The spider is directly aware of the vibrations and indirectly aware of the fly. — Michael

But it isn't. It's not 'directly' aware if the vibrations in the phenomenological sense of 'aware' (damn terminology problems again). I don't know spider neurology, so I'm going to replace it with human neurology instead.

Something like colour is modeled by a couple of regions in the brain (V4, BA7, BA28...). What we call an experience (what we relate when we're talking about it, what we react to, what we log) is several nodes removed from either the V4 region or the BA7 region.

When articles like the one you cited talk about 'directness' they're talking about it in system terms. Direct means that the internal states have access to it within the Markov blanket. It doesn't mean our experience has no intervening nodes.

So I'm not seeing the phenomenological argument that we 'experience' the model directly but the hidden state indirectly. In terms of intervening data nodes we experience both indirectly. Our experience neither directly reports the output of the V4 region, nor does it directly report the activity of the retinal ganglia, nor does it directly report the photon scattering from the external world object. It doesn't directly report any of them. So why give the modeling output from V4 any unique status in the process?

other than the trivial fact that it is such that it causes us to see this or feel that — Michael

This is the move I don't understand. On what grounds 'trivial'? It seems of absolutely fundamental and manifest importance to every single aspect of our lives, language and thought.

But it isn't. It's not 'directly' aware if the vibrations in the phenomenological sense of 'aware' (damn terminology problems again). I don't know spider neurology, so I'm going to replace it with human neurology instead.

Something like colour is modeled by a couple of regions in the brain (V4, BA7, BA28...). What we call an experience (what we relate when we're talking about it, what we react to, what we log) is several nodes removed from either the V4 region or the BA7 region.

When articles like the one you cited talk about 'directness' they're talking about it in system terms. Direct means that the internal states have access to it within the Markov blanket. It doesn't mean our experience has no intervening nodes.

So I'm not seeing the phenomenological argument that we 'experience' the model directly but the hidden state indirectly. In terms of intervening data nodes we experience both indirectly. Our experience neither directly reports the output of the V4 region, nor does it directly report the activity of the retinal ganglia, nor does it directly report the photon scattering from the external world object. It doesn't directly report any of them. So why give the modeling output from V4 any unique status in the process? — Isaac

Then this shows that trying to understand the philosophy of perception by referring to the cognitive science of Markov blankets is a mistake, as @Janus seemed to say earlier. It is better to understand it exactly as I described it in that last post:

The same external cause causes one person to see a red dress and one person to see a blue dress. There is a qualitative difference to their experiences. The words "red" and "blue" in this context refer to some quality of their respective experiences. We are directly aware of this red or blue quality, and through that quality indirectly aware of some external cause that emits or reflects light at a certain wavelength.

This is the move I don't understand. On what grounds 'trivial'? — Isaac

Given that we see what we see then it follows that the external world is such that it causes us to see what we see. In terms of the epistemological problem of perception it's trivial. What we're interested in is whether or not the external world, when not seen or felt, "resembles" the world as-seen and as-felt. Do our everyday experiences show us the "intrinsic" nature of this external world? Are the shapes and colours and sounds that we're familiar with properties of the external world or just qualities of the experience? How much of what we see and feel is a product of us and our involvement with the world, and how much (if any) was "already there"? Is perception the reception of information or the creation of information?

It is better to understand it exactly as I described it in that last post: — Michael

I don't see the 'better'. The improvement is what?

The words "red" and "blue" in this context refer to some quality of their respective experiences. We are directly aware of this red or blue quality, and through that quality indirectly aware of some external cause that emits or reflects light at a certain wavelength. — Michael

This seems to equivocate over phenomenological and scientific senses. I can't see why you'd accept the (very unintuitive) scientific description of light, but then say that the (perhaps unintuitive) scientific description of 'seeing' has no place in your understanding of perception. Why does light get translated to wavelengths, but translating red to an output from the V4 region is disallowed. Light doesn't appear to be wavelengths to me, any more than red appears to be an output from my V4 region.

Also, this is still not really pinning down 'directly'. In what sense are we 'directly' aware of the experience of red that we're not as directly aware of the postbox? You seem to want to invoke some science to show that I'm not (contrary to how it seems) directly seeing the postbox, but then want to ignore that very same science when it shows you're not directly aware of it's redness either.

But we clearly aren't referring to the properties of the experience. When I say "the post box is red" I'm clearly referring to the post box. The grammar could not be more clear. — Isaac

I think this is where we might be talking past each other. When I play a computer game I might say that the game is good or is fun or is scary or whatever, and the grammar is clearly referring to the computer game and saying that it has certain properties. And that's fine for everyday conversation. But being good, being fun, being scary, and so on are not external properties of things that are then "encountered". They refer to my state of mind (emotional rather than sensory in this case). You might also want to use the words "good", "fun", and "scary" to refer to some external property that causes us to feel these things, but I would say that that is secondary to the primary meaning.

I think most people would agree with me at least on this. I just think it's correct to extend this understanding to sensory qualities like colour and shape.

Do our everyday experiences provide us with information about the "intrinsic" nature of this external world? — Michael

What would be its intrinsic nature. Why would 'it causes me to respond thus' not be one of its intrinsic properties?

Are the shapes and colours and sounds that we're familiar with properties of the external world or just qualities of the experience? — Michael

Surely this question is the exact one that is answered by showing that the external world causes those experiences. Unless it is doing so randomly, then there has to be a match between property and experience?

How much of what we see and feel is a product of us and our involvement with the world, and how much (if any) was "already there"? — Michael

Now this question I agree is fascinating and underlies pretty much all of my research in the field. I don't believe it can be answered by introspection alone, we need to know how our cognition works to answer it.

Unless it is doing so randomly, then there has to be a match between property and experience? — Isaac

The fact that you and I can look at the same photo and yet I see a white and gold dress and you see a black and blue dress proves this wrong. The external properties are the same and yet the internal qualities are different. The experience is determined by our eyes and brain as well as any external stimulus. The mistake is in then projecting the qualities of the experience onto the external stimulus.

But being good, being fun, being scary, and so on are not external properties of things that are then "encountered". They refer to my state of mind (emotional rather than sensory in this case). — Michael

Yeah, I think we're just going round in circles on this one. If a computer game is scary, then that is a property of the computer game that it scares you. It presumably doesn't do so randomly, so something about it causes the fear. I just don't see a problem with calling that property 'being scary'.

I just don't see a problem with calling that property 'being scary'. — Isaac

It's not a problem in ordinary conversation. It can be a problem if it leads you to the philosophical position that being scary is a mind-independent property that some people are "correct" in experiencing and others "mistaken" in not.

The fact that you and I can look at the same photo and yet I see a white and gold dress and you see a black and blue dress proves this wrong. — Michael

No it doesn't. You seeing white and gold dress and me seeing a black and blue is not remotely random, its in fact completely explicable by direct deterministic actions of retinal ganglia, occipital cortex activity and suppressive action of higher cortical functions. There's nothing even slightly random about it. The dress has a very distinct, measurable and predictable property of causing some humans to reach for the colour terms 'white and gold' and other humans to reach for the colour terms 'black and blue'.

You seeing white and gold dress and me seeing a black and blue is not remotely random — Isaac

I'm not saying it's random. I'm saying that it's wrong to say that they "match". The external property may determinately cause the experience, but they are distinct things. A broken window isn't a property of the ball.

A broken window isn't a property of the ball. — Michael

No, but 'that it broke a window' is. And if it breaks every single window it comes into contact with, then 'that it breaks windows' is a property of the ball.

So 'that it causes some humans to to reach for the colour terms 'white and gold' and other humans to reach for the colour terms 'black and blue' is likewise an intrinsic property of the dress.

What we call that intrinsic property seems to be the sticking point.

What we call that intrinsic property seems to be the sticking point. — Isaac

I don't think that's quite right. I've accepted that we can use words like "red" to refer to that intrinsic property. The disagreement is that I also think we can (and do) use words like "red" to refer to the effect, i.e. some quality of the experience. The reason I "reach" for the colour terms "white" and "gold" is because those are the words that refer to the quality of my experience. So an intrinsic property is red₁ if it causes most humans to experience red₂. But there are some who might experience blue₂ because their eyes and/or brain work differently.

because those are the words that refer to the quality of my experience. So an intrinsic property is red1 if it causes most humans to experience red2. But there are some who might experience blue2 because their eyes and/or brain work differently. — Michael

There's that equivocation again though. You can't on the one hand invoke "their eyes and/or brain work[ing] differently" and then when I talk about the consequences of what we know about how brains work say it isn't relevant to our understanding of perception.

Either how the brain works is relevant or it isn't.

If it's relevant then you have to accept that you don't 'really' experience red either, it's just a post hoc narrative constructed by your working memory.

If it's not relevant, then you've no ground to say we don't 'really' see the dress because you're bracketing out everything about how the brain works. We do appear to see most colours the same so someone must be wrong about the dress.

Either that or we invoke qualia (without warrant and with all the associated problems).

If it's relevant then you have to accept that you don't 'really' experience red either, it's just a post hoc narrative constructed by your working memory. — Isaac

I don't see how that follows.

We do appear to see most colours the same so someone must be wring about the dress. — Isaac

And this definitely doesn't follow. Most humans are trichromats. The very rare tetrachromats aren't wrong in seeing different colours to the rest of us.

I don't see how that follows. — Michael

Because that's the consequence of what we know about how brains work. Either you're bracketing that out entirely (in which case out goes light hitting the retina, out goes perception modeling, etc) or you're accommodating it in your theories (in which case we don't experience red).

You seem to want to bracket out half of what we know but keep the other half. Bracket out what we know about working memory, but keep what we know about how different brain processes can cause a white/gold reaction in some and a blue/black reaction in others.

Most humans are trichromats. The very rare tetrachromats aren't wrong in seeing different colours to the rest of us. — Michael

How do we know that? How have we updated our model of what's happening in tetrachromats?

By following the evidence from neuroscience. By accommodating what we've discovered about how brains work into our understanding of perception.

Again, you seem to be allowing some aspects of neuroscience to inform your understanding but denying others

Because that's the consequence of what we know about how brains work. — Isaac

Again, allowing some aspects of neuroscience to inform your understanding but denying others — Isaac

Neurology doesn't explain the hard problem of consciousness. We know that changes to the eyes and changes to the brain affect first-person experience, but we haven't reduced first-person experience to brain- or body-activity. And even if we do reduce first-person experience to brain- or body-activity, it can still be that colour terms like "red" refer to some property of this brain- or body-activity, not just to some property of the external stimulus.

Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery. There is an explanatory gap (a term due to Levine, 1983) between the functions and experience, and we need an explanatory bridge to cross it. A mere account of the functions stays on one side of the gap, so the materials for the bridge must be found elsewhere. — Chalmers, 1995

How do we know that? How have we updated our model of what's happening in tetrachromats?

By following the evidence from neuroscience. By accommodating what we've discovered about how brains work into our understanding of perception.

Again, allowing some aspects of neuroscience to inform your understanding but denying others — Isaac

If most people are scared of spiders it doesn't follow that the minority who aren't scared of spiders are wrong. I don't see how understanding the human brain has any relevance to this fact.

Neurology doesn't explain the hard problem of consciousness. We know that changes to the eyes and changes to the brain affect first-person experience. We haven't reduced first-person experience to brain- or body-activity. — Michael

No, but, like tetrachromy, it gives us some parameters. Some possibilities are shown to be unlikely given the data we have. One such is the idea that there's some internal 'redness' which we directly experience. There's no mechanism for such a thing, and what mechanisms we can see suggest it isn't happening.

The fact that we don't fully understand conscious experience doesn't provide license to just dismiss whatever aspects we do know anytime they become inconvenient to your theory. There's a hell of a lot we do know. Chalmers notwithstanding.

One such is the idea that there's some internal'redness' which we directly experience. There's no mechanism for such a thing, and what mechanisms we can see suggest it isn't happening. — Isaac

What we know is that if I see a red dress and you see a blue dress then our first-person experiences are different, and that the colour terms "red" and "blue" refer to whatever it is that differs in our experiences.

If we don't yet have a scientific explanation of this mechanism then that simply shows that our scientific explanations are inadequate. Which most people accept is true, given that the hard problem of consciousness hasn't been solved.

What we know is that if I see a red dress and you see a blue dress then our first-person experiences are different, and that the colour terms "red" and "blue" refer to whatever it is that differs in our experiences. — Michael

I don't see how we 'know' this. Certainly not scientifically. All the data we have scientifically seems to show that experiences cannot be said to have properties such as colours. There simply isn't the mechanism.

So do we 'know' it phenomenologically? Again, I don't see how. All we have phenomenologically is that I seem to think the dress is blue and you seem to think its red. There's nothing in my experience which tells me why.

Which most people accept is true, given that the hard problem of consciousness hasn't been solved. — Michael

I'm going to quibble here too, though with far less warrant. Most neuroscientists and cognitive scientists I've worked with (I can think of only one exception) think the hard problem of consciousness is nonsense. It may be popular among philosophers, but people in general are a much broader group.

I've no interest at all in being lectured with a series of random assertions from nobodies off the internet. Provide arguments, cite sources, or at the very least show a little humility if you don't. I can't for the life of me think why you'd assume anyone would want to learn what some random people happen to 'reckon' about cognitive science and systems theory. — Isaac

I cited the source, Ludwig von Bertalanffy. If you're into systems theory you ought to know him.

Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics and other fields. Bertalanffy proposed that the classical laws of thermodynamics might be applied to closed systems, but not necessarily to "open systems" such as living things. His mathematical model of an organism's growth over time, published in 1934,[1] is still in use today. — Wikipedia

Your claim was that neurological "systems" follow the laws of physics. Bertalanffy's claim is that "open systems" (biological systems) do not necessarily follow the second law of thermodynamics.

Also I have no interest in being lectured by another dry, opinionated academic who thinks that cognitive science and systems theory have any priority, beyond their own personal set of prejudices, in respect of philosophical questions. — Janus

That\s exactly the problem I pointed to, with the application of systems theory. Boundaries may be so arbitrary, that people can use "systems" to support any hypothesis that they want to support.

One step back. The declaration of an internal state and an external state (necessary simply by declaring the object of our thought to be this and not that) Requires that there is what we call a Markov boundary between the internal and the external states. This is (again no ontology yet) simply a statistical feature of there being internal and external states, there simply must exist in any network those nodes which connect to the external states and the internal states. These are the Markov boundary (and anything within them is inside the Markov blanket). — Isaac

The problem with your internal/external boundary is that you employ a boundary between the system and the "external", but you do not employ a boundary between the system and the "internal". And since there are internal hidden states as well as external hidden states, you need a boundary between the system and the internal, to account for the reality of these hidden states. The living "system" is best understood as a medium between the internal and the external, as pointed out by Wayfarer earlier in the thread. As Plato indicated, living acts are best understood as carried out by the medium between soul and body. This is why we can say that Plato resolved the interaction problem which is commonly attributed to dualism.

That is why systems theory is very flimsy. You employ a boundary between the system and the external, but you do not employ a boundary between the system and the internal. The "system" is a human construct, a model. The unknowns are not accounted for by "the system" because they are unknown. In modern formalism, unknowns are allowed right into the logical system. There is no boundary to separate the unknowns which are within the system, from the system itself. So we think that all the unknowns are external, coming from outside the boundary, when there is really a lot of unknowns within the system, and having no boundary to exclude them from the system on the inside. The consequence of this, in modeling biological systems, is that there is no way to distinguish between internal causes and external causes. Epistemological deficiencies appear like ontological issues, and there is no principles allowing us to distinguish these from each other.

I don't see how we 'know' this. Certainly not scientifically. All the data we have scientifically seems to show that experiences cannot be said to have properties such as colours. There simply isn't the mechanism.

So do we 'know' it phenomenologically? Again, I don't see how. All we have phenomenologically is that I seem to think the dress is blue and you seem to think its red. There's nothing in my experience which tells me why. — Isaac

Do you say the same about being fun, good, scary, painful? You don't understand how these words refer to some feature of the experience and not (just) the external stimulus?

Do you say the same about being fun, good, scary, painful? You don't understand how these words refer to some feature of the experience and not (just) the external stimulus? — Michael

Yes. And no, I don't think those words directly refer to some property of experience either.

http://www.affective-science.org/pubs/2017/barrett-tce-scan-2017.pdf

I cited the source, Ludwig von Bertalanffy. If you're into systems theory you ought to know him. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your source claims that systems are open, not that they have no definition. In fact he claims the exact opposite.

A system can be defined as a set of elements standing in interrelations. Interrelation means that elements, p, stand in relations, R, so that the behavior of an element p in R is different from its behavior in another relation, R'. If the behaviors in R and R' are not different, there is no interaction, and the elements behave independently with respect to the relations R and R'. — General System Theory

The characteristic of the organism is first that it is more than the sum of its parts and second that the single processes are ordered for the maintenance of the whole. — General System Theory

Your claim was that neurological "systems" follow the laws of physics. Bertalanffy's claim is that "open systems" (biological systems) do not necessarily follow the second law of thermodynamics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope, that's not what Bertalanffy claims. He suggests that biological systems reverse the direction of the second law, the flow uphill of it. The exact same process I described in as a gradient climbing function. It is temporary and doesn't defy any physical law.

Biologically, life is not maintenance or restoration of equilibrium but is essentially maintenance of disequilibria, as the doctrine of the organism as open system reveals. Reaching equilibrium means death and consequent decay. — General System Theory

you do not employ a boundary between the system and the "internal". — Metaphysician Undercover

The system and the internal are the same thing.

there are internal hidden states — Metaphysician Undercover

No, there are no hidden internal states. Internal states are definitionally those which are not hidden.

Is there something specific about my attempts that have failed for you, or just in general? — Isaac

If I may, from the back row, hitherto being a silent witness:

In general:
Your theoretics are fine, and more than likely, close to that which is the case. But nobody cares; the average Joe doesn’t consider himself as a thinker in the terms and conditions scientifically expounded as the means for it. That leaves you and the cognitive scientists in general, to say Joe never does think the way he thinks he does, or, which is quite objectionable, he doesn’t think at all, insofar as mere brain machinations are solely responsible for such private, personal, seemings. It follows as a matter of course, that the very brain machinations the cognitive scientist expounds are never even recognized by himself. That is, he promotes, from the perspective of a particular kind of human, that which never occurs to him from the perspective of a human in general.

Those of the philosophical bent, on the other hand, don’t have such inconsistency, for they don't profit in the consideration of brain machinations qua physical necessity, in the first place, but rather, if anything, merely take whatever that necessity may be, for granted. Which justifies my asking, as super-intelligent and well-versed as you are, are you immediately considering, upon reading this, what part of your brain is doing what, or, are you immediately considering only the relation between your reading and my writing?

Something specific that fails, for me:

Attempts to supplant natural human subjectivity with mechanistic necessity. Which reduces to, albeit egotistically....even if your science is in fact the case, I shall never relinquish the metaphysical conditions for my purely rational intellect. And neither should anyone else, dammit!!!!!

So sayeth a nobody on the internet.....

he promotes, from the perspective of a particular kind of human, that which never occurs to him from the perspective of a human in general. — Mww

Indeed. It's an incorrigible habit.

are you immediately considering, upon reading this, what part of your brain is doing what, or, are you immediately considering only the relation between your reading and my writing? — Mww

I'd have to say neither. See, whilst I find the tenor of your critism on point with regards to cognitive science, I don't find the propositions of philosophy any more familiar. Not only could I not say that I'm "considering ... the relation between [my] reading and [your] writing", but I'd go as far as to say it would strike me as really odd if someone were to claim that's what was going through their mind whilst reading.

I don't have 'red' experiences either. I've no more idea what it's 'like' to be me than I have to be a bat. I've no idea what the question could even mean.

My personal beef? Since we're griping. I think philosopher types think they're reporting from introspection, but are actually repeating stories they've learnt from culture, books etc and merely satisfying themselves post hoc that this, in fact, describes how they think.

Attempts to supplant natural human subjectivity with mechanistic necessity. — Mww

Again, on point, but is any philosophical text less attempting the same thing. To supplant what the reader subjectively thinks is going on with what the philosopher will claim is a 'better' notion of such?

It seems that the same unwillingness to give up the subjective impression is not extended to one's liver, one's spleen, where we are only too glad to accept exactly the way medical science tells us they work. Nor, it seems, is the whole brain off limits (we've had here much of the modern understanding of how eyes and cortices work, seamlessly blended with folk psychology). It seems only a certain aspect is off limits, and I find that quite curious.

even if your science is in fact the case, I shall never relinquish the metaphysical conditions for my purely rational intellect. And neither should anyone else, dammit!!!!! — Mww

You go for it! (But if you sustain a lesion to your frontal or parietal lobes, you may struggle, perhaps submission to the neurologist's model at that point may be advisable)

My personal beef? Since we're griping. I think philosopher types think they're reporting from introspection, but are actually repeating stories they've learnt from culture, books etc and merely satisfying themselves post hoc that this, in fact, describes how they think. — Isaac

You may have phenomenology in mind here. One might argue that both the theories of scientists and philosophers are influenced by the cultural stories that they grow up surrounded by. And yet phenomenology may have a certain advantage here with respect to those sciences holding onto indirect realism, as Dan Zahavi argues:

“Husserl often contrasts philosophy proper with the work done by the positive sciences. The latter are so absorbed in their investigation of the natural (or social/cultural) world that they do not pause to reflect upon their own presuppositions and conditions of possibility. They all operate on the basis of a natural (and necessary) naivety, namely the tacit belief in the existence of a mind-independent reality. This realist assumption is so fundamental and deeply rooted that it is not only accepted by the positive sciences, it also permeates our daily pre-theoretical life, for which reason Husserl calls it the ‘natural attitude'. Regardless of how natural this attitude might be, if philosophy is supposed to amount to a radical form of critical elucidation, it cannot simply take our natural realist assumptions for granted, but must instead engage in a reflective move that allows it to explore and assess the epistemic and metaphysical presuppositions of the latter.”