Do we really perceive anything?

[Juma]

]
Why would that be a specifially idealistic view?
What you perceive have gone a lot of filtering before you are aware of it .

There is no filter in the way of perception. Perception is the way information gets to a brain and is processed as it gets to memory encoding.

Yeah. But... You doesnt experience the photons as they hits the retina. You experience a high level representation of interpreted data.

 

[Perspicuo]

How would one disentangle epistemology from neurology? It strikes me as a pretty tight weave.

Why would you want to? Don't you want to know?

Because there are alternatives. Believing (what true blue religious believers do, that is, filling their head with fairy tales); and feeling, which can be achieved by not paying any attention to neurology (and going by life as most people do, and that's ok, I mean, it would be a pity for actual living to pass you by), make love, watch beautiful sunsets, etc (although people who research and study neurology can delight in sunsets and lovemaking too).

Also, I find your choice of words interesting. "Tangle", you say, as if there is some sort of inapropriate mingling. I would not think so, since truth is truth, and reality mixes well with itself. Chemistry is no encumbrance to geology, as much as neurology is no encumbrance to the study of how neurological systems get to know their world.

 

[Perspicuo]

]
Why would that be a specifially idealistic view?
What you perceive have gone a lot of filtering before you are aware of it .

There is no filter in the way of perception. Perception is the way information gets to a brain and is processed as it gets to memory encoding.

Yeah. But... You doesnt experience the photons as they hits the retina. You experience a high level representation of interpreted data.

Notice the OP says perceive. It does not say love, commune, hump, attach, experience, smoke, digest, impress, etc.

Also, as a perceiver, I am not so much interested in the photons you mention as I am of the objects they have bounced off (the true objects of my interest). Good thing photons are not in the way of perceiving a Francisco Amighetti painting--they are the way of perceiving the painting, or should I say, are part of the process itself of perceiving. Our brains do not and cannot perceive linseed oil and chemical pigments (the stuff of paintings), which instead would poison it. Our brain is safely housed inside our cranium, and it is developed as an organ of perception, not communion. We don't need to incorporate an object to know it, we don't need to merge with it. We have developed perception, through which we can know an object in more aspects an amoeba--which does incorporate objects in order to know them- could dream of, if it could dream. We can know them through greater distances than if we could merge with an object, more objects, and without disturbing them. Compared to organisms that require incoproration of chemicals from foreign bodies, we are practically epistemological gods.

Our brains could do nothing with a screw lodged in our grey matter. We could not perceive it, we could not know it. To understand epistemology, we must understand information, and therefore the perceiver as a handler of information. Our neurons (the stuff this perceiver is made of!) are basically complex switches naturally selected for behavior. Machines of reaction, if you wish. We are not abstract Platonic entities, some sort of theological cherubim, who know in some abstract sense. If your epistemology does not respect the knower in the subject of knowledge, it errs. We perceive directly, but not in omniscience. We cannot be omniscient. Omniscience is an abstraction that knows nothing either of the object nor the subject of knowledge, it is a concept created in an age of abject ignorance. We who live in the 21st century, heirs of centuries of science, should know better.

 

[Juma]

]
Why would that be a specifially idealistic view?
What you perceive have gone a lot of filtering before you are aware of it .

There is no filter in the way of perception. Perception is the way information gets to a brain and is processed as it gets to memory encoding.

Yeah. But... You doesnt experience the photons as they hits the retina. You experience a high level representation of interpreted data.

Notice the OP says perceive. It does not say love, commune, hump, attach, experience, smoke, digest, impress, etc.

Also, as a perceiver, I am not so much interested in the photons you mention as I am of the objects they have bounced off (the true objects of my interest). Good thing photons are not in the way of perceiving a Francisco Amighetti painting--they are the way of perceiving the painting, or should I say, are part of the process itself of perceiving. Our brains do not and cannot perceive linseed oil and chemical pigments (the stuff of paintings), which instead would poison it. Our brain is safely housed inside our cranium, and it is developed as an organ of perception, not communion. We don't need to incorporate an object to know it, we don't need to merge with it. We have developed perception, through which we can know an object in more aspects an amoeba--which does incorporate objects in order to know them- could dream of, if it could dream. We can know them through greater distances than if we could merge with an object, more objects, and without disturbing them. Compared to organisms that require incoproration of chemicals from foreign bodies, we are practically epistemological gods.

Our brains could do nothing with a screw lodged in our grey matter. We could not perceive it, we could not know it. To understand epistemology, we must understand information, and therefore the perceiver as a handler of information. Our neurons (the stuff this perceiver is made of!) are basically complex switches naturally selected for behavior. Machines of reaction, if you wish. We are not abstract Platonic entities, some sort of theological cherubim, who know in some abstract sense. If your epistemology does not respect the knower in the subject of knowledge, it errs. We perceive directly, but not in omniscience. We cannot be omniscient. Omniscience is an abstraction that knows nothing either of the object nor the subject of knowledge, it is a concept created in an age of abject ignorance. We who live in the 21st century, heirs of centuries of science, should know better.

Lots of words....

Yet what let you perceive the paint is not the photons, or the retina. Yes they are a necessary part of the process, but the perception on the objects and their colors is the result of heavy processing and in no way "directly perceived".

 

[Perspicuo]

]
Why would that be a specifially idealistic view?
What you perceive have gone a lot of filtering before you are aware of it .

There is no filter in the way of perception. Perception is the way information gets to a brain and is processed as it gets to memory encoding.

Yeah. But... You doesnt experience the photons as they hits the retina. You experience a high level representation of interpreted data.

Notice the OP says perceive. It does not say love, commune, hump, attach, experience, smoke, digest, impress, etc.

Also, as a perceiver, I am not so much interested in the photons you mention as I am of the objects they have bounced off (the true objects of my interest). Good thing photons are not in the way of perceiving a Francisco Amighetti painting--they are the way of perceiving the painting, or should I say, are part of the process itself of perceiving. Our brains do not and cannot perceive linseed oil and chemical pigments (the stuff of paintings), which instead would poison it. Our brain is safely housed inside our cranium, and it is developed as an organ of perception, not communion. We don't need to incorporate an object to know it, we don't need to merge with it. We have developed perception, through which we can know an object in more aspects an amoeba--which does incorporate objects in order to know them- could dream of, if it could dream. We can know them through greater distances than if we could merge with an object, more objects, and without disturbing them. Compared to organisms that require incoproration of chemicals from foreign bodies, we are practically epistemological gods.

Our brains could do nothing with a screw lodged in our grey matter. We could not perceive it, we could not know it. To understand epistemology, we must understand information, and therefore the perceiver as a handler of information. Our neurons (the stuff this perceiver is made of!) are basically complex switches naturally selected for behavior. Machines of reaction, if you wish. We are not abstract Platonic entities, some sort of theological cherubim, who know in some abstract sense. If your epistemology does not respect the knower in the subject of knowledge, it errs. We perceive directly, but not in omniscience. We cannot be omniscient. Omniscience is an abstraction that knows nothing either of the object nor the subject of knowledge, it is a concept created in an age of abject ignorance. We who live in the 21st century, heirs of centuries of science, should know better.

Lots of words....

Yet what let you perceive the paint is not the photons, or the retina. Yes they are a necessary part of the process, but the perception on the objects and their colors is the result of heavy processing and in no way "directly perceived".

Yeah, if you actually took all those "Lots of words" you might actually get it. I don't write for multitaskers.

Question (because I am going to have to go through the whole damn thing again): How is heavy processing not directly perceiving?

You know--forget it, I already explained it, and it does take lots of words. Because actual thinking takes all that stuff you don't like, that "heavy processing".

 

[ryan]

]
Why would that be a specifially idealistic view?
What you perceive have gone a lot of filtering before you are aware of it .

There is no filter in the way of perception. Perception is the way information gets to a brain and is processed as it gets to memory encoding.

Yeah. But... You doesnt experience the photons as they hits the retina. You experience a high level representation of interpreted data.

Notice the OP says perceive. It does not say love, commune, hump, attach, experience, smoke, digest, impress, etc.

Also, as a perceiver, I am not so much interested in the photons you mention as I am of the objects they have bounced off (the true objects of my interest). Good thing photons are not in the way of perceiving a Francisco Amighetti painting--they are the way of perceiving the painting, or should I say, are part of the process itself of perceiving. Our brains do not and cannot perceive linseed oil and chemical pigments (the stuff of paintings), which instead would poison it. Our brain is safely housed inside our cranium, and it is developed as an organ of perception, not communion. We don't need to incorporate an object to know it, we don't need to merge with it. We have developed perception, through which we can know an object in more aspects an amoeba--which does incorporate objects in order to know them- could dream of, if it could dream. We can know them through greater distances than if we could merge with an object, more objects, and without disturbing them. Compared to organisms that require incoproration of chemicals from foreign bodies, we are practically epistemological gods.

Our brains could do nothing with a screw lodged in our grey matter. We could not perceive it, we could not know it. To understand epistemology, we must understand information, and therefore the perceiver as a handler of information. Our neurons (the stuff this perceiver is made of!) are basically complex switches naturally selected for behavior. Machines of reaction, if you wish. We are not abstract Platonic entities, some sort of theological cherubim, who know in some abstract sense. If your epistemology does not respect the knower in the subject of knowledge, it errs. We perceive directly, but not in omniscience. We cannot be omniscient. Omniscience is an abstraction that knows nothing either of the object nor the subject of knowledge, it is a concept created in an age of abject ignorance. We who live in the 21st century, heirs of centuries of science, should know better.

I think that I know what you are getting at; does it have to do with information theory?

 

[Juma]

Yeah, if you actually took all those "Lots of words" you might actually get it. I don't write for multitaskers.

I did and found nothing of interest. Its bloody obvious that there is a a causal chain between what we experience and what we actually perceive.

How is heavy processing not directly perceiving?

"Directly perceiving" is the "folk psychological" naive view that what we perceive is what is out there, directly without any intermediate processing.

 

[ryan]

I did and found nothing of interest. Its bloody obvious that there is a a causal chain between what we experience and what we actually perceive.

How is heavy processing not directly perceiving?

"Directly perceiving" is the "folk psychological" naive view that what we perceive is what is out there, directly without any intermediate processing.

I think that we do perceive something from the origin/object; in general it would be energy. There is a physical "essence" of the object in the form of that energy, but as you say it is mostly "filtered" by the time it is perceived.

 

[Perspicuo]

I think that I know what you are getting at; does it have to do with information theory?

Semiotics (perhaps the best way to describe it is information theory for those of us who are not computer engineers) and behavioral sciences. Mostly behavior science, but I didn't get it until I discovered Umberto Eco. My mind basically exploded. In a good way. I saw the matrix. LOL

The key is to consider the perceiver. There are things we cannot do. Take for example the amoeba. It receives chemical and mechanical information. If it somehow got visible spectrum information, it would not be able to handle it, it would be meaningless. Direct or indirect, it doesn't matter. You cannnot give a motorcycle the information you give a laptop computer--forget about not knowing how to "give" it to the motorcycle, in its present state "having" such information is inconceivable, impossible, meaningless. In similar fashion, human beings cannot acquire direct knowledge in any way that is not through the channels of perception. We can also know via linguistic explanation, but that isn't more direct. Our perception is as direct as it gets. Observation is direct perception, it's just complex, that's all.

 

[Juma]

I did and found nothing of interest. Its bloody obvious that there is a a causal chain between what we experience and what we actually perceive.

How is heavy processing not directly perceiving?

"Directly perceiving" is the "folk psychological" naive view that what we perceive is what is out there, directly without any intermediate processing.

I think that we do perceive something from the origin/object; in general it would be energy. There is a physical "essence" of the object in the form of that energy, but as you say it is mostly "filtered" by the time it is perceived.

I have no idea what this means and I'm pretty shure that neither does you.

 

[ryan]

I did and found nothing of interest. Its bloody obvious that there is a a causal chain between what we experience and what we actually perceive.

How is heavy processing not directly perceiving?

"Directly perceiving" is the "folk psychological" naive view that what we perceive is what is out there, directly without any intermediate processing.

I think that we do perceive something from the origin/object; in general it would be energy. There is a physical "essence" of the object in the form of that energy, but as you say it is mostly "filtered" by the time it is perceived.

I have no idea what this means and I'm pretty shure that neither does you.

It's easy.

Imagine that an orange emits an E amount of energy that gets absorbed by the cone cells in your retina. The momentum/energy that was emitted is conserved through your visual system until you experience at least some or all of the orange's emitted energy. So when we see the orange, we might actually be experiencing some of the actual orange.

 

[Juma]

I did and found nothing of interest. Its bloody obvious that there is a a causal chain between what we experience and what we actually perceive.

How is heavy processing not directly perceiving?

"Directly perceiving" is the "folk psychological" naive view that what we perceive is what is out there, directly without any intermediate processing.

I think that we do perceive something from the origin/object; in general it would be energy. There is a physical "essence" of the object in the form of that energy, but as you say it is mostly "filtered" by the time it is perceived.

I have no idea what this means and I'm pretty shure that neither does you.

It's easy.

Imagine that an orange emits an E amount of energy that gets absorbed by the cone cells in your retina. The momentum/energy that was emitted is conserved through your visual system until you experience at least some or all of the orange's emitted energy. So when we see the orange, we might actually be experiencing some of the actual orange.

But we doesnt experience the momentum or energy. The properties ( colors, shape etc,) are coded as neural impulse patterns that are driven by other energy sources than the original photons.

 

[ryan]

I did and found nothing of interest. Its bloody obvious that there is a a causal chain between what we experience and what we actually perceive.

How is heavy processing not directly perceiving?

"Directly perceiving" is the "folk psychological" naive view that what we perceive is what is out there, directly without any intermediate processing.

I think that we do perceive something from the origin/object; in general it would be energy. There is a physical "essence" of the object in the form of that energy, but as you say it is mostly "filtered" by the time it is perceived.

I have no idea what this means and I'm pretty shure that neither does you.

It's easy.

Imagine that an orange emits an E amount of energy that gets absorbed by the cone cells in your retina. The momentum/energy that was emitted is conserved through your visual system until you experience at least some or all of the orange's emitted energy. So when we see the orange, we might actually be experiencing some of the actual orange.

But we doesnt experience the momentum or energy. The properties ( colors, shape etc,) are coded as neural impulse patterns that are driven by other energy sources than the original photons.

I know, but maybe the activation energy is added to the entire process. I am not far enough in biology to know this though. However, it seems to me that a specific "stream of photons" should probably have a unique effect on the visual system in addition to the functions of the visual system. This would help give the object's identity and may explain how we can perceive so much variety. Of course I could be underestimating the number of one-to-one input/output processes that we have.

Nevertheless, I would still argue that the brain may eventually be affected by unique "streams of radiation" coming from objects.

 

[Juma]

I know, but maybe the activation energy is added to the entire process.

And lost in thermal noise...

I have still no idea how you think this is supposed to affect how you perceive the orange.

However, it seems to me that a specific "stream of photons" should probably have a unique effect on the visual system in addition to the functions of the visual system.

In ADDITION to the visual system?
Man, you are dreaming up a new sensory system based on what? That we receive energy... Gee man, that is what the eyes do! And the thermal sensory system etc.

This would help give the object's identity

What? How would that work? Should some sensor detect some sort of quantum photon profile or what?

Nevertheless, I would still argue that the brain may eventually be affected by unique "streams of radiation" coming from objects.

That is called "light" and is detected by the cones and rods in our eyes...

 

[ryan]

I know, but maybe the activation energy is added to the entire process

And lost in thermal noise...

I have still no idea how you think this is supposed to affect how you perceive the orange.

Well think about it; the "snow" on the T.V. is caused by the cosmic microwave background. The smallest of causes may have considerable effects. Maybe we could see a little clearer without the "thermal noise" caused by the energy of the orange; maybe we would see 0.01% further.

I can't imagine that the visual system is not affected by at least a little of the incoming energy.

 

[ontological_realist]

I propose that we do not perceive anything directly, that when we believe that we perceive something, that it is an inference.

This is from the nature of perception: some external entity or effect inducing ideas in our minds. The ideas are not the external entities, and our consciousnesses only have direct access to those ideas and not to the external entities. We unconsciously conclude that those ideas are due to external entities, and we continually maintain a model of the external world that is fitted to our perceptions.

This model is usually successful, but it sometimes has rather revealing failures. Like when we believe that a rainbow is a solid object. It looks like one, and many premodern people have believed that rainbows are solid objects, if mythology and folklore is any guide.

Humans can not cognize objective reality as amoeba can not cognize objective reality.

 

[fromderinside]

Humans can not cognize objective reality as amoeba can not cognize objective reality.

Whoa. Haven't we learned anything? I hope you aren't arguing that perceptions are generally the same. Amoeba have equipment that permits them to survive in whatever one want's to call the environment in which they appear as do humans. Those environments are both part of a larger environment in which life originated (a process which continues) on earth (if it did).

Both testing environments are quite dissimilar. What gets the amoeba through the day is vastly different from what gets a human through the day.

Both species and life itself is successful. Whatever reality exists includes what amoeba and humans use to get through the day.

If you are suggesting that objective reality is a thing (surviving in reality) then you can't be right since both species thrive in the environments, realities(?), they process, perceive. Those environments interacted through which results in them surviving are radically different.

Both operate IAW the laws of nature so there is a common basis for presuming making use of what is sensed is physically similar to the extent that each processes the environment, reality, occurs IAW LoN. However, the elements of nature processed are radically different for each the amoeba and the human so the nexus between LoN and perception (environmental processing) cannot be related beyond humans discerning those LoN and how we each utilize them.

This brings me to a speculation.

We perceive the whistle of an approaching train to increase in pitch and its withdrawal to produce a whistle that decreases in pitch.

Humans perceive this phenomenon of sound in accordance to what is physically taking place. There is a nexus between the physical stimulus and how humans perceive the stimulus in favor of the properties of the stimulus and the the identity of the stimulus. That is to say rather than a person perceiving whistle A in every case as the same sensation, humans, instead, perceive the whistle as being the same one from the same train, but, our perception of it changes apparent frequency as it approaches and withdraws. We are perceiving train whistles IAC with how we understand the laws of nature. All humans who hear do this whether they are individually aware of the relevant LoN or no.

AS I point out above we could identify a train whistle without the changing pitch with approach and withdrawal. I'm quite sure that if changes in identified signals due to to them moving weren't important to us we would get along quite well with just the ability to identify this or that train whistle.

For instance there are many optical illusions which arise from motion not being visually processed.

So processing is important and evolution following importance is a strong cue that we do perceive what's important to us in the environment. The proof of the pudding are along a few things that get a free ride and a few thing which just don't matter and are not perceived.

 

[arkirk]

Whenever we tell someone how things appear to be, we are processing direct perception into a processed product we call language. When we challenge these descriptions of how thing are, we are challenging a processed symbolic product. Sometimes when we challenge a description we are only challenging the manner in which the brain processes an experience into language. It appears to be the same problem whether the statement is an outright and intentional lie or merely a misinterpreted perception. When do we become sure we are right and another description is wrong?

 

[fromderinside]

Whenever we tell someone how things appear to be, we are processing direct perception into a processed product we call language. When we challenge these descriptions of how thing are, we are challenging a processed symbolic product. Sometimes when we challenge a description we are only challenging the manner in which the brain processes an experience into language. It appears to be the same problem whether the statement is an outright and intentional lie or merely a misinterpreted perception. When do we become sure we are right and another description is wrong?

OK. Our confidence is important. However, is our confidence important to whether we process anything? I think not. We have already processed the external information when we form what we processed into words or explanations.

It is also an interesting issue whether we communicate what we believe we perceived. But again, what is the relevance of social interplay as to whether we perceive anything or no. It may be that some of the relevance of what we percieve is driven by our ability to communicate effectively to friends, kin, or foes.

This latter track, the importance of social communication in surviving relative to perception, may be marginally relevant to whether we process anything from the outside world. For instance two or ten observers of the same phenomenon may contribute to how successful our sensory equipment does its external transducing job. Now we have multiple inputs upon which we can access to act in relation to what was just perceived by members of a group. That information is processed and common elements are retained and individuals survived. The collection of sensory genes shared by the group are favored if one or a set of responses are universally more survival worthy than are others.

As for argumentation if that is the focus of your post, as you can see, I could care less.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I propose that we do not perceive anything directly, that when we believe that we perceive something, that it is an inference.

This is from the nature of perception: some external entity or effect inducing ideas in our minds. The ideas are not the external entities, and our consciousnesses only have direct access to those ideas and not to the external entities. We unconsciously conclude that those ideas are due to external entities, and we continually maintain a model of the external world that is fitted to our perceptions.

This model is usually successful, but it sometimes has rather revealing failures. Like when we believe that a rainbow is a solid object. It looks like one, and many premodern people have believed that rainbows are solid objects, if mythology and folklore is any guide.

We do not perceive anything 'directly' of the material world, but this is only according to our model of reality, which includes the notion... of a material world.

If this model is wrong then who knows? So, if it is right then we don't perceive the material world directly and if it is wrong we just don't know what the material world is and what it is we may be perceiving directly if anything.

Second, we have subjective experience, which is direct experience of things which not only are real but that we know as they are, things like pain, memory, boredom, colours etc.

Clearly subjective experience is not the same as perception since perception is experience mediated by perception organs (according to our model). Yet, subjective experience is direct experience of reality. Sure it does not seem to fit with any materialist description of reality but no materialist description should be taken literally since it's only a description and very abstract at that. The upshot is, subjective experience may be direct experience of what we perceive as the material world, but unfiltered by perception organs (so, in this sense, it's not perception). According to this, subjective experience does not provide any interpretation the way that perception does, so colours don't mean anything unless we take them to represent something in the material world.

So, perception is not direct experience of the material world, but subjective experience may be just that.
EB