Steven Lehar wrote: > It has nothing to do with conscious inference or not. When we see a table > in front of us, its identity as a table may be an inference, but its > spatial structure, spatial extent, and spatial form, appear to us > immediately and in parallel *as if* we were seeing it directly out there, > with no inference involved. Nevertheless, what we think we are seeing "out > there" is actually an image "in here" inside our brain.It has nothing to do > with conscious inference or not. When we see a table
Maybe some clarity can arise from Steven's remark. Suppose, for definiteness, that the table is bright tangerine orange. Now, no "image" in my brain is bright tangerine orange (go ahead, have a look!). Presumably, the "image" in my brain has some kind of coding for color. Notice that we do not experience this code, we experience the perceived color of the table. The color is encoded in the representation; it is not a property of the representation itself (just like the word "red" does not have to be written in red ink in order to mean *red*).
This is the point of what Andy Brook has been calling "direct representationalism". We experience the "meaning" of the inner representation, so to speak, or its "content".
The question I would like to ask Steven is, given that we can experience the meaning of our representations (or their content or however you would like to express the point) rather than the representation's own properties, why can't the content or meaning of our inner representations be external reality? Then when certain inner representations occur, we experience the content of these representations, which content is (aspects of) external reality.
The point seems quite straightforward (so maybe I am missing something). An analogy would be this: we can't talk about things unless we use words. But we seldom talk about words and we certainly are not *always* talking about words. We use words to talk about non-linguistic items. Similarly, our brains use representations to "talk about" (encode information about) reality external to our brains.
> ... Presumably, the "image" in my brain has some kind of coding > for color. Notice that we do not experience this code, we experience > the perceived color of the table. The color is encoded in the > representation; it is not a property of the representation itself > (just like the word "red" does not have to be written in red ink > in order to mean *red*).
1. It can't be "just like", because we don't have to learn the meaning of our colour code in the way we have to learn the meaning of "red"; and presumably the code isn't different in different countries, while the word for the colour can very greatly.
Now imagine a children's story in which the colour words are replaced by little squares of the right colour. Now the representation does have to be red to mean red.
2. Colours may not be properties of the objects out in the world either. Where / what is the "perceived color" that we experience? If it's not the colour of the table, what are we directly perceiving?
> Then when certain inner representations occur, we experience the > content of these representations, which content is (aspects of) > external reality.
Much of the content is not. Objects don't lose detail when I'm not looking directly at them, for example. So that's not an aspect of external reality. Colour may not be an aspect of external reality either.
Seager > Suppose, for definiteness, that the table is bright tangerine orange. Now, no "image" in my brain is bright tangerine orange (go ahead, have a look!). < Seager
Well that all depends on where you look when you go looking for your brain. You're probably looking at the back of your head, whereas I'm looking out at the world around me, to see my brain. And yes, when I stand before a bright tangerine orange table, my brain IS colored tangerine orange across a volume of my perceived space that I take to be the table.
Seager > Notice that we do not experience this code, we experience the perceived color of the table. The color is encoded in the representation; it is not a property of the representation itself (just like the word "red" does not have to be written in red ink in order to mean *red*). < Seager
Only if you fall for the naive realist illusion and believe you are seeing the table itself, then you will assume that the tangerine orange region of your brain is an objective property of an external object. Its a most useful assumption for ordinary interaction with the world, but it can cause endless confusion in one's philosophy of experience. In fact the color qualia are exactly "the code" by which the perceptual system represents light of different wavelengths.
Seager > The question I would like to ask Steven is, given that we can experience the meaning of our representations (or their content or however you would like to express the point) rather than the representation's own properties, ... < Seager
I contest the premise. We experience the content *by way of* or *through* the representation. The representation is a volumetric space, volumetric portions of which can appear as colored volumes in that space. The space, and the many colors it can display at any point, are all parts of the mechanism of our own brain. The exact pattern of colors and shapes in space in our experience at any moment is the content of our experience.
Seager > [then] why can't the content or meaning of our inner representations be external reality? < Seager
Because consciousness is confined to the internal states of our brain. Color cannot penetrate through the causal chain to be seen directly "out there" in the world, color comes to us indirectly through a long chain of detectors and transmitters, culminating in a "representor" system that takes on a state that we experience as color.
Seager > An analogy would be this: we can't talk about things unless we use words. But we seldom talk about words and we certainly are not *always* talking about words. < Seager
A better analogy is viewing the world through a video camera / display system. After a while you get the impression that you are seeing "through" the video system as directly as if looking out a window. But your view is in fact indirect, through an intermediate representation, even if you don't notice it.
> Maybe some clarity can arise from Steven's remark. Suppose, for > definiteness, > that the table is bright tangerine orange. Now, no "image" in my brain is > bright tangerine orange (go ahead, have a look!). Presumably, the > "image" in my brain has some kind of coding for color. Notice that we > do not experience this code, we experience the perceived color of the > table. The color is encoded in the representation; it is not a property of > the representation itself (just like the word "red" does not have to be > written in red ink in order to mean *red*).
Of all people, William Seager knows that, at least on the Russellian view, there *is* an image in our brain that is bright tangerine orange! Pre-reflectively that seems like a strange thing to believe, but post-reflection it is not more mysterious than believing the surface of a table, which is mostly empty space, is somehow covered in bright, tangerine orange.
Which begs the question: Is anything bright, tangerine orange in the phenomenal sense of the color term? This touches on the question of whether we have knowledge by acquaintance with phenomenal contents. If one believes we do, and I do, then the answer is yes, and questions about where in the world we can locate the phenomenal contents of our minds arise naturally. These questions matter here because phenomenal contents seem to be things that mediate our subjective awareness of external reality. Judging from Andrew's previous reply to the question, it seems he is a skeptic that we do have acquaintance with phenomenal contents.
I find that to be an incredible position barely worth arguing about. Obviously, other people's sense of what can be legitimately questioned may differ from mine.
I think there is at least one non-terminological issue in the vicinity here. If one believes we have acquaintance with phenomenal contents, it seems that what we are directly aquainted with is a conceptualized phenomenal manifold, where it seems that the conceptions themselves are at least partly constituted by phenomenal qualities like colors occuring within the manifold. These conceptualizations represent, and we are aware of the world through our acquaintance with these representations. However mediation of the world by acquaintance is not "inference from something else of which we are conscious" since what connects acquaintance to propositional knowledge is not inference. Nevertheless, it is also clearly not "direct" perception of external objects and properties as it is clear from both empirical evidence and introspection that the relation of acquaintance (if one believes in it) is somehow determined by things internal to the mind's operations.
So at least one set of non-terminological issues is 1) whether or not there is an epistemic relation of acquaintance with phenomenal contents, 2) what metaphysically underwrites it if it exists, and 3) whether this relation mediates our awareness of external reality.
I believe the answers are 1) there is, and it's hardly worth arguing about; 2) A relation of direct causal constraint between Russellian intrinsic natures; and 3) yes, through non-inferential connections to propositional knowledge that can be explained by a proper guidance theory of representation.
