The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
Just thought about this idea, that idealism and materialism (or physicalism) debates are not really meaningful, because they both ignore the fact that it depends on how the perceiver and the world is interacting.
When the perceiver is only thinking about the world without direct visual or material sensation or perception, the world is in the mind of the perceiver as ideas only.
When the perceiver and the world is in direct physical contact which allows the perceiver to have direct perception, sensation, and interaction with the world or objects in the world, the world presents to the perceiver as physical entity or material objects.
Therefore the situational accessibility in perceptual session is also an important factor whether the world is an idea or physical entity.
I would brand this way of seeing the world and perception as Ideal Realism. It sounds a contradictory name in its meaning, but it is what it is.
I am not sure if there were any other folks who thought about this aspect of worldview before. This idea may not be perfect, and has obvious inconsistences and contradictions, which the OP is open to explore via discussions.
When the perceiver is only thinking about the world without direct visual or material sensation or perception, the world is in the mind of the perceiver as ideas only.
When the perceiver and the world is in direct physical contact which allows the perceiver to have direct perception, sensation, and interaction with the world or objects in the world, the world presents to the perceiver as physical entity or material objects.
Therefore the situational accessibility in perceptual session is also an important factor whether the world is an idea or physical entity.
I would brand this way of seeing the world and perception as Ideal Realism. It sounds a contradictory name in its meaning, but it is what it is.
I am not sure if there were any other folks who thought about this aspect of worldview before. This idea may not be perfect, and has obvious inconsistences and contradictions, which the OP is open to explore via discussions.
Comments (99)
Idealism is false since it cannot explain coherence in the ideas that we perceive. Physicalism also is false since it cannot explain mental phenomena and the correlation between mental phenomena and physical ones.
I would call that way of seeing the world "metaphysics." All the isms in philosophy have the same characteristic you identify - they all "depend on how the perceiver and the world are interacting." You use different approaches, different metaphysical perspectives, depending on what you're doing. This way of seeing things comes under the general heading of pragmatism.
But when I think of a tree, it is just a image and some qualities of the tree in the mind. It is a concept. When I go out to the garden, and touch the tree trunk or branches, it is physical matter. In both occasions of my engagement of the interaction with the tree, I get different knowledge and perceptual experience from the tree.
So why do you think idealism is false and also physicalism is false? Isn't the case that what type of level of experience and interactions you have with the object, and also availability of data, which either can give you knowledge or not? In that sense aren't both way of seeing the world true?
Yes, good point. :up:
Ok, first idealism. As I said idealism is false because it cannot explain the coherence in the reality that we perceive. Let me give you one example: Let's assume that you now put the cup of coffee that you just sipped from on the table. If you want to drink more coffee you know where the cup is, you get it and drink from it. For example, the cup of coffee just does not disappear. It is where you left it. You then approach it with your hand and grab its handle with your fingers. Move it toward your mouth and drink more coffee as you please. So we are dealing with a set of ideas, what we perceive, but there is a coherence between them. Idealism cannot explain the coherence in reality therefore it is false. I have more examples but this one is sufficient to deny idealism.
And now, physicalism. Physicalism looks correct at first look since things are lawful within physicalism. So for example the cup of coffee is where you left it since reality is lawful. That, lawfulness, is however its weakness as well as I illustrate later. The first issue that physicalism suffers from is the existence of experience. Experience cannot be denied yet it cannot be explained in physicalism. The second issue is related to the correlation between mental and physical. For example, when you decide to have more coffee your hand moves appropriately. You then grab the handle of the cup with your finger, then move it toward your mouth, and drink as much as coffee you please. So we see fantastic correlations between mental and physical all the time. The problem is if physicals are lawful then they move according to the laws of physics. There is however no room left for mental to intervene since accepting that mental has a causal power leads to overdetermination which is not acceptable. So you have to choose, either mental has no causal power which means that you cannot explain the fantastic correlation between mental and physical, or mental has causal power which is contrary because overdetermination is not acceptable.
Slightly different names, slightly different primary ideas, but pretty much a familiar philosophy to some.
So yeah, theres at least one other folk(..) who thought about this aspect of worldview before.
Naive realism is the philosophical attitude that things just are as they appear, and there is no question to solve about the relationship between reality and appearance.
Although its not as common an expression, naive idealism is the view that idealists believe that the world is simply a figment of the individual mind, or what goes on inside a conscious mind.
I think your post presents a pretty naive version of both materialism and idealism. Serious philosophers in both schools have long grappled with the conundrums of mind and matter, or matter and form.
Quoting MoK
And that is a naive depiction of idealism. No idealist philosophy of record will claim that the world is all in the mind as you are claiming. If you want to illustrate the point youre attempting to make, youll need to back it up with some citations from recognised idealist philosophy which say what youre claiming it says.
But if you divide the world into reality and representation, then you are back in the old dualistic view of the world. We have been on that road before.
You end up having 2x copies of every object in your perception, and wonder which one is the real object. If you say the physical tree is the real tree, then you are back to denying the representation being a plain physicalist. If you say the representation is the real object, then you are back to the idealist. And there is always the mysterious thing-in-itself lurking behind all the objects you perceive without revealing what they really are.
Here we are suggesting, well why not leap out from the old well, and see the world from the real experiential point of view.
If you are thinking about the tree, then you are only having an idea of the tree. If you go out, and see the tree in front of you feeling and confirm the physical tree, then you have the physical tree as well as the sensation and ideas of the tree. The reality is in your living experience interacting and accessing the objects, not just in the objects themselves.
Who would it be?
Quoting MoK
Idealism is not about explaining the coherence in the reality. It is about how we see the reality.
Have you been on that road before, or are you relying on a second-hand accounts?
Quoting Corvus
You think philosophers don't recognise this?
You need to do some homework on what idealist philosophy actually is. The Brittanica has a decent introductory article on it. It's not nearly so naive as you're making it out to be.
We have seen the arguments on the dualism all the time, haven't we?
Quoting Wayfarer
Idealism could be a broad topic, but here I am talking under most brief and general concept of idealism for the argument bearing in mind that idealism itself is not the main topic.
What do you think the actual idealism is? What is your account for non-naive idealism?
Explained in the OP The Mind Created World. Not that I'm wanting to hijack your thread, but I also don't want to try and explain it all again here.
If I had to explain it in a sentence or two, it would be that the world (object) always exists for an observer. That while we can know what the world would be like as if there were no observer, the observer is still the basis of that imaginative act. That this doesn't mean that the world doesn't exist without an observer, as existence and non-existence are conceptual constructions.
The OP wasn't denying the existence of the world. The OP was about the way we see the world. Both representation and matter are real depending on what type of experience and perception the observer has with the world.
When we perceive the physical objects in front of us, and when the objects are available to our senses, also backed by our ideas on them, they are real. When they are not available to our senses, but when we think, remember or imagine about them, the physicals fade away from our perception, and they become ideas in our minds.
Of course they are, but we know which one is real. To perceive the real Lady Gaga, you must go to her live concert. What you listen to, and watch on youtube is virtual real, not the real.
I recall your OP you mentioned above. The OP could be written in 3 sentences, and perhaps needed 2-3 pages of postings. Instead the OP read like a novel, and it was filled with the over 2k irrelevant postings for ages. What was the conclusion in the end?
Ideas unfold in the world. When we think of an idea transmitted by language for example. Since there is a relation to signifiers the idea itself becomes a signifier within a chain of referral. It is necessary to explain how the idea is related to sound, the extension of language and the relation of representation (for example the relation to pixels on a screen). This explanation can only be carried out if the idea and its representation are part of the same system of signs. This implies that the idea is not enclosed in the head but that literally the world is made of ideas unfolding, our world, but the idea is something necessarily material, if by material we understand the finiteness of the sign, its appearance, its action and reaction, its contact, its causality, its transformation, its difference, etc....
I think this is a very interesting point. Here we are not just simply talking about idealism and materialism, but the nature and scope of ideas and realities too. I will read over your post a few times, and let it sink in me before returning with my points. Later~
According to SEP, there are two main forms of idealism, namely ontological and epistemological, wherein the reality is merely mental in the former whereas in the latter the existence of mind-independent things is accepted. I am arguing against ontological idealism here only since otherwise we are dealing with a form of substance dualism once you accept mind-independent things as well as the mind.
Quoting Wayfarer
My knowledge of idealism is limited to what I read from SEP and Wiki a while ago. To the best of my knowledge, the coherence in reality is not discussed in any form of idealism. I would be happy to know if you can cite a form of idealism that discusses coherence in reality.
I am saying that idealism should not be accepted as a correct metaphysical theory if it cannot explain the coherence in reality.
Ideas manifest when we materialize our ideas into physical entities. But ideas themselves are not matter.
This morning I was thinking about whether to drink coffee or tea. The coffee or tea was ideas in my mind. When I decided to have coffee, and made coffee, the idea of coffee manifested into matter. When I drank the coffee, it was a real experience of coffee in a form of matter.
Likewise matter can be idealised when perceived. Before perception, there is no matter, and no existence. When we perceive an object, it is perceived as matter. When we remember it, or think about it in our mind, it is an idea of the matter.
Matter is not ideas, and ideas are not matter. Between the two states of existence, experience and perception are needed for the transformation. Idea is not just a copy of matter, and matter is not just physical existence on its own.
For that process, we need our perception and the body with working brain to carry out the perceptual process or experience. Could it be a phenomenological view? I need to read some Husserl, Heidegger and Merlou Ponty, if their ideas were in line with the OP.
I am not sure to say that idealism is not correct is a correct statement. Idealism is a way to view to the world. It is your reasoning to tell if the idea you have is correct or not. Ideas are just copy of the objects in the world.
Of course, it wouldn't be able to tell you whether they are correct or not. You need your own thinking process, observations, confirmations and logical affirmation to be able to say your ideas were correct or not. The world doesn't tell you if it is correct or not. It is your thought which does that.
A raw idea doesn't have coherence attached to it. You need to analyse the idea with your reasoning process to come to the judgement on coherence or not.
Why not? Does idealism explain coherence in reality?
Quoting Corvus
What do you mean by this?
Quoting Corvus
I already argued against idealism.
If you have an idea of tree, then the idea itself cannot tell you it is correct or not. It only gives an image of tree. To know the idea is correct or not, you must check if it has all the correct qualities for a tree. The checking process is from your reasoning, not a work from the idea.
You seem to be confused in the difference between idea and reasoning.
What do you mean by correct here? If you have an idea of a tree then that is just an idea.
Not at all. The reasoning is based on working on the ideas.
If X is based on Y, then X is not Y. Reasoning is not ideas. Reasoning is a thought process. Ideas are images and concepts.
I didn't say that.
Quoting Corvus
How is the thought process possible in idealism?
You are connecting reasoning process to ideas as if they are necessary, but they are not.
Quoting MoK
You see drink in a cup, and think it is coffee. The idea of drink in a cup itself doesn't tell you truth or falsity on your thought. You must drink and taste it to be able to tell it is coffee or tea. Truth or falsity is only possible by your judgement on sense perception (in empirical cases) or thought process (in analytic cases).
Images and concepts themselves don't tell you about coherence of reality.
"Ideal Realism" as described sounds like the existing term "Direct Realism" (Wikipedia - Direct and indirect realism)
Even the Direct Realist can dream and imagine.
But what does Direct Realism say about the existence of unperceived objects? In Ideal Realism, unperceived objects such as the country of Australia or the object Eifel Tower don't exist until observed or perceived.
Ideal Realism also says that we perceive the world with experience via the bodily sense organs loaded with ideas, not direct. Bodily sense organs in human body are not just physical perceptive organs, but they are supported by rational ideas with inferring capacities.
When we are looking at a cup with drink in it, we are not only simply seeing it (like Direct Realism, which ends there), but also looking for evidence and qualities which are the premeditated or inferred drink i.e. coffee or tea. Coffee will look darker in colour than tea, and when drank, it will have the taste of coffee, not tea. All perception is accompanied by the rich mental states and operations backed by experienced and reasoned ideas.
Therefore Ideal Realism is not simple naive Direct Realism.
When I say that ideas are material, I do not mean that they are physical, but a third option between the mental and the physical that respects the identity of each one. And this is provided by the idea of sign. An idea is a meaning that has a relation to other meanings, according to which it is itself a signifier. And this makes it possible to understand something as the language in which you transmit ideas to other people. If the idea did not exist as a sign within a system of signs we could not speak of transmission from one person to another (since in Communication you are being affected by the signs of another person). Moreover, the fact that an idea belongs to a system of signs ensures its ideality (that it is something that persists even beyond the subject who thinks it). In this sense ideas are as material as any sound within the transmission of ideas) but not in a physicalist sense, but in a very different sense.
I don't think that Australians will be happy to know that they don't exist because an Ideal Realist in the Kerguelen Islands has never heard of them.
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Quoting Corvus
This sounds like the existing term "Indirect Realism" (Wikipedia - Direct and indirect realism)
Any objects or world unobserved don't exist. They are imagined or believed to exist.
Quoting RussellA
Indirect realism's problem is using sense data as the medium of perception, which doesn't make sense. Sense data is ambiguous in terms of its legitimacy of the meaning, implication, origin, uses, and existence. It is a muddled and confused claim.
Idea can be different types i.e. ideas as mental representations, images of the physical objects, meanings of the words, and ideas as resolutions or answers to the problems, and indeed ideas as words themselves and symbols and signs. But here we are manly talking about mental representations i.e. images and concepts in our minds.
Why should I believe in the existence of an object in the world that I have never observed existing?
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Quoting Corvus
It may be that your problem with Indirect Realism is, as you said on page 1: "You end up having 2x copies of every object in your perception, and wonder which one is the real object."
But this is not the case for the Indirect Realist. There is no medium of perception. There is just perception.
When the Indirect Realist perceives the colour red, for example, they are not perceiving a representation of the colour red, they are directly perceiving the colour red.
Anything otherwise would lead into the homunculus problem of infinite regression.
What the Indirect Realist does believe is that there is something in the world that has caused them to perceive the colour red, but it is unknowable whether this something in the world is actually red or not. The Indirect Realist reasons that it is not, but cannot know for sure.
In a sense, the colour red that is directly perceived is a representation of the unknown something in the world, which may or may not be the colour red.
There is only one object of perception for the Indirect Realist, and that is the direct perception of the colour red.
Reasoning is an analysis of ideas.
Quoting Corvus
I asked, how is coherent thought possible in idealism?
The idea of sign to which I refer is that of "being in the place of something else ready to be interpreted by a context". So you can understand ideas as a kind of sign. For example when you think of rain there is a representation in which you can think of that object rain: you think of clouds, lightning, umbrellas and other things that are not directly present that nevertheless give meaning to that idea and not only that but constitute it.
Without this possibility of the sign (that of being in place of something else...) ideas could not be transmitted. But above all, it is thanks to this that it achieves the characteristic ideality of the idea: its repetition. Be it in someone else's head, in writing, in an archive, in a painting, in a paper, in our world, etc. For example if you think of an idea that another person gave you, that idea is present in your mind but it is no longer present in the mind of the other person.
Idealism is not for coherent thoughts. It is a way of seeing the world. Idealism says your mind, the representation in your mind is real. The coherent thinking comes from the principle of logic, reasoning, inference and observation on the things happening in space and time which are your intuition.
You don't need to. You are free to believe what you want to believe, and that is what belief is about.
But if you believe that Australia exists even you have never been there, it is likely your belief must be based on what you read, were told and saw on the media.
Quoting RussellA
Doesn't sound it has a point in saying that something has cause but they don't know what the cause is.
It sounds like one aspect of idea. What I was meaning with idea was a way of seeing the world. It is all in our mind. What we see, notice, think, reflect, imagine, draw, and remember in our mind i.e. the whole contents in the mind are ideas, and they are real.
Maybe the human mind is a metaphysical Xerox machine. It inputs an original (Real) experience and outputs one or more copies (Ideas, memories,conceptual images). Normally, we have no difficulty distinguishing the real thing from the copy.
But, sometimes, when we don't have the original for comparison, we may mistake the ideal copy for the real original. That's why some legal Xerox machines add a note or code to the copies saying "this is a copy". Unfortunately, for philosophers, nature has provided no easy way to discriminate the direct experience of a thing from the indirect re-experience (remember from memory). Remember the old recording tape ad : "is it real, or is it Memorex?" :smile:
It would be like a doctor refusing to treat someone in pain with a broken leg until they knew the cause of the break.
It is a brave statement that there is no point in Indirect or Representational Realism, and philosophers such as Aristotle, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Bertrand Russell were mistaken.
In Kant's transcendental idealism, what we are seeing is appearance, and the reality is hidden in noumena. In Hume, what we see is impressions of the external world, not the world itself. In Schopenhauer, the world is representation and will of us. Hence we are not experiencing the reality as is at all. :)
There would be no cases such that the cause of break is unknown in medical incidents.
Quoting RussellA
Not really. Their systems are not denied here. Rather, the OP is based on their systems, but seeing the world in a different way like Husserl and Merlou Ponty have done.
I doubt that the cause of a medical condition is always known.
Even though the broken leg has a cause, the doctor is treating the broken leg, the doctor is not treating the cause of the broken leg.
When I perceive the colour red, I perceive the colour red regardless of any cause.
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Quoting Corvus
You may not deny Indirect and Representational Realism, but you infer there is no point in them.
Quoting Corvus
There would be always possible causes when the cause is uncertain. But there is no absolute unknown causes.
Quoting RussellA
It sounds like a tautological statement, which doesn't convey any knowledge.
Quoting RussellA
The point of idealism or materialism is to define what the ultimate reality is in the end. But IR and DR seem to just make vague statements on how they perceive via unknown causes or directly. They just end there. So what is the ultimate reality? They don't seem to be interested in it. Hence no point.
The world just present to you as it appears. It doesn't tell you reality is true or false. You perceive what is given and presented to you. You must gather up the ideas you perceived, and organise your thoughts, and come to your own judgement on its coherence or absurdity.
Please don't confuse ideas and coherence of the reality. They are different category of existences.
The statement "When I perceive the colour red, I perceive the colour red" is a tautological statement.
The statement "When I perceive the colour red, I perceive the colour red regardless of any cause" is not a tautological statement.
Suppose someone perceives the colour red. Both the Indirect and Direct Realist would agree that something in the world caused their perception.
The Direct Realist says the person is directly perceiving the cause of their perceiving the colour red. The Indirect realist says that the person is only directly perceiving the colour red.
Saying "When I perceive the colour red, I perceive the colour red regardless of any cause" is distinguishing Indirect from Direct Realism.
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Quoting Corvus
A bold statement that neither Indirect nor Direct Realism are interested in the nature of ultimate reality.
Indirect Realism is about the limits of knowledge of ultimate reality. Direct Realists do believe that they know ultimate reality.
It sounds an empty statement as well as tautology too. What do you mean by "regardless of any cause"? Why is it relevant to the point?
Quoting RussellA
It is a fair statement, not a bold one.
Quoting RussellA
What are the ultimate reality for these folks in detail?
I asked whether idealism can explain the coherence in reality. Yes, or no? If yes, then how? If not, then it is not the proper metaphysical theory of reality!
I am not confusing two. Please see the above post.
Presumably the same as for the idealists and the materialists.
Quoting Corvus
Do you mean you cannot understand your own perception?
Quoting MoK
Why do you think it is the case?
You haven't answered the key point question.
Quoting Corvus
But not simply in our minds. but, as it were, ideas extend their existence beyond the mind, reaching the minds of other people, books, recordings, hieroglyphics, etc. In that sense they are extramental things, insofar as they transcend or transcend the finitude of our mind. This is because their being is always contextualized. That is to say, their being depends on the relation with other things, and these relations as relations between signifiers extend their reality beyond the mind, contextualizing it. Think of how many times a book has given you an idea, or the words of another person, a painting, etc. This means that ideas are contextualized in and by an extramental world.
I am not talking about perception but coherence in perception.
Quoting Corvus
Show me how idealism can explain coherence in perception.
Coherence comes from your reasoning, not from perception. You must ask yourself why your reasoning cannot understand your own perception.
Quoting MoK
Idealism is the way you see the world. It is simply saying that what you perceive is ideas, and what you believe, think, remember, see and imagine in your mind are real.
Coherence comes from your reasoning on your perception. You seem to be not able to tell the difference between your perception and your reasoning on perception.
We couldn't possibly reason if what we perceive was random. So, let's focus on perception. Why things that you perceive is coherent?
is right to ask you how it can explain both the consistency of your perceptions, and how it is that we overwhelmingly agree as to how things are.
It was not transcendental idealism I was trying to describe. It was ideal realism I was trying to describe.
So what is your account of non-novice version of transcendental idealism?
Quoting Banno
Mok doesn't seem to understand that perception just presents to us the world as it is. Perception doesn't give us coherence of reality. It just perceives the objects and world as they are, and feeds us with the information in most raw form of data i.e. images. motions, shapes, sounds and words. That is where perception ends.
He has been keep asking how perception can tell coherence of reality, which doesn't make sense.
From ideal realism, perception don't give us coherence of reality. Coherence of reality can be known via our analytic thinking and reasoning on the perceived contents via the principle of cause and effect and necessity.
Yes, I agree that our ideas can be passed onto other minds in forms of materialised media, books, words, music, arts etc. And when those materialised ideas are passed onto other minds, they can form new ideas and creativities in forms of other materials, so forth and so fifth ad infinitum. Could this be similar idea with Hegel's absolute idea or spirit? I am not sure, but just inferring here.
I wrote "When I perceive the colour red, I perceive the colour red regardless of any cause."
It goes back to your two previous statements:
Quoting Corvus
Quoting Corvus
I am trying to show that this is a misrepresentation of Indirect Realism. For Indirect Realism, there is only "1x copy of every object in your perception."
This means that when an Indirect Realist perceives the colour red, they are only directly perceiving the colour red. They are only directly perceiving one thing. They are not directly perceiving two things, the colour red and the cause of their perception of the colour red.
As I wrote:
You seem to be confusing the point that I was trying to point out the fact that transcendental idealism has problem of having dualistic view of the world i.e. phenomenon and noumenon. I was trying to clarify that ideal realism is not transcendental realism. Banno seems to be confusing himself on this point in his post above, which I tried to correct his confusion.
I only mentioned on indirect realism, because you brought it up. I don't actually know what it is claiming officially, because just by reading your posts about it, it sounded like a tautological statement as I mentioned before.
So what is the difference between indirect realism and direct realism? From what you are saying, they sound exactly the same claims.
A dualistic view in itself is not necessarily incorrect. For example, a word is an example of dualism. On the one hand it exists as a shape and on the other hand it exists as what it is representing.
This describes Direct Realism:
Quoting Corvus
This describes the Direct Realist closing their eyes and using their imagination:
Quoting Corvus
As I wrote on page 2
Thanks for the clarification.
That sounds confusing. Is it not the other way around? Are you sure you haven't put them wrong way around in the definition? What significance the word "indirect" have in the name? Why indirect?
I don't believe so.
Suppose someone perceives the colour red. Both the Indirect and Direct Realist would agree that something in the world caused their perception.
The Direct Realist would argue that they are directly seeing the something in the world that caused their perception. They argue that the something in the world is actually red.
The Indirect realist argues that they are directly perceiving the colour red in their mind and only know about the something in the world that caused their perception indirectly through reason. They argue that the something in the world might be red, might be green, might be a wavelength of 700nm or might be something else altogether.
The Direct Realist argues that they have direct knowledge about the something in the world that caused their perception, whereas the Indirect Realist argues that their reasoning can only give them indirect knowledge about the something in the world that caused their perception.
1) What is the significance of direct and indirect knowledge?
2) Indirect or direct on relation to what?
3) What are the differences in direct and indirect knowledge compared to knowledge?
I have direct knowledge of New York because I have been there, but only have indirect knowledge of Seattle as I have never been there.
I have direct knowledge of my perception of red, but only have indirect knowledge of the something in the world that might have caused it
Indirect knowledge signifies a belief.
I believe that the Space Needle in Seattle was originally sketched on a napkin, but I don't know it for a fact as I wasn't there at the time.
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Quoting Corvus
In relation to something in the world. The relation between what exists in the mind and what exists in the world.
Does it mean that Indirect Realist can only have beliefs? No knowledge at all?
And likewise, Direct Relists can only have knowledge? No beliefs at all?
Quoting RussellA
That seems to imply that they are back to the dualism.
Yes, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong with dualism.
If there was no dualism there would be no language. A word on the one hand exists as a shape and on the other hand exists as a representation of something else.
The meaning of the words "direct knowledge" and "indirect knowledge" depends on context.
In ordinary language, I have direct knowledge of The Empire States Building as I have visited it, but I only have indirect knowledge of The Space Needle as I have never been there.
In philosophy, I have direct knowledge of my perceptions of the colour grey and rectangular shape, but I only have indirect knowledge through reasoning of the something in the world that may have caused my perceptions.
The meaning of the words "knowledge" and "belief" depends on context.
In ordinary language, I know that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris, and I believe that the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889.
In philosophy, I know my perception of the colour red, and I believe that there is something in the world that caused this perception.
The Indirect Realist
Not entirely. The Indirect Realist has knowledge about what exists in their mind, such as when they perceive the colour red. But they argue that we can only have beliefs about what exists in the world that may be causing these perceptions in the mind.
The Direct Realist
The Direct Realist argues that they have knowledge about what exists in their mind, such as when they perceive the colour red, and they argue that they also have knowledge about the something in the world that caused these perceptions in the mind.
However, as I see it, Direct Realist is an invalid philosophy. IE, they are wrong.
Quoting RussellA
Perception cannot give us knowledge. It can only present with what is perceived in the form of raw data i.e. shapes, colours, sounds, words and motions. That is where it ends. It is our reasoning and inference which give us knowledge on the reality. Hence both DR and IRists are wrong.
It depends what is meant by "knowledge".
Knowledge could mean justified true belief. If I believe that the Eiffel Tower is 330m tall and can justify my belief, perhaps I read it in Encyclopedia Britannica, and the Eiffel Tower is actually 330m tall, then I have knowledge about the Eiffel Tower
I agree that we perceive things and can then use our reason on these perceptions in order to give us knowledge about the world, such that the Eiffel Tower is 330m tall.
But in order to reason about my perceptions, I must first know that I am perceiving the colour red, for example. I don't think that I am seeing the colour red. I don't believe that I am seeing the colour red. I don't need to reason that I am seeing the colour red. I know that I am seeing the colour red.
Is knowing something knowledge? Is knowing that I see the colour red knowledge that I see the colour red?
In propositional terms, when I say "I know the Eiffel Tower is 330m tall", the fact "the Eiffel Tower is 330m tall" is knowledge. Similarly, when I say "I know I see the colour red", the fact "I see the colour red" is knowledge.
I would say that I have knowledge that I see colours, shapes, sounds, etc
It seems that knowledge can be about what is in the mind as well as what is outside the mind.
We perceive the colour red and reason that it was caused by a red object in the world.
Knowledge is justified true belief.
Just because we have reasoned that our perception of the colour red was caused by a red object in the world, suppose we are mistaken, and in fact our perception of the colour red was not caused by a red object in the world.
Suppose it was caused by a green object. We wouldn't then have knowledge about reality in the world.
Why should our perceptions necessarily give us knowledge about the world?
Your seeing colour red is not knowledge. You are just making a statement on your seeing colour red, and that is all. That colour red could be anything. You must further reason or infer whether the colour red is an apple or a red lamp, if the shape was not clear to you.
Knowledge is verified belief or fact which carries truth. If something is not truth, or unclear, it is not knowledge.
So IRists were confused seeing the colour red as having knowledge on the ultimate reality, it seems.
For empirical cases like seeing colour red, you must go out and investigate further and verify for the truth, if needed. Seeing the colour red is just like CCTV monitoring a street, and recording the scene. There is no intelligence or coherence in the images. Human mind must analyse, and tell the image what it is by matching the images to his intelligence for true knowledge.
AI implemented cameras can tell the what the object of the colour red is, when detecting the object. But it needs the image recognition programming in the implementation.
Idealism can be tricky. Is that desk there an idea. A large, wooden idea and if i push it over, am i pushing an idea? Is my soul an idea? How does my sole know matter as matter? Is there something that connects all philosophical ideas within my soul?
If you think, imagine, remember or believe in the existence of the large desk, then it is idea of the desk in your mind. If you stand in front of the desk, touch it, push it or work on it, then it is a matter, or a physical desk you are dealing with.
Quoting Gregory
Soul is a tricky concept. Does your soul exist? Where is it? In what form does your soul exist?
Suppose in reality the truth is that an object in the world is green, but for whatever reason you always perceive green objects as red.
You could look at the green object from all directions and all times of the day and will always see this green object as red.
How is it possible for the human mind to analyse the fact that they always see a red object to discover the truth of reality that the object in the world is actually green?
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Quoting Corvus
Your seeing the colour red is knowledge about what is in the mind, but is not knowledge about what is in the world.
Knowledge is justified true belief.
As regards the mind, the colour you see is the colour you see, regardless of its name. The colour you see is necessarily a justified true belief, and is therefore knowledge.
As regards the world, you may believe the colour of the object is red. You may be able to justify that the colour of the object is red. But if the object is in reality actually green, then you have no knowledge about the truth of reality.
You need to check if you were wearing red coloured eye glasses, or perhaps you might have developed problems with your sights? Or indeed there is an object which is green, but appears red. The important thing here is that, you are thinking and reasoning that you are seeing red, but it could be green.
You are not just seeing the object like antique CCTV camera.
Quoting RussellA
Because human mind thinks, imagines, reasons and infers on what they perceive.
Quoting RussellA
That sounds an extreme scepticism. We do have knowledge about the truth of reality, because we have perception and reasoning and inferring on the perception. Not just perception.
You need to check and find out what the red coloured object is you are seeing. Just claiming you are seeing red coloured object doesn't mean much and not very useful to you as knowledge.
You must find out, if it is a traffic red light shining at you, or an apple hanging on the apple tree, or fire burning in your garden, so you must be able to stop the car, or go and get the apple for your supper if it were in your own garden, or get a bucket of water, and pour over the fire in the garden, for your perception worthwhile serving you as knowledge for your survival.
Just saying you are seeing something red, but it might be green is not knowledge, and it doesn't mean much at all. Even a bird can tell it is red object she is seeing, and she wouldn't do anything or care what the red object is about. That's no knowledge. We don't say birds have knowledge, even if they can see objects like we do.
Ideal Realism is about a relation between the mind and the world: "The universe is just ideas in the head, but real. Matters are only real when accessible and interactable. When not, all matters are just ideas."
If person A was stung by a wasp, only person A would know their particular pain. Person B may know their own particular pain when stung by a wasp, but as mind reading is not possible, it is impossible for person B to know person A's particular pain.
The top light of a traffic light is labelled "red", the middle light is labelled "orange" and the bottom light is labelled "green".
When person A sees the top light of a traffic light, only person A knows the particular colour that they see. Similarly, person B knows the particular colour that they see. As mind reading is not possible, it is impossible for person B to know the particular colour that person A sees.
Therefore person B can never know whether they are seeing the same or different colour to person A
Therefore, it is possible that persons A and B are in fact seeing different colours.
If persons A and B are seeing different colours, then either one of them or both of them are wrong about the reality of the colour of the top light.
If person B is wrong about the true nature of the traffic light, then this means that even though they see a particular colour of the top traffic light, that particular colour may not in reality be the actual colour of the top traffic light. This means that even though person B sees the colour red, the top traffic light may not in reality be red.
If person B is right about the true nature of the top traffic light, it is possible that person A is wrong.
If person A is wrong about the true nature of the top light, then this means that even though they see a particular colour of the top traffic light, that particular colour may not in reality be the actual colour of the top traffic light. Therefore, even though person A sees the colour red, the top traffic light may not in fact be red.
But persons A and B are interchangeable,
Therefore, it is possible that a person may see a colour that in fact doesn't exist in reality in the world
Direct Realism is the theory that all people directly see the colour that exists in reality in the world, but as mind reading is not possible, this is unknowable.
Therefore Direct Realism is not a valid philosophy. The reality of a mind-independent world is inaccessible to the mind.
When there are discrepancies in the claims of knowledge on the same situation or object between different folks, you always have chance to carry out testimonies on the knowledge via repeated observations, experiments, or testing on the claims, and update your false beliefs, or correct the other folks false claim on his knowledge. You also have option of mutual agreements on knowledge with the other folks who had different account of the knowledge from you via clarification process.
Quoting RussellA
What we see is the only world there is. There is no other world. Mind-independent world is meaningless if you cannot see or know what it is.
But we know the world as we perceive and reason on it. Where reason cannot stretch further due to its own limits, inference can begin. This is what ideal realism saying, and I think it makes sense.
True, if two people make different claims about the same situation, for example, one says the postbox is red, and the other says the postbox is green, their claims can be judged.
But as regards perception, what a person perceives in their mind cannot be judged by anyone other than that person, as mind reading is impossible.
In exactly the same way, any pain a person experiences cannot be judged by anyone other than that person, as mind reading is impossible.
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Quoting Corvus
You could only know what another person sees in their mind if you were a mind reader, which is an impossibility.
Only a mind reader could know that what another person sees in their mind is the same as what they see.
Seeing a colour and feeling a pain are both subjective experiences that are unknowable to any one other than a mind reader.
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Quoting Corvus
If you knew something about a mind-independent world then it couldn't be a mind-independent world.
That would be like knowing something that is unknown.
Quoting RussellA
They are subjective mental states, nothing to do with knowledge. If you have knowledge of something, then you must be able to verify, demonstrate and prove on what you know objectively to other minds in linguistic forms, when asked.
Quoting RussellA
The world or reality means that you live in it, interact with other minds and objects in the world. If you cannot do that, then it is not a world, and it is not the world either. In that sense mind-independent world is a fiction.
Quoting Corvus
All this is too obvious. Beneath the surface of things there is a paralogical bi-reality. We have matter first. We are matter, we are extended so we are extension. People think saying matter is extension is too Cartesian but look: that car there is extended that way, pushes off to the side there, ect. It's extended. It's not the principle of extension maybe, but what does that even mean?
On the other hand we have Descartes arguments for soul. There is nothing about pure abstraction that speaks of an entended organ. This feels strange to write because i feel my own brain and know i am just a body on a material, dangerous planet. However, he has a point that spiritual experiences are perceived as going beyond matter. And if we asign our tactile feelings to the skin because that's were they seem to come from, and the other sensations to each senses, maybe we should asign thought and love to the soul if for nothing else than for psychological necessity
Our only knowledge about any mind-independent world, any objective reality, starts with our subjective mental states. This means that knowledge about an objective reality cannot be separated from our subjective mental states.
Could you describe what mind-independent world could be?
Impossible for the mind to describe a mind-independent world.
There seem to be two options.
1) Mind-independent world doesn't exist. It is a figment of our imagination like flying horse or golden mountain or mermaid.
2) It could be the countries or places which are known to exist, but we have never been in it such as Australia (for me, I have never been in the country). I read about it, watched youtube videos about it, and heard about it, so I imagine it is a vast land with great weather, and lots of wild bush land and many kangurus jumping around all over the place.
I believe it exists, but I have no idea who are living in there, and what is happening in there. I have no direct perception on the country at all. In that sense, it is a mind-independent world for me.
Are you not confounding knowledge about an objective reality with mind-independent world here?
Cartesian idea of body and soul is rejected by many contemporaries as an outdated and invalid theory for the fact, that body and mind dualism cannot be proven and makes no sense.
Do you believe in the dualism? Do we have souls? Could you prove the existence of souls? Do souls supposed to survive the bodily deaths? If they are separate substances, souls suppose to survive bodily deaths. If not, then where do they go, or what happen to the souls after death?
What do you mean by a paralogical bi-reality? Could you elaborate on that please?
Quoting Gregory
We are not just matter.
Quoting Gregory
Isn't extended or extension a property of matter? That is obvious. If not, indeed what do you mean?