the world appears. Everything we know tells us it mostly appears just as it should. It is true that our imaginations may sometimes be projected out into the world; but that is something else. — John

But the stick isn't bent, the light is. We don't see sticks in water. We see light. We are informed of sticks and glasses of water by the light that enters our eyes. When you see a bent stick, do you feel a bent stick also? How is it that two different senses give you different information? Because we are using two different means of obtaining information about the world - one by using the repulsive force of electromagnetic energy (touch), and the other by using the wavelength and angle of electromagnetic energy entering the eyes. Our sense of touch is more direct than our sense of vision because it doesn't use electromagnetic energy at a distance. Why would it be useful then to use reflected EM energy from a distance to inform us about the world? Because it is often useful to know about objects, especially dangerous ones, before they are right next to you and eating you.

We see objects indirectly. We see light directly, or at least more directly than the object. This is what I mean by directness and indirectness coming in degrees. Light itself isn't colorful. Color exists only as a representation of EM wavelength in the brain.

Also our visual experience provides a perspective - of the world located relative to the eyes, but the world isn't located relative to the eyes.

That fact seems to go in my favor, for if there is no one without a brain at all how can they say what it is like to not have a brain and be dead? Therefore, how can you claim what death is like? Which you seem to do. — intrapersona

If there is still experiences after "death" then there was no death. You are still alive and having experiences. How would you even know you "died"? What would death mean if you continue to exist? What use would a body have?

You see, this is typical of philosophy - of creating problems by the simple misuse of terms. If you continue to have experiences then you are still alive, not dead, and that is what I'm talking about being interesting as opposed to experiencing nothing. Never mind that you'd need to explain how you would continue having experiences after you don't have any senses or a brain. Your argument is simply based on a misuse of terms to the point that you obliterate any meaning the word, "death" has.

You seem to be wanting to make a point against what I have said, but I cannot for the life of me see what it is. — John

I thought I was quite clear, that is unless you are trying to act like you don't understand what I said in a feeble attempt to prove me wrong.

If you are correlating the level of accuracy to the directness or indirectness of our access to the world, then direct realism would have to account for our mistaken impressions that we often have. If direct access means ultimate accuracy and indirect access means ultimate inaccuracy, then it seems to me that the solution is somewhere in the middle because we experience both accuracy and inaccuracies in our interpretations of our experiences. In other words, as I said before, accuracy isn't black and white. We can be accurate much of the time but still make mistakes. This shows that we have some level of indirectness but not so much that we can't know anything about the world.