I would say that there is no relevant difference of the kind you are asking for — because the distinction I’m drawing is not about the material or biological status of the causal chain at all — but about the epistemic role it plays.

In ordinary perception — regardless of whether the eye is natural, transplanted, or artificially grown — one’s judgments are answerable to objects in a shared environment through ongoing interaction and correction, not to an internal signal whose adequacy must itself be evaluated.

I mean something closer to this: when we make judgments, we are implicitly adopting standards of correctness (e.g. truth, evidence, coherence, reasonableness). — Esse Quam Videri

The word "judgment" means deciding what is true or false. What is true or false means being answerable to how things are.

In this sense, yes, as definitions can be normative, judgement is here a normative definition.
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That is why judgments — not sensations — belong in the space of reasons. — Esse Quam Videri

Reason could not exist without sensations. The very existence of reason depends on sensations. I can only reason “if I see a red screen in my mind then there is a red screen in the world" if I have the sensation “I see a red screen”.
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Sensation constrains judgment, but it does not itself enter into justification or inference. — Esse Quam Videri

It depends what you mean by “enter into”.

A judgement could not exist without sensations. The very existence of a judgement depends on sensations. I can only judge “if I see a red screen in my mind then there is a red screen in the world" if I have the sensation “I see a red screen”.

I would say that there is no relevant difference of the kind you are asking for — because the distinction I’m drawing is not about the material or biological status of the causal chain at all — but about the epistemic role it plays.

In ordinary perception — regardless of whether the eye is natural, transplanted, or artificially grown — one’s judgments are answerable to objects in a shared environment through ongoing interaction and correction... — Esse Quam Videri

So why is this not also the case for the bionic eye? It simply replaces rod and cone cells with silicon chips.

The SDR says that they are directly cognizing the ship in the mind-external world, but if in the mind of the SDR there is no direct cognition of a weight of 10,000 tonnes, length of 200m, width of 25m and height of 30m, then what exactly is the SDR directly cognizing? The idea of a ship? — RussellA

I think what’s really at issue here is how we understand truth and directness. On my view, truth doesn’t consist in a resemblance or mirroring between what’s in the mind and what’s in the world, but in a judgment’s being correct or incorrect depending on how things are. That doesn’t require the ship’s properties to be present in the mind, only that the judgment be about the ship itself. Perception is direct in that sense: the object of perception is the mind-external ship, even though only some of its properties are perceptually available at any given time. Whether a judgment about the ship is true is settled by how the ship is, not by how closely something in the mind matches it. I realize this may sound like I’m simply assuming that judgments can be answerable to the world, but every account of truth has to take something as basic; here the difference is just whether one starts from mirroring relations or from the idea that judgments aim at getting things right about the world.

I agree entirely that judgment and reasoning depend on sensation in the sense you’re emphasizing. Without sensory experience, there would be nothing to judge about, and no reasoning could get started at all. I’m not denying that causal or developmental dependence.

The distinction I’m drawing is about epistemic role, not dependence. Sensations are conditions for the possibility of judgment, but they are not themselves reasons, premises, or justifications. That is why judgments, but not sensations, belong in the space of reasons. A sensation can prompt, occasion, or constrain a judgment, but it is the judgment that takes responsibility for saying how things are and can therefore be assessed as correct or incorrect.

So when I say that sensation does not “enter into” justification or inference, I don’t mean that judgments could exist without sensation. I mean that sensation does not function as a truth-apt item alongside judgments. The dependence you’re pointing to is real, but it doesn’t undermine the distinction I’m trying to mark.

So why is this not also the case for the bionic eye? It simply replaces rod and cone cells with silicon. — Michael

It could be the case for a bionic eye — nothing I’ve said rules that out.

Simply replacing rods and cones with silicon does not by itself introduce an epistemic intermediary. What matters is not what the components are made of, but whether the system functions as part of the ordinary perceptual coupling with the world, or instead produces an output whose correctness must be assessed independently of that coupling.

If the bionic eye is integrated into perception such that judgments are still answerable to objects through ongoing interaction and correction — as with natural, transplanted, or lab-grown eyes — then there is no epistemic intermediary, and perception is direct in the sense I’m using.

The visor and nerve-stimulation cases differ because they interpose a surrogate whose adequacy depends on a generating process that stands in for the world, rather than being part of the perceptual relation itself.

So the distinction isn’t silicon vs biology, or artificial vs natural; it’s whether the device replaces part of the perceptual interface with the world, or replaces the world with an internal stand-in.

If the bionic eye is integrated into perception such that judgments are still answerable to objects through ongoing interaction and correction — as with natural, transplanted, or lab-grown eyes — then there is no epistemic intermediary, and perception is direct in the sense I’m using.

The visor and nerve-stimulation cases differ because they interpose a surrogate whose adequacy depends on a generating process that stands in for the world, rather than being part of the perceptual relation itself. — Esse Quam Videri

What's the difference between a bionic eye that is "integrated into perception such that judgments are still answerable to objects through ongoing interaction and correction" and a bionic eye that is a "surrogate whose adequacy depends on a generating process that stands in for the world"?

It just seems like there's a lot of special pleading here.

Whether an organic eye or a bionic eye, there is something that takes electromagnetic radiation as input, carries out transduction according to some deterministic process, and then stimulates the optic nerve.

Without begging the question, what determines whether or not the physical intermediary between the electromagnetic radiation and the optic nerve is an epistemic intermediary? I don't think there is such a thing, e.g. proteins are not privileged over silicon.

So either perception is direct both with the bionic eye and the organic eye or perception is indirect both with the bionic eye and the organic eye.

If you say that perception is direct both with the bionic eye and the organic eye then we return to the Common Kind Claim: whatever is the "immediate object of assessment" when the eye (whether bionic or organic) is "malfunctioning" must also be the "immediate object of assessment" when the eye isn't "malfunctioning" — and in the former case that thing cannot be an object in the external world because the thing we're seeing doesn't exist in the external world; therefore in the latter case that thing cannot be an object in the external world either.

I think this is where we finally reach the deepest point of disagreement.

I reject the assumption that for veridical perception and hallucination to belong to a “common kind,” there must be a common object that is the immediate object of assessment. On my view, what is common is not an object, but a kind of epistemic activity: world-directed judgment undertaken from a perceptual standpoint.

In veridical perception, that judgment is answerable to objects in the environment and can be corrected by further interaction with them. In hallucination, the same kind of judgment is made, but it fails—there is no object that satisfies it. No inner surrogate is thereby promoted to the status of what is assessed; rather, the judgment is simply false.

That is why the Common Kind Claim does not force the conclusion you draw. Fallibility does not require that the immediate object of assessment be the same in success and failure. It requires only that the same kind of claim can succeed or fail.

This is also why the bionic vs organic distinction does no work here. I agree entirely that proteins are not privileged over silicon, and that both are deterministic transducers. But that shows only that causal mediation is ubiquitous. It does not show that perception involves an epistemic intermediary unless one assumes that error must always be explained by reference to an inner object.

So the dilemma you pose—either perception is indirect in both cases or direct in both cases—rests on an assumption I reject: that epistemic assessment must target an intermediary whenever perception can misfire. I deny that assumption. Judgments can be directly answerable to the world and still be wrong.

In veridical perception, that judgment is answerable to objects in the environment and can be corrected by further interaction with them. In hallucination, the same kind of judgment is made, but it fails—there is no object that satisfies it. No inner surrogate is thereby promoted to the status of what is assessed; rather, the judgment is simply false. — Esse Quam Videri

As I said a few days ago, these judgements do not occur apropos of nothing. Excluding the obvious cases of mathematics and logic, it is the phenomenal character of experience that prompts and directs our judgements. I say "there is a white and gold dress" when the appropriate visual phenomena occurs. If the experience is veridical (to the extent that colour experiences can be veridical), the judgement is true. If the experience is an hallucination, the judgement is false. In either case it is the visual phenomena (including its character) that acts as "immediate object of assessment".

Yes, I think this makes the divergence fully explicit now.

You’re treating phenomenal character as that which is assessed for correctness in the act of perception, whereas I’m treating judgments about the world as what are assessed, with phenomenal character merely causally occasioning those judgments.

The difference here concerns what we each take as epistemically basic. It may be that we've hit rock bottom on this issue, which is fine. Either way, I have enjoyed the discussion very much.

You’re treating phenomenal character as that which is assessed for correctness in the act of perception — Esse Quam Videri

No, I'm saying that it's the thing directly seen. From this we then make judgements about the world that can be correct or not (if indeed we do; much of the time I experience things without making any kind of judgement).

No, I'm saying that it's thing directly seen. From this we then make judgements about the world that can be correct or not. — Michael

I see what you're saying, but I think that the distinction you're making here is more terminological than substantive. As I understand your account, it requires that it is possible for there to be a mismatch between the phenomenal character of experience and the world. Understanding phenomenal experience as something that can succeed or fail to line up with how things are burdens it with a representational role that I would reject. That's a difference in how we locate epistemic mediation within the context of perception, not about whether judgments are made “from” experience,

We start with the naive view that there is (usually) a match between the phenomenal character of experience and the world. The sky is blue in the exact same way as blueness is present in visual experience and the ball is round in the exact same way as roundness is present in visual experience. We can trust that this is so because the sky and the ball are "directly present" in experience; experience isn't just some distinct neurological or mental phenomenon but an "openness to the world". And this is understandable, particularly with distance being a feature of visual experience. It really seems as if experience extends beyond the body to encapsulate the environment.

The indirect realist then argues that experience is just a neurological or mental phenomenon and so the sky and the ball are not "directly present" in experience in this way. Because of this, it is possible that the sky appears blue to us but is in fact green (or not coloured at all, because colours are "secondary qualities") and that the ball appears round to us but is in fact a cube (or not shaped at all, because shapes are "secondary qualities"). When I see the sky the "immediate object of assessment" is the colour blue, which is a mental phenomenon, and when I see the ball the "immediate object of assessment" is the round shape, which is a mental phenomenon.

I think that the distinction you're making here is more terminological than substantive — Esse Quam Videri

I would say the same about your claim that experience isn't the sort of thing that can "succeed" or "fail" at "lin[ing] up with how things are".

Just because an apple isn't a "representation" it doesn't follow that we can't say that its features/properties do or don't match the features/properties of some other apple (or some other fruit).

In the case of naive realism, the claim is that the features/properties of experience do match the features/properties of the apple (in the veridical case), in the sense of both type identity and token identity. The indirect realist argues that this token identity fails and so this type identity possibly fails.

And if we find that colours and shapes aren't even the sort of properties that the sky and the ball can have (which I think we have, at least with respect to colour) then that's just proof of indirect realism as I see it.

Do you dispute that looks, sounds, smells, feels belong to the brain? That they are not found on the ship itself, but are properties of the brain, which are causally constrained by properties of the ship?

I dispute it because none of us have seen, smelled, tasted, or heard our brains. Sensing is an act of the body, no doubt, but the things or objects upon which we perform this act are out there, in a wholly different place and time from ourselves. It’s the reason our senses point outward, after all, towards ships or what have you.

The basic direction our senses point ought to eliminate the idea that we see sights or smell smells or taste tastes. I can extend my arm outward, point at what I’m seeing, and see both my finger pointing at the ship, and the ship itself. One can surmise, using every capacity of judgement he has, that he is not pointing inward towards his brain. Nonetheless, there is always a wide variety of verb-to-noun derivations and mind-things to replace the ship with. Perceptions, sensations, “phenomenal characters”. Se we stop speaking about ships.

Since the entire skeptical effort amounts to the claim that a person is only privy to what goes on somewhere behind the eyes and not before them, we get the infinite regress coming to all these discussions: who or what is looking at these sights and sounds? And so on and so on. There is no answer.

Common sense is just too difficult to ignore. The lights we see, the compounds we smell, the soundwaves we hear—these come from the boat, are properties of the environment outside of the mind; and the relationship with these properties is absolutely direct, so direct that we absorb them into our body.

What do you mean by senses "pointing" outward? The physics and physiology is just nerve endings reacting to some proximal stimulus (e.g. electromagnetic radiation, vibrations in the air, molecules entering the nose, etc.) and then sending signals to the brain. If there's any kind of "motion" involved, it certainly does appear to be towards the head.

If you agree that phenomenal experience cannot be correct or incorrect, then the hypothesis that phenomenal experience is "what is directly seen" no longer explains error or motivates the skeptical worries you have presented. At that point, our disagreement reduces to whether experience is the direct object of perception or merely a mode of access. My point has been that the direct objects of perceptual judgments ("that's a ship") are objects in the world (ships), not phenomenal contents (redness as-seen, sourness as-tasted, etc). And this pretty much brings us full circle to where we landed a few posts back.

If you agree that phenomenal experience cannot be correct or incorrect, then the hypothesis that phenomenal experience is "what is directly seen" no longer explains error or motivates the skeptical worries you have presented. — Esse Quam Videri

The skeptical worry is that the sky appears blue but might be green (or not coloured at all, because colour is a "secondary quality") and that the ball appears round but might be cubed (or not shaped at all, because shape is a "secondary quality"). The direct realist tries to avoid this by arguing that the sky appears blue because a) the sky is blue and b) the sky is directly present in experience. The indirect realist argues that this argument fails because (b) is false.

You appear to be arguing that (a) is a category error (i.e. colour is not even the sort of property the sky can have). That neither proves direct realism nor disproves indirect realism. If anything, it proves indirect realism because if (a) is a category error then (b) is false.

My point has been that the direct object of perceptual judgments ("That's a ship") are objects in the world. Another way to say this is that perceptual judgments about objects in the world (ships), not phenomenal contents (redness as-seen, sourness as-tasted, etc). And this pretty much brings us full circle to where we landed a few posts back. — Esse Quam Videri

And so we circle back to the example with the visors. The judgement "there is a ship" is a judgement about an object in the world, but it still involves indirect perception of the ship given the visor and the screen. You seem to be conflating the immediate objects of perception and the things our judgements are about. These are not the same thing.

Seeing the ship is unmediated... Seeing it through a telescope might be called unmediated. What we call a "ship" just is the sort of thing that we see. We don't see it "indirectly" in any ordinary sense. — Banno

Its possible OP was trying to point out how nonsensical such a statement is. But there's been nine pages since, so I don't know.

What we call a 'ship' is also what a babe sees. They are mediated by the babes eyes and existing data set (as you point out, aptly). This is indirectness writ large and is not changed by accumulating more data to more quickly ascertain what the sensations are indicating to you.

I think the science clearly shows that colour, taste, smell, etc. are the product of our biology, causally determined by but very different to the objective nature (e.g. the chemical composition) of apples and ice creams. — Michael

This has long been my argument - science (which, if you take a moment, cannot give us certainty under any circumstances) - the best method we have for understanding anything - tells us that perception is patently indirect. This isn't really a philosophical issue.

mirroring between what’s in the mind and what’s in the world, but in a judgment’s being correct or incorrect depending on how things are — Esse Quam Videri

These seem to be the same thing?

can be corrected by further interaction with them — Esse Quam Videri

Not always. You could simply talk about emotional sensations or at least involuntary mental states and make clear that our perceptions are wildly divergent. This can apply to sound, sight and touch. When the system is adjusted, sensation is adjusted and we do not really have ways to adjudicate between them between perception is, scientifically, a step askance from objects.

I am quite unsure why this ruffles so many feathers. There's kind of two positions that could taken in this type of vein:

1. Science tells us perception is indirect. Acknowledging that it requires perception to come to this conclusion, this doesn't mean we reject our senses for practical purposes. It means we cannot be sure of what our sensations represent - but if they are coherent as between individuals (mostly true) then we can get on just fine. This seems to be hte purpose of science, just to an extremely narrow and rigid margin of error - particularly in comparison with other methods (like trying to logically deduce emotional responses to stimuli);
Objection: Given that this requires that our sensations are, fundamentally, unreliable in some sense, we cannot trust science to give us this conclusion. We cannot trust science to lead us to any worth-while conclusions.
I'm sure we all see the issue with this response.

2. Science tells us perception is direct.
Objection: Patently untrue. It just might not matter to the realist because they're having a different discussion maybe?

The direct realist tries to avoid this by arguing that the sky appears blue because a) the sky is blue and b) the sky is directly present in experience. The indirect realist argues that this argument fails because (b) is false — Michael

I've granted that "blueness" is not a property of the sky, yet I maintain that "the sky is blue" is true. This sounds like a contradiction, but I don't think it is.

I would say that ordinary perceptual judgments like "the sky is blue" do not have to be interpreted in a naive way, but can be interpreted as something like "under normal viewing conditions, the sky systematically elicits blue-type visual responses in normal perceivers". This makes the claim objective, fallible, publicly assessable and non-projective. Nor does it require that the sky instantiate a phenomenal property as experienced. Many of the claims that people make ("the sun is rising", "that table is solid") can be cashed out in similar terms without resorting to naive realism.

And so we circle back to the example with the visors. The judgement "there is a ship" is a judgement about an object in the world, but it's still indirect perception. You seem to be conflating which things are the immediate objects of perception and which things our judgements are about. These are not the same thing. — Michael

It's not conflation, it's deflation. In the view I am defending, perception is cashed out entirely in terms of perceptual judgment, and perceptual judgments are about objects in the world. That’s not to deny that sensation causally mediates perception, only that it epistemically mediates it.

I've granted that "blueness" is not a property of the sky, yet I maintain that "the sky is blue" is true. This sounds like a contradiction, but I don't think it is. — Esse Quam Videri

It is a contradiction in terms, but I understand the second to actually mean "The sky is blue, as far as the HUman perceptual system tends to present" and that is obviously true.

These seem to be the same thing? — AmadeusD

When I contrast mirroring with a judgment’s being correct or incorrect, I’m not redescribing the same relation. Mirroring posits a relation between mental items and worldly items; truth is a normative status of a judgment, not a relation between two objects. A judgment is answerable to how things are not by resembling the world, but by being correct or incorrect depending on how things are; when true, what is affirmed is identical with what is the case, without any mediating, internal mental replica.

Everything you say about variability, mediation, and scientific accounts of perception concerns causal dependence. I agree with all of that. Where I disagree is with the further step that treats causal mediation as implying epistemic mediation by inner representations. That step isn’t delivered by science.

It is a contradiction in terms, but I understand the second to actually mean "The sky is blue, as far as the HUman perceptual system tends to present" and that is obviously true. — AmadeusD

No, the claim is not just about how the human perceptual system presents things. It’s still a claim about the sky; namely the sky as it is in relation to the human perceptual system under normal conditions.

The point is just that ordinary truth doesn’t require predicates to correspond to simple intrinsic properties instantiated by objects. Rejecting naïve color metaphysics doesn’t make ordinary color judgments false—it just rejects a mirroring account of what makes them true.

I've granted that "blueness" is not a property of the sky, yet I maintain that "the sky is blue" is true. This sounds like a contradiction, but I don't think it is.

I would say that ordinary perceptual judgments like "the sky is blue" do not have to be interpreted in a naive way, but can be interpreted as something like "under normal viewing conditions, the sky systematically elicits blue-type visual responses in normal perceivers". This makes the claim objective, fallible, publicly assessable and non-projective. Nor does it require that the sky instantiate a phenomenal property as experienced. Many of the claims that people make ("the sun is rising", "that table is solid") can be cashed out in similar terms without resorting to naive realism. — Esse Quam Videri

So there's an interpretation of (a) such that (a) is true. However, notice that indirect realists aren't arguing that (a) is false; they are arguing that (b) is false. And they aren't arguing that any and all interpretations of (b) are false but that a particular interpretation of (b) is false; specifically, the interpretation of (b) such that if it were true, and if the sky appears blue, then (a) is true according to a naive interpretation of (a).

But out of curiosity, would you make the same claims about shape and orientation (and other features of geometry) that you make above about colour?

It's not conflation, it's deflation. In the view I am defending, perception is cashed out entirely in terms of perceptual judgment, and perceptual judgments are about objects in the world. That’s not to deny that sensation causally mediates perception, only that it epistemically mediates it. — Esse Quam Videri

Then I'll repeat what I said to Banno in my last comment to him: I think the visor and its screen functions exactly like a Cartesian theatre (which is a strawman misrepresentation of indirect realism), and a Cartesian theatre is exactly the sort of thing that would qualify as indirect perception. So you've defined "direct realism" in such a way that even the strawman misrepresentation of indirect realism would count as direct realism.

It's so divorced from the actual (traditional) dispute between direct and indirect realism that it's not deflation but ... avoidance?

A judgment is answerable to how things are not by resembling the world, but by being correct or incorrect depending on how things are; when true, what is affirmed is identical with what is the case, without any mediating, internal mental replica. — Esse Quam Videri

This is a restatement of what I've said amount to the same thing? I can't see a response to what I've said there specifically.

Where I disagree is with the further step that treats causal mediation as implying epistemic mediation by inner representations. That step isn’t delivered by science. — Esse Quam Videri

I'm not quite sure how you can make that claim: science tells us our mind cannot look at objects. Our eyes look at objects and our mind constructs images from sense-data. There is an unavoidable chasm between objects and our representations in this form. Can you explain what you mean in the above quote in light of this?

No, the claim is not just about how the human perceptual system presents things. It’s still a claim about the sky; namely the sky as it is in relation to the human perceptual system under normal conditions. — Esse Quam Videri

They are the same thing. Wording things two different ways wont give us two different things.

But out of curiosity, would you make the same claims about shape and orientation (and other features of geometry) that you make above about colour? — Michael

That’s a fair question, and the short answer is: no, I wouldn’t treat shape and orientation in exactly the same way as colour — but I would reject naïve phenomenal mirroring for them as well.

Colour is plausibly response-dependent in a way that shape and orientation are not. Ordinary claims about shape and orientation track relatively stable, mind-independent structural features of objects — and that’s why geometrical error correction, measurement, and intersubjective agreement work the way they do.

But even in those cases, I don’t think truth requires that the phenomenal character of experience reproduce those properties as they are in the world. A judgment like “the ball is round” is true because the object has a certain spatial structure, not because a phenomenal roundness in experience mirrors a roundness in the object.

So the difference isn’t that colour judgments are non-realistic while shape judgments are naïvely realistic. The difference is that colour predicates are more tightly tied to perceptual response profiles, whereas shape predicates are tied to structural and relational features of objects. In neither case does perceptual truth require that properties be “directly present” in experience in the sense the naïve realist needs.

That’s why rejecting naïve realism about colour doesn’t force indirect realism about perception more generally — and rejecting phenomenal mirroring about shape doesn’t amount to denying that objects have shapes.

Then I'll repeat what I said to Banno: I think the visor and its screen functions exactly like a Cartesian theatre (which is a strawman misrepresentation of indirect realism), and a Cartesian theatre is exactly the sort of thing that would qualify as indirect perception. So you've defined "direct realism" in such a way that even the strawman misrepresentation of indirect realism would count as direct realism. — Michael

Calling my view “Cartesian” doesn’t address the issue I’ve been pressing. The Cartesian Theatre is defined by the presence of an epistemic surrogate whose adequacy must be evaluated. My whole point has been that once phenomenal experience is not truth-apt, treating it as the “immediate object of perception” does no epistemic work. If that move reclassifies the traditional taxonomy, so be it—but that’s a consequence of rejecting phenomenal-first assumptions, not a reductio.

This is a restatement of what I've said amount to the same thing? I can't see a response to what I've said there specifically. — AmadeusD

Identity is not comparison.

I'm not quite sure how you can make that claim: science tells us our mind cannot look at objects. Our eyes look at objects and our mind constructs images from sense-data. There is an unavoidable chasm between objects and our representations in this form. Can you explain what you mean in the above quote in light of this? — AmadeusD

What I mean is that causal mediation does not by itself settle what perception is of. Science tells us that perception is implemented by sense organs and neural processes; I agree entirely. But it does not follow from this that the object of perception must be an inner representation rather than a mind-external object.

Saying that the mind “constructs images from sense-data” is already a philosophical interpretation of the science, not something the science itself establishes. All that science requires is that perception depends on causal processes. It does not require that awareness terminates in sense-data or inner pictures rather than in the world itself.

So the “chasm” you’re describing is not something science forces on us; it’s the result of adopting a particular representationalist model of perception. My claim has been that rejecting naïve mirroring does not commit us to that model.

They are the same thing. — AmadeusD

No, they are not the same thing.

A claim about perceptual presentation is a claim about how experience is structured (e.g. “humans tend to experience the sky as blue”). A claim about the sky-as-related-to-perceivers is a claim about the world under certain conditions (e.g. “the sky has properties such that, under normal conditions, it elicits blue-type responses”).

Those differ quite clearly in terms of:

• subject matter (experience vs world),
• truth conditions (facts about perceivers vs facts about the sky),
• direction of explanation (mind → world vs world → mind).

Collapsing these distinctions is exactly what turns a claim about the world into a claim about experience, which is the move I’ve been resisting throughout.

Colour is plausibly response-dependent in a way that shape and orientation are not. Ordinary claims about shape and orientation track relatively stable, mind-independent structural features of objects — and that’s why geometrical error correction, measurement, and intersubjective agreement work the way they do. — Esse Quam Videri

Then to incite a more controversial topic:

Consider that there are two subspecies of humanity such that what one sees when standing upright is what the other sees when standing upside down. Both groups use the word "up" to describe the direction of the sky and "down" to describe the direction of the floor. Firstly, is this logically plausible? Secondly, is this physically plausible? Thirdly, does it make sense to argue that one subspecies is seeing the "correct" orientation and the other the "incorrect" orientation? Fourthly, if there is a "correct" orientation then how would we determine this without begging the question?

If it's difficult to imagine, consider two astronauts top and tail in space or standing on opposite sides of a ringworld looking at the Earth. From the perspective of one the North Pole is as the top and from the perspective of the other the South Pole is at the top. Neither is the "correct" perspective as there are no privileged viewpoints. Now retain their orientation relative to one another but bring them to Earth. Is there some distance from the ground such that one of their perspectives becomes the "correct" orientation?

Calling my view “Cartesian” doesn’t address the issue I’ve been pressing. The Cartesian Theatre is defined by the presence of an epistemic surrogate whose adequacy must be evaluated. My whole point has been that once phenomenal experience is not truth-apt, treating it as the “immediate object of perception” does no epistemic work. If that move reclassifies the traditional taxonomy, so be it—but that’s a consequence of rejecting phenomenal-first assumptions, not a reductio. — Esse Quam Videri

I'm not calling your view Cartesian. I'm saying that the scenario with the visor and the screen functions like a Cartesian Theatre. This would clearly be indirect perception even though their perceptual judgement "there is a ship" is about an object in the world.

So your claim that "perception is cashed out entirely in terms of perceptual judgment, and perceptual judgments are about objects in the world ... [therefore perception is direct]" is a non sequitur.

That’s an interesting scenario to consider. Here is how I would answer your questions:

(1) Is the scenario logically plausible?
Yes. There’s no contradiction in two populations having systematically inverted orientation mappings.

(2) Is it physically plausible?
In principle, yes (vestibular inversion, neural remapping, spaceflight, etc.). The details are contingent, but not conceptually incoherent.

(3) Is one group seeing the “correct” orientation?
No. Because orientation is not an absolute property of the world, there is no “correct” mapping independent of a frame.

(4) How would we determine correctness without begging the question?
I think I would say we wouldn’t, because correctness isn’t the right notion here. I think what matters is

• internal coherence,
• successful coordination with the environment,
• shared practices of action and correction.

To summarize, I would say that orientation is frame-relative in a way that shape is not. That doesn’t imply error or indirectness, just that “up/down” are relational predicates whose correctness is fixed within a shared frame, not absolutely. This makes orientation relational rather than illusory, much like “left/right” or “near/far.”

Thoughts?

I'm not calling your view Cartesian. I'm saying that the scenario with the visor and the screen functions like a Cartesian Theatre. This would clearly be indirect perception even though their perceptual judgement "there is a ship" is about an object in the world.

So your claim that "perception is cashed out entirely in terms of perceptual judgment, and perceptual judgments are about objects in the world ... [therefore perception is direct]" is a non sequitur. — Michael

Sorry, missed this somehow.

I don’t think there’s a non sequitur here once my notion of “directness” is kept in view.

On my view, “direct” and “indirect” perception are not distinguished independently of where epistemic answerability terminates. To say that perception is indirect just is to say that perceptual judgment is answerable, in the first instance, to an epistemic surrogate rather than to the world itself.

The visor-and-screen case counts as indirect precisely because it introduces such a surrogate: the subject’s epistemic access runs through an internally generated stand-in whose adequacy must be assessed. That is not true in ordinary perception, even though both cases involve world-directed judgments.

So the inference from “perceptual judgment is about objects in the world” to “perception is direct” is not meant to be a standalone logical step. It’s a definitional consequence of rejecting epistemic intermediaries altogether. If one insists on distinguishing directness from judgmental answerability, then we’re simply working with different explanatory primitives.

I would say that orientation is frame-relative in a way that shape is not. — Esse Quam Videri

Shape as seen or shape as felt? Because these are very different things. Studies on Molyneux's problem show that those born blind who have their sight restored "had no innate ability to transfer their tactile shape knowledge to the visual domain".

So is the mind-independent "shape" of an object similar to the look of a shape or the feel of a shape? Or is it similar to neither, and like colour we using a word like "circle" to refer to distinct things that are causally related but fundamentally different?

Or for something that might be less tricky to understand; what looks to be a smooth circle with the naked eye may look very different through a pair of binoculars or a microscope. Which "zoom" or "scale" counts as the "real" shape of an object? Same question when discussing something as simple as the distance between two points (2cm looks very different through a magnifying glass).

The visor-and-screen case counts as indirect precisely because it introduces such a surrogate: the subject’s epistemic access runs through an internally generated stand-in whose adequacy must be assessed. That is not true in ordinary perception, even though both cases involve world-directed judgments. — Esse Quam Videri

Then we're back to what I asked in this post (which I'll repeat below), which I don't think was addressed:

What's the difference between a bionic eye that is "integrated into perception such that judgments are still answerable to objects through ongoing interaction and correction" and a bionic eye that is "a surrogate whose adequacy depends on a generating process that stands in for the world"?

It just seems like there's a lot of special pleading here.

Whether an organic eye or a bionic eye, there is something that takes electromagnetic radiation as input, carries out transduction according to some deterministic process, and then stimulates the optic nerve.

Without begging the question or engaging in circularity, what determines whether or not the physical intermediary between the electromagnetic radiation and the optic nerve is an epistemic intermediary?

I don’t think there’s a non sequitur here once my notion of “directness” is kept in view. — Esse Quam Videri

As I said before, you can mean anything you like by "directness". I'm concerned with what it means in the context of the traditional dispute between direct and indirect realism, which I summarised here (which I'll repeat below), and which I also don't think was addressed:

The direct realist argues that the sky appears blue because a) the sky is blue and b) the sky is directly present in experience. The indirect realist argues that this argument fails because (b) is false.

Even if there's an interpretation of (a) such that (a) is true, indirect realists aren't arguing that (a) is false; they are arguing that (b) is false. And they aren't arguing that any and all interpretations of (b) are false but that a particular interpretation of (b) is false; specifically, the interpretation of (b) such that if it were true, and if the sky appears blue, then (a) is true according to a naive interpretation of (a).