What other usage is there? What is redness when not the experience? Are you using it to (also) refer to the state of having a structure that reflects electromagnetic radiation at a wavelength of ~620–740 nm? If so then you're equivocating. The indirect realist doesn't say that there isn't a mind-independent feature that we might also refer to with the word "red" (as there might be many things we refer to using words that we also use to refer to types of experience); he's saying that that features of experience are representative of and not identical to features of the mind-independent world.

The very fact that you say that there are two different sense of "red" -- presumably one which refers to the experience and one which refers to some mind-independent thing -- suggests indirect realism rather than direct realism.

I don't know if this implied criticism is (also, or only) meant to be directed at me, but I will just point out that I responded directly to what you wrote with this:

"I can't resist jumping in here because it seems to me you are misrepresenting jamalrob's argument so egregiously.

It should be (and jamalrob may correct me on this):

1) I can tell the difference, for the most part. between veridical and non-veridical experience.

2) I cannot always tell the difference between veridical and non-veridical experiences.

No contradiction. "

and you made no attempt whatsoever to engage with the objection to what you had written that it contains.

That seems to be the point at which the flurry of pedantic polemic began.

Electromagnetic radiation is no less known through experience than the colour red. And everything thing it does is, how it interacts, what it interacts with, is also only significant in terms of things which may be experienced. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How it's known is irrelevant to the discussion. The question is whether or not redness is present when nobody observes it in the same way that electromagnetic radiation is present when nobody observes it. The direct realist says that it is and the indirect realist says that it isn't -- the indirect realist says that redness is a purely experiential phenomena that represents (in the sense of having a mostly-unique causal relationship with) electromagnetic radiation.

1) I can tell the difference, for the most part. between veridical and non-veridical experience. — John

@jamalrob said here that "every instance of an experience is one that is in principle indistinguishable between the two types you've mentioned [veridical and non-veridical]".

I actually did, which, again, you would know if you bothered to read before replying. Now go back, look, find it, and I don't know, feel embarrassed, or not.

No, I already covered this objection with this:

It seems to me the whole argument between Direct and Indirect Realism is based on a kind of category error.

Direct Realism is correct logically and phenomenological speaking. When I see a tree, I see a tree not a mental representation of a tree.

Indirect Realism is based on a scientific understanding and description of the physical and physiological processes of perception, which are quite complex. In this context it makes sense to say that perception is a mediated process. The claim about the indirectness of perception, which is inflated to the position of Indirect Realism, is read into, and extrapolated out of, the "mediate" (i.e. not immediate or direct) in 'mediated process'.

The argument is based on fallacious understandings of conflict between to two that come about due to inappropriate attempts to merge the two interpretative contexts. — John

"Red" is used to refer to the colour that we see and also to the part of the spectrum of light that produces that seeing. This is simply a fact about two senses of usage. Also people in everyday parlance refer to apples and other red things as 'being red', they do not refer to mental representations as 'being red', but as being 'of red things'. All this is indisputable fact about usage.

It seems to me that you are trying to controvert this fact somehow, to conflate the different common senses of some words, for the purpose of some kind of obscure metaphysical argument against realism which I cannot follow. So, I think we'd best just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Again there is a distinction between 'kinds' and 'instances' which I think both you and TGW are missing.

Please just cite the post where you think you responded cogently and we can look at it again. If I missed something I will be happy to admit it. I'm not here to play games...

So, my apologies to jamalrob for my part in de-railing his thread. — John

It's not a problem, John. The more discussion the better. :)

1) I can tell the difference between veridical and non-veridical experience.

2) I cannot tell the difference between veridical and non-veridical experience.

You cannot claim both of these. The skeptic has nothing to do with it; you can't blame him. — The Great Whatever

But that's just an uncharitable reformulation of what I said. It is this interpretation that I'm blaming the sceptic for.

Can one experimentally show that there are objective colours? — Michael

I'm not sure why you are asking this in response to my posting of a link to an authoritative article that shows colour realism/objectivism to be a popular philosophical position. I posted it because you seem to think you can say that colour is obviously mind-dependent.

"Red" is used to refer to the colour that we see and also to the part of the spectrum of light that produces that seeing. — John

So then it's the light that's red, not the apple?

Furthermore, this is consistent with indirect realism. The indirect realist says that the red colour we see is a mental representation of the external light. To be a direct realist is to say that the red colour we see is itself external.

It seems to me that you are trying to controvert this fact somehow, to conflate the different common senses of some words, for the purpose of some kind of obscure metaphysical argument against realism which I cannot follow. So, I think we'd best just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I'm not denying this common usage. I'm saying that this second sense of "red" is irrelevant to the discussion. Do you really think that the indirect realist is saying that we can't use the word "red" to refer to something other than the colour we see (e.g. the particular spectrum of light that produces the seeing) or that electromagnetic radiation is not external to the experience? I'm sure almost every indirect realist will accept this. The question is whether or not the red colour we see (the thing referred to in the first sense of the word) itself a feature of the external world and so present even when we don't see it. The direct realist says that it is and the indirect realist says that it isn't.

I posted it because you seem to think you can say that colour is obviously mind-dependent. — jamalrob

Well, I also think that the non-existence of Yahweh is obvious, and the prevalence of Christianity doesn't change my mind about that.

I wasn't trying to change your mind. I was showing that it was incumbent on you not to present a controversial thesis as if it were obvious. And if you were in a philosophical discussion that involved a dispute about whether Yahweh existed, you would likewise have to do more than appeal to your prejudices (personally I don't get involved in those debates because like you I think it's bloody obvious).

True, but then that's why I asked for evidence. If colours were objective then, like other objective things, they should be susceptible to experimental verification (even by the blind). The fact that there doesn't seem to be any experimental verification, despite the advancement of modern science, shows problems with the view. So in a way it was a rhetorical question to highlight the fact that if it's a popular view it's obviously false – as our best objective observations undermine it.

If colours were objective then, like other objective things, they should be susceptible to experimental verification (even by the blind). The fact that there doesn't seem to be any experimental verification, despite the advancement of modern science, shows problems with the view. So in a way it was a rhetorical question to highlight the fact that even though it's a popular view it's obviously false – as our best observations observations undermine it. — Michael

This really will not do. You are asking us to take your verificationist argument to be unassailable. I was inviting you to engage with the actual philosophy about it.

I don't think it's a philosophical issue. I think it's scientific. If colours are objective features of the world then they should be (capable of being) theoretically and experimentally proven. The fact that they haven't undermines the position, and that's why indirect realism better fits the available evidence than direct realism.

And that was my original point; that science has shown that the causal explanations for experiential phenomena are unlike the experiential phenomena themselves. But, despite @Aaron R's claim, it doesn't then follow that what we see is fake.

I and a great many philosophers (it's not a minority view as far as I can see) totally disagree. But I'm not here to argue the case; I intervened to expose the fallacy of presenting a controversial thesis as obvious. And then you attempt to likewise present extremely controversial support for this obviousness.

As far as I'm aware, there's nothing controversial about indirect realism. It's the accepted view of perception in the natural sciences.

The claim that there is colour, or pain, or smells present in the external world when not observed seems to me to be controversial. As if I encounter the sensations that were already there. It's a bizarre view.

It's very controversial in philosophy, which is what we're doing here (saying that "I don't think it's a philosophical issue" is a philosophical point, of course). But I was referring to your verificationist argument anyway.

Don't force me to get into this debate. ;)

Alright, I won't. :)

Although as an aside, I didn't mean to suggest verificationism (in the sense that a thing is true if it is verified); I meant to suggest that if the view is contrary to the empirical evidence then there are more reasons to reject it than endorse it.

That is, after all, why people tend to use science to prove realism over idealism, is it not? So it then seems to be a bit hypocritical for the direct realist to ignore this when arguing with the indirect realist.

Cool.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/color/

I meant to suggest that if the view is contrary to the empirical evidence then there are more reasons to reject it than endorse it. — Michael

What empirical evidence?

How it's known is irrelevant to the discussion. The question is whether or not redness is present when nobody observes it in the same way that electromagnetic radiation is present when nobody observes it. The direct realist says that it is and the indirect realist says that it isn't -- the indirect realist says that redness is a purely experiential phenomena that represents (in the sense of having a mostly-unique causal relationship with) electromagnetic radiation. — Michael

My point wasn't about how anything was known. It was about what was known. This point is critical because "electromagnetic radiation," such as "~620–740 nm" is never observed. It is nothing more than our understanding of something which relates to things (colours, objects, energy measuring detector screens, etc., etc. ) which have have experienced. No-one perceives the object of "electromagnetic radiation" in this sense. A human who sees red when in the presence of ~620–740 nm electromagnetic radiation sees the colour red in the world , not"~620–740 nm electromagnetic radiation." In their experience of red, they actually know nothing about electromagnetic radiation at all.

Awareness of that is a different experience and it doesn't take any particular experience of sensation (a blind person, for example, may know about electromagnetic radiation perfectly well, even though they don't see coloured objects or light as a result of it). Critically though, like any other things we know about, electromagnetic radiation is known through experience. If I know about electromagnetic radiation, then it is not colours that I know, but rather the presence of electromagnetic radiation itself. My awareness is of things in the world as it exists.

The point is that on this level, electromagnetic radiation and the colour red are no different in this respect. One cannot say that "electromagnetic radiation" is "uniquely casual" because we aware of it though the same sort of means as the colour red: an experience generated by our body. Our knowledge of "electromagnetic radiation" is no less caused by our body than our knowledge of red. We know "electromagnetic radiation" as it is. We know the colour red as it is.

Both are things of the world we are aware of only through experience. In any instance where experience is aware of something in the world, it presents it as it is.

That is, after all, why people tend to use science to prove realism over idealism, is it not? So it then seems to be a bit hypocritical for the direct realist to ignore this when arguing with the indirect realist. — Michael

Science doesn't actually perform that task. Realism is a metaphysical position (i.e. about logic) and is shown through the demonstrations of other positions being logically incoherent, not through the presence of any observed empirical state.

Using observed empirical states doesn't work because at no point does it grant us access to unobserved states of the world. We can't use it to demonstrate the existence of unobserved states. The idealist or anti-realist can always pull the "in a moment of experience" argument to support the coherence of their position with science.

I think Michael makes an interesting sociological point here, which is that direct realism is often associated with a family of philosophical views, and then when some sort of scientific 'folk-philosophical consensus' is in accord with those views, those who espouse them will use it as a defense -- and that this trick seems not to work with direct realism itself, since scientists of perception often seem to take indirect realism as obvious, or possibly a matter of scientific discovery.

So maybe the direct realists do, at least on this issue, believe that philosophy has to 'correct' science? Neuroscientists that study perception are fundamentally wrong about the way we perceive, while people who have more or less convinced themselves from the armchair that perception works another way are right? An interesting problem. Though of course, there will be citations of scientists who believe in 'embodied theories' (again, whatever that means [not much I wager]) and direct realism and so on. But that would be a risky gambit, since then the defense would buy into the logic of the argument, and the minute the consensus is revealed to be genuinely in favor of indirect realism among scientists, the direct realist is left with egg on his face. Though who knows, maybe he would just entrench again.

I often get the impression that for the direct realist, there is no potential argument or piece of evidence that could possibly get him to reconsider. That is, direct realism is something he knows pre-philosophically, is certain of, and anything that denies it must be wrong (ala 'common sense' schools of philosophy). The 'philosophical' arguments always stop as soon as the ideological point is met and never bother to deal with their own inconsistencies, because that's not the point of why I was arguing: ensuring that a view actually makes sense is boring and irrelevant. It reminds me a lot of the usual charge leveled against Plantinga and Protestant Christianity (arguments in service of a pre-made ideal rather than a conclusion reached by evidence and argumentation), but I doubt a direct realist would like that comparison or believe it fair. Nonetheless, that looks to me like what is going on. And it's repeated at the professional level too, of course -- John Searle, who is a superlatively bad philosopher in my opinion, just published a book on this subject, which might as well be titled How Not to Philosophize. He calls it 'the bad argument,' by the way, not 'the argument.' And I also get the impression he hasn't read the people he's criticizing, but what's new, huh.

[The vitriol at what I take to be intellectual dishonesty and bad scholarship is over.]

It's right here, friend:

Notice that 1) is impossible if the two are phenomenologically indistinguishable. If for any particular case I cannot tell, then it cannot be that I can tell for the most part (or in other words, there is no way by his own criteria to tell whether or how often I can tell or not). So whether or not jamalrob wants to say this (perhaps he does), he can't. — The Great Whatever

And what do you know, it's a post that quotes you right below the very post you made.

'Thank you for doing my job for me, TGW!'

It might quote me TGW. but it does not address the argument that I made there. The argument is that there is a difference between the claim that we cannot tell the difference between different categories of perception, say, "veridical" and "non-veridical", by virtue of any quality immediately present in instances of perception and a claim that we cannot tell the difference between these two categories of perception, based on accumulated knowledge about perception derived from comparisons between different instances and experiences of the transitions from one to another, and that affirmation of the first does not entail affirmation of the latter.

So, in the passage quoted in your post above you have merely asserted again the impossibility of telling the difference tout suite if the difference is not immediately apparent, without giving any justification at all for this claim. It seems you are guilty of a kind of reductively atomistic thinking about perception; that what we know must build upon pure a-temporal instances of self-evident knowledge, or not be justifiable at all.

The other point is that the 'indirect realist' understanding that is embodied in the science of perception actually supports direct realism, because it is basically saying that it is the fact that light reflects at different wavelengths and angles from the surfaces of objects, and is focused by the lens onto the retina and so on that allows us to see those objects. The fact that the process is complex does not support a conclusion that we don't really see the objects, and direct realism just is the claim that we see the objects; it is not a claim about 'what the objects really are'.

Neuroscientists that study perception are fundamentally wrong about the way we perceive, while people who have more or less convinced themselves from the armchair that perception works another way are right? An interesting problem. Though of course, there will be citations of scientists who believe in 'embodied theories' (again, whatever that means [not much I wager]) and direct realism and so on. But that would be a risky gambit, since then the defense would buy into the logic of the argument, and the minute the consensus is revealed to be genuinely in favor of indirect realism among scientists, the direct realist is left with egg on his face. Though who knows, maybe he would just entrench again. — The Great Whatever

The issue is that the (indirect realist) neuroscientists are asking the wrong question. It is not that they are wrong about how experiences are caused (they are right about that), but rather they do not address what an instance of perception IS.

Direct realism is talking about what it means to perceive an object: that in instances of perception, someone is aware of an object in the world (what is interacting with their body, to produce their present experience) as it exists. The point is to draw the distinction which actually defines the perception of an object (as opposed to merely having an experience).

If objects are not what appears in experience, then nothing is perceived. Anything experienced is merely a creation of an unknown something. No outside object has been perceived. I just have my generated experience and it has no ties to anything I have perceived. An experience, for example, cannot be caused by a ball hitting someone arm, for both those objects are merely a created experience. The effect of objects on the body lost, for any we experiences become a secondary effect of an unknown system (it can't be our body and environment, as both of those are things we are aware of in experience) which generates our experience. Indirect realism is incoherent with embodied causes to experiences and perception of any causal object.

But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us, that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets, through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object.

I think the problem with this passage is that it attempts to treat the mind, and the images in it, as objects, in the same way that it treats the table. There, the table; here, the mind with its images. But where do you have to stand to attain that perspective? Why, outside the mind! And we can't do that. Mental representations, ideas and images, are the very substance of perception and the basis or judgement; if it is true that everything we see is in some sense composed of them, then it is a mistake to believe that they are also objects, because they can't be 'objectified' in the same way that tables and chairs can be. It is to put the processes of mentation on the same footing as what the process sees, which is an elementary mistake, in my opinion.

Is it accurate to talk about "objects of perception"?

I think it is accurate, provided that we understand that perception of objects has an irreducible subjective element; a mind is always implicated, and that mind is never amongst the objects of perception (which is the exact meaning of 'transcendental idealism').

And that is the 'holistic approach'. The conceit of scientism is the mythical 'view from nowhere', but the reality is that all perception, even scientific measurement, takes place in a mind, and a mind is therefore essential to it. But asking 'what mind is', is the source of much error, because, again, it attempts to 'objectify' the mind, to make mind an object with attributes and so on. All such attempts are at best analogical, because the mind is only known (if 'known' is the word) in the first person; it is the subject which knows, not the object of knowledge. And who or what is the subject? Well, we don't know, and we ought to adjust our thinking accordingly, because otherwise we're labouring under the mistake of thinking we know something that we really don't.

And we can't do that. Mental representations, ideas and images, are the very substance of perception and the basis or judgement; if it is true that everything we see is in some sense composed of them, then it is a mistake to believe that they are also objects, because they can't be 'objectified' in the same way that tables and chairs can be. It is to put the processes of mentation on the same footing as what the process sees, which is an elementary mistake, in my opinion.

Is it accurate to talk about "objects of perception"?


I think it is accurate, provided that we understand that perception of objects has an irreducible subjective element; a mind is always implicated, and that mind is never amongst the objects of perception (which is the exact meaning of 'transcendental idealism'). — Wayfarer

For me, to speak of "subjective elements" is to commit the very mistake you have identified in your first paragraph: that is, the mistake of imputing a kind of objective status (a quasi-objective status) to subjectivity. To say that "mental representations, ideas and images, are the very substance of perception" is another example of this mistake.

It is true that the mind is not among the objects of perception, but it is also true that there is no mind separate from them either. Perception is an activity of the body and never occurs without it. The mind is an activity of the body and we have no reason to believe the former ever occurs without the latter.

I acknowledge that mind occurring without body is not logically impossible, but since we have no idea what that could mean, and could never have any adequate evidence for its actuality; I cannot see what point or advantage there could possibly be in entertaining the idea.

Why do you think that 'perception is an activity of the body'? It would be quite feasible for, say, a mathematician to fall victim to an accident or illness whereby he is completely immobilised, but whilst sustained by life support machines, remaining conscious and lucid, albeit paralysed. In that state, he still might be able to solve complex mathematical problems (the great shame being, of course, that he would be unable to communicate them to anyone). But his mind would still be quite capable of percieving mathematical and decuctive truths, even if he were physically immobile.

It is true that the mind is not among the objects of perception, but it is also true that there is no mind separate from them either.

Not as an object of perception, that's for sure.

But I think a salient question is, are there objects without perception? The perspective I am referring to here is the co-arising of objects and mind (much discussed in Buddhist philosophy.)

You can separate 'object', 'mind' and 'cognition' but in so doing you're still making each an object of analysis (of physics, psychology and cognitive science, respectively.) But the reality of experience always comprises subject-object-act of knowing; the reality is the totality. I think we have become very disconnected from that reality, through over-reliance on abstraction and symbolic thought, which tacitly presumes that division of subject and object without necessarily being aware that it is doing it.

So when I say 'subjective elements' it is not an attempt to 'objectify the subject'; there is not literally 'an element' which is subjective. What I am getting at is the more Kantian type of point, that we don't see objects as they are, absent the cognitive act by which we know them. So every act of knowledge implies a subject of experience, but that subject is never itself something that is known. But there is also no 'transcendent object', that is, an object that is over and above or separate from knowledge of it; objective knowledge pertains to the phenomenal domain, the realm of appearance.