Where does that leave us? — Janus

In both agreement and good standing. Glad to join you, if that's okay?

I know how to ride a bike, plane a board, paint a picture, write a poem, play the piano and so on, and I don't see how any of that requires belief. — Janus

How does one learn to ride a bike without believing that they're doing something while they're learning? Learning involves all sorts of belief. Removing the belief removes the capability.

Avoiding danger requires belief. Learning how to ride a bike involves avoiding danger.

These threads often get interesting.

We're fallible creatures. It doesn't follow from that that we're always mistaken.

Objectivity is fraught with archaic baggage. A muddler's pig pen. The muddlers are not fans.

When a belief statement is true, it is so independently of the user's certainty. That is an objective truth if there ever was one.

We agree that correlations can be drawn prior to(far in advance of) experience, but I suspect for very different reasons.
— creativesoul

Mine are: on the one hand all that which constitutes the representation of an object as it is perceived, which I call a phenomenon, correlated with representations for all that I think the phenomenon contains, which I call conceptions. The result is what my intelligence informs me about the object, which I call an understanding.

Yours are……? — Mww

Driven and delineated by evolutionary timeline.

….compatible with, an evolutionary timeline.
— creativesoul

This being aimed against the creationists? — Mww

Nah, more towards current knowledge.

The experience is meaningful to the dog, but not the sensor. The sensor detects and the dog perceives the very same thing.
— creativesoul

Ok, I get that. Because you already posit that experience is meaningful only to the creature, can half of each of your pairs be eliminated? Detection/perception eliminates detection because the creature perceives, and likewise, for sensitivity/sentience, sensitivity is eliminated. I wonder then, why you brought them up in the first place, just to dismiss them for their difference. — Mww

Who's being dismissive?

I brought them up to continue what I've been doing. I'm offering an outline I've been working with. That's part and parcel for methodological naturalist approaches. The strict rule against invoking supernatural entities as "a" or "thee" means for explanation is based upon knowing that logical possibility alone does not constitute sufficient reason to believe. I'm establishing my own terminological choices, and I'm adhering to a few basic principles while doing so.

That said...

Noting the difference between detection and perception is not dismissive. It is not dismissive of me to draw and maintain distinctions. I'm paving the way, as it were. Laying the groundwork. Letting you know what I mean by some of the key words, and trying to make consistent, coherent, non-contradictory, sense of it all.

Not all things capable of light detection are biological creatures. Photoreceptors need not be alive. Perceiving light is more than interacting with it. Light interacts with manmade photoelectric sensors as well as biological ones.

Who ever heard of ice cream that wasn’t creamy, just as who ever heard of an experience that wasn’t perceptual, or, perceptually instantiated. On the other hand, while the ice is of the cream, experience is not of the perception, but only of a determinable set of abstract intellectual predicates cognized as representing it. — Mww

It's the cream that mattered. Cream is an elemental constituent - a necessary ingredient - of ice cream. Cream exists in its entirety prior to becoming part of ice cream. Ice cream is existentially dependent upon cream, but not the other way around. The same is true of experience and perception respectively.

Again, I think we agree.

I’m saying no experience at all, includes language use. — Mww

If that is true, then language acquisition is not meaningful experience. Looks like a reductio ad absurdum.

My acquiring an experience is very different than me telling you about what it was, which manifests as me telling you all about what I know of the object with which the experience is concerned, or how I came into possession of it. — Mww

I see no issue with past experience being both, substantially different and elementally the same as the recollection thereof. It's different in its elemental constituency, and yet also like cream and ice cream there is an existential dependency in that the one is existentially dependent upon the other, but not the other way around.

A report of past experience presupposes past experience. If there is no past experience, there can be no report thereof. However, experience need not be reported upon. None of that is a problem.



I simply cannot agree with a (mis)conception and/or emaciated notion of experience that leads us to conclude that language acquisition is not meaningful experience.

People are very often mistaken about their own mental events.
— creativesoul

I can’t tell whether they have no use for understanding what such events are, they don't want to think it the case there are any mental events to be mistaken about, or, given mistakes, that mental events are necessary causality for them, which……for (a-hem) those of us in the know like you ‘n’ me……is a serious contradiction. — Mww

I was thinking more along the lines of knowing that and how we're influenced. I'm certainly not claiming to be 'in the know' as a means for evaluating/judging another as not being so well informed. I was merely stating something that is true of everyone. None of us knows everything. All of us hold some false belief or another.

Meaning, for example, emerges as a result of correlations being drawn between different things by a creature so capable. Meaning is necessary for experience.
— creativesoul

I agree meaning is a result of correlations, but I prefer to allot the correlations to understanding, and the meaning thereof emerging from the correlations, to judgement, but for me both of these are procedurally far in advance of experience. For you, then, is meaning one of the simpler things experience consists of, hence necessary for it? — Mww

As you said, using slightly different words, experience presupposes meaning. I would be okay with claiming simultaneity regarding meaning and experience. Co-dependency. Invoking understanding and judgement makes sense from you, being a Kantian and all.

We agree that correlations can be drawn prior to(far in advance of) experience, but I suspect for very different reasons. I have a strong methodological naturalist bent, a preference for ontological monism, and find it imperative to offer explanations that dovetail nicely with, or are otherwise compatible with, an evolutionary timeline.

It's the difference between detection and perception, or between sensitivity and sentience.
— creativesoul

Meaning is that difference? Sorry, you’ve lost me now. What you mean by those terms helps me locate them in the discussion. — Mww

Yup. Drawing correlations between different things is the difference between the motion sensor outside my shop and my dog when they both perceive the intruder. The experience is meaningful to the dog, but not the sensor. The sensor detects and the dog perceives the very same thing.

Last I checked "perceptual experience" wasn't something I invoked.
— creativesoul

I know, and didn’t mean to imply you did. I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t because you’d already recognized the lack of justification for doing so. — Mww

To me, it's akin to saying creamy ice cream. I mean, perception is one element of experience.

I agree that all experience is meaningful but would add that it is meaningful to the creature having the experience. This delineates the discourse. Are you okay with that?
— creativesoul

Absolutely, insofar as meaningful to the creature, if you meant only to the creature, is a purely subjective predication. What goes on between the ears stays between the ears, kinda thing. For me, this is a strictly metaphysical paradigm, and through the years here, I got the impression you didn’t wish to be so limited. — Mww

Your impression is accurate. All predication comes through a subject, hence the terminological use is redundant similar to "perceptual experience" and "creamy ice cream". We're thinking using words to help us. They're not between our ears. Nor are our correlations. I would not even agree with saying anything much at all stays between the ears aside from the biological structures residing there.

I reject language use for that which the discussion is about, for the first-hand, immediate occurrence of it, by the creature having the experience, which must include all that by which the experience he has, is possible, whatever that may be.

I think you're saying something along the lines of not all experience includes language use. I agree.

Biological machinery(physiological sensory perception) completely determines what sorts of things can become part of a creature's correlations. Of course, there are definitely hard limits to what we can know about that, especially given the hard limits regarding what we can know about our own meaningful experience. People are very often mistaken about their own mental events.

Not a good offer... deleted.

:blush:

the nature of our human intellect makes non-dualism impossible
— Mww

I'd like to see the support for this.
— creativesoul

Yes/no, up/down, left/right, wrong/right. For every possible conception, its negation is given immediately, without exception. It is impossible for the human intellect to function at all without this fundamental principle of complementarity, and from it follows the ground of intrinsically dualistic logical systems. — Mww

You're focusing upon language use. I agree with that much.

My concerns were of the physical/mental, physical/non physical, mind/body varieties as it may pertain to what counts as direct perception.

...all meaningful experience consists of correlations drawn between different things.
— creativesoul

Can we agree from this, that experience is a stand-alone entity? — Mww

I don't think so. I believe experience consists of simpler things. I would not call it a composite, for not all the elements can be said to exist in their entirety prior to becoming part of an experience. Meaning, for example, emerges as a result of correlations being drawn between different things by a creature so capable. Meaning is necessary for experience. It's the difference between detection and perception, or between sensitivity and sentience.

I’m saying, first of all, every experience is meaningful, and second, if it is granted experience is an end, the culmination of a methodological process, it needs no adjective attached to it. Case in point: perceptual experience. If every experience begins with perception, then perceptual experience is redundant insofar as it says nothing more than experience alone. — Mww

Last I checked "perceptual experience" wasn't something I invoked.

I agree that all experience is meaningful but would add that it is meaningful to the creature having the experience. This delineates the discourse. Are you okay with that?

some language less creatures can see red cups in very much the same way we do, given similar enough biological machinery. However, that same creature cannot know that they're seeing a green cup
— creativesoul

….cannot know they’re NOT seeing a green cup? — Mww

That as well...

It has always been my position that simply the nature of our human intellect makes non-dualism impossible — Mww

I'd like to see the support for this.

all meaningful experience consists of correlations drawn between different things.
— creativesoul

Can we agree from this, that experience is a stand-alone entity? — Mww

I doubt it. Maybe.

I don't see how that qualifies as a stand-alone entity. Apart from what, exactly?

How do you get from what I wrote to what you suggest for agreement?

Naive realism is not the only sensible notion of direct perception.

Janus is correct. You've drawn an equivalence. He asked about it. You've squirmed.

All meaningful experience consists of correlations being drawn between different things. Correlations can only be drawn between different things if the creature under consideration somehow perceives the content of their own correlations. Language less beasts do not draw correlations between language use and other things. Some can see green cups. Some can peek into their opening. Some can draw correlations between green cups and feeding. They do not know that the cups are green. They cannot.

A creature incapable of detecting certain ranges of the visible spectrum cannot draw correlations between the colors that that range helps enable us to pick out and anything else.

A creature that cannot know the names of colors but can see them nonetheless cannot possibly draw correlations between color names and other things. Nevertheless, some language less creatures can see green cups in very much the same way we do, given similar enough biological machinery. However, that same creature cannot know that they're seeing a green cup. Some creatures perceive green cups without knowing that they are. We can know that they are though.

If the green cup is meaningful to the creature, it cannot be as a result of language being meaningful to the same creature. They cannot know that the green cup has become especially meaningful/significant to them. But green cups can and do become quite meaningful to language less creatures, despite all that, if for no other reason than by virtue of pure repetition alone.

Given enough time, the color of the cup can become background noise. The creature will no longer pause and take note of the color. Rather, it can become immediately taken note of. The creature can know to run towards the green cup instead of the polka dotted ones and we can watch them do so, immediately upon being released - without any hesitation. They have no idea that those cups are polka dotted or solid. They directly perceive differences. The latter are clearly meaningful. They associate those cups with eating. The polka dotted ones are meaningful as well. They are not the ones that contain food.

....a perception in the brain... — NOS4A2

Needs substance.

Of course that's 'the way it is', because I merely stated a consequence of what you're arguing for. If you believe that touching fire is not directly perceiving fire, then there's not much more I can say.
— creativesoul

You are not making arguments, but merely appealing to common sense. There are venues where appeals to common sense carry some weight, this is not one of them. — hypericin

You could not be more wrong. Perhaps I'll be able to show you soon. The gross neglect has not happened unnoticed.

Like our herring well done, eh?

You can know with 100% certainty that logical possibility alone does not warrant belief.

Touching the fire, on your view, is not directly perceiving the fire. Nonsense.
— creativesoul

Yup. That's the way it is, your common sense opinions notwithstanding. — hypericin

Of course that's 'the way it is', because I merely stated a consequence of what you're arguing for. If you believe that touching fire is not directly perceiving fire, then there's not much more I can say.

Of course, but neural events are not that which is given to the senses to be represented. Neural events in the senses just are the representations the senses afford. — Mww

Our overall worldviews/positions are very close to one another.

I think perhaps the differences can be teased out in our respective notions of mind. However, we do both seem to hold that all meaningful experience consists of correlations drawn between different things(here is where perception first happens). Our differences may be a matter of taxonomy. Maybe not if you're a mind/body dualist or physical/mental dualist. We're very close to one another though. At least, I think we are.

So, there's only two choices? Indirect realism/perception and naive realism?

Nah.

I'm confused about what would it take to qualify as direct perception to those who argue for indirect.

Anyone here have an answer?
— creativesoul

I have an answer no one has given yet that I think is the correct one: lower organisms that do not use representational perception perceive directly.

Think of an amoeba, light hits a photo receptor, and by some logic the amoeba moves one way or the other.

If you regard this as "perception", then this is direct perception. — hypericin

Hmm...

Like the motion sensor outside my shop.

There's an evolutionary gulf between single celled organisms and us.

So, by definition then... how convenient. Reminiscent of the 'hard' problem.

If however perception for you entails the kind of representational perception we use, where the brain generates a virtual world for the centralized decision maker to evaluate and respond to, then perception is inherently indirect. — hypericin

Here is an example of disqualifying us from directly perceiving by using our biological machinery and how they work as reason.

Makes no sense to me.

Touching the fire, on your view, is not directly perceiving the fire. Nonsense.

...my senses will never be given my neural events... — Mww

Senses include neural events.

Why must one know what it is they are perceiving in order to be perceiving it?

That makes no sense.

It sems to me that some arguing against direct perception use the complexities of biological machinery as 'reason' to deny direct perception. Others include thought, belief, reasoning, and conceptual schema into their notion of perception and then use that as reason to deny direct perception. Others seems to presuppose that we need to perceive everything in order to perceive anything directly.

I'm confused about what would it take to qualify as direct perception to those who argue for indirect.

Anyone here have an answer?

I am interested in dropping the description and unhelpful arguments about what's "real". Seems the approach I've offered allows that to happen and focuses upon the effects/affects. I'm not sold on it, but the divorce of perception and reality has even less appeal to me. I also do not place much value on "the given".

I'm not clear on how belief in trees and rivers change the world for anybody, especially when compared to ghosts and fairies. — Manuel

Belief determines/underlies actions.

The issue is, how can we accommodate beliefs which are specific to some individuals (ghosts and fairies), versus other beliefs which are agreed by everybody: rocks, rivers, grass, people, etc. — Manuel

Well, it may help to begin by not categorizing everything as belief.

Hmm.

Could you spell out what is being eliminated and how that is done? I assume it makes more sense of direct realism.

"Maps and territories" seems apt here. I'm afraid I'm no longer as hopeful about this conversation as I once was.

Either Bernie Sanders' worldview is not rightfully called "a populist" one, or the title is refuted.

I mean I see the intuitive appeal but, are we then going to say: ghosts are real and so are trees and rocks? — Manuel

Sure. Ghosts are characters in fairy tales/explanations. Fairy tales/explanations persist via linguistic tradition. Some people believe in fairy tales, and act in their namesake. The world changes as a result.

Are we to say that ghosts are not real for us, but real for them? — Manuel

Ghosts are real in the sense that when they/we think about ghosts, they're/we're affected/effected by those thoughts. Seems to me anyway...

Absurd to deny, I should think, and thereby easily dismissed.

Now, whatever shall we do with realism? — Mww

That which is real has affects/effects.

I'm asking if "There are Cypress trees lining the bank" states the way things are if and when there are Cypress trees lining the banks?..............I'd like to read your answer to the question above
— creativesoul

I agree that the proposition in language "There are Cypress trees lining the bank" states the way things are if and when there are in the world Cypress trees lining the banks.

However, the question is, where exactly is this world. Does this world exist in the mind or outside the mind. — RussellA

:yikes:

Evidence/remnants/consequences of linguistic bewitchment(radical skepticism/idealism).


We spoke earlier about this. The trees are in the Mississippi delta backwaters. We could increase specificity. Hone our aim, as it were. There's a small bayou named "Manchac". I could show you a map. I could take you there and show you in person. Coming off of the bayou Manchac and then reconnecting to it are canals. All along the banks of some of those canals are docks, decks, houseboats, houses, and living areas. There are sometimes adjacent swampy areas close by. Bald Cypress grow there.

None of those things and none of those places are in my mind.

Being conscious of perceiving requires language use. Otherwise, one merely perceives. One can be conscious of what they're perceiving, but one cannot be conscious of the fact that they are perceiving until and unless they have language use as a means to talk about that as a subject matter in its own right.
— creativesoul

I could say "I perceive the colour green" or "I am conscious of the colour green". These mean the same thing, on the assumption that perceiving requires consciousness, in that I can only perceive something when conscious. — RussellA

What I'm saying is that it is possible for a capable creature to directly perceive green cups but because they do so by means of ways that they are completely unaware of, they're not conscious of perceiving. They're just doing it.

House cats can see green cups in cupboards and have no idea that they're called "green cups".

Because they are unaware of the fact that they are perceiving green cups, they do not have conscious awareness of the fact that they are perceiving a green cup while they're watching another creature hide by moving around to the other side.

The cat is now paying very close attention to the green cup. S/he's watching the edges. S/he's anticipating seeing the mouse. The cup may not appear the same to her/him as it does to us, at least regarding the color.

It seems that some here think that having biological machinery somehow discounts any and/or all capable creatures from directly perceiving things. As if having eyes somehow disqualifies one from even being able to directly perceive the green cup in the cupboard. "The green cup" is a rigid designator.

When looking at the same object, I may perceive the colour green and the other person may perceive the colour blue. I can never know what colour they are perceiving, not being telepathic. However, if the other person is perceiving the colour blue, then one of us is not seeing the object as it really is. — RussellA

If the object has no inherently existing mind-independent property of color to speak of, then it makes no sense to accuse either one of you of not seeing the object 'as it really is'(whatever that's supposed to mean). It's appearing green to you and blue to them makes no difference - if the object has no inherently mind independent property of color.

Someone recently accused indirect realists of working from the same mistakes as naive realists.

If the object appears green to you and blue to them, it is because the object both of you are directly perceiving has different effects/affects on different individuals. It does not follow from that that we do not or cannot(which is what some seem to suggest) directly perceive the object under consideration.

The cat can too.

We do not perceive mental concepts.
— creativesoul

We perceive a tree. A tree is a concept. Therefore we perceive a concept. — RussellA

Trees are in the yard. Concepts are in the language talking about the yard. Both are in the world. Concepts are in worldviews. Cypress trees are in the backwaters of the Louisiana delta.

there is ample evidence of perception and thinking being entangled. — wonderer1

I think that the latter is existentially dependent upon the former, but not the other way around. Seeing a green apple as a green apple is both perception(seeing the green apple) and thinking(seeing the green apple as a green apple).

Some language less creatures can see green apples but cannot see green apples as green apples.

The post hoc naming of certain wavelengths (or reflective surfaces) using the name of the sensation ordinarily caused by such wavelengths seems to be leading you and others to equivocate. — Michael

I'm curious if you'd show me how I'm equivocating.

For something to be true, there must be a reason why it is true
— Lionino
That does not look right. — Banno

My first thought as well...

Perhaps by "reason" he means truth conditions must be met?

Seeing the color green as "green" is what we do after talking about it.
— creativesoul

Exactly, it is a question of linguistics. — RussellA

Not what I said. I'm making the point that to see the green apple as "a green apple" requires language use, whereas seeing the green apple does not.