I mistook your critique of indirect realism as a defense of direct realism, even though you briefly mentioned some correlationist stuff at the end. So if I understand you correctly, within a correlationist understanding of the empirical world, we do have direct awareness. But it's a relational one, because that's how perception works.
There isn't a veil of perception hiding us from the world, there is just the empirical world we all live in. The transcendental stuff outside of humans is another matter, and we can't use perceptual talk to reference it. — Marchesk
I think jamalrob is arguing that how an object looks, tastes, feels only applies to perception. There's no such thing as what an object looks like without someone seeing it. The indirect realist goes wrong by assuming there is, and then proposing the additional mental intermediary. But there's no need for the intermediary if the act of seeing is what something looks like.
If that sort of argument works, then the debate is rendered moot. There's still a realist question of what objects are independent of perception, but they aren't like perceptions. — Marchesk
I think jamalrob is arguing that how an object looks, tastes, feels only applies to perception. There's no such thing as what an object looks like without someone seeing it. The indirect realist goes wrong by assuming there is, and then proposing the additional mental intermediary. But there's no need for the intermediary if the act of seeing is what something looks like.
If that sort of argument works, then the debate is rendered moot. There's still a realist question of what objects are independent of perception, but they aren't like perceptions. — Marchesk
Aye I think that's roughly where I stand. — jamalrob
The idea that there is a real world out there, but the objects in it and their properties are dependent on our models of them. B — Isaac
There is no mirroring going on. — jamalrob
How are real objects dependent on our models of them without it being anti-realist? — Marchesk
t's to do with what 'an object' is defined as. Imagine the world consists of just an heterogeneous soup. That's all there is, one object. — Isaac
Well, for my taste you put too much weight on the synthesizing of the manifold, and not enough on the environment. — jamalrob
Too much about the perceiver and not enough about the perceived (or about the relation). I mean, it's not "arbitrary", as you said it was (uncharitable perhaps). — jamalrob
But this is nothing new. I've said as much several times on this forum - that to ask what something looks like independent of looking is nonsensical. However, I don't see a problem for the indirect realist if we are to ask if how something looks is how something is. How something looks is a relationship between the looker and what is being looked upon. Take away the looker, then what is the object like?I think jamalrob is arguing that how an object looks, tastes, feels only applies to perception. There's no such thing as what an object looks like without someone seeing it. The indirect realist goes wrong by assuming there is, and then proposing the additional mental intermediary. But there's no need for the intermediary if the act of seeing is what something looks like.
If that sort of argument works, then the debate is rendered moot. There's still a realist question of what objects are independent of perception, but they aren't like perceptions. — Marchesk
You never eat the same soup twice. — jamalrob
Think about this scenario: Say "you" are remote controlling a robot on Mars that transmits it's video feed and information about the chemical composition of the rocks it "sniffs" to Earth. Where is the you in this process? It seems to me that "you" needs to be defined before we can determine what is direct or indirect and if the distinction really matters when it comes to knowledge.Usually in context of illusions, you investigate further. If you walk five miles through the hot desert to the oasis and it isn't there, then you know your brain tricked you.
— Marchesk
I still don't understand this distinction between "you" and "your brain". How is it that the brain tricks something else that you identify as "you"? What is this "you" in relation to "your brain"?
Is "tricking" really the appropriate word? How about "misinterpreted" based on experiences presently stored in memory? "Learning" and "programming" might be other appropriate words to use when it comes to acclimating oneself with the correct interpretation. — Harry Hindu
Is "how things are" always a view from somewhere? What about a view from everywhere? — Harry Hindu
Yeah that is at least the conclusion that Nietzsche for example drew from it... that if the true world, or how things really are, is an incoherent notion, what you are left with is perspectives. Everything is a allways viewed from a perspective. — ChatteringMonkey
Well, that was what I was saying when it comes to viewing the same thing with different senses. How something tastes as to how it appears is different, but is the difference a result of the difference in the senses, or different properties of the object? When we disagree, is our disagreement about the nature of the the thing, or the nature of our view of it?Because what would a view from everywhere mean? That you view all perspectives at once maybe, i.e. a table from all sides, the molecules it is made out of, the protons and electrons and the wavefunction etc etc. ?
It think we see at least parts of the only world we have access to with our senses. And maybe you can learn more about it by looking at it from different perspectives. But the fact that there are other possible perspectives still, doesn't render the perspective we do have false or obsolete.... certainly not for our purposes. — ChatteringMonkey
Yeah that is at least the conclusion that Nietzsche for example drew from it... that if the true world, or how things really are, is an incoherent notion, what you are left with is perspectives. — ChatteringMonkey
What about the perspective itself? From where is it viewed to say that there is a "how things are" for a perspective? It creates an infinite regress of needing perspectives as the structure for the subsequent perspectives. — Harry Hindu
Well, that was what I was saying when it comes to viewing the same thing with different senses. How something tastes as to how it appears is different, but is the difference a result of the difference in the senses, or different properties of the object? When we disagree, is our disagreement about the nature of the the thing, or the nature of our view of it? — Harry Hindu
Problem is that if it's an incoherent notion, then science is undermined when it comes to things like evolution and our origins. How did we come to exist if there is no way the world is? It didn't begin with us. — Marchesk
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