Do we really perceive anything?

[lpetrich]

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.

 

[rousseau]

My consciousness has access to external entities. Ok, it doesn't have access to the infinite information that exists about external entities, but it has access to enough information about them.

I walk into a room and there is nothing in that room but a bowl of fruit. I've tasted all of the fruit before, I know its flavour, I know that it's healthy for me, I've learned what the concept of fruit is. I don't know everything about that fruit, but I know enough that when I see it I understand the relationship between it and myself. I would call this having access to the fruit.

When I see that fruit, or what I believe you are calling an 'external entity' that would be called an impression that leads to me being cognizant of an idea in my mind. I might be consciously aware of my own perception of fruit, or something else, either way I'm able to understand what the fruit is.

If I'm reading your post right, it would conclude that we have no access to objective reality. I don't believe that to be true.

 

[metacristi]

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.

Realism seems difficult to defend at quantum level and the kind of problems you pointed at (basically everything is interpreted, we never deal with naked facts) made Hawking to propose his model-dependent realism (applicable for direct observations as well, with the naked eyes I mean) which is basically a form of phenomenalism (truth is equated with what we can observe / measure without being concerned with the 'things-in-ithemselves').

My own stance is different, I'd say that we have actually good philosophical arguments pro scientific realism (a sophisticated form, one which to take in account the good parts of instrumentalism, constructivism, van Fraassen's anti-realism etc), way stronger than the existing idealist alternatives. So we can argue that Science does actually approach Truth, the 'thing-in-itself'. The big problem is that this kind of philosophical support* can offer at most provisional epistemological precedence (we can still be in a Matrix, in a sort of simulation done by beings in a higher up Reality, in God's mind and everything is ideas etc).

We can still be severely deceived, far from the thing-in-itself. That's why my solution to the central problem of Epistemology (see 'Regress argument' in Wikipedia) is a sceptical one: I am sceptical that we will ever find a strong enough argument which to 'anchor' our knowledge, thus we should remain open to possible rational non trivial changes in ALL parts of what we accept today as knowledge (our current 'web of knowledge'), including at the level of direct observations. This does not imply that it must happen of course. We can define knowledge and even argue that Science can approach Truth (the thing in itself) but this by openly admitting its provisional status. I'm afraid fallibilism should never be dropped**. Finally a sophisticated sceptical approach is always a much better solution than making too strong claims and later realizing that it is not so.


*for the main defence of scientific realism is still mainly in Philosophy and not in Science, sorry supporters of scientism

**of course scientists and especially philosophers (to show that philosophy makes progresses ) put a lot of argument in defending especially a foundherentist (foundationalist + coherentist) solution to the central problem of philosophy, see Regress Argument, but it is clear to all honest people that they cannot really solve the problems I outlined above. At least not at this time.

 

[steve_bnk]

Something I read in the 80s.


An anthropologist took a group ofSoutAmercan jungle aborigines out onto an open plain which they hadnever done before.


As they waked the group started to getagitated to the point they fell down in terror.


Turns out they were approaching cattlein the distance. As they approached and the cattleoptically grew insize the aborigines thought they were insects that were growing asthey watched. They had no sense of perspective in the environment.


Or the experiment in which people wearglasses that invert the image. Eventually people adapt and 'see' nodifference.


Adaptive perception.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_Adaptation


And the whole gamut of traditional visual perception tricks. Using perspective to make a smaller object seem bigger than a bigger object.

 

[fromderinside]

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.

The whole idea that we believe is a human construct used to make sense of what is beyond our experience. I'm not sure belief is useful as a tool for explaining given what we know of how we operate today.

Obviously we don't perceive anything directly unless one considers our sensoria as part of perception. Our sensoria are, by the way, part of our perceptions since they have evolved to provide us with capabilities in that task set and they lay at the root of what steve_bnk and metachristi discuss. What they discuss is an entirely different problem from the role of perception in knowing based on the construct of belief. It is so because noting glitches in what we perceive only gets at whether we can discriminate what it actually there with what we have. It has little do do with belief other than it is noise for that construct.

Sure one who hasn't experienced or one who doesn't have the equipment to get stuff into that area we still call consciousness (another pet peeve of mine) so however we act in the realm of bad information or inexperience we are going to point to as evidence we need the construct of belief to attack the problem of knowledge. What happens is the construct of belief interferes with what one is actually capable of doing by presuming what one believes is actually germain to the function of perception in the process of knowing. That,to me, is a very bad way to study knowing.

We aren't talking about either perception or whether knowing can be based on belief when we do so. We are talking about equipment not suited for parlor tricks. That's an entirely different discussion from the one where belief is at the base of how we consider the problem of knowing. I find it much simpler to analyse what we have and how we got to what we have and how we use it to our advantage when I'm about trying to understand perception with respect to the problem of knowing. When I do I actually look at what is going on and how we come to understand that as part of the knowing problem.

If one considers perception a process and how it is employed by us when we consider perception's products (sensing, perceiving, recognizing, deciding, etc) when we come to know more than what others in the past have known the whole idea of confounding perceiving and believing with parlor tricks becomes play time. Looked at in this way, the notion of realism as the explanation for how we come to knowing (I prefer understanding since we'll never be a completed product and what we 'know' changes over time) is probably the only sane way to treat the problem of knowing.

We are geared to operate successfully in the world in which we exist and our equipment is adapting to the end all the time. How much more realistic need one get?

I am not a a formally trained philosopher. So if I tweak the sensibilities of those who do philosophy for a living I apologize. However it makes no sense to me to try to force constructs on ourselves as one would require eyelets for every use of thread.

As far as I'm concerned belief will be one of the areas where humans will likely end up bringing themselves to an end because of it. Humans are capable of learning to engage in empirical process as a means for living together.

 

[The Helmetmaker]

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.

If we do not possess a special quality peculiar to us and distinguishing us from all external entities and effects, then, of course, these external entities and effects could only experience us indirectly also, and thus could not induce ideas into our minds as that would entail direct experience. Where, then, do these ideas of externality come from? Is it all solipsism? Or is it reason? For the last word in your first sentence try substituting variously the words induction and deduction. If we are not in some way special, then that implies that quantum entities could not interact directly. I think such a world would be vastly different from our experience.

 

[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.

If we do not possess a special quality peculiar to us and distinguishing us from all external entities and effects, then, of course, these external entities and effects could only experience us indirectly also, and thus could not induce ideas into our minds as that would entail direct experience. Where, then, do these ideas of externality come from? Is it all solipsism? Or is it reason? For the last word in your first sentence try substituting variously the words induction and deduction. If we are not in some way special, then that implies that quantum entities could not interact directly. I think such a world would be vastly different from our experience.

What do you mean by we? Do you mean humans only? Please say exactly who is included in your we and who or what is excluded from it.

 

[aupmanyav]

Well, the animals too are under illusion just as humans are. The reality can be seen only through philosophy and science. that is after analysis of what our eyes/mind perceive. Hindu thought is very clear on it and has been so for some millenia: "Brahma Satyam Jagan-Mithya" (Brahman is truth, perceived is untruth - The first Sankaracharya). Brahman being the sole entity constituting all what is in the universe.

 

[Dutch_labrat]

This is a compelling way to think, and it certainly cannot be falsified. Like any idea that cannot be falsified it is also completely useless.

Yes, all observations are indirect and sitting in your Cartesian theatre you can never know for sure what is real and what the object and what the reflection is etc.... It is a bit like complaining in a Poker game that you cannot see your opponent's closed cards. It is part of the game and the trick is working with the data you do have. Just like science and philosophy.

Russell and Popper already solved this for you. If your idea cannot be falsified it is useless because a possible effect on your reality is what would make it falsifiable.

 

[fromderinside]

How about we consider falsifying the idea that we have an actual Cartesian theater instead rather such is just a construction whereby we link things materially as representations of believed thought.

 

[ontological_realist]

Well, the animals too are under illusion just as humans are. The reality can be seen only through philosophy and science. that is after analysis of what our eyes/mind perceive. Hindu thought is very clear on it and has been so for some millenia: "Brahma Satyam Jagan-Mithya" (Brahman is truth, perceived is untruth - The first Sankaracharya). Brahman being the sole entity constituting all what is in the universe.

Are you saying that Brahman is universe? If not, then clarify what do you mean by Brahman.

 

[Bronzeage]

When someone proposes one of these philosophical exercises to me, I fall back on the old test of, "What would it look like, if this were true?"

What would it look like if I inferred and not perceived reality? After that, I don't waste time on such things.

 

[aupmanyav]

This is a compelling way to think, and it certainly cannot be falsified. Like any idea that cannot be falsified it is also completely useless.

We can discuss it later whether it is useless or not, but it should be obvious to all. What exist are atoms and molecules and the huge spaces between them and their constituents. Do we see them? The idea should not even make us think twice before agreeing.

Are you saying that Brahman is universe? If not, then clarify what do you mean by Brahman.

At the present time, nothing goes closer to Brahman other than 'physical energy'. Constitutes the mass in the universe and probably space as well.

"What would it look like, if this were true?"

I wonder what an electric current, a wave of light, or gravity would look like. If we were able to see the reality, it would perhaps be like that. There are many ways of seeing or finding out. Why limit that just to visual impressions in human mind?

 

[Valjean]

I find it intriguing that our everyday perception of reality is both falsifiable and spectrally (?) very limited.

Our brains generate an abstract "reality" out of electrochemical impulses, and even our primary sense picks up only a minute range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Our interpretation of reality is easily fooled by various optical, auditory, gustatory, &c. illusions. Alternate realities can readily be produced by hypnotic suggestion. Spontaneous sensory hallucinations and psychotic misinterpretations of reality are more common than generally believed, and are readily produced by various chemicals, magnetic fields, &c.

A pilot is able to land by instrument at night, but the dials and gauges he uses bear little actual resemblance to what he'd see out the windscreen at noon. Similarly, the reality we perceive is not objectively real, but a brain generated abstraction sufficient to navigate our little worlds.

 

[fromderinside]

I find it intriguing that our everyday perception of reality is both falsifiable and spectrally (?) very limited.

I find it intriguing that anyone would find it intriguing our everyday perception is anything but both falsifiable and very limited here on an atheist philosophy forum.

Take away creator and perfection goes with it.

 

[Bronzeage]

.

"What would it look like, if this were true?"

I wonder what an electric current, a wave of light, or gravity would look like. If we were able to see the reality, it would perhaps be like that. There are many ways of seeing or finding out. Why limit that just to visual impressions in human mind?

The question is a bit more flexible than that. It applies to all senses. We perceive the Earth to be flat, but if one walked in a straight line and never veered from this line, eventually one comes back to the same spot. It is not a matter of a wrong perception, it is a misunderstood perception. To a person on the moon, the idea of a spherical Earth seems very sensible with only a glance to the sky.

Whether we make this perception directly or our mind constructs a model of reality, makes no difference.

 

[ryan]

The OP is absolutely correct. We only perceive effects of the world outside of our bodies.

We don't see light or taste apples; we experience action potentials, neurotransmissions etc. The light stops being light once it gets absorbed by our rod and cone cells in the retina. From there it becomes an electrical impulse/signal/action potential, and we still have not got the experience. Then it enters the brain where there are millions of neurotransmissions. And keep in mind that this still just simplifying the process.

A good analogy is if Joe has an object hidden behind his back from Tom and never let's Tom know what it is. Joe will only drop the object behind his back. All Tom is going to feel is the vibrations of the object. Tom will never know anything about the actual object other than the effects of the object.

 

[ontological_realist]

.

Are you saying that Brahman is universe? If not, then clarify what do you mean by Brahman.

At the present time, nothing goes closer to Brahman other than 'physical energy'. Constitutes the mass in the universe and probably space as well

Then what is the difference between your "Brahman" and universe?

 

[ontological_realist]

I find it intriguing that our everyday perception of reality is both falsifiable and spectrally (?) very limited.

Our brains generate an abstract "reality" out of electrochemical impulses, and even our primary sense picks up only a minute range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Our interpretation of reality is easily fooled by various optical, auditory, gustatory, &c. illusions. Alternate realities can readily be produced by hypnotic suggestion. Spontaneous sensory hallucinations and psychotic misinterpretations of reality are more common than generally believed, and are readily produced by various chemicals, magnetic fields, &c.

A pilot is able to land by instrument at night, but the dials and gauges he uses bear little actual resemblance to what he'd see out the windscreen at noon. Similarly, the reality we perceive is not objectively real, but a brain generated abstraction sufficient to navigate our little worlds.

Good post! So, I would like to explore it further. How do you know that Our brains generate an abstract "reality" out of electrochemical impulses? Many Great idealist philosophers ( like Schopenhauer etc.) and present day idealist philosophers give very different reasons for this.

 

[aupmanyav]

Then what is the difference between your "Brahman" and universe?

None. I consider 'physical energy' to be the Brahman mentioned in our books.