What is truth?

[Londoner]

The only reason I'm bringing that up is that on your view, the fact that our sensory systems work as they do--by sending information along nerves, etc., is sufficient to imply that our perception isn't accurate and unmediated.

'Unmediated' what? 'Accurate' compared to what?

What we understand to be sound are vibrations in the air. If we didn't have ears, we might experience those vibrations in a different way. If we had different sorts of ears, then we would pick up a different range of vibrations. No possibility would be more or less 'accurate' than any of the others.

A dog does not hear in the way that humans hear, so which is hearing 'accurately', us or the dog? Does the dog's ears enable it to hear in an 'unmediated' way, or do ours? You say it is our human perception that is accurate and unmediated; how do you know? Suppose the dog disagrees?

However, that's just how the recording (and mastering, record or CD etc. cutting, stereo reproduction etc.) process works. Electrical information is sent along cables and so on and received by the mixing console etc.

So the fact that perception involves an analogous process doesn't imply representationalism, unless you believe that what comes out of a stereo isn't an accurate accounting of what a band sounded like from particular reference points in a system, but for some reason is a depiction of something that you can only know is your stereo to itself.

The stereo system reproduces the vibrations in the air that the band produced, so we hear it in the same way. That is just pointing out that similar causes (particular vibrations in the air) produce similar effects (particular sensations of sound) in people equipped with similar ears and brains.

But it isn't about 'particular reference points in a system', the problem is that (since we have different ears and brains) although the stereo might duplicate the experience of the band for an individual, it does not duplicate the experience between different individuals. John says 'that recording sounds as if it was live' and Jane agrees, however because Jane has a different range of hearing her experience of both the live performance and the recording are different to John's. So, as with the dog example, how do you decide which one is 'accurate'? Is John's or Jane's version the 'unmediated' one?

So the stereo example misses the issue. I do not dispute that on most occasions, poking me repeatedly with a sharp stick will tend to repeatedly result in me feeling a stabbing pain. What I dispute is that the 'stabbing pain' is something that resides objectively in the stick, rather than in the person being poked. I do not think my pain is an accurate and unmediated representation of the stick. Nor do I think that my experience of hearing is an accurate and unmediated representation of vibrating air.

[creativesoul]

Hobbes' is right Terrapin. Best to drop the objective/subjective dichotomy. It is fraught...

Well, that's certainly a persuasive argument.

Would you admit it if it were?

[Terrapin Station]

'Unmediated' what?

Perception.

'Accurate' compared to what?

Inaccuracies.

What we understand to be sound are vibrations in the air. If we didn't have ears, we might experience those vibrations in a different way. If we had different sorts of ears, then we would pick up a different range of vibrations. No possibility would be more or less 'accurate' than any of the others.

There are different properties that might be perceived. That in no way implies that perception isn't direct/unmediated.

A dog does not hear in the way that humans hear, so which is hearing 'accurately', us or the dog?

We have evidence that they can hear different properties--namely, different frequencies. We have no evidence, and can have no evidence, that the same properties that we hear are heard qualitatively differently. (Ignoring nominalism for a moment re "same.")

The stereo system reproduces the vibrations in the air that the band produced, so we hear it in the same way. That is just pointing out that similar causes (particular vibrations in the air) produce similar effects (particular sensations of sound) in people equipped with similar ears and brains.

As I had just explained, the point of that analogy wasn't anything about us listening to music. It was to undermine a supposed problem with perception via your argument that representationalism obtains due to signal processing facts.

John says 'that recording sounds as if it was live' and Jane agrees, however because Jane has a different range of hearing her experience of both the live performance and the recording are different to John's.

Aside from the stereo analogy having nothing to do with this,

Here you're

(1) conflating concepts and perceptions,
(2) taking the perception of different properties to suggest representationalism, and
(3) taking naive realists to be suggesting that perception is infallible.

All three of those things have problems.

I do not dispute that on most occasions, poking me repeatedly with a sharp stick will tend to repeatedly result in me feeling a stabbing pain. What I dispute is that the 'stabbing pain' is something that resides objectively in the stick, rather than in the person being poked.

And of course I'd dispute that as well.

Pain isn't objective, it's subjective.

But of course the stick isn't subjective, it's objective, and you can know it as an objective thing (by acquaintance).

[creativesoul]

I did not say that trees etc. were unreal; I said that the mental image we have of them is something we construct.

Well, a "mental image" is going to be something we construct, because it's mental. Mentality is a subset of brain states and not something else. When we're talking about brain states we're talking about us, persons with brains.

Perceptions are also something that occurs in us and not elsewhere, as perceptions are a subset of mentality/consciousness.

It's important to remember that in philosophy of perception disagreements, no one is claiming that we're not talking about perception (otherwise we're not doing philosophy of perception any longer, we're doing something else). What's at issue, rather, is the "nature" of perception, just what it is that we're perceiving.

My side of the philosophy perception debate is that we're directly perceiving objective things (where again, because for some reason it's so easy to overlook this, one should note that I'm not saying that we're not perceiving objective things, we are perceiving them). My side of the debate is not that we're instead "perceiving" mental images, so that there's another level of remove somehow from the objective things.

One reason I have for saying this is because people with different sensory abilities (e.g. colour blindness) will have different mental images of what a tree is.

Naive realism very well agrees that various factors, such as color blindness, can interfere with accurate perception of objective things.

Aside from that, the same tree is not going to be perceived identically by any two person for these two reasons:

(1) Nominalism is true. When we're talking about whether the same tree is perceived identically by two different people, we're talking about two different persons' perceptions. Person 1's perception is not identical to person 2's perception simply because nominalism is true. It's two different instances, numerically distinct, of perceptions, and two numerically distinct things are not identical.

How many trees?

You're conflating 'objects' of perception with perception. Sometimes there's no difference(purely imaginary entities). Other times, there are. What does perception necessarily presuppose? I mean, what must already be the case in order to perception to take place as we know it. Unless you get those things right, you'll never get perception right.

[Terrapin Station]

Hobbes' is right Terrapin. Best to drop the objective/subjective dichotomy. It is fraught...

Well, that's certainly a persuasive argument.

Would you admit it if it were?

Yes, of course, but you can't seriously think that it would be?

[Terrapin Station]

How many trees?

What??

You're conflating 'objects' of perception with perception.

Where am I doing that? Can you give an example?

[creativesoul]

Well, that's certainly a persuasive argument.

Would you admit it if it were?

Yes, of course, but you can't seriously think that it would be?

Well, there certainly are very strong arguments against the dichotomy. Do you need convincing in order to drop the objective/subjective dichotomy from meaningful talk?

[creativesoul]

Well, that's certainly a persuasive argument.

Would you admit it if it were?

Yes, of course, but you can't seriously think that it would be?

What does perception necessarily presuppose?

[Terrapin Station]

Well, there certainly are very strong arguments against the dichotomy.

Maybe there are, but how about presenting one then?

Saying that you feel that so and so is right, and that something "is fraught" definitely isn't a convincing argument.

Do you need convincing in order to drop the objective/subjective dichotomy from meaningful talk?

Yes, of course, because I disagree that there are problems with it. I think it's quite useful instead.

[Terrapin Station]

Would you admit it if it were?

Yes, of course, but you can't seriously think that it would be?

What does perception necessarily presuppose?

That's your view, not mine.

Should I ask you to guess things about views of mine that I haven't shared with you yet?

[creativesoul]

Yes, of course, but you can't seriously think that it would be?

What does perception necessarily presuppose?

That's your view, not mine.

Should I ask you to guess things about views of mine that I haven't shared with you yet?

Point well made, and well taken...

Do you not find that your notion of perception is existentially contingent upon simpler things? Do you not find that perception is a composite, or perhaps a process?

[creativesoul]

Well, there certainly are very strong arguments against the dichotomy.

Maybe there are, but how about presenting one then?

Saying that you feel that so and so is right, and that something "is fraught" definitely isn't a convincing argument.

Do you need convincing in order to drop the objective/subjective dichotomy from meaningful talk?

Yes, of course, because I disagree that there are problems with it. I think it's quite useful instead.

How does it take account of meaning and/or truth?

[creativesoul]

How many trees?

What??

You're conflating 'objects' of perception with perception.

Where am I doing that? Can you give an example?

You said that there were two perceptions of one tree. You've said that perception is mental. If the 'object' of perception is not mental, then what difference does it make whether the perceptions are? The option, of course, is to claim that the tree is objective, but we cannot ever access the tree because all we ever have access to is our perception of the tree...

Is that an accurate summary of your viewpoint?

[Londoner]

Me: 'Accurate' compared to what?

Inaccuracies.

Very amusing. And what is the standard for accuracy?

Me: There are different properties that might be perceived. That in no way implies that perception isn't direct/unmediated. ]A dog does not hear in the way that humans hear, so which is hearing 'accurately', us or the dog?

We have evidence that they can hear different properties--namely, different frequencies. We have no evidence, and can have no evidence, that the same properties that we hear are heard qualitatively differently. (Ignoring nominalism for a moment re "same.")

Can you express that thought more clearly? I am particularly mystified by that reference to 'nominalism'. What would, or wouldn't be a 'qualitative' difference in hearing?

As I had just explained, the point of that analogy wasn't anything about us listening to music. It was to undermine a supposed problem with perception via your argument that representationalism obtains due to signal processing facts.

Well it doesn't for the reasons I explained. All it says is that, in an individual, similar stimuli is perceived similarly, not that their perception is unmediated by their sensory equipment and their brains. It is like claiming out that because all beef put through the same mincer comes out similarly, this proves that minced beef resembles a cow.

Me: John says 'that recording sounds as if it was live' and Jane agrees, however because Jane has a different range of hearing her experience of both the live performance and the recording are different to John's.

Aside from the stereo analogy having nothing to do with this,

Here you're

(1) conflating concepts and perceptions,
(2) taking the perception of different properties to suggest representationalism, and
(3) taking naive realists to be suggesting that perception is infallible.

All three of those things have problems.

Then say what they are.

You keep mentioning things like 'representationalism' in your answers, as if we were supposed to understand something from it. There are lots of ideas around 'representationalism' and I cannot tell what you are referring to.

Me: I do not dispute that on most occasions, poking me repeatedly with a sharp stick will tend to repeatedly result in me feeling a stabbing pain. What I dispute is that the 'stabbing pain' is something that resides objectively in the stick, rather than in the person being poked.

And of course I'd dispute that as well.

Pain isn't objective, it's subjective.

But of course the stick isn't subjective, it's objective, and you can know it as an objective thing (by acquaintance).

Why is the experience of pain subjective, but not our other sensations? Isn't the pain of being poked by it 'acquaintance'? If not, what sensory experiences connected with the stick do count you think we should count as 'acquaintance'/not subjective, and how do you justify your selection? And suppose my 'acquaintance' differs from yours; they can't both be knowledge of the objective thing. One must be right and the other wrong. How do you know which?

I asked a couple of times about what you understood by 'objective thing', whether this was what is described in philosophy as the 'thing-in-itself' or 'noumena'. Now you have introduced the notion of 'acquaintance'; do you mean that in the sense Russell used it? There are an awful lot of philosophical terms being thrown in without any explanation or context. Thus, as the discussion has gone on, rather than things becoming clearer I have lost track of your position; I cannot tell what you are saying, whether you are arguing some existing philosophical position or have formed a new idea.

[Terrapin Station]

Do you not find that your notion of perception is existentially contingent upon simpler things? Do you not find that perception is a composite, or perhaps a process?

Existentially contingent, sure. I wouldn't say that's the same thing as "presuppose," though.

One thing it's existentially contingent upon is there being things to perceive and creatures to perceive them.

And re processes, sure, it's contingent upon the nerve and brain processes that amount to perception.

How does it take account of meaning and/or truth?

That something is useful doesn't imply that it's useful for everything, by the way.

The distinction doesn't "take account of" anything--"taking account of something," like "presupposing" things, is a specific kind of intentional act that persons perform.

But the subjective/objective distinction does have some pertinence for meaning and truth; namely, both meaning and truth are subjective.

You said that there were two perceptions of one tree. You've said that perception is mental. If the 'object' of perception is not mental, then what difference does it make whether the perceptions are?

Yes, there are as many perceptions of a tree as there are perceivers (and I would think that this would be obvious, although I shouldn't assume that knowing philosophers . . . I shouldn't be surprised if there are people who think that somehow, there's literally ONE perception that everyone can share). And yes, perception is mental.

Re "the object of perception," that phrase is actually ambiguous. One could read it as "the object that is being perceived," so that the extension is the objective thing, or one could read it as "the focused-on content of the perception," so that the extension is the subjective thing, the perception per se.

Re "what difference does it make whether the perceptions are (mental)?" As I noted, it's important to emphasize--with the aim of avoiding straw men--that no one in philosophy of perception disagreements is saying that we don't perceive things, and perception is mental. So the disagreements are over what the relation is between the things perceived and the perception itself.

The option, of course, is to claim that the tree is objective, but we cannot ever access the tree because all we ever have access to is our perception of the tree...

Is that an accurate summary of your viewpoint?

No. I'm what's known as a naive realist on this issue. Naive realists believe that we do have access to the tree, that our perception is "direct"--that is, unmediated, or in other words, we're saying that what we're perceiving is the "tree itself," we're not perceiving some mental recreation of the tree. Again, no one is getting rid of perception in philosophy of perception disputes. Everyone agrees that we can only perceive things, and that perceiving things is a mental phenomenon. The disputes are about what the relationship is between our perceptions and what we're perceiving.

Some people believe that the whatever-it-is-exactly objective stuff "sends" information to our sensory apparatuses, and then our brain basically transforms it into something that's uniquely mental, and then what we perceive is that mental "painting" so to speak (painting in the sense of it being a recreation or representation that's not the thing itself).

Naive realists believe that what we perceive is not a recreation or representation of the objective stuff. We believe that what we perceive is directly the objective stuff, so that the process is more like photography or audio recording than painting (or novel writing etc.). So it works by the objective stuff "sending" information to our sensory apparatuses, and our perception is of this information, not the extra step of a separate mental creation prior to our perception.