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. — Apustimelogist

In principle, I think I'm getting you - though it's not all that satisfying to me to say that the hard problem presupposes anything. It's just a gap in our understanding; I don't think it supposes anything other than we currently don't know. Are you able to elucidate how you're posing this element?

The bold: Yes, very interesting, but I think its a straight forward: no. If there's no conscious experience, there's nothing to compare with mind-independence. Though, this goes to the Hard Problem, again. We can't know whether that's true, in any particular case, I don't think.

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. — Apustimelogist

I'll admit, I have no problem with supposing nothing is direct with regard to experience. Just less mediated, in certain ways.

I'd believe that if we recreated the conditions for creating perception then we'd produce the same results — Moliere

A lot of people take this line, but it seems plainly available to deny that there's any necessity between awareness and experience.

A lot of people take this line, but it seems plainly available to deny that there's any necessity between awareness and experience. — AmadeusD

My thinking is that we're ignorant about any relationship between awareness (or perception) and experience, so we ought not believe people who claim to know until they demonstrate more. But, ultimately, if what I'm saying is true -- that we are a part of the world -- then I can't think of a reason why we couldn't, in principle, recreate the conditions. I just think we're ignorant now to a point where we're not even sure what would count as consciousness -- so there's a good reason to remain skeptical.*

In terms of perception I'd say AI demonstrates some of the more dry and functional ways of putting "perception", but I don't believe the internet is conscious for all that.

*EDIT: Also why it's a good topic for philosophy: It's not clear enough yet to be a science.

Then where is the mediation of our perception of visual objects by the perception of some other entities such as sense-data?
— Luke

We feel pain – a mental phenomenon – and it is in feeling this pain that we feel the fire. We taste a sweet taste – a mental phenomenon – and it is in tasting this sweet taste that we taste the sugar. We see shapes and colours – mental phenomena – and it is in seeing these shapes and colours that we see the cow. — Michael

Do you hold the view that we must perceive mental phenomena in order to perceive real objects? If so, then this is where our positions differ and we have more than a grammatical dispute, since it is not my position that we must perceive mental phenomena in order to perceive real objects. If not, then you are not an indirect realist.

P1. We are acquainted with the phenomenal character of experience.
P2. According to the naive realist, the phenomenal character of experience is constituted of distal objects and their properties.
C1. Therefore, according to the naive realist, we are acquainted with distal objects and their properties.
P3. According to the indirect realist, the phenomenal character of experience is constituted of mental phenomena.
C2. Therefore, according to the indirect realist, we are acquainted with mental phenomena.

Note that the term "mental phenomena" is impartial to property dualism and eliminative materialism.

Note also the technical term "acquainted", as described here.

And as explained above, for the phenomenal character of experience to be constituted of distal objects and their properties it requires that perceptual experiences "literally extend beyond the subject's head, to encompass what the experience is of". — Michael

I think I've managed to rephrase in these terms in my conversation with @Apustimelogist

And I believe I accept "literally extend beyond the subject's head" -- sure.

I'm not sure how else we'd be acquainted with the world unless our experiences literally extended beyond our head. Otherwise we'd only know our head, and infer that we have a body.

I think I am acquainted with my toes in the same way I am acquainted with my head.

That consciousness literally extends outside of the head and touches the world is kind of why the problem of consciousness is a big deal for some. Granting that it does, and granting what we know about perception it doesn't make sense -- but then some say it does make sense, it just doesn't get along with the science and that's the whole problem.

But I'd say that the distinction between naive and indirect realism operates at a higher level of abstraction than the problem of consciousness -- we could be consciousness-realists or anti-realists, and fall either way with respect to naive or indirect realism regarding perception and objects, just framing it in different ways when it's brought up (it's different, but understandable why the problem comes up regarding perception)

For my part I think reductios work because if the indirect realist position turns out to be absurd, or at least results in undesirable conclusions, then it seems that the indirect realist has some explaining to do -- if the naive realist position accommodates these absurdities and can explain the original problems that the indirect realist brings up, then it'd be better to believe in naive realism.

To mediate is to arbitrate or condition; that which is a perception cannot arbitrate or be arbitrated by, another perception. Perception mediated by perception is improper and confusing;
Sense data just is the unmediated empirical affect the object has, that data, that affect, conditioned by something very different, is the subsequent mediated representation of the perceived object. This is indirect realism. — Mww

This is not indirect realism according to the linked page provided by @Michael, which describes the relevant mediation as a perception of a perception; the sort of mediation which is lacking in the description of direct realism:

(2) that our visual perception of […] material objects is not mediated by the perception of some other entities, such as sense-data (the “direct” part) — Michael

I agree that this “perception of a perception” is confusing and unnecessary. It’s a large part of the reason why I am not an indirect realist.

Sense data just is the unmediated empirical affect the object has, that data, that affect, conditioned by something very different, is the subsequent mediated representation of the perceived object. — Mww

Also, I don’t understand how you get from “unmediated empirical affect” to “mediated representation”. What is being mediated here? Are you talking about the mediation of our perceptions of objects? What are they mediated by? If you are saying that our perceptions of objects is itself the mediation, then our perceptions of objects are not mediated by anything (else), so that’s not indirect realism.

In terms of perception I'd say AI demonstrates some of the more dry and functional ways of putting "perception", but I don't believe the internet is conscious for all that. — Moliere

THis is a really interesting thing to think about. IN some regard, I deny its possible - there is, intuitively, a definite difference between inputs to a biological system, and inputs to a digital system. I would think the Hard Problem is where it lies. So, back to vagueness hahaha.

Is that not different to your mind? — Moliere

Yes, when you put them side-by-side but I am still not sure what the latter really means in terms of being aquainted with the world.

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

To me, there are basically just sequences of experiences and we can be erroneous about what experiences will happen next, or what experiences accompany each other. That is all. And recognizing errors itself involves some sequence of experiences.

To me it seems like it's much more elegant to simply say we can be fallible — Moliere

What if two people see the same object in two different ways due to an illusion, yet they are both directly aquainted with that object?

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. — Moliere

Well I think we agree here.

though it's not all that satisfying to me to say that the hard problem presupposes anything. — AmadeusD

I think it does. If you are like an idealist and the world of experience is just the world, then I don't think there is a hard problem for them in the way you imply. For there to be a hard problem I think there must be a kind of dualism where what is going on outside the head differs from inside the head (presupposing indirectness that would not be there for the idealist where the nature of the world as it is is right before their very eyes).

If there's no conscious experience, there's nothing to compare with mind-independence. — AmadeusD

Why can't I just talk about some kind of representations an A.I. has?

Edit: ( ).

That consciousness literally extends outside of the head and touches the world is kind of why the problem of consciousness is a big deal for some. — Moliere

And if one rejects this? I don't think this is true, personally. Consciousness does not extend at all.. It couldn't, on any account of it i've heard. That some pretend that consciousness is something even capable of 'literally' touching the world is probably one of the more embarrassing aspects of human theorizing.

I think it does. If you are like an idealist and the world of experience is just the world, then I don't think there is a hard problem for them in the way you imply. For there to be a hard problem I think there must be a kind of dualism where what is going on outside the head differs from inside the head (presupposing indirectness that would not be there for the idealist where the nature of the world as it is is right before their very eyes). — Apustimelogist

Italicised: No theory has an explanation of why experience compliments activity. Idealism still cannot answer the hard problem. It just shifts from having experiences of 'the world', to having experiences of one's mind. But the problem of experience remains. Hand waving ala Searle does nothing for this. Some pretty intense discussions that pretend to have answered the question (Consciousness Explained, anyone?) are clear misapprehensions of hte problem, attempts to ignore it by stealth. I think this is hte case here.
Onto the discussion we're actually having LOL - I do not understand why The Hard Problem presupposes anything. The problem may be answered by evidence that Consciousness is continuous with matter, and therefore there is no hard problem. Experience is a brute fact of reality.

The bolded, appears to me, an absolute fact as long as one is not an Idealist. There is the world. There is inside the head.

Why can't I just talk about some kind of representations an A.I. has? — Apustimelogist

I'm not entirely sure what's being suggested here. AI doesn't have conscious experience, that we know of. It cannot 'talk about' anything. It can relay complex outputs from even more complex matrices drawn from human-derived information (in all cases).
A human, ipso facto, has conscious experience. THis is the mystery we are talking about. Not information processing. Not awareness. Not input-output reactions (like learning). experience. It is entirely missed in these discussions, which are essentially ignoring experience and trying to explain how the brain produces behaviour. We have no issues explaining AI behaviour. BUt experience isn't even in the frame.

I agree that this “perception of a perception” is confusing and unnecessary. It’s a large part of the reason why I am not an indirect realist. — Luke

As was pointed out several times in the first 20 pages of this thread, this is purely a mistake in terminology. It's not accurate at all, so let's maybe not use it...

If we, instead, actually f'ing do our jobs and sharpen our tools, instead of wallowing in our prior failures, we can use terms like the below:

1.The act of turning ones eyes: To look at -->causes
2.The act of processing visual data: To perceive --> causes
3. Having the resulting conscious experience: To see.

These aren't airtight as more specific terms could be invented - but at the least they actually delineate the three aspects of the process of perception and do not conflate terms such as 'perception' being a process, and an experience (it's not the latter).

So, use the above terms because they're better than the ones your using, at the very least. We can see that the debate is actually not a debate. Being a Direct Realist is a position which requires that (2.) is (3.) which it patently is not, and can't be explained in terms of. The conscious experience is simply not reducible to either of (1.) or (2.). There is nothing in the facts that explains the experience or even derives it, fundamentally, from the inputs.
Hand-waving aside, there has been no response whatsoever in this thread that even tries to solve this problem in Direct Realist terms. Hell, literally the best-known and respected proponent of Direct Realism has to (literally) hand-wave away the problems of perception, claims to be a Direct Realist, then gives an intentionalist account of perception, while utterly and completely overlooking the lack of connection between object and experience. It isn't even touched.

(ala Searle above, is the reference to make sense of this part)Ironically, one of his biggest arguments is the exact same as mine above - except he is so obviously wrong in his own terms, its hard to understand why this book is around.

"The reason we feel an urge to put sneer quotes around “see” when we describe hallucinatory “seeing” is that, in the sense of intentionality, in such cases we do not see anything. If I am having a visual hallucination of the book on the table, then literally I do not see anything."

This is him making the mistake he's arguing everyone else makes.

"This shift is to move from the object-directed intentionality of the perceptual experience to treating the visual experience itself as the object of visual consciousness. I do indeed have a conscious experience when I see the table, but the conscious experience is of the table. The conscious experience is also an entity, but it is not the object of perception; it is indeed the experience itself of perceiving. [...]"

This is not only counter to what actually happens in perception, it is clearly an attempt to escape from the problem of conscious experience qua experience and instead substitute in it's place the 'perception of an object'. Which is not an experience, and he admits is not a constituent of experience - yet advocates speaking as if that's the case. That final sentence is a doozy in terms of how utterly ridiculous this man is. The sentence reduces to: The conscious experience is the experience of perception, but perception is not an object of experience.
This is such an intense example of stupidity, I cannot understand how this has been taken seriously for so long.

And if one rejects this? — AmadeusD

Then I'd set aside whether we are conscious or figure out some other way to work consciousness into an account of direct, or naive, realism.

Especially since perception doesn't need to be described in phenomenological terms to understand it in a functional manner -- we can sidestep the question entirely and just focus on perception and whether or not perception is an intermediary between ourself and the world, and why.

I don't think this is true, personally. Consciousness does not extend at all.. It couldn't, on any account of it i've heard.

Even from the head, or is consciousness limited to the going-ons of the brain?

That some pretend that consciousness is something even capable of 'literally' touching the world is probably one of the more embarrassing aspects of human theorizing.

I'm not sure why.

I think it's interesting stuff.

2.The act of processing visual data: To perceive --> causes
3. Having the resulting conscious experience: To see. — AmadeusD

As I explained here, the dispute between direct and indirect realists concerns the directness or indirectness of our perceptual experiences of real objects. When I asked you for evidence of your usage, you provided an article which, in its first line, states that "Perception refers to our sensory experience of the world". The very evidence you provided in support of your view contradicts it.

Do you hold the view that we must perceive mental phenomena in order to perceive real objects? If so, then this is where our positions differ and we have more than a grammatical dispute, since it is not my position that we must perceive mental phenomena in order to perceive real objects. If not, then you are not an indirect realist. — Luke

What do you think "perceive mental phenomena" means? Do you think it means that my eyes respond to light reflected by mental phenomena? Do you think it means that my ears respond to sound emitted by mental phenomena?

I think you're reading something into the meaning of "perceive mental phenomena" that just isn't there. Indirect realists probably aren't saying what you think they're saying when they say that we perceive mental phenomena. Acquaintance with mental phenomena is the appropriate interpretation. This is how to interpret the meaning of "feel" in "I feel pain" and the meaning of "hear" in "the schizophrenic hears voice" and the meaning of "see" in "I see colours".

This sense of acquaintance with mental phenomena occurs also in veridical perception, and this is all that is meant when the indirect realist says that awareness of distal objects is mediated by awareness of mental phenomena. The former sense of "awareness" is the sense of intention and the latter sense of "awareness" is the sense of acquaintance. And it is for precisely this reason that, as argued in Semantic Direct Realism, the intentional theory of perception (a non-naive direct realism) is consistent with the sense datum theory of perception (an indirect realism).

I don’t understand how you get from “unmediated empirical affect” to “mediated representation”. — Luke

From the object’s point of view, it is an effect on human sensory devices. From the point of view of those devices, the object is an affect on them, they are affected by it. Upon transformation by the components of the system, the object that effects has become a mediated representation, called phenomenon.

Just as perception is that by which the external object passes into the internal domain of sensation, so too is intuition that by which the sensation passes into the domain of representation. Perception is where an object is sensed, intuition is where the sensed object is represented.
————-

Are you talking about the mediation of our perceptions of objects? — Luke

Not exactly. Perception is just like a knock on the door, letting you know there’s someone on the other side wanting something from you. Also called the veil of perception, the epistemic problem, when all it really is, is an occassion for initiating the use of the intellect under empirical conditions alone.
—————

What is being mediated here? — Luke

The effect the object has on the human sensory receptivity, called sensation.
—————

What are they mediated by? — Luke

Scientifically, this sensation goes to this part of the brain, that sensation goes to that part of the brain, so as not to confuse one with the other. Sensation, then, is mediated by the section of the brain to which it is sent in accordance with the nerve bundles in the body responsible for transferring from one place to another.

Metaphysically, hence the implication of indirect realism itself, sensations are mediated by that which arranges the content of a sensation according to its form, meaning from which apparatus the sensation arose. All this is doing, is informing the downstream cognitive part of the system which conceptions belong to which kind of sensation, such that those related to the smell are not adjoined to what is heard, and so on. It is the reason we never associate the concept “loud” in the determination of an object’s sensation delivered by the nose. Understanding, according to rules, donchaknow.

Some folks have better luck with, and actually this whole snafu originated from, the conceptions mediate and immediate, rather than direct and indirect. Objects are given to us immediately….they are there or they are not, no gray area, nothing controversial, insofar as it makes no difference what the something is, but only that something is there. Objects considered, contemplated, conceived, judged, experienced, whatever……are mediated, meaning something is being done to the given by that which is not contained in it.
————-

…..I am not an indirect realist. — Luke

Oh, but as soon, or as long, as you talk about this kind of stuff, you must be. The really real is the brain at work you can’t talk about because you don’t know what to say, the indirectly real is the brain at work that you can talk about because terms are invented in order to make it possible.

This topic finds agreement between us. — creativesoul

Hopefully you’ve understood and I were both talking about human experience related to things active in the world, re: “what a cow is doing”, and its manifestation as an appearance to people such that experience of it is possible.

Under the assumption you’ve understood that, it causes consternation when juxtapositioned to…..

….whether or not cows can have experience…. — creativesoul

…..which is quite disconnected from human experience, and for which….

Biology looms large. — creativesoul

……would have no apparent relevance insofar as all humans have the same biology.

Help me understand what agreement we’re having here?

Yes, when you put them side-by-side but I am still not sure what the latter really means in terms of being aquainted with the world. — Apustimelogist

Let's go with 's link and pick out a definition, such as:

We said above that what distinguishes the classical, Russellian notion of acquaintance is, minimally, that (i) it is a non-intentional form of awareness: acquaintance with something does not consist in forming any judgment or thought about it, or applying any concepts to it; and (ii) it is real relation requiring the existence of its relata; one cannot be acquainted with some thing, property or fact that does not exist.

So I'd claim that I am aware of my toe, and that awareness is not intentional, which I take "intentional" to mean the philosophical use:

In philosophy, intentionality is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs — first sentence of the SEP article on intentionality

Something that's probably confusing in the mix is that I'd be inclined to endorse this version:

...There are consistent ways to accept acquaintance theory without accepting classical foundationalism. some might agree that we do have some knowledge by acquaintance and appeal to such knowledge in the dualism debate in the philosophy of mind

I wouldn't pick up foundationalism, but in a debate between naive and indirect realism I'd be inclined to accept that there is non-inferential awareness, at least. The bit on "intentionality" I'm a little less certain about -- it seems to me that awareness can be about something without being inferential or judgmental, so there's a kind of intention I'd accept while still using some of the specifications of the SEP's article on acquaintance.

To me, there are basically just sequences of experiences and we can be erroneous about what experiences will happen next, or what experiences accompany each other. That is all. And recognizing errors itself involves some sequence of experiences. — Apustimelogist

If it's all just experience then wouldn't that be a kind of direct realism? There wouldn't even be a self as much as a local bundle of experiences which gets in the habit of calling itself "I", erroneously.

What if two people see the same object in two different ways due to an illusion, yet they are both directly aquainted with that object? — Apustimelogist

I think objects have affordances more than distinct properties.

So the black/gold/blue/white dress: The dress is all four colors, and which you see depends upon the context. It's our logic of "color" which is amiss, because we believe that an object cannot be both black and gold in the same place at the same time, but given the intersubjective nature of color I'd revise our logic on color -- it seems that objects can be both at once, given the dress -- and we're inclined to call the affordance we don't perceive an illusion.

So I'd claim that I am aware of my toe — Moliere

Right. For me this almost implies some form of idealism where the object of my toe is just the experience of my toe, without anything more. I think I would also be open though toward some kind of notion of direct awareness of information or something like that which I
think is similar to this comment here you made:

If it's all just experience then wouldn't that be a kind of direct realism? There wouldn't even be a self as much as a local bundle of experiences which gets in the habit of calling itself "I", erroneously. — Moliere

But to clarify I wasn't trying to necessarily imply anything about the universe being just experiences. I don't believe sufficiently clear notions of fundamental metaphysics are accessible so I don't bother with that.

I was just saying that I am having what I call experiences and they flow and any time I recognize errors, that is just encompassed in types of experiential flow. And yes, what I would call the self is enacted in the flow too just like you said.

It might not be apt to call it direct realism though because I wouldn't say it conflicted with the idea of mediational processes and a chain of causes originating outside of what is experienced. It is more appropriately, and perhaps trivially, a direct awareness of what is going on in my head which I think is then not the same as the kind of direct realism described on wikipedia or something. It would be quite weakened and I would even push back against the notion of there being a fact of the matter about the sense that these experiences are about objective objects out in the world in the same kind of way I push back against scientific realism. As an analogy, I would say what we perceive is closer to a notion of an instrumentalist science where we construct theories that predict data, as opposed to theories being objectively real.

I think objects have affordances more than distinct properties. — Moliere

But what does it mean for a color itself to be an affordance? What is it inherently that colors afford? On the contrary, color seems more closely related to wavelength properties in light, which maybe then can be used to construct affordances in some sense afterward (and cannot be identical per se).

And sometimes people do see features which are not actually there from some other person's perspective, like hallucinations. Someone on an LSD trip might see motion in the carpet where another person sees none at all. (Though I guess you might say motion and non-motion are both there?)

Tbh I think the affordance/J.J.Gibson-kind of direct perception is closer to my "direct awareness of information" than it is to more literal direct realism. But I suspect maybe that interpretation may be particular to me. The idea of affordances definitely was a significant input, among others, to what led me to the idea that our experiences are fundamentally just about "what happens next?" and enacting that... which I see as pretty much just a more general view of affordances. So affordances is an important concept to me but I have gone away from the idea that the kind of qualities I directly experience are literally affordances. If sensory information arises from patterns on sensory boundaries like the retina, then the connection to affordances must come in afterwards.

For me, I don't think it makes sense to say the dress can be two colors without loosening realism and directness, arguably both. But again, I don't think that contradicts my "direct awareness of information" thing imo.

Edit: ( ).

I think I will just note that my "direct awareness of information" doesn't seem conceptually that far away from semantic direct realism... minus the realism.. so I guess it isn't so close, ha. But the concept is reminiscient imo in terms of the kind of change it makes to differ itself from direct realism.

And sometimes people do see features which are not actually there from some other person's perspective, like hallucinations. Someone on an LSD trip might see motion in the carpet where another person sees none at all. (Though I guess you might say motion and non-motion are both there?) — Apustimelogist

I think hallucinations are a different case than illusions in that I wouldn't reconcile them the same way. Illusions can be covered pretty well by the duck-rabbit, but hallucinations like one experiences on hallucinogens or when they don't have enough sugar to make the brain function as it normally does don't work that way.


For hallucinations I simply note that in every case we can find some physiological reason why they are hallucinating -- usually it's a physical, chemical reaction that's taking place which disrupts our normal functioning. I like to point out starvation as a means for visions because it demonstrates that we don't need a "foreign" substance to our bodies, but even if our bodies don't get what we need then our minds don't behave like we normally expect -- that is, total hallucinations, if we do not analyze them using Cartesian assumptions, are evidence that our mind is a part of the world because the world influences it, rather than the other way about. (Still thinking over the other stuff, but I had a ready-made response for the example of total hallucinations, or dreaming too if we want to go through that :D )

Help me understand what agreement we’re having here? — Mww

Seeing a cow requires a cow. It's the direct perception part we agree on, I think? Perhaps it's the a priori reasoning that cows are necessary for seeing cows? We differ when it comes to what all is involved in/for experience.

but hallucinations like one experiences on hallucinogens or when they don't have enough sugar to make the brain function as it normally does. — Moliere

I am not sure I see a profound difference tbh. Disruption of normal functioning is what the indirect realist sees as disruption of normal representations.

if we do not analyze them using Cartesian assumptions, are evidence that our mind is a part of the world because the world influences it, rather than the other way about — Moliere

Again, maybe this is all just a semantics issue rather than representing deep conflicts with what the indirect realist conventionally believes.

No theory has an explanation of why experience compliments activity. Idealism still cannot answer the hard problem. It just shifts from having experiences of 'the world', to having experiences of one's mind. But the problem of experience remains. — AmadeusD

I don't know exactly what you mean for experience to compliment activity.

If everything is experience, there is no hard problem because the problem just becomes "why are there experiences?" but if everything is experience, then this is no different from "why does anything exist?" which is equally applicable to a physicalist. There is no physical things in idealism just experiential phenomena that follow the laws of physics.

This is a hard problem but not the one of consciousness and is arguably even more intractable to the point that most people don't consider it that interesting except perhaps people who believe in God or something.

Aside:

And maybe people similarly-minded to Dennett actually want to turn the hard problem of consciousness into this kind of more trivial hard problem - i.e. the reasoning going something like - Why does anything exist? Can we even answer that? Do we have to make up an additional metaphysical substance of consciousness that needs its own separate answer? This is probably close to my view on that matter. I don't think there are sufficiently clear notions of fundamental metaphysics that warrant an intrinsic dualism of experience vs. physical so there is no reason to postulate that a different kind of creation story should exist for something called experience. I think that the nature and limits of our information processing is plausibly a sufficient way of explaining why the hard problem arises for people (in terms of being unable to explaim certain things about reality)**.

Back to idealism:

To my mind, problems analogous to the hard problem of consciousness (which I think are probably actually closer in spirit to the combination problems of panpsychism e.g. see stanford encyclopedia panpsychism page) only come about in idealism when you postulate something like observers that have a way they seem to themselves, via their own experiences, which is different to how they seem from another observer's perspective.

Obviously, this construction has an inherent indirect aspect to it in the sense that there are experiences out in the world and then your own experiences which seem to be about those experiences but are not the same - they are separated. For instance, I have my own experience of what is going on inside my mind. Presumably other people perceive what is going on in my mind as brains in their own experience, through various levels of mediation. And it is only then imo that there is this kind of hard problem/combination-type problem of consciousness for idealism - because it seems inexplicable that my experiences right now look like a brain to someone else, which is an objects that seems structurally completely different. But again, this presupposes an indirectness about how we observe things. At the same time it is not identical to the hard problem because physical things still don't exist - its more the problem of how certain experiences can produce other disparate experiences (i.e. my experiences create the impression of a brain).

I think if you take away that indirectness and just have mental observers all observing a common experiential world then this hard-type problem doesn't arise. It might not actually be a plausible way to view the world based on scientific knowledge we have, but that is because imo scientific knowledge paints a picture of indirect mediation (i.e. object perception mediated by chains of events from the surface of an object to a brain which implies boundaries that gatekeep information and separate internal events / representations / experiences from different external stuff out there). Indirect mediation is precisely why I have both the notion of a ball and the atoms that make it up... at least, that is the best explanation. At the same time, without indirect mediation I feel like there would be no need to identify brain processes and experiences or distinguish internal experiences from external stuff. That's not to say older Cartesian notions of mind-body problem wouldn't arise but not sure its same as more modern versions I would be interested in.

So I think in that sense hard-type problems in idealism do presuppose indirect realism (including external objects to be realist about which are qualitatively different from internal perception). If everything were direct, the hard problem of consciousness would just reduce to the problem of why experiences exist? why are the laws of nature they are? - which isn't particularly different from analogous questions for a physicist.. Why do we have certain physical laws? etc.

therefore there is no hard problem. Experience is a brute fact of reality.

The bolded, appears to me, an absolute fact as long as one is not an Idealist. There is the world. There is inside the head. — AmadeusD

So it appears you already anticipated the answer I gave about why idealism doesn't necessarily have a hard problem of consciousness.

Obviously, you may think it an absolute fact, but then what I am saying is if it wasn't, the idealist would have no hard problem.

I'm not entirely sure what's being suggested here. AI doesn't have conscious experience, that we know of. — AmadeusD

It's not clear to me that indirect realism needs to be a concept restricted to conscious experiencers. For instance, if realism is a concept that can be attributed to mathematical scientific theories, why can't it be attributed to the representations and models built in machine learning? And often, these machine learning models quite aptly embody the idea of in-direct realism, since they are what neuroscientists use to model how the brain and mind works. For instance, Bayesian statistics involving the idea of learning internal representations or models about hidden variables based on noisy sensory data. This is similar to how debates about indirect vs direct perception in psychology have been framed (e.g. gregory vs gibson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gregory). A mathematical scientific theory cannot talk about anything about as much as A.I., yet people often attribute realism to them.

So I think really these debates about direct and indirect realism, though obviously may involve the concept of experience, may not be directly related to the hard problem of consciousness itself.

Edit: ()**

For hallucinations I simply note that in every case we can find some physiological reason why they are hallucinating -- — Moliere

I don't think that undermines the point, though. Hallucinations show that the mind can create experience. Once you notice that, reality will always be taken with a grain of salt.

It's the direct perception part we agree on, I think? — creativesoul

Ahhhh….yes, sounds good to me.

We differ when it comes to what all is involved in/for experience. — creativesoul

It’s tough, innit? On the one hand we just don’t know, on the other we make stuff up to tell ourselves at least something.

What all is involved? That’s gonna be a pretty long list, I should think, depending on what one thinks experience is. In my world, experience is an end, the terminus of the human speculative intellectual methodology, from which follows, all that is involved for that end, is the sum of the means necessary for the attainment of it.

I know you’re not a great fan of this kind of method, and you’re certainly not alone. But we’ve all got our favorite persuasions, for better or worse.

I am not sure I see a profound difference tbh. Disruption of normal functioning is what the indirect realist sees as disruption of normal representations. — Apustimelogist

Right -- but indirect realism has problems. These are explanations for phenomena used to support indirect realism which don't resort to the position of indirect realism to make the case for naive realism more plausible.

I don't think that undermines the point, though. Hallucinations show that the mind can create experience. Once you notice that, reality will always be taken with a grain of salt. — frank

Hallucinations show that we experience the world differently from one another -- but that doesn't mean it's the mind creating experience, I'd say.

In the case of starvation, for instance, sometimes people's experiences have been interpreted as religious visions of a truth beyond the everyday -- what is colloquially called "hallucination" can be interpreted as another layer of reality which our normal functioning has been trained to ignore (and which is why the disruption of normal functioning turns the mind on itself -- which is what I'd say hallucinations are.)

In the case of starvation, for instance, sometimes people's experiences have been interpreted as religious visions of a truth beyond the everyday -- what is colloquially called "hallucination" can be interpreted as another layer of reality which our normal functioning has been trained to ignore (and which is why the disruption of normal functioning turns the mind on itself -- which is what I'd say hallucinations are. — Moliere

Direct realism means hallucinators are peeping into other dimensions?

Eh, not other dimensions, no. Just the mind interacting with itself -- something the mind is trained to ignore to pay attention to the important things. (EDIT: Or, even more abstractly, it's really just a local, ontic interpretation of experience, which we have been taught to treat in a certain manner in an industrial society with a division of labor, etc.)

Right. For me this almost implies some form of idealism where the object of my toe is just the experience of my toe, without anything more. I think I would also be open though toward some kind of notion of direct awareness of information or something like that which I
think is similar to this comment here you made: — Apustimelogist

I think "information" counts as kind of idealism, if you're positing it as a kind of fundamental substance that everything is composed of.

I'm attempting to articulate a material view of direct realism, however -- along with no foundations I'd say there is no one or two substances which everything is composed of. The task then becomes: how to articulate a direct realism that is material, and yet does not rely upon a notion of substance?

For my part I'm more in favor of the naive view of the world, though I think it's hard to formulate into a proper philosophical thesis.

But to clarify I wasn't trying to necessarily imply anything about the universe being just experiences. I don't believe sufficiently clear notions of fundamental metaphysics are accessible so I don't bother with that. — Apustimelogist

Isn't that pretty much what the topic of indirect or naive realism is about? Fundamental metaphysics?

We can make the notions clear in our conversation at least, I'd say, and I'd even hazard to say that this entire conversation is a bothering about insufficiently clear notions.

But to clarify I wasn't trying to necessarily imply anything about the universe being just experiences. I don't believe sufficiently clear notions of fundamental metaphysics are accessible so I don't bother with that.

I was just saying that I am having what I call experiences and they flow and any time I recognize errors, that is just encompassed in types of experiential flow. And yes, what I would call the self is enacted in the flow too just like you said.

It might not be apt to call it direct realism though because I wouldn't say it conflicted with the idea of mediational processes and a chain of causes originating outside of what is experienced. It is more appropriately, and perhaps trivially, a direct awareness of what is going on in my head which I think is then not the same as the kind of direct realism described on wikipedia or something. It would be quite weakened and I would even push back against the notion of there being a fact of the matter about the sense that these experiences are about objective objects out in the world in the same kind of way I push back against scientific realism. As an analogy, I would say what we perceive is closer to a notion of an instrumentalist science where we construct theories that predict data, as opposed to theories being objectively real. — Apustimelogist

But what does it mean for a color itself to be an affordance? — Apustimelogist

I'm uncertain of the best way to put it, but at the very least what it means is that though direct realists directly perceive objects in the world that does not then entail that what they see is a fixed property, or that there are not other properties which a given perception is not perceiving.

It's mostly the notion of permanent objects and their essences that I'd try to avoid -- things are in constant flux.

Tbh I think the affordance/J.J.Gibson-kind of direct perception is closer to my "direct awareness of information" than it is to more literal direct realism. — Apustimelogist

I had to look up J.J. Gibson. I was using the term more locally, in our conversation -- a term of art meant to contrast with "properties", is what I was thinking.

The objects are there, I just don't think they are what the naive view might believe. Perhaps this is a way of differentiating the naive from the direct realist: I think the naive realist is seeing something real, that literal objects are a part of their experience, but that does not then mean that every judgment about that real thing which a naive realist makes is going to be true or comprehensive.

But judgment is judgment of what is directly perceived (and, of course, judgment influences perception -- but that's not the same thing as saying perceptions are judgments, or rather, must be judgments). (in a sense I'd say that every judgment has a dual-awareness -- the judgment ,and what the judgment is about)

But I suspect maybe that interpretation may be particular to me.

While I've come to discount the notion of an information ontology, you're far from alone in thinking like that.

What can I say? I'm a disagreeable sort. ;)

The idea of affordances definitely was a significant input, among others, to what led me to the idea that our experiences are fundamentally just about "what happens next?" and enacting that... which I see as pretty much just a more general view of affordances. So affordances is an important concept to me but I have gone away from the idea that the kind of qualities I directly experience are literally affordances. If sensory information arises from patterns on sensory boundaries like the retina, then the connection to affordances must come in afterwards.

Heh. Well, I've clarified, but also -- it could just be a case of dueling intuitions here. You'd prefer to start with the information, I'd prefer to start with the objects.

But how do we really differentiate which is the better way to talk?

For me, I don't think it makes sense to say the dress can be two colors without loosening realism and directness, arguably both. But again, I don't think that contradicts my "direct awareness of information" thing imo.

I think that maybe this is the sort of stuff that might differentiate naive from direct realists -- naive realists won't have a reason or address the indirect realist's objections, but direct realists attempt to do so with philosophy rather than bald assertion.

Eh, not other dimensions, no. Just the mind interacting with itself -- something the mind is trained to ignore to pay attention to the important things. (EDIT: Or, even more abstractly, it's really just a local, ontic interpretation of experience, which we have been taught to treat in a certain manner in an industrial society with a division of labor, etc.) — Moliere

We're kind of stuck with our own worldview though. They used to think it was demonic possession, our poor capitalist selves call it schizophrenia.

It's a malfunction where a person hears voices that aren't coming from an external source. It's the mind creating the experience of an audible voice.