Is it possible to perceive a world which is external to our perceptions?

[UndercoverElephant]

Obviously.

It's pretty obvious to me. But at least one person has rejected statement 1.

Tables and chairs are not objects that have existed before perceiving humans evolved, so I can't agree to this. Tables and chairs were created by perceiving humans, showing that the physical world is influenced by us just like we are influenced by the physical world.

I see your point, but it's not really relevant. How about trees and rocks instead?

I don't think that's true either. Our perception of a thing is never identical to the thing itself. I don't even think it is meaningful to claim that they are the same, because that appears to suggest that they somehow appear to be two different objects. But in reality there is just the object and seeing it triggers associations in the brain.

That is no to statement 3.




[size=-2]
1) We percieve objects (tables, chairs, etc....). We will call these "the objects of perception"

2) There is a world, external to humans (it existed before we evolved, it exists when we aren't looking), which is made of things like tables and chairs.

3) Presumably, the tables and chairs we perceive and the tables and chairs in the external world are the same tables and chairs.

Currently declared:

Upchurch: Yes, Yes, No
Sir-Drinks-alot: Yes, Yes, Yes
RubberChicken: Yes, Yes, Yes
chriswl: No, ?, ?
Paul: ?, Yes, ?
Mercutio: ?, No, -
Tricky: ?, Yes, ?
Earthborn: Yes,?, No
[/size]

 

[UndercoverElephant]

This would all go away if philosophers would just admit "Oh yeah, right, our internal images of things are based on sensory input from the world." Then the human/BIV distinction disappears.

Correct. But it's indirect realism and indirect realism suffers from some serious problems of a sort that you aren't going to like:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/#3.1.2

Another influential objection to sense-data, rarely explicitly stated, but present in the background of much discussion, comes from the prevailing naturalism of contemporary philosophy. Naturalism (or physicalism) says that the world is entirely physical in its nature: everything there is supervenes on the physical, and is governed by physical law. Most sense-data theorists are committed to the claim that sense-data are mind-dependent: objects whose existence depends on the existence of states of mind. If the sense-data theory is to be consistent with naturalism, then it has to explain how an object can be brought into existence by the existence of an experience, and how this is supposed to be governed by physical law. These entities not only seem to be an unnecessary addition to the naturalistic world picture, but from a naturalistic perspective the mechanisms which determine how these entities behave are obscure. Naturalists may concede that there is nothing actually incoherent in the very idea of these objects, but they will insist that their existence is incompatible with other things we have learned from science about the natural world. Many contemporary sense-data theorists, however, will not be moved by this kind of criticism, since they are happy to accept the rejection of naturalism as a consequence of their sense-data theory (see Robinson 1994, Foster 2000).

Direct realism : The claim we can directly percieve external objects.

I still do not understand what it means to directly perceive something. Does it mean there is no homunculus?

Once you start thinking about it, you begin to wonder what it might mean to directly percieve something. I think it is possible, but you have to jump through several hoops to get there.

Indirect realism : The claim we only indirectly percieve external objects, and that what we directly percieve is something like "sense data" or "mental images".

Here is where the definition of perceive becomes really murky. This clearly implies some sort of homunculus watching a movie in the brain.

Many people have thought so.

How about:

Sensory realism : Through a process not yet completely understood, sensory information interacts with the brain to produce internal images of external objects. It is unknown whether there is a central homunculus involved.

Then you're talking about "internal images" and that means it's indirect realism, homonculus or no homoculus.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

From what I can gather, indirect realism doesn't refer to the indirectness (stages) of the sensory perception process. Instead, it refers to a homunculus-like thing watching a movie played out on some kind of screen in the brain. The perception is indirect because it is of the movie, not the external world directly. Geoff?

Correct.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

The real problem is that these simplistic ways of viewing perception are simply wrong. Perception is not a passive process, for one. The whole thing is an active attempt by a body to get useful info to navigate the world, so perception itself is intensional, full of beliefs (not completely constrained by them, but there are definite feed-forewqrd mechanisms at play), directed attention, etc. .

This is a trendy topic in cognitive science at the moment - inspired, I might add, by Maurice Merleau-Ponty who was a direct successor of Husserl.

 

[Earthborn]

It's pretty obvious to me. But at least one person has rejected statement 1.

To me it is pretty obvious that you misrepresent that person's view.

I see your point, but it's not really relevant.

I think it is relevant. It shows that there is no physical world that is completely independent from our perceptions.

How about trees and rocks instead?

I think it is reasonable to say that trees and rocks existed before humans did. It just doesn't lead to a contradiction in your original two statements, before you pulled those three out of the blue.

When we did not exist, the answer to Q1 is yes, and to Q2 is no. As soon as we came into existence, the correct answer to Q1 is no, and to Q2 is yes. There is no contradiction, regardless of how "we" is defined.

That is no to statement 3.

I think it is fairer to summarise it as "3 is meaningless".

What are you trying to achieve with those 3 statements? What's the point of tallying who declared what? And how would you answer those statements yourself?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I'd like anyone who is thinking of defending direct realism (that is people who have answered or want to answer yes,yes,yes) to explain to me what is going on with the brain in the vat. The brain in the vat isn't percieving external objects. The normal person's experiences are exactly the same as the brain in the vat. What is the BIV percieving if it's not percieving external objects? If the BIV and veridical experiences are identical, how can we
justify saying the objects of those experiences are different?

Anyone thinking of defending indirect realism has to content with the issues posted 3 or 4 posts before this one.

It looks from this like both direct realism and indirect realism must be rejected.

My strategy will be to pursue the rejection of both, although I am may ultimately end up trying to defend (yes,yes,yes) myself.

 

[chriswl]

So you are disagreeing with statement 1?

No. I'm disagreeing with you counting the world twice, like the crazy P1/P2 thing in the other thread.

Our knowledge of the world does not constitute a whole other "world", I don't know what point you're trying to prove by suggesting it does.

This whole thread is a great advertisment for the eliminativist notion that...

...folk psychology is profoundly wrong about the actual nature of the mind/brain. Eliminative materialists argue that the central tenets of folk psychology radically misdescribe cognitive processes; consequently, the posits of folk psychology pick out nothing that is real. Like dualists, eliminative materialists insist that ordinary mental states can not in any way be reduced to or identified with neurological events or processes. However, unlike dualists, eliminativists claim there is nothing more to the mind than what occurs in the brain. The reason mental states are irreducible is not because they are non-physical; rather, it is because mental states, as described by common-sense psychology, do not really exist.

-- Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Clearly "perception" is one of these folk psychology concepts that doesn't map precisely onto anything real (for example, in the brain there is no clear dividing line between perception, thinking and action - it's a continuous chain of causation). Unless we realise this we either:

1) tie ourselves in logical knots trying to reconcile this slightly confused idea of perception with the physical world or

2) arbitrarily assume that our commonsense idea of perception is valid and reinvent our world around this assumption (and end up with a world incompatible with science).

You are trying to get us to exhaust ourselves on 1) so that we finally capitulate and join you in 2). No. I'm not playing.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Then you're talking about "internal images" and that means it's indirect realism, homonculus or no homoculus.

Really? Then I still have absolutely no idea what it could possibly mean to perceive something directly. Does the problem go away if I don't use the word image? How about:

Sensory realism : Through a process not yet completely understood, sensory information interacts with the brain to produce internal experience of external objects. It is unknown whether there is a central homunculus involved.

Correct [indirect realism involves homunculus].

Doesn't this contradict what you said above?

From Wikipedia:

Direct realism is a theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world. In contrast, indirect realism and representationalism claim that we are directly aware only of internal representations of the external world.

Indirect realism, also known as indirect perception, and epistemological dualism, is the view in cognitive psychology that perception functions via internal representations of external reality. It is sometimes considered to be the same as representationalism. Indirect realism is problematical because of Ryle's regress and the apparent need for a homunculus. These problems have led some philosophers to abandon realism and suggest the existence of dualism and others to propose, or suggest through emergentism, that some form of new physics is operating in the brain such as quantum mind, space-time theories of consciousness etc.

I remain entirely confused. Someone has to clarify what it means to be "directly aware only of internal representations."

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I think it is reasonable to say that trees and rocks existed before humans did. It just doesn't lead to a contradiction in your original two statements, before you pulled those three out of the blue.

So you are answering yes to question 2

When we did not exist, the answer to Q1 is yes, and to Q2 is no. As soon as we came into existence, the correct answer to Q1 is no, and to Q2 is yes. There is no contradiction, regardless of how "we" is defined.

I think it is fairer to summarise it as "3 is meaningless".

OK, I've changed your answers.

What are you trying to achieve with those 3 statements?

I am going to try to prove that direct realism and indirect realism must both be false. If we get far enough, I may try to defend the claim that direct realism is true after all, but it's going to take me a while to get there.

What's the point of tallying who declared what?

Because I just spent a 40 page thread dealing with a bunch of people who kept "forgetting" things they'd already agreed to.

And how would you answer those statements yourself?

Yes, Yes, Yes.


[size=-2]
1) We percieve objects (rocks, trees, etc....). We will call these "the objects of perception"

2) There is a world, external to humans (it existed before we evolved, it exists when we aren't looking), which is made of things like rocks and trees.

3) Presumably, the rocks and trees we perceive and the tables and chairs in the external world are the same rocks and trees.

Currently declared:

Upchurch: Yes, Yes, No
Sir-Drinks-alot: Yes, Yes, Yes
RubberChicken: Yes, Yes, Yes
chriswl: No, ?, ?
Paul: ?, Yes, ?
Mercutio: ?, No, -
Tricky: ?, Yes, ?
Earthborn: before humans: No, Yes, - After humans: Yes, No -
Geoff : Yes, Yes, Yes (but I can't defend my position till I've shown why the other ways of defending Y,Y,Y must be wrong)
[/size]

 

[UndercoverElephant]

If so, the indirect position is going to have its work cut out trying to define which part of the sensory chain is the movie screen, which is the homonculus, and which is the light from the screen the homonculus is perceiving.
.

Your job is going to be trying to find a way to defend the alternative realist position, then. You are a direct realist, but I'd bet my house you can't defend that position. It was your assumption that direct realism was true without having given it sufficient thought which led to your problems in the previous thread.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

No. I'm disagreeing with you counting the world twice, like the crazy P1/P2 thing in the other thread.

Unfortunately, while you are calling it crazy, several other people are stating it is obviously true i.e. that these things are different.

Clearly "perception" is one of these folk psychology concepts that doesn't map precisely onto anything real (for example, in the brain there is no clear dividing line between perception, thinking and action - it's a continuous chain of causation). Unless we realise this we either:

1) tie ourselves in logical knots trying to reconcile this slightly confused idea of perception with the physical world or

2) arbitrarily assume that our commonsense idea of perception is valid and reinvent our world around this assumption (and end up with a world incompatible with science).

You are trying to get us to exhaust ourselves on 1) so that we finally capitulate and join you in 2). No. I'm not playing.

I'll take you off the list then.




[size=-2]
1) We percieve objects (rocks, trees, etc....). We will call these "the objects of perception"

2) There is a world, external to humans (it existed before we evolved, it exists when we aren't looking), which is made of things like rocks and trees.

3) Presumably, the rocks and trees we perceive and the tables and chairs in the external world are the same rocks and trees.

Currently declared:

Upchurch: Yes, Yes, No
Sir-Drinks-alot: Yes, Yes, Yes
RubberChicken: Yes, Yes, Yes
Paul: ?, Yes, ?
Mercutio: ?, No, -
Tricky: ?, Yes, ?
Earthborn: before humans: No, Yes, - After humans: Yes, No -
Geoff : Yes, Yes, Yes (but I can't defend my position till I've shown why the other ways of defending Y,Y,Y must be wrong)
[/size]

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Really? Then I still have absolutely no idea what it could possibly mean to perceive something directly.

Yes, it's a problem. But I suspect Kevin believes it's an obvious truth.

Does the problem go away if I don't use the word image?

How about:

Sensory realism : Through a process not yet completely understood, sensory information interacts with the brain to produce internal experience of external objects. It is unknown whether there is a central homunculus involved.

This is still representational/indirect realism.

Doesn't this contradict what you said above?

I'm in two minds about homonculi because I have a homonculi that is a nothingness. There are other problems with indirect realism anyway.

I remain entirely confused. Someone has to clarify what it means to be "directly aware only of internal representations."

~~ Paul

It means your brain assembles some sort of map of the world and you are aware of the map. That's why a single object ends up appearing different to different people.

 

[Upchurch]

Currently declared:

Upchurch: Yes, Yes, No

Slow down, cowboy. I've only commented on number 3.

1) We percieve objects (tables, chairs, etc....). We will call these "the objects of perception"

As has been pointed out, "objects of perception" is ambiguous. Does "objects of perception" refer to objects that are preceived or the perception of the objects?

2) There is a world, external to humans (it existed before we evolved, it exists when we aren't looking), which is made of things like tables and chairs. Even with a materialistic definition of "mind", this would still be true, since there are no tables and chairs inside our skulls.

Although I understand your general meaning, strictly speaking, this isn't true. The material world is not external to (i.e. seperate from) humans. Humans exist within and of the material world and should be considered a subset of the material world, as are all material objects.

Upchurch: ?, Maybe, No

 

[Earthborn]

OK, I've changed your answers.

Just not correctly, as they now appear to relate to other statements than the ones for which I gave those answers. My answers relate to your original 2 statements, not the new 3 statements.

I am going to try to prove that direct realism and indirect realism must both be false.

By asking people to agree or disagree with a few vague statements? If I were you, I would just present my argumentation. Explain in your own words what you think direct and indirect realism is, and present your arguments against.

Because I just spent a 40 page thread dealing with a bunch of people who kept "forgetting" things they'd already agreed to.

If I consider the way you represent other people's views in this thread as indicative, I'll have to be rather skeptical of that. Maybe they are not forgetting what they already agreed to, but rather you represent their views one way and a moment later in another way.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I am going to try to prove that direct realism and indirect realism must both be false. If we get far enough, I may try to defend the claim that direct realism is true after all, but it's going to take me a while to get there.

I think much of that depends on what part of the perceptual process you discuss. Even visual perception is not one "thing". There is a part of it that simply consists in feature detection and fits well with direct realism, but the rest splits into two different streams of "content" in the brain. We have a "what " stream that tracks into the temporal lobes and is associated with word tagging (among other things) and a "where" stream associated with location and relationship (among other things -- one of which is actually making sense of the relationship of parts that fit into a whole in an object).

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I think much of that depends on what part of the perceptual process you discuss. Even visual perception is not one "thing". There is a part of it that simply consists in feature detection and fits well with direct realism, but the rest splits into two different streams of "content" in the brain. We have a "what " stream that tracks into the temporal lobes and is associated with word tagging (among other things) and a "where" stream associated with location and relationship (among other things -- one of which is actually making sense of the relationship of parts that fit into a whole in an object).

Sure, Husserl talks lots about this. We have raw experience and something that gets assembled into a coherent picture. But I don't see how this directly impinges on the difference/sameness of the objects of perception during hallucination and veridical experience. In both cases, we know what we mean by "objects" and we also know that in one case there really is an object and in the other case there is not.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Just not correctly, as they now appear to relate to other statements than the ones for which I gave those answers. My answers relate to your original 2 statements, not the new 3 statements.

By asking people to agree or disagree with a few vague statements? If I were you, I would just present my argumentation. Explain in your own words what you think direct and indirect realism is, and present your arguments against.

If I consider the way you represent other people's views in this thread as indicative, I'll have to be rather skeptical of that. Maybe they are not forgetting what they already agreed to, but rather you represent their views one way and a moment later in another way.

Do you think there is anything vague about the example of the brain in the vat? See my last post.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It means your brain assembles some sort of map of the world and you are aware of the map. That's why a single object ends up appearing different to different people.

Ignoring for a moment the inherent dualism in the term aware, it is entirely clear that the brain assembles some sort of map. This must be the case, because the chair is not actually part of my brain.

So, if I can be an indirect realist without implying any sort of dualism whatsoever, none at all, nothing over and above brain function, then I'll allow myself to be called an indirect realist.

On the other hand, if I can be a direct realist while still allowing an arbitrarily complex sensory pathway in the brain, then I'll allow myself to be called a direct realist.

Otherwise, what we have is a false dichotomy.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I am going to try to prove that direct realism and indirect realism must both be false.

Give the apparent false dichotomy they represent, I will probably agree with you.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Upchurch

As has been pointed out, "objects of perception" is ambiguous. Does "objects of perception" refer to objects that are preceived or the perception of the objects?

It refers to the things in front of you. If you point at a tree and say "that tree" the object of perception is THAT object. I am trying to work out the ontological status of THAT object.

This actually leads to a knock-down rebuttal of indirect realism as follows:

It is stupid to propose that we could be indirectly aware of objects at all. After all, if we are only indirectly aware of external objects then the things we are directly aware of can't possibly the same objects as the real ones. So we are directly aware of some object (an "intentional object"), but this cannot possibly an object in the external world. Whatever it is, it's not that. It follows that the very idea we could be indirectly aware of objects in the external world at all is non-sensical. You are either directly aware of external objects or you are not aware of external objects at all. This is in fact my own response to indirect realism. It's the first position I would like to eliminate. It makes no sense to speak of indirect awareness of an external object because there's no reason to believe that the external world is in-itself anything like the representations created by human cognitive processes. If it's indirect, then we can't know the true nature of the real thing and so we can't say what it is we are indirectly aware of and therefore it's wrong to say we are indirectly aware of external objects. Instead - we are indirectly aware of whatever-it-is that is external.

Originally Posted by JustGeoff :
2) There is a world, external to humans (it existed before we evolved, it exists when we aren't looking), which is made of things like tables and chairs. Even with a materialistic definition of "mind", this would still be true, since there are no tables and chairs inside our skulls.

Although I understand your general meaning, strictly speaking, this isn't true. The material world is not external to (i.e. seperate from) humans. Humans exist within and of the material world and should be considered a subset of the material world, as are all material objects.

That's why I used the example of a small lump of rock orbiting a distant star.

[size=-2]
Upchurch: ?, ?, No
Sir-Drinks-alot: Yes, Yes, Yes
RubberChicken: Yes, Yes, Yes
Paul: ?, Yes, ?
Mercutio: ?, No, -
Tricky: ?, Yes, ?
Earthborn: before humans: No, Yes, - After humans: Yes, No -
Geoff : Yes, Yes, Yes (but no defence offered)
[/size]