One thing we'd know for sure is that if we're going to claim that our perceptions do not tell us what the world is like, we can't use perceptions about what the world is like for support of that. — Terrapin Station

Kant, the pragmatists and the ancient skeptics would agree. Hume would agree at least about causation.

I don't think we have to go that far. We can just say that although perception doesn't show us the word as it is, it gives us enough information to infer what the world is probably like. But it takes a great deal of effort, which is why the scientific enterprise came so late in the game.

Sure.

Well, that's what color is, sure. So how are we coding that if things aren't colored? — Terrapin Station

Because photons aren't colored. They are packets of energy having frequency and wavelength, carrying the electromagnetic force.

So how do we know that one perception has things right? Namely, the perception that suggests that the other perception has things wrong? — Terrapin Station

We don't know for sure. The best we can do is come up with explanations that fit all of our perceptions as best as possible.

Thus the ancient skeptics, Hume, Kant, pragmatism, the empiricism of science, that theories are not true but only conditionally supported by observations to date, which could be falsified tomorrow, etc.

Although now that we mention whether it's impossible, what exactly are we coding if not color in our color-coding? — Terrapin Station

How photons of a certain wavelength bounce off objects, or are refracted by air, water, glass, etc. It's a good evolutionary strategy to use that to navigate the world of everyday objects.

Do they perceive them as they are or not. It's a yes or no question, or you can explain why you can't answer yes or no a la "It's not possible to answer that question yes or no because . . . " — Terrapin Station

No, they perceive things as they appear to human beings. But that doesn't stop us from learning about X-Rays and GR and germs and what not. But It might have taken a million years of cultural and technological evolution to get there.

Or it might be that the world isn't colored, it only looks that way to creatures with visual systems which use color coding to detect things by how visible light bounces of it.

Sure, and when you make those observations, do you perceive things as they are? — Terrapin Station

The scientist perceives the outcome of their experiments and observations, which might lead them to suppose that there are large parts of the world we don't perceive, or that the world differs from how we perceive it.

How would we know that? — Terrapin Station

Run some experiment, gather observations, come up with models to explain the experiments and observations. That sort of thing I would imagine.

The claim that you can know that it's not true presupposes that you can know the world as it is (via perceiving eyeballs, ears, nerves, brains, etc.) for comparison, where we can say which part is the world as it is and which is different from that. — Terrapin Station

We know that the scientific account of the world differs quite a bit from the world we perceive. We also know that our perception varies quite a bit, and that there are other organisms who have better senses or can sense things we cannot.

Therefore, we don't perceive the world as it is. We perceive it according to the kinds of animals we are, and as the individual we are in a particular environment.

When I perceive a solid table, I'm not perceiving the mostly empty space it's made up of, or the atoms forming the chemical bonds that make it appear solid to me. I'm also not perceiving the microscopic critters on the table's surface, or all the non-visible light that passes through the table.

I think, "Hmm . . . it rather seems to me like a mistake to think of that as a mistake. — Terrapin Station

You can try and defend color realism - that objects are actually colored like we perceive them to be, but it's a difficult position to maintain. Dennett does go into why that it is. One reason is that the reflective surfaces of objects is not always directly related to the colors we see. Another reason is that organisms with better eyes than us will see different combinations of colors.

If you consider what the sky would look like on a sunny day if we could see the entire EM spectrum, we know that it certainly wouldn't be blue, given all the other radiation that would need to be colored somehow.

That doesn't imply that I'm not a direct realist. Direct realists believe that we consciously perceive the world as it is, directly. — Terrapin Station

But we don't consciously perceive the world as it is. From science we know that it's not true.

It doesn't dissolve the hard problem, though it does indicate that at least everything pertaining to consciousness but the hard problem is solvable.

We can imagine physical mechanisms which discriminate between different wavelengths of light, and we can even imagine plausible evolutionary histories...

The hard question would be, why does our experience of color feel like an experience at all? — VagabondSpectre

Yeah, that sounds correct. And Chalmers arguments for the hard problem escape Dennett's assessment in that book. We still want to know how/why red is an experience.

No, it's the water that is the object of perception in both cases. — jamalrob

Yes, but the feeling of the water comes from us, and we're aware of it in perception. That suggests we're aware of something we might be tempted to call mental when perceiving temperature.

Temperature perception is variable in a way that colour perception is not, and this is expressed in the way we talk and think about hot/cold vs green/blue/red etc. — jamalrob

So would you say that we directly perceive the red apple, but not the cold water, which might feel warm to someone used to ice swimming in Siberia?

But still, it is the things that are green. — jamalrob

Let's try this for temperature. Three people are in a room. One complains that it's hot, another that it's cold, and third that the temperature feels just fine.

Who is right? We can consult the thermostat and all agree that it measures the room temperature at a certain degrees F or C. But what of our experience? Do we suppose that the room itself is either cold, hot or just right?

Of course not. Things feel cold or hot to humans because of the kind of temperature ranges we can survive in, and what the status of our individual bodies are at that moment. If I just walked out of a freezer, the room will probably feel warm.

And we also know from physics that heat is really the amount of energy in a system. It doesn't make sense to ask whether the sun feels hot or space feels cold, absent an animal that can feel hot or cold when exposed to either (assuming it survives).

As such, when we say it's cold outside, that's an experience of our bodies reacting to the amount of energy in the environment. We perceive cold water, but that experience of cold is from us. And thus we can agree with the Cyreneacs and say, "I am cold". Therefore, our perception has a component that isn't in the water itself, since water can't feel cold or hot.

The relational account holds that the leaves themselves are green (under certain conditions etc). This entails that it is not something mental that is perceived, which is your definition of indirect perception. — jamalrob

Well, they are green under certain conditions for the sort of eyes and nervous system I possess. The reason for supposing the green is mental is because it's being generated in the brain, and yet it's not reducible to neurons firing, at least as far as current neuroscience goes.

If the relational account can show that green, taste, etc. are not mental, then Dennett is a long ways toward dissolving the hard problem.

I can't think of a way of saying it more clearly. — jamalrob

Then I don't agree with the point that relational properties means direct perception is the case, because what I'm aware of is dependent on the kind of perceiver I am, and not the object itself.

I think you're missing the point. — jamalrob

What is the point then?

Why do you reject the relational account, under which colour is a proprty of perceived things, as perceived in a certain way in a certain environment? — jamalrob

Because that property is generated in the brain. Also, consider that perceptual relativity means that an objects relational properties can vary.

Thus, colour is entirely relational. According to taste one could see this as a deficiency in the language--because of the way we use "colour", we can't say whether colour belongs to us or the things we're looking at--or else one could see it as demonstrating the essential relational nature of perception. — jamalrob

The Cyreneacs liked to say they were sweetened or reddened instead of the apple being sweet or red, which acknowledges that color and taste are properties of the perceiver, which John Locke also pointed out. Dennett starts by mentioning Locke's primary and secondary qualities.

I don't see why. Evan Thompson's description is consistent with an account of perception that has been described as "direct". But then, different people mean different things by "direct perception". — jamalrob

Because color and taste are in the brain, not out there in the world.

But then, different people mean different things by "direct perception". — jamalrob

Indeed, we've had this discussion before. But I take it to be a dispute over whether something mental or the object itself is the content of perception. Since objects aren't actually colored or sweet, I have some problems with the second option.

I don't think saying that the brain produces the experience of colour entails that there is an interior spectator. I imagine Dennett might say, not that the brain produces colours for us to look at internally, but that the relevant events in the brain just are those colour experiences. That's not how I would put it myself, but I don't think the Cartesian theatre is entailed either way. — jamalrob

Perhaps not, but it does still leave all of Chalmers' arguments for the hard problem in play. How do we account for brain events having color experiences?

But the chemical makeup of sugar or reflective surfaces of leaves are properties of those coloured things. — jamalrob

Yes, but our experience isn't of the chemical makeup, but rather of color. And if that color occurs in the brain, then it's hard to see how we could be directly perceiving a red apple.

Look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq6V4OD_DSs
It's undeniable a phenomenal Jesus appears and that's what is being discussed here. When I type this post I am reacting to the image of Jesus and not say- it's dimensions, hue, tone, (bit pieces). — JupiterJess

Are objects of veridical perception phenomenal? It seems that way if color, sound, etc. are phenomenal.

I suppose an evolutionary account would say those kinds of illusions are a byproduct of how our visual system works. Sometimes it can be fooled. As for how we turn colors into shapes and what not, that would probably involve different brain regions dedicated to the task.

But why it's sometimes phenomenal and sometimes not? I don't know. Dennett liked to say there were computing "agents" in the brain, and once one got focus, the contents of that "agent" would be phenomenal, to paraphrase his argument. But why getting focus would led to a phenomenal experience still seems unexplained.

It's impressive and retarded at the same time. — BrianW

Yep. Makes me wonder if there will be 21st century version of the Amish that draws the line at AI, anti-aging and spending all your time in VR.

I'm not saying humans shouldn't keep going with technology, only that as I get older, disruption starts to feel more unsettling than exciting for me.

I didn't want to go down the meaning rabbit hole in this thread. I'm aware of that sort of criticism. What I'm wondering is if Dennett's approach can dissolve the hard problem by showing how color, sound, etc is explained.

Indeed, but in all honesty, I find myself agreeing with Douglas Adams:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

I mean, I can only take so much talk about how VR is going to disrupt education, unlike all the other technology before it, everything is going to run on the blockchain, we need to set up a colony on Mars stat, fund the hyperloop, humans will soon reverse the aging process, etc, before I just want a time machine so I can go back to the good old days.

Maybe with an iPhone and a laptop with all the news downloaded from the past 20 years in tow.

EDIT: I forgot about the monthly report on the latest machine learning accomplishment and how the robots are coming for us any day now.

And the solution is to live as the Amish, purposefully isolating, remaining ignorant, and living peacefully within the walls of protection built by the corrupted. So many ironies. — Hanover

"We solemnly believe that although humans have been around for a million years, you feel strongly that they had just the right amount of technology between 1835 and 1850. Not too little, not too much."

The question is do these sorts of behaviors not occur in other economic systems?

Homicidal sun
won't you come
And wash away the humans.

Turn it around. If you're being tortured, you're not going to worry about whether it's really happening. Pain has this nice property of driving skeptical thoughts away. So why not let pleasure do the same thing for you?

I've spent many years of my life believing that matter (and energy) is the primary a — Noah Te Stroete

Well, matter is a form of energy and energy might be fluctuations in the vacuum, so maybe it's the vacuum that's primary.

Recently I've been wondering if consciousness is the primary substance that the material world gloms onto or adheres to. — Noah Te Stroete

The problem with this is that human consciousness is dependent on bodies.

What are your thoughts on this and what are the implications for free will? — Noah Te Stroete

I don't know that it would change anything.

So what we'd need to look at is why you take the explanations of photosynthesis to be sufficient to "make sense of photosynthesis" to you, — Terrapin Station

Because photosynthesis can be understood in terms of chemistry, physics and biology, but experience cannot be understood in terms of brain activity.

Of course the explanation of photosynthesis isn't photosynthesis, but the explanation makes sense of what photosynthesis is. This is not the case for neuroscience when it comes to subjectivity.

Or to put it another way, we can write down the process for photosynthesis or simulate it. We don't know what that would mean for consciousness.

Sure. So neural activity isn't going to itself explain consciousness (if we read that literally). A person would have to explain consciousness. — Terrapin Station

But an explanation of how neural activity results in a red experience would show how some neural activity is conscious, and it would dissolve the hard problem, because you could reductively explain consciousness in terms of neuroscience.

The problem with that is the terms of neuroscience are conceptually different from the terms of experience. That makes it a category mistake to say an explanation of neural activity is the same as talking about having a red experience.

What "makes sense of some phenomenon" is going to be different for different people, no? — Terrapin Station

Make sense of it scientifically or philosophically.

Explanations are sets of words, right? — Terrapin Station

Sets of words that make sense of some phenomenon, showing how such phenomena works and came to be. That sort of thing.

And explanations of how to play a C major seventh chord are not a C major seventh chord, and so on. — Terrapin Station

But if we want to explain consciousness, it's not sufficient to point to neural activity, unless the neural activity actually explains consciousness. But nobody has shown this to be the case.

Neurons firing and having a red experience aren't conceptually the same thing. It's a category mistake to say they are.

Are you saying that the explanations of neural etc. activity don't seem like consciousness to you, and you wouldn't count something as an explanation that doesn't seem like consciousness? — Terrapin Station

The explanations of neural activity are not consciousness FULL STOP.

How could they be?

So, what happens to concepts like "subjectivity", "pains", and "intentionality"? Do we just throw them away or are they indicative that logical behaviourism is not all-encompassing in describing the affective aspect of the mind? — Posty McPostface

Do you experience pains and mean things? If so, then why would you throw them away because of some philosophical argument?

If the beetle in the box entails logical behaviorism, then it's flat out wrong.

f a behavioural solipsist were to come along and tell us s/he known intent inferred from behaviour, how could we prove s/he wrong? — Posty McPostface

The amount of invalid inferences this behaviorist would make. Think about all the times we try to tell whether someone is lying, or fail to tell. Take a jury trying to decide if a defendant acts guilty during a trial. Or how often in true crime people's opinions will split over whether someone sounded suspicious on a 911 call.

But consciousness happens when a physical brain behaves a certain way, right? So replicate that kind of behaviour using the same kind of material and it should also cause consciousness to happen. — Michael

That might work. I'm more arguing against the simulation idea.

nd if it can occur naturally by DNA-driven cell development then why can't it occur artificially by intelligent design? — Michael

I don't know whether it can, but the conceptual argument against computing consciousness is that computation is objective and abstract, whereas consciousness is subjective and concrete.