Are you saying that when you look at a table, you perceive the spatial relation between the table top and table legs indirectly? — RussellA

Presentism does not say there is only one time, it says that entities exist only at the "present" time.

I don’t understand how the Sun can persist through different times when in Presentism there is only one time, namely the present. — RussellA

No, I would say that the spatial relation is not "perceived" in the sense of being a datum of experience.

We need to learn the names "yellow" and “circle”, but I would have thought that our ability to perceive yellowness and circularity are innate, something we are born with. — RussellA

The capacity to experience colors and shapes is innate for people born with "normal" perceptual systems. But "yellow" and "circle" are more than just names, they are concepts that have to be understood through personal insight and stabilized through social practice.

I would appreciate it if sometime you could find any flaws in my main argument against Direct Realism (both Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR) and Semantic Direct Realism (SDR)). — RussellA

Here is some feedback regarding your argument. I'll go step-by-step stating whether I accept or reject along with some brief notes about why:

1. Accepted.
2. Accepted.
3. Rejected: I would not claim that “content travels unchanged” through the chain. I would claim that perception is of the object via the chain, not that the chain preserves representational content.
4. Accepted with qualification: I accept sensory dependence, but deny that this entails mediation by inner objects or representations.
5. Rejected: This establishes at most epistemic underdetermination, not logical impossibility; the examples show fallibility, not impossibility.
6. Rejected: Fallibility or inferential uncertainty does not entail logical impossibility; this confuses limits on reconstruction with limits on knowledge.
7. Rejected: Non-sequitur. Even if causal origins cannot be reconstructed with certainty, it does not follow that the object of perception is an inner phenomenal item rather than the external object.
8. Granted.
9. Rejected: False attribution. I do not claim we can logically reconstruct prior causal links; I claim that perception is world-involving without requiring such reconstruction.

If a bionic eye, as well as being able to help the otherwise-blind navigate the real world, can be used to play VR computer games, then what, if anything, do we see when we use it to play VR computer games? — Michael

I'd be interested in what you think @Esse Quam Videri. I don't intend to start a new debate so won't argue against anything you say, just curious.

If a bionic eye, as well as being able to help the otherwise-blind navigate the real world, can be used to play VR computer games, then what, if anything, do we see when we use it to play VR computer games?

I'd be interested in what you think @Esse Quam Videri. I don't intend to start a new debate so won't argue against anything you say, just curious. — Michael

Sure. Feel free to respond or not at your discretion. I don't mind seeing the conversation continue, though I suspect we'd probably end up at the same place again. :smile:

Very briefly, I would say that when using a bionic eye to play a VR game we see a virtual environment populated with game-world objects. I would say that we do not see things like "phenomenal qualities", "mental pictures" or "electromagnetic radiation", but the virtual objects and environments themselves.

My claim is narrower: that the epistemic primacy of experience is itself a substantive theoretical commitment, not a neutral starting point. — Esse Quam Videri

Ok, cool. Much more direct in terms of what to discuss. That's fair. I'm unsure its a theoretical commitment more than a (admittedly, semi-folk) default position of epistemic presentation, rather than something derived from theory. But I do see:

but about whether experience must be treated as epistemically primary in the first place. — Esse Quam Videri

as totally valid, and probably not amendable to true litigation. For me, experience is primary. It is the only (i.e the singular, only, there are no other) avenue to gain data from the world. I cannot understand where else we could place the priority, epistemically, unless we're giving up on human faculties as inefficient or inaccurate or something else. There's a tension here, but hte IRist has to accept the latter is trivially true - but I think the DRist does too, so you're right - there's no deal breaker. Thanks very much for this exchange my man - really, really fun.

I would say that we do not see things like "phenomenal qualities", "mental pictures" or "electromagnetic radiation", but the virtual objects and environments themselves. — Esse Quam Videri

What is the ontology of these virtual objects and environments? Are they material things situated outside the body? Are they the software running on the eye's hardware? Are they neurological? Are they phenomenal?

So if you don't deny that words like "headache" and "colour" are referring to the phenomenal character of subjective experiences then why do you keep bringing up Wittgenstein and Austin when I am clearly talking about perception and indirect realism? — Michael

I'm saying their meaning, insofar as the terms are usable in public discourse (and do understand that you can have an internal language that does not violate the PLA so long as the language was created through public criteria) are entirely derivable by use. I'm not saying anything else, so you cannot equate this to me suggesting you don't actually have a headache. What your headache is certainly nothing I can see or verify. I learn usage from living in the world of users and seeing how things are used and that is what I rely upon. I gain nothing from reference to the invisible referent. So when you say "my headache" and you mean the actual pounding you're feeling right now, how am I to know what you're talking about other than how you use the term consistently with others who I have seen use the term, which must be related to behaviors and the use of other terms I am already familiar with.

That is, when you tell me that your headache is the pain in your head, I understand how we use pain and head, but I surely don't see the pain. If you tell me the boat is out at sea, even you have no idea what that boat is because you've already told me the color is imposed by the perceiver and maybe the shape isn't really its shape. So, what do you add by telling me the ship or the pain is the referrent if you can't tell me what those things are? My assertion that meaning is use is NOT some discovery about the world. I'm not telling you what I've uncovered. I'm telling you that philosophy is therapuetic, not a statement about the world. It tells you how you can have clarity about your statement and terms and how grammar is to be used. So, (1) I don't need your reference to know what "really" is because I can rely upon how terms are used, and (2) I don't know what "really is" means.

Consider this conversation:

Michael: "I saw a boat at sea."
Me: "Oh, you ate a rabbit?"

Michael: "No, I saw a boat."
Me: "Right, a hat was on backwards?"

Michael: "I'm talking about a boat"
Me: "Thanks, but the cat jumped there, so you know."

Michael: "What's this got to do with the boat?"
Me: "That's what I said, there is vessel out at sea."

Michael: "What?"
Me: "Mastedon!"

Michael: "We're talking about a boat."
Me: "That's what I saidn't."

What just happened is that we had a coversation in which I followed no rules. What I said did not match any known usage. We do not refer to this as a private langauge I was having in my head because there are no such things as private language. We call this not language at all.

If you do obtain meaning from my use, you would contextualize it, including what we're talking about, what you know about me, and the entirety of the context, and you might well say, "I know exactly what Hanover means. He means to make a joke. He means to be annoying. He means to make some obscure point only he follows." That might be true, but there no referents there, and no what I "really" mean that comes into play. You are just interpreting meaning from use.

Then you say, but it was the meaning that I knew privately that determines what I meant, and that claim is empty because a privately known meaning cannot determine correctness unless there already exists a public standard for using the term correctly. Without that public standard, "what I really meant" collapses into whatever seems right to me, which is exactly what Wittgenstein shows cannot count as meaning at all. If that gibberish can mean "I had chicken for lunch" when I want it to and "I saw a movie" when I want it to, and I can use words however the moment hits me to mean what I'm thinking, how do those words hold any meaning at all? How is a language only I speak, not translatable into a language anyone speaks, language?

Why all this blather? It's to make the point that tying meaning to the mental state as you want to doesn't work. But again, I'm not saying anything about what goes on in your mind.

Again, keeping it very brief, I would say that the virtual objects are intentional objects. They are not reducible to material objects situated outside the body, computer software or neurological activity, though they are realized via the interaction of all three. Intentional objects are constituted within a rule-governed, publicly accessible practice of perception and action. They are subject to constraints of normative correctness, public criteria of identity, action guidance and counter-factual robustness.

Are these intentional objects something the mind creates or are they mind-independent? Do these intentional objects only exist when the bionic eye is being used to play a VR game, or do they also exist when the bionic eye is being used to help their wearer navigate the real world? If the latter, and if intentional objects are not reducible to material objects, then would it be more accurate to say that their wearers have direct perception of (mind-dependent?) intentional objects rather than direct perception of (mind-independent) material objects, and so that their wearers only have indirect perception of material objects? And presumably whatever is true in this respect with a bionic eye is also true with an organic eye?

I'm telling you that philosophy is therapuetic, not a statement about the world. — Hanover

I disagree. Philosophy is us trying to reason about the nature of the world and its workings.

I disagree. Philosophy is us trying to reason about the nature of the world and its workings. I think you're thinking of therapy. — Michael

Then let's reason, using indirect realism, about the world.

X is the veridical ship.
Y is the phenomenal perception of the ship.
Z is X minus Y, the delusive ship

Using this picture, itemize X, Y, and Z so we can reason about the world:

I don't understand what you're asking.

At the moment there is no ship, only a collection of pixels on my computer screen emitting various wavelengths of light that cause my brain/mind to construct a two-dimensional appearance that somewhat resembles how a ship on water would appear to me were I to look at one in real life.

That's X and Y, but you didn't tell me what Z was.

I need to know what the pixels really look like so I compare them to how they look to you, so I can measure your delusion.

So when you say "my headache" and you mean the actual pounding you're feeling right now, how am I to know what you're talking about other than how you use the term consistently with others who I have seen use the term, which must be related to behaviors and the use of other terms I am already familiar with. — Hanover

Both Chomsky and Kripke offer good reasons to doubt that you learn language purely by watching others use the terms. Your own childhood language acquisition happened too quickly to be explained that way. More likely there is an innate component to linguistic capability, although exactly what that means is still being fleshed out.

It's possible that meaning is based in part on empathy and projection. You put yourself in the shoes of the speaker. You know what Michael means about his headache because you know what it means to have a headache yourself, and the ability to recognize your own pain and speak of it is something you were born with, not something you learned.

I'm not saying this fully reveals other people's beetles to you. But it would mean you can discern the nature of other beetles because of an innate ability to feel what others feel. And this brings us back around to science versus philosophy. A scientist wouldn't just assume that there's only one way that meaning can work. Why would the philosopher do that?

So when you say "my headache" and you mean the actual pounding you're feeling right now, how am I to know what you're talking about other than how you use the term consistently with others who I have seen use the term, which must be related to behaviors and the use of other terms I am already familiar with. — Hanover

How do you distinguish the case of someone who knows the behaviors and rules surrounding the use of the word "headache", who can use the term competently, without having ever experienced a headache, from someone who does have the experience?

The meaning of "headache" is surely not the behaviors. Someone can be perfectly stoic about their headaches, yet still have them. The meaning is the experience. Which is epistemically private, but not strictly private, since others have the experience, and we infer they have the same experience, rightly or wrongly.




@frank

Both Chomsky and Kripke offer good reasons to doubt that you learn language purely by watching others use the terms — frank

These issues are actually specifically addressed by Wittgenstein.

Innate syntactical limitations and even an innate semantical recognition would not challenge Wittgenstein. As in, hiding when there is thunder, running from snakes, all based upon a priori programming doesn't respond to him.

He offers no description of and makes no assumptions regarding language acquisition. A reflexive response incapable of being corrected upon private practice and a lack of contextual variation removes it from Wittgensteinian langauge.

A scientist wouldn't just assume that there's only one way that meaning can work. Why would the philosopher do that? — frank

I'm open to alternative theories, but I'll consistently reject scientific alternatives because they it's a category error to argue how a scientific theory of reality can replace a grammar theory.

The term "intentional object" describes a role rather than an entity. I realize that the terminology in my previous post was ambiguous, so I'll try to spell it out more clearly.

The VR game has virtual game-objects. The game-objects are entities in their own right, realized by (but not reducible to) hardware, software and norm-governed social practices.

We also have the agent who is perceiving the game-objects. Like the game-objects, the agent is an entity in its own right, realized by (but not reducible to) biological processes and norm-governed social practices.

When game-objects are perceived and interacted with by the agent they function as intentional objects. This function is realized by the norm-governed relation between the game-object, the agent, and publicly accessible practices of perception-and-action. This relation is itself not reducible to the physical processes that realize either the game-object, the agent or their physical interaction.

So in cases of veridical perception the intentional object just is the game-object under a mode of access.

Cheers. Your discussion with Michael mirrors my previous discussions with him. We understand the item you used to be a galleon, a painting, a collection of pixels, a series of 1's and 0's in a computer memory; and that these are in a sense the same. Michael appears not to see this, insisting instead that it's only pixels; that there is only one true description. I wasn't able to move him on this. Let's see how the conversation progresses.