It seems to me phenomenalism is unarguably true. We have five physical senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. We have no “tree-sensing” sense. So, how can we experience a tree? The answer seems to be we don’t directly experience a tree. Rather, we experience sense data (green patches that feel smooth, brown patches that feel rough, etc.) and our mind accesses the idea of “tree” because the idea makes sense of our sense data. — Art48

Lets give an example how you would directly experience a tree. Lets say you would like to determine if it is a tree and what type. The first thing you would need to do is go directly to the tree, directly touch the tree, and directly take a sample of the tree. With this sample you can send it to a lab to test its DNA and see if it is a match to some type of tree. Would you want to say it was a sample of sense data of the tree I sent the lab? No, your sense data is what you have. Would you say the sample is the thing-in-itself? No, this is something we cannot know by our senses. Would you say the sample is part of a tree and you like confirmation? Exactly!

My eyes only see light. If free-standing 3D holograms existed indistinguishable from real trees, my eyes would see exactly the same thing. — Art48

All this shows is that we need to do a little more investigation into whether it is a real tree or a fake tree. However, it does not show we lack direct access to an external world or to a tree or the thing-in-itself.

What is this thing-in-itself that I do have direct access? To use my house example, it is like you are saying, I don’t have direct access to the house because I need to indirectly access it by climbing thru the second floor window and all along you don't have a front door. I think you can say you have direct access thru the second floor window.

In means no intermediary. I take it I have direct access to what my eyes see, my mind thinks, etc. — Art48

Ok, your eyes don't see sense data of trees, they see trees. You mind constructs the idea of sense data of trees. This seems consistent with your views. Thus, you have direct access.

Does the image show the table's "true" color? No, because the table has no true color independent of the perceiving being. — Art48

Ok, but this does prove there is anything we don't have access to when it comes to “the table”. Like my example with car painted in ChromaFlair, the car has multiple colors depending on the light and the angle of perceiver, but it does not follow that I don't have direct access to car, that there is something additional called the thing-in-itself.

Let try the link again

https://images.app.goo.gl/HXd9kw7vuDCTQ1Tq9

Unless you want to argue that the mind-independent object was in some sort of superposition of being both white and gold and black and blue, with each group having direct access to one "version"? But that seems like quite the reach. — Michael

Is this quite a reach?



I think we would both agree that the sense data is exactly the same whether you call it a image of a duck or an image of a rabbit.

the phenomenal character of experience is not a property of mind-independent objects. — Michael

And

I think that our modern understanding of science shows that both a) and b) are true. — Michael

I think there are two problems with this view:

1. Difficult to understand how a scientist would observe a subject’s phenomenal character of experience since it is private to the subject.

2. Assuming that 1. Is achievable, how can a scientist compare it if mind independent objects are not directly accessible according to phenomenology

Lets look at another example typically given to say that we are only sure or our sense data but not the thing-in-itself. Take a table in the middle of the room, we look at it and say the color is brown. However, it we get real close to it it seems to be grayish brown, and the time a day changes and lighting of the rooms changes the table looks reddish. Is it reasonable to then conclude, “see, this proves that we can never know the actual/the real color of the table, the thing-in-itself.”

I don’t think this necessary follows. Take for instance a car painted with ChromaFlair. ChromaFlair is a pigment used in paint systems, primarily for automobiles. When the paint is applied, it changes color depending on the light source and viewing angle. There is not an actual/real color behind the ChromaFlair but many colors depending on the viewing angle.

. I don't deny the existence of the exterior physical world, only that we don't have direct access to it. — Art48

Please explain what direct access means. What is an example of having direct access? If we want to confirm “Yes, we have direct access” don't we need some idea what that would be like when it is achieved?

For example, do you have direct access to the house? No, I don't have a key to the front door but I have indirect access, I climb to the second floor and enter thru the bedroom window.

Question: do you believe we experience anything directly and, if so, what? — Art48

Yes, like I mentioned, if we both were standing in front of a tree, I am directly experiencing you looking at a tree, I don’t directly experience your sense data of a tree. Another one, I have direct conversations and debates with other human beings not sense data.

I think our disagreements is our starting philosophical positions. Yours: An individual’s private access to their sense data. Mine: Human being’s public access to a shared external world.

In particular, some forms of phenomenalism reduce all talk about physical objects in the external world to talk about bundles of sense data. — Art48

I believe you would say that we do not directly experience electrons and proton but only indirectly. If I follow your views, I believe you will also need to say the same thing with regards "sense data". Let's take the electron/proton example. I do not directly experience electrons/protons; but with my senses and some scientific theory, I can infer their existence indirectly. Similarly, I do not directly experience sense data; but with my senses and some philosophical and analogical reasoning, I can infer their existence indirectly. What is unclear to me is if you mean the idea of sense data, or sense data itself. This confusion arise when you say "I indirectly experience the idea of a tree."

If you, and everyone else, experiences sense data directly, why do you explain what you mean by examples of illusions and other representations of reality? Does not one need a stable real external world to understand what an illusion or representation even is? (I understand what a mirage is because I actual consumed real water.) Imagine a world where the inhabitants never experience hallucinations, illusions, or vivid dreams, would they ever need a sense datum theory at all. But you might say, at least I can point to my direct experience of the sense data itself. Again, as I mentioned before, this is a private exercise that offer very little to how we actually learn, understand, and use language.

Lets say we both are standing in front of a tree. I look at you and see you directly looking at and experiencing a tree. I don’t see you directly experiencing sense data. Is this not being objective? Whatever is occurring “inside” is not in my purview. Whatever is occurring “outside” is shared by both of us and thus we gain an understanding of what we are talking about.

Thanks, something to explore

“We directly experience the idea of a tree and indirectly experience the tree as a physical object.”

Lets re-word this a bit and say: we directly experience the tree and come up with the concepts of a “tree” and “physical object”

I think we can all agree to this.

From John Searle’s “Seeing Things as They Are”

“A mistake of nearly as great a magnitude overwhelmed our tradition in the 17th century and after, and it is the mistake of supposing that we never directly perceive objects and states of affairs in the world, but directly perceive only our subjective experiences. This mistake has many different names, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant. After Kant it gets worse. Mill and Hegel, in spite of all their differences, would also have to be included.”

A good book of a modern philosopher who attempts to expose the problem of this position and offers his own theory to clear up the confusion.

A is A is kind of boring, but it gets a little more interesting when we think about such things as

Water is H2O
George Washington is (fill in your description)
9 is 4 + 5
Hesperus is Phosphorus

“My view is that ideas already exist in the mindscape, just as trees exist in the landscape. Seeing a pair of apples may awaken our mind to the idea of two, but the idea already exists. Any being which lacks the mental capacity will never perceive the idea "two." Imagine an earthworm, for instance, crawls over two pebbles. I doubt the idea of two ever enters what mind it has.”

Could we not imagine a world where inhabitants sense and emphasizes differences than commonalties that they view all objects as individuals to be named, and that they have memories so great that universals are not needed?Why would I need to hypothesize that inhabitants who use universals can perceive some Platonic realm, when I simply can appeal to our make up that favors detecting commonalities and creating language of universals vs detecting differences and name individuals?

“Suppose you see a hurricane on TV. You directly experience the TV's light and sound; you indirectly experience the hurricane. Similarly, you indirectly experience the tree; you directly experience light, sound, touch, taste, odor. “

This example works if I can directly experience a hurricane. The lights and sounds from the TV are about something that we can experience directly. However, if all I directly experience is light, sound, touch, taste, or odor; the example is problematic because your are not seeing a “TV” or a “hurricane” because all they are is light, sound, touch, taste, or odor.

“Our five physical senses limit us to experiencing sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. So, we don’t directly experience concrete objects. (I have no special “tree-sensing” sense with which I can directly experience a tree.)”

What could this mean “we don’t directly experience concrete objects” I see a tree, I go over to touch the leaves, smell the bark, hear the creaking of the branches, or taste the fruit it produces. How more direct can we get?

Physical objects and Abstract objects, what do these two things have in common that we want to call them objects? A shared essence or some family resemblance? Hard to say it is either.

I like to think this argument is successful at proving its idea, however, what we are left with is a rather shallow and dull view of existence.

The concept of a contingent being is conceived as existing or not existing.

The concept of a necessary being is conceived as existing only.

The concept of God can only be conceived as a necessary being because the concept of a necessary being is greater than the concept of a contingent being.

Thus, the concept of God entails the concept of necessary existence because of the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived.

OK, great, now exactly what exist here after we stop talking about conceptions of God and necessary existence? After all for contingent beings, I can eventually point to some examples to show you what how we can use this term in the stream of life.

True, but you cant point to God because he is not a contingent being.

Your are right, well, I guess you can always point to your ontological argument.

Yes “someone can believe something that has been proven false”. Here is the proof:

I believe “someone can believe something that has been proven false”. (Call this I believe S)

If “I believe S” is true, S is true

Or

If “I believe S” is false, S is true because I just demonstrated I can believe something that has been proven false.

Does an atom have free will?

“Water” does not have an essence but “H2O” does have an essence. Both are concepts and both can refer. And both could be used interchangeably in many context. So it is quite strange to say one has an essence and one does not.

“Things the words refer to” have essences. Not sure what this could mean. I point to an object and call it a “rock”. So the word I use does not have a essence but the rock I point to does. And what is that? The shape? The color? The chemical composition? I point to another object and call it a “rock” It looks similar to the first rock but does not have the same color, shape or chemical composition. Is there one essence both rocks share, and what is that?

Lastly, “H2O” has an essence. Let us first give it a little specificity. These symbols are used in chemistry as expression of atomic theory. This theory makes successful predictions of our macroscopic world. But like any scientific theory, it can be replace by a better theory, which may do away with the symbols of “H2O” And if this happens, what happens to “H2O”’s essence.

“I can as a philosopher talk about mathematics because I will only deal with puzzles which arise from the words of our ordinary everyday language, such as “proof”, “ number”, “series”, “order”, etc”

And

“But I will talk about the word “ foundation” in the phase “ the foundation of mathematics”. This is a most important word and will be one of the chief words we will deal with.” From Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics(LFM)

Keep this mind that this is what Wittgenstein is trying to show - that philosophers of mathematics are creating bewilderment because these words are being pulled from their typical surroundings.

W “By “seeing the contradiction” do you mean “ seeing that the two ways of multiplying lead to different results”?”
T: “Yes”
W: “The trouble with this example is that there is no contraction in it at all. If you have two different ways of multiplying, why call them both multiplying? Why not call one multiplying and the other dividing, or multiplying A and the other multiplying B, or any damn thing? It is simply that you have two different kinds of calculation and you have not noticed that they give different results” LW (LFM)

I thought this quote from Daniel Dennett might be useful and somewhat amusing for the current discussion at hand:

“Happily, in those days before tape recorders, some of Wittgenstein's disciples took verbatim notes, so we can catch a rare glimpse of two great minds addressing a central problem from opposite points of view: the problem of contradiction in a formal system. For Turing, the problem is a practical one: if you design a bridge using a system that contains a contradiction, "the bridge may fall down." For Wittgenstein, the problem was about the social context in which human beings can be said to "follow the rules" of a mathematical system. What Turing saw, and Wittgenstein did not, was the importance of the fact that a computer doesn't need to understand rules to follow them. Who "won"? Turing comes off as somewhat flatfooted and naive, but he left us the computer, while Wittgenstein left us...Wittgenstein.” From 1999 Time Magazine

I believe Wittgenstein was trying to convince Turing of the following:

1. If you arrive at a contradiction the result would be inaction

2. If a bridge collapsed, an engineer is not wondering if the foundations of math is problematic, but if the calculation was wrong, it was not put together as per plan, or materials used were inferior

As for the Liar paradox, “I am a Liar” has a clear use is ordinary circumstances of life. Take it out of that and put it in the philosophical world, and one gets deep into confusion.

Recognition of evil comes before knowledge and belief of evil. First, we need a group of human beings to experience and react to situations they would call evil. As they come across experiences where they similarly judge to be exemplars of evil, their concept solidifies and they past on their “knowledge” to their community. Obvious, future experiences may be similar more or less to their original exemplars of evil, and so the concept of “belief” may creep in to express uncertainty.

I think a simple passage from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations can be a reply to the sentiment being explored in this discussion: “71. One might say that the concept ‘game’ is a concept with blurred edges. “But is a blurred concept a concept at all?” Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all” Is it even always an advantage to replace an indistinct picture by a sharp one? Isn’t the indistinct one often exactly what we need?”

So, we give a “rigorous” definition of reality. Some things are excluded and some things included to our liking. I suppose someone can come along and say “but wait you don't want to exclude this or include that”. So, we modified the definition again. This can go on until when? Until we reach 100% agreement or enough agreement until we can call a small minority ,who disagrees, crazy.

What started out for the search for truth looks more like search for consensus and exclusion.

Ok, I am not my body. Let us say I am just a sum total of all experiences up to some point time. The brain is just the collector, organizer, and repository of those experiences. The brain along with the body can use language to communicate with other brains and bodies these experiences. Maybe some day we can transfer these experiences in some computer and this can do the collecting, organizing and storing. And communicate to other brains/computers such experiences. You could call this the “I” or the “soul”, if you like. And that is the solution to such a philosophical puzzle, call it what you like, and see if someone will go along with it.

Bob: Hey that was a great idea, where did you come up with that?
Mary: When I was studying Philosophy at the University of Sunset.

Therefore, in this situation, thinking took place at a university.

“To others I am a part of their objective observable universe just as a chair or the sky is. I am outside of them. They cannot prove that I’m aware and alive like they feel themselves to be”

This is a very puzzling thing to say, “They cannot prove that I’m aware and alive like they feel themselves to be” So, base on what is said here, one understands what it means to be “aware and alive” is something that is private and inaccessible to anybody. But if this is the case, anyone partaking in this conversation has no idea what anyone is talking about when we say “aware and alive like they feel”.

We share one world, we react similarly to one world, and we talk about one world.

“Perhaps while we’re asleep we first think of a cool sequence of events and then forget the order so that we can visually re-enact it. Then our subconscious would have “foreknowledge” of what will happen to us in a dream.”

No way ever to verify this and there never will be.

Consider this thought experiment how such thinking could be problematic about “moods”.

Let us say we hooked up a device to someone and asked the subject “what mood are you in?” She says “Happy” and the device reads “neuron 250”. A day later you ask the subject the same and she says “depressed” and device reads “neuron 890”.

A week passes and you hook up the device again and it reads “neuron 890”. You say to her “So you are feeling depressed? And she replies, “No, quite the contrary, I feel happy”.

What are we to say here? 1. She is lying and the device speaks the truth. 2. She was lying or confused during the first experiment, she was actually depressed when she said she was happy and happy when she said she was depressed. 3. The machine was not working today. 4. The machine was not working last week. 5. She did not understand what we are asking her. 6. She is not in touch with her feelings.

Have we made talk of “moods” easier by adding talk of biochemistry? I am incline to say we have added unnecessary complexity that added uncertainty to the conversation.

“In the laboratory, when subjected to an electric current, for example, someone says with his eyes shut “I am moving my arm up and down” though his arm is not moving. “So,” we say, “he has the special feeling of making that movement.” Move your arm to and fro with your eyes shut. And now try, while you do so, to tell yourself that your arm is staying still and that you are only having certain queer feelings in your muscles and joints!”

Wittgenstein, PI, 624

“When people talk about the possibility of foreknowledge of the future they always forget the fact of the prediction of one’s own voluntary movements.”

Wittgenstein, PI, 628

I think it worth considering what Wittgenstein said in his later philosophy in Philosophical Investigations:

“Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a “beetle”. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word ‘beetle” had a use in these people’s language? If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No, one can “divide through” by thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.

That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and designation’ the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant”

Perfect circles don’t exist in nature and pi has an infinite number of digits. So when you rotate around and move forward in a certain direction, we don’t ever know with perfect accuracy what that direction is. — Michael McMahon

So, if I understand this correctly, if we can’t prove without “perfect” accuracy the outcome of some predicted event, this is evidence the world is not real. This is an odd conclusion. For example, I shoot a cannon ball and predict with current scientific principles that it should travel 15.01 feet. But when I measure it, it is only 15.00 feet. So, I must conclude the world is not real? Maybe we should consider other possibilities, measurement error, technology limitations, revision to principles, etc. Historically speaking, we have become more accurate with our scientific prediction, by Special and General relativity. So does this means the world in becoming more real? No, we can just make better predictions.

The mind is more arbitrary and whimsical in nature than the physical structures we observe. — Michael McMahon

I guess the mind is not “arbitrary and whimsical in nature” when we determine the physical structures we observed so we can make the claim “the mind is more arbitrary and whimsical in nature than the physical structures we observe.”