I don't see that as being different to what I said, although let's stick to mental representations — Luke

Why stick to mental representation? That just leaves us with phenomenal consciousness and leaves out the bulk of representational content.

Why stick to mental representation? That just leaves us with phenomenal consciousness and leaves out the bulk of representational content. — frank

Because my comment, to which you replied, was made in the context of the GPT response posted by @hypericin, which specifically referred to "mental representations".

Because my comment, to which you replied, was made in the context of the GPT response posted by hypericin, which specifically referred to "mental representations". — Luke

Oh, yeah, I see that. Some of the posters, like @Pierre-Normand have been addressing the issue by going beyond mental representation to the realm of interaction with the world, much of which makes use of representation, but is not mental. Cause for confusion there.

Neither point of view shows the "correct" orientation of the external world because there is no such thing as a "correct" orientation. — Michael

The argument that there is no "correct" orientation or "correct' way of perceiving the world seems to me help make the case for direct realism rather than for indirect realism. Direct realists think it is possible for our perceptions of the world to be veridical, despite there being no "correct" way to perceive it (whatever that might mean). It is indirect realists who seem to think it is impossible for our perceptions to be veridical, and this seems to be because we either do not perceive the world "correctly" or because we cannot know whether we perceive the world "correctly".

The argument that there is no "correct" orientation or "correct' way of perceiving the world seems to me help make the case for direct realism rather than for indirect realism. Direct realists think it is possible for our perceptions of the world to be veridical, despite there being no "correct" way to perceive it (whatever that might mean). It is indirect realists who seem to think it is impossible for our perceptions to be veridical, and this seems to be because we either do not perceive the world "correctly" or because we cannot know whether we perceive the world "correctly". — Luke

My understanding is that direct realism entails A Naïve Realist Theory of Colour (and related theories on other sense modalities like smell and taste). The naive realist theory of colour is incorrect. Colours are a mental phenomenon caused by the brain reacting to the eyes being stimulated by photons. The same principle holds for other sense modalities. Therefore, direct realism is false.

If some self-proclaimed direct realist rejects the naive realist theory of colour then it isn't clear to me what the word "direct" means to them, or how their position is in conflict with the indirect realist who also rejects the naive reality theory of colour.

I'm guessing it's something to do with this. We have phenomenological indirect realists and semantic direct realists talking past each other.

I don't see how that's at all relevant to my point.

Consider some animal that has eyes in the palms of its hands rather than in its head. To see the "correct" orientation of the world, must its fingers point towards the sky, towards the ground, or towards the side?

Or is the very premise that there's a "correct" orientation mistaken?

It is neither a contradiction, nor physically impossible, for some organism to have that very same veridical visual experience when standing on their feet. It only requires that their eyes and/or brain work differently to ours.

Neither point of view is "more correct" than the other.

Photoreception isn't special. It's as subjective as smell and taste — Michael

Well, they have the same veridical experience when the object of the experience is the same. But why would that require that their eyes / brain work different to ours?

You postulate that we (humans) have the experience with our kind of eyes / brain, so how come you say that another organism must have differently working eyes and brain to have the same experience?

Also among humans we have somewhat differently working eyes / brains, an other organisms might have very different eyes / brains, e.g. octopus, mantis shrimp etc. However, these differences matter little when the object that we see is the same, not some figment of our different eyes / brains.

What do you mean by saying that photoreception is subjective yet not special?

I'd say photoreception is open to view in plants, animal vision, machine vision etc. The experience, however, that arises in animal vision is not open to view (ontologically subjective).

You postulate that we (humans) have the experience with our kind of eyes / brain, so how come you say that another organism must have differently working eyes and brain to have the same experience? — jkop

For them to see when standing what we see when hanging upside down it must be that their eyes and/or brain work differently.

What do you mean by saying that photoreception is subjective yet not special?

I’m saying that whether or not sugar tastes sweet is determined by the animal’s biology. It’s not “right” for it to taste sweet and “wrong” for it to taste sour. Sight is no different. It’s not “right” that light with a wavelength of 700nm looks red and not “right” that the sky is “up” and the ground “down”. These are all just consequences of our biology, and different organisms with different biologies can experience the world differently.

Where I disagree with you is in your apparent view that perception is merely "a passive reception of sensory data", which awaits our awareness (or not). I find it difficult to separate this view from the homunculus view. — Luke

This is not my view. I am noncommittal as to the nature of awareness of perceptual experience. What I am committed to is that perceptual experience and awareness of objects are two different things.

I am fine with this formulation:
Awareness of objects is mediated by perceptual experience, the notion of which is inclusive of awareness of itself.

Not that it's super common, but not a miracle either. — Manuel

In my experience it is "super common".

Really? That's a bit surprising. It's been my experience that if you know someone for some length of time, it can happen that you can tell what they are thinking given a specific situation. Not that it's super common, but not a miracle either. — Manuel

You can guess. You can use statistical analysis to guess approximately - and people are disposed to overreact when someone comes close to their thought. This is what people on LSD think is telepathy. It is literally just knowing things about a person and assuming something accurately. I find it hard to see why you would consider this exact. DMT was originally called telepathine for this reason.
Janus is right, this is common. But it isn't even close to telepathy or 'knowing another's thoughts'. It is guessing based on familiarity.

There is always mediation though, even in our own case. — Manuel

I'm not sure what this is in reference to, but given I don't take Telepathy as obtaining, I agree. There is mediation in every case of human perception.

What we "hear" inside our heads is not "pure" either, it's due to some processes in the brain of which we have no access to. If a person is angry or upset or is sharing an idea about something interesting or whatever, they can do what we are doing right now, putting into words what we think. — Manuel

Yes. And as such,

I don't follow — Manuel

as to what was to come from that statement? I am aware that this is how communication works. It's indirect. Could you outline what the bit to be discussed is?

Reading through, the play for indirect realism seems to be to pick two supposedly distinct aspects of a perceiver and to have one mediate perception for the other. This gives the impression that there are 3 parties, a relationship that is necessary for mediation, and for indirect realism.

But the distinction is abstract and has no empirical grounds. All one has to do is observe a perceiver and note that only two parties are involved in the perceptual relationship, and all the indirect realist has really done is implied that the perceiver mediates his own perception, which isn’t mediation at all.

You may be a good mind-reader. Or you have special powers!

But it isn't even close to telepathy or 'knowing another's thoughts'. It is guessing based on familiarity. — AmadeusD

We have to give a good account of telepathy before saying something is or is not like it. If you say that telepathy is akin to "hearing" someone's thoughts like I hear (or know) mine, I can only guess that other people are similar to me in this respect, but they could also differ in substantial ways.

I suppose that reading someone's diaries is as close as one can get, right? Then direct/indirect does not arise here.

To be clear, I am not deciding the terminological issue of stating a preference for "direct" or "indirect" realism, I am only pointing out what I think are issues with how these issues are discussed.

I don't deny that there is such a thing as indirectly knowing something, say, somebody is saying one thing while hinting at another thing given the tone they have, or the face they make, or that it would be quite a bad idea to look at the sun directly, because it can ruin one's eyesight, hence telescopes and such filters...

I'm not sure what this is in reference to, but given I don't take Telepathy as obtaining, I agree. There is mediation in every case of human perception. — AmadeusD

It pertained to the idea - not said by you, but could be assumed by others, that if we had the ability to enter someone's heads, like we are inside ours, we would have "pure" access to thought: mediation is a must, so we agree here.

I am aware that this is how communication works. It's indirect. Could you outline what the bit to be discussed is? — AmadeusD

Communication can be indirect, but often is not - of course, we have norms of behavior and the like which we frequently employ.

I see the terms used and the associated meanings, but ultimately, I frankly don't understand the problem behind the direct vs. indirect distinction, it seems to me that at bottom it is semantical, not substantial. "Direct" or "indirect" can be used in such a way that both are true in a straightforward manner.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." — Pierre-Normand

Talk of things on two levels can easily become ambiguous :halo:

For them to see when standing what we see when hanging upside down it must be that their eyes and/or brain work differently. — Michael

Must they, though? Some of us who have the same type of eyes / brains may stand up and others hang upside down. Are we having different experiences? Initially, yes, but after a few hours, no. We know this from experiments and the fact that we see the world upright despite the fact that it is projected upside down on the retina as the light travels through the eye's lens.

I’m saying that whether or not sugar tastes sweet is determined by the animal’s biology. It’s not “right” for it to taste sweet and “wrong” for it to taste sour. Sight is no different. It’s not “right” that light with a wavelength of 700nm looks red and not “right” that the sky is “up” and the ground “down”. These are all just consequences of our biology, and different organisms with different biologies can experience the world differently. — Michael

Then you're analysing the biology in isolation, as if the causal chains of chemicals, radiation, pressure etc from the environment would suddenly stop in the organism, and instead each individual organism creates its own experience.

I'd say seeing a colour is neither right nor wrong, it's just a causal fact, how a particular wavelength in the visible spectrum causes a particular biological phenomenon in organisms that have the ability to respond to wavelengths in the visible spectrum. This raw conscious experience, can then be used in many different ways, conventions etc. But the experience is a fact, not a convention.

You may be a good mind-reader. Or you have special powers! — Manuel

I wasn't referring only to myself. I have observed many times that people know what their partners or close friends will think about certain things. This is simply because they know them well, no special powers required.

But the distinction is abstract and has no empirical grounds. All one has to do is observe a perceiver and note that only two parties are involved in the perceptual relationship, and all the indirect realist has really done is implied that the perceiver mediates his own perception, which isn’t mediation at all. — NOS4A2

In the context of this discussion, I don't think this means much unless we return to conflating 'perceptual experience' with 'phenomenal experience'.
In that way, your passage is apt - but it doesn't tell us much. It just tells us that some people take the empirically indirect process of light reflection ->(several mediation points)-> phenomenal experience as direct, because the 'perceiver' encompasses the 'experiencer' and the physical 'perceiving organs'. But the mediation is built into that description, and is simply overlooked - and this causes the problem Mww and I have noted.

But if we pull the two apart - in that we have a process which results in something which everyone agrees is not hte process itself it is quite clear that there is three parts to achieving phenomenal experience when it comes to perception (as opposed to some delusional, self-invoked phenomenal experience such as dreaming).

We have to give a good account of telepathy — Manuel

Fair. "Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels"

This is Telepathy as its understood (this is from Wiki, but it aligns with six other sources of public understanding incl. Oxford Dictionary), and it is relative to known sensory communication. So, I take your point that the account could be varied, but it is something we can discuss here, I think.

I suppose that reading someone's diaries is as close as one can get, right? Then direct/indirect do not arise here. — Manuel

Well, this isn't accessing someone's thoughts Directly or Indirectly. This is accessing someone's writing. Unsure how to relate it...

I am only pointing out what I think are issues with how these issues are discussed. — Manuel

Fair enough too. It has been a fraught thread.

I don't deny that there is such a thing as indirectly knowing something — Manuel

I am. That's inference (using your example to inform me of context - I think is simplistic and under other criteria you can indirectly know something (the shape of something causing a shadow)). You infer from someone's body language that maybe their utterance is veiled, or sarcastic or whatever. Indirect. Agreed. But, it's an inference, not knowledge of anything (you would need to directly confer with S to confirm their actual meaning).

It pertained to the idea - not said by you, but could be assumed by others, that if we had the ability to enter someone's heads, like we are inside ours, we would have "pure" access to thought: mediation is a must, so we agree here. — Manuel

Ah I see. I reject, but because I do not see this as perception. There is process. There is zero space or time between the thought of the other and yours. They are one and the same. No perception involved. This is, as far as I can tell, the only apt version of Telepathy. All others are just further mediation - so, I actually 'agree' with you, but think your example is misleading.

Communication can be indirect, but often is not — Manuel

Could you outline 'direct' communication on your terms (let us simply jettison telepathy for this exercise)? I'll see if, as you likely allude in your concluding passage, that this disagreement is an error in terms rather than in ideas.

that people know what their partners or close friends will think about certain things — Janus

They don'tknow it, though, do they? They have made an assumption based on statistical analysis and are actually mroe than likely approximately right, and not actually anywhere near the actual thoughts of that person. This is a disservice to the distinction we're trying to make. Some call what you're talking about telepathy also. But, it is plainly not. You use your senses to hear what your partner does thing about some thousands of things, and with an internal analytical matrix of some kind - assume what they think about this novel event/item/object/whatever. There is nothing certain about it. No knowledge at all. Telepathy would guarantee that you have their thoughts correct.

They don'tknow it, though, do they? — AmadeusD

Not with absolute certainty. As I have said already absolute certainty is possible only in relation to what is in from of you right now, and then only within the context of what call 'the shared world" and not beyond that to some absolute.

Given that they can be certain of their memories (and that indeed may be questioned), they can be certain about what their partner or good friend has thought about whatever or what thoughts, as expressed, have been in their minds in particular situations or regarding particular issues.

Of course, disregarding the possibility of telepathy, no one can know what is in another's mind in particular situations unless it has been expressed often enough. Of course, it you want to get real cynical, you could say it's possible they've always been lying about what they think.

I wasn't referring only to myself. I have observed many times that people know what their partners or close friends will think about certain things. This is simply because they know them well, no special powers required. — Janus

I suppose what is noteworthy here would be to ascertain just how well you "got" what the other person was thinking. One thing is to have a general indication of what they may be thinking, the other is those moments of knowing exactly what they are thinking. But sure, point taken.

Fair. "Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels" — AmadeusD

Ok, so it is an unknown sensory channel, which renders it open to investigation.

I think I get it, as you've said before, being able to read a person's thoughts as they are having it.

Well, this isn't accessing someone's thoughts Directly or Indirectly. This is accessing someone's writing. Unsure how to relate it... — AmadeusD

I believe that the best way we know what we think is when we write it down in propositional form. If someone thinks (not you per se) that writing down your thoughts doesn't count as "reading" someone's mind, then we have a stumbling block. I know of no better way of knowing what someone thinks than reading what they think.

Though some people are able to speak quite well too.

We should be able to say that, at least at the time of writing Sam or Sarah thought what they wrote.

I am. That's inference (using your example to inform me of context - I think is simplistic and under other criteria you can indirectly know something (the shape of something causing a shadow)). You infer from someone's body language that maybe their utterance is veiled, or sarcastic or whatever. Indirect. Agreed. But, it's an inference, not knowledge of anything (you would need to directly confer with S to confirm their actual meaning). — AmadeusD

Alright, so here's an option. I can say I directly see how a person is behaving and using this information, I can directly ascertain what they are thinking. If a behavior contradicts what a person is saying, I use contextual information to ignore the behavior or what they are saying, to get what they are intending to say. It's all direct.

Another option is to say, I indirectly see how a person is behaving based on my mental architecture I have (I am a human being, not God) to try to get what the other person is indirectly thinking - since I have no access to any mind but my own, thus everything is indirect.

Or the common view: I directly see behavior, but I indirectly see mental states. I don't see why an honest report of what a person is thinking is not direct.

There is zero space or time between the thought of the other and yours. They are one and the same. No perception involved. This is, as far as I can tell, the only apt version of Telepathy. All others are just further mediation - so, I actually 'agree' with you, but think your example is misleading. — AmadeusD

Ah. Well, if we are going to speak of thoughts absent space and time, we are going to enter very abstract territory indeed.

Could you outline 'direct' communication on your terms (let us simply jettison telepathy for this exercise)? I'll see if, as you likely allude in your concluding passage, that this disagreement is an error in terms rather than in ideas. — AmadeusD

What you and I are doing right now. This is direct communication between my thoughts and yours. I am writing down what I am thinking at the moment I am writing these words, and you read them in real time and respond with what's in your mind.

If you speak of indirect communication, I would have something in mind like saying something and meaning something else, given an uncomfortable situation, or living in a totalitarian society. To be honest, I kind of have trouble thinking of too many examples of indirect communication at this moment.

One thing is to have a general indication of what they may be thinking, the other is those moments of knowing exactly what they are thinking. But sure, point taken. — Manuel

:ok: :ok:

which renders it open to investigation. — Manuel

Im unsure it does. But, it could be.

I know of no better way of knowing what someone thinks than reading what they think. — Manuel

I disagree, but thats important. This does nothing for the discussion. If there is no better way to 'hear someone's thoughts, all we're doing is concluding that Direct Perception isn't possible wrt to another's thoughts, in these terms. It doesn't mean we have to call it Direct because we can telepathise. That seems to be a semantic issue.

We should be able to say that, at least at the time of writing Sam or Sarah thought what they wrote — Manuel

I'm unsure that's true. What of Automatic writing? Stream-of-consciousness? Is it a matter of degree? I have written things down months after thinking them (in the proper sense) and only recalled the thought I had initially. Is my writing an accurate depiction of the thought? I think not (hehe).

I can say I directly see how a person is behaving and using this information, I can directly ascertain what they are thinking. — Manuel

I don't think you can. This doesn't strike me as a reasonable claim. You cannot directly ascertain what someone is thinking other than by literally being privy to their thoughts. A weird notion, to be sure.

It's all direct. — Manuel

It's all several steps away from a 'direct' anything in these terms. You literally don't know hte person's thought. Nothing you've put forward would let you in to know the thought. You make assumptions.

Another option is to say, I indirectly see how a person is behaving based on my mental architecture I have (I am a human being, not God) to try to get what the other person is indirectly thinking - since I have no access to any mind but my own, thus everything is indirect. — Manuel

Agree, roughly.

an honest report of what a person is thinking is not direct. — Manuel

If someone tells me what they are thinking, how could I possibly know that this represents their thought? Well, actually, I know that it doesn't. They have told me the thought the had about telling me about their thought. Not their thought. See what I mean?

What you and I are doing right now. This is direct communication between my thoughts and yours. I am writing down what I am thinking at the moment I am writing these words, and you read them in real time and respond with what's in your mind. — Manuel

I quite strongly disagree, and think this framing is a mere convention to avoid people constantly doubting the honesty of an interlocutor. As an example of why I think your account (this specific one) fails, is because I could be lying to you.

I disagree, but thats important. This does nothing for the discussion. If there is no better way to 'hear someone's thoughts, all we're doing is concluding that Direct Perception isn't possible wrt to another's thoughts, in these terms. It doesn't mean we have to call it Direct because we can telepathise. That seems to be a semantic issue — AmadeusD

What terms? Do you mean being inside another person's head? If so, then I would caution the point I made previously, we are "inside" our heads, but could be misleading ourselves constantly and if this could be the case, and I think it happens often, but can't specify how often, then we would have no reason to believe that being in someone else's head would be more informative than being in ours.

I'm unsure that's true. What of Automatic writing? Stream-of-consciousness? Is it a matter of degree? I have written things down months after thinking them (in the proper sense) and only recalled the thought I had initially. Is my writing an accurate depiction of the thought? I think not (hehe). — AmadeusD

I mean you are expressing your thoughts right now by posing these questions. And these are direct questions, unless you are attempting to hint at something hidden.

We have an issue here, we need to offer a definition of thought. This has been a massive problem in the history of the field. Specifically, we can attempt to articulate what a thought is absent language, that is, non-linguistic thought, but we don't have a clue on how to do that. We end up expressing our thoughts with words.

You could present to me an image of a flower, and say, I was thinking about this, and point to the flower, indicating a kind of visual thinking. But I take that your "thinking about", was about the phenomenon flower, but it must be expressed linguistically.

Of course, one can change one's mind, but that doesn't mean that at the moment you wrote something down, you weren't thinking about these things.

If someone tells me what they are thinking, how could I possibly know that this represents their thought? Well, actually, I know that it doesn't. They have told me the thought the had about telling me about their thought. Not their thought. See what I mean? — AmadeusD

I believe you may be trying to get at something like LOT (Language of Thought), but this is not available for introspection. If I am trying to clear up a notion, like we are doing here, I am telling you what I am thinking. You can reply by saying that I am not telling you what I am thinking, that I am telling you what I thought I was thinking, or something along these lines.

I don't believe I am.

I quite strongly disagree, and think this framing is a mere convention to avoid people constantly doubting the honesty of an interlocutor. As an example of why I think your account (this specific one) fails, is because I could be lying to you. — AmadeusD

Sure, but why would you in this case? Are we trying to clear up an issue or are we merely playing games with no purpose?

What terms? — Manuel

"these terms" being that we're insinuating (as a jumping-off point) that Telepathy is 'Direct'. So, in these terms that we're discussing, without being 'directly' privy to the person's thought, without mediation, in real-time, there is no direct access. Without telepathy, I think the same - but, that relies on telepathy to be the 'direct' version, in some sense hence 'in these terms'. In some other terms, thinking - then translating to words, then editing, then sending, might be considered Direct but I'd reject that.

I mean you are expressing your thoughts right now by posing these questions. — Manuel

Which is, quite plainly, not a direct transmission of my thoughts. They ahve been sculpted into English words, for TPF. They are not, in any way, a direct access to what I am thinking. Im unsure I grasp how this can be considered the case...

that is, non-linguistic thought, but we don't have a clue on how to do that. We end up expressing our thoughts with words. — Manuel

I am unsure you are being generous here. Some, and on some accounts, most people do not think in words. They have to translate, essentially by rote learned language, their thought to be intelligible to others. So, it's not clear to me that it matters whether we think linguistically, to define thought. I do think it nearly impossible to define 'thought' though. There's no way to extricate each thought from the other, so is it just a mess of mentation? Oy vey.

You could present to me an image of a flower, and say, I was thinking about this, and point to the flower, indicating a kind of visual thinking. But I take that your "thinking about", was about the phenomenon flower, but it must be expressed linguistically. — Manuel

I take your point, but insert a previous objection (which, coincidentally, appears to be where you land despite taking flight from a different perspective):

There is no way i was thinking 'of that'. I probably was having a thought about that. But i couldn't be thinking that. It is external to my thought, and cannot be identical with it. Also, was I thinking of the photo, or the flower (this is irrelevant, but quirky and worthy noting)? Any way you slice this, my thought is indirectly of any given external thing, and my utterance to you is representative of my thought. It strikes me as bizarre that people are so resistant to this obviousness. It's not really a matter of 'certainty'. There is no room for 'uncertainty' about those relations, given the words we have invented for different relations.

"thinking about" is adequately vague enough to ensure that what I'm putting forward holds, at least thus far. If you're claim is actually that when I say "I was thinking of this" I am, in fact, trying to tell you that this thing here was my thought, I would say that's not right. I can't quite tell though, as your passages go from the latter to the former.

you wrote something down, you weren't thinking about these things. — Manuel

I would have been thinking, in terms of content, some swirling collective of thoughts, dispositions, intentions and attitudes that would actually inform you of how i wrote these passages. Not what I intended them to represent.

or something along these lines. — Manuel

Would you accept that 'along these lines' could be "You're not telling me what you're thinking. You're telling me what you intended me to get from you, about what you were thinking"? This seems to me to be the case. And this also allows me to slide closer to concession. If this is the claim, I might need to concede that this is, in fact, what I get from you when you tell me X. But then, the thought you're conveying isn't the thing you wanted me to know. Its about how you're going to tell me about it :P :P

Sure, but why would you in this case? — Manuel

This is important because, you ask a good Q - what reason would I have? Well, plainly (given the quote you've used) to show a hole in your position :)

In the event, I am not lying to you. My point was that now that I've mentioned it it's clear you can't be sure. Nothing I say could ensure the veridicality of my claim (well, short of .... duh du du duhhhh... Telepathy!)

It is indirect realists who seem to think it is impossible for our perceptions to be veridical, and this seems to be because we either do not perceive the world "correctly" or because we cannot know whether we perceive the world "correctly". — Luke

"Correct", "Veridical", or not, is the wrong framing.

Consider a live TV broadcast. The images you see may veridical, they may accurately depict the reality that was being filmed. Or, it may be doctored in various ways, or may be manufactured from whole cloth, by AI perhaps. The focus is not on whether the broadcast is correct or not. Clearly, sometimes it is. But rather, the mediation that is the TV is what the indirect realist focuses on. Without this mediation, the kind of non-veridicality TV's enable would be impossible.

Similarly, perceptual experience might sometimes accurately reflect reality, in perceptual experience's own terms. But all our contact with reality is entirely framed in terms of perceptual experience, which itself is wholly the mind's construct. In the same way, any contact you have with the reality "behind" the TV is literally framed by the construct that is the TV.

You can't say that it doesn't matter if these are indistinct, because otherwise your position becomes direct realism. If the "taste" and your "awareness of the taste" were indistinct then there would be no intermediary and they would both be directly of the object.

In other words, you claim that we have indirect awareness of external objects because our awareness is mediated by our perceptual experience, but you also find no problem in collapsing the distinction between our awareness of our perceptual experience and our perceptual experience. If you collapse this distinction, then you lose the indirectness. — Luke

Even if you collapse the distinction, there are still two awarenesses: object awareness, and perceptual experience, which is itself awareness. Object awareness is still mediated by perceptual experience: we are only aware of objects because of perceptual experience (which we are also aware of, as perceptual experience is awareness).

. If you collapse this distinction, then you lose the indirectness — Luke

You for sure do not. You are speaking purely about linguistic conventions here and not what they pertain to. There is a clear distinction between a shadow and that which causes the shadow, but on your view, your interpretation of the shadow is direct perception of the object that caused it.
Could we at least agree this is plainly wrong? If we do agree, then distinction doesn't matter. This would just be a sorities problem if it did, and we'd have literally no answer.

Phenomenal experience is empirically analogous to a shadow here(well, in the abstract objective consideration of what a Shadow physically is). It is caused (actually, less directly than a shadow) by the activity of light in conjunction with both an apparent object, and your sense organ (eyes). The experience is none of these things. That we, in our minds, do not note the conjunction and process preceding phenomenal experience does not actually involve a distinction obtaining. We have nothing to distinguish. We have only the experience which consists in the phenomenal experience. The 'perception' isn't something we are aware of.
If you take the above re: shadows seriously, you can't make the move you're trying to make about phenomenal experience. It is the same distinction, but you're saying it's not there in the one case.

Supposing you think a Shadow is a direct and reliable way to come to know an object/objects, how could that be? And how do you then apply that phenomenal experience?

I don't see this as a problem. The common factor theorist, presumably an indirect realist, would simply say that there is no fool proof way to establish veridicality. That veridicality is established by inference and probabilistic reasoning, and so is never 100% certain. The fact that challenges to veridicality such as simulation theories can never be put to rest attest to this. — hypericin

Let me just address this for the moment, if you don't mind, since I think it's a core issue.

I think it's important to separate requirements for the certainty or indubitability of perceptual beliefs (which Descartes was preoccupied with) from the issue of how perceptual experiences can have determinate truth conditions and make reference to objective, mind-independent features of the world.

The epistemological disjunctivism I advocate fully acknowledges the fallibility of our perceptual capacities. Our senses can misfire or be disrupted in various ways - by physiological factors, abnormal stimuli, environmental trickery like mirrors, and so on. But this fallibilism is compatible with perceptual experiences having genuine world-directed purport and truth conditions.

When it seems to me that an apple is within reach, the truth conditions of this 'seeming' are not a matter of the probability that some internal representation matches external facts. Rather, they are constitutively (definitionally) tied to my embodied abilities - my potential for actively reaching out and grasping the apple given my bodily makeup and situation. A perceptual error is directly disclosed when I extend my arm expecting to grasp it, but cannot.

The key is that the apple itself and the patterns of light it reflects toward me are not just external facts that I'm inferring or approximating through an internal representation. Rather, they are environmental realities that I am actively making use of, and attuning my visual experience to, through the exercise of my embodied skills.

It's akin to the difference between using a map to orient yourself in an unfamiliar city versus directly picking up on and coordinating your movements with respect to visible landmarks as you navigate. The apple's affordances for action and the dynamic play of light are not epistemic intermediaries, but part of the environmental circuits that your perception-action loops are directly coupled to and making use of.

As the MIT roboticist Rodney Brooks once argued, the terrain itself is its own best model - it doesn't need to be re-represented internally (except when the robot needs to pause and "think", rather than navigate on and around directly visible and recognisable features of the terrain). My visual experience of the apple's reachability is a matter of my sensorimotor capacities entering into a concrete, direct engagement with the apple's actual situation and the ambient light that it reflects, not a matter of matching an internal representation to an external state of affairs.

This poses a challenge to the representationalist. Once perceptual content is divorced from this concrete coupling between embodied abilities and environmental realities, it becomes extremely unclear what could even constitute "approximate" truth conditions for an entirely internalized phenomenal state. How could a purely internal representation, cut off from the concrete sensorimotor dynamics it normally subserves, still manage to purport or refer to objective features of the world, even in an approximate way?

The representationalist seems to lack the resources to ground any sort of veridicality conditions or directedness for phenomenal experience considered in isolation from embodied skills. Appealing to mere probabilities or approximations simply pushes the problem back - it still requires the internal representation to have some inherent world-engaging purport to be a candidate for truth or falsity in the first place.

Perceptual experiences can be more or less veridical, on my view, precisely because they are already part of a world-involving dynamics, not self-contained internal representations.

The key is that the apple itself and the patterns of light it reflects toward me are not just external facts that I'm inferring or approximating through an internal representation. Rather, they are environmental realities that I am actively making use of, and attuning my visual experience to, through the exercise of my embodied skills. — Pierre-Normand

I think this is, fwiw, one of the clearest, best things I've seen on this. Thanks for that. Really concise and illustrative.

I don't think your two concepts are at odds anyway. The first sentence about those patterns of light being 'external facts' and the latter of about them being 'realities' speaks to me the exact same thing twice over. Suppose i'm wrong, though:
My objection is that all of this could be true, and your perception be indirect. Consider.
You can, for instance, put your hands through those rubber-glove-through-the-wall thing to perform surgery, say. You can even have your patient visually removed, and access it via only a mis-sized image on a screen which is slightly discoloured compared to reality, and has been, in minor ways outside of the portion of the image in which your patient's body sits, altered in terms of shape, contrast, alignment etc...It is almost certainly the case you are wearing gloves 'directly' on your hands, and then through the gloves in the wall. You might also have earphones in. All of the data you need is heavily mediated, on any account really, through other physical matter and changes of medium. I've described a situation where nothing you get is accurate to the reality.
You can still successfully perform this surgery. You do not need direct access to information to use it reliably and effectively, I don't think. This may be why i have no trouble at all with IRism.

Interesting dialogue.

I picture ol’ Rene, nodding in knowing agreement with his notion of “…. discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason…”.

Must they, though? — jkop

Assuming that conscious experience is causally determined then yes. Given the same input (the stimulus) and the same processing (the central nervous system) then the same output (the experience) will result. Different outputs require either different processing or different inputs.

I'd say seeing a colour is neither right nor wrong, it's just a causal fact, how a particular wavelength in the visible spectrum causes a particular biological phenomenon in organisms that have the ability to respond to wavelengths in the visible spectrum. — jkop

That's the exact point I'm making, except I'm extending it to something that might usually be considered a "primary" quality – visual orientation.

Reading through, the play for indirect realism seems to be to pick two supposedly distinct aspects of a perceiver and to have one mediate perception for the other. This gives the impression that there are 3 parties, a relationship that is necessary for mediation, and for indirect realism.

But the distinction is abstract and has no empirical grounds. All one has to do is observe a perceiver and note that only two parties are involved in the perceptual relationship, and all the indirect realist has really done is implied that the perceiver mediates his own perception, which isn’t mediation at all. — NOS4A2

Indirect realists recognise that experience does not extend beyond the body, and so that distal objects are not constituents of experience, and so that the properties of the experience are not the properties of the distal objects. The relationship between experience and distal objects is nothing more than causal. As such there is an epistemological problem of perception and so direct realism fails, as direct realism was the attempt to explain why there isn't an epistemological problem of perception.

The only reason why experience wouldn’t extend beyond the body is because experience is bodily, of the body, and in fact identical with it. So it’s like saying the body does not extend beyond the body.

But there are epistemological problems with indirect realism, and they are insurmountable. If one is privy only to his experience, or representation, whatever the case may be, how can he know whether they represent the real world? that they do so indirectly?

While it is true that distal objects are not constituents of the body, luckily the sense are, and the body is equipped to sense its surroundings. Unfortunately the senses do not point inward, and he cannot use them to discern what is going on inside. The subjective disconnect between states of feelings and states of affairs will forever perplex indirect realism. A being who cannot watch his own brain supposes to tell us what is occurring inside. Should evidence concern us, one ought to remain skeptical of these phenomenological claims.

Lastly, the causal relationship as proposed by indirect realism (as far as I can tell) is largely backwards. It does not account for the activity of perception, for instance focussing, grasping, tasting a distal object, all of which occur prior.