Then how did humans come to know chemical composition of an apple? — Harry Hindu

Experiments and building theories to test. We obviously can't see the chemical composition, or at least not without an electron microscope.

You are now talking about the light not the apple. I asked what we were missing about the appl — Harry Hindu

The color of the apple we see is the result of visible light reflecting off the surface. But that's not the only light reflecting or passing through the apple.

How do you know that's not how perception works, unless you had access to what perception really is? — Harry Hindu

I don't know what this question means. We have access to how perception works through biology.

You keep contradicting yourself in claiming that we can never experience things as they are, yet you make all these claims about things as they are. — Harry Hindu

I'm not, but you're taking my statements as if I'm saying we don't have access to anything about things, where I said the access was limited and creature based.

The errors come about when we think that the perception is only about the object, and not about both the body and object. — Harry Hindu

And not just perception. There's an error of thinking that an object is some way from a "perspectiveless perspective." There is no such thing. Our perception is just another perspective. That doesn't make it "invalid" in any manner (which is usually what people jump to at this point).

On a realist account, the object exists whether anyone is perceiving it.

On a realist account, the object exists whether anyone is perceiving it. — Marchesk

Yes, but what does that have to do with my post?

There's an error of thinking that an object is some way from a "perspectiveless perspective." There is no such thing. — Terrapin Station

Sounds like youwere saying the object only exists from some perspective.

Sounds like youwere saying the object only exists from some perspective. — Marchesk

"Perspective" as in from some reference point or other. I'm not alluding to perception in that. As I said, "Our perception is just another perspective."

"Perspective" as in from some reference point or other. I'm not alluding to perception in that. As I said, "Our perception is just another perspective." — Terrapin Station

Then that sounds sort of like object oriented ontology where all objects are in relation to one another which isn't exhaustive, so no object has complete access to another. That would include humans.

Then that sounds sort of like object oriented ontology where all objects are in relation to one another which isn't exhaustive, so no object has complete access to another. That would include humans. — Marchesk

I don't really know enough about object-oriented ontology, and the Heidegger it grew out of makes little sense to me, so it's difficult for me to comment on that.

There's an error of thinking that an object is some way from a "perspectiveless perspective." — Terrapin Station

From a "perspectiveless perspective" (which means considered as they are absent being perceived) objects are commonsensically considered to simply be whatever they are (even though that being is indeterminable since to determine anything about the object is to apply a perspective). Would you say that an object being whatever it is is to be "some way"?

Yes, the feeling of cold/heat cannot be the temperature the thermometer measures because the feeling varies between individuals and even the same individual when the thermometer does not.

I'd just say that it's a way of talking with one another, rather than something which exists.
— Moliere

I don't see how that's possible. Language doesn't make us feel cold or hot. Animals and babies feel heat. It's biological. And language doesn't make a thermometer work the way it does. That's physics.

Physics gives us an explanation which doesn't depend on feeling at all. It says temperature is the result of kinetic energy of particles.

Thus we have an appearance of heat/cold that's biologically based, and we have the temperature reading, which is physics based. The feeling didn't tell our ancestors what temperature was, only that we should avoid things that were too cold or hot for us, and that certain things happened when it was hot (fire starting) or cold enough (water freezing). But they didn't know why.

The skeptics thought we couldn't know, but the stoic retort, "I'm horsed", shows why it is possible to know. — Marchesk

My contention is directed at:

This is why the subjective-objective divide exists, whatever conclusions we draw from such a division. — Marchesk

So my feeling and your feeling and the thermometer reading all exist. But calling these entities subjective or objective is a manner of organizing rather than a divide which also exists.

Language does not make us feel cold or hot. Language does not give us an explanation of what the thermometer means.

But calling our feelings subjective and the thermometer reading objective is just a manner of speaking about things which exist, rather than something which exists.

From a "perspectiveless perspective" (which means considered as they are absent being perceived) — Janus

No, it doesn't refer to that. I made this explicit above. I'm using perspective in the sense of relations and properties from a particular point or frame of reference. The idea is that relations/properties are particular and unique from each point/frame of reference, and there's no way to be absent some point/frame of reference, which can include concatenations of points/frames of reference--those are just further frames of reference. It's not saying anything limited to persons, perceptions, etc. It's saying a general truism about ontology, relations, properties, situatedness. The idea has similarities to perspective in visual art.

If all you're saying is that nothing is without relations, or that a thing is nothing over and above its relations, then I agree.

If all you're saying is that nothing is without relations, or that a thing is nothing over and above its relations, then I agree. — Janus

If that were all I was saying I would have only written that.

Then what exactly are you saying? Particular frames or points of reference exist only (predominately) for humans and perhaps (and if so, much more minimally as far as we know) other percipients, do they not?

But will you still insist on saying that things do not also exist "in some way" independently of all those "frames or points of reference"? To say that they do so exist would be to consider them from a "perspectiveless perspective" would it not?

Particular frames or points of reference exist only (predominately) for humans and perhaps (and if so, much more minimally as far as we know) other percipients, do they not? — Janus

Aren't you at all familiar with physics? Frames of reference in physics, for example, aren't referring to percipients. This isn't to suggest that I'm using the term identically to physics usage, but you should be familiar with and able to understand that usage (because it's a pretty basic idea in contemporary physics), which doesn't imply talking about a percipient.

Exactly what I was saying is exactly what I wrote out. Which is why I wrote it out just as I did. If other words would have done the job better, I would have used those other words instead.

Frames of reference — Terrapin Station

So do you believe consciousness = mental/neurological properties + the specific frame of reference of those properties?

Yes, mental properties are from the frame of reference of being (identical to) a particular brain.

So you think there is physics without percipients? Not what physics describes mind, but physics itself?

Even what physics describes is what we observe and whether that is the same as what is, or what would be in our absence, is an open question which cannot be definitively answered.

It sounds like you know less about physics than I do.

Exactly what I was saying is exactly what I wrote out. Which is why I wrote it out just as I did. If other words would have done the job better, I would have used those other words instead. — Terrapin Station

Classic Terrapin. :lol:

So you think there is physics without percipients? Not what physics describes mind, but physics itself? — Janus

What it describes. Frames of reference are something it's describing. Frames of reference do not imply percipients. Yes or no, are you familiar with the concept of frames of reference?

Classic Terrapin. — Noah Te Stroete

:grin:

Well, it's ridiculous. Why would I write something in set-of-words x when set-of-words y says what I really want to say? Just say what you really want to say from the start.

Of course I am familiar with the concept. A frame of reference just is a concept and concepts do not exist without percipients (unless you're a Platonist). You seem confused about this simple fact.

Well, it's ridiculous. Why would I write something in set-of-words x when set-of-words y says what I really want to say? Just say what you really want to say from the start. — Terrapin Station

That’s what I envy you for. You always have the exact words you want to use to show your thinking. I’m much more muddled.

A frame of reference just is a concept and concepts do not exist without percipients (unless you're a Platonist). You seem confused about this simple fact. — Janus

I agree with you, however.

A frame of reference just is a concept — Janus

The concept refers to something. It doesn't refer to itself. Use/mention? Ring a bell?

The concept refers to something. It doesn't refer to itself. Use/mention? Ring a bell? — Terrapin Station

"Use/ mention"? Sure: the phrase 'frame of reference' refers to the concept frame of reference. If you think a frame of reference is something other than a concept, then tell us what it is?

The concept refers to something. It doesn't refer to itself. Use/mention? Ring a bell? — Terrapin Station

I think you two are talking past each other. A concept is inherently both mental and as referring to something extra mental. My justification for the belief that the idealism vs. materialism debate is confused.

Sure: the phrase 'frame of reference' refers to the concept frame of reference. — Janus

No, it doesn't it doesn't refer to itself. Frames of reference are not concepts, though there is a concept of them., Why don't you look it up if you're not familiar with it?

No, it doesn't it doesn't refer to itself. — Terrapin Station

That’s not what he said.

I think you two are talking past each other. A concept is inherently both mental and as referring to something extra mental. My justification for the belief that the idealism vs. materialism debate is confused. — Noah Te Stroete

I am not denying that many concepts refer to sensible entities, and hence to something that may be thought of as "extra-mental". But "frame of reference" does not refer to a sensible entity.