The example I gave was the surface of a table... — Janus

But I don't deny the fact that there are real objects external to us. I will try one more time:

There is no need for me to deny that the Universe (or the table) is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. But what we know of its existence is inextricably bound by and to the mind we have, and so, in that sense, reality is not straightforwardly objective. It is not solely constituted by objects and their relations. Reality has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis. — Wayfarer

So I'm not denying that there are objective facts (and therefore the existence of objects). What I said was

By investing the objective domain with a mind-independent status, as if it exists independently of any mind, we absolutize it. — Wayfarer

And 'absolutizing it' amounts to metaphysical realism:

'Metaphysical realism is the idea that the existence and nature of things in the world are independent of how they are perceived or thought about. It's also known as "external" realism.'

That's what I think you're defending, and I'm criticizing. And that criticism is in line with:

Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p139

Furthermore I've pointed to the fact that physics itself has not arrived at an unambiguously objective entity at the most fundamental level. The experiments I referred to previously are about that very point.

So please stop telling me I'm not addressing the question or evading the issue. I'm really not. I know it's a contentious issue and a difficult problem - not a simple point! - but I'm not being evasive about it.

I think it's rather deeper than that, but I'll leave it at that. — Wayfarer

Fair enough, we can pick it up some other time. I still think our areas of agreement are far more interesting than those areas we disagree.

Few people here have the respect and are merited by innate ideas after all. :cool:

I thought you were asking me to speculate as to what the structures we perceive as objects might be.It seems animals will not conceptualize structures in the ways we do or even conceptualize them at all. Perhaps I don't understand your question.

I agreed with this bold part, and I thought this meant we agreed on there being real microphysical things in the world.

But then I got confused when you said:

"OK cool it seems we agree. I think we and the other animals have access to the same basic structures." — Manuel

I didn't mean to say that animals have conceptual access to microphysical structures, but that we know by observing their behavior that animals have perceptual access to the same things we do and if things are real microphysical structures then it follows that animals have perceptual access to microphysical structures, This does not mean that we or the animals have perceptual access to microphysical structures as microphysical structures but we both have access to them as macrophysical appearances.

But I don't deny the fact that there are real objects external to us. I will try one more time: — Wayfarer

So I'm not denying that there are objective facts (and therefore the existence of objects). What I said was

By investing the objective domain with a mind-independent status, as if it exists independently of any mind, we absolutize it.
— Wayfarer

And 'absolutizing it' amounts to metaphysical realism: — Wayfarer

OK, if you agree there are external objects that are real independently of human perception and that their characteristics determine what we see and where and when we see it then how is that not consistent with realism?

Realism does not deny that the ways we see things are also determined by our uniquely human sense organs, so that the bee or the bird will see the same flower we do but presumably not in the same way.

Citations, please.

Citations, please. — Wayfarer

Come on, this is standard science of perception. Neither science nor the realist claim that we all see things exactly the same way or that we see things the same way that other animals do. It is uncontroversial that some humans are colourblind, that dogs can only see a couple of colours, that bees can see colours we cannot and so on. I know you will see the same things at the same times and places as I do, but I don't know and can never know whether they appear exactly the same to you as they do to me because different individual's' perceptions cannot be compared with one another for obvious reasons.

I didn't mean to say that animals have conceptual access to microphysical structures, but that we know by observing their behavior that animals have perceptual access to the same things we do and if things are real microphysical structures then it follows that animals have perceptual access to microphysical structures, This does not mean that we or the animals have perceptual access to microphysical structures as microphysical structures but we both have access to them as macrophysical appearances. — Janus

I agree than neither we, nor other animals have access to microphysical structures. We have the advantage of "seeing" them through sophisticated experiments, or at least important parts of these structure.

We are stuck on the macrophysical issue. I don't think we have access to the same things. We, through concepts and perception do attribute identity to things - which require linguistic capacity (at least).

I don't think animals attribute too much to objects (not saying that you say they have concepts like we do). I think evidence suggests higher mammals can convey when there is prey, food or when it's mating season and the like.

But I don't see evidence that suggests they see the world in a similar way than we do, it seems to me based on what we know, they have very different experiences of the world - each subject to species-specific brain configuration.

Those are not citations. They are your homespun truisms on realism. Earlier I mentioned the phenomenological ideas of lebesnwelt and umwelt. Meaning, roughly, 'meaning world' and 'living world'. The meaning-worlds of different species are vastly different to our own. And for that matter, the meaning worlds of different cultures are vastly different to the meaning-world of this culture. But I don't agree that there is 'mind-independent substratum' behind all of those different meaning-worlds.

f you agree there are external objects that are real independently of human perception and that their characteristics determine what we see — Janus

But I don't agree and it's not what I said. I said there are external objects, but

What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle. — Wayfarer

And that is definitely all out of me for the time being.

But I don't see evidence that suggests they see the world in a similar way than we do, it seems to me based on what we know, they have very different experiences of the world - each subject to species-specific brain configuration. — Manuel

As I said before we see cats climbing trees not brick walls, birds perching in trees, not stopping and attempting to perch in midair. We see dogs trying to open doors, we see crows using sticks as tools to retrieve food and getting out of the way of oncoming vehicles. We don't see animals trying to walk through walls or birds flying into trees. There are countless examples. I don't know what else to say other than to ask why you don't think the examples I give suggest that we see the same things animals do.

Those are not citations. They are your homespun truisms on realism. — Wayfarer

Are you claiming the science of perception does not tell us what I said it does? Are you claiming that the bee does not see the flower we see it collecting nectar from and pollinating. Are you claiming the dog does not see its food bowl where we see it, or does not see the ball we throw for it?

https://www.bing.com/search?q=animals+see+the+same+things+but+not+the+same+ways+we+do+according+to+the+scinece+of+percption&form=ANNTH1&refig=44e31eef9eb549d882fc9a5dd4e18d66&pc=HCTS

The meaning-worlds of different species are vastly different to our own. And for that matter, the meaning worlds of different cultures are vastly different to the meaning-world of this culture. But I don't agree that there is 'mind-independent substratum' behind all of those different meaning-worlds. — Wayfarer

Nothing I've said is inconsistent with that and nor is science or realism. I know you don't agree "that there is 'mind-independent substratum' behind all of those different meaning-worlds" but you don't know that there isn't and nor do I know that there is. I'm just pointing out that the evidence of our senses and observations of the behavior of other animals suggests there is. The other explanation is that this is all going on in a universal mind we and the animals are all connected to. I don't deny that possibility, but it seems to me by far the least plausible explanation. And it seems you don't want to even posit that, which makes your position seem to be completely lacking in explanatory potential.

As I said before we see cats climbing trees not brick walls, birds perching in trees, not stopping and attempting to perch in midair. We see dogs trying to open doors, we see crows using sticks as tools to retrieve food and getting out of the way of oncoming vehicles. We don't see animals trying to walk through walls or birds flying into trees. There are countless examples. I don't know what else to say other than to ask why you don't think the examples I give suggest that we see the same things animals do. — Janus

And I keep replying that we are attributing walls, trees and brick walls to animals' cognition, WALLS, TREES and BRICK are concepts, not mind-independent things.

The fact that dogs try to come indoors or that cats walk on walls is nothing else than our attempt to make sense of what they do. Dogs push (or pull) something, they don't know it's a door. Cats walk on something; they have no concept of a wall.

The examples you suggest seem to me to be an anthropomorphizing of animal behavior.

I grant that there is something like concreteness or not being able to pass through things. But tress, doors and walls aren't things animals interact with, it's what we in our umwelt, interpret them to be doing.

The other explanation is that this is all going on in a universal mind we and the animals are all connected to. I don't deny that possibility, but it seems to me by far the least plausible explanation. And it seems you don't want to even posit that, which makes your position seem to be completely lacking in explanatory potential. — Janus

Hey, that would require knowing the One Mind. And I don't claim to know the One Mind. I'm just tracking the footprints.

And I keep replying that we are attributing walls, trees and brick walls to animals' cognition, WALLS, TREES and BRICK are concepts, not mind-independent things. — Manuel

Totally :100:

I don't know what else to say other than to ask why you don't think the examples I give suggest that we see the same things animals do. — Janus

Maybe you would have better luck if you were to say that all animals observe the same reality instead of saying they observe the same "things", since to @Wayfarer and @Manuel that seems to necessarily imply that other animals conceptualize reality in the same way we do (which is clearly not your intended meaning).

Thanks for dropping by. Perhaps you might glance at the OP.

Thank you, I'm sorry for leaping in without due diligence.

Is there any term you would accept as referring to what we observe prior to generating propositional knowledge? Like "pre-conceptual reality", for example?

And I keep replying that we are attributing walls, trees and brick walls to animals' cognition, WALLS, TREES and BRICK are concepts, not mind-independent things. — Manuel

You may be attributing that, not me. I say they clearly see the things we call walls and trees, I'm not saying they see them as walls or trees.

Dogs push (or pull) something, they don't know it's a door. Cats walk on something; they have no concept of a wall. — Manuel

Right, and I haven't said or even implied any such thing. Dogs do know they can go out when the door is open, and they usually don't attempt to go out when it's closed, so they know that much.

Hey, that would require knowing the One Mind. And I don't claim to know the One Mind. I'm just tracking the footprints. — Wayfarer

You don't know if there is one mind and nor do I. You could favour that as an explanation for why we and some animals clearly see the same things, but it woiuld be an inference to what you considered the best explanation.

I could go along with that. I always find the translation of 'On the Soul' as 'D'Anima' very suggestive of that - an 'animating principle. — Wayfarer

If we go further, and posit the capacity to choose as the fundamental property of the soul, therefore final cause as the basic act of the soul, this is very consistent with the way that quantum mechanics understands the micro-scale. However, to conceive of this capacity to choose, requires a peculiar understanding of "the passage of time" common in mysticism, within which the world is understood to be created anew at each moment, as time passes. Accepting the reality that we can choose freely, produces the need for a discontinuity of "the world", between past and future, which breaks the determinist continuity.

This perspective produces the need for a completely different way of understanding the relationship between the small and the large. The small is understood as the "internal", and the large is understood as the "external", the subject has created for itself, a somewhat arbitrary boundary between these two, which you describe as the boundary which the subject has created between itself and "the world" . I believe it is important to understand that there is also a boundary between the subject and the internal. In this case, "subject" indicates the consciousness. The internal is all the nonconscious activity of the soul, producing sensations, desires, emotions, etc.. The "subject", as consciousness has a pair of soul-created boundaries, one to the external, and one to the internal, and this is known as the conscious perspective.

Since the internal is what is responsible for our capacity to choose, and to move freely in the larger expanse, we need to conclude that the activity of "the passage of time", which is really a series of events which constitutes the world being created anew at each moment, is directed from the internal to the external. In speculation I can say, that when the world is created anew at each moment of passing time, it is an extremely rapid internal to external event, an "explosion", like a mini 'big bang' at each point in space, at each moment of passing time.

This interpretation is supported by our observations of "spatial expansion", when a framework of two dimensional time is adopted. Assume that there is a succession of these internal to external "explosions" which constitutes the passing of time. Each explosion is the world being created anew at each moment. And, each one is similar to the last, but not exactly the same, and this constitutes the orderly change we observe in the world. The activity of "the explosions" requires the second dimension of time to understand, the breadth of the present.

The subject has been given, by the soul-created boundaries, a specific place in the explosion, somewhere between the very small and the very large, by means of the somewhat arbitrary boundaries. The boundaries are very precise though, because the position within the explosion must be extremely consistent from one explosion to the next, to produce the appearance of temporal continuity. The identity of a particular thing, object or individual, is its continuity of position between one explosion and the next. Notice the degree to which a living being has freedom to alter its own physical continuity. When we extrapolate from our sense perspective (our precise location on the explosions), to extend our observational capacity over a large duration of time (many many explosions, or "moments"), we see "spatial expansion" as produced by the discrepancy in the position of those boundaries.

We will agree on the exact locations of the knots and the patterns, and we can confirm this by pointing to them. Now if there were nothing there determining the positions of those details on what basis could we explain our precise agreement? — Janus

I don't think you understand what is being claimed. The argument is not that there is "nothing there", but that whatever it is that is there, may not be anything even similar to how it appears to us.

Consider the nature of language for example. Language consists of symbols which do not necessarily appear to be anything at all similar to what they represent, yet they are extremely useful. In fact, by making a simple symbol represent complex information, we increase the efficiency of language. Some biologists like to extend this symbol/information model through all levels of living activity, as semiosis and semiotics. If we extend this type of understanding, we can see that what is created by the mind as a "sense image" is just a symbol, which represents some information gleaned from "external activity". The symbol represents information to be interpreted, it does not actually represent "the thing" which is being sensed. The sense image is a symbol created to represent some complex information, in a simplified way, much the same as "word" represents some complex information in a simplified way.

So, with respect to your criticism, agreement and pointing to the exact same places, does nothing to indicate that what we each see as "an image", is in any meaningful way, "the same". We have simply created a system of communication which allows us to understand each other, by representing complex information with simple symbols. It may be the case that the personal images are as different as the same word in different language. The languages are compatible but by no means the same. And, since the information is extremely complex, and each individual person has a distinct spatial-temporal location as perspective, it is highly improbable that the information represented, is in any reasonable sense, "the same".

You may be attributing that, not me. I say they clearly see the things we call walls and trees, I'm not saying they see them as walls or trees. — Janus

They see something. What properties they attribute to these things we do not know.

So, it doesn't make sense to say - even if you admit that they don't see them as wall or trees - that this thing they see is in fact (mind-independently) a wall or a tree. It's not a mind-independent fact for us that walls and trees exist.

if you were to say that all animals observe the same reality — goremand

Close, but not quite what I am saying. I am saying that each animal species (ants, birds, tigers, whatever) interpret the world the way each species does: ants will interpret the world in a certain way, birds in another manner, tigers the way tigers do, etc.

And of course, bats. Can't forget about them. :)

I am saying that each animal species (ants, birds, tigers, whatever) interpret the world the way each species does — Manuel

They interpret the same world in different ways, in other words?

Yes. That's the working assumption.

So are you just making the trivial claim that reality can be observed and conceptualized in different ways, or for that matter observed without being conceptualized at all?

Yes, the claim should be trivial: reality can be (and is) conceptualized in different ways.

But no to the suggestion that matter can be observed without any conceptualization at all.

But no to the suggestion that matter can be observed without any conceptualization at all. — Manuel

So you believe non-human animals are all engaged in conceptualization? Or that they do not observe anything?

They very likely have some primitive concepts. I don't think it makes much sense to postulate a creature having perception absent some minimal amount of conception.

But these are very very dark waters. We are quite in the dark as to the nature of animal concepts.

They see something. What properties they attribute to these things we do not know.

So, it doesn't make sense to say - even if you admit that they don't see them as wall or trees - that this thing they see is in fact (mind-independently) a wall or a tree. It's not a mind-independent fact for us that walls and trees exist. — Manuel

I don't think you understand what is being claimed. The argument is not that there is "nothing there", but that whatever it is that is there, may not be anything even similar to how it appears to us. — Metaphysician Undercover

The dog sees the ball as something to chase, the doorway as something to walk through, the wall as something not to walk into, the tree as something to piss against, the car as something to get excited about going in.

So the 'somethings' have roughly the same characteristics for the dog as they do for us. "Wall, 'tree'. 'doorway'. and 'car' are just names, but the things they name certainly seem to be real mind-independent things with certain attributes.

seem to be real — Janus

Seems, being the key word.

The OP criticises metaphysical realism defined as follows: 'According to metaphysical realism, the world is as it is independent of how humans or other inquiring agents take it to be. The objects the world contains, together with their properties and the relations they enter into, fix the world’s nature and these objects [together with the properties they have and the relations they enter into] exist independently of our ability to discover they do.' - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I won't re-state all of the points made in the original post and associated Medium essay. But in respect of animal cognition and the ideas of 'umwelt' and 'lebenswelt', and indeed in phenomenology generally, the key idea is that the world and the observing creature, be that human or animal, are co-arising. The kind of world the creature perceives is inextricably intertwined with its cognitive system, largely determined by evolutionary adaptation. Over and above that, humans are the 'symbolic species' , able to reflect on and analyse themselves, their environment, and their own cognition of it, through meta-cognitive awareness (awareness of awareness) which provides dimensions of understanding generally not available to other species. But for both animals and humans, the world is not an objective given but a relational construct shaped by the interaction between the observer and the observed. This is the basis of the phenomenological critique of realism/naturalism, which assumes the world exists independently of the way it is perceived and that the role of science is only ever to expand and make more comprehensive the knowledge of that already-existing world.

The original post draws considerably on a largely unsung book called Mind and the Cosmic Order, by Charles S. Pinter. Pinter was a mathematics emeritus who published that book at the end of his very long life. The book's sub-title is 'How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics'. He lays out his case in great detail, drawing on cognitive science, philosophy and physics.

The book’s argument begins with the British empiricists who raised our awareness of the fact that we have no direct contact with physical reality, but it is the mind that constructs the form and features of objects. It is shown that modern cognitive science brings this insight a step further by suggesting that shape and structure are not internal to objects, but arise in the observer. The author goes yet further by arguing that the meaningful connectedness between things — the hierarchical organization of all we perceive — is the result of the Gestalt nature of perception and thought, and exists only as a property of mind. These insights give the first glimmerings of a new way of seeing the cosmos: not as a mineral wasteland but a place inhabited by creatures. — Abstract

(I say it's an 'unsung', because Pinter's other publications are all in mathematics - some of our mathematical contributors knew of his books in that discipline. But as he's not recognised in cognitive science or philosophy, his last book wasn't reviewed in the usual media, and went largely un-noticed by the profession. Which is a pity, because it's a very insightful book. Details can be found here.)

An interesting point: the word 'world' is derived from an old Dutch word 'werold' meaning 'time of man' (ref). The implication is that 'world' and 'planet' are not synonyms. A world is lived, it is inhabited. In that sense, there can't be 'unseen worlds', even though there may be trillions of unseen planets. For it to be a world, the planet must have inhabitants, beings (see blog post, Schopenhauer: How Time Began with the First Eye Opening.)

They very likely have some primitive concepts. I don't think it makes much sense to postulate a creature having perception absent some minimal amount of conception. — Manuel

I think that is a very strange claim, why are the use of concepts necessary for perception? I would not invoke conceptualization for any reason other than to describe the use of syntactic language, which is an ability only humans and arguably one or two other animals have.

Thank you for such an extensive write-up. My question is, do you not believe there is some component of the world/reality that, even if it is not captured in some particular concept, is still singular and shared across all these "constructed worlds"? And if so, wouldn't that also make you a kind of metaphysical realist?

Seems, being the key word. — Wayfarer

'Seeming' is the essence of experience. How else could what is real and what is merely imagined be assessed. but by comparing what seems to be real to all, even dogs, with what are the wishful fantasies of a few?

As Peirce said: " "Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts".

So the 'somethings' have roughly the same characteristics for the dog as they do for us. — Janus

I don't see your point. We all evolved from the same source according to evolutionary theory. Most our DNA is the same as the dog's. Human beings and dogs create their mental "worlds" in similar ways. There is nothing here to produce the conclusion that the way the independent reality is, is anything even remotely similar to our perceptions of it.

Consider my example. Millions of people can look toward a pointed at place, and agree that what is pointed at is a "dog". This in no way indicates that the word "dog" is in any way similar to the real thing pointed to. This is simply the nature of "representations". There is no necessity for the representation to be similar to what is represented. Why should we think that sense images are any different? Sense images are "representations".

My question is, do you not believe there is some component of the world/reality that, even if it is not captured in some particular concept, is still singular and shared across all these "constructed worlds"? — goremand

For example?

why are the use of concepts necessary for perception? — goremand

Growing up, I loved the Time Life books on evolution and biology. In one of them, they showed an experiment in which a bird-like shape was flown above a nest of young geese. When towed in one orientation, with an apparently long neck and short tail, the goslings wouldn't respond to it as it looked goose-like. But turn it around, to it appeared to have a short neck and a long tail, and they'd all duck for cover, as it looked like a goshawk. I think that amounts to a kind of illustration, doesn't it? Goose-gestalt vs goshawk gestalt, in Pinter's terms. An illustration of the idea of a 'meaning-world'.

This in no way indicates that the word "dog" is in any way similar to the real thing pointed to. — Metaphysician Undercover

The names of things is not the issue. The issue is their existence independent of humans or any percipients. This is not to say that their microphysical existence is the same as their macrophysical existence.