If it is either fictionalism or antirealism then in no sense is it direct realism. In fact in no sense does it address the epistemological problem of perception at all.

So this is either fictionalism or anti realism.

I don't think the scientific image is the Real beneath some paintjob of color and values. — plaque flag

So you’re not a scientific realist? You believe in something like colour realist primitivism?

I don't think 'mind-independent' is a very clear term. — plaque flag

Then forget that term. Is the redness a property of that bundle of matter which is the apple?

We see red apples, the blue sky. We can talk about colors (as adjectives, concepts,...) — plaque flag

Is the redness of an apple a mind-independent property of the apple?

Yes, I need my nervous system to do this. But my eyes and brain let me see this apple in our world directly. Yes, I need light to come from the apple to my retina. That's part of how I see the apple. But I don't see an image of the apple, and I don't see a private world in which the apple is given directly. I see the apple right there in our world, the world. And I talk about that apple. It is the case that an apple is there in front of me. — plaque flag

Let's restart with something simple. Do we see colours?

There's a similar case with Smartmatic that's ongoing. They're suing for $2.7 billion.

What do we make of inverted color spectrums ? — plaque flag

It’s perfectly coherent. The example of the dress that some see as white and gold and others as black and blue shows that we can have different sensory experiences to the same external stimulus. The case of tetrachromats are another example. There’s empirical evidence that women can distinguish a greater number of hues than men. As personal evidence, the colours I see in my left eye are more “full” than the colours I see in my right eye.

So it’s easy to understand, both in principle and in practice, that the sensory experience you call red might not be the sensory experience that I call red.

Yes, I think you can intend my private experience. You can speculate about my concealed feelings. Such concealed feelings make sense (I claim) inasmuch as they function in inferences. — plaque flag

And this isn't exclusive to emotions; it's also true of so-called "qualia" (whether reducible to some physical phenomena or not). Just as words like "sad" and "happy" can refer to your concealed feelings, words like "red" and "sweet" can refer your concealed sensory experience.

The point is that the norms for applying concepts are impersonal, public.

'I fucking hate getting wet, so I ran naked into the rain' does not make sense in any but the most outlandish context. — plaque flag

That's not the point. The point is that I can talk about your first person experience even if your first person experience is hidden from me, whether in practice or in principle.

I never denied this. — plaque flag

Then why is it that we can talk about something that's hidden in practice but not hidden in principle?

Again with Wittgenstein's beetle-in-a-box. In one scenario we can look inside each others' boxes but never do. We can talk about the thing inside each others' boxes. In another scenario we can't look inside each others' boxes. Therefore we can't talk about the thing inside each others' boxes? I don't see why it would make any difference. If we can talk about something that's hidden from us in practice then we can talk about something that's hidden from us in principle, and so even if there is such a thing as hidden-in-principle first-person consciousness/qualia, we can still talk about it.

You need to spell out how that fallacy is relevant to what I'm saying. My argument is simple:

1. I sometimes feel sad
2. This sadness is reducible to the firing of certain neurons
3. The firing of my neurons is in practice hidden from other people
4. Other people can talk about me being sad
5. Therefore, other people can talk about things which are in practice hidden from them

The issue is that we can talk about and understand each other's feelings, as distinct from any consequential overt activity, and that these feelings are hidden from us in practice. And we can talk about and understand this even if we don't know anything about the brain and its role. Young children can understand being (secretly) sad, and can understand other people being (secretly) sad, and can talk about it all.

As I brought up before, it's just like Wittgenstein's beetle-in-a-box, except that we can in principle look inside each other's boxes but in practice never do. So how does that affect his reasoning and your view on language?

I see the cat and not an image of the cat. — plaque flag

These aren't mutually exclusive. I feel pain and I feel the fire. I feel cold and I feel the Arctic air. I see shapes and colours and I see the cat.

Yes. It's in his body. It is a disposition. It's all connected to the rest of the world, not hidden away in some box which is causally and logically isolated.

But it is hidden away in practice, given that you don't look inside people's heads and examine their brains and endocrine system.

That's the point. — plaque flag

The point is that him feeling enraged is a real thing that happens, independent of any overt action he may perform as a consequence.

He can be enraged and act out. He can be enraged and do nothing. Either way there is an "inner" feeling (which may be reducible to brain activity) that we can, and do, talk about.

You don't see the cat at all. — plaque flag

And yet it is still the intentional object that we talk about. Which is why your argument that we talk about trees has nothing to do with the epistemological problem of perception. The epistemological problem of perception concerns what we see, not what we talk about.

Because he was enraged, he through the coffee pot into the wall. — plaque flag

There are two parts to this statement

1. He was enranged
2. He threw the coffee pot into the wall

These mean different things. Both are true. The latter is a consequence of the former. And it is perfectly possible to be enraged and not throw the coffee pot into the wall. I'm concerned about 1). I don't know why you keep talking about 2). It's a separate matter entirely.

No, I don't accept that. — plaque flag

I said "I’m aware of the cat hiding under the covers. Doesn’t mean I directly see it."

You responded with "Why would it ? No one promised a clear line of sight to every intentional object."

Was this not you agreeing with me that I don't directly see the cat (because it's hiding under the covers)?

Why would it ? No one promised a clear line of sight to every intentional object.

This is why I consider 'we talk about the cat and not about our image of the cat' as a less confusing approach to direct realism. — plaque flag

The problem I have is with your use of "direct realism" to describe your position. You accept that I don't directly see the cat but that it is nonetheless the intentional object that we talk about. So you should accept that there is a meaningful difference between saying that we directly see some object and saying that some object is the intentional object that we talk about. Direct realism, as ordinarily understood, and as the position that indirect realists argue against, makes a claim about what we directly see, not about what is the intentional object that we talk about. Why repurpose an existing label to argue for something different? It just causes confusion as evidenced by this discussion.

And it's not inconsistent to argue that experience is constituted of some private (even if only in practice) mental phenomena (even if reducible to physical phenomena) and that external world objects are the intentional objects that we talk about. I feel cold and talk about the Arctic air. I feel pain and talk about the fire. I see shapes and colours and talk about the tree. So one can be an indirect realist and still accept your claim that we talk about cats rather than our image of cats.

I suggest that consciousness isn't doing much work here. Wouldn't awareness be better ? We are aware of distant stars, apples just out of reach. — plaque flag

I’m aware of the cat hiding under the covers. Doesn’t mean I directly see it.

We talk about those distant stars — plaque flag

But again, direct and indirect realism are positions about the nature of perception, not about what we talk about.

Does not sound like a belief in this quote. — Richard B

When someone believes that something is true it’s normal for them to assert what they believe rather than that they believe it.

I don’t usually say “I believe it’s raining”. I just say “it’s raining”. I don’t usually say “I believe I’m in pain”. I just say “I’m in pain”.

So I wouldn’t normally say “I believe that I can see colours without describing them to someone else”. I just say “I can see colours without describing them to someone else”.

It seems that you have this position. — Richard B

There’s a difference between me asserting “X is a fact” because I believe it to be so and me asserting “X is a fact because I believe it to be so”.

If saying "what ever I believe is a fact is a fact" is not ridiculous — Richard B

I haven't said that, so not sure the relevance of this.

So if I refuse to answer your question then I'm blind? Or I'm not blind but the carpet is transparent? Or the carpet isn't transparent but also not coloured (and so not white or black either)?

This is clearly ridiculous. Me seeing something has nothing to do with you and nothing to do with speech.

I really don't think you're being honest with me at all. You can't actually believe these things you're saying.

If I have a color detecting machine where when I place a colored object in front of it, it will report the color in its display. However, one day it stops reporting the color on the display. We checking the display and is functioning fine. What sense is there in saying “Nevertheless the machine is still detecting the color even when we place it in front of the machine”

The same goes for a person looking at the colored balls. — Richard B

I can tell you for a fact that I can see the colour of my carpet even though I'm not describing the colour of my carpet.

I'm not so sure. It's not the sort of thing we can check, right? — Moliere

I know from my own experience that I can smell the difference between two different flowers despite not having a word to describe each smell.

I know from my own experience that I can see the difference between two different hues of red despite not having a word to describe each hue.

I know from my own experience that I can see the colour of my wall despite not knowing whether to call it pale blue or grey.

The sensory quality of an experience and English vocabulary are two very different things and I just don't understand why so many here seem to disagree with this. It's like they've been so bewitched by Wittgenstein that they deny the patently obvious.

Cool. So we can agree on embodied cognition. — plaque flag

Except here we have a problem. We accept that me thinking of a number is just the firing of certain neurons. But the firing of these neurons, although not private in principle, is private in practice. You don't open up my head and examine my brain, and even if you did, you wouldn't know what to look for (unless, perhaps, you're an expert neuroscientist).

And yet we can talk about and understand other people thinking of a number. Even young children who know nothing about the brain's neural activity and its relationship to consciousness can talk about and understand other people thinking of a number. They are talking about and understanding something that, even though not private in principle, is private in practice.

Now consider a variation of Wittgenstein's beetle-in-a-box where we can see inside each others' boxes but that we never do. It's private in practice but not private in principle. Does that make any difference at all? I don't think it does. And so if we can talk about something that's private in practice then we can talk about something that's private in principle.

It's really just not that hard to believe that other people have the same kind of inner life that we recognize ourselves as having and so talk about it. We're clever, empathetic creatures.

That language is directed at that shared world ? Toward objects and other selves in it ? — plaque flag

When we talk about the tree it's directed at the shared world. When we talk about our feelings it isn't.

Mind is something a body does , a patterned way of moving. Even that minimal monologue is moving parts. — plaque flag

I've accepted as much when I said that consciousness is reducible to brain activity. The "moving parts" of my inner monologue is the firing of certain neurons.

What I reject is the claim that thinking or perception must be some overt act recognisable by ordinary humans in ordinary situations, e.g. that being in pain is just taking aspirin or that seeing red is just stopping at a red light, to refer back to some things you've said before.

To me this is a strange and very questionable statement. This really does sound like a ghost story from over here. — plaque flag

Not at all. Consciousness might just be reducible to brain activity, and brain activity obviously doesn't extend beyond the brain.

If there's a "ghost story" at all it's with your theory that consciousness extends beyond the stars.

Isn’t intentionality a fundamental part of consciousness? Isn’t that pretty much what consciousness is for? — Jamal

To repeat something else I said earlier: we might nonetheless want to say that the experience is of external world objects, but then what do we even mean by this? What is the word “of” doing here? What does it mean to say that the painting is of Lisa del Giocondo, or that I’m talking about my parents? It’s certainly an interesting question to consider, but I wonder if it actually has anything to do with the epistemological problem of perception. It seems to be an unrelated issue of semantics that isn’t prima facie incompatible with indirect realist theories. The painting is of Lisa del Giocondo, and yet the painting is made of paint and canvas, which are not features of Lisa del Giocondo herself. And so it could be that the experience is of an apple, and yet the experience is made of something like brain activity or sense data or rational inferences, none of which are features of the apple itself.

Isn’t intentionality a fundamental part of consciousness? Isn’t that pretty much what consciousness is for? — Jamal

Yes, and given that consciousness doesn't extend beyond the brain, neither does intentionality. Unless you want to argue that consciousness is some immaterial substance that does extend beyond the brain, the physics should be clear on this (unless there's some hidden physical aspect to consciousness which has so far evaded detection).

'Direct' should be read as inindirect, a negation or cancelling of the original mistake. — plaque flag

Which is no answer at all.

The direct realist says we directly experience external world objects.
The indirect realist says we directly experience mental imagery.

What does "directly" mean?

Consciousness (the semantically slippery eel) seems to extend to distant stars in some sense, or astronomy is bunk. — plaque flag

To repeat again what I said earlier, this is the “illusion” of experience (and in particular sight), and is I believe the driving force behind direct realism. It seems as if external world objects are constituents of my conscious experience, but our scientific understanding of the world and consciousness (as much as we do understand it) shows that this isn’t the case.

For someone who rejects the existence of any kind of private, immaterial thing, I don't know how you can think that consciousness extends beyond the brain, let alone towards distant stars.

I say forget about internal theaters and secret screens. — plaque flag

There is no "internal theatre" or "secret screen". We feel pain and the schizophrenic hears voices, and the pain we feel and the voices the schizophrenic hears aren't external world objects. This is a perfectly acceptable description of the facts and doesn't suggest anything like a "homunculus".

What needs to be explained is the meaning of "direct".

One such explanation is given here:

...the naive realist holds that things appear a certain way to you because you are directly presented with aspects of the world, and – in the case we are focusing on – things appear white to you, because you are directly presented with some white snow. The character of your experience is explained by an actual instance of whiteness [understood in context to be some mind-independent property of snow] manifesting itself in experience.

Another is given here:

Disjunctivists are often naïve realists, who hold that when one perceives the world, the mind-independent objects of perception, such as tables and trees, are constituents of one’s experience.

That experience is direct is that the object itself is present "in" the experience. That experience is indirect is that the object itself isn't present "in" the experience; that experience is (at best) representative of the object.

And to repeat something I said earlier: consciousness, whatever it is, doesn't extend beyond the brain, and so it's physically impossible for an apple and its properties to be constituents of my conscious experience. It might be causally responsible for conscious experience, but that's all it can physically be.

That we have to use language to talk about perception isn't that when talking about perception we talk about language.

To talk about seeing is just as much to talk about talk about seeing. — plaque flag

No it's not. These are two different claims:

1. John can see the apple
2. John can talk about seeing the apple

The problem of perception concerns making sense of 1), not 2).

I said that humans don't always have to apply concepts when they see. — plaque flag

Good. Then can you finally stop talking about language and start talking about seeing?

How is this related to my claim that concepts are norms ? — plaque flag

The point is that, whether you want to talk about perception as involving phenomenal character or as involving concepts, I can see things without saying anything, and without performing any covert action that others can recognize. Even if it's not private in principle, it's private in practice. When going about your ordinary life you can't open up my head and check to see what my brain is doing.

Sure. As a practical matter, for now, you can mutter to yourself so quietly that nobody hears what you say. — plaque flag

I don't "mutter" to myself when I think. I just think. The mute can think.

I claim that 'just thinking' a number not truly but only relatively 'immaterial' and private. — plaque flag

That's fine. You can say that thinking of a number is reducible to brain activity if you want. The point is that it involves no overt action that ordinary humans going about their ordinary lives can recognize as happening.