Solubility is not a property of salt but a relation between salt and water.

Confusion will occur if folk treat two-places predicates as one-place predicates without due care.

If you like, (dissolves in water) is a property of salt, but not of, say, ground coriander.

But Naphthalene, I am told, does not have the property (dissolves in water) but instead (dissolves in oil)

Or, if you prefer two-place predication, the following are true:

• dissolves (salt, water)
• ~dissolves (salt, oil)
• dissolves (Naphthalene, oil)
• ~dissolves (Naphthalene, oil)
• ~dissolves (ground coriander, water)

Now, how does this relate to the topic?

(I suspect that the confusion stems, like many such problems, from an over-reliance on ancient logic, which did not easily make this distinction, rather than modern logic, which makes it as a matter of course. But I won't argue the case.)

Edit: Seems I was misinformed. Naphthalene might be a better example than xanthan.

That perception distorts reality isn't the assumption but the conclusion. — Michael

As a conclusion based on the assumption that perception enables an undistorted picture, namely the scientific understanding of perception, it is a contradiction of the grounding assumption, and therefore self-refuting.

Phenomenal experience is direct. We perceive the world via phenomenal experience. The world is first in the chain of events leading to phenomenal experience, and the experience is last. Therefore, we perceive the world indirectly. — hypericin

"Experience is the last in the chain leading to experience"?. I'm afraid I can make no sense of that other than to understand it as being a mere tautology.

If person A directly saw an object as it really is, and person B looking at the same object also saw the object as it really is, then person A would know what was in person's B mind — RussellA

Whence the need for omniscience?

IE, suppose the thing in the world is in fact orange, yet I always perceive it to be blue. It is true that I can never experience the thing in the world as it is, but this is irrelevant to my relationship with the world, as I always perceive the thing in the world to be as I perceive it to be, in this case, blue.

I’m not sure how something can in fact be orange but appears blue, so I cannot suppose it.

I would argue you have to experience the world as it is or else you would not see color. Some surface-level aspect of that thing in combination with the light that bounces off of it makes it blue. And because that color is limited to that object, that it does not bleed beyond its boundary into other objects nearby, makes that the case. All of it affords us information about the environment as it is, not as it is not.

I’m not sure how something can in fact be orange but appears blue, so I cannot suppose it. — NOS4A2

To explain what I think is being said, I've noted previously that "blue" is defined by 'its' wavelength. Not it's experience. However, people can experience the wavelength defined as Blue as something that we define as a different colour (blue to gold in that stupid dress case). The experience varies, despite the wavelength "in the world" not changing (apparently).

If the the wavelength defined as "blue" can cause more than one experience of it, we must be not noticing something interesting going on here... Or alternately, if the experience of 'gold' can be accessed through several real-world objects (wavelengths of light), something interesting is going on

Seven.

You and I both know the number written at the start of this post - "you know what is in my mind"

seems to think that this implies telepathy...

I don't follow his reasoning.

Fwiw, I have seen this argument many, many times among psychedelic people.
I think the implication is that if you can take a thought and ferry it through the air to cause a thought in the other person, this constitutes telepathy. Obviously, the example doesn't even fit that loose definition of telepathy. There is a mediate causal chain. And even on that definition, it's merely using a word incorrectly.
No idea why this argument pops up, but i've seen it plenty of times with the lame reasoning above.

Are you suggesting @RussellA is on psychedelics? :wink:

Maybe.

The arguments in this thread are all about "merely using a word incorrectly".

Isn't that your third or fourth post since leaving the thread? :razz:

Hahahah; not intimating, but not entirely sure he's not.

I disagree, but I'm not going to get back into *the discussion. Because I ducked out :P

*leaving the discussion.
Clarifying things for other people is fine, as far as I'm concerned :) that said, I am impulsive and the above line took some effort to leave there without elaboration lol. The topics raised, I think about a lot.

Yeah, like me you need your 'fix'. We are not dissimilar to poor old Russ...

Yeah, Agreed.
I wonder if this will lessen as I move through my degree.. Hmm.

How do you know that it is in fact orange if you never see the orange? — jkop

Obviously you cannot. That's why I wrote: "suppose the thing in the world is in fact orange, yet I always perceive it to be blue."

I’m not sure how something can in fact be orange but appears blue, so I cannot suppose it. — NOS4A2

One possibility would be colour blindness. I'm sure you can think of others.

Colour vision deficiency (colour blindness) is where you see colours differently to most people, and have difficulty telling colours apart. There's no treatment for colour vision deficiency that runs in families, but people usually adapt to living with it. (www.nhs.uk/)

I think the implication is that if you can take a thought and ferry it through the air to cause a thought in the other person, this constitutes telepathy. — AmadeusD

Whence the need for omniscience? — creativesoul

I didn't say this is telepathy, only that it "could be described as a form of telepathy".

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines telepathy as " communication from one mind to another by extrasensory means"

I am only referring to looking at the world, not inner feelings like pain.

The implication of Direct Realism is that if person A looks at the world they will be seeing the world as it really is, and if person B looks at the same world they would also be seeing the world as it really is. As there is only one world, each person would know what was in the other person's mind.

There is a causal chain from the world to the mind of person A through their senses, and there is a different causal chain from the same world to the mind of person B through their senses.

On the one hand there is no causal chain from the mind of person A to the mind of person B, yet the Direct Realist's position is that person A must know what is in person B's mind.

Call it a form of telepathy, communication by extrasensory means or transcendental knowledge, either way, it's a problem the Indirect Realist doesn't have.

There's a notion of mind there that not all direct realists hold.

You and I can look at the same river. We both see the same river at the same time.
We can both isolate a heron to the exclusion of all else. What on earth grounds the objection to saying that we are not seeing things as they are, at that time? Is the heron not this or that species? Is it not sitting atop a remnant of past logging operations? Are the trees lining the banks not bald cypress? Is that not an alligator gar, right over there-------> Is that not an old flat tire still on its rim? Is the distance between the gar and the tire not whatever it is?

We could also be focusing upon the heron's beak. Look, a bit of mud is caked alongside it. Is that somehow not the way the heron is - in part at least? Is the mud not caked alongside its bill?

Are those things in our mind? I would not think a direct realist would arrive at that.

Well, you might excuse me since it remains unclear to me what it is you are claiming. It seems to be something like that, since lemons sometimes smell lemony, therefore that is how they smell when nothing has a nose. — Banno

No, I'm making it explicit what "lemons smell like lemons" means, and explaining that this does not address the arguments made by either direct or indirect realists.

I'm also still trying to understand what you mean by saying that we smell things as they are. What does the "as they are" add to the claim that we smell things? Unless you're trying to argue that things like lemons have a smell even if nothing has a nose then it seems like a meaningless addition.

As a conclusion based on the assumption that perception enables an undistorted picture, namely the scientific understanding of perception, it is a contradiction of the grounding assumption, and therefore self-refuting. — Janus

One of these must be true:

1. The science of perception is correct and suggests that perception distorts reality
2. The science of perception is correct and suggests that perception does not distort reality
3. The science of perception is incorrect and suggests that perception distorts reality
4. The science of perception is incorrect and suggests that perception does not distort reality

The science of perception suggests that perception distorts reality. So either (1) or (3) is true. So either perception distorts reality or the science of perception is incorrect.

But if perception does not distort reality then the science of perception would be correct. So if the science of perception is incorrect then perception distorts reality.

The above is a simple application of the law of excluded middle and of modus tollens, and without assuming anything about the reliability or perception, and so there's no contradiction.

The only contradiction is to argue that perception does not distort reality even though the science of perception suggests that it does.

Your only recourse is to argue that (2) is true, but then that would be to deny the existence of the actual empirical evidence.

Also, you're reading too much into "distorts reality". That we naively assume that colours and smells and tastes are properties of things like lemons rather than just mental/bodily responses to stimulation isn't that the Standard Model and neuroscience cannot be trusted.

Are the trees lining the banks not bald cypress?... Are those things in our mind? I would not think a direct realist would arrive at that. — creativesoul

Both the Indirect and Direct Realist must agree that the thought of "trees lining the banks" must be in the mind, otherwise how would the mind know about trees lining the bank in the first place.

Both the Indirect and Direct Realist agree that there is something in the world causing us to perceive "trees lining the bank", as both believe in Realism.

The Indirect and Direct Realist differ in what the something is in the world that is causing us to perceive "trees lining the bank".

For the Direct Realist, in the world are trees lining the bank regardless of there being anyone to observe them, in that, if you look at the world you will perceive exactly the same thing as me. This means that if we are both looking at the same trees lining the bank, we will both be perceiving the same thing. This means that I will know what's in your mind at that moment in time.

For the Indirect Realist, in the world is something regardless of there being anyone to observe it. As what I perceive is a subjective representation of the something in the world, we may not be perceiving the same thing. This means that I cannot know what is in your mind when looking at the same thing.

As I have never believed it possible to know what someone else is thinking, I am an Indirect rather than Direct Realist.

Are the trees lining the banks not bald cypress? — creativesoul

Because you have the concept of a bald cypress before looking at the river bank, you perceive a bald cypress.

As I don't have the concept of a bald cypress, all I perceive is a mass of green with some yellow bits.

Did the bald cypress exist before anyone looked at it? You know that a mass of green with some yellow bits is a bald cypress, but I don't know that

So how can a bald cypress exist in the world independently of any mind to observe it, if the bald cypress only exists as a concept in the mind?

Imagine an organism with a peculiar sex difference; the males' eyes and the females' eyes are, relative to the other, upside down such that what the males see when standing is what the females see when hanging upside down, and vice versa.

The way the males see the world is very different to the way the females see the world (with respect to its orientation).

Imagine also that this organism is intelligent with a language. Both males and females use the same word to describe the direction of the ground and the same word to describe the direction of the sky.

And we can add to this by imagining differences in size (e.g. that one of the sexes has a magnified vision relative to the other) and colour (not to mention smell and taste).

The way they navigate and talk about the world is the same, and yet the way they see (and smell and taste) the world is very different. The appearance of the world is a mental phenomenon, and it is the appearance of the world that is the immediate object of their rational consideration.

This, to me, is closer to indirect than direct realism with respect to the epistemological problem of perception.

One of the central flaws in Kant’s theory of knowledge is that he has blown up the bridge of action by which real beings manifest their natures to our cognitive receiving sets. He admits that things in themselves act on us, on our senses; but he insists that such action reveals nothing intelligible about these beings, nothing about their natures in themselves, only an unordered, unstructured sense manifold that we have to order and structure from within ourselves. But action that is completely indeterminate, that reveals nothing meaningful about the agent from which it comes, is incoherent, not really action at all. (W. Norris Clarke) — Count Timothy von Icarus

I go into the garden and am stung. I have no idea what the cause was. It could have been a bee, wasp, hornet, mosquito, flea, spider, cactus, algarve, yucca, pampas grass, holly, thorn bush, pyracantha, rose, gorse, etc.

And yet the implications could be serious. A swelling, going to the medicine cabinet, taking antibiotics, using antiseptic cream, even having to go to A&E and a possible night in hospital.

For Norris Clarke to argue that Kant's theory of knowledge is flawed because "action that is completely indeterminate, that reveals nothing meaningful about the agent from which it comes, is incoherent" is not persuasive.

The cause of the sting may well be completely indeterminate, the thing in itself may remain forever unknown and I may never know anything meaningful about the agent, but this is irrelevant to the real world consequences of being stung.

As Kant writes, what concerns us is what we perceive, not an unknown cause of what we perceive.

...this does not address the arguments made by either direct or indirect realists. — Michael

Good. As Austin showed, the framing of the argument in those terms is muddled.

I'm also still trying to understand what you mean by saying that we smell things as they are. — Michael

Again, that lemons smell like lemons, and not like (say) mint.

You seem to be having trouble with this:

We do, on occasion, see, hear, smell or touch the world as it is, and thereby make true statements about things in the world.

Now if it makes you feel better, you can take out the "as it is", if that is too much for you, so:

We do, on occasion, see, hear, smell or touch the world, and thereby make true statements about things in the world.

That still suits my purposes.

Nice.

The way the males see the world is very different to the way the females see the world (with respect to its orientation). — Michael

Well, no. They both see the same thing - the world. They both see the snake coming to have one of them for dinner. They both see the competing males.

The appearance of the world is a mental phenomenon, and it is the appearance of the world that is the immediate object of their rational consideration. — Michael

Again, no; the "object of their rational consideration" is the snake and the competing males. If they get caught up considering their sense impressions and justifying to themselves the inference from sense impression to world, they are going to end up as virgin dinner.

@creativesoul, excuse my answering a question to you.

The way they navigate and talk about the world is the same, and yet the way they see (and smell and taste) the world is very different. — Michael

Only in your imagination. In fact, they see the world the same. When we use the expression “to see the world differently”, we usually referring to how people act/react, judge, express themselves differently in the world.

In fact, they see the world the same. — Richard B

They don't. Relative to each other, they see things upside down.

Again, that lemons smell like lemons, and not like (say) mint. — Banno

That lemons smell like lemons is a vacuous claim that has no bearing on the arguments made by direct and indirect realists.

As Austin showed, the framing of the argument in those terms is muddled. — Banno

Then you're welcome to present Austin's arguments. I don't see how saying irrelevant things like "lemons smell like lemons" is helpful at all.

Again, no; the "object of their rational consideration" is the snake and the competing males. — Banno

Well, no. They both see the same thing - the world. They both see the snake coming to have one of them for dinner. They both see the competing males. — Banno

And when we both watch Biden's inauguration on TV (and in different rooms), we're both seeing the same thing; Biden's inauguration. And Biden's inauguration is indeed an object of our rational consideration.

But it's still indirect. The TV is an intermediary/more immediate. And then appearances a further intermediary and even more immediate.

One possibility would be colour blindness. I'm sure you can think of others.

Many millennia of being embedded in the world have granted sapiens in particular, and biological sight in general, the ability to receive information from their surroundings, including color. It is because organisms have been in the world and directly interacted with it this whole time that has allowed them to do so.

I wager that had perception been at any time indirect, the evolution of perception would not have occurred at all and we’d still possess the perceptual abilities of some Cambrian worm. But it was because light was there and the relationship was direct that they developed the light-sensitive machinery required to see it.

But yes, it turns out that one tiny problem through genetics or deficiency can hinder that ability. It’s clear to me that color-blindness says more about the perceiver than the objects of perception. Less information is afforded to him on account of his disability.