But in fact a choice of "what to see" is already embedded by the fact some human decided to point a camera and post the result to YouTube. The data already carries that implicit perceptual structure. — apokrisis

But you could use a camera stationed anywhere, and see what sort of objects an unsupervised network will learn to categorize.

And there are autonomous vehicles designed using deep learning techniques. A self driving car needs to be able to handle any situation a human might encounter when driving on the road. Here is a short video for one of those companies working on the challenge:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/how-driveai-is-mastering-autonomous-driving-with-deep-learning

How could we argue that the world is coloured as we “directly experience” it when science assures us it is not? — apokrisis

I just came across scientific direct realism on Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Locke's primary properties, like shape, would be directly perceived, while color would be the means by which we see shape, even though it belongs to our visual system.

Of course there are other flavors of direct realism that might say something different about color. Some would even be color realists, although I have a hard time seeing how that can be defended. But they do try.

I'm a realist who argues in favor of direct physiological sensory perception. I'm not sure if I'd say/argue that direct perception requires awareness of that which is being perceived. Awareness requires an attention span of some sort. Bacteria directly perceive. I find no justification for saying that bacteria are aware of anything at all... — creativesoul

I don't know whether philosophers spend much time debating perception in bacteria, but when it comes to human perception, the argument between direct and indirect realists is over whether we are aware of the objects themselves via perception, or something mental instead.

Is access direct or indirect? Are objects really out there or just mental? Is there anyway we can tell? And to what extent does the mind construct those objects based on categories of thought that aren't necessarily reflected in the structure of the world?

You seem to be reifying our abstract description of how computers work. — Michael

Go read any description of artificial neural networks. When they want to get technical, they talk in terms of linear algebra, matrices, and finding the minimum slope for error correction. How the computer actually accomplishes computation is irrelevant.

To the extent that artificial neural networks function like biological ones, the physical instantiation is irrelevant. But nobody thinks they're exactly the same, only somewhat analogous. And of course the biological details matter for how a brain actually functions.

In what way is a wavelength really green? — apokrisis

It's not. I would favor a direct scientific realist account of perception. But in any case, one could argue that smell, sound, color are how we experience the world directly.

How does your particular definition of direct realism account for hallucinations and illusions? — apokrisis

It's not my definition, and I don't know whether direct realism is true. But it occurred to me that if neural networks are a crude approximation for how our perception works, then they do favor realism about the patterns being detected.

I don't know whether any neural network can be said to have illusions or hallucinations. Possibly illusions. Sometimes there are notable failures where it incorrectly recognizes the wrong pattern, despite otherwise having a high degree of success.

Yep. And that is the point. The OP certainly comes off as an exercise in naive realism. You can't both talk about a mediating psychological machinery and then claim that is literally "direct". — apokrisis

I meant direct in the philosophical sense, where direct realists argue that perception is one of being directly aware of mind-independent objects out there in the world, and not some mentally constructed idea in the head.

That there is neurological/cognitive machinery for perceiving objects directly is understood. That machinery is only a problem if it generates a mediating idea.

The direct realist debates always go off the rails on these points. That's why we get arguments about how objects aren't in the head, or light takes time to travel, and therefore direct realism can't be the case.

Realism is truly indirect as the brain is a hierarchical system attempting to predict its input. And the better practised it gets at that, the more it can afford to ignore "the real world". — apokrisis

Direct realism means awareness of mind-independent objects instead of some mental intermediary. For the hierarchal system to be indirect, our perceptual awareness would be of the hierarchy instead of the object that's being detected using the hierarchy.

Decisions still need to be made about the neural architecture, its width, depth, the neural activation responses on each layer, the anticipatory patterns of neurons and so on. — sime

You have a point there. What if we let the cats train the neural networks?

Even if this doesn't count as a critique of Kantianism, it does count against skepticism. And it shows how rudimentary perception can work on a direct realist account.

Precisely, cats all the way down.

The poll result shows the naiveté, of those voting. — charleton

Pretty sure the voters in the poll are aware of idealist arguments.

You cannot know existence except through the senses and this is an ideal reality. It is unavoidable. — charleton

Even if perception is ideal, that doesn't mean that existence is. But one doesn't have to accept that perception is ideal. Direct realism would deny that.

imprimatur — Wayfarer

Never came across that word before. If I have Google translate it to Korean, then French, and then back to English it says:

Print Authorization

My thoughts exactly (although I don't see how Buddhism fits in the picture). — Wayfarer

Robert Wright was arguing that Buddhism is supported by evolutionary psychology, and helps us overcome our attachment to desire and what not.

It’s not embodied cognition I wish to avoid - it is ‘neuro-reductionism’. ‘Oh, that’s just your brain’s way of keeping your genomes alive’. Remember, in our world, the human mind is simply a late arrival, on top of the work of the blind watchmaker, a dollop of apparent meaning-making ability atop the robot that's only mission is to progenerate. — Wayfarer

One of The Partially Examined life podcasts on Buddhism dealt with this. They argued that although evolution resulted in our brains being what they are, the brains themselves created a whole new means for generating rich mental life that was not specifically selected for by evolution.

It's basically an argument for emergent behavior, and thus genetic-reductionist view is faulty.

I'm also a bit skeptical of Dawkins gene-centric view of evolution. Seems to me the organism is the instrument of evolution, not the genes themselves. And in the case of social species, it's the group as much as the individual, even though group selection is controversial.

I think the theory would only become undeniable if human behavior could be reliably predicted on a gene-computer. And I mean the computer should print off the next philosophical masterpiece or great work of literature, before it would have otherwise been written. Until we get that kind of concrete prediction, we really just have faith in a paradigm. — t0m

That sort of prediction is impossible because it leaves off the environment required to create the next philosophical masterpiece. It also leaves off the brain. Genes don't encode everything about the brain. Rather, it's just enough information for brains to form. All the learned behaviors and knowledge of a brain are because of the brain, not the genes. And brains live inside bodies, and bodies live inside environments with other bodies. Genes can't predict culture.

It's like imagining that you could predict what sort of cultural artifact an intelligent robot would make loosed upon the world from just it's circuit diagram.

Some folks voted other. Does this mean neutral monism, or does it mean both? Kant can be understood to say there is a real world, but we construct our experience of a world, which may be quite different.

I'm curious about a synthesis between the two, since it would seem there have been compelling arguments in favor of both. I tend more toward scientific realism than direct, so I would be okay with a Kantian synthesis, provided it didn't leave the real totally unknowable.

If we can get at the real world through careful investigation, which is different from our experiences of it, then that would be both realism and idealism, without giving up at skepticism.

IOW, the ideal realist would say the skeptic is lazy, and gives up too easily. It's hard work knowing what's real. Just a thought - I have heard one realist philosopher say pretty much that.

presume that everyone is in agreement that the conditions of assertion of a and b are not generally inter-translatable. Wittgenstein mentioned in PI that the experiential criteria for (b) are "what he says and does", but that (a) cannot be given experiential criteria in terms of other words. — sime

I understand I and He to be two different people perceiving something red, unless one is lying. I can think in terms of watching a movie or reading a book where one characters is first person and the other is third. The book or movie can easily can change perspective so the audience or reader can see both experiencing red.

Why do I think other people perceive red? Because they're human beings who also have first person experiences. So I come to KNOW that someone else sees red by their behavior or language, but I cognate that they are like me in the first person.

I can put myself in someone else's shoes and imagine the experiences they have, unless it's something I have no experience of. When they tell me they see red, or I see them looking at something red, I understand this from my first person experiences of seeing red. Unless they're colorblind.

That's how you can translate from a to b. I don't agree with Witty. The alternative is a slippery slope to solipsism.

hat too seems pretty uncontroversial, as long as you don't get into specifics. Does anyone really deny that? — SophistiCat

Pretty sure some people have sided rather strongly with the environmental side of the debate when it comes to human behavior and mental characteristics. The concern is that the EO Wilson's and Stephen Pinker's are advocating biological determinism and social darwinism. Alos concerns over sexism and racism.

Really? What do you mean by "human nature," anyway? What would be the difference between possessing and not possessing "human nature?" — SophistiCat

The idea of human nature is that human beings are born predisposed to certain behaviors and attitudes, or predispositions, in the generalized sense. As opposed to being born blank slates and being formed entirely by the environment. So the whole nurture versus nature debate, but for the human species and not just individuals.

But it's admittedly a nebulous, generalized concept. I would say that human beings have a sort of general nature that differs from other animals in some ways. For example, we weren't born dogs, as a dog trainer might tell a human who's treating their dog like a child.

Or take Project Nim, where a human mother attempted to raise a baby chimp along with her children as part of a study on to what extent Chimps could learn language. It didn't turn out so well, because well, chimpanzees have different abilities and predispositions to humans, despite their similarities to us.

Even though you've lost (waking) consciousness,and (as in dream-sleep) don't know about the life you were in, you're still you, with your subconscious feelings, experience, perception, awareness (of feelings and experience). — Michael Ossipoff

But I'm not the same me, because in a different body, I will have different feelings, experiences, perceptions, etc.

The most you can say is that it's some kind of energy, but who knows. — Sam26

Is that enough to call it "me"? To say that I left one body to enter another one?

believe they are, so I do believe based on the testimony that we can live out other lives by simply re-entering another body. — Sam26

But what does it mean for me to leave my body and enter another body? What is doing the exiting and entering?

hat's going on is the quantum mechanics pretty much put the last nail in the coffin of materialism, physicalism, and determinism. — Rich

Nah, only old-outdated versions of those things. Physicalists are not troubled by QM.

t doesn't take quantum mechanics to kill materialism and determinism. Both are metaphysics, not statements about how the world is, whether or not that is understood by those who accept or reject them.. — T Clark

The physical sciences are materialistic. They describe phenomenon in terms of material interactions.

You're kidding, right? — Galuchat

Sometimes I wonder.

The OP is concerned with the relationship between Science and Philosophy. We attach different meanings to the term "Science", so it's only logical that I try to ascertain what you mean by the term "Philosophy" — Galuchat

Philosophy is much more open ended than science. It doesn't have a rigorous empirical testing requirement. I'm not really sure what the full definition of philosophy would be. It's a kind of meta thinking where we ask questions about anything that's normally taken for granted. And then there's the whole ethical and how-to-live-your life part of philosophy.

But clearly there is overlap between philosophy, science, technology, math, logic and I'll throw history into there, because I had a recent online argument over whether history was science (it's not).

All of those are separate domains, but they can all be related, or used in the different domains.

I didn't say that you are furthering science. I said you are doing science by testing the theory the technology was based on. — Harry Hindu

But I'm not testing any theory when I use technology. I'm using the technology for every day purposes, not to test some scientific theory.

It's also quite possible to have technology that works in absence of any good scientific explanation. Humans tinker a lot and can discover working solutions where we don't know how they work.

And that's largely what we did before modern science.

Do you see your contradiction? — Harry Hindu

There is no contradiction.

Is science about explaining the world? If "Yes", then Aristotle was doing science by explaining the world. — Harry Hindu

That's the goal of science.

Is science about testing theories? — Harry Hindu

Theories are tested to further our understanding of the world.

If "Yes", then don't we do that every time we use technology based on some scientific theory? — Harry Hindu

No, not at all. I'm not furthering science when I use my iPhone to text someone about an upcoming sporting event. Nor when I use my bike made of the latest lightweight alloy to get some exercise.

In those cases and many others, I'm just using tools to accomplish some non-scientific goal of mine.

What is your modern definition of "Philosophy"? — Galuchat

Wasting time arguing semantics on an internet forum.

Technology is a tool that science uses for testing scientific theories. — Harry Hindu

Yeah. But technology is not science. Technology is tool making and refining. It can be used for science, warfare, gaining food, etc.

Then please define "Philosophy" in a way which includes activities such as Aristotle's zoological observations? — Galuchat

That was considered natural philosophy at the time, and Aristotle came up with explanations. But he didn't have a method for testing his explanations. He just made observations and came up with hypothesis. That's not enough.

It's not an observation, but a prediction based on previous observations. Any good scientific theory makes predictions about what you will find, or what will happen, when you test it. — Harry Hindu

Any good scientific theory will also include an explanation, such as what makes the termites stick to the stick.

Would you say that chimpanzees are practicing science when putting sticks in a termite hole for the purpose of getting food? I would say they are merely using a tool to get food, and that's all.

Using technology is testing the theory it is based on, and therefore a scientific act. — Harry Hindu

That doesn't make technology science. Technology is a tool that science uses, and the results of science inform the making of better tools.

Science isn't math either, but it makes heavy use of math like it does technology.

So, Aristotle's zoological observations were philosophy, not science? — Galuchat

No, they were not science.

The theory being tested is that when a stick is inserted into a termite mound and removed, termites will be on the stick. Now let's test the theory by inserting sticks in to termite mounds and removing them. Every time you do that you are testing that theory. — Harry Hindu

That's not a theory, it's an observation. Observation alone isn't science.

Any time we use technology based on a certain scientific theory, we are testing the theory, which is itself a scientific act. If everyone in your social group is using sticks to draw out termites from a mound, then isn't that testing the scientific observation and the subsequent conclusion that termites attach themselves to sticks when stuck into their mound? — Harry Hindu

What is the scientific theory that chimpanzees are testing when using sticks to draw termites out of termite mounds?

Or what would our ancestors have been testing? That the ancestral spirit has gifted them with termites to eat? That the goddess causes termites to stick because of the sacrifice last full moon?

Of course it does. How can you make such a claim without using technology (like telescopes)? And how can you test such a claim without using technology (like telescopes)? — Harry Hindu

The claim is a statement of fact about the world, not technology. That's the point. Science isn't about making the next great smartphone. It's about explaining the world. Obviously, science makes heavy use of technology, and vice versa.

But the two aren't the same and it's a mistake to conflate them.

For the OP, notice how, ""Science tells us the universe is 13.7 billion years old, not 6,000.", has nothing whatsoever to do with technology (as a statement).

Contrast with: "The Iphone X will usher in a new age of augmented and virtual reality, thanks to Apple's redesign of the processors, screen and sensors."

Does the origin of the scientific method go back "thousands of years" (Jeremiah), or "several centuries" (Marchesk)? — Galuchat

The origin, or the accepted practice? I have modern science in mind which is a community built around the scientific method and naturalistic explanations based on the results of various experiments and research performed over time.

When we say "Science tells us the universe is 13.7 billion years old, not 6,000", we mean the what the scientific community says based on centuries long results of scientific research and building up of explanations. That's fundamentally different than what was done in the past. Our society is scientific in a way no previous civilizations were.

Please, it is completely subjective. — Jeremiah

It's only completely subjective taken out of context. I assume most people realize the scientific revolution happened several centuries ago. So let's go with 1543 AD.

. Science as a discipline is relatively recent. — Marchesk

I threw you in that mix for this subjective comment.
. Science as a discipline is relatively recent.
— Marchesk — Jeremiah

It's not subjective, it's historically accurate for a reasonable definition of "relatively recent", like as in several centuries.

provided a definition for "Science" in my first post to this thread.
Feel free to provide a different one for consideration. — Galuchat

1) Science: empirical investigation which provides a reliable explanation.

That doesn't go far enough. Empirical investigation is only part of it. You need the method for rigorous testing that seeks to get past our biases and frailties. And you need the theoretical part that investigations are fit into.