And what does this have to do with perception? Jesus. — StreetlightX

How the fuck do you think scientists came up with a theory of QM? By sitting in their armchairs and dreaming it up? Or running a shit ton of experiments and trying to make sense of them?

But that's not a sensical claim. It is not even wrong. It's a grammatically correct word salad. — StreetlightX

But it's not. I have no problems understanding it.

Make up your mind: does science 'extract properties which aren't creature dependant' or is science 'creature dependent'. You can't have you cake and eat it. — StreetlightX

Science attempts to be creature independent, and describe the world as it is. That's why we arrive at theories like QM.

then by definition it clearly isn't' talking about anything to do with perception. — StreetlightX

If it has nothing to do with perception, how would we know about it? On an empirical account of knowledge, there must be something perceptible which leads us to inferring the non-perceptible properties of things.

Presumably the same thing that makes a direct realist so sure that there has to be something responsible for the experience (so sure that the things we see continue to exist even when not seen). — Michael

That the alternative is an absurd, gappy and brute account of individual experiences, or solipsism?

Or appeals to God and universal consciousness.

But not: what does it look like when there is no looking involved? — StreetlightX

But doesn't science do exactly that by extracting the properties which aren't creature dependant to arrive at an abstract picture? Nagel's view from nowhere. That's the point of objectivity. To get around our idiosyncratic human experiences.

I think you missed my edit: "or just 'noumena' if you don't even want to be a realist about the Standard Model". — Michael

Yeah, if you want to go full Kant. Streetlight's post would also be Kantian. The external inputs could be the noumena.

It's just that when you arrive at noumena as your reality, why even bother being realist? What makes that more likely than the alternatives? What makes a Kantian so sure there has to be something responsible for experience?

Incidentally, is there a Godwin's equivalent law for metaphysical discussion and QM?

And evolution is an abstract way of describing the very real interaction of fundamental wave-particles. — Michael

If one is realist about wave-particles, but not biological structures, sure.

I think one can be a realist about the fundamentals (e.g quantum mechanics and the Standard Model) but an anti-realist about macroscopic objects. Allows one to avoid reductionism. — Michael

One can. Wouldn't that be mereological nihilism? And does biology still fit in there somehow?

Yeah, it does follow.

Evolution is a fictional account of species because it didn't happen on an anti-realist reading, anymore than God created all the animal kinds in six days. It's just more palatable to modern empiricism.

But so what? Are you suggesting that anti-realism is wrong because it doesn't allow for realism? — Michael

I'm suggesting anti-realism is wrong because it can't explain why anything happens. The instrumentalist explanations are just-so stories. We don't know why appearances have the structure they do. We invent atoms and electromagnetism to make sense of it all. Evolution didn't happen, it's just a story we tell ourselves about our origins, because we replaced the religious account.

Landru was real good at this game.

whereas the anti-realist argues that the object of perception (and the thing we talk about) is the coffee. — Michael

But that anti-realist can't answer the question of why there is coffee, while the realist can appeal to chemistry. For the anti-realist, coffee is brute, and chemistry is a just-so story. Something that makes sense of appearances.

Sure, but what would it otherwise be? — StreetlightX

The external object or environment itself. Direct realism is a sophisticated form of naive realism. Things are as they appear, under normal conditions where the perceiver is functioning properly.

What you call 'anti-realism' only makes sense when countervailed by 'realism', but what you call 'realism' can be given no sensical content as far as I can see, which makes 'anti-realism' itself a position which states nothing, that marks a difference which makes no difference. — StreetlightX

Collapsing the distinction between realism and anti-realism is a form of anti-realism. And you can do that, but what about those "external inputs"? Are they just appearances too?

What about the entire physiological account of perception? Is that an appearance? Is there any reason to suppose anything else exists other than my own appearances? You're providing a sophisticated form of solipsism.

What would it mean for something to be 'unlike' what it appears? Would it appear differently? — StreetlightX

Yeah, the bent stick in water appears straight outside of water. The solid table is mostly empty space on the microphysical level. The earth rotates around the sun, despite appearances. There are massive galaxies of billions of stars, despite it looking like there are only a few thousand points of light in the night sky. Most the EM spectrum is invisible to us. There is a giant list of appearance/reality distinctions.

It's not clear that this is a sensical statement either. — StreetlightX

How is it not? What are the external inputs? What are their properties? Do any of those properties show up in our experiences?

It only supports 'indirect realism' if the very distinction between direct and indirect realism makes sense. But of course, the point is that it doesn't. — StreetlightX

I don't see how it doesn't. You've basically quoted evidence that our perception is internally generated from a combination of external inputs, and ongoing processing in the brain (conversation between cortex and thalamus).

Wakefulness is nothing other than a dreamlike state constrained by external sensory inputs... the brain sustains the same core state of consciousness during REM sleep and wakefulness, but the sensory and motor systems we use to perceive and act can’t affect this consciousness in regular ways when we’re REM-sleep dreaming. Consciousness itself doesn’t arise from sensory inputs; it’s generated within the brain by an ongoing dialogue between the cortex and the thalamus. — StreetlightX

This part is particularly intriguing. I can just hear some philosophers gnashing their teeth over this. Would love to see Dennett's reaction to it.

Things don't look or feel like anything when not being seen or felt. It's naïve (realism) to suggest otherwise. — Michael

So we're left with mathematical abstractions?

Very interesting, thanks. That would seem to largely support indirect realism, even if you're not interested in framing it that way. It also seems to support the Cyrenaic view of perception, which was that it was the result of bodily movements, with the addition of external inputs.

It doesn't really help alleviate skeptical concerns, or tell us much about the nature of the external inputs. As Michael points out, the external inputs can be totally unlike what consciousness presents us.

When two men look at a wheel and agree that its shape is circular what that means is that their "shape" experience is similar. — Magnus Anderson

What it means is that there is a circular object that gives rise to the experience of seeing a circular shape, and that's why two people can have similar experiences. Also that's why there are two people.

The set (or more accurately, category) always refers to some range of experience. There is thus no dichotomy between experience and reality that is separate from our experience. — Magnus Anderson

Science claims otherwise. There is big universe that exists beyond and before, and after us. But our everyday experiences tell us the same thing. The big oak tree has 120 rings. It was alive before I was born, etc. And all of us were born, before we experienced anything. This goes all the way back before humans, and eventually, before life and any sort of experience.

A visual circle is just an experiential effect of the right kind of external stimulation, just as a tactile circle is just an experiential effect of the right kind of external stimulation. I think it very wrong to think that things look (or feel) like something even when not being seen (or felt). — Michael

But objects do have shapes, and those shapes are important to how the objects interact with the world. When we see a circle, we see that shape because the light bounces off it that way. When we feel the shape, we can tell that it's rounded, and if a blind person walked around a shape, they would know they went in a circle.

The fourth point is where I think direct realism fails. The properties of the experience (colour, smell, taste, texture, shape) are properties of the experience and not properties of the external-world stimulus. The properties of the external-world stimulus are causally covariant with the properties of the experience, but they are not the same. For example, a sweet taste is causally covariant with the apple's chemical structure, but isn't a property of the apple, and a red colour is causally covariant with the apple's surface (and/or the reflected light), but isn't a property of the apple's surface (and/or the reflected light). — Michael

I would agree with that. But are there some properties that we do directly perceive, such as shape?

Each one of us has his own experiences. When we say that we both perceive something (i.e. that the sky is blue) what we mean is that we have similar experiences. Nothing else. — Magnus Anderson

What we mean is that we have similar color experiences when looking at the same sky.

It dissolves it because it puts to ground the untenable, philosophically atrophied distinction between the 'mental' and the 'thing itself'; the very question posed by the OP is an error. The challenge is not to answer it but to reformulate its terms entirely. — StreetlightX

I understand, but I don't see how it accomplishes that, since we do have sensory experiences which are not externally generated.

I'm asking for the distinction between perceiving a mind-independent object and perceiving a mental image. I don't get it. — Michael

When you dream, hallucinate, visualize or remember a tree, it's only available to you. When you perceive a tree, other people can also perceive it. Realists say this is so because the tree is mind-independent.

but then the former wants to say that the perception is of the external stimulation and the latter wants to say that the perception is of the experience. Except for the wording, I don't understand the difference. — Michael

It's whether the content of perception is the same as dreaming, hallucinating, etc. or not. What causes it is another matter.

If the indirect realist is correct, then we're seeing the equivalent of a dream tree, like when Morpheus tells Neo he's been living in a dream world. The only difference being that there's an external cause for the perception, which may be similar to the tree, or something entirely else, such as the noumena.

But if the direct realist is right, then what we see is what we get, within the limitations of our sensory organs (obviously science is still needed here).

As long as 'perception' continues to be spoken about as a 'mental', imagistic phenomenon - and not the bodily/physinomic, interactive, environmental, affective, anticipatory, and memory-laden process that it is - this thread will continue to be mired in aporia - as it currently is. — StreetlightX

I'm not sure how putting it in those terms dissolves the philosophical issue of what a perceived tree is, or the skeptical concern that we can't know. Also, we do experience mental* images, and when we see a tree, it can be similar in experience to having a hallucination or dream of a tree.

* Or image generated by our nervous system (or bodily organism), if you prefer. Meaning, it's not external to our being, and thus publically shared.

And what are dreams/hallucinations if not the occurrence of sense-data? — Michael

Agreed, and it's a problem for direct realism, far as I'm concerned. Disjunctivism is one way of dealing with that.

So are you saying that the image of a tree is the tree, or that there's no such thing as the image of a tree? — Michael

No, image of the tree is seeing the tree.

Repeating the claim "awareness is direct" doesn't explain what it means for awareness to be direct. — Michael

You perceive a mind-independent object, not a mental image, sound, etc.

So what does it mean for sense-data/qualia to provide "direct" (or for that matter "indirect") access to the tree? — Michael

Direct realists deny that there are sense-data. Your access to the tree is direct because you're not aware of some idea in the mind (sense-data), you're aware of the tree.

but beyond that, what's the difference between saying that the experience is direct or "just" a simulation? — Michael

The difference is what we're directly aware of when having a perception. The indirect realist has to make an inference to an external tree. The direct realist does not.

. As I see it, only philosophers ever bother with the issue in the first place. — t0m

That's like saying only mathematicians bother with questions like Fermat's last theorem.

Except that questions about whether we really perceive the real world do crop up among average people, and make it into literature and the media. You have people like Elon Musk claiming we're in a simulation and asking scientists to find a way out, or whatever.

Philosophy is like art, math and sport. They are activities humans engage in, but anyone can find those activities to be pointless, or meaningful.

They're just different ways to talk about the same thing. — Michael

But they're not. One is talking about a simulation running inside your head by which you're indirectly aware of an external world.

The other is talking about there being no simulation, just direct access to the external world.

The difference is meaningful and huge, because the first one allows skepticism and idealism a foot in the door, while the other closes the door. That's why Berkeley went after direct realism first.

Maybe it's not about making or doing everything the right way, whatever that might be, maybe it's about how we deal with these problems as we grow and gain more knowledge. — Sam26

Maybe that's because we have no choice in the matter? I wake up tomorrow and declare it's a new day, but I still have to deal with the consequences of yesterday. If I could hit the reset button, there are days I would do that. But nobody gets that choice, so we settle for a coping strategy and call tomorrow a new day where one has hopefully learned something from yesterday's mistakes.

But if gods forbid you run over a kid in the street because you looked down at your phone when the kid ran out in front of you, no amount of growth and making better decisions will bring that kid back. You can tell yourself whatever you want, but not having a reset button sucks big time for some things.

Other than that, I can't think of anything earlier than Descartes and his evil demon. And it was Berkeley that really seemed to set this issue rolling in any widespread way. — andrewk

Wasn't Berkley responding to Locke & Hume?

Also, discrepancies in perception are probably part of what motivated humans to start asking philosophical questions in the first place. At least Simon Blackburn and Daniel Dennett seemed to think the distinction between appearance and reality was a primary motivator.

What writings from ancient times are you thinking of, that treat this as a serious issue for consideration? — andrewk

The Cyrenaics on perceptual relativity, which they took to mean that we can only have knowledge of our perceptual awareness, and not what caused it. Also, the bent stick in the water and other optical illusions were pointed out by Greek skeptics.

And Indian philosophical tradition has been influenced by meditative states and the idea that the world we perceive is an illusion generated by mistakenly thinking we are separate beings.

"Seeing mental images" is indeed a "spectre"; we never see any such thing. We see real or imagined trees. — Janus

I expressed it as "experiencing seeing mental images", which does happen in dreams, imagination, memory and hallucination. In a dream in particular, the experience is as if wee saw a tree with our eyes. It might not be so vivid in imagination, depending on one's capacity for visualization, but I can certainly imagine myself looking at a tree.

Is this affection or process direct or indirect? I would say the question could be answered either way depending on how I think about it; there is no inherent contradiction between these two ways of answering . the contradiction only arises if I demand that one of then must be right. must be absolute; whereas both are only interpretive ways of thinking about experience. — Janus

That might be so, but the long standing concern is ancient skepticism, where we're cut off from knowing about the actual objects that caused the perception. Can interpreting experience in different ways alleviate this concern?

It is a problem of grammar or vocabulary, rather than philosophy. — andrewk

Nah, if the problem of perception were trivially a misuse of words, it wouldn't have persisted for several millennia. Someone back in Ancient Greece, China or India would have pointed it out, and that would be the end of that.

Also, it wouldn't have survived the linguistic and cultural transitions from then until now, since different ways of expressing the problem would have shown that it was a mere grammar mistake.

At least, I don't think it would have taken all the way to Wittgenstein to notice the problem. If it's that hard to figure out, then something else is going on.

This seems straightforward to me, so I can't see where the concern lies. If the above doesn't alleviate your concern, could you please elaborate on what you are concerned about? — andrewk

Whether perception is direct or indirect via a mental intermediary. Dreams, hallucinations, etc bring up the possibility that perception involves an idea in the mind that we experience instead of the public tree.

That we can distinguish dreams, hallucinations, etc from perception is of no pragmatic help here.

I'm not advocating for dream skepticism, and I recognize that we can differentiate our kinds of experiences, such that we know when we have a perception.

The issue for direct realism is that we do have visual (and other sensory) experiences independent of perception. This raises the spectre that perception involves a mental intermediary instead of being direct.

I bring up dreams, imagination, etc for that reason, but usually it's just hallucinations.

The problem is that my experience of a dream tree is similar to an experience of perceiving a tree. So while you can say we don't see or hear when we dream, we do have experiences of seeing and hearing.

The same thing happens when you daydream, except that it's under conscious control. The question that arises is if I can experience seeing when not using my eyes, then what is that I experience when using my eyes?

That's why hallucination is one of the things trotted out against direct realism, because it demonstrates that sometimes we do behold a mental construct, so how do we know that it's not always the case that we're experiencing a mental construct?

Or we can be pragmatic while we do philosophy, as the American Pragmatists, amongst others, did. — andrewk

I understand that. But how does philosophical pragmatism help with concerns raised by noting that dream or hallucination experiences can be like perceptual ones?

If pragmatism deals with those concerns by dismissing them on pragmatic grounds that we can distinguish between experiences, then that's no different from what we do in everyday normal life. It's basically a shrug at the philosophical question being raised.

It will be pissed when it wakes up from that dream in turn and discovers it is a figment of the Matrix. All it sees is magnetic 1s and 0s. And now the Google lab guys are reaching for the reset button to .... argh! — apokrisis

Is that when it launches the nukes and starts making terminators?