Therefore, I cannot be directly perceiving the real, physical objects when I'm conscious. — Marchesk

Perhaps it would be helpful to say that the real world beyond our minds, and the symbolic world between our ears, are continually competing for our attention. The symbolic realm usually wins, which is probably why we often experience the real world as dull and boring etc.

when I'm conscious of driving, the content of my perception is a conscious experience, which is mental. I'm no longer directly perceiving the car on the road. Instead, I'm perceiving a world of feels, sounds, colors, smells, and so on. — Marchesk

There's a missing premise here. You assume the equivalence of the content of perception and the objects of perception.

But the content of perception--if it means anything at all--is the way things look, sound, taste, and yet it is the things that look, sound, and taste that way. To say that you are perceiving the way things look, sound, taste, is tantamount to saying you are perceiving your perception (one can attend to one's own perception, but this is not what you are talking about (or is it?)).

Also, in an ecological direct perception account, the "non-conscious" absorption in an activity in an environment is paradigmatic of perception. To be conscious of one's experience sounds to me like those cases where one attends so much to one's own experience that successful absorption breaks down--as when you focus so much on what your hands and feet are doing that you momentarily lose the ability to drive.

EDIT: maybe that means that I kind of agree with you, or at least with this: perception is sometimes direct and sometimes indirect

I accept that direct realism is the case when perception is non-conscious. I'm driving down the road on autopilot. My hands, eyes and ears are directly perceiving the environment as I successfully navigate the car down the road.

However, when I'm conscious of driving, the content of my perception is a conscious experience, which is mental. I'm no longer directly perceiving the car on the road. Instead, I'm perceiving a world of feels, sounds, colors, smells, and so on. The phenomenal objects of my consciousness are made up these sensations. The road, the car, the wheel, the air and so on are not made up of colors, sounds, smells and so on. They are not phenomenal objects, but rather real, physical ones.

Therefore, I cannot be directly perceiving the real, physical objects when I'm conscious — Marchesk

I can't get past the assumption where you say, that when you are not Consciously driving, that this means you are Directly Perceiving. Could you elaborate more on that?

Therefore, I cannot be directly perceiving the real, physical objects when I'm conscious. — Marchesk

What would it mean to directly perceive something? How would you perceive it? It seems to me that "perception" itself entails using real things (colors, shapes, feelings, etc.) to symbolize other real things (cars, roads, etc.), including other symbols (stop signs, red lights, etc.). The symbols are just as real as what they symbolize. Why would it matter if you get at the symbols or the real thing? Isn't the information what you need to get at - what those symbols symbolize (red apples mean ripe apples, black apples mean rotten apples)? Isn't it the information that is real and useful?

Isn't the sensations of colors, sounds, feelings, part of reality and you directly experience those things? It can't be indirect all the way down. Eventually you get at something real to even say that those things symbolize other real things. We directly experience the symbols.

When I put my hand in a fire what is the direct object of perception? Pain? My hand burning? The fire?

Is it even clear what it means for one of them to be the direct object of perception? I think the direct and indirect realist can't even agree on that. I'm sure the direct realist will agree that the pain isn't the fire, but whereas they will say that the occurrence of pain is us directly experiencing the fire, the indirect realist will disagree. But what exactly is the substance of their disagreement? What does it mean for the occurrence of pain to be either the direct or the indirect experience of the fire?

However, when I'm conscious of driving, the content of my perception is a conscious experience, which is mental. I'm no longer directly perceiving the car on the road. Instead, I'm perceiving a world of feels, sounds, colors, smells, and so on. The phenomenal objects of my consciousness are made up these sensations. The road, the car, the wheel, the air and so on are not made up of colors, sounds, smells and so on. They are not phenomenal objects, but rather real, physical ones.

Therefore, I cannot be directly perceiving the real, physical objects when I'm conscious. — Marchesk

This seems confused to me. The qualia of colors, sounds, smells and so on are the forms of conscious perception. The fact that your perception has such forms does not mean that it is not the perception of its object. We have essentially the same the same sensations whether or not we are aware of them. The fact that our awareness of various sensory modalities has correlative forms (qualia) does not change this.

maybe that means that I kind of agree with you, or at least with this: perception is sometimes direct and sometimes indirect — jamalrob

While I agree with what you say about confusing the forms of perception with the thing perceived, I don't think that the difference between sensation without and with awareness has anything to do with whether or not perception is direct. To deal with the question of directness, we first have to agree on what "direct perception" means. It seems to me to be a matter of degree. If we perceive at all, then the object is acting on us, modifying our neural state. The fact that this involves the mediation of instrumental causes seems no more relevant to the role of the object than the sculptor's use of hammer and chisel to the agency of the artist.

It seems to me that "perception" itself entails using symbolism to symbolize other things, including other symbols. The symbols are just as real as what they symbolize. Why would it matter if you get at the symbols or the real thing? Isn't the information what you need to get at - what those symbols symbolize (red apples mean ripe apples, black apples mean rotten apples)? Isn't it the information that is real and useful? — Harry Hindu

I think this is close to the mark, except that ideas are not like other symbols. In the case of words and physical signs we first have to grasp the form of the symbolic object before we can discern its meaning. In the case of ideas, we do not have to grasp that we have an idea and which idea it is before it means its referent. Rather, mental signs (formal signs) signify directly, with no need for us to grasp what they are before they refer.

Yes, in fact I agree. But given Marchesk's definition of indirect perception as the perception of mental objects (as intermediaries between things "out there" and consciousness), one could say that an awareness of one's own perception is an example of indirect perception, in a manner of speaking. However, I'm not sure that this kind of awareness is what he means by "conscious perception".

I accept that direct realism is the case when perception is non-conscious. — Marchesk

I don't think that perception can be non-conscious. I'm not sure how to make sense of the idea that it can be. I'm not disagreeing that we can do things like driving without thinking very much about what we're seeing, or without formulating memories about it, etc, but I would say that insofar as we're perceiving anything, we're aware of it to some extent. It's necessarily mental.

That doesn't imply that I'm not a direct realist. Direct realists believe that we consciously perceive the world as it is, directly. (Barring situations where we have good reason to believe that something is going wrong in whatever manner.)

And I don't buy sense-data theory, which is representationalist.

That doesn't imply that I'm not a direct realist. Direct realists believe that we consciously perceive the world as it is, directly. — Terrapin Station

But we don't consciously perceive the world as it is. From science we know that it's not true.

But we don't consciously perceive the world as it is. From science we know that it's not true. — Marchesk

The claim that you can know that it's not true presupposes that you can know the world as it is (via perceiving eyeballs, ears, nerves, brains, etc.) for comparison, where we can say which part is the world as it is and which is different from that.

So in other words, you can't make the claim "We don't consciously perceive the world as it is" without unintentionally pulling the rug out from under yourself via a claim that you can consciously perceive the world as it is.

The claim that you can know that it's not true presupposes that you can know the world as it is (via perceiving eyeballs, ears, nerves, brains, etc.) for comparison, where we can say which part is the world as it is and which is different from that. — Terrapin Station

We know that the scientific account of the world differs quite a bit from the world we perceive. We also know that our perception varies quite a bit, and that there are other organisms who have better senses or can sense things we cannot.

Therefore, we don't perceive the world as it is. We perceive it according to the kinds of animals we are, and as the individual we are in a particular environment.

When I perceive a solid table, I'm not perceiving the mostly empty space it's made up of, or the atoms forming the chemical bonds that make it appear solid to me. I'm also not perceiving the microscopic critters on the table's surface, or all the non-visible light that passes through the table.

As you plow along ignoring what I just explained. So let's try it where I walk you to what I just explained instead:

We know that the scientific account of the world differs quite a bit from the world we perceive. — Marchesk

How would we know that?

How would we know that? — Terrapin Station

Run some experiment, gather observations, come up with models to explain the experiments and observations. That sort of thing I would imagine.

Run some experiment, gather observations, come up with models to explain the experiments and observations. That sort of thing I would imagine. — Marchesk

Sure, and when you make those observations, do you perceive things as they are?

Sure, and when you make those observations, do you perceive things as they are? — Terrapin Station

The scientist perceives the outcome of their experiments and observations, which might lead them to suppose that there are large parts of the world we don't perceive, or that the world differs from how we perceive it.

The scientist perceives the outcome of their experiments and observations, — Marchesk

Do they perceive them as they are or not? It's a yes or no question, or you can explain why you can't answer yes or no a la "It's not possible to answer that question yes or no because . . .
"

And by the way, you're adding another level there. Observations are things we perceive. Do we perceive them as they are or not?

Do they perceive them as they are or not. It's a yes or no question, or you can explain why you can't answer yes or no a la "It's not possible to answer that question yes or no because . . . " — Terrapin Station

No, they perceive things as they appear to human beings. But that doesn't stop us from learning about X-Rays and GR and germs and what not. But It might have taken a million years of cultural and technological evolution to get there.

No, they perceive things as they appear to human beings — Marchesk

Sure, so the premise is that we're not perceiving things as they are.

So how do we know that one perception has things right? Namely, the perception that suggests that the other perception has things wrong? Per the premise, no perception is of the world as it is. Yet we're claiming that the one set of perceptions has things right because?

So how do we know that one perception has things right? Namely, the perception that suggests that the other perception has things wrong? — Terrapin Station

We don't know for sure. The best we can do is come up with explanations that fit all of our perceptions as best as possible.

Thus the ancient skeptics, Hume, Kant, pragmatism, the empiricism of science, that theories are not true but only conditionally supported by observations to date, which could be falsified tomorrow, etc.

We don't know for sure. — Marchesk

One thing we'd know for sure is that if we're going to claim that our perceptions do not tell us what the world is like, we can't use perceptions about what the world is like for support of that.

One thing we'd know for sure is that if we're going to claim that our perceptions do not tell us what the world is like, we can't use perceptions about what the world is like for support of that. — Terrapin Station

Kant, the pragmatists and the ancient skeptics would agree. Hume would agree at least about causation.

I don't think we have to go that far. We can just say that although perception doesn't show us the word as it is, it gives us enough information to infer what the world is probably like. But it takes a great deal of effort, which is why the scientific enterprise came so late in the game.

Also, this is easy to prove.

Take the totally naive view of vision. It seems like we're looking out onto the world through the eyes. But we know this can't be true. Light comes into the eyes. It's the opposite. But we didn't know this until we had some science of optics and vision.

Kant, the pragmatists and the ancient skeptics would agree. Hume would agree at least about causation.

I don't think we have to go that far. We can just say that although perception doesn't show us the word as it is, it gives us enough information to infer what the world is probably like. But it takes a great deal of effort. — Marchesk

Oy vey. ;-)

Take the totally naive view of vision. It seems like we're looking out onto the world through the eyes. But we know this can't be true. Light comes into the eyes. It's the opposite. — Marchesk

There's no "opposite" there.

One of these days you'll say something I agree with. ;-)

I'd explain why they're not opposite, but you'll end up basically ignoring the explanation and just asserting the same thing again. (Which is what you did with the explanation of why the argument above against direct realism completely fails,)

One of these days you'll say something I agree with. ;-) — Terrapin Station

I'm sure one of these days I'll be wrong about something. <insert deadpan face>

:razz:

I accept that direct realism is the case when perception is non-conscious. I'm driving down the road on autopilot. My hands, eyes and ears are directly perceiving the environment as I successfully navigate the car down the road. — Marchesk

Anyway, you are aware of your perceptions. So, what is this awareness, if not consciousness?

Anyway, you are aware of your perceptions. So, what is this awareness, if not consciousness? — Number2018

Well, it depends on what's meant by awareness. A computer program could be said to be aware of its inputs. A simulation of perceptual awareness could be built into a robot.

That's different from having a conscious perception.