You are willing to project strings on all of reality but not color. — plaque flag

I literally just said above that colour is composed of strings.

Presumably the concept of a sting occurs when the brain is tickled just right. — plaque flag

Yes.

So what was so wacky about me saying that roses are red ? — plaque flag

It's not wacky, it's just wrong. It's like saying that fire is wet. A red colour occurs when the appropriate areas of the occipital lobe are activated. Roses don't have occipital lobes.

Is color strings ? — plaque flag

Yes.

Is consciousness strings ? (If string theory is correct?) — plaque flag

Yes.

So pain is strings ? — plaque flag

If string theory is correct, yes.

I'm not seeing how you get around dualism exactly. — plaque flag

By not arguing that some non-physical substance exists?

If images are just brain activity, and brain activity is strings... ? — plaque flag

Then everything is strings, which is what string theory argues. I don't understand what you're getting at.

Do you believe in consciousness ? — plaque flag

Of course.

Indirect realism has (1) images and (2) reality itself, right ? — plaque flag

Indirect realism is committed to a dualist picture within which there is an ontology of non-physical objects alongside that of the physical. — plaque flag

If there are non-physical objects then they are as much a part of reality as the physical is.

Indirect realism is committed to a dualist picture within which there is an ontology of non-physical objects alongside that of the physical. — plaque flag

I don't think it's committed to this. It's committed to a picture within which there are sensations, which are restricted to the brain, and things like apples and chairs. Many indirect realists may also be dualists and believe that sensations are non-physical, but that's not necessary. I'm explaining a non-dualistic indirect realism. I am simply arguing that colours are of the same kind of thing as pain; a type of brain activity, not a property of apples.

Which is basically dualism, it seems to me. — plaque flag

No, because I'm saying that sensation is a type of brain activity. In the case of visual sensation, that brain activity involves the primary visual cortex.

Isn't indirect realism about a mediating image or consciousness which is not the Real itself ? Presumably created by the nervous system ? — plaque flag

Sensation is the mediation. I am directly aware of feeling pain, which is a sensation, and in being directly aware of that pain I am indirectly aware of my hand being in the fire. I am directly aware of feeling cold, which is a sensation, and in being directly aware of that cold I am indirectly aware of the Arctic air surrounding me. I am directly aware of seeing red, which is a sensation, and in being directly aware of that red I am indirectly aware of the apple on the table.

The issue is that you call everything brain activity — plaque flag

No I don't. I claim that the sensations which constitute conscious experience are brain activity. We know this from the fact that we can stimulate the appropriate areas of the brain, such as the occipital lobe, and the subject will see shapes and colours in response to this stimulation.

Yes

But what can the scientific realist mean — plaque flag

That the entities described by our scientific models are real and discovered rather than just instrumentally useful fictions.

As I said before, if you argue for scientific instrumentalism over scientific realism then you might as well abandon direct realism and just be an idealist (or a transcendental idealist à la Kant).

You think color is just in our head, right ? — plaque flag

Colour is a type of brain activity. Brain activity is real. Therefore, colour is real.
Pain is a type of brain activity. Brain activity is real. Therefore, pain is real.

Apples don't have pain-properties. Trees don't have colour-properties. Fire doesn't have the property of being wet.

Semantic not pedantic. The scientific image is just that, an image, a model. But you seem to say that the map is the territory. That atoms are really there but color is not --- as if our nervous systems weren't giving you the idea of atoms indirectly like everything else (according to your theory.) — plaque flag

I'm a scientific realist, not a scientific instrumentalist, if that's what you're getting at.

I'm just saying that it's artificial to call color unreal — plaque flag

I'm not saying that.

But string theory is just math. It's something in consciousness like redness. — plaque flag

I think you're being pedantic here. If string theory is correct then the entities that the theory describes – superstring – are the constituents of all material things. Just as if the theory of gravity is correct then the force that the theory describes – gravity – is the thing responsible for objects falling to the ground.

I think the entities within the scientific image exist at the same time and in the same world as roses and promises and concepts. — plaque flag

That's fine. I'm just saying that colours, like pain, are a type of brain activity, not a property of apples. They're still real. They're just not what naive realists think they are.

Why isn't math also just brain activity ? — plaque flag

I suppose it is. I'm not a Platonist.

You said your hand is really something like strings from string theory. Is that correct ? — plaque flag

If superstring theory is correct.

Why would math be more real than color ? — plaque flag

I'm not saying that math is more real than colour. I'm saying that colour is a type of sensation, i.e. brain activity, not a property of apples.

OK. So...what is a fire then really ? What is your hand really ? — plaque flag

Bundles of superstring according to one theory.

My gripe is that indirect realism smuggles in naive realism to set itself up with a world in which social organisms have sense organs and nervous systems. Taking all of that for granted, then intermediate images or some kind of dualism is postulated. — plaque flag

I don't think it smuggles in naive realism. It accepts scientific realism. But you highlight here the exact point Bertrand Russell made, as I explained here. Naive realism is self-refuting.

You must mean (?) that you feel pain when an internal image shows you 'your' hand in a fire. — plaque flag

I don't mean that.

There's nothing in principle that stops us from manually activating the occipital lobe in a manner similar to how it ordinarily responds to signals sent from the eyes. The article I linked to talks about attempts to do exactly that, e.g. to help the blind see.

So it's real, but maybe conscious experiences' properties are different from the properties of whatever is outside of our bodies, and whatever is outside of our conscious experience? — Moliere

Yes. Different things have different properties. Pain is a type of brain activity, and apples don't have brain activity so don't have properties of pain. Red is a type of brain activity, and apples don't have brain activity so don't have properties of red.

I'm trying to puzzle through how you make indirect realism coherent. — Moliere

I feel pain when I put my hand in the fire. The pain I feel is "in my head", not a property of the fire. Do you understand this much? Now just replace "feel pain" with "see red" and "put my hand in the fire" with "open my eyes and look in a particular direction". It's the exact same principle.

Just how you avoid what appears to be the problem for indirect realism: perception is indirectly connected to reality. So how does science get directly connected to reality such that the inference that it is indirectly connected isn't self defeating, and doesn't lead one back to direct perception? — Moliere

Also on this point, as Bertrand Russell explains, it is in fact direct realism that is incompatible with scientific realism:

Scientific scripture, in its most canonical form, is embodied in physics (including physiology). Physics assures us that the occurrences which we call ''perceiving objects'' are at the end of a long causal chain which starts from the objects, and are not likely to resemble the objects except, at best, in certain very abstract ways. We all start from "naive realism', i.e., the doctrine that things are what they seem. We think that grass is green, that stones are hard, and that snow is cold. But physics assures us that the greenness of grass, the hardness of stones, and the coldness of snow, are not the greenness, hardness, and coldness that we know in our own experience, but something very different. The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself. Thus science seems to be at war with itself; when it most means to be objective, it finds itself plunged into subjectivity against its will. Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.

But then if the direct realist tries to save the direct aspect of his position by arguing for scientific instrumentalism then he loses the realist aspect of his position, and might as well be an idealist.

perception is indirectly connected to reality. — Moliere

It's not indirectly connected to reality. My conscious experience is as real as everything else.

So how do you get to the properties of objects outside of the body when shapes, colours, tastes, and smells are properties that are only inside conscious experience, which is restricted to brain activity? — Moliere

You're asking why I'm a scientific realist rather than a scientific instrumentalist?

experience is not-real though causally connected to what is real — Moliere

I've never claimed that.

My claim is that things like shapes and colours and tastes and smells are properties of conscious experience, which is restricted to the brain, not properties of objects outside the body like apples and chairs.

Couldn't there be a metaphysics of perception? — Moliere

I suppose that depends on whether or not you're a dualist. If there is such a thing as a non-physical mind then it is literally meta physics.

Isn't that the distinction between direct and indirect? — Moliere

I think the distinction is that the direct realist believes that apples and their properties are manifest in conscious experience such that how an object appears is how it is (even when it doesn't appear), whereas the indirect realist believes that the properties which are manifest in conscious experience (e.g. shapes and colours and tastes and smells) are properties only of conscious experience, albeit causally covariant with (and perhaps in a sense representative of) apples and their properties.

Such as RussellA's worlds, where there is an external world and an internal world? — Moliere

I wouldn't read too much into such terminology. After all, there's no metaphysics involved when we talk about the "world of show business".

And the indirect access adds a metaphysical entity in between ourselves and reality, which is directly perceived but not real. — Moliere

There's nothing metaphysical about it (unless the mind is non-physical). Just look at perception from a purely biological perspective. Electromagnetic radiation stimulates the rods and cones in the eyes. This sends signals to the occipital lobe which processes visual information, which is then sent to the temporal lobe where the visual information is processed into memory and to the frontal lobe where the visual information is processed into intellectual reasoning and decision-making.

Now what happens if we ignore the eyes entirely and find some other means to activate the occipital lobe, such as with cortical implants or the ordinary case of dreaming? I would say that the subject undergoes a conscious experience. And I would say that their conscious experience is one of visual imagery, such as shapes and colours. Seeing shapes and colours does not require electromagnetic radiation stimulating the rods and cones in the eyes (or an apple to reflect said light). Seeing shapes and colours only requires the activation of the appropriate parts of the cerebral cortex.

Given that seeing shapes and colours only requires the activation of the appropriate parts of the cerebral cortex, regardless of what triggers it, it's understandable why one would argue that the shapes and colours we see are "in the head" and not properties of apples. Seeing shapes and colours is no different in principle to feeling pain or hot or cold.

The brain activates, a sensation occurs, and we are cognitively aware of this sensation. We then (often) infer from this sensation the existence of some responsible external stimulus. The mistaken naive view is to think that the quality of this sensation (e.g. shape or colour or smell or taste) is a property of the external stimulus.

Sounds like you are begging the question now. — Richard B

Is being a scientific realist question begging?

What evidence do you have that external stimuli, when not being seen, are accurately described by our description of how they appear to us when seen?

Whether you describe a rock “ordinarily” or “scientifically”, neither is more fundamental than the other. Each serves it own purpose to adequately and accurately described our experiences. — Richard B

Only one accurately describes the independent nature of the external stimulus. The other describes an appearance, which is (at best) only representative of that external stimulus. Hence indirect realism.

We see the red apple and not its image — plaque flag

It’s both.

it's still there if we close our eyes ---and still red. — plaque flag

What does it mean for it to be red when not being seen?

I've tried to shift the focus to us talking about the apple and not the image of the apple — plaque flag

So you’re shifting focus away from perception.

I don't think science answers metaphysical questions — plaque flag

I don't think perception has anything to do with metaphysics. Perception has to do with biology and psychology and physics. and so science is the appropriate tool to use.

I like naive realism in the above. Scientific realism is already too indirect, in my view. — plaque flag

Well, I would say that the scientific evidence proves scientific realism and disproves naive realism. You might think that question begging, but I think I have more reason to believe in the truth of science than to believe in your theory about language.

People can be fooled (by their own nervous systems) into making incorrect judgments about the world. — plaque flag

The point is that them hearing and them making a judgement are two different things. Hearing voices happens when the primary auditory cortex is activated. We then judge this to either be a response to external world sounds or to be an hallucination. In neurological terms, first the temporal lobe is activated (we hear), and then the frontal lobe is activated (we make reasoned judgements about what we hear).