There is ordinary language, “I indirectly see the ship through my telescope and I directly see the ship in front of me”.

There is philosophical language, “I directly perceive phenomenal experiences in my mind enabling me to indirectly infer that there is a ship in the world.”

Things go wrong when in philosophical language a word is used having an ordinary language meaning.

Light is of the mind-independent world; it is absorbed by the eyes; and therefore each of us has direct contact with the “mind-independent world”. Since this contact is direct, so is access to the “mind-independent world”, and there is zero room in space and time for any intermediary. — NOS4A2

I am in a room with the door closed, I hear a sound. I infer that the sound came from outside the room. I may be wrong, but I infer it.

In this case, is it the correct use of language to say “I have direct contact with what is outside the room”?

There is ordinary language, “I indirectly see the ship through my telescope — RussellA

Surely what you are seeing is the image of the ship via telescope, not the ship itself?

Surely what you are seeing is the image of the ship via telescope, not the ship itself? — Corvus

There is ordinary language and philosophical language.

In ordinary language, when looking at a ship in front of them, both the Direct and Indirect Realist could say “I am directly looking at the ship”. When looking at the ship through a telescope, both the Direct and Indirect Realist could say “I am indirectly looking at the ship in front of me”

However, in philosophical language, when looking at a ship in front of them, the Direct Realist could say “I am directly looking at the ship” and the Indirect Realist could say “I am indirectly looking at the ship”. When looking through a telescope, the Direct Realist could say “I am indirectly looking at the ship” and the Indirect Realist could say “I am directly looking at an image of the ship”

It gets difficult when ordinary and philosophical language are mixed up.

As far as I know light provides information about an object's composition, temperature, motion, shape, texture, or distance by revealing how it emits, absorbs, reflects, or refracts different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. We’re limited to visible light, but that proves to be good enough here on earth. — NOS4A2

So point to where in the light and the organism's body I can look to see this "information"? If I open up your head can I see the information you have about the object's composition?

No, I agree, looking at something through a cctv camera on a screen counts as viewing that something indirectly. I’m fine with that. — NOS4A2

Then your account is insufficient, because you said that we directly see an object if "our senses are in direct contact with the wavelengths in the light affording us information about those distant objects". This would entail that if we look at something through a CCTV camera on a screen then we are viewing that thing directly, which you admit we aren't. Therefore, direct perception isn't just "our senses being in direct contact with the wavelengths in the light that affords us information about those distant objects".

It looked gold and white. — Banno

The words "gold" and "white" in the above sentence refer to the phenomenal quality of the experience that some people have when they look at the photo. They don't refer to wavelengths of light or any other property of the pixels on the computer screen.

The case shows that colour concepts are not anchored in private experience, because private experience alone cannot sustain disagreement, correction, or explanation. — Banno

I believe my example with the visors demonstrates otherwise. Repeated from here:

The visors have been constructed in such a way that when the sensors on the outside detect 700nm light they output on the screen 500nm light and vice-versa. Their wearers use the word "red" to describe the colour of strawberries and associate the colour red with 700nm light and use the word "green" to describe the colour of grass and associate the colour green with 500nm light.

Then when they're asleep we fix their visors so that the light emitted by the screen matches the light detected by the sensors. When they wake up do they go about their day as if nothing has changed, continuing to use the word "red" to describe the colour of strawberries and associate the colour red with 700nm light and to use the word "green" to describe the colour of grass and associate the colour green with 500nm light? Or do they immediately ask "why are strawberries now green?" and "why is grass now red?" and then be very confused when nothing about strawberries, grass, or the light they each reflect has changed?

I think the latter is obviously what will happen, showing that even though the use of the words "red" and "green" was public the words primarily referred to the colours on their private screen (assuming direct realism for the sake of argument) and not whatever was happening in their shared environment. The same reasoning holds when we remove the visors and instead surgically alter their eyes and/or brain to switch which wavelengths of light cause which phenomenal experiences.

Now the question arises, if perception is a biological process continuous with others, why would it uniquely require a mental veil?

...

So, as naturalists we are committed to the idea that organisms are directly related to their environment through evolved biological processes. So, perception is how organism process light. — Richard B

Sunflowers don't see. They react to and move towards the sunlight but they lack first person phenomenal experience. The dispute between direct and indirect realism is uniquely an issue for organisms that have first person phenomenal experiences like ours, and concerns the exact nature of the relationship between these first person phenomenal experiences and distal objects; are these distal objects "directly present" in first person phenomenal experience as direct realism claims, or are they only causally responsible for them?

But that aside, how do you get from "the organism processes light" to "the organism has direct perception of the distal object that emitted and/or reflected this light"?

There is ordinary language and philosophical language. — RussellA

Yes, worth reading up on fictionalism:

Here is a kind of puzzle or paradox that several philosophers have stressed. On the one hand, existence questions seem hard. The philosophical question of whether there are abstract entities does not seem to admit of an easy or trivial answer. At the same time, there seem to be trivial arguments settling questions like this in the affirmative. Consider for instance the arguments, “2+2=4. So there is a number which, when added to 2, yields 4. This something is a number. So there are numbers”, and “Fido is a dog. So Fido has the property of being a dog. So there are properties.” How should one resolve this paradox? One response is: adopt fictionalism. The idea would be that in the philosophy room we do not speak fictionally, but ordinarily we do. So in the philosophy room, the question of the existence of abstract entities is hard; outside it, the question is easy. When, ordinarily, a speaker utters a sentence that semantically expresses a proposition that entails that there are numbers, what she says is accurate so long as according to the relevant fiction, there are numbers. But when she utters the same sentence in the philosophy room, she speaks literally and then what she asserts is something highly non-trivial.

In ordinary life we talk about ordinary objects as being coloured, but it's a fiction that we ought recognise in the philosophy (and science) room. Ordinary objects only reflect various wavelengths of light, which is something very different.

Some here seem to think that how we speak in ordinary life is the answer to all the questions. They're just burying their heads in the sand.

ordinary life we talk about ordinary objects as being coloured, but it's a fiction that we ought recognise in the philosophy (and science) room. Ordinary objects only reflect various wavelengths of light, which is something very different. — Michael

Why is it something very different? Why can't "that object is orange" mean the same thing as "that object reflects the wavelengths of light required for me to see it as orange"? I don't see those sentences as having fundamentally different meanings, the second one is just more verbose

So point to where in the light and the organism's body I can look to see this "information"? If I open up your head can I see the information you have about the object's composition?

You’re right. “Information” is a verb-to-noun derivation. There is no referent. If I was to be more precise (and careful) I’d say “The molecules in the air, the wavelengths in the light, the soundwaves in the water, come from the distant objects, informing us about those distant objects.” There is no need to go on multiplying entities, after all.

Then your account is insufficient, because you said that we directly see an object if "our senses are in direct contact with the wavelengths in the light affording us information about those distant objects". This would entail that if we look at something through a CCTV camera on a screen then we are viewing that thing directly, which you admit we aren't. Therefore, direct perception isn't just "our senses being in direct contact with the wavelengths in the light that affords us information about those distant objects".

My account is quite different. Here’s what I actually said:

“Dealing with those mediums counts as direct perception of the world because our senses are in direct contact with those mediums, whatever information they afford us, and those mediums are features of the environment. The molecules in the air, the wavelengths in the light, the soundwaves in the water, come from the distant objects, affording us information about those distant objects.”

It would help me understand what my claim entails if you were to tell me what mental object the cctv is supposed to represent in your analogy, so that you can demonstrate that your analogy isn’t false.

I am in a room with the door closed, I hear a sound. I infer that the sound came from outside the room. I may be wrong, but I infer it.

In this case, is it the correct use of language to say “I have direct contact with what is outside the room”?

No, but you would have direct contact with the medium through which the waves travelled, the air. The air comes from and is a feature of the mind-independent world.

No, but you would have direct contact with the medium through which the waves travelled, the air. The air comes from and is a feature of the mind-independent world. — NOS4A2

I am in a room with the door closed. I hear a sound I infer is from outside the room that sounds like a bark.

You say that hearing this sound means that I am in direct contact with whatever is outside the room.

But how can I be in direct contact with what is outside the room, when I have no idea what is outside the room that made the noise?

For example, the noise could have been made by a dog, wolf, coyote, fox, seal, bird, human, tv program, radio program, truck, car, toy, horn, alarm, cuica percussion instrument or numerous other things..

Even in ordinary language, should we say that we are in direct contact with something when we don't even know what we are in direct contact with?

However, on the other hand, the Indirect Realist would agree with you that we are in direct contact with the sound, regardless of what the cause was outside the room.

Why can't "that object is orange" mean the same thing as "that object reflects the wavelengths of light required for me to see it as orange"? — flannel jesus

It can. But what does the word "orange" mean/refer to in the ending phrase "for me to see it as orange"? It refers to the phenomenal character of your first person experience and not a mind-independent property of the object.

You just need to make sure you don't conflate. This is why I think it's clearer if we interpret "the object is orange" as "the object appears orange". The grammar of the first suggests that this phenomenal character is a property of the object (naive colour realism), which is false.

You’re right. “Information” is a verb-to-noun derivation. There is no referent. If I was to be more precise (and careful) I’d say “The molecules in the air, the wavelengths in the light, the soundwaves in the water, come from the distant objects, informing us about those distant objects.” There is no need to go on multiplying entities, after all. — NOS4A2

A thrown ball hitting my head informs me about a person throwing a ball at my head, but that doesn't mean that the ball hitting my head is direct perception of the person who threw it. There's something missing from this account.

My account is quite different. Here’s what I actually said:

“our senses are in direct contact with those mediums, whatever information they afford us, and those mediums are features of the environment. The molecules in the air, the wavelengths in the light, the soundwaves in the water, come from the distant objects, affording us information about those distant objects.” — NOS4A2

All of which happens when I watch a prisoner via CCTV. Yet I don't directly see the prisoner when watching him via CCTV. So the above account does not suitably exclude situations which we ought all agree are indirect perception.

But what does the word "orange" mean/refer to in the ending phrase "for me to see it as orange"? It refers to the phenomenal character of your first person experience and not a mind-independent property of the object. — Michael

Yes it means both things. Contextually you should be able to tell when someone is talking about orange as a property of the thing and orange as a qualia.

Don’t we deserve to understand what we are supposed to call “direct” when described as well. — Richard B

No. Not at all on my view. (I think this is a really weird thing to ask though - what does 'deserve' mean here?) It may not be something available to the human mind. I suggest this is the case, and attempts to get around it into DR-ist theories are simply a reaction to that discomfort. Most response amount to hand-waving, anyhow so that seems relatively simple to understand, even if it's not accepted in your view.

Funnily enough, potentially the best, most well-described system which tried to do this was Kant's CPR in response (fear, really) to Hume's problems of perception and identity - and that resulted in an IR position properly understood.

Perception is biological relation to the environment just like other bodily processes. The fact that errors, like illusion and hallucination, occur does not imply mediation by mental objects. — Richard B

No, but hte well-understood facts do support that. This is why its so hard to understand DR arguments. They seem to fail at the first, empirical, hurdle.

Light is of the mind-independent world; it is absorbed by the eyes; and therefore each of us has direct contact with the “mind-independent world”. Since this contact is direct, so is access to the “mind-independent world”, and there is zero room in space and time for any intermediary. That’s my whole point, basically. — NOS4A2

But this appears to be an incorrect analysis of how that works.

Light does not appear to you. It enters your eyes and, after some other intermediary activity mental images appear to you. Light stops being light at your eyes. Your brain literally constructs images from the data which your eyes derived from that light, as electrical signals, within your brain. This is why you can get after images, because your brain is still constructing an image due to an excess of light enter the eye and distorting the objects its reflected off. This should be sufficient to at least give you pause. You cannot see an object witout light - light is a medium which is not in or of the objects it reflects off of. There is no possible room to call mental images direct, unless you do the thing of saying "direct representations" which is a misnomer because representation already infers intermediacy.

I definitely misspoke in one regard earlier: We are in direct contact with the mind-independent world. I am not an idealist. I apologise for any confusion that caused. But that does not mean that our perception of it is direct. They are two different things. It may be that you and others do not see the distinction, which was why I said it's sound to reject this. If that's your model, then your take will result in a 'direct' description. I think this is empirically incorrect and misleading myself.

My understanding of the problem of perception is whether I can directly perceive the mind-independent world, or if I directly perceive some mind-dependent intermediary, like representations or sense-data — NOS4A2

This is correct. I hope the above clarifies that I'm addressing this specific, and imo, entirely erroneous concept that we do in fact 'directly' perceive.

The words "gold" and "white" in the above sentence refer to the phenomenal quality of the experience that some people have when they look at the photo. — Michael

You simply keep repeating this same error. No, they do not refer to "phenomenal qualities", because such "qualities" are never just "phenomena", they are always public.

Your visor example has been adequately responded to, by myself and others. The visor story feels compelling because it trades on an illicit slide between disruption of discriminatory capacities and reference to private qualia. Once you separate those, the argument collapses.

The semantics are. That's all. Extremely obviously.

No, they do not refer to "phenomenal qualities", because such "qualities" are never just "phenomena", they are always public. — Banno

My headache isn't public. Neither are the colours I see. The example with the faulty and then fixed visors is a simple and intuitive demonstration that there is more to language than you seem willing to admit. Time to move on from Wittgenstein and Austin.

Your visor example has been adequately responded to, by myself and others. — Banno

You never responded to it.

My headache isn't public. — Michael

That's irrelevant. The question is not whether experiences are private. The question is whether the meaning and reference of colour words is fixed by those private experiences. “Red” is not like “my headache”, colour words are not avowals of inner states, they are world-directed predicates governed by norms of correctness.

If colour terms worked like headache reports, then disagreement, correction, and error about colour would be impossible. But as the dress demonstrates, plainly they aren’t.

I replied to your visor example here, here and here.
This is probably the most salient bit:

. But yours is a much imporved argument. Indeed, it supports direct realism by showing that we routinely and intelligibly “see through” intermediaries without reifying them as perceptual objects. — Banno

And

In your visor world, the visors drop out of the discussion when folk talk about ships. They are not seeing the image on the screen, they are seeing ship. — Banno

I replied to your visor example here, here and here. — Banno

The most recent of those was from 13 days ago. The post I referenced (and repeated) was from 8 days ago.

That's irrelevant. — Banno

It's not if you want to continue to claim that words don't refer to private experiences. Do you at least accept that the word "headache" does?

If colour terms worked like headache reports, then disagreement, correction, and error about colour would be impossible. But as the dress demonstrates, plainly they aren’t. — Banno

The dress demonstrates the opposite, and it's absurd that you think otherwise. The reason some people say "I see a white and gold dress" and others say "I see a black and blue dress" is because they are having different visual experiences, and they are using the words that they associate with the character of their visual experiences. Any "disagreement" about the colour of the dress is a tacit endorsement of the naive view that the phenomenal character of their experience is a mind-independent property of the dress, which is a fundamentally mistaken view. Common (and understandable), but still mistaken.

The trivial truth you trading on is that different viewers of the dress have different visual experiences, that Visual experience plays a causal role in what people say. That is not in question.

Then, with "they are using the words that they associate with the character of their visual experiences", you slide from experience causally influences word use to experience fixes meaning and reference.

If causal influence were sufficient for reference, then “loud” would refer to cochlear activity, “heavy” to muscle strain, and “square” to retinal stimulation. But they do not. We hear the sound, feel the weight, and see the shape.

You suppose that any “disagreement”, be it bent stick, visor, dress or whatever, is a tacit endorsement of the naive view that the phenomenal character of their experience is a mind-independent property. But disagreement presupposes shared norms of correctness, not naive metaphysics. People disagree about whether something is funny, whether a painting is balanced, whether a sound is too loud, without supposing that their experiences are literally properties of objects. The disagreement is about how public concepts apply under given conditions, not about whose inner screen mirrors reality.

The very intelligibility of the disagreement shows that “white”, “gold”, “black”, and “blue” are not names for private qualia. If they were, each speaker would be infallible. Your example works against your account. We can ask “Which colour is it really?”, “What lighting was it under?” “Why do cameras show it differently?” “What colour is the fabric?” only because colour terms are world-directed and corrigible. If they were nothing but private sensations, these questions would be useless.

You would maintain that
1. Colour terms refer to private phenomenal character.
2. Speakers can disagree about colour.
3. Speakers can be wrong about colour.
4. Colour talk is public and communicable.
But (1) is incompatible with (2),(3) and (4).

Two people can disagree about whether the bath is hot or cold. It does not then follow that the bath either "really is" hot or "really is" cold, and that one of them is feeling it wrong. The reality is that the bath causes one to feel hot and the other to feel cold, and the words "hot" and "cold" are referring to their private sensations.

And, once again, the example with the faulty and then fixed visors is a simple demonstration of this with colour. Colour talk is public, they agree or disagree about the colour of strawberries, but then when something changes with their visor they ask why strawberries are now a different colour, and continue to ask this even after confirming that strawberries are still reflecting 700nm light. Evidently whatever is showing on their private screens cannot be dismissed as irrelevant.

Yes.

And what scientists are trying to understand is the color judgment inconsistency with the dress, not demonstrating the accuracy of private color experiences.

A similar example is that cats can see in conditions that a human would describe as completely dark. Is it dark or not? It depends your sensory apparatus.

Two people can disagree about whether the bath is hot or cold. It does not then follow that the bath either "really is" hot or "really is" cold, and that one of them is wrong. The reality is that the bath causes one to feel hot and the other to feel cold, and the words "hot" and "cold" are referring to their private sensations. — Michael

Read that again, carefully.

Yes, one person feels hot, the other cold. Yes, that experience is caused by the bath. But the example does not support the phenomenalist claim. It only illustrates that words are influenced by perception and physiology, not that influence is reference.

Disagreement, surprise, and correction remain intelligible because meaning is not fixed by private sensations, but by shared, world-involving practices. That they disagree makes no sense unless the bath has a temperature that both feel. If it were not public, it would be as if you said "I have a headache" and I replied "No I don't!"


Get out the thermometer.

Yes, one person feels hot, the other cold. — Banno

Yes, so the words "hot" and "cold" refer to those sensations they feel — even though they predicate them of the bath and "disagree".

Get out the thermometer. — Banno

That tells you the temperature, not if it's hot or cold.

That they disagree makes no sense unless the bath has a temperature that both feel. — Banno

Indirect realism isn't disputing this. Remember that it is realism.

Yep.

Yes, so the words "hot" and "cold" refer to the sensations they feel (and even though they predicate them of the bath). — Michael

Saying “the bath is hot” is world-directed. The word “hot” functions as a normative, public concept. What each person feels merely mediates access to that standard — it is not the referent. Again, if two people report opposite sensations, hot and cold, and if “hot” and “cold” referred to private sensations, disagreement would be impossible. The very notion of conflict about the bath would evaporate. But disagreement does occur. You again slide from “experience influences word use” to “words refer to experience.”

If it were not public, it would be as if you said "I have a headache" and I replied "No I don't!" — Banno