The possibility of (2) only depends on the possibility of a brain living in a vat and the possibility of a cortical visual prosthesis being able to stimulate the visual cortex in the same way that an eye's neurotransmitters do. I don't have to assume anything about what I am. (2) is no less a problem for direct realists than it is for indirect realists.

None of those are possible unless he first believes he can survive as a disembodied brain, which is a huge leap.

If you're still allowed to say "I see apples" then so is the indirect realist. If the indirect realist is only allowed to say "I see sense-data" then you're only allowed to say "I see light".

Of course you’re allowed to say what you want. I just find it odd, or telling, that indirect realists never include their neologisms in the noun position of their own propositions.

No it doesn't.

Yes it does. One has to assume he is a brain and little more. One has to assume that senses are little more than inputs. These assumptions regarding the identity of the perceiver and his relationship with other objects defines how and what he perceives.

Then I'll respond a different way: you should use language consistent with your theory; for instance, instead of saying that you see an apple you ought maintain that you see light.

I already have. I have explicitly stated that I can see mostly everything in my periphery: my own nose, light, apples, foreground, background. Everyone of those is a sense-datum, though, and so have the same properties according to indirect realism.

You're implying that direct realism avoids scepticism, but that simply begs the question. It's entirely possible that both of these are true:

1. If we are bipedal organisms with eyes and if there are apples that reflect light into our eyes then we have direct visual perception of apples
2. We are brains in a vat and a cortical visual prosthesis causes us to have "false" experiences of us being bipedal organisms with eyes living in a world with apples

It isn’t possible that 2 is true unless one already assumes the premises of indirect realism. Moreover, it is rational to assume that things are the way they seem unless and until one has specific reasons for doubting them. That bar has yet to be reached in this discussion. It seems perceivers are not brains and there appears to be no vat.

There's no "instead of". This is like saying that if I watch a football match on TV then instead of saying that I watched a football match I ought say that I watched moving images on a TV screen.

Philosophy is a little different than sports, I’m afraid, and requires a little more precision.

Peak anti-Trumpism is becoming more and more common.

“A federal grand jury returned an indictment earlier this week charging a 33-year-old man with threatening to kill the Vice President of the United States during his visit to the Northwest Ohio region in January.”

“While investigating the alleged threats, federal agents discovered multiple files of child sexual abuse materials in the defendant’s possession.”

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ohio-man-charged-threatening-kill-vice-president-united-states

Before one considers the indirect realist’s thought experiments he ought to ask how an indirect realist can get from propositions about mental states to propositions about the physical world in the first place, and vice versa. As a first order of business they ought to be required to explain how the existence of a real world is more plausible than being deceived by an evil god or being a brain-in a vat, given that they have zero direct access to any of them.

Perhaps the only route for a realist conclusion that I could find is the Inference to the Best Explanation. But then they have to explain why inference, feelings, and intuition is more reliable than the senses. This ought to be the second order of business.

Perhaps a third order of business is to ask the indirect realist to use language consistent with his theory, for instance that instead of saying he sees an apple, he ought to maintain that he sees a sense-data of an apple.

Until then their thought experiments about the real world should be disregarded, at least until they can prove they are not idealists in disguise.

It’s fine to be skeptical of the senses and for the reasons you outline, but it is unprincipled and inconsistent to refuse that same level of skepticism towards so-called phenomenal experience. Then again we don’t really require thought experiments about impossible worlds in order to maintain the unreliability of first-person accounts of their own experiences, whereas that is exactly what is required to doubt the senses.

The managed-decline of Europe was always part of the plan. As Angel Merkel noted, perhaps too late, that Europe is only 7% of the world’s population but accounts for 50% its social spending. As the unsustainable relationship between the authorities and their people continues to crumble, we’ll get to find out soon enough what happens to a population that has been raised to be so dependent on their governments to survive.

A first-person, subjective description of oneself and what is occurring in his one’s own body is limited by the mechanics of his own biology. He cannot fully sense what is going on in there, and so has to guess based on the flimsy evidence afforded to what he can sense from deeper within. Pains, itches, and other feelings is but a patchwork of this limited evidence and always requires a second look, at least medically. Until someone can sonogram or x-ray or open us up, we have no clear picture. A fever or pain could be a sign of a greater malady, for instance, of which he may have no clue.

The description of “naive” ought to be afforded to the phenomenologist on these grounds. It is tantamount to self-diagnosis. He builds an entire philosophical edifice upon unreliable evidence: hallucinations, dreams, and the limited periphery afforded by his own biology. It’s why Michael and Amadeus require analogies from what they can see in order to describe what they cannot.

An example of a constituent of that experience to be more precise. I’d like to avoid equivocating between “experience” as an occurrence or state of the human body, and “experience” as a space in which things occur.

I don’t know what a “constituent of the first-person phenomenal experience” is, and whether light it one or not. Can I have an example for the sake of comparison?

Then let’s try a different object of perception: the light that has bounced off an apple. How does one indirectly perceive the light bouncing off an apple?

I believe we have indirect visual perception of apples through the direct visual perception of light. This shouldn’t matter because the problem of perception is whether we can directly perceive the mind-independent world or directly perceive some mind-dependent intermediary. So why are we trying to keep discussion away from the problem?

Again, perception isn’t limited to the visual, as you’ve conceded. Yet you keep limiting it to the visual. While I’ve long conceded that I cannot visually perceive apples (or anything) without light, you refuse to address whether I can still perceive apples without light. The answer to that question is “yes”.

Yes

So if you consider visual perception indirect because there is distance and other objects between apples and the eye, how do you describe perception where there is no distance nor other objects between the sense organ and the apple?

Perception isn’t just visual. Do you agree or disagree?

We have direct perception of X iff our sense organs are in direct physical contact with X

Yes, and many sense organs can touch apples. But indirect realism says we cannot directly perceive the mind-independent world. That includes light and apples. That’s the issue and you cannot avoid it.

The deep state’s political hits against DNI Gabbard have returned, which indicates to me that she’s directly over the target.

Classified Whistleblower Complaint About Tulsi Gabbard Stalls Within Her Agency

(Note: poisoning the well is the point—buried deep in the article is that the whistleblower complaint was deemed “not credible” by the Inspector General of both the Biden and Trump admins)

Recent news about her investigating the 2020 election in Georgia and Puerto Rico hints at what the possible target may be.

You don't even know what you're saying, let alone what the dispute is. You think your intuitions are arguments and deal with complex empirical issues that humans are not disposed to solve. Craziness.

You believe you can’t see the real world. Bizarre.

X is the mind-independent world. Contact with it is constant and immediate. One cannot disprove that with false analogies, formal hocus-pocus, and imagining off into strange worlds. You have no argument; there is no justification for your position; and it comes from a limited view which seeks to limit itself further by pretending something mediates his contact with the world immediately outside himself.

I have been arguing that we have direct perception of the mind-independent world, of which apples and light are constituents. You cannot evade this fact, nor can you support your own beliefs at the same time. You have not put forward a single argument in defense of your thesis, and have consistently avoided any and all questions regarding it.

You called their move on targeting the pornography as censorship

These are images generated by users, not the company. It’s weird that they wouldn’t want to go after the guilty people, but aim it towards Musk.

Why would you want them to go after the innocent and not the guilty?

I don’t know, I’m not going to read it. Your guy is a failed disc jockey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Blundell

I haven’t defended anything. In fact I criticized French authorities.

They are the good guys.

You’re linking me to substack articles from a Canadian anti-Trump propagandist. Are you the author?

The story from Axios and NBC is far different:

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/03/musk-grok-deepfakes-paris-prosecutors-x-search

French cybercrime units have raided the offices of X in relation to Grok's Holocaust denial and explicit deepfakes. Grok is artificial intelligence. Musk himself has been summoned by prosecutors.

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/france-paris-prosecutors-x-office-elon-musk-sexual-deepfakes-holocaust-rcna257202

These and other incidences of European harassment have been a growing concern, as the supposed allies who have been benefitting from American military protection for decades, have been threatening US companies with their censorship regime for many years now.

It's indirect visual perception of apples and trees and everything other than light, which is a very significant asterisk to your "direct visual perception of a mind-independent world".

Not in my view. It just means that there are other things between us and the apple. We perceive those too, and in fact much of what exists in our periphery to some degree or another.

What I cannot perceive is an image of an apple, a sense-datum of light, or a representation of my own periphery. I don’t believe you can either.

It straddles the line because traditional direct realism rejects (1) and (2), you accept (1) and reject (2), and the sense datum theory accepts (1) and (2). I would even say that if you accept (1) then you are an indirect realist with respect to seeing apples even if you're not a sense datum theorist with respect to seeing apples.

1. We do not have direct visual perception of apples, only indirect visual perception of apples
2. We have direct visual perception of mental phenomena

We have direct visual perception of much of our periphery, which sometimes includes apples. I can get so direct about it that I can consume the apple. This is possible because I’m not an eye in Cartesian space and apples are not floating about in a void one minute and ultra-slowy light in the next. All i’ve straddled were the absurdities of these scenarios. It is still the case that I believe we have direct perception of the mind-independent world. I also still deny that we have direct visual perception of mental phenomena.

Yes, and this is indirect perception of the object reflecting the light even according to your account of direct perception.

Sure, but it isn’t indirect perception of the mind-independent world. So you agree with direct perception of the mind-independent world, which is contrary to indirect realism.

Your brand of "direct" realism agrees with (1) even if it doesn't agree with (2). I am simply pointing out that direct realism as almost everyone else understands it doesn't agree with (1), and so you theory straddles the line between traditional direct realism and the sense datum theory.

But I haven’t used the concept of sense-datum at all, so nothing is straddled.

Over here many use the term “commie” in the pejorative sense to describe basically anything left-of-center. My use of the terms wasn’t necessarily a description of his values, only that he is going to try to subvert the prevailing global orthodoxy with some far-left theatrics.

For instance his latest move is one of them. I’m not aware of the laws over there, but over here there are tedious and lengthy processes to becoming a citizen, and this is true of many nation states. It can take years to become a citizen. Documenting the undocumented on such a large scale is to make a mockery of that effort, and the many who go through that effort (myself included). Many have been jailed or deported based for far less.

Ain’t that the truth.

But you said “That's exactly what it implies: that the Light is a data medium between the object and your eyes. That would be data derived from your sensual apparati (not a real word lol) - sense data”.

Yeah, sense-data is a mental thing. Light isn’t. Do you get it now?

It’s true; Europe has grown dependent on the US for many reasons, most of which is the American government’s fault. Good or bad, living generations of people in both continents have to deal with these conditions.

The prime minister is the president of the Socialist International and from the Spanish Socialist Workers Party. That’s what we call a “commie” over here. This entire thread is about calling Trump a fascist and Americans dumb Nazis-lovers. Hell, I was called a fascist a page or two back. Please allow me this one…

Are you saying light is sense-data?

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Most direct realists say that we have direct visual perception of apples and trees and everything else that emits or reflects light into our eyes, whereas your account is that we only have direct visual perception of light. Yours is a strange kind of direct realism.

Do you disagree with me? It shouldn’t matter, in any case. Light is mind-independent, a “distal object”. It is through the direct connection of the light reflecting off other objects that we can see the object. None of this implies sense-data or other mental objects either.

Obviously you disagree with all the talk about "mental re-creations" and "images" and "percepts", but there's nothing objectionable about the use of "distal object" to refer to the object that reflects the light and "proximal stimulus" to refer to the light absorbed by the photoreceptors in the eye.

According to the definition you provided, light is a distal object, an “object in the real world”.

If the “proximal stimulus” is the “stimulation”, you’ve begun to talk about the perceiver, in this case what he does when he contacts light with his retina. There appears to be no other referent for these terms once we’re able to scratch through the cloak of neologisms. It’s clear to me, at least, that we’re no longer talking about the object of perception, which is the light bouncing off an apple.

Of course there's light beyond the proximal stimulus, but according to your theory it isn't directly perceived because it isn't in physical contact with our sense organs.

It will be in physical contact with our senses, just as the apple will be when we pick it up and eat it.

But you can’t know any of this because you can only directly perceive yourself.

According to your theory something is directly perceived only when it's in physical contact with our sense organs, in which case it is no longer a distal object but a proximal stimulus.

Objects don’t turn from one thing to another according to its proximity of the body. It’s a distinction without a difference.

Fair enough, Javi. No offence meant to you personally. But in the same vein, American politics ought to be irrelevant to Europeans, yet here we are.

No, it's a proximal stimulus. Distal objects are things like apples that reflect the light.

Light is not a “distal object”. So beyond the “proximal stimulus” there is no light? You’re repeating phrases, that’s it, making distinctions where there are none. It’s pure nounism.

Is light not a “distal object”?

We directly perceive light. Light is a member/instance/object of the mind-independent world. Therefore, we directly perceive the mind-independent world.

The species hasn’t evolved much in the last couple hundred years, I’m afraid.

Spaniards want to live in a country with affordable houses and better salaries. Our history cannot fix this.

Yet you keep electing people who want to take a large part of your income in order to spend it on illegals, other people, themselves, knowing full well that if you find a higher salary they’ll just take more.

Then what you mean by "direct perception" isn't what most other direct realists mean by it.

1. I don’t really care
2. That’s not entirely true.

According to everyone’s favorite, the SEP:

A.D. Smith claims that what most authors have in mind in talking about the Problem of Perception is the “question of whether we can ever directly perceive the physical world”, where “the physical world” is understood in a realist way: as having “an existence that is not in any way dependent upon its being... perceived or thought about” (2002: 1). The arguments at the heart of the Problem of Perception challenge this direct realist perspective on perceptual experience.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem

So I understand the problem similar to “most authors”, according to AD Smith. If I take a different approach to solving that problem that shouldn’t be an issue, at least for someone who doesn’t require other people’s arguments to pad their own.

So my solution is something like this. We directly perceive light. Light is a member/instance/object of the mind-independent world. Therefore, we directly perceive the mind-independent world.

I say the “directness” of perception is simple contact because it leaves zero space for mediation. As you show with your false analogies, once you allow space between objects there is a necessary mediation because light has to travel through that space and is at the mercy of anything in there (air, water). Contact is the only situation where there is nothing standing in the way of, or in between, the perceiver and the perceived. This relationship is “unmediated”, by which I mean there is no intervening thing or object. If you can come up with a better account of “directness”, by all means, I’d love to hear it.

On the other hand, you say you directly perceive sensations, or “images”, or “characters of experience”and a whole host of objects that no one else could ever perceive but you promise are there nonetheless. But that, to me, just means you consider yourself perceiver and the object of perception at the same time, a relationship that contradicts any realist position, and one that looks silly given the simple fact that the senses point outward, away from the mind-dependent world towards the mind-independent world.

Relax... leave my country alone.

We don't have law enforcement agencies which shoot people in the streets or folks who jump from the balcony every bloody summer. We are not perfect, but at least we are not like you.

Spain colonized the Americas. Spanish is the most widely spoken language on this side of the pond. Do they not teach history there?