How is the dispute between naive realists and indirect realists any different? One group just prefers to use the noun "visual experience" to include distal objects among its constituents when talking about having a visual experience and the other group just prefers to use the noun "visual experience" to exclude distal objects among its constituents when talking about having a visual experience. — Luke
Then how is it merely grammatical? — Luke
Are the following statements also true?
"I see cows and cows are mental phenomena."
"I see colours and colours are distal objects."
"I feel pains and pains are distal objects." — Luke
It still doesn't make sense to say that what you feel as pleasure (the sensation itself) feels to them as pain. — Pierre-Normand
And the fact that what you feel is pleasure rather than pain is not something private and incommunicable (as red/blue inverted qualia allegedly are) but rather is manifested by the fact that you don't retreat your hand from the flame but rather are inclined to prolong the stimulus. — Pierre-Normand
There is no inverted qualia. — Pierre-Normand
If you could really feel a feeling in this or that way, then just like appears to be the possible with your account of seeing colors (i.e. "perceiving a mental phenomenon"), there could conceivably be cases of inverted pain/pleasure qualia whereby what feels to me like pleasure feels to you like pain and vice versa. — Pierre-Normand
I never said it was all about sight. I asked whether we see distal objects. — Luke
I asked whether we see distal objects. Why are you now talking about experience instead of seeing? — Luke
Do I see distal objects? Do I feel distal objects when I touch them? Are distal objects a mental phenomena? — Luke
The claim "we see representations" is the substance of the dispute between direct and indirect realists. Indirect realists claim that we see representations, whereas direct realists claim that we do not see representations. — Luke
Michael appears to claim that can only ever refer to the sensation-of-cow — Banno
Naive realists claim that “visual experience” includes distal objects among its constituents. Indirect realists claim that “visual experience” does not include distal objects among its constituents. Therefore, both groups mean something different by “visual experience”. — Luke
The second formulation is the constitutive claim, which says that it introspectively seems to one that the perceived mind-independent objects (and their features) are constituents of the experiential state. Nudds, for instance, argues that ‘visual experiences seem to have the NR [Naïve Realist] property’ (2009, p. 335), which he defines as ‘the property of having some mind-independent object or feature as a constituent’ (2009, p. 334), and, more explicitly, that ‘our experience […] seems to have mind-independent objects and features as constituents’ (2013, p. 271). Martin claims that ‘when one introspects one’s veridical perception one recognises that this is a situation in which some mind-independent object is present and is a constituent of the experiential episode’ (2004, p. 65).
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... Intentionalism typically characterizes the connection between perception (taken as a representative state) and the perceived mind-independent objects as a merely causal one. But if the connection is merely causal, then it seems natural to take the suitable mind-independent objects to be distinct from the experience itself and, therefore, not literally constituents of it.
Agreed, but false analogy with regard to what I'm arguing. That fits with what you're arguing about all perception, and what I'm arguing only regarding hallucinations/dreams. Replace the painter with distal objects. — creativesoul
While this latter dispute could boil down to a disagreement over the meaning of the word "perceive", the dispute between naive and indirect realists could equally be viewed as a disagreement over the meaning of the phrase "visual experience". So, if the dispute between direct realists and indirect realists is merely grammatical, then so too is the dispute between naive realists and indirect realists. They are therefore equally substantive disputes. — Luke
Our perception is directed, intentional. — Banno
The most common form of direct realism is Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR). PDR is the theory that direct realism consists in unmediated awareness of the external object in the form of unmediated awareness of its relevant properties. I contrast this with Semantic Direct Realism (SDR), the theory that perceptual experience puts you in direct cognitive contact with external objects but does so without the unmediated awareness of the objects’ intrinsic properties invoked by PDR. PDR is what most understand by direct realism. My argument is that, under pressure from the arguments from illusion and hallucination, defenders of intentionalist theories, and even of relational theories, in fact retreat to SDR. I also argue briefly that the sense-datum theory is compatible with SDR and so nothing is gained by adopting either of the more fashionable theories.
There is however the distal object, which is the proximal cause of the table related aspects of all our proximal stimuli in veridical perception - and that is what we perceive. — fdrake
Veridical perception, hallucination, and illusions. You claim they share the same constituents, and the difference is in their causes.
Can you set out the different causes? — creativesoul
They are what's being perceived in every veridical and illusory case — creativesoul
Since all three kinds are existentially dependent upon distal objects, but hallucinations do not include distal objects, there are differences in their constitution — creativesoul
Why is it, then, that you can't focus your attention on the proximal mental image and reinterpret it? Isn't it because this "mental image" already is an act of interpreting what is out there rather than it being an act of "seeing" what's in the brain? — Pierre-Normand
I am asking, is this proximal object that they see something that is already interpreted or still ambiguous (as, say, a bundle of colors and shapes)? — Pierre-Normand
Why do you think that the proximate cause for touch and taste is the distal object but not for sight? How about hearing? — fdrake
The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, known as the distal stimulus or distal object. By means of light, sound, or another physical process, the object stimulates the body's sensory organs. These sensory organs transform the input energy into neural activity—a process called transduction. This raw pattern of neural activity is called the proximal stimulus. These neural signals are then transmitted to the brain and processed. The resulting mental re-creation of the distal stimulus is the percept.
To explain the process of perception, an example could be an ordinary shoe. The shoe itself is the distal stimulus. When light from the shoe enters a person's eye and stimulates the retina, that stimulation is the proximal stimulus. The image of the shoe reconstructed by the brain of the person is the percept. Another example could be a ringing telephone. The ringing of the phone is the distal stimulus. The sound stimulating a person's auditory receptors is the proximal stimulus. The brain's interpretation of this as the "ringing of a telephone" is the percept.
The different kinds of sensation (such as warmth, sound, and taste) are called sensory modalities or stimulus modalities.
Do you think that indirect realists can accept that distal objects are the proximate cause of experience? That is the sense I meant. — fdrake
When human beings experience features of the world by means of sense perception, the things that they experience cause them to experience them in some specific ways, but the understanding that they bring to bear also shapes the character and content of those experiences. — Pierre-Normand
Would you say that Sue and Lia are caused by the visual presentation of the figure to experience, or see, the same mental phenomenon and that that they give it different interpretations, or would you say that they experience different mental phenomena? — Pierre-Normand
I don't agree that experience is located in the brainbody, so where does that leave us? — Janus
If all you mean by saying that distal objects are not in the body or brain, well so what? — Janus
We do, after all, have the word "hallucination", "dream", "delusion' and so on precisely because we are aware of that difference. — Banno
You want to say that the experience is the same, but having a dream is qualitatively different to being awake; having an hallucination is different to having a cow.
If hallucination of an apple amounts to the biological machinery doing the same thing it has done in past, while looking at an apple, then it becomes clear which one is existentially dependent upon the other.
They are not the same. Indirect realism cannot seem to account for that. — creativesoul
Fungus huh?
Is hallucination of an apple possible if one has never ever seen one, if one is completely unaware that there are such things as apples? — creativesoul
Well, whether or not something follows from one's terms is established by one's meaning, not the others'. — creativesoul
I cannot make sense of hallucination unless compared to non-hallucinatory experience. Non hallucinatory experience does not depend upon hallucinatory in the same sense of "depend". Existential dependency. On the indirect realist account, there is no difference between the constituents.
That's just plain wrong.
A hallucination or dream of an apple does not require a distal object(an apple) except sometime in past experience. For that is when the biological machinery does its perception work. In dreams and hallucinations, its (mis)firing as though it has once again perceived or is once again perceiving an apple, despite no apple being perceived.
To me, I am directly perceiving the chicken in the other room, because small parts of it entered my nose. — creativesoul
I'm guessing that you'll deny that the chicken is a constituent of my perception or my experience. I'm guessing that you'll deny that the molecules are a constituent of my perception or experience.
So idealists believe our perceptions are the objects? What brand of idealists does that? — Mww
If both hearing and hallucinating are the activities of the auditory cortex, and the voice is merely the product of this activity, there seems to me no way to distinguish between veridical experience and hallucination, whether it arrives from an appropriate proximal stimulus or not. — NOS4A2
If one only has direct knowledge of the voice as the cortex has constructed it, how does one infer whether there is a proximal stimulus of the cortex or not? It seems to me there must first be some direct knowledge of a proximal stimulus that is not merely the product of the cortex. — NOS4A2
You can tell me what you mean by “hearing” and “voices” and I’m willing to adopt your definitions. If you think hearing doesn’t involves the use of ears and that a voice isn’t the sounds from the larynx, then what are they? — NOS4A2
The claim “I hear voices” in the case of hallucination is not true, though. — NOS4A2
it just boggles my mind why they’d appropriate the language used to describe those things and interactions to describe mind-dependant things and interactions — NOS4A2
I’m fine with them saying it. But I’m not fine with the indirect realist saying it, especially if accuracy is any concern.
What would be your motivation for wishing to retain the language used to describe the interactions of distal objects and the sense organs to describe mental objects and the mental organs? — NOS4A2
A voice, though, is the sound released from the larynx. To hear a voice is to have that sound affect the ears. Since neither of these things and events are present in a hallucination, to say “I hear voices” is to mischaracterize the experience.
One can distinguish between between two different hallucinations by simply describing how they are different. One might be audible or visual, for example. — NOS4A2
“Hallucinate” would be a better verb than “see” when comes to such events. “I am hallucinating voices”, for instance, doesn’t imply that the sound of a voice is hitting the ear, and recognizes that some bodily activity is producing the phenomena. — NOS4A2
Indirect realism has you sitting inside your head, seeing and touching what is constructed by your nerves. — Banno