Sorry, away for a few days. What stands out about this (excellent) breakdown is that neither interpretation is obviously wrong or incoherent. Now, I'm wondering if this entire debate hinges on the question, "what counts as the subject?"

Subject-as-organism: Nothing inside the organism can mediate between the organism and the world. These interior features are a part of the organism that does the perceiving. Direct realism follows.
Subject-as-conscious-subset: The environment of this subject is an environment provided by the brain. The brain itself, in particular phenomenal states, stand between this subject and the world. Indirect realism follows.

Neither of these perspectives on the subject is intrinsically wrong. Am I the organism, or the conscious agent? They are both valid ways of looking at what counts as the subject. And so neither direct nor indirect realism is intrinsically wrong. If so, the debate will never end until both sides understand this fact.

This brings up an interesting point. There are some questions which are not subject to one definitive answer, call them "Type A" questions. I.e. Is the bag heavy? Which coordinate system should be used? Is the picture of an old or young woman? It is wrong to insist on one answer to Type A questions.



Then there are "Type B" questions, where errors indicate misunderstanding or mismeasurement: How much does the bag weigh? Which coordinate system is being used? Is the picture also of a squirrel? It is wrong to allow for multiple answers to Type B questions.

I suspect direct/indirect realism is a Type A question. But how do we know? In general, how do we know if we are dealing with a Type A or Type B question?

Surely if I see an intact apple 10m in front of me but there is not an intact apple 10m in front of me then the direct object of perception is not an intact apple 10m in front of me? — Michael

There is a problem from the start here. You think that "the direct object of perception" refers to something. If I've understood you, you don't know what the something is. But I'm not convinced that the phrase does refer to anything. But it seems you are looking for something that it exactly what it seems to be, about which I cannot be wrong. That sounds like introspection of a phenomenal object, so that's how I am interpreting you.
It is clear that if there is not an intact apple in front of me, I am not perceiving or seeing an apple. I think that is true whether we are talking about direct or indirect perception. But it is very tempting to think that even if I am not seeing an apple, if I believe that I am seeing an apple, then I must be seeing something apple-like.
I am a bit confused about this example, so I will propose another case. When I watch the start of a horse-race, I can see the tape go up and hear the starting gun. But, if I am some distance away, I may hear the gun some time after the tape goes up. But I see no problem in saying that I hear it. Similarly, in the case of the sun, I see no problem in saying that I see the sun as it was eight minutes before I saw it. I can't see any problem that is resolved by proposing that an image is involved in the process.

I think indirect realism is best understand in contrast to the naive realism it disputes. Whereas "semantic" direct realists might mean something else by "direct" I think both naive and indirect realists mean the same thing, and our perception of distal objects is not direct in the way that naive realism says it is. — Michael

This is a bit confusing. Direct and indirect realism are opposites, but linked in that direct and indirect are defined in opposition to each other. So you would have thought that they could agree on what the issue is. But I don't really understand what naive realism is. (Nor do I know what "semantic" direct realists are.) So I doubt that I can say anything much about this. But what is the thing that both naive and indirect realists agree about?

I think there is a perception; it's what exists/occurs when the visual cortex is active in the right kind of way. Although whether this thing is physical or a non-physical emergent phenomenon is the biggest question in the philosophy (and science) of mind. — Michael

You are moving between thinking of a perception as an entity and as a process, which makes this rather hard to understand. I guess everyone agrees that there is a physical process involved, and it is worth noting that when this debate started, with Bishop Berkeley, those processes were more or less completely unknown. I think that the issue here is how we regard the internal processing that goes on.

I’d be interested in understanding what ulterior motive lies behind their promotion. What do we stand to lose if we lose these concepts? I suspect it’s something like losing Zeus when we came to better understand the skies. — NOS4A2

I expect you know about the scene in Shakespeare's play about Macbeth in which he thinks he sees a dagger in front of him and makes a long speech about how guilty he feels about the murders he has committed. It's a hallucination, so he doesn't see a dagger. But yet, we want to say, he must be seeing something dagger-like.

Neither of these perspectives on the subject is intrinsically wrong. Am I the organism, or the conscious agent? They are both valid ways of looking at what counts as the subject. And so neither direct nor indirect realism is intrinsically wrong. If so, the debate will never end until both sides understand this fact. — hypericin

That's very plausible. But I think there is a bit more to be said about how and why the debate arises and why one position or the other is more attractive to adherents.

But I think there is a bit more to be said about how and why the debate arises and why one position or the other is more attractive to adherents. — Ludwig V

For sure. Couldn't it just be that we tend to favor one perspective over the other in our daily lives? That one of them is viscerally lived, while the other is more intellectual abstraction? I am an indirect realist. Perhaps as a reflection of introversion, I tend to think of myself as a conscious subset. I am the entity residing behind these eyes. I am these thoughts, I am the self which undergoes sensations and feelings. Only at rare moments do I have a more holistic conception of myself. Maybe I am just unenlightened.

Perhaps those with a more integrated default feeling of selfhood tend towards direct realism. How about you?

Couldn't it just be that we tend to favor one perspective over the other in our daily lives? That one of them is viscerally lived, while the other is more intellectual abstraction? — hypericin

There may be some level at which our personality favours one kind of theory over others. Scepticism seems to be a good candidate - a yearning for certainty.
I'm not sure how one would describe the personalities that make for direct or indirect realism. Perhaps indirect realists like a safe distance between themselves and the world?

Perhaps those with a more integrated default feeling of selfhood tend towards direct realism. How about you? — hypericin

A few days ago, I would have said I was a direct realist - possible even a naive one. Now, I'm not so sure. It turns out that I don't really know what direct realism is - and consequently I don't know what indirect realism is. I think I may be a survival from the good old days when almost all philosophy was thought to be meaningless nonsense.
I wouldn't have described myself as an integrated person. I spend most of my life muddling through. Perhaps it is not an accident that I like clarity a lot more than I like solutions.

It is wrong to allow for multiple answers to Type B questions. — hypericin

Wittgenstein would certainly agree with that.
In the Blue Book, he is clear that he is looking for a diagnosis of our philosophical temptations, but he seems to see that as a matter of temptations to misunderstand language. He doesn't, so far as I know, ever get into personality types.

What stands out about this (excellent) breakdown is that neither interpretation is obviously wrong or incoherent. — hypericin

While I agree that IR is not incoherent in the sense of entailing a contradiction, I personally wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s equally correct. In my view, the downstream consequences of IR are not merely distasteful but amount to genuine explanatory failures. And those failures matter because they undercut what a theory of perception is supposed to explain in the first place—namely, the normativity of perception, the possibility of error, and the criteria of perceptual objecthood.

Now, I'm wondering if this entire debate hinges on the question, "what counts as the subject?" — hypericin

It's an interesting question, but I'm skeptical that it can be boiled down in this way. The reason I would resist this framing is that, as a DR, I wouldn't wish to deny or diminish the reality of the subject-as-conscious-subset, provided that this notion is not cashed out in a way that already presupposes an IR answer to the question at issue. If anything, I would argue that the fault-line in the debate runs all the way through how the subject-as-conscious-subset is to be best understood—specifically, whether it must be characterized as an observer standing behind a curtain of phenomenal intermediaries, or as an embodied mode of world-directed access.

As such, I personally don't see this as a Type-A question, because I think that there are some clear explanatory criteria by which each position can be judged.

I have never argued that we can directly perceive an object unless there is contact with the object, for instance touching it or eating it. — NOS4A2

You previously said "Yes, we directly see the environment. That includes the things in that environment."

You now seem to be saying that we do not have direct visual perception of a distant apple — only direct visual perception of light — and so I assume only indirect visual perception of a distant apple?

It is clear that if there is not an intact apple in front of me, I am not perceiving or seeing an apple. — Ludwig V

Maybe you missed the earlier post. This is the thought experiment:

Let's assume that we live in a world in which the air is thick and light has mass and travels at a slow 1m/s. An apple is placed 10m in front of you at 10:00:00. It is disintegrated at 10:00:20.

I would say that given the speed of the light and the distance of the apple that you see an intact apple for 20 seconds between 10:00:10 and 10:00:30 — even though an intact apple doesn’t exist after 10:00:20.

If you disagree then what do you say you see between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30?

This is a bit confusing. Direct and indirect realism are opposites, but linked in that direct and indirect are defined in opposition to each other. So you would have thought that they could agree on what the issue is. But I don't really understand what naive realism is. (Nor do I know what "semantic" direct realists are.) So I doubt that I can say anything much about this. But what is the thing that both naive and indirect realists agree about? — Ludwig V

See Semantic Direct Realism.

P3. The direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds is the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds — Michael

For what it's worth, I would reject this premise as stated. What is directly perceived at one moment need not be numerically identical to what is perceived at another, even if the subject experiences continuity over that interval, since phenomenological continuity does not fix numerical identity of perceptual objects. The fact that residual stimulation or neural persistence continues after the apple disintegrates explains why the experience continues; it does not show that the apple was never the object of perception when it existed.

Likewise, changing the speed of light changes the causal conditions of perception, not its object. Otherwise we would have to say that wearing glasses, anesthesia, or retinal processing changes the object of perception, which seems obviously absurd.

Nothing in this forces the conclusion that we directly perceive proximal stimuli. Causal mediation does not entail perceptual mediation. The argument only succeeds if one assumes that perceptual objects must be invariant across causal descriptions — an assumption I reject. Rejecting that assumption allows us to accept causal mediation and temporal lag without reifying proximal stimuli as perceptual objects.

The fact that residual stimulation or neural persistence continues after the apple disintegrates explains why the experience continues; it does not show that the apple was never the object of perception when it existed. — Esse Quam Videri

I think we need to distinguish between "object of perception" and "direct object of perception".

The apple was the object of perception when it existed but not the direct object of perception. Whatever is the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds is also the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds; it's not as if the latter only came into existence or only became the direct object of perception after the apple was disintegrated.

And I should clarify that I didn't mean to suggest "numerical" identity. I mean to say that the type of thing that is the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds is the type of thing that is the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds.

You previously said "Yes, we directly see the environment. That includes the things in that environment."

Contextomy is a fallacy where you rip a phrase from its context in an attempt to distort the meaning. You can tell from what I wrote after the phrase quoted that my opinion hasn’t changed. You’re trying to create the illusion that I’m being inconsistent, flip-flopping, all while avoiding any and all questions and criticisms of your own view. This bad faith suggests to me that you’re running out of reasonable options. Amadeus had to do the same thing after not being able to produce the very facts he claimed to be in possession of.

Here is the context of the quote for posterity.

Yes, we directly see the environment. That includes the things in that environment. That’s what the idealists call the “mind-independent world” and is the only thing under discussion in the debate. But the question is what are we directly seeing. I say the mediums that come into direct contact with the eyes, and are in fact absorbed by them. Indirect realism postulates sense-data, representations, and so on. We can examine light. We cannot examine sense-data.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1036606

Given the prevalence of this behavior by the indirect realists, the debate must move on to the question of “Why”? Why do this? What beliefs do you stand to lose with the repudiation of indirect realism?

These are three distinct claims:

1. We have direct visual perception of apples
2. We have direct visual perception of light
3. We have direct visual perception of mental phenomena/qualia/sense data

Even if (2) is true it does not follow that (1) is true and even if (3) is false it does not follow that (1) is true. You clearly believe that (2) is true and that (3) is false; but I'm asking you if (1) is true, and if so to make sense of this without resorting to (2).

Here you say "But the 'distal object' you're actually, directly viewing is the screen and your surroundings", suggesting that you believe that (1) is true but here you say "I have never argued that we can directly perceive an object unless there is contact with the object, for instance touching it or eating it", suggesting that you believe that (1) is false. It's perfectly reasonable for me to be confused and to think you're being inconsistent.

So: is (1) true or false?

We’ve already gone through this weeks ago. But you interjected about your belief in “images” before falling back into bad faith when you were asked to describe their properties.

If the apple is now disintegrated then what is the intact apple you see if not an image?

Is this image in the light or in your brain?

We’ve already gone through this weeks ago. — NOS4A2

And evidently you refuse to provide a consistent answer, and seemingly conflate (1) and (2). It's a simple question: is (1) true or false? I can't address your questions until I understand what you think "direct perception" means, and to do that I need an answer to this question.

And evidently you refuse to provide a consistent answer, and seemingly conflate (1) and (2). It's a simple question: is (1) true or false? I can't address your questions until I understand what you think "direct perception" means, and to do that I need an answer to this question.

I’ve already shown that I have never have conflated the two. I’ve explained that the directness of perception is the contact between the environment and our senses.

That leaves you with the answer that we directly perceive the light that directly reflects off the apple. If that does not provide enough information we directly pick up the apple, directly feel the apple, directly smell the molecules of the apple, directly taste it, and so on. This is possible because we have direct perception of the environment. But you knew this already.

I would say that given the speed of the light and the distance of the apple that you see an intact apple for 20 seconds between 10:00:10 and 10:00:30 — even though an intact apple doesn’t exist after 10:00:20. — Michael

So would I, except that I would specify that you see the apple placed in front of you. The delay in transmission does not affect this. I don't see what all the fuss is about.

I think we need to distinguish between "object of perception" and "direct object of perception". — Michael

This begs the question. One can only distinguish two objects of perception of the same thing if one has already accepted indirect realism.

We naively think of this phenomenal quality as being one of the properties that the bird has even when nobody is looking at it, but our science has confirmed that it isn't. — Michael

Back when modern science was being invented, a decision was taken to ignore anything that could not be included in mathematical representations. That is not the same as proving that colours don't exist. All it proves is that modern science cannot recognize them.
Just as we hear sounds as being located at the origin of the sound waves, so we see colours as being located on the surface that is reflecting them. That's part of the phenomenal quality. A system that did not give that information would be pretty useless, don't you think?
The bird is reflecting the light waves that we see as red. We see not only the colour, but where the relevant light waves are coming from. The phenomena are not accurately described unless we acknowledge that the bird is red and red is not in our head.

I would argue that the fault-line in the debate runs all the way through how the subject-as-conscious-subset is to be best understood—specifically, whether it must be characterized as an observer standing behind a curtain of phenomenal intermediaries, or as an embodied mode of world-directed access. — Esse Quam Videri

It is possible to think of the subject as a dis-embodier observer. That happens when we think about the observer in a picture as we are deciphering the perspective in the picture. It's also implicit in the concept of the "point of view" in cinematography. That's the concept that allows this problem to get hold of us. The embodied subject allows us to see perception as part of a system, linked to other activities as part of an internal control system, which cannot sensibly be thought of in the same breath as anything going on outside or beyond or independently of the system. This avoids the temptation to think of perception as a process with a terminus - the "experience". I admit this is all a bit rough-and-ready, but I have little doubt that it is more constructive that trying to establish a direct-indirect distinction in a conceptual vacuum.

That leaves you with the answer that we directly perceive the light that directly reflects off the apple. — NOS4A2

But do we directly perceive the apple? Is (1) true or false?

So would I, except that I would specify that you see the apple placed in front of you. The delay in transmission does not affect this. I don't see what all the fuss is about. — Ludwig V

The "fuss" is that between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30 I see an intact red apple 10m in front of me even though there isn't an intact red apple 10m in front of me — because it was disintegrated at 10:00:20.

So what is the direct object of perception between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30? I say that whatever is the direct object of perception between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30 is also the direct object of perception between 10:00:10 and 10:00:20, and that the direct object of perception between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30 isn't the apple because it no longer exists.

This begs the question. One can only distinguish two objects of perception of the same thing if one has already accepted indirect realism. — Ludwig V

It doesn't beg the question because it doesn't assume that the apple is not the direct object of perception; it only asserts that something can be the object of perception but not the direct object of perception, e.g. if I'm watching something on CCTV then the thing I'm watching is the object (or "event" if you prefer) of perception but not the direct object of perception. It's important that we don't conflate "object of perception" and "direct object of perception" so as not to equivocate.

What is directly perceived?
DR: doorbell (D) as-chiming (Ch)
IR: chiming (Ch) — Esse Quam Videri

Can you "directly perceive" D without knowing you perceive D at all? This seems to strain any notion of directness. The observer knows they perceive Ch. If you ask them what they perceive, they would reply, "a chiming sound, I'm not sure what it is." But they do not know they are perceiving D, a doorbell.

Either, your notion of directness must surmount this disjunction, so that both are directly perceived. If so, you are working with a very different notion of directness than we are. Or, you must deny (as I suspect) that Ch is perceived at all. But, this contradicts how we speak of, and understand, Ch. You are forced to refute this folk understanding that would say, "I perceive a chiming sound". But I have not seen this explicitly done.

Michael has used a bit of rhetoric to put those opposed to indirect perception on the back foot. They feel obliged to defend "direct" realism.

What one sees is the apple with a ten-second delay. What one does not see is some mental representation of the apple as it was ten seconds ago.

Whatever is the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds is also the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds — Michael

This is the claim I don’t accept. Phenomenal continuity does not entail the ontological continuity of the perceptual object. Since I deny that perception is reducible to phenomenology, this shouldn't be much of a surprise.

Insisting on type-invariance rules this out by stipulation. But the only reason to impose that requirement is if one already assumes that direct objects must be internal, continuously present, and phenomenally given—which is precisely the indirect realist conclusion the argument is meant to establish.

So the apple disintegration case doesn’t show that apples are never directly perceived. It shows that if one defines “direct object of perception” in a way that requires invariant intermediaries, then only invariant intermediaries can qualify. That’s not an argument for indirect realism; it’s a restatement of it.

The observer knows they perceive Ch. If you ask them what they perceive, they would reply, "a chiming sound, I'm not sure what it is." But they do not know they are perceiving D, a doorbell. — hypericin

Take a close look at what the observer says in response to your question about what they've heard: "a chiming sound, I'm not sure what it is".

That uncertainty is doing real work here. The phenomenology of the event is such that the chiming is presented as of something else. The observer hasn't yet identified what this "something else" is, but they've clearly grasped that the chiming as-such is not it. The chiming is not presented as a self-standing object of perception, but as the manner in which some other (yet to be identified) object is presented.

— I think this is exactly right about where the temptation comes from. Once perception is understood as an embodied, world-regulating activity within a control system, the idea that it terminates in an “experience” isn’t just unhelpful—it’s a category mistake. In that setting, error and justification are inherently object-directed, embedded in ongoing action and correction. Reintroducing phenomenal intermediaries isn’t a neutral alternative description; it reinstates the very picture that made perception seem epistemically problematic in the first place.

— Agreed. Well said.

It doesn't beg the question because it doesn't assume that the apple is not the direct object of perception; it only asserts that something can be the object of perception but not the direct object of perception, e.g. if I'm watching something on CCTV then the thing I'm watching is the object (or "event" if you prefer) of perception but not the direct object of perception. It's important that we don't conflate "object of perception" and "direct object of perception" so as not to equivocate. — Michael

What experiment would prove the validity of direct realism as you define direct realism?

I say that whatever is the direct object of perception between 10:00:20 and 10:00:30 is also the direct object of perception between 10:00:10 and 10:00:20, — Michael

H'm. Perhaps we agree, then. What is perceived is the same object in both time periods. I see the apple during the first time period, so I also see the apple in the second time period.

if I'm watching something on CCTV then the thing I'm watching is the object (or "event" if you prefer) of perception but not the direct object of perception. — Michael

OK. So you are really watching the TV, not the event shown on the TV? It sounds a bit daft. A TV just sits there and does nothing. In other words, to describe the object of perception as the TV in this case excludes the point of the exercise, which is not to watch the TV, but to watch the match. So I'll agree that I'm watching the match by means of the TV, if you'll agree that to say that one is watching it indirectly misrepresents the point of the exercise. To repeat, watching the match is the point - the TV is just the means to an end.

Michael has used a bit of rhetoric to put those opposed to indirect perception on the back foot. They feel obliged to defend "direct" realism. — Banno

Yes. I like the quote marks. I've decided that calling it direct realism is not helpful.

What experiment would prove the validity of direct realism as you define direct realism? — Hanover

It would have to show that the world is actually a dream. You directly perceive the world because there's no interface. The world is created by you, from the contents of you. It would have to show that you're God.

It would have to show that the world is actually a dream. You directly perceive the world because there's no interface. The world is created by you, from the contents of you. It would have to show that you're God. — frank

I mean lay out the methodology of this experiment, show me what we're measuring, and show me the results we have to arrive at to prove direct realism is true.

My point just being that the question is nonsense. It can't be proved in principle. It's unverifiable, just as is indirect realism is unfalsifiable. You would have to assume indirect realism to even perform an empirical analysis, considering empirical measurement relies upon perception.

For some reason this thread conflates "physical" with "metaphysical." Telling me we describe apples in the physical world as X doesn't tell me the fundamental nature of things. It can't.

The phenomenology of the event is such that the chiming is presented as of something else. The observer hasn't yet identified what this "something else" is, but they've clearly grasped that the chiming as-such is not it. The chiming is not presented as a self-standing object of perception, but as the manner in which some other (yet to be identified) object is presented. — Esse Quam Videri

You are conflating "self standing object" with "self standing object of perception". The chiming is the latter but not the former. Chiming indicates something it is not, a doorbell or chime. Yet it can be discussed, contemplated, appreciated on its own, independent of object.

The best example is music. People don't spend thousands of hours and dollars on music because of some distal object it might represent. The music itself, the phenomenology, is what is attended to and enjoyed.

I mean lay out the methodology of this experiment, show me what we're measuring, and show me the results we have to arrive at to prove direct realism is true.

My point just being that the question is nonsense. It can't be proved in principle. It's unverifiable, just as is indirect realism is unfalsifiable. You would have to assume indirect realism to even perform an empirical analysis, considering empirical measurement relies upon perception.

For some reason this thread conflates "physical" with "metaphysical." Telling me we describe apples in the physical world as X doesn't tell me the fundamental nature of things. It can't. — Hanover

Some people wouldn't be able to accept what you're saying because it would mean they have to accept that the world may be a dream. We really don't know. It's emotion that makes them cling fiercely to a particular worldview, so they don't care if what they're saying is nonsense.

I think there's an incomprehensibility field around Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Even after a person understands it, they'll say yes, but.. the world is this or that. Emotion drags the mind around. The only way to free the mind is to admit: I don't know.

But do we directly perceive the apple? Is (1) true or false?

Not with our eyes. There is light and space in between the apple and the perceiver.

What is the light and other mind-independent mediators supposed to represent in your analogy of mind-dependent perception? What does the indirect realist directly perceive?

It comes back to whether what we see is an apple or a mental-image-of-an-apple. But that's a infelicitous question.

H'm. Perhaps we agree, then. What is perceived is the same object in both time periods. I see the apple during the first time period, so I also see the apple in the second time period. — Ludwig V

Yes, but in the second time period the apple is not the direct object of perception because there is no apple.

OK. So you are really watching the TV, not the event shown on the TV? — Ludwig V

I don't know what you mean by "really watching".

I am saying that a) I am watching someone rob the store and b) the direct object of perception is not someone robbing the store.

Even the direct realist will likely admit that (b) is true; he will likely say that the images on the screen are the direct object of perception.

It's still the case that (a) is true, showing that "object of perception" and "direct object of perception" do not mean the same thing, and that something can be the former even if it's not the latter.

But the only reason to impose that requirement is if one already assumes that direct objects must be internal, continuously present, and phenomenally given—which is precisely the indirect realist conclusion the argument is meant to establish. — Esse Quam Videri

It's not the indirect realist conclusion. It's the meaning of the term "direct perception" as used by both indirect realists and their direct (naive) realist opponents. As I said before, when they say that "we (don't) have direct perception of ordinary objects" they are saying that "ordinary objects are (not) phenomenally present".

From Martin (2004):

On [the naive realist] conception of experience, when one is veridically perceiving the objects of perception are constituents of the experiential episode. The given event could not have occurred without these entities existing and being constituents of it in turn, one could not have had such a kind of event without there being relevant candidate objects of perception to be apprehended. So, even if those objects are implicated in the causes of the experience, they also figure non-causally as essential constituents of it... Mere presence of a candidate object will not be sufficient for the perceiving of it, that is true, but its absence is sufficient for the non-occurrence of such an event. The connection here is [one] of a constitutive or essential condition of a kind of event.

Using this account, the naive realist must accept that the apple is not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the second 10 seconds — because no such apple exists — and so is not the direct object of perception. My claim is that if it's not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the second 10 seconds then it's not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the first 10 seconds. It existed and was causally responsible for the experiential episode, but even the naive realist acknowledges above that this alone is insufficient.

Again, you clearly just mean something else by "direct perception" and "direct object of perception", and other than the use of the label "direct" it's not clear how the substance of your position is incompatible with the substance of indirect realism.