Are we looking at our experience, or are we looking at the tree? — creativesoul

We say we're looking at a tree, because we have an experience of seeing a tree that can be backed by other people, instruments, etc. The tree is empirically verifiable.

This isn't the case with dreams, hallucinations, etc. Although pre-scientific cultures may have thought otherwise.

I'll have to think about it. Seems like you have memory and perception going on at the same time.

My eyes are open the entire time. — creativesoul

Stay woke, brother.

Even if you find out your pain is simulated.

So perception is not equivalent to experience. — creativesoul

Nope, but perception is one kind of experience.

Perception and experience in the sense Marchesk put forth are a catch-all for everything and anything mental... — creativesoul

I meant experience to mean anything we're conscious of, which includes mental images. Sometimes those are the result of perception, and sometimes other faculties, such as dreaming.

The question in the OP is whether the ability to experience mental images when not perceiving has any bearing on the nature of perception. The notion that we "behold" a mental image when seeing is at the root of both idealism and skepticism about the external world.

The realization that there is a physiological and psychological process that must occur for us to perceive is a the root of Kantianism.

Perception seems to imply some sort of conscious recognition. You feel the floor beneath you feet more often than you perceive it. — Banno

Makes sense.

What if I punch myself? Is that perception? How does it differ from kicking a rock? Am I beholding a mental construct of myself? Am I experiencing myself or a mental construct of myself? — creativesoul

I'm not sure. Nobody has talked about the worst argument ever from Stove that Street linked to.

Feeling is not perceiving? — creativesoul

There is proprioception in addition to the five senses. Feeling the floor under you counts as perception.

If I see with my eyes, why don't I feel with my toe? — creativesoul

You don't perceive with just your eyes, although we say you see with your eyes. Cut out your visual cortex, and there will be no visual perception.

So yeah, in ordinary language, you do feel with your toe. But your toe itself doesn't perceive anything.

Your toe doesn't perceive, but it is part of an organism that does. The nerves in your toe feed the tactile and pain signals to your central nervous system.

I'm perceiving kicking the rock? — creativesoul

Yes, and then the pain of a stubbed toe afterward. The nerves in your skin provide tactile perception.

I'm experiencing pain when I stub my toe on a rock. Seems you want to say that I'm experiencing the rock. — creativesoul

You're experiencing kicking the rock, which is painful.

Can I stub my toe on a virtual rock? — creativesoul

On Star Trek you can, if you disable the Holodeck safety protocols.

Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, it's possible to elicit an experience. We might call it a hallucination.

But what if it were possible to create a visual experience of the device being used while it's being used to create the experience? Would we be "beholding" the device, or a mental image?

An experience of an external object that results from use of your sensory organs.

I also find it reassuring that we regularly navigate the world with considerable success, and even modify it in ways which indicate, to a reasonable degree of probability, that we're interacting with something which is very close to what we think it is and perceive it to be, and that, e.g. the roads we see and build and cars we drive on them are very close to what we think them to be and won't suddenly prove to be something else. — Ciceronianus the White

That is a good point. Technology works, we're able to survive, experiments are repeatable, etc.

I'm not going to read the whole thread - but thanks for pointing this out to me. I don't see anything objectionable in it. — Banno

I seriously doubt you actually agree with Street's position, but perhaps I never fully understood yours. I took you to argue for direct access to trees. The tree we see is what the tree is (within the limits of our perceptual abilities).

All those threads about Mount Everest being the tallest mountain before anyone knew it, and post apocalyptic chairs existing without any perceivers sounds pretty real to me.

And I tend to want to agree with you, but posters like Apo, Michael, Street, etc. make rather good points against it.

No, I think we neither see 'directly' nor 'indirectly'. We simply see the trees: which is not to say we see them 'directly' because it's not even in principle possible for 'seeing' to take place 'indirectly': the qualifier 'direct/indirect' is a defunct one that has no place in talking about perception, it's a distinction without an intelligible difference. — StreetlightX

I see what you're saying, but it really is equivalent to the indirect realist position, assuming you allow for those external inputs. What you're arguing is that naive realism cannot be true, because the act of perception generates an appearance for us. The tree we see is an appearance. It is not whatever is generating the external inputs, because it makes no sense to talk about what a tree looks like when nobody is perceiving it.

Edit:

Perhaps this is more Kantian than indirect, depending on what the indirect realist has to say about the actual tree (if it is a tree), not it's appearance.

The objections to the OP posted by Ciceronianus and Street are quite right; — Banno

Good of you to finally join the conversation. Now all we need is TGW and Landru to make this topic great again.

But, you ignored the post where Street quoted a neuroscientist talking about how waking experiences are a form of dreaming, and then his follow up discussion on how the tree appears to us cannot be what it is, since it is an appearance.

So I don't think Street's approach is in agreement with yours at all, except that he is trying to dissolve the issue by saying it is an abuse of language, like yourself. But you think access is direct, and Street, from what I understand, thinks that kind of talk makes no sense, since all we perceive are appearances.

Or at least, that's what I've surmised from this thread.

t would seem to me, also, that they don't provide much cause to reasonably doubt "normal waking experience." In fact, of course, we don't doubt it. — Ciceronianus the White

We don't, but we do (sometimes) worry about what we're perceiving. To quote random scientist in Mr. Robot:

"And I'm fascinated by the greatest unsolved mystery. Do we see reality as it is? If I close my eyes, I can imagine that everything we experience, everything we see, think and do, is unfolding simultaneously in a parallel universe. And if so, how many copies of ourselves exist? And might our mental states be conjoined?"

Not to endorse parallel universe crossing consciousness, but just the popular idea that reality isn't necessarily as things appear to us. That our senses might be "deceiving" us.

Thus the question of whether perception is direct or not. Or more broadly put, the problem of perception. How do we know that what we perceive is real, and if we don't know, then how do we justify knowledge?

What, exactly, is the difference between these two accounts? What would it take for one to be true and the other to be false? — Michael

Here's a thought. If a neurological account of qualia could ever be provided, then perhaps a sophisticated form of direct realism would be defensible, because then a clear relationship between optics and brain processing could be shown. Perhaps.

What, exactly, is the difference between these two accounts? — Michael

One account makes the external stimuli open to skepticism. To the extent we care about skepticism, it matters. We don't have to care, but some people are worried about justifying knowledge.

What would it take for one to be true and the other to be false? — Michael

Pain is a bad example, since pain isn't an external property. So what would it take for color realism to be the case? The external environment has to be colored in the way we see it when it's not being perceived by humans.

I doubt that can be successfully defended. It sounds incredible. Other attempts at color realism sound dubious on semantic grounds. I'm not sure what sort of property is being defended.

Shape is bit different because a mathematical description for it can be given. This is different than color, where the experience of color bears no relationship with the wavelength of light, other than that's what we end up experiencing.

And what reasoning does the realist have to support his claim that we perceive an independent world (of other people and inanimate objects)? Presumably they believe it to be the most parsimonious explanation for the occurrence and regularity of experience? So as I said, the reasoning is the same. — Michael

Keep in mind that we start off with naive realism, then realize there are problems for the naive view. This leads to alternative suggestions. But if a form of naive realism can successfully be defended, then there is no need to worry about the alternatives, and the problems they raise.

Again, I agree that there is a physical world that exists in space and time regardless of whether or not human beings are around to perceive it. My question is: what does that mean? I gave you my answer in one of my previous posts. You never gave yours. — Magnus Anderson

You answer is that it exists as a potential to be perceived. My answer is that it just exists. Question for you: how does a potential causally explain our evolution?

ou can avoid solipsism by arguing that the most parsimonious explanation for the occurrence and regularity of experience is the existence of an independent world of stimuli that are causally covariant with these experiences. It's the exact reasoning that the realist uses. — Michael

True, but that's the exact reasoning the indirect realist uses. The direct realists doesn't need to infer an independent world. We already perceive it.

The difference is in whether one believes that the immediate object of perception is these experiences or the external stimuli, and in whether or not the properties of the experiences are (also) properties of these external stimuli. — Michael

Agreed. That's the issue at stake in the debate.

For example, one might say that the pain and the feeling of heat when putting one's hand in a fire are the immediate objects of perception – that then allows one to correctly infer the existence of a fire – and that the pain and the feeling of heat are not properties of the fire but are properties of the experience – the phenomena that emerges from the brain activity stimulated by sensory receptors in one's skin. — Michael

Right, but this will apply to everything we perceive, and other people are perceived.

That's the big kicker and why solipsism is so hard to defeat.

Never mind the rest of my post, eh? Where has philosophy definitely relegated physicalism to the nonsense bin? I'm not aware of it. — Benkei

It hasn't.

nd one characteristic feature of all realists is that they REFUSE to explain in sufficient detail what they mean with their statements. — Magnus Anderson

There is a physical world that exists in space and time regardless of whether humans beings are around to perceive it. And by physical, I mean the world as best approximated by physics. Maybe natural is the better term, since physics is an incomplete, ongoing human endeavor.

This natural world is the causal explanation for how we got here, and what we are.

There is no logical link of 'non-realism' to solipsism. If there were one, it would have been published by now, and no non-solipsist 'non-realist' that understood logic would dare to deny the link. — andrewk

The link is perception. If the philosophical position results in being unable to say that one is perceiving things or events external to oneself, then solipsism follows on empirical grounds. Or at least skepticism concerning other people, since we know about other people by perceiving them.

Sure, the link can be denied on ontological grounds. Idealism will just state that other minds exist, and sometimes those other minds have the same or similar ideas in mind at the same time as you do, and thus there is a kind of shared, intersubjective experience.

But it's by ontological fiat that solipsism is avoided. It's not epistemologically grounded. Even Kantian idealism has this problem, since my knowledge of other people is constructed by my categories of thought when perceiving others. Ontologically speaking, other people are part of the noumena, as far as I can know, because my knowledge of them is dependent on perception. Even though Kantians will say all humans perceive as I do, I can only know about them via perception, and thus they could just be another category of my perceptual/cognitive process.

Thank heavens for supervenience physicalism, eh? One less thing to clean off your windscreen. — Wayfarer

Epiphenomenal ectoplasm is where I draw the line on meaningful philosophical discussion, but that's just me.

I kind of like the sound of it, though.

What do we mean by "real"? Or do we mean all sorts of things in all sorts of contexts? I think a primary meaning involves "being-with-others." That's the real real world, I tempted to say. What matters is how shared a situation is. If we're all in the Matrix together, then the Matrix is as real as we might want it. — t0m

I think it primarily means there is a larger world humans are but a small part of. We are late on the evolutionary scene, we only occupy the land surfaces of this planet, for the most part, and there are tons of other stars and planets out there.

The real world is the far bigger and older world, where only a little tiny bit of it has human society.

It seems reasonably likely that discoveries about Higgs Bosons may lead to technological advances that help sentient beings to attain eudaimonia — andrewk

So you think an issue worth debating needs to have technological application for it to help attain eudaimonia?

Do you feel the same way about art, literature or music?

It is remarkable how much sound and fury this issue generates (eleven pages showing now on my computer) when there is so little at stake. — andrewk

So little at stake for what? It has large stakes in metaphysics. It's been of importance to many philosophers. Anyone can ask whether what they perceive is real or not, and plenty of people do at some point, even if it's over a joint.

I watch the tv show Mr. Robot, and it continuously raises the question of to what extent our perceptions are accurate. Do we perceive the real world, or is it an illusion? And then tons of viewers on Reddit debate whether the show is a simulation, employs time travel, parallel universes, replicants, or whatever theory is used to explain events on the show.

You seem to think the issue doesn't matter. Okay. I'm sure there are plenty of people who think that mathematical or physics problems don't matter either. Who cares about a Higgs Boson or whether P = NP?

My attempt to explain this is that people who find it important do so because they believe that non-acceptance of the 'realist' (ie materialist) account logically entails solipsism, which in turn seems to signify ultimate loneliness, and that one's closest and most important relationships are a delusion. — andrewk

What difference does it make what the motivation is for someone finding a philosophical puzzle interesting or important? The point is that some people find it worth discussing. I could wonder why you don't find it important, but it's totally irrelevant to the inquiry itself.

If an idealist says, "Everything out there is made of the same stuff as in here." and the materialist says, "Everything in here is made of the same stuff as out there.", then they are both saying the same thing. "Physical" and "mental" is a product of dualism and is what creates a problem where there isn't one. — Harry Hindu

This doesn't work, because we have experiences of things which aren't out there, and the things out there can't fully explain the things in here.

Phenomenalists such as Ernst Mach call this "potential experience". That's what is meant when people say that things exist or have certain properties when we're not looking at them. It does not mean anything more than that. Unfortunately, many people, I am pretty sure you among them, are not willing to accept this description. Why is this so? — Magnus Anderson

Because I find it extremely lacking, and it makes science into a fiction. It also means other people are a potential experience.

What does it mean for the sky to be blue when you're not looking at it? — Magnus Anderson

It means under certain lighting conditions (it's sunny out), the air molecules scatter light at a wavelength that we see as blue.

But we're not taking about 'properties' in the abstract. We're talking about perceptual properties, which, by definition, are related to a perceiver. Again, you're confusing the one with the other. — StreetlightX

Are some of the perceived properties also properties of the object being perceived? Locke thought so.

Well if you can make sense of what a thing looks like when there is no looking involved, then be my guest. — StreetlightX

On the direct realist account, perceived objects would have the same properties when nobody is perceiving them. I can't fully buy into this, because it's clear to me some properties are dependant on the perceiver. But some are clearly not.

And what would 'objective' here mean? After all, there is an objectivity to looking itself, which is what studies of illusion show us. — StreetlightX

Objective would mean the properties that give rise to the experience. This would be the properties of the external inputs.

Correct. — StreetlightX

That's a cheap way to dismiss a philosophical issue. But whatever.

Then you have a poor grasp of the English language. — StreetlightX

I didn't come up with the direct/indirect realism debate, so what you're really saying is that professional philosophers who think it's meaningful don't have a good grasp of the English language.