Pardon me whilst I philosophize for a few minutes here; do with it as you will.

How can "perceptions of the world" be "direct", if the "of the world" must be inferred from the perceptions — hypericin

Is this rhetorical? Perceptions of the world is unintelligible, direct perceptions of the world, superfluous. Human perception is limited to things, and even if “of the world” is inferred as the conception representing that to which the totality of things belongs, there is nothing given from that suggesting the world is that of perception.

How can we perceive objects themselves if even the object's existence at all is not a part of the perception? — hypericin

Existence is not part of perception, but for that which is perceived the existence of it is necessary, insofar as the perception of that which does not exist, is impossible. Existence is denied as a property, but nonetheless necessary as a logical condition.
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perceptions are exactly what we are (directly) aware of. — hypericin

How is it not that things are what we are directly aware of, because of the perception of them? It does not follow that because perception enables our awareness of things, that we are aware of the perceptions.

Perception is that by which objects are directly given; sensation is that by which of objects we are directly aware. These together and by themselves, are both sufficient and necessary to justify the doctrine of direct realism. Indirect realism, then, is merely a consequence of, or perhaps a supplement to, that doctrine.

The feeling of heat on my skin, feelings of anger or contentment, the sounds and feeling of playing the drums, are all direct. — hypericin

Just like that, if you’d agree these feelings and sounds are all nothing more than sensations, the heat, the source and the playing, respectively, being the perceptions, the cause of the heat, the object of anger, the drums played, respectively, being the things in the world given to perception.
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We certainly don't "just see" trees and chairs. — hypericin

I agree, even though without a critical analysis is certainly seems that way. The overall efficiency of the human intellectual system permits the disregard for normative methodological processes, sometimes called mere habit, even if their full operational capacity remains necessary. This is manifest generally in it not being not self-contradictory when we say we see a chair as such, that we are technically referencing a certain knowledge a priori, that what we actually are seeing has already been sufficiently represented and now resides in either memory, for Everydayman and psychologists, or for the pure metaphysician, in consciousness. In other words, one can only truthfully say he sees a chair iff he already knows what a chair is, commonly called just plain ol’ experience.
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Perceptions of objects are representations of these objects, and so our perceptions of the object is indirect, because we perceive via representations. — hypericin

Light comes in the front of the eye as perception of something, gets all jumbled around, something quite different from light goes out the back. Where, in the eye itself, is a representation generated?

Pressure waves come in the front of the ear as perception of something, gets all jumbled around, something quite different from pressure waves goes out the back. Where in the ear is a representation generated?

If that which comes out the back is very different from what came in the front, there is no intrinsic contradiction in denying perception to that which comes out the back. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to grant that the very difference coming out the back as a sensation, just is the representation of that which came in the front as a perception, regardless of what’s happening in between?

We don’t perceive via representation; we have representation because of what we perceive. It’s a matter of time, if not physiology, but better if both. It is, therefore, the representation of objects that are indirectly acquired with respect to direct perceptions of them.

The metaphysically correct term for the indirect acquired representation of objects given directly from perception followed immediately by the sensation from which we become aware of them, is phenomena. But phenomena do not belong to perception, but to sensation, which is technically what comes out the back side of perceiving apparatus, and is very different than what has come in the front of it. And insofar as the object perceived is real, the phenomenon that represents it, in its very difference from it, cannot be real in the same manner as the object itself.

End philosophizing. Have a smurfy day.

According to the SEP article, direct realism is the thesis that "we can directly perceive ordinary objects." It doesn't say only in the "direct" sense of naive realism. — Luke

So if "direct" in the naive sense doesn't mean the same thing as "direct" in the non-naive sense then there are two different meanings of "direct", and so two different meanings of "we directly perceive ordinary objects". Which meaning of "we directly perceive ordinary objects" do you think the indirect realist is arguing against?

If the indirect realist is arguing against the naive sense of "we directly perceive ordinary objects", and if we do not directly perceive ordinary objects in the naive sense, then indirect realism is correct.

It is this concept of an "unmediated awareness of objects" that I consider to be incoherent. Do indirect realists only hold the negative view that this concept is incoherent? Or do they also hold the positive belief in their position that we cannot directly perceive ordinary objects? — Luke

The naive realist believes that we are directly aware of the constituents of experience and that ordinary objects are the constituents of experience, and so that we are directly aware of ordinary objects. There is no intermediary between awareness and ordinary objects.

The indirect realist believes that we are directly aware of the constituents of experience and that sensations/sense-data/qualia are the constituents of experience, and so that we are directly aware of sensations/sense-data/qualia. Sensations/sense-data/qualia are the intermediary between awareness and ordinary objects.

This is explained in more detail here.

What I find strange about your position is that you seem to accept the existence of something like sensations/sense-data/qualia, seem to accept that we are (directly?) aware of sensations/sense-data/qualia, but also claim that we are directly aware of ordinary objects. I just don't understand what you mean by "direct" in this final claim.

What is the difference between claiming that awareness of sense-data is direct awareness of ordinary objects and claiming that awareness of sense-data is indirect awareness of ordinary objects?

Right, I don't disagree with you, but that goes to my other point. If unconscious inference makes something indirect, then all knowledge is necessarily indirect, because concious awareness itself is undergirded by an extremely complex manifold of inferential processes, computation, and communications.

However, if all knowledge is necessarily "indirect," and "direct" knowledge is an impossibility because of what knowledge is, then it doesn't seem like the adjective does any lifting at all, regardless of if you think it should be "direct" or "indirect."

However, if all knowledge is necessarily "indirect," and "direct" knowledge is an impossibility because of what knowledge is, then it doesn't seem like the adjective does any lifting at all, regardless of if you think it should be "direct" or "indirect." — Count Timothy von Icarus

The knowledge that I am in pain and am tasting something sweet is direct. The knowledge that I stood on a nail and am eating something that contains a lot of sugar is indirect.

Good musings.

On an empirical analysis, from what I’ve gathered the only direct perceptual relationship one can have with the world is with himself. Man perceives himself, ie. his pain or his tastes, not so much any outside factors which might cause them.

Grammatically speaking, this throws the subject/object relationship out the window. The indirect realist position says that subject perceives subject, or subject is both the subject and the object of perception at the same time. This is where it all gets weird for the direct realist.

Rather than an indirect relationship with the rest of the world, the indirect realist’s approach appears more of a closed loop because it is left unsaid how the object of perception, himself, gathers information from outside himself in order to hand it off it to himself, presumably somewhere inside himself. The subject of perception, himself, perceives the object of perception, himself, but the object of perception, himself, does not possess similar abilities.

But this is circular. To avoid this, the object of perception, himself, is presented as a sort of mirror through which he passively redirects, repackages, and redistributes information from the outer world to the subject of perception, himself. The only way out of this quagmire, I think, is to posit that the object of perception is something supernatural.

Do indirect realists only hold the negative view that this concept is incoherent? Or do they also hold the positive belief in their position that we cannot directly perceive ordinary objects? — Luke

For clarity: there is no difference here, except that you're ascribing one version of it as a defined philosophical position, and the other as a descriptor of it.

The concept is incoherent, and gives rise to the view to which one is then committed - we cannot directly perceive ordinary objects (as a particular commitment of understanding that "unmediated awareness of ordinary objects" is impossible). This is what the Indirect Realists are just incredulous about. Seemingly, other positions take the former as given, and the latter as somehow impossible. But, they are the same claim in different clothes.

How is it not that things are what we are directly aware of, because of the perception of them? It does not follow that because perception enables our awareness of things, that we are aware of the perceptions.

Perception is that by which objects are directly given; sensation is that by which of objects we are directly aware. These together and by themselves, are both sufficient and necessary to justify the doctrine of direct realism. Indirect realism, then, is merely a consequence of, or perhaps a supplement to, that doctrine. — Mww

Yes, quite right.

The fact that this mostly or entirely occurs without conscious awareness does not belie the fact that there is an incredibly complex inferential process at work. — hypericin

I agree that perception is a complex process. I don't agree that "inferential" is a term that aptly characterizes it. Anyway, I have little use for the whole 'direct/ indirect' framing, this argument is ultimately reducible to terminological preference and usage, and it's just going pointlessly around and around in the realm of mere assertion, so I'm stepping of the merry-go-round on account of boredom.

Right on, brother!

And good musings to you as well.

On an empirical analysis, from what I’ve gathered the only direct perceptual relationship one can have with the world is with himself. Man perceives himself, ie. his pain or his tastes, not so much any outside factors which might cause them. — NOS4A2

Am I correct in supposing you mean by direct perceptual relationship, is with one’s body? But that can’t be right, for to perceive one’s body under empirical analysis is not to perceive one’s pains and tastes, insofar as these are not perceptions at all, but qualitative, or, technically, aesthetic, feelings one has, as you say, without consideration of which outside factors which might cause them.

The indirect realist position says that subject perceives subject, or subject is both the subject and the object of perception at the same time. — NOS4A2

If that is the case, he is seriously under-informed, for there is an argument in which that condition is disavowed. It is disavowed because the subject when treated as object, and object when treated as subject, can only occur under conditions that contradict themselves. It is the proverbial transcendental argument, which may or may or garner any favor these days, to be sure.
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Grammatically speaking, this throws the subject/object relationship out the window. — NOS4A2

Dunno about grammatically speaking, but it certainly jeopardizes the subject/object relationship metaphysically. Reason enough for me and logical/methodological dualists in general I’ll wager, to forsake the idea.

The only way out of this quagmire, I think, is to posit that the object of perception is something supernatural. — NOS4A2

Perhaps, but the best way to prevent the quagmire from arising in the first place, is to limit objects of perception to the external arena, or, which is the same thing, to limit the objects of perception to those things conditioned by space and time. The concept here, substituting for something supernatural, I’d call something immanent.

Hopefully I understood what you meant to say. If not, my bad and if you want, you’re invited to correct me.

Yes, quite right. — Leontiskos

Ha!!! Yeah, but who’s gonna believe it was that easy? Except us of course.

So if "direct" in the naive sense doesn't mean the same thing as "direct" in the non-naive sense then there are two different meanings of "direct", and so two different meanings of "we directly perceive ordinary objects". Which meaning of "we directly perceive ordinary objects" do you think the indirect realist is arguing against? — Michael

Why must indirect realists only be negatively arguing against a particular meaning of "direct", instead of positively arguing for a particular position of their own? You and Robinson appear to be arguing that indirect realists only oppose the meaning of "direct" in naive realism, and otherwise you would be direct realists. But given your positive statements indicating that you are a sense datum theorist, I don't think that's true.

The thesis of Direct Realism (at least, according to the SEP article) is that "we can directly perceive ordinary objects". Some of us believe this thesis but disagree with naive realism. We are also direct realists. I genuinely disagree that we always perceive an intermediary and that we cannot directly perceive ordinary objects. Call that a semantic disagreement if you will, but we can't both be correct.

If the indirect realist is arguing against the naive sense of "we directly perceive ordinary objects", and if we do not directly perceive ordinary objects in the naive sense, then indirect realism is correct. — Michael

Against naive realism only, perhaps, but not against all forms of direct realism. Indirect realism is true only if we cannot directly perceive ordinary objects and/or only if we perceive a representation (or some other intermediary) of ordinary objects.

What I find strange about your position is that you seem to accept the existence of something like sensations/sense-data/qualia, seem to accept that we are (directly?) aware of sensations/sense-data/qualia, but also claim that we are directly aware of ordinary objects. I just don't understand what you mean by "direct" in this final claim. — Michael

I think I understand the distinction between direct and indirect perception in relation to the perception of ordinary (external) objects. However, I do not understand the distinction between direct and indirect awareness. What is indirect awareness?

Sorry, I don't mean to be oblique. It's that I think accusations of dualism really depend heavily on the exact formulation involved, so I don't want to be overly direct because I don't think it's always an issue. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I misunderstood, then. It sounded to my ears like: "I sniff an attempt to smuggle in communism, so it's bad." We didn't get the argument for why communism was necessarily being smuggled and why that would be bad. :grin:

It comes down to what makes experience indirect, what makes the relationship between people and lemons vis-á-vis seeing yellow different from the relationship between people's breathing and air vis-á-vis oxygenating blood. If that difference just is that one is phenomenal, and that a relations involving phenomenal experience is what makes it indirect, then that looks a lot like mind having its own sorts of sui generis causal relations, essentially being a different substance from other entities, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ha! I'm a respiratory therapist, so I spend a fair amount of time trying to oxygenate blood. The physiological aspects of breathing are similar to the functional aspects of sight. There's a voluntary aspect to both: you can hold your breath and you can direct your line of sight, but for the most part each travels along involuntary tracks. Sight has that second layer of phenomenality, though. Oxygenation doesn't. A person can be profoundly hypoxic and feel nothing out of the ordinary (for a few seconds). Following that, they'll just feel bad with a sense of alarm as the body tries to compensate.

Why do we have the experience of sight on top of visual functionality? That's presently unknown. If a person sees in that a reason to embrace duality, that's because they were dualist to begin with.

Without a way to specify the "indirectness" it seems to reduce to "being phenomenal is indirect because phenomenal awareness is a special type of relation," which is where a sort of dualism seems to come in, along with begging the question. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If there was no such thing as phenomenality and all humans had was the functions of consciousness (without any accompanying awareness), there would still be indirectness to it, in the same way that a computer's data collection is indirect. If a computer listens to the sound of a bird, it converts the analog frequencies to a digital stream and subsequently manipulates that stream. From what we know about the nervous system, it appears that something like that is happening in the brain. Obviously the preceding statements indicates that scientists have quite a bit of confidence in their own brains' ability to accurately construct the world. Still, what they're describing is indirect realism.

If unconscious inference makes something indirect, then all knowledge is necessarily indirect, because concious awareness itself is undergirded by an extremely complex manifold of inferential processes, computation, and communications. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree, My argument wasn't "unconscious inference makes something indirect", I just wanted to challenge the sort of naive claims we see here, "we just see the tree".

In order to establish indirectness, I think we need to demonstrate that we are aware of objects via our awareness of sensory experience. If, in the same way we experience a person's voice via experience of a phone and its speaker, we experience objects via sensory experience itself, then I think indirectness is established. Experience of objects would be unambiguously indirect, happening only by way of experience of something which is more direct. Moreover, it can be argued that perceptual experience is itself direct: not only does it not occur by way of any more direct experience, but it it is uniquely not the subject of doubt. I can doubt anything about what I experience, except for the fact that I am having this experience.

What inference(s) are you making? — Luke

In "perceptions of the world", that a perception is indeed "of the world", and not a hallucination, must be inferred. Because, this information is not contained within the perception itself.

It seems like you've labelled experiences without an external cause as "direct" and experiences with an external cause as "indirect". That's kind of just stipulating that perception of real-world objects is indirect, which is begging the question. — Luke

No. An experience of heat on my skin is direct, not because it doesn't have an external cause (there may be a match an inch from my skin), but because the experience has direct phenomenological content, and is not subject to doubt. I may doubt the cause, but I cannot doubt the feeling of heat itself. Whereas, if Bob told me what Jodie said this morning, I may indeed be aware of what Jodie said this morning, but only indirectly. What I am directly aware of, my actual experience, are the words Bob told me.

This I think is the essence of the direct/indirect divide. And the indirect realist claims that there is no direct experience of objects, because all such experience must be via phenomenal experience, which is the bedrock, most direct kind of experience, and the directness that is in contrast to the indirectness of object experience.

We are aware of our perceptions. I take issue with your distinction between direct/indirect awareness. — Luke

We are aware of our perceptions? But you've been saying, and just in this very post, that

You don't perceive your perceptual experience. — Luke

We are aware of our perceptions, but we don't perceive our perceptual experience? The latter just seems like a more awkward, less grammatical form of the former.

You agree that we can both perceive objects, and have awareness of perceptions in themselves? This is most clear with senses other than sight. So when we are tasting a pickle, we are perceiving the pickle, gaining awareness of the pickle, via taste. But there is also the sensation of taste itself, the salty, tangy experience of tasting a pickle.

No. An experience of heat on my skin is direct, not because it doesn't have an external cause (there may be a match an inch from my skin), but because the experience has direct phenomenological content, and is not subject to doubt. — hypericin

Right, experience itself - regardless of it's source, be it reality or hallucination or whoever is pulling the levers on the brain in the vat - is the most fundamental thing available to us. We know our experience more immediately than we know anything else, including the cause of the experience.

The word "direct" and "indirect" don't really seem to apply to experience itself to me - experience is experience, it's fundamental, it's nothing else other than itself. Direct and indirect can be words we use to categorize casual chains that lead to experience, but not experience itself.

Adverbialism replaces the Sense-Datum Theory

Within Indirect Realism is the Sense-Datum Theory and Adverbialism. Today, the Sense-Datum theory has generally been replaced in favour of Adverbialism, which rejects the Sense-Datum Theory.

Some of our knowledge is direct involving our senses. Such as seeing the colour red, smelling something acrid, feeling a sharp pain, tasting something sweet or hearing a grating noise.

Some of our knowledge is indirect. Such as the cause of seeing the colour red was a post-box, the cause of an acrid smell was a bonfire, the cause of the sharp pain was a bee sting, the cause of the sweet taste was an apple or the cause of the grating noise was a gate closing .

The words direct and indirect have value in language.

In language it is normal to say that "I feel a sharp pain". If taken literally, this suggests that the pain I feel is external to the I that is feeling it and leads to the homunculus problem. However, even the ordinary man knows that there is a difference between language that is literal and language that is figurative. Even the ordinary man knows that if I say to someone "I see that you have a bright future", they know they are not talking to a seer, but someone using the language figuratively. The expression "I feel a sharp pain" is figurative, not iteral.

John R Searle in The Philosophy of Perception and the Bad Argument makes the point that an expression such as "I feel a sharp pain" cannot be taken literally but only figuratively, when he wrote:

The relation of perception to the experience is one of identity. It is like the pain and the experience of pain. The experience of pain does not have pain as an object because the experience of pain is identical with the pain. Similarly, if the experience of perceiving is an object of perceiving, then it becomes identical with the perceiving. Just as the pain is identical with the experience of pain, so the visual experience is identical with the experience of seeing.

This is why the Sense-Datum Theory has probably fallen out of favour to be replaced by Adverbialism. Adverbialism explicitly does not treat the pain I am feeling as external to the I that I am feeling it. Adverbialism avoids any homunculus infinite regress problem, where I perceive myself perceiving myself perceiving..................

Adverbialism does justice to the phenomenology of experience whilst avoiding the dubious metaphysical commitments of the sense-datum theory. (SEP - The Problem of Perception)

But also from that article:

As noted, adverbialism is committed to the view that experiencing something white, for example, involves your experience being modified in a certain way: experiencing whitely. A natural way to understand this is in terms of the idea that the experience is an event, and the modification of it is a property of that event. Since this property is both intrinsic (as opposed to relational or representational) and phenomenal then this way of understanding adverbialism is committed to the existence of qualia.

I don't get the distinction between sense data and qualia. To me it's all just sensations, which are a mental phenomenon. Distal objects are not constituents of sensations. There is nothing more than a causal relationship (with physical intermediaries) between distal objects and sensations.

I don't get the distinction between sense-data and qualia — Michael

Qualia is the experience. Data is the information that comes into our body, via eyes or nose or whatever. The data isn't the experience. The data can trigger the experience, but it isn't the experience.

I don't think it's that simple. From here:

Historically, the term ‘qualia’ was first used in connection with the sense-datum theory by C.I. Lewis in 1929. As Lewis used the term, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves.

So much like we might say that mass is a property of physical objects, he says that colour qualia is a property of sense data.

That's a very interesting piece of information, but I think it's still the case that most people talking about qualia here are talking about the experience, and not the data.

https://iep.utm.edu/qualia/#:~:text=As%20Lewis%20used%20the%20term,generally%20to%20properties%20of%20experience.

As Lewis used the term, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves. In contemporary usage, the term has been broadened to refer more generally to properties of experience.

That's a very interesting piece of information, but I think it's still the case that most people talking about qualia here are talking about the experience, and not the data. — flannel jesus

I think you're misunderstanding what is meant by "sense-data". From here:

The technical term “sense data” was made prominent in philosophy during the early decades of the twentieth century by G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, followed by intense elaboration and modification of the concept by C. D. Broad, H. H. Price, and A. J. Ayer, among others. Although the promoters of sense data disagreed in various ways, they mainly agreed on the following points:

1. In perceiving, we are directly and immediately aware of a sense datum.
2. This awareness occurs by a relation of direct mental acquaintance with a datum.
3. Sense data have the properties that they appear to have.
4. These properties are determinate; in vision, we experience determinate shapes, sizes, and colors.
5. Our awareness of such properties of sense data does not involve the affirmation or conception of any object beyond the datum.
6. These properties are known to us with certainty (and perhaps infallibly).
7. Sense data are private; a datum is apprehended by only one person.
8. Sense data are distinct from the act of sensing, or the act by which we are aware of them.

Whereas you seem to be suggesting that "sense data" is something involving light striking the rods and cones in the eyes?

You know what, I am. It looks like they're using sense data in a way that's synonymous with the experience, ie synonymous with qualia. My mistake

In that case, allow me to go back here and change my reply to this quote:

I don't get the distinction between sense-data and qualia — Michael

I don't think there is a distinction. But the quote you were quoting also wasn't making that distinction.

I don't think there is a distinction. But the quote you were quoting also wasn't making that distinction. — flannel jesus

Russell was saying that adverbialism rejects the sense data theory but the SEP article says that adverbialism accepts (and even requires?) qualia.

Hence my confusion.

I think "sense data" and "qualia" must just refer to different things in different contexts - though I feel like "qualia" is mostly stable in meaning.

Most people who are sighted and not colour blind, I think, understand (or are at least capable of understanding) what the qualia, or experience, is that we call "red", and non-naive realists are further capable of separating that experience with (a) the wavelengths of light that tend to cause that experience and (b) the cells on our retina that are sensitive to those wavelengths.

If there was no such thing as phenomenality and all humans had was the functions of consciousness (without any accompanying awareness), there would still be indirectness to it, in the same way that a computer's data collection is indirect. If a computer listens to the sound of a bird, it converts the analog frequencies to a digital stream and subsequently manipulates that stream.

I actually considered bringing up the example of televisions, radios, etc. On the one hand, yes, we could say these are "indirect" in that they involve the transformation of energy types. Chemical energy, kinetic energy, sound waves, etc. are picked up by receivers in the body and transformed into EM energy and chemical energy in the nervous system.

But I am not sure that this is a good place to locate the "indirect" of the indirect realist account for a few reasons.

1. Shannon's model, developed for radios and telephones — for precisely this sort of transformation of energy types — is now applied to all physical interactions. So if the model entails indirectness, then everything is indirect.

2. These different types of energy turn out not to always be sui generis types. There has been a lot of work unifying these. We still have multiple "fundemental forces," but the goal/intuition, is that these can be unified as well, like electricity and magnetism, or then electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force.

3. This sort of indirectness, the transformation of energy types, multiple intermediaries, etc. also occurs in all sorts of relations that generally aren't considered indirect. E.g., the relationship between light and photosynthesis, or sex and pregnancy.

This would seem to leave too many relations as indirect. And if perception is an indirect experience of the world merely in the way that light has an indirect relationship with photosynthesis or sex has an indirect relationship with pregnancy, then the epistemological claims related to this sort of indirectness seem much less acute (maybe this is a feature, not a bug).

But more importantly for some forms of indirect realism, nothing in this categorization of "indirect" appears to lead to "perceiving representations." If the transformation of sound waves into patterns of electrical and chemical energy in the nervous system entails a "representation" then the cascade of chemical changes involved in photosynthesis are likewise "representations" of light, and representations seem to be everywhere in nature.

Again, this isn't necessarily a problem. I am a fan of pansemiotic views. I think it's true that signs can be said to be everywhere, that effects are signs of their causes, etc. But this would seem to be a problem for indirect realism in that the sign-signified relationship doesn't end up entailing indirectness, since it's how every physical interaction can be said to work. So what then is special about the sorts of representations in the brain re perception?

It's sort of like how pancomputationalism undermines the computational theory of mind. If everything is a computer, the universe one big computer, then claims about the brain's unique ability to produce conciousness grounded in its being a computer lose their purchase. Likewise, if everything is a sign, then we need to know what makes signs in brains representational in their indirect way.

Another wrinkle: wouldn't pain be the transformation of kinetic energy into electrochemical energy, and experience of our own pain thus also be indirect? But indirect realists generally say we experience pain "directly," which would seem to suggest that energy type transfers aren't what makes relations indirect. Thought too involves such changes in energy type. Stick a human body in a vacuum and thought stops. The relationship between enviornment and thought is less clear, but thought still clearly involves/requires the continual transformation of energy types across the body/enviornment line.



On a side note, my intuition is that the fundemental role of signs, information, and perspective in physical interactions will end up being essential to untangling the mysteries of consciousness — the abandonment of the God's eye view for the pleroma of all views.

The term "Direct Realism" is misleading.

Direct Realism can refer to either a causal directness, aka Phenomenological Direct Realism or a cognitive directness, aka Semantic Direct Realism. I imagine today that most Direct Realists are Semantic Direct Realists, in that Phenomenological Direct Realism would be hard to justify.

There are two separate aspects to the word "Direct" in Direct Realism, linguistic and cognitive.

As regards linguistics, inferred knowledge cannot be direct knowledge.

For example, hearing a noise next door I can infer from knowing my neighbours holiday plans that my neighbours were the cause of the noise. I have no direct knowledge that they were the cause of the noise, as such knowledge was inferred.

As regards cognition, although a subsequent effect can be directly known from a prior cause, the prior cause of a subsequent effect cannot be known because there is a direction in the flow of information in a chain of events between cause and effect.

For example, if I hit a billiard ball on a billiard table, I can directly know its final resting position, but if I see a billiard ball at rest on a billiard table, it is impossible to know its prior position.

For the linguistic aspect, as inferred knowledge cannot be direct knowledge, the term "Direct Realism" is misleading.

For the cognitive aspect, as information cannot flow from a subsequent effect to a prior cause, the term "Direct Realism" is misleading.

But indirect realists generally say we experience pain "directly," — Count Timothy von Icarus

The Adverbialist Indirect Realist might say in general conversation "we experience pain directly", but only as a figure of speech, not in a literal sense.

For the Adverbialist, it is not that "I see white", but rather "I see whitely". It not that that "I feel pain", but rather "I feel painly".

John Searle's quote from The Philosophy of Perception and the Bad Argument develops this idea.

Adverbialist Indirect Realism seems the way to go.

I don't get the distinction between sense data and qualia. — Michael

The Adverbialist rejects sense data. Sense data should go the way of the aether, of historic interest only.