If I were to see a small blip on a radar screen showing me an airplane, would that be an airplane or a representation of one? — Hanover

Well, it depends what you mean by a representation. There's the kind of representation that is a picture and the kind that is a symbol. The blip is a representation in the symbolic sense.

William James thought that what an infant sees in the beginning is "a buzzing, blooming, confusion", just because it doesn't have any sense of what has been socially agreed upon. Sadly, they can't tell us, and we can't see it. — Ludwig V

I think we all see flowers fairly consistently cross-culturally, indicating the way in which we perceive relates to biology as opposed to culture. That is, tribe members from the rain forest see flowers as I see flowers, despite our not sharing social norms. They may worship flowers and hold them as sacred objects, but they don't see them in the chaotic state you're describing how James suggests infants see things.

This just seems doubtful. I would expect that an infant sees what I see when it looks at a flower, despite it not having any sense of what is socially agreed upon. This concept would apply cross-culturally as well, lending support to the idea that we reach out to the flower to pick it not due to some inter-subjective, socially agreed upon basis, but because we think the flower it out past our hand ripe for picking — Hanover

I didn’t mean to suggest they a baby has to wait till it is informed of a social construct till it can recognize an object as a flower. What I meant was that the baby constructs the idea of a unitary object like a flower out of constantly changing perspectives, which it coordinates with its own movements. This personally synthesized construction
is not the same thing as the intersubjectively constructed empirical concept of flower, the identical flower for everyone. This ‘identical flower for all’ is something that no one actually sees, since it is an abstraction derived from multiple vantages.

The blip is a representation in the symbolic sense. — Ludwig V

It's all symbolic. You can't just remove the instances that show indirect realism and call them the indirect sort without having some basis for that.

It's all symbolic. — Hanover

What's all symbolic?

What's all symbolic? — Ludwig V

Everything that you sense. Such is the nature of indirect realism. That's why it's called representationalism. Your phenomenlogical state of the flower is the symbol you have for that flower.

You are arbitrarily claiming that some perceptions are symbolic and others not. When you see the flower, what you see is a representation of it, just like when you see a blip on a computer screen, you see a representation of an airplane.

If I see an actual flower, the object I actual see
— Joshs

Why do you think that when you see an actual flower, you actually see something else? — Ludwig V

What I meant was that the idea of a spatial object as a persistingly self-identical thing enduring throughout changes in perspective is something we surmise, something we contribute to the phenomenon in front of us rather than something the world contributes. So what we see is a melding of conceptual expectation and what the world contributes, and the two sides are inextricably interwoven with each other.

Its objectivity is thus a socially constituted ideal.
— Joshs
I think that you misunderstand what objectivity is. It is something that happens irrespective of any socially constructed ideal — Ludwig V

Again, I’m thinking of objectivity as empirical objectivity. Following Husserl, this way of seeing objects is an idealization, The empirical object is something that no one actually sees, because it is a social construction derived from myriad subjective perspectives.

Good question. One way of answering is to consider it's use in ↪Hanover. The truism that perception always involves a perceiver, is associated with "beauty in the eye of the beholder", "nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" and the conclusion that all perception is subjective looks plausible. How can I say that forgery or not is not in the eye of the beholder, or that thinking does not make forgery so (or not) without appearing to deny the truism?
I have to admit that my way of putting the issue might be taken to suggest that Hanover's motivation is suspect. So I have to clarify that I don't doubt that Hanover believes what he is saying. — Ludwig V

It seems plausible to me to think that perception is conceptually mediated. At the very least things seen, which are obviously not isolated from the rest of the visual field, as noticed, stand out as gestalts, as figure stands out from ground.

If 'see' is taken to mean something like 'the changing pattern of tones and colours formed on the retina' then we can say we always see the whole visual field. But this would be Jame's "buzzing blooming confusion' until something stands out as significant, with the rest of the visual field remaining 'invisible' or 'transparent'. We might say the rest is seen, but it is not consciously seen.

So, I don't think reality is socially or culturally constructed, but rather is merely socially or culturally mediated. There is always something real there which constrains what can be seen, but how what is there is seen may vary from culture to culture and individual to individual.

I'm uncertain what metaphysical ideas you think underpin feelings of pain or unhappiness and judgments regarding how to avoid it. If they amount to "ideas" such as that there is an "external world" which has things in it which cause us pain or unhappiness, then I think we're speaking of what I've been calling affectation. I don't think this sort of metaphysics was indulged in by the Stoics, at least. — Ciceronianus

I'm saying that the Stoics, the Epicureans and the Neoplatonists, as three examples. had very definite and different metaphysical postulates which formed integral parts of their respective systems and were (at least understood to be) conducive to the kinds of strategies each employed to deal with pain and suffering and/ or spiritual advancement. In other words, the various metaphysical presuppositions were integral to the various practices involved in the teachings.

Certain statements are labeled subjective because they set out an individuals taste or feelings. In contrast, other statements are called objective, as they do not set out an individual's taste, feelings or opinions.

Supose that "I prefer vanilla to chocolate ice-cream" is a subjective fact - or if you prefer, it is a subjective truth. It's truth is dependent on my own taste. — Banno

I'd say there are only objective facts or actualities. If you prefer vanilla to chocolate that would be an objective fact about you, so I'm not seeing much scope for confusion there.