Baloney.

Baloney — frank

...as bait? Maybe. Oily, so it'll attract something...

catfish

LOL fair enough.

I agree with Banno, except that straw man (IRists explicitly reject that we know the truth about the world, and instead respect that we know nothing of it besides its triggering tendency to our percepts), and concluding that what he says supports DR.

I also agree with Hanover, and have again, made it explicitly clear that it isn't metaphysics unless you want semantic commitment to override physics. That would be a metaphysical commitment, conceptually.

I agree with Michael about most of what he's said.

That is why it is not a definitional issue. It is one of wilfully ignoring the question in service of either comfort, or really shining Austin's shoes (its the latter - and i am Joking).

X is the mind-independent world. Contact with it is constant and immediate. One cannot disprove that with false analogies, formal hocus-pocus, and imagining off into strange worlds. You have no argument; there is no justification for your position; and it comes from a limited view which seeks to limit itself further by pretending something mediates his contact with the world immediately outside himself.

You have no argument; there is no justification for your position; and it comes from a limited view which seeks to limit itself further by pretending something mediate his contact with the world immediately outside himself. — NOS4A2

You don't even know what you're saying, let alone what the dispute is. You think your intuitions are arguments and deal with complex empirical issues that humans are not disposed to solve. Craziness.

I agree with Banno, except that straw man (IRists explicitly reject that we know the truth about the world, and instead respect that we know nothing of it besides its triggering tendency to our percepts), and concluding that what he says supports DR. — AmadeusD

Right. It's a strawman that indirect realists deny that we know truths about the world. That's what you mean, right?

The straw man to which I referred is the one proffered as the only alternative to indirect realism, is the contentious "direct realism" of their imaginings.

The straw man to which I referred is the one proffered as the only alternative to indirect realism, is the contentious "direct realism" of their imaginings. — Banno

I'm confused then. They're both realists.

Here:

“Direct realism” is not a position that emerged from philosophers asking how perception is best understood, so much as a reaction to dialectical pressure created by a certain picture of perception, roughly: the idea that what we are immediately aware of are internal intermediaries, be they sense-data, representations, appearances, mental images, from which the external world is inferred.

Once that picture is in place, a binary seems forced: either we perceive the world indirectly, via inner objects; or we perceive it directly, without intermediaries. “Direct realism” is then coined as the negation of the first horn. It is not so much a positive theory as a reactive label: not that. This already suggests the diagnosis: the term exists because something has gone wrong earlier in the framing.

What those who reject indirect realism are actually rejecting may not be indirectness as such, but the reification of something “given” — an object of awareness that is prior to, or independent of, our conceptual, practical, and normative engagement with the world. Once you posit sense-data, qualia as objects, appearances as inner items, you generate the “veil of perception” problem automatically. “Direct realism” then looks like the heroic attempt to tear down the veil. But if you never put the veil there in the first place, there is nothing to tear down.

You see the cat. Perhaps you see it in the mirror, or turn to see it directly. And here the word "directly" has a use. You see the ship indirectly through the screen of your camera, but directly when you look over the top; and here the word "directly" has a use. The philosophical use of ‘indirect’ is parasitic on ordinary contrasts that do not support the theory. “Directly” is contrastive and context-bound, it does not name a metaphysical relation of mind to object, it does not imply the absence of causal mediation.

What you do not see is a sense datum, a representation, an appearance, or a mental image. You might well see by constructing such a representation, and all the physics and physiology that involves. But to claim that what you see is that construct and not the cat is a mistake.

One can admit that neural representations exist and denying that such things are the objects of perception. These neural representations are our seeing, not what we see. — Banno

C3 literally says "I do not have direct perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds". — Michael

OK. Now I ask you whether you think that we have indirect perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds.

If P4 is false, and the apple continues to exist for the entire 30 seconds of the experiment, does the experiment not become a case of direct perception?
— Ludwig V
No, because as per C3 I do not have direct perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds, even though the apple exists during the first 10 seconds. — Michael

You misunderstand me. I'm proposing a variant of your thought experiment in which the apple continues to exist for the entire 30 seconds of the experiment. In that variant, it seems that you might be committed to saying that we have direct perception of the apple.

Here 's a variant of your argument, making a different assumption about the fate of the apple.
P4a. The apple exists during the second 10 seconds
C1a. Therefore, the apple is a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
C2a. Therefore, the apple is a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds
C3a. Therefore, I do have direct perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds
I think, on that different assumption, C3a follows.

2. We have direct visual perception of mental phenomena — Michael

That's compatible with our having direct visual perception of other people's mental phenomena. I don't believe you mean that. I think you mean to say that we have direct visual perception
of our own mental phenomena.

I agree. But the way I'm seeing things, the former is how things actually are, and the latter is intuition without analysis in the way "vulgar" was used in 18th/19thC philosophy. That's why I say that use isn't problematic, it just isn't all that relevant to us here. — AmadeusD

Is that where you think I've gone wrong?
The question is whether you want to say that the vulgar account of the matter is just a different account for different purposes in a different context or that it is wrong. I understand IR to be saying that DR is wrong.
There is also the question how far a theoretical stance is appropriate in philosophy. I have severe doubts about that. But even if it is ok, the vulgar stance takes account of things that the theoretical stance neglects - that we are not simply observers in the world but agents in it and part of it. I'm not sure how, exactly, that plays into the argument, but I am sure it should be important to philosophy.

the difference doesn't have anything to do with your experience - they function the same in each example. If you watched the game on a five-minute delay (common, even for "live" broadcasts) you would be seeing something older when you looked at the window at the Sun. This does not sit well with the idea that the Sun is the direct one, and not the other. But I reject both, so that's cool. — AmadeusD

H'm. One difference is that the recording can be replayed many times and places. The light arriving from the sun cannot be replayed at all. Putting it another way, being there makes a difference, in a sort of "what it is like to be a bat" way.

"So what?" is definitely the simplest, easiest and least analytical conclusion. I also think it's true - so what? I don't care that my perception of the Sun is indirect. This can cut both ways. — AmadeusD

If the difference between IR and DR doesn't make any difference, why are we so bothered about it?

Direct perception is the concept that first-personal experience is constituted by objects in the world. IR is that this experience is constituted by mental images derived from sense data. — AmadeusD

Well, that helps me a lot. I don't understand what it would mean to say that first-person experience is constituted by anything, never mind objects in the world and the reification of mental images seems to me to be a mistake. [/quote]

But if you think about it , our visual experience of the phenomena is perfectly compatible with both stories.
— Ludwig V
Oh yes. If it wasn't as clear as I thought, this was one central tenet of that long reply. The stories we tell don't answer anything, which is why relying on semantics or word use to sort this particular issue out to me is quite unattractive. Possibly dysfunctional. — AmadeusD

That's right. For me, the scientific story is a partial analysis of how perception (DR) works. So what do you think we can appeal to?

You don't even know what you're saying, let alone what the dispute is. You think your intuitions are arguments and deal with complex empirical issues that humans are not disposed to solve. Craziness.

You believe you can’t see the real world. Bizarre.

X is the mind-independent world. — NOS4A2

You're committing an association fallacy.

As apparently I need to be even more explicit:

P1. We have direct perception of X iff our sense organs are in direct physical contact with X
C1. Therefore, we have direct visual perception of apples iff our visual sense organs are in direct physical contact with apples
P2. Our visual sense organs are not in direct physical contact with apples
C2. Therefore, we do not have direct visual perception of apples

Either C2 is true or P1 is false. You can't avoid this.

OK. Now I ask you whether you think that we have indirect perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds. — Ludwig V

Yes. Given that I have perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds but don't have direct perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds it follows that I have indirect perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds.

I figured this was quite clearly implied when I said: "The experience during the first 10 seconds ... is still the experience of an apple; it just isn't the direct perception of an apple."

Here 's a variant of your argument, making a different assumption about the fate of the apple.
P4a. The apple exists during the second 10 seconds
C1a. Therefore, the apple is a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
C2a. Therefore, the apple is a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds
C3a. Therefore, I do have direct perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds
I think, on that different assumption, C3a follows. — Ludwig V

What premises are you deriving C1a from?

But see also P5 and C4 of my argument. In that scenario we see an apple be disintegrated almost in real time, just as we would in real life. The apple exists for almost the full 20 seconds we see it (take a fraction of a millisecond, given that the speed of light isn't infinity) but it still follows that we do not have direct perception of it.

But then we should be clear that this is no longer (or not yet) a theory of perception in the philosophically relevant sense. It’s a theory of phenomenal constituency. — Esse Quam Videri

It's very relevant, and drives the epistemological problem of perception. The worry is that if distal objects and their properties are not constituents of first-person phenomenal experience then the mind-independent nature of the world might be very different to how things appear to us, e.g. things might be coloured differently, or not coloured at all (à la Locke's secondary qualities). In the more extreme case we might be unable to deny transcendental idealism, with distal objects being noumena.

We've been around the block a few times now in this discussion, so I'd like to switch gears for a moment. You've repeatedly appealed to science as providing evidence that the world is very different from how it appears to us. My question is: if all empirical evidence ultimately comes through perception (including scientific observation and instrument readings), in what sense can science correct perception without presupposing that perception is already world-directed and normatively answerable to reality?

in what sense can science correct perception without presupposing that perception is already world-directed and normatively answerable to reality? — Esse Quam Videri

Who says it's not? It's entirely possible that all these are true:

1. Distal objects and their properties are not constituents of first-person phenomenal experience
2. Qualia/sense data are the constituents of first-person phenomenal experience
3. Colours as ordinarily understood are qualia/sense data, not mind-independent properties of a distal object's surface
4. The mind-independent nature of the world is very different to how things appear to us
5. Perception is "world-directed and normatively answerable to reality"

Admittedly I still don't quite understand what (5) is supposed to mean, but prima facie (and consistent with our previous arguments), I don't see any inconsistencies with the above. (1) - (4) suffices as indirect realism, as I understand it, and is the scientific view of perception.

I figured this was quite clearly implied when I said: "The experience during the first 10 seconds ... is still the experience of an apple; it just isn't the direct perception of an apple." — Michael

Thank you for the clarification.

But see also P5 and C4 of my argument. In that scenario we see an apple be disintegrated almost in real time, just as we would in real life. The apple exists for almost the full 20 seconds we see it (take a fraction of a millisecond, given that the speed of light isn't infinity) but it still follows that we do not have direct perception of it. — Michael

Yes. It was always obvious that the 1 m/s was a stalking horse, because it was obvious that the actual time lapse doesn't make any difference. That's why I'm not questioning it.

P3. If the apple is a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds then it is a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
P4. The apple exists during the second 10 seconds
C2. Therefore, the apple is a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds
C1. Therefore, the apple is a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
C3. Therefore, I have direct perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds — Michael

Your argument is modus tollens. This argument is modus ponens from similar assumptions, but assuming that the apple is not disintegrated. It seems to me just obvious that on that assumption, direct perception follows. In short, I don't see how you can generalize from the specific case in which the apple disappears.

we perceive it directly, without intermediaries. — Banno

I don't think "directly" as "without intermediaries" works. It could point to some version of the Aristotelian account of perception, but that's not a promising road to go down. We posit a subject and an object separated by space. There must be a connection or relationship between the two. That's the peg on which "indirect" hangs. The idea that the object of perception must be a constituent of the experience might be regarded as a model of what perception without intermediaries looks like. But it seems to me to be a weak point.

“Directly” is contrastive and context-bound, — Banno

I think the idea is that introspection provides the model for "direct" and so justifies "indirect" for the alternative. I think it's the reification of "experience", "perception" &c., that is the key issue.

it does not name a metaphysical relation of mind to object, it does not imply the absence of causal mediation. — Banno

Yes, but while we may want to call causal mediation a direct connection, others may have a different model. That could be a stalemate position, unless there is an actual refutation available.

My question is: if all empirical evidence ultimately comes through perception (including scientific observation and instrument readings), in what sense can science correct perception without presupposing that perception is already world-directed and normatively answerable to reality? — Esse Quam Videri

There's something wrong with that presupposition. Perception and evidence do not come in a single harmonious system. Different perceptions can conflict, bits of evidence can point to different conclusions. We have to sort through them and make decisions. Sometimes we choose one perception or piece of evidence over another. Sometimes we reject our theories and develop new ways to interpret perceptions. That's what "world-directed" and normatively answerable to reality mean.

Admittedly I still don't quite understand what (5) is supposed to mean — Michael

Basically (5) is just another way of saying that if perception were not capable of providing knowledge of distal objects and their properties then the whole notion of being correct or incorrect about such objects (whether through science or any other practice) becomes unintelligible. So the acceptance of (5) would seem to be at odds with any interpretation of (1) - (4) that would rule out the ability of perception to provide us with knowledge of distal objects and their properties.

So the question is: in your framework, what would the acceptance of (5) really amount to given that your interpretation of (1) - (4) apparently rules it out from the start?

P3. If the apple is a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds then it is a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
P4. The apple exists during the second 10 seconds
C2. Therefore, the apple is a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds — Ludwig V

C2 doesn't follow.

So the acceptance of (5) would seem to be at odds with any interpretation of (1) - (4) that would rule out the ability of perception to provide us with knowledge of distal objects and their properties. — Esse Quam Videri

That's not what's claimed? The claim is that the world might be very different to how it appears — and I think science has proven that it is.

Science doesn't require that we have direct perception of atoms for us to have knowledge of atoms.

Science doesn't require that we have direct perception of atoms for us to have knowledge of atoms. — Michael

No, but it's hard to understand how knowledge of atoms can get off the ground unless perception can underwrite the correctness of the practices through which that knowledge is obtained.

Perception and evidence do not come in a single harmonious system. Different perceptions can conflict, bits of evidence can point to different conclusions. We have to sort through them and make decisions. Sometimes we choose one perception or piece of evidence over another. Sometimes we reject our theories and develop new ways to interpret perceptions. That's what "world-directed" and normatively answerable to reality mean. — Ludwig V

I don't deny any of this.

Oh dear!

But the fact remains that your argument depends on P4 - the apple does not exist during the second 10 seconds. So if we change or even just delete that premiss, your conclusion does not follow. Without that premiss, you cannot assert C1 or C2 or C3.

P3. If the apple is a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds then it is a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
P4. The apple does not exist during the second 10 seconds
C1. Therefore, the apple is not a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds
C2. Therefore, the apple is not a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds
C3. Therefore, I do not have direct perception of the apple during the first 10 seconds — Michael

That's quite apart from the problem with P3. I can see no reason why the apple cannot be a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds and not a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds.

I don't deny any of this. — Esse Quam Videri

I guess I misunderstood you. Sorry.

No worries.

But the fact remains that your argument depends on P4 - the apple does not exist during the second 10 seconds. So if we change or even just delete that premiss, your conclusion does not follow. Without that premiss, you cannot assert C1 or C2 or C3. — Ludwig V

Well, yes, that's how all arguments work?

I can see no reason why the apple cannot be a constituent of the experience during the first 10 seconds and not a constituent of the experience during the second 10 seconds. — Ludwig V

So now you reject P3? Here you said "I would then point out that the relationship of the apple to the light signal during the first 10 seconds and the second 10 seconds is identical. You have no ground for distinguishing between the two."

It seems to me that you're moving the goalposts and contradicting yourself, and so this rejection of P3 is an ad hoc rationalization to avoid the conclusion, which seems rather dishonest.

No, but it's hard to understand how knowledge of atoms can get off the ground unless perception can underwrite the correctness of the practices through which that knowledge is obtained. — Esse Quam Videri

Indirect realism doesn't say that it doesn't?

You're reading something into indirect realism that I just don't understand. The people wearing the visors all have indirect perception of the wider world but can still do science just as well as we can.

You're reading something into indirect realism that I just don't understand. The people wearing the visors all have indirect perception of the wider world but can still do science just as well as we can. — Michael

On your view, how is this possible? What enables these people to get any epistemic purchase on distal objects such that their claims about such objects can be correct or incorrect?

What enables these people to get any epistemic purchase on distal objects such that their claims about such objects can be correct or incorrect? — Esse Quam Videri

The same thing that enables the people with bionic eyes to do this? Unless you can point out exactly what the problem is I don't know how I can answer the question.