I said the light comes from distant objects and afford us information about distant objects — NOS4A2

Which means what?

Here's a non-human biological organism with skin and bones and muscles and organs and photosensitive receptor cells. What does it mean to say that electromagnetic radiation "carries information" about some distal object, and what does it mean for this biological organism to "see" this distal object? Because all that's happening is photosensitive receptor cells are reducing the release of glutamate in response to absorbing photons. Everything else you're taking about is meaningless folk psychology. Point to where in the light and the body this supposed "information about the distal object" is.

You’re grasping onto false analogies — NOS4A2

It's not a false analogy because it's not an analogy; it's the literal topic of discussion. Under what conditions is direct perception satisfied? Is it direct perception if I see an object through CCTV? Why or why not? If I see it through my phone's camera? If I see it through a periscope? If I see it through a pair of binoculars? If I see it through a pair of glasses? Even the direct realist must accept that some of these count as indirect perception, and so if your account cannot suitably exclude these then your account fails. Earlier you said that our perception is direct if "our senses are in direct contact with ... the wavelengths in the light ... affording us information about those distant objects", but this does not suitably exclude those situations which everyone ought agree is indirect, e.g. with CCTV. You've gone too far in the opposite direction after your previous attempt left you unable to directly see anything other than light.

You’re still not explaining what it means for a biological organism to see a distant object.

Your first account entailed that we only have direct perception of proximal stimuli, e.g. light, because these are the only things in direct physical contact with our body’s sense receptors. This defeated your own claim that we see distant objects.

Your second account entailed that we have direct perception of the basement when watching it on CCTV because our body’s sense receptors are in direct physical contact with the light that “affords us information about” the basement. This is both vapid — as even most direct realists will accept that we only have indirect perception of the basement when watching it on CCTV — and makes use of the very same folk psychology that you keep denying; what is this “information about the basement” and can you point to where in the light and the body this thing exists?

If you're going to argue that "first-person phenomenal experience" is a meaningless phrase then all you have left is a physical object being moved by the matter and energy that it comes into direct contact with (and by its own internal energy), and so the concept of this physical entity — whether rock, plant, toad, or human — "seeing" some distant object makes no sense. This object no more "sees" the distant object that sent light its way than it "feels" the distant object that threw a ball at it.

I’m listen to the speech now, he’s lost his mind. — Punshhh

Several times he talked about Iceland instead of Greenland. His dementia is showing.

The issue I’m pressing is whether phenomenal qualities satisfy the same kind of public, normative criteria—identity, persistence, affordance, counterfactual structure—that we ordinarily use to count something as an object in a robust sense, such as a game-object or a truck. My claim is that they do not. — Esse Quam Videri

Well, phenomenal qualities are essentially private, so obviously they can’t satisfy public criteria. You’ve defined “direct perception” in such a way that indirect realism is ruled out a priori. This is why I think you’re just using a different definition, because I think the traditional dispute is something that can only be resolved a posteriori.

For me, it is about whether "objecthood" is required to make sense of those facts. Whereas the game-object satisfies public, normative criteria of objecthood - identity, persistence, affordance, counterfactual robustness - phenomenal qualities do not. This doesn't make them illusory. They are subject to other norms - the norms of perceptual description and articulation - but they don't meet the qualifications of "objecthood" in the way that the game-object does. — Esse Quam Videri

For me, to be the "object" of perception is just to be the X in "I perceive X". If I feel pain then pain is the object of perception, if I see colours then colours are the object of perception, and if I hear a truck then the truck is the object of perception. I don't read anything more into the word "object" in this context.

The relevant philosophical questions concern a) the ontology of pain, colours, and trucks, and b) which of these (if any) are "directly present in" (i.e. literal constituents of) phenomenal experience.

No, not as stated. I would not say that I am "aware of" these shapes, sizes, colours, and motions as objects of awareness. I would say that I am "aware that" they are the way in which I am aware of the object. It is the game-object that I am aware of, not the phenomenal qualities themselves. Those qualities characterize the manner of presentation, but they are not what is presented. — Esse Quam Videri

Then I think this is our fundamental disagreement. As above with my reply to RussellA, I think it quite appropriate to say that I am aware of these phenomenal shapes and sizes and colours. I recognize them as being present, as differing from one another and other things not present, as having names, and so on. And to return to my earlier argument with John and Jane seeing the box to be a different colour, I do make use of these phenomenal shapes and sizes and colours (in conjunction with any background knowledge) to make inferences about what's going to happen next in the game, or about what sort of things are interacting with my body when not playing a game, and so on.

But there is no relation between perceiver and a mental state if the perceiver IS the mental state. — RussellA

I would add that a mental state isn't really just one thing. There's the "sensory" mental state, but then also the "intellectual" mental state. I think it quite appropriate to say that my intellect is aware of and tries to make sense of the sensations.

I'm not denying that "sense" and "reference" are two different things. I'm not saying that one needs to understand the referent to understand the sense. I'm not saying that every word has a referent. I'm saying that the word "red" as ordinarily understood has a referent, and that this referent, like with the word "pain", is a mental phenomenon, and not a mind-independent property of the world (e.g. a surface that reflects 700nm light).

If you want to ignore reference and only consider sense then you're welcome to, but then that's just pretend, because reference is real. And in the context of the debate about the nature of perception, the referents of words such as "red" and "bird" matter.

Not quite. I don't use "mind independent", it's a term of philosophical art, not at all useful

"Bird" refers to the bird. Red is the colour of its head, chest and back, it being a male rosella.

These sentences are extensionally true.

We do not need a metaphysical contrast between “mind-dependent” and “mind-independent” to make sense of any of this. Doing so is philosophical hokum. — Banno

Then replace "mind-independent" with "exists at a distance to my body and has such properties even when nobody is looking at it".

So there's an organism that exists at a distance to my body, and this organism is referred to by the word "bird", and it has properties even when nobody is looking at it, and one of these properties is referred to by the word “red”.

I agree with the first part, but not the second part. The bird certainly has properties even when nobody is looking at it, and one of these properties is to reflect 700nm light, but the word "red" as ordinarily understood doesn't refer to such a property. Rather, 700nm light stimulates my eyes in such a way that it triggers certain neural activity in my brain, from which first person phenomenal experience emerges, and this first person phenomenal experience has various qualities, one of which I refer to using the word "red".

We naively think of this phenomenal quality as being one of the properties that the bird has even when nobody is looking at it, but our science has confirmed that it isn't. This naive view is mistaken. A sentence like "the bird is red" to be literally true ought be interpreted as "the bird appears red", where the word "red" refers to the quality of the first person phenomenal experience it causes to happen. Much like with "the dress I see is white and gold" — it really does appear white and gold to me, with the words "white" and "gold" referring to the very real quality of my first person phenomenal experience (and not something like wavelengths of light).

Answering the second question involves appealing to shape, size, colour, salience and motion. These are features of the perceptual episode — Esse Quam Videri

So shape, size, colour, and motion are "features of the perceptual episode". Do you accept that I am aware of these shapes, sizes, colours, and motions, and so that I am aware of the "features of the perceptual episode"? Do you accept that this perceptual episode and its features are visual in nature? Do you accept that to be aware of visual features is to see these features?

It’s not inconsistent because the rest of the world is full of mediums through which to view, hear, and smell distant objects. Dealing with those mediums counts as direct perception of the world because our senses are in direct contact with those mediums, whatever information they afford us, and those mediums are features of the environment. The molecules in the air, the wavelengths in the light, the soundwaves in the water, come from the distant objects, affording us information about those distant objects. — NOS4A2

You're still not explaining what it means for a biological organism to "see" a distant object. If eliminative materialism is true then there is just skin and bone and muscles and organs, with sense receptors absorbing energy and converting it into other forms, often causing the body to move. So how do you get from "the rods and cones in my eyes are reacting to electromagnetic radiation" to "I see the distant object that reflected the light", and what does the latter even mean without reference to first person phenomenal experience?

And your account of direct realism is rather vapid. If I place mirrors all around my house such that I can be in the attic and see what's happening in the basement, does this count as direct perception of the basement because my senses are in "direct contact" with the light that "affords me information" about what's happening in the basement? What if I replace the mirrors with CCTV?

You’ve gone from defining direct realism in such a way that we only directly see light to defining it in such a way that we directly see World War II when watching a documentary on the History Channel.

Virtual objects exist when the VR system is running — Esse Quam Videri

Isn't there a difference between the "virtual object" as a collection of transistors turning on and off and the "virtual object" as the thing seen with shape, size, colour, and behaviour? I wouldn't say that the monster I see running towards me continues to be "materially realised" if I remove the eye and leave it on the table. Something essential seems to be missing if you subtract the phenomenal aspect. Our bodies and brains (and minds) are as much a part of the system as the eye itself is.

materially realized, but not reducible to a set of material objects, processes or structures — Esse Quam Videri

I’m not really sure what that means. Does the game object exist if the eye is functioning normally but the wearer is brain dead? Does it exist if the wearer is a p-zombie? Or does it only exist as a phenomenal and conceptual construct, i.e created and understood by a sufficiently intelligent mind during high level brain activity?

I was just running through the consequences of your position — Hanover

It's not a consequence of my position. Direct perception of a mind-independent object is not required for our words to refer to it. I've never met Trump — only seen photos and videos of him — and yet when I use the word "Trump" I'm referring to the man, not the photos or videos. This way in which words can refer to things that aren't directly perceived does not change simply by moving the direct object of perception back "into the head", as the indirect realist does.

I've consistently attached it use. — Hanover

And I disagree. Words do, in fact, refer to things. The name "Donald Trump" refers to the man who is President of the United States. The phrase "Napolean's first wife" refers to Joséphine de Beauharnais. And the words "pain", "pleasure", "red", and "sour" refer to different types of first person phenomenal experience. If Wittgenstein and Austin disagree then they are wrong. If they don't disagree then whatever you're saying does not refute my claims.

The bird is not the underying substratum, but is just my phenomenal state. But if that's the case, then the noumenal element does no semantic work and doesn't fix any standard of correctness, so in what sense is it relevant to a discussion of meaning at all rather than just a background causal hypothesis? — Hanover

I'm very confused.

I'm saying that some of our words (e.g. "red") are referring to phenomenal states and some of our words (e.g. "bird") are referring to the mind-independent object that is causally responsible for phenomenal states.

At first you seemed to be saying that the word "red" doesn't refer to phenomenal states because meaning is public use and nobody knows anyone else's phenomenal state, whereas now you appear to be saying the opposite and that all words refer to phenomenal states and none to the mind-independent objects that are causally responsible for phenomenal states.

But then at the same time @Banno appears to agree with you even though my understanding of him is that he claims that the word "bird" refers to the mind-independent object and the word "red" refers to one of its mind-independent properties (e.g. a surface that reflects 700nm light?), and so that you and him are arguing for opposite positions, whereas I'm arguing for a middle ground.

So I really don't know what to make of any of this, or which claims of mine you are disagreeing with. Do you accept that the words "red" and "pain" (can) refer to phenomenal states (even if they can also refer to other things)?

There's no such thing as what pixels "really" look like, if this is supposed to mean how they look when nobody is looking (which is why naive realism is false). But they exist (which is why idealism is false), and their behaviour is causally responsible for the mental phenomena that is brought into existence by neural activity in my brain; mental phenomena with characteristics and qualities that I refer to using such words as "red" and "circle", and in non-pixel related situations as "loud" and "hot" and "sour" and "painful" (which is why your suggestion that there's nothing more to meaning than public use is false).

So when the bionic eye is being used to play a VR game, the direct object of perception — the "object" acting as intentional object — is not a mind-independent material object?

Is this also true when the eye is being used to help the wearer navigate the real world?

You're still not explaining what it means for a biological organism to "see" a distant object. You're an eliminative materialist so there are no mental phenomena or first-person subjective experiences, just skin and bone and muscles and organs, with sense receptors absorbing the electromagnetic or kinetic or chemical energy they come into contact with and converting it into other forms, often causing the body to move.

That you want to be both an eliminative materialist and a direct realist (about distant objects) strikes me as being entirely inconsistent. You could maybe get away with this if you limited direct realism to touch and taste — as you did before when you tried to explain direct realism in terms of the body being in direct physical contact with the object perceived — but it just doesn't work when you include sight, hearing, and smell, where somehow the body’s reaction to proximal stimuli counts as “direct perception” of distal objects.

I don't understand what you're asking.

At the moment there is no ship, only a collection of pixels on my computer screen emitting various wavelengths of light that cause my brain/mind to construct a two-dimensional appearance that somewhat resembles how a ship on water would appear to me were I to look at one in real life.

I'm telling you that philosophy is therapuetic, not a statement about the world. — Hanover

I disagree. Philosophy is us trying to reason about the nature of the world and its workings.

Are these intentional objects something the mind creates or are they mind-independent? Do these intentional objects only exist when the bionic eye is being used to play a VR game, or do they also exist when the bionic eye is being used to help their wearer navigate the real world? If the latter, and if intentional objects are not reducible to material objects, then would it be more accurate to say that their wearers have direct perception of (mind-dependent?) intentional objects rather than direct perception of (mind-independent) material objects, and so that their wearers only have indirect perception of material objects? And presumably whatever is true in this respect with a bionic eye is also true with an organic eye?

I would say that we do not see things like "phenomenal qualities", "mental pictures" or "electromagnetic radiation", but the virtual objects and environments themselves. — Esse Quam Videri

What is the ontology of these virtual objects and environments? Are they material things situated outside the body? Are they the software running on the eye's hardware? Are they neurological? Are they phenomenal?

If a bionic eye, as well as being able to help the otherwise-blind navigate the real world, can be used to play VR computer games, then what, if anything, do we see when we use it to play VR computer games? — Michael

I'd be interested in what you think @Esse Quam Videri. I don't intend to start a new debate so won't argue against anything you say, just curious.

If a bionic eye, as well as being able to help the otherwise-blind navigate the real world, can be used to play VR computer games, then what, if anything, do we see when we use it to play VR computer games?

If someone donates their Medal of Honor to me then do I become a war hero?

But it doesn’t seemingly do that. Rather, it looks like objects are already colored. — NOS4A2

And it seems as if this coloured object exists beyond the body, but it is in fact a feature of the phenomenal experience that emerges from brain activity and does not extend beyond the body. Similar to how when playing a VR game it seems as if there's a monster standing 100 feet in front of you.

I said seemingly projected out beyond the body. Look up phantom itches and phantom pains. It seems as if there's an itch or a pain located where one's arm used to be, but which is in fact now "empty" space. Obviously there is no itch or pain actually there.

Then what are you coloring and shaping if not something in your skull? Are you playing with the light in there? — NOS4A2

I explained it clearly above.

But you color it and give it shape, no? even though you cannot reach it? — NOS4A2

The distant object reflects light into our eyes which triggers neurological activity which causes conscious experience with phenomenal character, with features such as shape, colour, depth, etc., and then like a phantom itch it's seemingly projected out beyond the body, despite the fact that conscious experience does not extend beyond the body.

Then what are you watching when you point your eyes towards distant objects? — NOS4A2

The distant object.

I don’t doubt we view things from a certain place in space and time. I just doubt that we’re watching things occur in our skull. — NOS4A2

We aren't watching things occur in our skull, just as when we feel pain we aren't touching something that occurs in our skull. You're misinterpreting the grammar.

that we are in fact seeing the environment. — NOS4A2

Which means what?

Without reference to first-person experience, how do you even make sense of what it means for an organism to "see" distant objects? According to your eliminative materialism there is just a mass of skin and bones and muscles reacting to other material that comes into immediate physical contact with it.

There is a biological organism with photoreceptor cells in the eye that absorb electromagnetic radiation and in doing so reduce the release of glutamate into the central nervous system, changing the behaviour of the neurons in the visual cortex, and in many cases affecting bodily movement.

What does it mean to say that this biological organism "directly sees" some object located 100m away from it?

An indirect realist speaks of the thing out there X and the thing in your head Y. If you are not committed to X resembling Y in any way (having no primary consistent quality), then why are we talking about Xs at all? — Hanover

Because we are not idealists and we believe that there is an X and that it has properties that are causally responsible for Y.

Do you think that is my argument though? — Hanover

If your argument is an argument against my claims then it must be — and you have presented it as an argument against my claims.

So if you don't deny that words like "headache" and "colour" are referring to the phenomenal character of subjective experiences then why do you keep bringing up Wittgenstein and Austin when I am clearly talking about perception and indirect realism?

I said reference to mental states does not provide a method to determine meaning because they are not publicaly confirmable. — Hanover

They don't need to be publicly confirmable. I don't need you to tell me that I have a headache for me to have a headache, or for the word "headache" to refer to this mental state that I am in.

What you have been saying is that meaning is use and that mental states have nothing to do with it, and this is wrong. Some words and phrases do in fact refer to mental states, e.g. "mental states", "pain", and "red".

You also seem to have been saying that meaning-as-use entails direct realism, and this is also wrong. Perception and language are two different things.

This comment inadvertently makes my point. Wittgenstein and Austin are fairly clear that their object is to delineate the scope of philosophical inquiry. If ever you believe that scientific evidence defeats philosophical claims, then there has been a category error, confusing science with philosophy. The purpose of philosophy under this tradition is to preserve cogent argumentation and use of language and communication. So, if you are doing science, then your debate would be among scientists. That is, stop trying to disprove my position with science. My position makes no important scientific claims. — Hanover

Philosophical enquiry ought take into consideration what science says about the world. If science says that colours are "in the head" then our philosophical account of language ought recognise that the word "colours" refers to something "in the head", else it is a false account of language.

This doesn't contradict your prior comment, but it presents an odd result. You claim that science answers the questions about how we perceive and not philosophers, but you then claim Locke got it right. We'd have to chalk that up to luck and science vindicating his method, which was just armchair theorizing. That is, he was right, but for the wrong reason. — Hanover

I said that empirical study trumps armchair theorising, i.e. that if the two are ever in conflict then we ought accept the results of empirical study over the results of armchair theorising. I didn't say that armchair theorising can't be correct.

That does not provide support for Locke's theory. Locke posited two things: (1) Primary and (2) secondary qualities. Showing that color (a secondary quality) doesn't exist in the object doesn't prove that primary qualities (shape and size, for example) do. To stick to the science, we would show that none of the attributes of the object go unmediated by the subject, which means that I have no more reason to think a red ball is red than I do to think it's round. — Hanover

I only said that I agree that there is a distinction between primary qualities and secondary qualities, not that I agreed that all the things that Locke says are primary qualities are primary qualities and that all the things that Locke says are secondary qualities are secondary qualities. I agree with him that things like colours and tastes and smells are secondary qualities, but I don't necessarily agree with him that things like shape and size are primary qualities — and in fact I have made arguments earlier in this discussion that orientation is a secondary quality. But I'm not an idealist, and so I do believe that there are mind-independent objects and that they do have mind-independent properties. I'm undecided on whether to be a full Kantian and claim that primary qualities are unknowable or to be a scientific realist and claim that the Standard Model describes these primary qualities.

What I mean is that I use the term ship is a certain way and we get along with its use in predictable ways and I'm not entering into your theoretical scientific musings about reality. — Hanover

You can use the word "ship" however you like, but that has nothing to do with perception. Perception has nothing to do with language and everything to do with physics, physiology, phenomenology, and the relationship between experience and the mind-independent world. People and animals without a language either do or do not directly perceive the world, and whether or not they do is something that only science can answer, not a critical analysis of speech and writing.

... unless you buy into primary and secondary qualities — Hanover

I do.

When I look at the photo of the dress I see a white and gold dress, when others look at the photo of the dress they see a black and blue dress. This is explained by us having different phenomenal experiences and the words "white", "gold", "black", and "blue" referring to the differing characteristics of these phenomenal experiences.

This view is supported by the science of colour:

One of the major problems with color has to do with fitting what we seem to know about colors into what science (not only physics but the science of color vision) tells us about physical bodies and their qualities. It is this problem that historically has led the major physicists who have thought about color, to hold the view that physical objects do not actually have the colors we ordinarily and naturally take objects to possess. Oceans and skies are not blue in the way that we naively think, nor are apples red (nor green). Colors of that kind, it is believed, have no place in the physical account of the world that has developed from the sixteenth century to this century.

Not only does the scientific mainstream tradition conflict with the common-sense understanding of color in this way, but as well, the scientific tradition contains a very counter-intuitive conception of color. There is, to illustrate, the celebrated remark by David Hume:

"Sounds, colors, heat and cold, according to modern philosophy are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind." (Hume 1738: Bk III, part I, Sect. 1 [1911: 177]; Bk I, IV, IV [1911: 216])

Physicists who have subscribed to this doctrine include the luminaries: Galileo, Boyle, Descartes, Newton, Thomas Young, Maxwell and Hermann von Helmholtz. Maxwell, for example, wrote:

"It seems almost a truism to say that color is a sensation; and yet Young, by honestly recognizing this elementary truth, established the first consistent theory of color." (Maxwell 1871: 13 [1970: 75])

This combination of eliminativism—the view that physical objects do not have colors, at least in a crucial sense—and subjectivism—the view that color is a subjective quality—is not merely of historical interest. It is held by many contemporary experts and authorities on color, e.g., Zeki 1983, Land 1983, and Kuehni 1997. Palmer, a leading psychologist and cognitive scientist, writes:

"People universally believe that objects look colored because they are colored, just as we experience them. The sky looks blue because it is blue, grass looks green because it is green, and blood looks red because it is red. As surprising as it may seem, these beliefs are fundamentally mistaken. Neither objects nor lights are actually “colored” in anything like the way we experience them. Rather, color is a psychological property of our visual experiences when we look at objects and lights, not a physical property of those objects or lights. The colors we see are based on physical properties of objects and lights that cause us to see them as colored, to be sure, but these physical properties are different in important ways from the colors we perceive." (Palmer 1999: 95)

Empirical study trumps armchair theorising, which is why I take the science to prove that this ordinary language philosophy is wrong (at least as you are presenting it), and not the other way around.

Why not obtain meaning just from use without concern over the metaphysical underwriting of the term? — Hanover

Because it would be false. Phenomenal experience does in fact exist and some of our words do in fact refer to it and its qualities. All you seem to be saying is "let's pretend otherwise".

But it's confusing because you do seem to accept that the term "phenomenal experience" refers to phenomenal experience, and maybe also the word "pain"? So what exactly are you arguing? Just that colours are mind-independent in a way that pains aren't? What about tastes and smells?

So you are a direct realist with regard to ships? — Hanover

No, I'm saying that the word "ships" refers to ships. Perception and language are not the same thing.

Are you arguing every word has a referent? — Hanover

No, I'm arguing that some words and phrases refer to internal mental states, like "pain", "red", and "internal mental states".

I'm not sure where that leaves us. — Esse Quam Videri

Neither do I, but thanks for the discussion. I don't know if we can avoid going around in circles at this point so perhaps best to end it here.