but that a perceiver is in an active relation with its environment, in which perception depends on both. — jamalrob

Wouldn't that be true for both direct and indirect realists? So when most people see red, that means they have a direct awareness of the object's reflectivity?

Part of the problem is that every time I've seen direct realism introduced, it's stated as seeing objects as they are instead of some mental representation. If we see objects as they are, then knowledge is not a problem.

I'm not sure where the "active relation with the environment" fits in with direct realism's certainty versus indirect's reliance on inference.

It seems to me that in order to say that the brain gets stuff "wrong" is implying that you know what is "right". How did you know what is right or wrong if not using your brain - directly or indirectly? — Harry Hindu

Usually in context of illusions, you investigate further. If you walk five miles through the hot desert to the oasis and it isn't there, then you know your brain tricked you.

The surface of the apple reflects light at a certain wavelength, that light stimulates the eyes, the eyes send a signal to the brain, the visual cortex of the brain is activated, and we have an experience that we describe as "seeing a red apple". So I suppose I would say that the relationship is simply causal (a term I've seen elsewhere on the topic is "causal covariance"). — Michael

I can agree with that. What do you think I should disagree with in it?

Usually in context of illusions, you investigate further. If you walk five miles through the hot desert to the oasis and it isn't there, then you know your brain tricked you. — Marchesk

I still don't understand this distinction between "you" and "your brain". How is it that the brain tricks something else that you identify as "you"? What is this "you" in relation to "your brain"?

Is "tricking" really the appropriate word? How about "misinterpreted" based on experiences presently stored in memory? "Learning" and "programming" might be other appropriate words to use when it comes to acclimating oneself with the correct interpretation.

Sure, but I don't see how that goes against my point. Fire engines are red to most people, if you like. It doesn't matter. The point is not that red is some transcendent fact of the fire engine, but that a perceiver is in an active relation with its environment, in which perception depends on both. — jamalrob

The epistemological problem of perception is the question over whether or not things are (independently) as we see them to be, not over whether or not things are seen to be as they are seen to be. That fire engines are red to most people has no bearing on the disagreement between direct and indirect realism, and no side of the aisle will deny that perception occurs when people are in an active relation with their environment.

I can agree with that. What do you think I should disagree with in it? — fdrake

Nothing. I just think that your description of the difference between direct and indirect realism here isn't right, given the problem that the direct and indirect realist are trying to address; are the properties present in experience the properties of external world objects?

Perhaps what the salient parts of the disagreement are depend on what camp you're in? A difference that looks different from both sides.

I'm not sure where the "active relation with the environment" fits in with direct realism's certainty versus indirect's reliance on inference. — Marchesk

Its advocates are in favour of direct more than indirect, but not in some "things are red in themselves" kind of way. That's a caricature of indirect realism's critics.

That's a caricature of indirect realism's critics. — jamalrob

Unless they happen to be color realists. Thomas Reid was one if I recall correctly.

Give me an example.

EDIT: Ah, you edited to give an example. In that case, can you find a relevant quotation?

Actually it seems like Reid had a more nuanced view of color which sounds more indirect (or relative), unlike the primary qualities of shape and size. Here's a SEP description of color realism along with philosophers who have supported it:

Color Primitivist Realism is the view that there are in nature colors, as ordinarily understood, i.e., colors are simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties. They are qualitative features of the sort that stand in the characteristic relations of similarity and difference that mark the colors; they are not micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort. There is no radical illusion, error or mistake in color perception (only commonplace illusions): we perceive objects to have the colors that they really have. Such a view has been presented by Hacker 1987 and by J. Campbell 1994, 2005, and has become increasingly popular: McGinn 1996; Watkins 2005; Gert 2006, 2008. This view is sometimes called “The Simple View of Color” and sometimes “The Naive Realist view of Color”. — Color (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

A Naïve Realist Theory of Colour by Keith Allen is an example.

This book develops and defends the view that colours are mind-independent properties of things in the environment that are distinct from properties identified by the physical sciences. This view stands in contrast to the long-standing and wide spread view amongst philosophers and scientists that colours do not really exist—or at any rate, that if they do exist, then they are radically different from the way that they appear. It is argued that a naïve realist theory of colour best explains how colours appear to perceiving subjects, and that this view is not undermined either by reflecting on variations in colour perception between perceivers and across perceptual conditions, or by our modern scientific understanding of the world. The book also illustrates how our understanding of what colours are has far-reaching implications for wider questions about the nature of perceptual experience, the relationship between mind and world, the problem of consciousness, the apparent tension between common-sense and scientific representations of the world, and even the very nature and possibility of philosophical inquiry.

Perhaps what the salient parts of the disagreement are depend on what camp you're in? A difference that looks different from both sides. — fdrake

Which raises the question of what exactly the direct realists are defending. If it isn't a direct awareness of the object itself, but rather a relation or process, then ...? Presumably they're defending something of consequence different from what the indirect realists are defending.

And that would likely relate to not having a veil of perception between us and the world.

Would you say this characterises direct realism:

(Direct realism) The properties of perceptual content of a perceptual event are identical with those of what the perceptual event is directed towards..
?
And this indirect realism:
(Indirect Realism) The properties of perceptual content of a perceptual event are not-identical with those of what the perceptual event is directed towards.
?

Yes, that looks about right. It seems consistent with how naive realism is summarized here: "the character of one’s experience is explained by an actual instance of whiteness manifesting itself in experience" (and where such "whiteness" is a property of the external world object).

I don't think that external world properties manifest themselves in experience in this way. I only think that external world properties are causally covariant with the character of one's experience. Sugar doesn't manifest itself in taste-experience; it only elicits a sweet taste (for me, at least).

Aight, I'll try and write a post in those terms then.

Perhaps what the salient parts of the disagreement are depend on what camp you're in? A difference that looks different from both sides. — fdrake

Yes, good point, and a good example: was the article even committed to or advocating some positive doctrine called direct or naive realism? I gathered not.

Can't we be questioning mental representations altogether?

I was hoping so.

Wouldn't that be true for both direct and indirect realists? So when most people see red, that means they have a direct awareness of the object's reflectivity?

Part of the problem is that every time I've seen direct realism introduced, it's stated as seeing objects as they are instead of some mental representation. If we see objects as they are, then knowledge is not a problem.

I'm not sure where the "active relation with the environment" fits in with direct realism's certainty versus indirect's reliance on inference. — Marchesk

Maybe the colors of external objects and color perception are both color in some realist sense, but different types. The colors of objects are just as classical physics claims, a reflection or emission of radiating additive or 'superpositioned' electromagnetic wavelengths that stimulates our eyes in a particular way. Color perception, a particular category of qualia, might be the additive or 'superpositioned' resonance of systems of particles such as entangled electrons, rendered into functional mechanisms within the organic brain. In nature, all color might result from additive superpositions, distinguished by the fact that the particles involved radiate, vibrate, entangle, generally move in different ways: photons, electrons, atoms, molecules and so on. How the kind of thinking we experience as 'association-making', which is regarded as 'inferential' when either translated into linguistic form or conceived as a temporal sequence, fits into the picture is an interesting question, but the issue of perception vs. world can probably be thoroughly resolved at this stage of materialist science by hypothetical thought experiment.

@jamalrob

What do you see the opposition between direct and indirect realism as? I offered this as @Michael's:

(Direct realism) The properties of perceptual content of a perceptual event are identical with those of what the perceptual event is directed towards..
?
And this indirect realism:
(Indirect Realism) The properties of perceptual content of a perceptual event are not-identical with those of what the perceptual event is directed towards. — fdrake

And Michael broadly agreed.

Yes, that looks about right. It seems consistent with how naive realism is summarized here: "the character of one’s experience is explained by an actual instance of whiteness manifesting itself in experience" (and where such "whiteness" is a property of the external world object).

I don't think that external world properties manifest themselves in experience in this way. I only think that external world properties are causally covariant with the character of one's experience. Sugar doesn't manifest itself in taste-experience; it only elicits a sweet taste (for me, at least). — Michael

Yes, good point, and a good example: was the article even committed to or advocating some positive doctrine called direct or naive realism? I gathered not. — bongo fury

You gathered pretty much right. The article is mostly demolition, not construction. On the other hand, if perception is not generally indirect in any significant sense, or is at least not indirect in the sense that Hume and Russell and others have used, then I guess it's direct. In some sense.

Can't we be questioning mental representations altogether? — bongo fury

Yes please. I only gestured towards that in the article when I mentioned the significance of the debate for cognitive science: computationalism vs embodied/enactivism/connectionism/dynamical systems and all that.

I'm not sure any more. I may come back to it.

Friston even approves of Gibson's theory of perception, which is a form of direct realism, so it's no so clear cut that indirect realism is the only way to be consistent with neuroscience — fdrake

Not crucially important, but Friston approves of Gibson's theory of perception as it pertains to affordances, but he disagrees with the extent (contrast Gibson's "Ecological Approach to Visual Perception" and Friston's opus with regards to the role of Shannon-type information). The point I was actually disputing was that "an 'experience' cannot be a result of neural activity", that it must be either the whole thing or not in that category at all. I don't think current neuroscience supports that notion as there is definitely work done in non-experience parts of the brain which modify the inputs from sensory corticies prior to our concious awareness of the output from those corticies. As such I don't think it can be at all right to say that experience does not result from neural activity. It is fairly certain that what we experience is the output of several neural corticies, none of which directly transfer (unmodified) the content of their input.

How that all relates to direct/indirect realism I'm not sure, I'll wait to read your modified post before responding, but I just wanted to clarify that I was disputing a much more specific claim.

This post is mostly an attempt to get us closer to disagreeing about the same thing. It isn't the one I said I'd write for Michael here, which will take a lot more effort.



:up:

It's my guess that people whose intuitions (on the forum) align with direct realism see the distinction between direct realism and indirect realism much differently from how the indirect realists see it.

Ultimately I think it depends on what metaphysical intuitions regarding perception we have. We (forum direct and indirect realists) definitely disagree about something, and we definitely disagree about the substantive content of the debate.

As such I don't think it can be at all right to say that experience does not result from neural activity. It is fairly certain that what we experience is the output of several neural corticies, none of which directly transfer (unmodified) the content of their input. — Isaac

I think the shift from "perception" to "experience" in your post is a key point in the discussion. If our "experience" results from the neural circuitry and bodily comportments and self modelling that constitutes perception, experience is then conceived as an "output" of perception; whereas my intuition is a perceptual experience is a component part of perception.

I tried highlighting this here:

But I would say that an indirect instance of active perception would have its percept as an output of the process of active perception; as if the process of perception produces phenomenal and mental content associated with perceptions; in a diagram, perceptual relation→→phenomenal and mental content of perception. The associated intuition is a sequential ordering of perception to perceptual content (related to post-hoc thematisation/schematisation as jamalrob channeled photographer with in another thread)

Conversely, I would say that a direct instance of active perception would have its percept as a component of the process of active perception; as if the phenomenal and mental content associated with perception is a part of the perceptual modelling relation between body and environment; in a diagram, phenomenal and mental content of perception ⊂⊂ perceptual relation. The associated intuition is that perceptual content (the phenomenal/mental stuff) occurs within a relational event of perception. — fdrake

But my account above doesn't seem to be how our forum indirect realists see the distinction between the two. Which seems closer to:

(Direct realism) The properties of perceptual content of a perceptual event are identical with those of what the perceptual event is directed towards..
(Indirect Realism) The properties of perceptual content of a perceptual event are not-identical with those of what the perceptual event is directed towards. — fdrake

Also @unenlightened.

This post is mostly an attempt to get us closer to disagreeing about the same thing. — fdrake

Beautifully put.

A Naïve Realist Theory of Colour by Keith Allen is an example — Michael

Point taken. I'd be interested to read his argument.

my intuition is a perceptual experience (which I'm guessing we're imbuing with phenomenal and mental content since we're talking about experiences) is a component part of perception. — fdrake

I think you're right here, and again, looking at the active inference stuff, I think that's quite well supported (for those unfamiliar with the idea the diagram on page 19 of the paper I cited earlier gives a nice plain idea of the model). In most respects this is the notion I was arguing in favour of, that our experience is one part of a process, that it receives inputs, suppresses and filters them, and then modifies the environment.

I think that last part is a component of perception that is too often ignored, we do not perceive objects in a one way process. What we later describe as our 'perception' of an object is actually hundreds of sequential images, each one designed to supply just that information which minimises variance from the model developed from the previous one. It's an interactive process which develops over time but we don't experience it that way, we experience it as 'seeing the apple' a single object we can recall the image of, not a hundred different images.

Anyway, I suppose I would have thought, in my naivety, that the very fact that the aspect of perception we actually experience is filtered, summarised and condensed, would make it de facto indirect. If not, then I'm lost as to what indirect might be referring to. Have I missed the point, or is this exactly what you're trying to get at by saying that the two sides seem to disagree about what the problem is?

Have I missed the point, or is this exactly what you're trying to get at by saying that the two sides seem to disagree about what the problem is? — Isaac

:up: Didn't miss the point at all.

I suppose I would have thought, in my naivety, that the very fact that the aspect of perception we actually experience is filtered, summarised and condensed, would make it de facto indirect. If not, then I'm lost as to what indirect might be referring to. — Isaac

Allow me to jump in here. Let me use the word perspective to encompass all of this, meaning just the way perception works, given that perception is of things and is not the things themselves. We perceive from a point of view, and in a certain way, as you describe. We cannot perceive otherwise, so what is the asserted or possible non-perspectival perception to oppose your "indirect" to? It looks like Russell's argument that because the light reflected from a rectangular table-top projects a non-rectangular patch on to the retina, perception must be indirect. But would anyone demand that to be direct, the table-top would have to project a rectangular shape on to the retina? Is there actually a naive position that is somehow corrected by the idea that perception happens from a perspective and in a certain way?

Is there actually a naive position that is somehow corrected by the idea that perception happens from a perspective and in a certain way? — jamalrob

The default common sense view of almost everyone going about their daily life, and everyday language would be that naive realist position. The world is (usually) at it appears to us.

So it would seem that the direct realists are defending a correlationist view of perception, while the indirect realists think perception is like a simulation the brain creates consisting of color, sound, taste, smell, various feels and awareness of the body. Think of it as the Star Trek holodeck, except that the color, sound, etc. is merely representative of light, temperature, sound waves, the body, etc. The sticking point being the brain is where the magic show takes place.

But both agree that the real world (transcendental) is a bit different than how it appears to us.