I’m just saying that you’re not acquainted with mental phenomena. We’re so unacquainted with mental phenomena that we cannot even describe one. If we were acquainted with mental phenomena this whole issue wouldn’t be such a struggle. — NOS4A2

I'm definitely acquainted with the pain I feel when I stub my toe, and the cold I feel when it's winter, and the blue I see when I look to the sky.

I'll quote from the SEP article on Acquaintance:

Most philosophers wedded to some notion of acquaintance end up rejecting the idea that we have acquaintance even with bread-box sized objects, immediately before us, under ideal conditions of perception. The test to determine with what we are acquainted is often reminiscent of the method Descartes recommended for finding secure foundations of knowledge—the method of doubt (see Russell 1912: 74; Price 1932: 3). If you are considering whether you are acquainted with something, ask yourself whether you can conceive of being in this very state when the putative object does not exist. If you can, you should reject the suggestion that you are directly acquainted with the item in question. Based on possibilities of error about physical objects from illusion, hallucination and dreams, it seemed to most that we could rule out acquaintance with physical objects, future events, other minds, and facts that involve any of these as constituents. Consider, for example, physical objects. It seems that the evidence that my experiences give me right now for supposing that there is a computer before me is perfectly consistent with the hypothesis that I am now having a vivid dream or a vivid hallucination. If this is right, then the experiential evidence I possess cannot be the computer or any of its constituents. Neither the computer, nor any of its constituents, need be present in that vivid dream or hallucination. Even when our evidence for the presence of physical objects seems as good as we can get, then, we are not acquainted with physical objects or their constituents. (However, some have recently defended the view that we can be acquainted with physical objects in perception. See, for example, Johnston 2004.) Traditionally, acquaintance theorists have taken the most promising candidates for entities with which we can be acquainted to be conscious states of mind (e.g., an experience of pain, a sensation of red) and their properties (e.g., painfulness, redness). Russell and many other acquaintance theorists also take themselves to be acquainted with facts, i.e., with something’s having some property—at least mental facts (e.g., my being in pain, my desiring food, my experiencing red).

If you are you ought be able to describe a property or two of each.

If you are you ought be able to describe a property or two of each. — NOS4A2

This doesn't follow. It is properties with which I am acquainted. You're asking for a property of a property.

Is a quale a property of experience or of mental objects?

Is a quale a property of experience or of mental objects? — NOS4A2

Qualia:

(1) Qualia as phenomenal character...
(2) Qualia as properties of sense data...
(3) Qualia as intrinsic non-representational properties...
(4) Qualia as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties...

So which is it?

So which is it? — NOS4A2

We don't know; the hard problem of consciousness hasn't been resolved. All I know is that I am acquainted with pain and that I can't describe this pain in any simpler terms; pain is just pain.

You’re acquainted with qualia but do not know about qualia. This troubles me. I’m just trying to figure how one can agree with the first premise.

Maybe read up on the linked article on acquaintance. I'll start you off with this quote:

I say that I am acquainted with an object when I have a direct cognitive relation to that object, i.e., when I am directly aware of the object itself. When I speak of a cognitive relation here, I do not mean the sort of relation which constitutes judgment, but the sort which constitutes presentation. (Russell 1910/11: 108)

Direct awareness as knowledge, as contrasted with descriptive knowledge, sure. I’m just asking if you can afford me some of that knowledge that you have derived from your acquaintance.

Try reading more of the article.

Russell thus characterizes acquaintance as a relation of direct awareness, a relation in which, as Russell and some others have put it, something is “presented” or simply “given” to the subject.

...

Acquaintance with something does not consist in forming any judgment or thought about it, or in having any concept or representation of it.

...

We have already seen that for Russell acquaintance is nonjudgmental or nonpropositional; to be acquainted with something is to be aware of it in a way that does not essentially involve being aware that it is so-and-so. Russell seems to be extending this to knowledge by acquaintance: it is knowledge of something, and logically independent of knowledge that something is so-and-so.

I am simply, irreducibly, aware of my pain. I don't know what my pain is or what causes it; it's just there in awareness.

Right, you’ve gained knowledge of qualia through your non-judgemental acquaintance of it rather than by gaining knowledge of it through a description of it being so-and-so. I, on the other hand, have no acquaintance with qualia. So what, if anything, can you say of the experiential evidence you’ve gathered in regards to qualia?

I don't understand your question.

It is simply the case that I'm acquainted with the phenomenal character of my experience, and that this phenomenal character is some sort of mental phenomena, whatever mental phenomena turn out to be (e.g. property dualism or eliminative materialism).

Given that conscious experience doesn't "literally extend beyond the subject's head, to encompass what the experience is of", the naïve realist's claim that distal objects and their properties are literal, non-representational constituents of conscious experience is false, and so the indirect realist account above is true.

So you have no knowledge of qualia that you can illustrate, even though you assert that you are acquainted with qualia. That comes off as quite convenient.

But given that experience is an act involving a practical relationship between oneself and the rest of the world (and never a space located in the body with area and volume), it follows that objects are often participants of that act.

I don't think it's a matter of knowledge as much as an interpretation of what we know. — Moliere

Well alright, but then I think I would be interested in whether you would think it acceptable for an indirect realist to call you an indirect realist, since you are not necessarily contradicting their beliefs at all as far as I can tell.

I don't know why I'd prioritize ipseity over the object... the sacrifice of fidelity to our intuitions. — Moliere

Some interesting thoughts here.

Rather, I can't see how we'd be able to tell the story about retina, photons, or brains without knowing -- rather than inferring -- about the world. — Moliere

Not sure I agree. I don't see the contradiction in the idea that there are things that happen beyond our immediate perceptions which we create stories to try and explain even if we cannot definitively know anything in a perfect way.

Else, "retina, photons, brains" are themselves just inferences about an experiential projection in a causal relationship with a reality we know nothing about, but just make guesses about. — Moliere

Well all of our knowledge about the world is enacted within experiences which are not identical with things in the outside world beyond those experiences.

The only problem with this view being that we do know things, so it falls in error on the other side -- on the side of certain knowledge which rejects beliefs which could be wrong, when all proper judgment takes place exactly where we could be wrong. — Moliere

I am not sure I understand.

There's a difference between being able to accomplish something, and knowing something.

I'd liken our neuroscientists to medieval engineers -- they can make some observations and throw together some catapults, but they do not know the mechanical laws of Newton or its extensions.

It's more because we're ignorant of how this whole thing works -- even at the conceptual level, which is why it's interesting in philosophy -- so I wouldn't believe it without more. I'd think the person was making some sort of mistake along the way, in the same way that I thought about the Google employee who thought that later iterations of ChatGPT are conscious. — Moliere

I really don't think its as complicated as you make out. The only way information gets into our brain and cause sensory experiences is by stimulating sensory receptors. The light hitting my retina is causing patterns of excitation at any given time. If artificially exciting them in an identical way did not produce the same results it would seem inexplicable to me. Why wouldn't it? To me that is an unnecessary skepticism.

But given that experience is an act involving a practical relationship between oneself and the rest of the world (and never a space located in the body with area and volume), it follows that objects are often participants of that act. — NOS4A2

The relevant concern is the phenomenal character of conscious experience. Everyone agrees that veridical perception involves the body responding to and interacting with objects in the wider environment. You're equivocating.

Maybe it’s relevant for indirect realists and dualists of all types, no doubt, but my relevant concern is why they’re begging the question, why they proliferate unobservables into a menagerie of ineffable terms and concepts, and why they’d eschew the 3rd-person perspective in favor of one that cannot even see his own ears, let alone what is occurring in the skull.

Maybe it’s relevant for indirect realists and dualists of all types, no doubt, but my relevant concern is why they’re begging the question, why they proliferate unobservables into a menagerie of ineffable terms and concepts, and why they’d eschew the 3rd-person perspective in favor of one that cannot even see his own ears, let alone what is occurring in the skull. — NOS4A2

It’s not begging the question to accept the reality of a first-person perspective with phenomenal character; it’s the foundation upon which the dispute between naive and indirect realism rests.

Their argument is over whether or not distal objects are constituents of this first-person experience.

It’s not begging the question to accept the reality of a first-person perspective with phenomenal character; it’s the foundation upon which the dispute between naive and indirect realism rests.

Their argument is over whether or not distal objects are constituents of this first-person phenomenal character.

The foundation is the biology, which can be experienced from all perspectives. But from the first-person perspective most of it remains invisible, thus what it is doing and how it works is largely inaccessible. With this in mind the notion that a first-person perspective grants special access seems incoherent.

The “what it’s like” to be so and so lacks more data than it could possibly provide. It’s more “what it seems like”. This is the reason why the foundation is forever “phenomenal”, and never actual. All that could ever be provided from that perspective is belief.

So what’s your third-person account of belief and what it seems like?

We don't need to talk about what a cow is doing to talk about what the brain is doing. — Michael

Nope, we sure don’t. To talk about what the brain is doing there doesn’t even need to be a cow to talk about. But to talk about what the brain is doing when presented with a cow, there damn sure better be one.

Good on ya for “acquaintance”. Might be useful to juxtaposition with “description”; all the cool kids have already done it.

But to talk about what the brain is doing when presented with a cow... — Mww

Brains aren't presented with cows. Brains respond to signals sent by the body's sense organs. But most importantly, the phenomenal character of conscious experience – which as a property dualist I take to be a non-physical emergent phenomenon – is ontologically distinct from the cow.

Brains aren't presented with cows. — Michael

Correct; you’re preachin’ to the choir. See my comment to Banno three days ago, pg. 66.

The difference now is, you said “talk of what the cow is doing”, which presupposes it as an extant experience.

You post has no content. — Banno

Not sure what you're going through mate, but I really hope you come out of it better off :) You sometimes say things with substance, and I'd hate to think you'd devolved into a 180-style fuddy-duddyness.

I would ask whether anything could ever count as indirect under this view. — Apustimelogist

I would answer: Patently, yes. Unless we are irrational reductionists, there is no direct link between most things in the world and our experience of them. This is, in fact, the hard problem - and hand-waving away using arguments like this seems to me to entirely side-step the question, and assumes that the very concept of 'direct'ness is somehow intensional and not something which can be ascertained 'correctly' seems both unsatisfactory, and under-explanatory. We have facts that are not explained. Such as experience. Which you're using. To make the claim.
It's a really weird position, when one steps back. Though, i take it that since thinkers like Wittgenstein and Haabermas are taken seriously, this may be an uphill (albeit, risible) battle.

We don’t perceive both the object and the representation of the object. — Mww

(using this is a prompt - I'm not replying to your argument or position, just fyi, below:

This is a really, really good point that It hurts I didn't think to bring up. The DRist must hold that we experience both a physical object, and an empirically different representation of it in consciousness.

If that's the case, I'll need something separating the two in my experience. Otherwise, thsi is a ghost. And not even a very good one. It's totally opaque. There is no such connection in experience.

What do you think "constituent" means? — Michael

Feigned interest is rather unbecoming.

Re read our exchanges, or better yet, click my avatar, click my comments and read for yourself how I use the word. Then you'll know what it means.

One cannot adhere to both, an eliminative materialist, and a sense datum theorist account of perception.

there is no direct link between most things in the world and our experience of them. This is, in fact, the hard problem — AmadeusD

I am not sure I would say that the hard problem is the crux of the problem - if anything, the hard problem probably presupposes indirect realism. It's also an interesting question whether indirect realism is a construct that can be applied to things that don't have experience.

using arguments like this seems to me to entirely side-step the question, and assumes that the very concept of 'direct'ness is somehow intensional and not something which can be ascertained 'correctly' seems both unsatisfactory, and under-explanatory. — AmadeusD

Well yes, I think it's difficult to ignore steps of mediation in the chain of events leading to experience, especially under a notion of indirect realism defined by the idea that perception is governed by experiences or representations different from the objects-in-themselves. I guess under that definition I could equally ask whether anything could count as direct which seems quite difficult imo under modern understandings of science and partly why I wasn't sure what people were meaning by direct realism.

Well alright, but then I think I would be interested in whether you would think it acceptable for an indirect realist to call you an indirect realist, since you are not necessarily contradicting their beliefs at all as far as I can tell. — Apustimelogist

The indirect realist says that we are acquainted with sense-data, and that we only infer that there are objects from that sense data.

I believe we are acquainted with the world, which happen to contain objects.

Is that not different to your mind?

I don't see the contradiction in the idea that there are things that happen beyond our immediate perceptions which we create stories to try and explain even if we cannot definitively know anything in a perfect way. — Apustimelogist

I haven't claimed there's a contradiction. Indirect realism is logically possible.

Let's grant indirect realism: There are objects which cause experiences and the objects, while real, are not what we are directly acquainted with. Rather we are directly acquainted with our experience and make judgments about objects from that experience, and the so-called naive realist is ignorant of this fact -- so the indirect realist denies naive realism.

The motivation for indirect realism comes from various phenomena of perception such as dreams, hallucinations, and variance in discriminatory ability.

My thought is -- according to the indirect realist we can be in error about perception evidenced by the belief that there is some belief called "naive realism" that is false.

So how does the indirect realist account for error about perception, if not another intermediary?

To me it seems like it's much more elegant to simply say we can be fallible, and not come up with some metaphysical explanation as to why towers which are square appear round from a distance. Which to me indicates there's no separation between myself and objects, no experiential-film or sense-data that exists between myself and the really real objects -- there's just the familiar world that we can be wrong about sometimes.

I am not sure I understand. — Apustimelogist

Eh, no worries. I was on a bit of a tangent about how there's a more extreme version of the belief which just flips the indirect realist's priorities on its head -- no subject, only objects, and from these objects we make inferences about perception.

I really don't think its as complicated as you make out. The only way information gets into our brain and cause sensory experiences is by stimulating sensory receptors. The light hitting my retina is causing patterns of excitation at any given time. If artificially exciting them in an identical way did not produce the same results it would seem inexplicable to me. Why wouldn't it? To me that is an unnecessary skepticism. — Apustimelogist

I'd believe that if we recreated the conditions for creating perception then we'd produce the same results, but I don't believe anyone really knows those conditions.

The difference now is, you said “talk of what the cow is doing”, which presupposes it as an extant experience. — Mww

This topic finds agreement between us.

What the cow is doing may or may not qualify as an experience. Extant behaviour seems better here. Experience is always meaningful to the creature having the experience. So, we ought to know how creatures attribute meaning in order to have any clue about whether or not cows can have experience, and to what extent they are or become meaningful to the cow.

Biology looms large.