RJG » August 7th, 2017, 6:36 am wrote:mitchellmckain wrote:RJG wrote:Do we perceive ‘things’ directly; as they really are?
Perception is a system of processing sensory data from things in the environment. So, yes, what we perceive is the thing as it is. But the perception is not the thing itself.
So then when we see a tree out in front of us,
what is IT that we are actually looking at? ...are we looking at the ‘
perception’ (the processed/translated sensory data)? …or the '
tree itself' (the raw sensory data)?
Changing the words will not change my answer. We are looking at the tree itself. But the tree itself is not entering into our mind or brain. We are looking at the tree itself by means of the sensory data. To perceive (including see) a thing means we are gathering and interpreting data from the thing itself.
We come to the state of knowledge, which is living our lives accordingly, by finding consistency in the totality of our experiences and perceptions. We see the tree. We touch the tree. We climb the tree. We use the tree (for whatever purpose). We compare the tree to other trees and to other things. We study its position, behavior, substance and nature.
Absolutely! Objective reality is the abstraction. But that does not make it any less real.
RJG » August 7th, 2017, 6:36 am wrote:We can only perceive (and have access to the)
inside; 'perception' side of the wall, and NOT to the
outside; 'reality' side (where things are as they
really are!)
Nonsense. That is like saying... because we have to use a key to get through a locked door, we can never get to the other side. Just because we have to use our mind to perceive the universe doesn't mean we cannot get outside our mind. The truth is that the mind is more difficult to perceive than what is outside the mind, because all the machinery of perception evolved to give us more information about the outside environment and thus it has to be stretched quite far in order to turn that process back upon ourselves.
You may say, "no way, I know what is in my own mind first more than anything." Ah... but surely you have heard that things are not quite so simple. We know the false facade of the set in the movie our brain plays for us. But there is much more behind the scenes that we cannot see directly. That is why the timing is off and how we can lie to ourselves, which in the false simplistic view of things should be logically impossible.
Braininvat » August 7th, 2017, 11:56 am wrote:Seems to be two differing definitions of perception, that causes RJG and others to talk past each other. Perception is a process, or perception is a thing. If the former, then one can indeed look at a tree, and this process of looking is called perception. If the latter, then more skepticism focuses on something as it is presented as a picture in the brain. In the former, the tree is actually PART of the process and, as such, carries more ontological weight. The tree, in the process view, has a vital causal role in our statement, "I see a tree." As we understand that causal role better (the tree is composed of a certain kind of matter, of chemicals that absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others, and those reflected wavelengths go to the retina and are [etc.]), we have a better leverage on understanding reality and less skepticism about the object of perception.
You are of course, quite correct. Your analysis is both insightful and rather helpful, for I had not thought of it like that. Perhaps thinking in terms of process has become so routine for me, I sometimes fail to recognize when people are doing otherwise.