we don't have direct perception of objects — Kenosha Kid

What would that be that we don’t have? I’m seriously asking: what do you have in mind when you say there is a type of perception, direct perception, that human beings happen not to — well, “have” seems an odd way to put — so let’s make it: what would it be to perceive “directly” rather than “indirectly”?

That would it be to perceive “directly” rather than “indirectly”? — Srap Tasmaner

Perceive objects as they are would be one criteria. That means no secondary qualities of the perceiver added on to the perception. It also means a lack of perceptual relativity that indicates people undergo different experiences when perceiving the same objects.

Another would be lack of hallucinations, illusions and dreams, since those involve some mental apparition which is similar to perceived objects. And finally, when it comes to vision at least, that it would work like the ancient greeks thought, and not like what science has come to understand.

Thee's the cartesian theatre.
— Banno

Do you seriously observe no difference between recognising that we don't have direct perception of objects and a full-on subscription to dualism? I get the comparison you're making, but unfortunately it's regarding uncontroversial statements about the brain. There's plenty of examples of the brain doing processing that we're not conscious of that feeds into stuff we are conscious of. I'm certainly not conscious of how photons get converted into an image of 'red flower', and anyone who pretends they are is full of it. Calling it a Cartesian theatre or humunculus is just misleading. — Kenosha Kid

It's the assumption of an image between the perceiver and the object that suggests the dualism. That's the Cartesian theater - that we're only ever looking at images of red flowers, never red flowers.

It's the assumption of an image between the perceiver and the object that suggests the dualism. That's the Cartesian theater - that we're only ever looking at images of red flowers, never red flowers. — Andrew M

No, this is a misrepresentation. @Kenosha Kid is not suggesting that we're 'looking' at images of flowers, the 'looking' is the name we give to the entire process. What @Kenosha Kid is referring to is our responses. Speech, action, emotional responses, strategies, and more complex mental reactions. These all result from the perception of the flower, not the flower.

What would that be that we don’t have? I’m seriously asking: what do you have in mind when you say there is a type of perception, direct perception, that human beings happen not to — well, “have” seems an odd way to put — so let’s make it: what would it be to perceive “directly” rather than “indirectly”? — Srap Tasmaner

You'd have to ask someone who believes we have it, not someone who thinks it's a nonsense. Divinely granted insight? Creeping tendrils of perfect consciousness?

It's the assumption of an image between the perceiver and the object that suggests the dualism. — Andrew M

For you maybe. To me it suggests retina.

Me, too. It's just that the model used in explanations of perceptions is very different from the model used in our scientific theories. — Banno

Not really, the brain is quite like a scientist.

What Kenosha Kid is referring to is our responses. Speech, action, emotional responses, strategies, and more complex mental reactions. These all result from the perception of the flower, not the flower. — Isaac

It's even simpler. I'm just saying that perception of the flower is not the flower. Or, rather, experience of the flower is not the flower. (To my mind, and correct me where I'm wrong, perception and experience are not the same thing. Perception is the wibbly wobbly organisation of data into an always fleeting, always updating model of our environment. Experience is consciousness of that model. These might be two sides of the same coin, but still distinct.)

I was hoping you'd show up and harpoon my bubbles of misunderstanding. We discussed qualia before and you were also of the view that the term is not helpful, but you had reasons, not allergies.

Quick catch-up:
- Banno reckons by way of Dennett that there's no need to talk about experience of a thing, we can just talk about the thing, therefore qualia are not helpful.
- My objection was that experience of a thing is not the thing itself, so there are reasons (scientific, philosophical) to discuss the former, and it's useful to have an unambiguous language to talk about it. "The red flower" is ambiguous, because while I probably am talking about my experiences, I could be talking about the causes of those experiences.
- Banno cries 'Cartesian theatre' and 'humunculi'.

So I can see you're happy with the distinction between the perception of a flower and the flower itself (which ought to be trivial). At some point you and I will diverge but can you weigh in on the following please?
1. Do you think we are conscious of the processes of forming those perceptions? (Harder question: at what point are we conscious of the causes of our perceptions? Are we conscious directly of photons incident upon retina? Of currents in optic nerves? Etc.)
2. If we see a red flower next to a yellow flower, would you agree it at least _seems_ to us like there are two flowers with different properties, irrespective of how that seeming arises?

Cheers Isaac, nice to see you back.

(To my mind, and correct me where I'm wrong, perception and experience are not the same thing. Perception is the wibbly wobbly organisation of data into an always fleeting, always updating model of our environment. Experience is consciousness of that model. These might be two sides of the same coin, but still distinct.) — Kenosha Kid

As far as I'm concerned - spot on.

I was hoping you'd show up and harpoon my bubbles of misunderstanding. — Kenosha Kid

Ha! Harpoon at the ready.

1. Do you think we are conscious of the processes of forming those perceptions? (Harder question: at what point are we conscious of the causes of our perceptions? Are we conscious directly of photons incident upon retina? Of currents in optic nerves? Etc.) — Kenosha Kid

I'd have to say yes, but perhaps not for the direct reasons that might at first seem a 'yes' would indicate. I think that the developments of neuroscience (and cognitive psychology) mean that we have models of the process and that makes us conscious of it. I know it might seem like I'm missing the distinction between a putative model of something and the actual experience of that thing but then, thinking about it...what are we saying about our experience of anything? Only that we have model of it.

Consciousness is a tricky business with as many theories as there are scientists working on it. My personal preference demotes consciousness to a fairy trivial logging process, we are 'conscious' of that which we log to memory, experience being merely the process of doing so, always post hoc, always retrospective, we're never conscious of anything in real time, it's the reviewing of what's just happened to make sense of it that forms our experience. Advocates of this model usually use the term 'awareness' in place of where you're using 'conscious of' in order to distinguish it from the more technical 'consciousness' which is merely being 'online', all systems firing etc.

So, at what point are we 'aware' of our perception process? Quite late on. well after it's formed what we might call an image, we need the dorsal and ventral streams (identity and form) to recombine before we can even begin to contextualise what we've seen.

2. If we see a red flower next to a yellow flower, would you agree it at least _seems_ to us like there are two flowers with different properties, irrespective of how that seeming arises? — Kenosha Kid

Yes, definitely. I'd go further to say that unless we are actually dreaming or hallucinating, some hidden state must be not only causing that difference, but by virtue of doing so, must itself be sufficiently differentiated to do so.

nice to see you back. — Kenosha Kid

Thanks, likewise.

Quick catch-up:
- Banno reckons by way of Dennett that there's no need to talk about experience of a thing, we can just talk about the thing, therefore qualia are not helpful.
- My objection was that experience of a thing is not the thing itself, so there are reasons (scientific, philosophical) to discuss the former, and it's useful to have an unambiguous language to talk about it. "The red flower" is ambiguous, because while I probably am talking about my experiences, I could be talking about the causes of those experiences. — Kenosha Kid

Actually, what was questioned was this:

When I refer to the red flower, I am doing so as a shorthand for my experience of the red flower. — Kenosha Kid

But you have corrected yourself, somewhat backhandedly.

Neither Dennett nor I have argued that there is no need to talk about experiences; rather that replacing talk of experiences with talk of qualia is unhelpful.

Which idea of qualia am I trying to extirpate? Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do. That is to say, whenever someone experiences something as being one way rather than another, this is true in virtue of some property of something happening in them at the time, but these properties are so unlike the properties traditionally imputed to consciousness that it would be grossly misleading to call any of them the long-sought qualia. Qualia are supposed to be special properties, in some hard-to-define way. My claim--which can only come into focus as we proceed--is that conscious experience has no properties that are special in any of the ways qualia have been supposed to be special. — Dennett, Quining Qualia

And so the question comes down to definitions:

"Some philosophers (e.g, Dennett 1987, 1991) use the term ‘qualia’ in a still more restricted way so that qualia are intrinsic properties of experiences that are also ineffable, nonphysical, and ‘given’ to their subjects incorrigibly (without the possibility of error). Philosophers who deny that there are qualia sometimes have in mind qualia as the term is used in this more restricted sense (or a similar one)". --SEP on qualia

As long as we're all on the same page, the whole issue becomes uncontroversial.

Perception is the wibbly wobbly organisation of data into an always fleeting, always updating model of our environment. — Kenosha Kid

If perception organizes, what does the brain do? If vision data goes here, olfactory data goes there, is that not organization of data, relatively long after the sensory input of it?
———-

Backtracking, I find you said this, pg 3. I can’t get it to quote because I’m editing here, but anyway....

“Data comes in via the senses.
The (unconscious, system-oney) brain integrates, transforms, filters, and annotates that data to build a model.”

Not trying to be contentious, but I wonder which of the two seemingly disparate iterations you actually favor.

Matter isn't "dead", it's undead (i.e. in motion via decomposition)

:up:

....intrinsic properties of experiences that are also ineffable, nonphysical, and ‘given’ to their subjects incorrigibly (without the possibility of error)

"I had an ineffable experience."
"Wow, me too! I wonder if we both had the same experience."
"I would think so. One ineffable experience is much like another. Once you've identified an experience as ineffable there's not much more you can say about it. In fact, there's absolutely nothing more you can say about it. That's what 'ineffable' means."
"Was it like a sound or a sight or a scent or something?"
"I couldn't say. If I could say, then of course it wouldn't be ineffable. And ineffable is just what it was."
"Hmm. Well, maybe I was mistaken about mine. Not sure it was truly ineffable."
"Well, you can't mistake an ineffable experience, mate. No possibility of error there!"
"Oh, ok, then it definitely wasn't ineffable."

That's all I have to say about ineffable experiences.

I think that the developments of neuroscience (and cognitive psychology) mean that we have models of the process and that makes us conscious of it. — Isaac

Oh that's interesting. So we have models of the processes of model-building. Perhaps this is pathological, but I am not aware of these processes. I know on an intellectual level that they occur, but have no conscious experience of, say, conjuring a colour from a current, or a shape, or depth in the way that I am conscious of a red flower close to me. Those processes being _why_ I am conscious of them, sure. Having the model may well be the same as being aware of the model, as I said to Banno earlier.

My personal preference demotes consciousness to a fairy trivial logging process, we are 'conscious' of that which we log to memory, experience being merely the process of doing so, always post hoc, always retrospective, we're never conscious of anything in real time, it's the reviewing of what's just happened to make sense of it that forms our experience. — Isaac

Yeah that sounds reasonable, but that logging process is just as apt to be called a humunculus or Cartesian theatre. I'm not sure how you avoid such accusations if anything precedes that logging that isn't also logging.

Actually, what was questioned was this:

When I refer to the red flower, I am doing so as a shorthand for my experience of the red flower.
— Kenosha Kid — Banno

Again, no, this started with:

Qualia add nothing helpful to the conversation:

What is gained by talk of the-qual-of-the-flower that is not found in talk of the red flower? — Banno

My contention was that there are good reasons to talk of properties of experience as opposed to objects because they're not the same.

But you have corrected yourself, somewhat backhandedly. — Banno

Nope, still at it. I think there's a problem here throughout with your representing either of us.

Perhaps this is pathological, but I am not aware of these processes. I know on an intellectual level that they occur, but have no conscious experience of, say, conjuring a colour from a current, or a shape, or depth in the way that I am conscious of a red flower close to me. — Kenosha Kid

OK, so stop me if this gets too 'new age', but how do you judge whether you have awareness of something? I don't mean that as a philosophical question, I mean it as an actual exercise to do now. Look at the red flower - you're aware of it. Think about the neurons firing from your retina, to your visual cortex, to your visual-spatial sketchpad... What's missing that means you don't feel 'aware' of the latter, what kind of signal were you expecting but found lacking?

that logging process is just as apt to be called a humunculus or Cartesian theatre. I'm not sure how you avoid such accusations if anything precedes that logging that isn't also logging. — Kenosha Kid

Such accusations don't bother me. If people want to model it as an homunculus, then I don't mind. I long ago came to terms with infinite regress, I couldn't progress in my field without it - it's models all the way down!

No, this is a misrepresentation. Kenosha Kid is not suggesting that we're 'looking' at images of flowers, the 'looking' is the name we give to the entire process. What @Kenosha Kid is referring to is our responses. Speech, action, emotional responses, strategies, and more complex mental reactions. These all result from the perception of the flower, not the flower. — Isaac

I agree that we respond to things that we perceive (such as red flowers). But I was referring to KK's "image of 'red flower'". Where does that fit into the "perception" story, on your view?

It's the assumption of an image between the perceiver and the object that suggests the dualism.
— Andrew M

For you maybe. To me it suggests retina. — Kenosha Kid

Sorry, you've lost me! See my question above.

I agree that we respond to things that we perceive (such as red flowers). But I was referring to KK's "image of 'red flower'". Where does that fit into the "perception" story, on your view? — Andrew M

Well I can't speak for @Kenosha Kid's understanding (although I just did in my post to you, so... oops), but I think we can justifiably use the term 'image' to describe what exits the visual cortex. We're already not a million miles away from being able to directly decode the neural signal leaving that area into an actual computer image. Much like I might say "I have an image of my house here on this USB stick"

Anyone claiming that science can solve or dissolve the hard-problem, is not only wrong, but demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of science.

The ontological naturalism of science refers to the fact that the ontology of science is deliberately left undefined in terms of the perceptual judgements of any particular individual, in order so that scientific concepts can be universally shared and applied by scientists worldwide in a free and bespoke fashion, without laboratories having to submit their interpretations of their findings to the authoritative perceptual judgements of a particular individual. The price of this freedom and universality is experiential under-determination of scientific language, whereby no particular individual can claim to have direct and objective scientific knowledge.

To understand the existence of the hard-problem is to recall the history of the metre. Recall the platinum bar locked in the vault of Paris during the 19th century that was used to define "one metre" . If that platinum bar was replaced with a person whose judgements constituted the definition of "one metre", for that particular person the "hard-problem" of "sensing" one metre wouldn't exist, because by definition whatever the person perceived to be "one metre" would by definition be "one metre".

Eventually, the definition of "metre" was dematerialised for global convenience, and redefined theoretically in terms of the speed of light, changing the meaning of " one metre" from being a fundamentally empirical proposition referring to a particular bar in paris, to being a theoretical term with ambiguous empirical content, a term that was itself defined in terms of other theoretical terms in other units of measurements. In the process of dematerialisation across all units of measurement, scientific empiricism lost the distinction between theoretical and observational terms to became thoroughly aperspectival and theoretically circular.

The dematerialisation of scientific language therefore constitutes buying universality, semantic simplicity and practical freedom, at the cost of creating the hard-problem of subjectivity.

Anyone claiming that science can solve or dissolve the hard-problem, is not only wrong, but demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of science — sime

The Hard Problem is specifically a problem for science: to explain the phenomenal character of consciousness. There are those who claim it can't be approached by any mode of human knowledge. Would you agree with them?

OK, so stop me if this gets too 'new age', but how do you judge whether you have awareness of something? I don't mean that as a philosophical question, I mean it as an actual exercise to do now. Look at the red flower - you're aware of it. Think about the neurons firing from your retina, to your visual cortex, to your visual-spatial sketchpad... What's missing that means you don't feel 'aware' of the latter, what kind of signal were you expecting but found lacking? — Isaac

Stop, hippy! Well can I turn that around and ask how you think we're conscious of the building of these models? As it's not something I recognise and so can describe. In terms of what I _am_ aware of, right now my phone, my hands, the colours coming from the phone, the feel of tapping the glass, the lingering taste of manchego, quince, and temperanillo, and my gf glaring at me with 'Get off your f***ing phone' vibes. I'm not aware of signals building up this picture.

Such accusations don't bother me. If people want to model it as an homunculus, then I don't mind. I long ago came to terms with infinite regress, I couldn't progress in my field without it - it's models all the way down! — Isaac

Yeah, I should probably have just shrugged it off. But there are processes we're not aware of (photons on retina, phonons on eardrums and nerves), and the stuff we are aware of seems pretty mature in that process. We're not logging raw sensory input, it's processed in some way. I don't have a strong idea of when logging starts,I guess.

Think about the neurons firing from your retina, to your visual cortex, to your visual-spatial sketchpad... What's missing that means you don't feel 'aware' of the latter, what kind of signal were you expecting but found lacking? — Isaac

If I do that, two concepts compete in my mind for attention: the entire visual apparatus (which I conjur up from memory), and the flower (which currently occupies my visual apparatus). They don't integrate, and they don't make me aware of, say, the neurons that are firing right now, just of the genral concept. I know that's what's going on (to the extent of my knowledge), but it doesn't feel "present", it's abstraction I summon. What's missing is actual awareness of the process that goes on right now. I might miss a bee pollinating the flower, while I'm turning "inwards" (and get lost in a loop of metaphor).

Well can I turn that around and ask how you think we're conscious of the building of these models? — Kenosha Kid

Yeah, we could do it as a joint meditation exercise - has anyone got any patchouli?

If I'm aware of my laptop keyboard I feel like it's there in front of me, but I'm also aware of what's inside it, I can 'picture' the processor, the fan, the hard drive and they're real, I can plan to clean the fan by 'knowing' it's there behind the cover so I know where to put my screwdriver. This is a form of awareness.

Now I imagine the signals travelling between my retina and my visual cortex. just like the computer fan, it's behind a cover, but I know it's there. Just like the computer fan I don't have an 'accurate' image of it (I can't even remember what colour the computer fan is, so I just 'colour it in' ambiguously). We might say that it's not real awareness because it's not the actual signals I'm being 'triggered' by, but it's not the actual computer fan either, I can't see it or hear it, yet I'm aware it's there.

Taking it one step further, even without any previous experience to go on (of this actual laptop) I can infer the presence of a fan which I can 'place' in my model of what's behind these keys, just like I infer neuronal activity from my knowledge of how the brain works.

I guess it depends on how direct you like your models to be to class as awareness. The model of your phone is only a few jumps away from the hidden causes, the model of your gf is probably even closer (directly wired in it seems sometimes!). The model of your neurons which make you aware of them took a lot longer a route, via the signal from a poor epileptic test subject undergoing live brain surgery (probably) a neuroscience lab, a few men in white coats, a few papers, a few lecture theatres, an ageing academic on a philosophy forum...

I'm not aware of signals building up this picture. — Kenosha Kid

Then you're not doing it right! (a refrain I learnt from all the best teachers of enlightenment). Seriously, I think it's a personal thing as to what level of "I just made that up" we're willing to accept as genuine. Most (hopefully) won't just accept any old crap, we need the signal to have a kind of 'authenticity' marker (which is why I asked what token or marker you're expecting but not getting when you imagine your neurons firing), what sorts of mental images get that marker varies. My keyboard gets it because I can see it, but my fan gets it too, I really 'know' it's there. My firing neurons...? Just about, on a good day. The unicorn I'm now picturing...? Not even getting a look in.

We're not logging raw sensory input, it's processed in some way. I don't have a strong idea of when logging starts,I guess. — Kenosha Kid

That's true, but (my esteemed colleagues will correct me if I'm wrong here) there's nothing physiologically preventing us. There's absolutely no physiological reason why you shouldn't log the output of the forward acting region of your V3 area. "remember that left-right motion we saw the other day...". We just don't. There's definitely some link between V2 and the hippocampus which will affect memory logging in some way, but no-one quite knows how.

That's it. Now walk into a room you're familiar with and see if you have the same awareness of the wardrobe, the bed, the view out the window... I can guarantee you didn't actually receive any genuine photon-signals from most of that stuff, but you felt aware of it, no?

I think we can justifiably use therm 'image' to describe what exits the visual cortex. We're already not a million miles away from being able to directly decode the neural signal leaving that area into an actual computer image. — Isaac

Thanks, that's what I was meaning.

We're already not a million miles away from being able to directly decode the neural signal leaving that area into an actual computer image. — Isaac

That would be so amazing.

That's it. Now walk into a room you're familiar with a see if you have the same awareness of the wardrobe, the bed, the view out the window... I can guarantee you didn't actually receive any genuine photon-signals from most of that stuff, but you felt aware of it, no? — Isaac

Sure. I think the point here is that perception is never quite naive? I'm not sure.

"Same awareness": Same as what? I wasn't actually looking at a red flower, so the thing was hypothetical (and since I have aphantasia I wasn't even imagining anything visually specific, just a - to some degree - bare concept).

For what it's worth, I was just trying to pay attention to the window next to me. Running my eyes down it starting from top left down to bottom left, and then top right down to bottom right. I came away with the feeling that it's time to clean it again, and there's a particular smudge that stands out.

I can't do the same thing for the contents of my hippocampus, for example. I wouldn't know how to even start. It's just involved in what's going on with me right now. Don't know how to "pay attention" to it. When I try, my initial impulse is visual (as I try to use my eyes, before I abort - for lack of where ot look? because I realise it's not a visual "topic"?) - maybe because my familiartiy with the topic (however sketchy) mostly involves reading and looking at pictures? It feels like I'm aware of what's going on in my head in somewhat the same way that I'm aware there are platypuses in Australia. External stuff experienced in the past; no situationally present trigger or connection. If I apply neuroscientific knowledge to myself then I objectify myself, and it's all theoretic.

We're already not a million miles away from being able to directly decode the neural signal leaving that area into an actual computer image. — Isaac

When you say decode, do you mean with loss? If so, what would be lost?

Is the sense of having a certain vantage point also part of the model? IOW, is the sense of separation between viewer and scene a construction too? Because this is related to a sense of unique identity and reflection on perception itself.

Or: why are we aware of perception? Is that an accident of the whole process? Or does it have a functional aspect? Or both?

Taking it one step further, even without any previous experience to go on (of this actual laptop) I can infer the presence of a fan which I can 'place' in my model of what's behind these keys, just like I infer neuronal activity from my knowledge of how the brain works. — Isaac

^ A pertinent sample, but replying to whole.

Yeah I thought we'd get onto this. Then I say, but there's a difference between me passively seeing something I cannot help but see on the one hand, and me either actively conjecturing or remembering by association some facts about what I see. And then I think you say that that's all we're doing anyway when constructing these representations. When we see a red flower, we're remembering and conjecturing based on past experience of other flowers, other red things, and everything else for that matter. Brains are scientists!.

We end up unable to avoid early learning, which is also hard. But still, that's a lot of stuff going on that we don't seem aware of. Pattern-recognition, memory retrieval, that sort of thing, such that whatever I'm seeing _seems_ to come to me fully formed. It doesn't seem like it would benefit from deliberation.

There's absolutely no physiological reason why you shouldn't log the output of the forward acting region of your V3 area. "remember that left-right motion we saw the other day...". We just don't. — Isaac

Again, efficiency I would imagine. It's much better for me to make decisions based on integrated, annotated, coloured-in if you will information. Same reason we do feature extraction and dimensionality reduction as part of preprocessing for training and using neural nets. Having to consciously parse raw data would render consciousness too slow to be useful.

If perception organizes, what does the brain do? — Mww

It's the brain that's doing it. Perception is a brain function.

Try actually reading Metzinger. — 180 Proof

I don't see how watching videos of his lectures would be any different, unless me means different things with the same words when he writes them as opposed to speaking them. I don't see why you couldn't just summarize his explanation on this particular question, if he (or you for that matter) really had one.

"According to Thomas Metzinger, no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience."

How on earth is this supposed to suggest that there's no qualia? Qualia is conscious experience. — frank

What on Earth does he mean by "self" anyway? Is he saying that there are no such things as individual organisms? If there are individual organisms that make up a particular species, then does a self exist even if those organisms don't have the mental capacity to model states of their body? The theory of evolution by natural selection is based on the idea of competing individuals (selves) with the winner successfully passing their genes down the subsequent generations, thereby improving the specie's chances of persisting through time. Ideas are just as real as physiological traits and they both are used to compete, and selected for or against, in the game of survival.

There's absolutely no physiological reason why you shouldn't log the output of the forward acting region of your V3 area. "remember that left-right motion we saw the other day...". We just don't. — Isaac

CEMI (Conscious Electromagnetic Information) field theory can at least hypothetically explain that by locating fully attentive, intention-laden awareness in particularly concentrated EM field/ion channel phase locking domains of the brain, which are emergent within the more diffuse and dispersed phase locking of relative unconsciousness. This is the most plausible model I've encountered, but it has yet to be fully tested and developed. Are you familiar?