Ah yes, we do need to know that. The direct realists emphasize that perception is different from other experiences. I'm not as convinced.

If the two were not separate processes it seems to me that there wouldn't be experiences of not knowing what a sound is caused by between hearing the sound and categorizing it. — Harry Hindu

Well sure. There are a bunch of processes we're not aware of in conscious experience unless something goes wrong or we can't identify what we're experiencing.

So we would need a direct perception of perception? — Harry Hindu

No, the external object. I'm asking how a perceptual experience is direct awareness of the external world.

One anything. — EnPassant

Actually not quite. You can't have one infinity divided by one zero. Or if you can, the mathematical universe goes all indeterminate on you.

The double slit and various related experiments do come close to suggesting the universe likes paradox. But probably we just don't understand what's going on.

Seeing is the whole process, not the result of the process. — unenlightened

Even granting this over singling out the neural activity, the end result of the entire process is still an experience. The experience is not the thing being experienced. So the direct realist needs to explain that the experience is a direct awareness. I just don't know exactly what that means.

The other elephant lurking in the room is consciousness and the hard problem. External objects are described in objective terms, but our perceptual experience includes subjective qualities. I might see a blue shade of color and feel calmed, but whatever surface has that shade does not have any calming property, nor does the reflected light. That's entirely an animal response. However, it didn't stop people in the past (or even some today) from thinking objects had those kinds of properties.

1 can count the 0. 'One zero'. — EnPassant

'One infinity'.

I do not see as a result of a process leading to neural activity. — unenlightened

The reason to think you do is because of all the other experiences which aren't perceptions, but sometimes can be mistaken for perception. A dream of seeing a tree isn't the process of seeing a tree, but it is the experience. Same with a hallucination, visualization, memory or neural stimulation.

You could have your eyes removed and still dream of seeing a tree. But if your visual cortex were cut out, you would lose the ability to have any mental images. So that pinpoints where the experience takes place. Most likely, the other experiences similar to perception are using the same neural circuitry to generate the imagery, or sound, etc.

One interesting article I read about schizophrenia suggested that it's a result of the brain losing the ability to flag the correct sources of experience. So a person starts mistaking their random thoughts for a perception of external voices.

Here is an illustration of direct realism from the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs-jJMTjHoo . The thing to note is that there are two depictions of the furniture. One is the external object being seen, and the other is inside the dude's head, which is the perception. This is supposed to be direct awareness.

However, the two depictions cannot be the same thing. External objects like chairs, tables and lamps don't get into the brain, on pain of death. Rather, a perception is formed as the result of seeing. So the direct realist needs to explain how that perception formed in the mind is a direct awareness of the external world, even though the perception is not and cannot be the the external object(s) being seen.

Some direct realist might be tempted to deny the perception depicted in the head and say there's just the dude seeing the furniture. But that's an impossibility given how perception works. The senses are stimulated by various things in the environment which the brain makes sense of, resulting in the experience we have of interacting with the world.

We all do this consciously or unconsciously not because we are in essence good people, but because we all want to be "seen" by others as good people. — Gus Lamarch

Is it therefore more important to be seen as good, than to actually be good? It's interesting how our stated moral systems say the opposite.

at what point in the decimal representation of the surreal does it depart from and differ from sqrt(2), keeping in mind that it cannot be the next largest real number, because that real number is infinitely far away? — tim wood

I don't know. Is there a way we can construct that?

This virus is with us long term. It will join the other coronaviruses and flus that kill a bunch of people every year. — frank

Why didn't influenza stick around? Did it kill too many people back in 1918/19?

So, we perceive whatever else by interaction, not by becoming the perceived, whereas dreams, hallucinations, etc, are parts of us when occurring. — jorndoe

That is a good approach. The crux of the matter turns on whether the experience of the other is what we're aware of, or whether that experience is the awareness of the other. The interaction happens regardless.

It's also possible that the answer is a mix of both and it just depends. For example, I hear what sounds like footsteps late at night in an old building where I thought I was alone. Turns out it was just the building settling.

So I do have a perception of the building making noises, but my experience of footsteps was inaccurate. Of course that's an auditory illusion, but it does illustrate a mixed state. I can't be directly aware of footsteps if there are none, but I am aware of perceiving a sound.

Let's say you had a neural implant which did two things:

1. It corrects refracted images so that the stick in water looked straight.

2. It occasionally receives video transmissions of objects otherwise out of sight.

Both of theses result in perceptions. Are they direct?

What if I hack the implant and refract straight light and send the wrong video? What is the nature of the resulting perceptions?

Are you sure you read the article? — jamalrob

I did. So you think the perception is the object? The neural activity produces the object? That can't be right.

Direct realism must mean it produces an awareness of the object via the perceptual experience. But in what sense is it "direct"?

You see as a result of a process leading to neural activity in your brain. Call it what you like, but that result is not the object. How could it be?

Distrust of the senses has been a perennial issue in Western philosophy it seems, but ironically we only started to make progress historically when we started taking perceptions seriously. — ChatteringMonkey

I believe ancient Indian philosophy was also aware of the issues around perception. Indian idealism has long been a focus in that tradition.

People like me. I typically buy a pack of four apples that all look similar. And the one I have on Monday, also tastes similar to the one I have on Tuesday. So I tend to think that Tuesday's apple was tasty on Monday, even though I did not taste it. This idea that apples remain apples when the fridge door is shut seems to work for the shape, the colour and the taste. — unenlightened

Only because you're thinking in terms of how the apple will look and taste for you as a human being. Being tasty is something animals with taste buds perceive. And that can vary quite a bit. It's not a property of the apple. The color is probably also a property of perception, since it's really photons of certain wavelength bouncing off molecular surfaces. And the colors seen can vary as well. Normal sighted humans have tetrachromatic vision, but there are other kinds.

And why would the narrow range of visible EM be colored? What about X-Rays and microwaves?

What is the argument though? We agree that seeing is remote sensing. A blind man uses a stick for remote sensing. He feels the curb 'through' the unfeeling stick. I feel the same curb through the unfeeling ambient light. Do you want to say that the sense of touch is indirect? When I shake your hand, I do not directly feel your hand, I only feel sensations in my hand? Well I can sort of make sense of that, but really- why bother? And sure, I don't need actual pins and needles to feel pins and needles... — unenlightened

The argument is that if perception is indirect, skepticism is more of a worry, because we have to infer the nature of external objects on the assumption that perception is indeed indirect and not something else entirely. So the status of knowledge and the nature of the world we experience are potentially at stake.

Direct realism would tend to avoid those issues. But only if we actually do have direct perception.

Dreams, illusion etc don't seem to be that detailed, vivid... or they seem to be 'lower resolution' if you will. I can try to imagine a face of someone I haven't seen or a while, but the imagination is never as accurate as the 'direct' perception. — ChatteringMonkey

I think that very much depends on the person. Some people have very detailed imaginations and some have very vivid dreams. I have rather poor visualization, but my dreams are visually richer. Some people can compose music in their heads, and some have very detailed memories.

There are two potential traps here when arguing this stuff. One is to assume everyone else has the same experience (limited visualization of the non-artist for example), and the other is to focus only on vision. Which could be misleading, since vision is very much a remote sense, unlike taste or touch.

To summarize my objection (now that I've thought about it some more), we have similar experiences to perception like dreams, hallucinations, illusions, imagination, memory in which we're directly aware of the mental contents of our experience. What makes perception different from all other experience?

We can reduce everything to two fundamentals, matter, atoms, or particles (however you want to call them), and the relations which these have with each other. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fields are just as fundamental, if not more so, than particles. Materialism is an incomplete understanding. The world is made up of more than particles.

As usual, all religious and spiritual implications are grammar mistakes. — StreetlightX

Which is analytic philosophy at its most absurd.

exist? — Banno

Have we left the question of Wittty's finitism behind?

So you believe the infinite number line exists? What happened to construction?

I like to wear it down one aisle and take it off the next to leave 'em guessing where I lean. — homer

The best is just to wear it on your head. It signals that you took the effort to don a mask, but you don't care enough to pull it down!

So there is a Shamwow mask! I post not simply to support our God-given right to own capital, but because those commercials were always fun. Finally a mask I can virtue signal icronically in!



The best part is, "Forget the environment, save yourselves!" at 0:32.

We could discuss some of the philosophical ideas of Gnostic Christianity:

The father’s thought became a reality, and she who appeared in the presence of the father in shining light came forth. She is the first power who preceded everything and came forth from the father’s mind as the forethought of all. Her light shines like the father’s light; she, the perfect power, is the image of the perfect and invisible virgin spirit.

She, the first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory among the realms, the glory of revelation, she glorified and praised the virgin spirit, for because of the spirit she had come forth.

She is the first thought, the image of the spirit. She became the universal womb, for she precedes everything,

the mother-father,
the first human,
the holy spirit,
the triple male,
the triple power,
the androgynous one with three names,
the eternal realm among the invisible beings,
the first to come forth. — http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-meyer.html

The great thing about arguing over virtue signalling is that we get to waste time arguing instead of ... ah fuck it, I'm going to watch Netflix.

As to the OP, My work is debating wearing masks among other policies if and when we go back to the office. We did an anonymous survey, and a significant number of responses indicated either that masks were too uncomfortable to wear for hours at a time, or the lack of faith in coworkers to follow the rules, so we should all just remain working at home until their is a vaccine.

What makes you think community ownership is any different? — Isaac

The 20th century. Communism has been tried.

As per above. I don't think there's a lot of evidence for the idea that humanity as a whole are 'into' any set thing. People are 'into' property ownership at the moment — Isaac

By "at the moment", you mean the history of civilization?

We are mostly whatever our culture makes us, change the culture, you change who we are. — Isaac

We're not ants, as someone once said regarding socialism.

If we change that culture there's no theoretical reason why people would not be in favour. — Isaac

Good luck with that. I can see Northern Europe style socialism/capitalism. I can't see the full blown thing becoming mainstream in places like the US.

Lesser-evil voting' (in close, competitive, elections) is the only option when subject to a schlerotic, ossified, colluding duopology such as the current U.S. two-party system. — 180 Proof

What I love is how it's every fucking election anymore. You have to vote for the lesser evil OR ELSE. Don't dare vote third party.

What that tells me is that the those in favor of the lesser evil have no intention in changing the status quo.

Voting against someone just seems like such a fucking waste... — Benkei

The American voting system has devolved into voting for the lesser evil, at least for major elections.

While not undermining the eventual goal of having people own their own homes and businesses. On which note: small investors just trying to save for retirement or for a down payment on a house also fall into this category of “bourgeoisie so petit they’re basically proles”) — Pfhorrest

Question: are socialists for private property in general as long as it isn't being used for capital to exploit workers?

unless you detail the way in which declaring property to be owned by the community would bring about this economic disaster. — Isaac

The argument would be is that it destroys incentive. But I was more thinking about the short term chaos of declaring all property public. A lot of people will not be in favor of that, for starters. And then you'd have arguments over how to fairly divide everything up, and what happens to all the former capitalists. And you'd have the poorer people who think it's their turn to own shit instead of sharing the wealth.

If modern hunter-gatherer communities are anything measure of how we used to live (which is, of course uncertain) then for the vast majority of human history we did not particularly "want to own our shit". — Isaac

I think it was more of what worked as a survival strategy for hunter-gatherers. Either way, I don't think using hunter-gatherers as a guide for of a high tech economy in a world of 7.8 billion people and global trade is very useful.

Force is being used to maintain ownership of possessions as they are. If I set up camp in a corner of your estate the police would force me off. — Isaac

Which I would say is a good thing in general, because people want to own their own shit. It's bad when there's an excess of wealth and poverty. So I don't really need that corner of the estate, and thus raise my taxes to provide the poor family nearby more of a means to escape poverty or a better place to live.

What's not good is deciding I should have no estate, because it all belongs to the community. If you want to wreck an economy, that's a good way to go about it.

FYI: I updated my reply before you finished typing your post, but you replied to the points I was making. Bad habit of mine.

The problem with many of the communist revolutions is that the communist party replaces the capitalists, because that's seen as a necessary step to force society to restructure. But you end up with an authoritarian government, a command economy, and those in the party being more equal than everyone else.

We’ve been told to live with less and less by not only Green Capital, but by the Church, by our liberal “friends,” and even by fellow comrades. Fuck that shit. Nah; if we’re going to be putting our shit out on the line it’s definitely not going to be so that I can live simply. — StreetlightX

I agree with this sentiment. If you're going to create the Marxist "utopia", then aim for one that offers the same perks as the capitalist one. The majority of us don't want to go back to lifestyle of peasants or monks. That's not a good selling point.

These are all capitalist structural aspects by which you acquired the capital in the first place. That's why some, at least fundamentally, revolutionary act is required to remove these structures and their effects. — Isaac

There is where the question of force comes in for a Marxist revolution. You can't abolish the capitalist system without having people give up all their capital. Unless you plan a generational thing where there is a gradual redistribution through heavier taxes, outlawing inheritance and what not.

Assuming the generational approach can work, given that the capitalists will have time to influence the system back in favor of owning capital.