What about the other illusion i mentioned? The one that doesn't involve a physical change of light, and must only happen in the brain. — flannel jesus

Right, so the illusion doesn't involve refraction or the like, just some light that projects a grid on the retina. The grid, however, is not an ordinary object of perception but a pattern that can evoke the illusion of dots that emerge and disappear within the pattern.

As soon as you look closer, the illusion disappears, and when you relax, the illusion emerges. Not unlike a dream. In ordinary vision, however it's the other way around, when you look closer you see things more clearly. A real dot wouldn't evade observation.

The illusion is not evidence of a defective or misleading visual system but an active and working system responding to manipulation.

From manipulation of the visual system it doesn't follow that we never see things as they are. Hence the futility of arguments from illusion or hallucination against direct or naive realism.

In Sweden there aristocracy was never dominant, they had to take into account the strong position of the peasants, who were independent. You can notice this from the fact that the Swedish peasantry have never revolted. — ssu

3/4 of the population owned very small lots, so one might have reason to suspect that these peasants were simply too poor to revolt against the ruling nobility, church, and monarchy.

In the late 1800s 1,5 million swedish peasants emigrated to the US to avoid starvation and the arrogance of the feudal aristocracy. Maybe the latter were not as dominant as white land owners in South Africa, but to claim that these peasants were independent seems a stretch. Voting rights were based on income, the church controlled education, and so on.

Ok well the scientific understanding of perception is very aware of the illusions I mentioned, so does that mean science is inherently self refuting? — flannel jesus

Not the science, but the assumption that you never see the world, only illusions and delusions while referring to science as if it would support the assumption. It doesn't.

For example, you see a bent straw in a glass of water because you see it as it really is under conditions as they really are: a straight straw bent by refraction. If you never see the straw, then neither you nor the science would have a clue of what is seen, nor what is going on under those conditions.

I'd say that the science of perception supports the converse assumption that we do see the world as it really is, including optical illusions under various conditions.

Maybe Philosophy of Art is an inquiry into why and how what is shown or is done by artists effects us as it does. — Ciceronianus

Historically there's been a lot of speculation on the psychology of the aesthetic experience. For example the art historian Heinrich Wölfflin used ideas about empathy as a theoretical ground for describing aesthetic experiences. One of those ideas was the philosopher Theodor Lipps' theory of empathy, Einfuhlung.

Empathy is the ability to use knowledge of one's own experiences in order to understand the experiences of others, and Lipps' theory was that you project your own experiences onto any object of perception, including shapes and colours. Hence a bulging shape is heavy in some sense, a concave shape slender, a yellow colour inviting, a red colour intense and so on. Wölfflin describes Venus in Botticelli's famous painting as if rays of energy literally flow through her fingers.

From his evocative descriptions and psychological speculations followed an aesthetic individualism. There were also counter-movements that emphasized universality, such as De Stijl in art, and the international style in architecture. But the psychological speculations about the meanings of shapes and colours are still used in contemporary art, design, and architecture.

From time to time, I've wondered what art is, what an artist is, what the Philosophy of Art or Aesthetics is, for that matter. — Ciceronianus

Some works of art inspire or provoke discussion on what is art. Since the early 1900s, artists have been exhibiting ready-made, or abstract, or ugly, or revolting objects in fine art galleries.

Being exposed to such works can evoke experiences that vacillate between the ugly and the beautiful or sublime. They can also show differences between the value of an object that you appreciate for its own sake and its significance in a social context, e.g. its market price.

For example, in 2008 a bottle of urine with a crucifix was sold for 277.000 USD. Who appreciates it for its own sake?

Other works of art are less preoccupied with the question of what is art or social construction. Instead the works show signs of skill, craftsmanship, intelligence, beauty, or unusual properties that catch our interest. A more traditional notion of art, I suppose.

What are others views on such topic from experience!? — Born2Insights

Many work places are unethical. I don't think they can be fixed. Just avoid them if you can. Start a better work place.

Ethan Iverson's trio

a definition — Arbü1237

In some contexts it's sufficient to be original or unusual in some way, for example skilled, insightful, inventive. A creative person is not necessarily productive, nor successful.

But there's been a professionalization of the word 'creative', and there's a "creative class" of people working in advertisement, design, entertainment etc. The creativity of these guys is defined by how much stuff or content they produce, exhibit, publish or by how much influence they have or how much money they earn.

Intentionality is typically defined as a certain type of conscious mental state, so intentionality requires consciousness either way. — Lionino

It's a relational property shared by different types of conscious mental states.

SEP

Without intentionality, thoughts would be empty, vision blind, desires aimless and so on.

I don't know of a conscious mental state that doesn't have intentionality (disregarding hallucinations, phantom pain and the like).


* Edited for clarity

Study the history of roller skating, and find out what kind of roller skating is for you.

Is there in fact any substantive difference between PDR and Indirect Realism? — RussellA

Yes, the adverbialist avoids the use of sense-datum theories.

For example, when you see white...

something like whiteness is instantiated, but in the experience itself, not a presented thing.

-From the same SEP article

I don't think you're making a very compelling case that indirect realists need to have any special skepticism in regards to what they see. — flannel jesus

It follows from their assumption that perception is indirect: they never see the world, only their own sense-data or worse.

Direct Realists are immune to eye problems? — flannel jesus

That doesn't follow from what I write, though.

I suppose the direct realist will be quick to notice a defect in the visual system (it's not an object of vision) unlike the indirect realist for whom all vision is somehow defective relative objects in themselves.

The direct realist doesn't have BETTER reasons to think the red dot in their visual experience is caused by mars — flannel jesus

Right, what causes our experiences is something that we find out empirically. Let's clarify some reasons and their consequences.

Since the indirect realist thinks that s/he sees a 1 mm red dot in the visual field, s/he might first want to consult an eye surgeon instead of using a telescope to find out whether the cause is in the eye, or some hallucination, or mysterious sense-data with a causal relation to the planet.

For the direct realist there is little reason for such exaggerated skepticism about vision. S/he doesn't see a dot (unless the cause is a dot). When the cause is the planet, then s/he sees the planet. The planet's appearance is relative the distance, angle of view, available sunlight and so on.

Disagree. Indirect and Direct Realism are part of epistemology. — RussellA

Doesn't seem right. Lots of epistemology is based on idealism or the nature of language with no interest in realist accounts of perception.

I think everyone should be sceptical, whether the Indirect or Direct Realist. Who wants to unquestionably believe everything they are told. — RussellA

Sure, but it is one thing to be skeptical about beliefs of what you see, and another to be skeptical about the seeing as well. In the latter case the skepticism becomes insurmountable.

I would think the representation is some collection of neurons in our brains firing with some relationship to a brainwave phase. However, I don't think it makes sense to say that "I see such a representation." At best I only vaguely imagine such a representation. — wonderer1

I suppose some objects of conscious awareness are representations. For example, memories and beliefs may represent what's remembered and believed. Representation is asymmetric, so a memory of a rainy day might or might not represent that day but the rainy day doesn't represent the memory.

Other objects of conscious awareness are presentations, which is a unary relation. For example, the look and sound of rain are properties that present themselves in our conscious awareness when we see or hear the rain.

When the rain stops, we normally don't continue seeing or hearing it. That's unlike representations. We can continue believing that it rains regardless of the fact that it has stopped raining.

Direct or indirect realism isn't epistemology, recall, they're philosophies of perception.

So, regarding the nature of the object of perception, it is the indirect realist who assumes that the object of perception when you see Mars is a 1 mm dot. The indirect realist never sees Mars, only dots, words, or other representations.

While the direct realist may not always know what it is that he sees, it can usually be found out and explained. The indirect realist, however, assumes that he never sees things directly, only representations, e.g. 1 mm dots, and that has, in fact, epistemological consequences. As long as the assumption is that you never see things directly, then skepticism follows. Not so for the direct realist.

When looking up at the night sky, if the Direct Realist doesn't literally see dots in their visual field, what do they see? — RussellA

Stars, planets, moons etc.

Indirect realists sees dots that represent stars, planets. The direct realist sees the stars and planets that may appear as dots, discs, or spheres etc depending on distance, available light etc.

Similarly, the word "is" can be used in different ways in language... — RussellA

Like "look over there is Mars", or "What I see is Mars".

The problem with Direct Realism is that it assumes an identity between what is seen and the cause of what is seen. It assumes an identity between the bright dot and the planet Mars, such that the bright dot "is" Mars, otherwise the Direct Realist could not see the external world as it really is.

And if this is the case, in that the bright dot "is" the planet Mars, how can a bright dot in the visual field have a mass of 6.4∗1023kg? — RussellA

The direct realist doesn't see a dot in the visual field.

I really still don't 100% understand what direct realists mean when they say that they directly experience mars. — Ashriel

That mars is not experienced via something else, such as sense-data or a mental picture. Hence directly.

Does that place representationalism among direct-realist ideas or indirect? — flannel jesus

Searle defends direct realism.

- - -


Here's an addition to my short reply. I suppose representationalism is indirect realism under the assumption that you never perceive things directly, only your own sense-data, concepts, ideas, mental pictures etc. that more or less accurately or usefully represent the things.

Direct realism, however, is the idea that you do perceive things directly, not via something else. Things can be perceived in as many ways as possible given the physics, chemistry and other conditions that enables us to perceive them.

The world may appear tilted when you tilt your head, but that's not a good counter-argument against direct realism. Arguments from illusion or hallucination are basically that bad.

I think it's really interesting that Representationalism is claimed by both direct and indirect realists in various contexts. — flannel jesus

Searle, for instance, distinguishes representation from presentation. For example, believing x is a representation, seeing x is a presentation..

If I believe that it is raining I can separate my belief from the fact that it is raining, but when I see the tree I cannot separate the visual experience from an awareness of the presence of the tree. This is true even if it is a hallucination and even if I know that it is a hallucination.

Link to source.

If nothing is experienced then what is the distinction between having an hallucinatory experience and not having an hallucinatory experience? — Michael

I can evoke the experience of seeing a sudden flash by poking my eye (not recommended), and I suppose that the experience could be subjectively identical to seeing a real flash. But when I poke my eye it is just the experience without its object, the flash.

In the hallucinatory case nothing is experienced, because imaginary objects don't interact with sense organs. Hallucinations are not experiences in the same sense as veridical experiences. Hence the names hallucinatory and veridical.

Under any normal use of language, things are experienced when we hallucinate (and when we dream); it's just that the experience isn't a consequence of external stimulation of the relevant kind. — Michael

Right, seeing something when there is nothing to see is normally called 'hallucination'. Such an experience is not about something, but the psychological ability running amok.

Dreams are interesting. Unlike veridical experiences of a recalcitrant continuous reality dreams are gappy or collage-like, and cease to exist as soon as one wakes up. Granted that a dream of waking up could be subjectively identical to waking up. But not for long, because of the differences between dreams and veridical experiences.

hallucinatory and veridical experiences would be subjectively distinct — Ashriel

What makes them distinct is that in the hallucinatory experience nothing is experienced.

In the premise that one can't see whether an experience is veridical or hallucinatory it is assumed that the veridical is indirect. Hence the doubt on whether it is what it seems to be, veridical or hallucinatory. From this we're supposed to "conclude" indirect realism. But the conclusion is hidden in what is assumed in the premise.

Direct experiences, however, don't represent anything, and therefore they are not subject to doubt on whether they are what they seem to be.

what postmodernism has to say about mathematics. — Tom Storm

I found a link to an old article about a postmodern way of doing math.

"Thus, by calculating that signification according to the algebraic method used here, namely: "

Followed by a conclusion that the erectile organ "..is equivalent to the of the signification produced above, of the jouissance that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of lack of signifier (-1)."

Attributed to the french psychoanalyst Lacan..

the back-and-forth between radical sceptics and their opponents is perennial, rather than just a debate of the modern period. — Jamal

Yes, the debate on skepticism is perennial, but the notion of consciousness is arguably modern, as is the conceptual separation of consciousness from the object that one is conscious of.

From this separation follows a skepticism that is radical enough for Berkeley to get rid of the object entirely, and keep only consciousness (or ideas). In this sense idealism is the result of a radically skeptic assumption. Also indirect realists assume that we never see objects and state of affairs directly, but typically play down the significance of the skepticism. My guess is that forthcoming periods won't be as skeptic as the modern.

What we don't agree on is whether or not it is correct – or even sensible – to say that the colour red is a property of that external world object. Indirect realists say that it isn't, whereas direct realists (or at least naive colour realists) claim that it is. — Michael

Right, I recall something Hilary Putnam wrote on color realism, that surface properties of objects have dispositions to appear in such and such ways under such and such conditions. Searle is more brain-oriented and although he is a direct realist he thinks of colors as systematically occurring hallucinations.

The surface properties of the materials of a building, for instance, systematically reflect certain wavelengths of light that observers identify as the colors of those surfaces under ordinary conditions of observation (e.g. daylight). When the light conditions change the colors that we see also change (e.g. dusk, night, dawn, cloudy etc. ), but the surfaces typically remain the same, including their disposition to reflect the same colors under the same conditions.

To expect accuracy is to assume that seeing something is a re-presentation of something, which it isn't.

A Sunday painter might have the intent to re-present Lisa accurately, assuming there is a certain way she really is. But what could such a way possibly be? A human, female, friend, foe, happy, sad, still or in motion in various projections all at once? The assumption of accuracy is based on bad philosophy of perception.

By convention there are ways to paint objects in more or less useful ways, e.g. photorealistically or contextually. But there is no accurate way to see Lisa, just different ways under different conditions in which Lisa can be seen. Visual experiences of Lisa are different from, say, beliefs of what Lisa looks like. A visual experience arises in the observer's conscious awareness, and so does a belief of what Lisa looks like. The belief is subject to doubt, and it can be refined and elaborated depending on use, but the visual experiences are biological facts that arise under certain conditions of satisfaction.

There is no analogy between 'pain' and 'actual objects'. — AmadeusD

The analogy is between feeling (pain) and seeing (objects).

Pain is the experience of certain biophysical causal chains. Not so with visual data, imo. — AmadeusD

Is visual data not the result of certain biophysical causal chains? Or do you just mean that it's the result of other causal chains? What Is an example of positive empirical evidence for visual data?

Is someone claiming there's 'pain' out there not being experienced? — AmadeusD

Searle's analogy (pain) shows how absurd it would be to assume that you never feel pain as it really is, only via your own sense-data. Likewise, it is absurd to assume that you never see objects, only your own sense-data of them, hence leaving the objects out there unseen.

When a bundle of light rays reach your eyes, the eye's lens projects the bundle upside down. So, the photoreceptor cells are responding to a projection that is upside-down relative to, say, a visible object that reflected the light.Yet the object does not appear upside-down in your visual experience.

That's a simple example of how visual experiences adjust themselves to the relative orientation of objects as they are. The experience has a mind-to-world direction of fit.

It also has a world-to-mind direction of causation, e.g. from visible objects, light, photoreceptor cells etc. to the experience that arises in the brain.

These two relations give us access to the perceivable world.

I would certainly be open to exploring whether that latter issue is actually additional and sans aberration there's some way to assert reliability in perception. I've yet to see that though. — AmadeusD

You might be interested in reading this short but concise text by John Searle: Philosophy of Perception and The Bad Argument

Searle was a student of Austin. Austin famously deconstructed the idea of sense-data in the book Sense and Sensibilia.

Could you please let me know what you mean by the contingent here? — jkop

According to this article on Time and Physics there might not be a temporal structure at a fundamental level (referring to recent theories of quantum gravity).

If they're right, then time may be an emergent property, or contingent as in being relative to observers, time-symmetry, or detachable from causation (as described in that other article on Backwards-Causation).

I think P1 is valid no matter how fast is the process. — MoK

Speed is irrelevant. At the level of fundamental physics the temporal order of cause and effect is, arguably, contingent.

If the temporal order is contingent at some level, then there is change without the need of time as we know it.

I'm wanting something from Kant that indicates he thinks we have an access to things-in-themselves. — AmadeusD

The short answer is that Kant is an empirical realist, but the thing-in-itself is not an empirical thing. It's a conceptual construction, a thing imagined as having no properties, and as such a limit beyond which there is nothing more to know. We should not expect to have access to such a thing.

Regarding possible knowledge of empirical things, Kant is a scientific realist, not unlike many contemporary scientific realists. However, one might add that scientific realism is typically an indirect kind of realism based on the dubious assumption that we never see things as they are, only figments of our own perceptual faculties or brains.

Unlike sound skepticism that assumption explains us blind, and keeps us busy with the problem of explaining how we as blind can access things.

A better assumption is, I think, that the processes that occur in our perceptual faculties and brains constitute the accessing of things.

For example, when I move my head and, say, a tree appears in the visual field, a process arises in my brain that is the conscious awareness of what I see. My visual access to the tree is direct in the sense that the tree is not seen via something else that represents the tree. The tree presents itself in my visual field, and that's how I access it. It's direct realism.

Unlike a belief which can be separated from what it is a belief of (hence subject to doubt), conscious awareness cannot be separated from what it is awareness of, e.g. a tree.

That looks similar to Kant's definition of analyticity. Quine's objection refers to Carnap's definition, not Kant's. Putnam criticized Quine's objection for mixing these two different definitions.

P1) Time is needed for any change — MoK

At the planck scale P1 is arguably meaningless or false. For example, does it take time for particles to pop in to, or out of, existence?

Realistically, I do think that there are some objective elements of humor, and that while, in practice, people may find it subjective, that there are probably better or worse ways of viewing and opining on it, akin to art or aesthetic theories — IvoryBlackBishop

The involuntary act of laughter was then exploited by those who were good at making people laugh as a way to gain acceptance within the group. — Pinprick

In the film The Death of Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev is portrayed as a talkative joker who is good at making Stalin laugh. After their meetings Nikita analyses the jokes together with his wife, to clarify what had worked, so that he can maintain or improve the outcome next time, thus reducing the risk of getting Stalin dissatisfied (which at that time could mean a death sentence).

If we compare humour with beauty, it seems fairly clear that both can be exploited and used as means for other things. For example, to seduce, distract, and entertain. Yet beauty is disinterested pleasure, and I think also humour is disinterested pleasure. For example, you can find something funny regardless of whether it is appropriate or useful.

Good jazz radio
https://www.jazz24.org/

I'd less characterise these as paradigm shifts (which represent progress and no loss of territory) and more as straightforward redrawing of the boundaries of philosophy. — bert1

It occurs to me that the word 'progress' is used in related but different senses in science, philosophy, and art.

In all three there is a shift in the use of available methods, or in the understanding of the subject matter, that it is significant enough to influence many or most practitioners in their forthcoming work.

What is different is that progress in science is understood in terms of utility, i.e. the most recent science is typically more useful, efficient, advanced etc. than previous science. In philosophy progress is, for example, clarification of concepts (e.g. sense and reference), which may result in new ways to work with and understand philosophical questions. But it's debatable whether it is useful (a philosophical question). In the arts utility can be the opposite of progress, e.g. beauty being disinterested pleasure even. But it can be useful too, for example, the shift that occurred when artists learned how to construct perspective pictures.

Good description, and you're right, there is no analogous method in philosophy. However, there are analogous shifts.

For example, philosophy used to be the general name for various sciences, but when these sciences specialized there was a shift in philosophy towards questions that didn't concern the sciences, such as ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and some left-over questions from psychology. Then with the linguistic turn there was a shift towards the nature of language.

Analogous shifts occur also in the arts (not to be confused with traditions or fashions). For example, before the invention of photography most of all graphic and sculptural art were more or less used in a scientific manner for depicting the natural world. When photographs became useful for that, there was a shift in the arts towards symbolization of whatever couldn't be photographed, i.e. invisible phenomena, mental or abstract objects etc. later a lot of art became conceptual.