..as the content of the mental state is what one is perceiving - and its content is 'about' a ship and this content is satisfied in the right kind of way - then one is directly perceiving it. — Clarendon

That's a misrepresentation, because no direct realist believes that one perceives one's own mental state or some element of it.

The 'content' of a mental state is not a picture nor a sensation. It is the perceiving, not its object. More specifically, the content is formed by the way the brain responds to photo chemical processes in the eyes and the bundle of light rays reflected by the ship under certain conditions of observation. Thus your visual experience of the ship is, literally, the visible appearance of the ship under those conditions of observation.

Searle's view. It doesn't sound quite right to me, even given my revised view. For he seems to be trying to get directness out of the content of a mental state, and that - to my mind - is never going to work. All that'll get one is aboutness, but not perception. — Clarendon

I'd say Searle's view is that the content of a visual experience is set by conditions of satisfaction, such as the object's presence in the visual field. Its appearance is fixed by angle and distance of view, available light, surface properties etc. and while the observer's brain and eyes enable the experience, the content of the experience is fixed by the object and its properties. We can't detach content of experience from object's appearance, hence direct. The relation between observer and object is always direct.

..my view is that no mental state is involved. — Clarendon

My apologies, here"s the quote to which the objection was a reply.

With my view our experiences of perceiving are mental states, but the perceptual relationship itself is not. Thus cases of hallucination share with cases of experienced perception the same mental states, it is just that in the former there is no perceptual relationship there (and thus the experience constitutes a hallucination). — Clarendon

I can't make much sense of the above, hence my objection. Your opening post, however, is fairly clear. So perhaps my failure to make sense of the quote has to do with the choise of words?

By the way, are you familiar with Searle's philosophy of perception? I think it clarifies some of the mess in talk of perception. For example, he distinguishes between two different senses of the word 'experience'. In its constituitive sense (e.g. a brain state from which an experience arises) there's an experience in both the veridical case and in the hallucination case. But in its intentionalistic sense (i.e. what the experience is about) nothing is experienced in the hallucination case, only in the veridical case.

An idealist is a realist whenever he walks out the front door. — Tom Storm

:smile: Direct realism is a bit like idealism in the sense that experience and object are not separate entities. The visual experience that you have when you see a real ship is the real ship.


Ok, so one objection to your view is that the assumed "perceptual relation" between a "mental state" and the object means that the experience would be indirect.

Brain states are constituitive for having experiences, but since brain states can be shared in hallucinations and veridical experiences of a real object there is no relation between a brain state and the real object. Instead, the experience is the object.

Mind you if we what we see is phenomena not noumena then what meaning does realism have? — Tom Storm

Seeing is part of what's real. No need to split the world in one that we see and another that we supposedly never see.

As a result, everything we experience: the phenomenal world, is filtered through these mental faculties. — Tom Storm

Kant doesn't explicitly reject direct realism. His empirical realism and transcendental idealism can be interpreted as two worlds, or two perspectives. I think there's only one world that can be seen in many ways under various conditions of observation.

..Religions have had thousands of years to find the truth.. — Art48

Unlike finding the truth religions typically declare what's true by reference to scripture, priests, traditions, blind belief etc.

Objections to direct realism are typically based on arguments from illusion or hallucination. For example, a straw that looks bent in a glass of water is used as an argument against the idea that we see the straw as it really is. One is then supposed to conclude (incorrectly) that the visual experience is an illusion. Yet we see the straw as the light is refracted by the water, and the refraction is real. Turns out one sees the straw exactly as it is under such conditions of observation.

It is easy to imagine how constant hallucinations would impair your ability to live. Imagine, for example, the pleasant experience of filling your lungs with fresh air, but without the object of the experience: air. All you have is the experience, which, in turn, is artificially produced by some experience-machine. You'd be dead in a few minutes.

Thousands of parents were falsely accused of fraud by the Dutch tax authorities due to discriminative algorithms. The consequences for families were devastating. — B. Kuźniacki

That was in 2013, but I think it exemplifies the kind of Ai-related disasters that will plague us for another decade or so. Eventually it will be common knowledge that the technology is neither "training" nor "learning" in the true sense of the words.

The fundamental entities from which time emerges are either dynamic or static. In the first case, we are dealing with my argument. In the second case, we are dealing with strong emergence and I have to say a big no to it. — MoK

Is energy "either dynamic or static"? Its random fluctuations might seem "dynamic", but arise from the uncertainty principle. Perhaps it takes time to fluctuate, or perhaps the fluctuation is part of what generates time? Mass is generated by the Higgs mechanism, and now current research seems suggest that also spacetime is generated / emerges.

That's a false dichotomy. Here's a link to an article that has many references to current physical theories on emergent spacetime.

I'd speculate that before the Big Bang, there were (and still are) fluctuating quantities of energy at the most fundamental level of reality. Possibly more fundamental than spacetime (e.g. it makes little sense to ask what caused something prior spacetime). Their fluctuations arise from the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and it's possible that spacetime emerges from them. When spacetime began to emerge, all the energy of the universe could be released, and that's the Big Bang.

What allows the mind to create for itself, a multitude of distinct and completely inconsistent realities at different times. — Metaphysician Undercover

The mind creates mental phenomena, not realities.

With man's insatiable need to make nature conform to his needs and even wants, what are your opinions about our current relationship with nature? Is it becoming better or worse? — Shawn

We're part of nature, and co-evolve with other parts of it, such as our environment. This parthood-relationship can become better when we achieve a sustainable interplay with our environment, or worse when we fail e.g. by shortsighted, compartmentalized or just idiotic trade-offs that destroy what we're all part of.

Regarding what's perceived as true. Perception is a part of nature that's providing us with facts. Statements about those facts can be true or false.

5. On Science and Philosophy – Wittgenstein was skeptical of the way philosophy borrowed the prestige of science. Once, when someone said that philosophers should learn more science, he responded:
“That’s like saying that architects should learn more about bricklaying.”

My favourite is the bricklayer one. — Wayfarer

Despite working within an increasingly industrialized building industry, Sigurd Lewerentz did in fact learn more about bricklaying, and as a result he produced some of the greatest architecture of the 1900s. :cool:

Wittgenstein's joke might refer to an unwarranted use of science in philosophy, but bricklaying is not necessarily unwarranted in architecture.

Descartes's Evil Demon does not require an external material world. — Art48

Right, but the world is not experienced by way of sense-data, it is experienced directly. Therefore, there can be no demon in between the world and our experiences.

The demon-problem is entirely artificial, it arises from dualism and the false assumption that experience is indirect (e.g. by way of sense-data, mental images, phenomena etc.)

what makes a person interested in philosophy? — Rob J Kennedy

A variety of things can make a person interested in philosophy, but in general I think the subject satisfies curiosity and will to think clearly. Unlike a scientific question, a philosophical question has no decisive answer. Therefore, philosophy attracts varieties of thought, including anti-intellectual, religious, political, or sophistry masquerading as "philosophy". All of them showing you aspects of human nature.

The philosophical significance of silence is “space” or “opportunity”. — Bret Bernhoft

It is easy to understand how silence is significant in music, poetry, environmental design, health care and so on. Not so much in cookery, fundamental physics, or in philosophy. To say that the significance of silence is space or opportunity seems more like psychology. The seeming lack of stimulation in silence is used for stimulating one's imagination.

A material cat may exist which is causes us to experience the bundle of sensations which we call a cat. — Art48

The cat exists independent of your bundle of sensations. If you'd only experience sensations, then you'd never experience anything else. Yet you know of a cat, and publish the word, neither being bundles of your sensations. When I feed my cat, I feed the cat, not a bundle of sensations.

We experience only sensations: physical sensations, emotional sensations, and mental sensations. — Art48

Sensations may arise when you see a cat, for instance, but what you see and sense and thus experience is the cat, not sensations. To say that we only experience sensations is plainly false. The cat is not a sensation.

Sellars rejected the "Myth of the Given," the idea that our knowledge rests on a foundation of non-conceptual experiences. He argued that all awareness involves the application of concepts. But he also recognized that we can have non-inferential knowledge—knowledge that isn't inferred from other beliefs.

When we see the cat on the mat, we don't infer that it's there from other beliefs. Our knowledge is direct and immediate. But it's still conceptual... . — Pierre-Normand

To say that knowledge is direct and immediate yet conceptual seems incoherent. Do we experience the cat or the concept?

While Davidson acknowledges that beliefs are caused by the world, he doesn't give experience itself a rational role in justification. — Pierre-Normand

The belief that the cat is on the mat is caused by (experiencing) the cat on the mat.

One might add, that the way the cat is on the mat, or one's angle of view etc. fixes the experience to be a certain way. I think these are examples of what's "given" and available for us to discover in the experience.

I would assume that Scruton as a traditional conservative wouldn't be so enthusiastic about the state of conservatism today, anyway. — ssu

Perhaps it's already been mentioned in this thread, but apparently he became a conservative after witnessing the student riots in Paris in May 1968 where politically left leaning students from mostly wealthy families were throwing rocks at policemen from mostly working class families. :cool:

Seeing that the cat is on the mat is not a reason to think the cat is on the mat so much as believing that the cat is on the mat... — Banno

I'd say seeing it presents it, unlike the belief which one can maintain or change regardless of the whereabouts of the cat. You won't keep on seeing the cat on the mat when it hops up on the chair. The visual experience is then the cat on the chair. This suggests that seeing is different from believing, and that seeing can be used as a reason for believing that the cat is on the mat (or on the chair).

difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility. — NOS4A2

Perhaps because perception and mobility are direct interactions with the environment? Unlike indirect interactions via computational or mental representations. One hardly needs a brain to be able to perceive things or move intentionally.

It is because the argument does not require cosmology or physics. They are irrelevant to its point. — Philosophim

If your argument is not about the physical world, then what is it about?

It seems like my point and yours coincide. Yes, meaning is found within the universe, not without. — Philosophim

Sure, meaning is found within the universe, but you also write that there is no prior causal meaning and:

This means that anything could have been — Philosophim

I don't think it follows from an uncaused universe that anything could have been. Somehow spacetime, big bang, causal chains, organic life, flying baseballs etc emerge within a universe which is not caused by anything else. Unlike our juggling of words, there is relevant science which might eventually show us how that works.

I am neither arguing for or against spacetime as fundamental. — Philosophim

Hence I said that your paper says little or nothing about cosmology, physics etc. so I propose an approach to the logic of a universal origin from available science.

My example, again, is that it takes spacetime for an origin to be possible, but if the universe includes a domain more fundamental than spacetime (i.e. from which spacetime emerges), then the universe is arguably without an origin.

Tell you what, put what you're saying next to a quote of mine in the argument so I can see what you're referring to. — Philosophim

So, compare what I'm saying above with what you're saying in this quote:

If ultimately there is no prior cause for existence, this means there is no prior meaning for existence. . . . 'Meaning' is development and purpose created and maintained within existence, not from outside of itself. — Philosophim

Despite its apparent lack of a universal origin, the universe doesn't seem so incapable of creating and maintaining development and purpose (e.g. big bang, organic life, baseball).

how this applies to what I've written — Philosophim

What you've written is about the meanings of 'scope', 'causal chain', 'limit' etc but there's little or nothing about cosmology, physics, or current research (e.g. quantum gravity) from which there is reason to suggest that spacetime is not fundamental, and therefore there is no universal origin. The Big Bang might be the origin of spacetime, but not the origin of the universe. Without spacetime it's meaningless to assume that the universe had an origin.

On the logic of a universal origin, my "viewpoint" is that it takes spacetime for origins to be possible, and the universe includes arguably not only spacetime but also a more fundamental domain in which there is no spacetime, but from which spacetime emerges, entanglement of particles etc.

For every effect there must be a cause, except in parts of ithe universe where time has stopped (black holes?), or for a possible origin of spacetime (e.g. qubits), for which it makes little sense to assume a causal origin.

the distinction being groped for here is between subjective and objective, such that matters of taste are to do with the subject, whereas matters of fact are features of the object. But therein lies a whole can of worms if not a pit of vipers. — unenlightened

Then we'd better avoid those categories :cool: I think it's fairly clear that matters of taste refer to features of objects, and how an object affects subjects is one among other facts about the object.

It seems to me that if the argument works for beauty and ugliness, then it works for any other features of experience - veridical and illusory, or married and unmarried, for examples. Which would be inconvenient, if the intention is to say something about aesthetics that distinguishes it from science or mundanity. — unenlightened

What sets aesthetic experiences apart from other experiences is not intrinsic and extrinsic features but the fact that some experiences are attractive (or deterrent) for their own sake regardless of whether it serves other interests.

Kind of like what you did when you claimed you could just see the curve — flannel jesus

No, my claim is that the curve is visible, and that its straight or flat looks are features of some angles of view. We could limit our visual field to a vanishing point on the horizon, which is a feature of central projection, not the observed object. The vanishing point is not a visible object, nor are the straight or flat looks of the earth.

People don't have subjective experiences. — frank

Well, during the traditional discussion between the Nobel prize winners, Hinton seemed to hold a grudge against philosophy and the notion of subjectivity. But then he added that ethics is fine, as if to appear less fanatic.

I do not believe you can actually perceive it. I know I can't - I go to the beach pretty often, I see the horizon a couple times a month, and there's no apparent curve from a vantage point of 6-8ft above sea level. — flannel jesus

Granted there's an angle of view from which a visibly curved object may look straight. Its straight look arises from the angle of view, unlike its curved look which arises from its true shape. That's why it's called curved.

Like "scientific" skeptics about perception, also "unscientific" flat-earthers fail to distinguish between what an object may look like and its true visible shape.

I'm pretty sure it's not visibly curved. — flannel jesus

How can you be sure? The curvature might be too small to notice, say, if you only see a narrow piece of the horizon, but I'm pretty sure it's curved, also visibly if you'd look closer.

Compare it with seeing the complex tangle of shapes, textures and colours of a birch tree. You might not pay attention to all of them, yet they are there, visible, and they are the object of your visual experience.

prove yourself that the earth is round — flannel jesus

The earth's curvature is visible wherever there's a visible horizon. What's an example of a place from which the Earth could appear flat? Is there good reason to doubt that the curvature that we can see does not imply a round shape?

..what questions of being could possibly be interesting or important? — Srap Tasmaner

For example, can a model of conscious verbal behavior be conscious?

A model of a duck is arguably not a duplication of a duck. It's a model or simulation based on a selection of observed and known behaviors. A model of duck depends on what we observe and know of ducks. For some anti-realists, also ducks depend on us. I think ducks are not so dependent on us, but when we speak or think about ducks we construct models based on what we observe and know.

Likewise, we construct models based on what we observe and know of our conscious verbal behavior. But being conscious and modeling something is different from being the model.

Perhaps this has already been mentioned, but one theory (link here) seems to be that spacetime emerges from a network of entangled bits of information, qubits. This network has no spatial properties, nor temporal durations, and as such it is possibly ubiquitous and eternal, i.e. a domain of the physical reality which doesn't require a first cause. However, as such it allows spatiotemporal and causal phenomena to emerge, and by way of being part of such a domain also spatiotemporal particles can be entangled and act in spooky ways at a distance :cool:

Here’s what Derrida says about not being wrong:
...
"..this definition of the deconstructionist is false (that's right: false, not true) and feeble; it supposes a bad (that's right: bad, not good) and feeble reading of numerous texts, first of all mine, which therefore must finally be read or reread." — Joshs

See, apparently one must read his numerous texts again until one gets it "right", which exemplifies my point about postmodernists thinking that there is no such thing as being wrong (in this case only their critics are "wrong").