I think you’re running together causal intermediacy with epistemic/intentional intermediacy.

1) Glass/fog/glasses don’t make perception “indirect” in the IR sense.

They are conditions that modulate how the same world-directed act succeeds or fails. They don’t introduce a distinct intentional terminus that I am aware of and only through which I access the world. Most of the time I don’t see “the glass” at all; I see the street through it. If the glass becomes salient (dirty, scratched), then it can become the object—but that’s a shift in what my attention takes as its target, not proof that the glass was always the immediate object.

That’s the difference from a TV or photograph: there the image is itself a public, inspectable object that can stably function as the terminus of awareness (pixels, screen, frame, resolution). That’s what makes “indirect” natural there.

2) I’m not claiming awareness of qualia requires a separate introspective act.

You’re right: there isn’t an extra act “between” hearing a chime and being aware of the chime’s sound. The phenomenal character is simply how the chime is heard. What I deny is that the phenomenal character is thereby a second object the hearing terminates on.

So: redness-as-seen, chiming-as-heard, pungency-as-smelled are not “introspected objects” in the first instance. They are features of the perceiving—the mode in which the distal thing is present. We can thematize them reflectively (“listen to the timbre,” “attend to the hue”), but that’s a change of stance, not the baseline structure.

3) “How can awareness of the object come first if sensation reveals it?”

Because “sensation” here is not a freestanding item that gets noticed first and then interpreted into an object. It is the vehicle of disclosure, not an inner object of disclosure. The system-level story is: neural/sensory processing enables an act whose intentional terminus is the world. That’s not mysterious unless we assume in advance that whatever enables awareness must itself be what awareness is of.

4) The TV junkie case actually helps distinguish the views.

A TV viewer is directly aware of an image/sound presentation and only through that indirectly aware of the event (which might be live, recorded, simulated, edited). Here “epistemic mediation” makes sense because there is a stable intermediary object (the audiovisual display) that can be inspected independently of the event.

In ordinary perception there is no analogous intermediary object “on display” for an inner observer. The neural processes are enabling conditions, not presented items. That’s exactly the step you keep asserting but haven’t shown: that because processing occurs, the subject is therefore aware of a processed intermediary.

So I’m not saying “everything is direct because it’s intentional,” and I’m not saying “everything is indirect because something is between.” I’m saying: indirect realism requires a distinct object of awareness interposed between subject and world—and your glass/fog cases don’t supply that, while TV/photos do.

On your view, what is the intermediary object of awareness in ordinary perception, analogous to the TV screen image—something we can in principle re-identify and inspect as the terminus of awareness? If your answer is “the experience itself,” then you owe an account of why experience isn’t just the act’s manner of disclosing the world.

Indeed. When your words do not square with your actions, something has gone astray.

I'd lay the blame at the many misconceptions in "...the mind-independent nature of distal objects".

:up:

My reply would be that your actions in the world contradict this. — Sam26

I've never seen anyone do anythign remote closely to what Michael describes. One who's never left their room, but wears VR could be said to appear that way. This just, again, as always, misses the issue entirely. I suspect it's just not interesting to the likes of yourself, Essa and Banno - but then, why continue contributing?

When Banno claims he has, it makes no sense. He just claims it. Onward we go..

I've never seen anyone do anythign remote close to what Michael describes. — AmadeusD

Actions don't demonstrate confidence in mind-independence, as if you couldn't act without sorting that out first. :lol:

I can't glean anything from this (which, now that I've edited my comment (while you were replying it seems) is ironic).

Could you perhaps try to say something I can respond to, if you're going to?

Could you perhaps try to say something I can respond to, if you're going to? — AmadeusD

I might have been responding to the wrong thing. I thought you were talking about mentally verifying mind-independence. Michael said we can't do that. Someone else commented that our actions demonstrate that we're doing it, which is absurd.

Oh lol, yes. I think you may have responded to the wrong thing. I'm suggesting it does no such thing.

I'm suggesting it does no such thing. — AmadeusD

I agree.

If your answer is “the experience itself,” then you owe an account of why experience isn’t just the act’s manner of disclosing the world. — Esse Quam Videri

You know my answer is experience itself.

Your account seems to hinge on what appears to be a very thin distinction: the experience itself is not an "object of awareness", it is the "perceptual act's manner of disclosing the world". But there is a problem: I agree. I see nothing problematic in that phrasing.

At the same time, the image is the TV's manner of disclosing the "action". And, the TV image is an"object of awareness". There is nothing contradictory in these two descriptions.

Experience is an object of awareness, and perception's manner of disclosing the world. Where is the contradiction?

I'm not saying there is a contradiction, I'm saying that no good reason has been given for treating "experience" itself as the object of perception, whereas there are good reasons for not treating it as such (e.g. it has no criteria of identity, persistence, affordance or counterfactuality).

It seems like the discussion is starting to loop now. Perhaps we've hit bedrock.

I thought you were talking about mentally verifying mind-independence. Michael said we can't do that. — frank

I'd like to clarify that this isn't what I said. I said that my intellect cannot reach out beyond my body to grasp the mind-independent nature of distal objects. Cognition is either reducible to or emerges from neural activity in the brain, and the only information accessible to it is information present in the brain.

I'm not an idealist. I believe that there is a mind-independent world and that the information accessible to me suffices to justify this belief. I just recognise that distal objects and their properties are only causally responsible for and not also constituents of first-person phenomenal experience, and so that this phenomenal experience is an epistemic intermediary.

I'd like to clarify that this isn't what I said. I said that my intellect cannot reach out beyond my body to grasp the mind-independent nature of distal objects. Cognition is either reducible to or emerges from neural activity in the brain, and the only information accessible to it is information present in the brain. — Michael

Cool. A lot of the wording you're using could stand some clarification, like what you mean by intellect and information. There's a sense of information that has to do with variations in the sensory input to your brain. Strictly speaking, your intellect doesn't have access to that. It has access to a model that's been updated based on that information.

The model isn't built out of data coming from the outside world. Kant explains in the Transcendental Aesthetic why it can't be. The basic building blocks of the model aren't things you learn at any point. They're embedded in your cognition. But among the features of the model are things like space and time, and therefore the very idea of information, whether it's sensory data or information in the form of facts, obtaining states of affairs, or however you put it.

One of the posters had stated that your activities indicate that your intellect does reach out beyond your body to grasp the mind-independent nature of distal objects. I guess I don't know what that means or how it relates to what your said.

I'm not an idealist. I believe that there is a mind-independent world and that the information accessible to me suffices to justify this belief. — Michael

Mind-independence is an idea that plays a part in a very abstract realm of pure ideas. It ties into your base-line worldview. This is beyond basic perception and navigation of the world. If your mind was a corporation, the part that thinks about mind-independence is the board of directors. They aren't involved in everyday decisions, and if things that you do directly contradict their adopted outlines, they can't really do anything about it. Plus, they're asleep most of the time. They only wake up when you start getting philosophical. Then they brush their teeth, wash their faces, and act like they know what they're doing.

I'm not an idealist. — Michael

I gotta say….all that follows from what you said there, fits my mindset, and I have no qualms calling myself an idealist. Certain brand thereof perhaps, but still….

Maybe it’s like the mattress ad on tv: they want their product to be known as a “restorative sleep provider”, but it’s just a damn mattress after all.

You still haven't explained why " object of perception" is necessary. Why doesn't, for instance "perceptual intermediary" suffice?

If it is established that qualia

* Is apprehensible
* Is logically prior to apprehension of the object
* Is the sole constituent of experience, such that were it removed from experience, nothing would remain

This seems sufficient to establish qualia as a perceptual intermediary. Why do we need these extra object criteria?

Do the images on the VS meet the criteria identity, persistence, affordance or counterfactuality? Keep in mind, it is not the housing, not the electronics, not the physical pixels that are the intermediary. These are the intermediary's implementation. It is the images themselves that intermediate.

If the images do not meet these criteria, yet they intermediate between the viewer and the subject, then these object criteria are irrelevant.

It seems like the discussion is starting to loop now. Perhaps we've hit bedrock. — Esse Quam Videri

I think some looping is inevitable. I actually don't think we have quite hit bedrock yet. But if you think it is getting repetitive, or you have just had enough, I certainly understand. It's been a hell of a discussion, either way.

You still haven't explained why " object of perception" is necessary. Why doesn't, for instance "perceptual intermediary" suffice? — hypericin

This was something that was discussed at length earlier in the thread. The TLDR is that, on my view, perception is an intrinsically normative and publicly assessable act that is not fully reducible to causal analysis. In order for perception to be publicly assessable, whatever plays the role of "the object of perception" must satisfy criteria of re-identification and intersubjective reference that qualia, as such, cannot satisfy.

If it is established that qualia

* Is apprehensible
* Is logically prior to apprehension of the object
* Is the sole constituent of experience, such that were it removed from experience, nothing would remain — hypericin

I apologize if I have given the impression that I would accept the three of these claims. While I would accept the first with qualifications, I would not accept the other two. Those two claims are basically the whole indirect realist picture. If you assume them, then of course “qualia as intermediary” follows — but that’s exactly what’s at issue.

Do the images on the VS meet the criteria identity, persistence, affordance or counterfactuality? Keep in mind, it is not the housing, not the electronics, not the physical pixels that are the intermediary. These are the intermediary's implementation. It is the images themselves that intermediate.

If the images do not meet these criteria, yet they intermediate between the viewer and the subject, then these object criteria are irrelevant. — hypericin

The images absolutely do have criteria of identity and persistence. They can be re-identified across frames, inspected for artifacts, compared with other feeds, paused, replayed, etc. That’s precisely why they can function as intermediaries. They have a determinate structure independent of the distal apple.

If you deny that the VS image has any such identity conditions, then it’s hard to see what could even count as “the same image” across time, and the analogy stops doing the work you want it to do.

So yes: I insist on “object-like” criteria because without them “intermediary” becomes too thin to do the necessary philosophical work. “Apprehensible” is not enough; what matters is whether awareness terminates in something that can be specified and tracked as distinct from the distal object. That’s what happens in VS. It’s not what happens in ordinary perception.

I think some looping is inevitable. I actually don't think we have quite hit bedrock yet. But if you think it is getting repetitive, or you have just had enough, I certainly understand. It's been a hell of a discussion, either way. — hypericin

After 42 pages I think I'm getting a little burnt out on the topic, but I agree it's been a great discussion.

The TLDR is that, on my view, perception is an intrinsically normative and publicly assessable act that is not fully reducible to causal analysis. In order for perception to be publicly assessable, whatever plays the role of "the object of perception" must satisfy criteria of re-identification and intersubjective reference that qualia, as such, cannot satisfy. — Esse Quam Videri

I'm curious, doesn't this rule out subjective idealism a priori? Or is it only the case that if subjective idealism is false then "perception is an intrinsically normative and publicly assessable act"?

I'm curious, doesn't this rule out subjective idealism a priori? Or is it only the case that if subjective idealism is false then "perception is an intrinsically normative and publicly assessable act"? — Michael

I don't think so. Take George Berkeley as an example. He's the paradigmatic subjective idealist, but he would not deny that perception is normative and publicly assessable. He might push back on the notion that perception is intrinsically normative since he ultimately grounds his system in God's coordinating actions. But I'm not ruling that out by fiat. If someone wants to argue that the normativity of perception is reducible, eliminable, grounded in God's will, etc. then I'm happy to have that discussion.

To keep it simple, it's subjective idealism without God. Minds — including qualia — are the only things which exist. Rather than mental phenomena emerging from neural activity there's just mental phenomena.

Is perception possible? If so, how can it be "normative and publicly assessable"? What are the "objects" of perception?

As for Berkeley, from here:

(1) We perceive ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.).
(2) We perceive only ideas.

Therefore,

(3) Ordinary objects are ideas.

I would think that your interpretation of perception must rule out (2) by definition.

On godless subjective idealism: I think perception becomes very difficult to sustain without some ground for normativity — whether that's mind-independent objects, divine coordination, or transcendental structure. If all that exists is minds and qualia, with no external standard, then the distinction between veridical perception and hallucination collapses — both are just qualia occurring in a mind. Error becomes unintelligible, because there's nothing to get right or wrong about. Incoherence among qualia only generates a norm if there's a reason to expect coherence, and without something beyond qualia to ground that expectation, there isn't one.

So yes: I think godless subjective idealism can't sustain the normativity of perception. But I don't think that's a problem for my starting point — I think it's a problem for that view.

On Berkeley's (2): yes, my account does reject "we perceive only ideas," but not by definitional fiat. It rejects it by argument — the argument that what functions as the object of perceptual cognition must satisfy conditions (re-identifiability, public accessibility, stability) that ideas-as-such don't satisfy. Berkeley himself recognized this, which is why he needed God to ensure that ideas meet the criteria of objecthood. Without God, premise (2) leaves perception without a proper object.

And I'd note that Berkeley's argument turns on an equivocation on "perceive." In (1), "perceive" means ordinary world-directed awareness. In (2), it means "have ideas." The conclusion only follows if both premises use the word in the same sense. My framework is, among other things, an insistence on not letting that equivocation pass.

So yes: I think godless subjective idealism can't sustain the normativity of perception.

...

Without God, premise (2) leaves perception without a proper object. — Esse Quam Videri

Okay, but it doesn't follow that these people don't see, hear, feel, taste, and smell things, or that the things they see, hear, feel, taste, and smell aren't qualia/sense-data/ideas/etc.

The introduction of material objects doesn't make the above sense of perception disappear. You've just introduced additional components to perception. So we have:

1. Perception of qualia
2. Normativity of perception
3. Perception with "proper" objects (whatever that means)

If subjective idealism is true then only (1) is true, but if subjective idealism is false then (1) is still true. Unless you want to argue that (1) is true if and only if material objects don't exist?

And I'd note that Berkeley's argument turns on an equivocation on "perceive." In (1), "perceive" means ordinary world-directed awareness. In (2), it means "have ideas." The conclusion only follows if both premises use the word in the same sense. My framework is, among other things, an insistence on not letting that equivocation pass. — Esse Quam Videri

Then we have:

(1) We perceive₁ ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.)
(2) We perceive₂ ideas

As above, the introduction of material objects does not make (2) false. I think the issue is that you are misinterpreting the indirect realist's claim that we perceive₂ qualia as the claim that we perceive₁ qualia, and so you are guilty of the very same equivocation you insist on not letting pass.

The indirect realist claims that perception₂ is direct perception — because the thing perceived is a constituent of the experience, and because it does not depend on perception₁ — and that perception₁ is indirect perception — because the thing perceived is not a constituent of the experience, and because it depends on perception₂.

So yes: I think godless subjective idealism can't sustain the normativity of perception.

...

Without God, premise (2) leaves perception without a proper object.
— Esse Quam Videri

Okay, but it doesn't follow that these people don't see, hear, feel, taste, and smell things, or that the things they see, hear, feel, taste, and smell aren't qualia/sense-data/ideas/etc. — Michael

I’m much less certain about this than you seem to be.

What does it even mean to say that we could perceive anything in a world where nothing meets the criteria of objecthood? Perception is not just “having qualitative episodes occur,” but encountering something as one and the same across time, as re-identifiable, as having boundaries, as affording possible interactions, as persisting through counterfactual variation (“it would still be there if I turned my head,” etc.).

If none of that structure is available — if there is no persistence, no re-identification, no affordances, no counterfactual stability — then we aren’t left with perception of “qualia-objects.” We’re left with William James’ “blooming, buzzing confusion”: a morass of bare qualitative occurrences with no intelligible structure whatsoever

And in that case, I don’t see how it makes sense to say that one sees, hears, tastes, touches, or smells something at all. The very grammar of perceiving “something” presupposes criteria of identity and difference that this view has dissolved.

At that point, “perception” becomes just a misleading label for sheer occurrence — and the distinction between veridical perception and hallucination collapses along with it.

The synesthete sees colours when listening to music, the schizophrenic hears voices, and I feel a pain in my head the morning after drinking too much.

I can imagine John living in a subjective idealist world and having a first-person phenomenal experience that is introspectively indistinguishable from Jane's veridical perception in the real world. I don't see much sense in saying that John doesn't see or hear or feel anything. I think you're talking past the indirect realist if you define "John perceives something" in such a way that it's false if subjective idealism is true.

To what extent is the problem of perception also a problem of identity?

If one sifts through the menagerie of mental entities proposed by the Indirect Realist one finds that all of them are indistinguishable from the indirect realist himself. Each “constituent of experience” is internal to the body, or else it would be independent of it, foreign, and public. That’s why the “what” in the question “who perceives what” is undoubtedly some portion of the body or the activity of organs. So when Michael speaks about “green” we are left to believe that he is really speaking about Michael, a constituent of his body, and not about chlorophyll or apples. In this, the perceiver is both the perceiver and the object of perception at the same time.

But I would argue that the “who” is also left unexplained. If he identifies as the entire organism he would have to concede that there is in fact no barrier or veil or even any room for an intermediary between himself and the “distal object”, which is the entire environment exterior to the body. He himself exists in that domain, embedded in it, and he too is a “distal object” to other perceivers. In order for his theory to make sense, he needs to be somehow smaller than the body, and live somewhere below the surface area of the skin, away from the senses, so that he can continue to perceive the activity of those organs in some untold and unexplained manner.

My point is, some species of dualism is required to support indirect realism, and indirect realism is just the logical consequence of dualism. I think this is why the brain in the vat resonates for some people. They identify as the brain, while the rest can be abstracted away and traded with any “life-sustaining substance”, and so see it as possible.

Most of what you say isn't exclusive to indirect realism. Direct realists who aren't eliminative materialists and who believe that we have headaches and direct visual perception of the Moon also believe in mental entities of some kind. They just disagree that these mental entities are the (only) direct objects of perception.

Your position on the matter is orthogonal to the traditional dispute, and is a position that even most direct realists will disagree with.

I don't see a problem with it. The schizophrenic hears voices, the synesthete sees colours when listening to music, and I feel a pain in my head after drinking too much. — Michael

Again, what does it mean to “hear voices,” “see colors,” or “feel pain” in a world where nothing exhibits identity, persistence, affordance, or counterfactual stability? Such a world would be an unstructured muddle incapable of supporting intentionality of any kind — because there would be nothing determinate enough to count as something heard, something seen, or something felt.

Berkeley saw this and appealed to God to guarantee the stability of experience. Hume appealed to habits of association. Kant appealed to transcendental synthesis. Different metaphysics, same structural insight: something must supply conditions of determinacy/objecthood if perception is to get off the ground at all. Without that, “perception” collapses into mere qualitative flicker with no possibility of intelligible aboutness.

Are you suggesting that we know through introspection that subjective idealism is false; that if subjective idealism were true then we wouldn't have the first-person phenomenal experiences (or intellects) that we have? I don't think that's correct. I think it's possible that John lives in a world that is introspectively indistinguishable from ours but in which subjective idealism is true, with phrases like "hearing voices", "seeing colours", and "feeling pain" describing the exact same first-personal phenomenal experiences that they describe in our world. I don't see why the existence of material brains or bodies or apples is necessary a priori.

Somewhat related are Boltzmann brains. Not only is it seemingly possible, but it's seemingly likely that during the lifetime of the universe there will be brain-like structures floating in the void of space experiencing exactly what you and I are experiencing and thinking exactly what you and I are thinking. It might seem implausible, but it's not the sort of thing that can be refuted by the kinds of arguments you're making.

You might want to say that I only hear voices, see colours, and feel pain if subjective idealism is false and I am not a Boltzmann brain (else I only think I do, or is thinking also impossible?), but then we're clearly just talking past each other.