I would like to kick around the idea of a percept by using some specific examples and trying to analyze them with introspection and common sense. I am arguing against the typical usage of the idea that We Observe an Object which I will call WOO.

If I look out my east window with the intention of observing a tree I see about 60 of them along with grape vines and bushes galore. My eyes flit around a bit, I can feel them do that, and then I settle on one of the closer oaks. I can only see the middle part of it but I then decide that I am observing a tree. The observation goes on for a while and my attention shifts from bark texture to branches to what I am intending to do to what I may write about it.

This is a process. A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result. Think procession.

a. Any such percept must happen over time
b. Percepts NEVER happen in isolation. That is there are many objects and blends and many other things happening in the mind during the time of the percept.

Therefore the idea that we can start a philosophical argument with WOO is naive and of little use.

SpeedOfSound wrote:
My eyes flit around a bit, I can feel them do that,

Really? Are your eyes the actual sensations you have of them? Or, are 'your eyes' that which you imbue upon those sensations?

Clearly, your eyes - if they actually exist - must have a substance of their own which transcends your feeling of them. Likewise, a tree does not exist beyond you if it only exists as your sensations/observations of it.

It is not your eyes which "flit around a bit", but your sensations, which you subsequently interpret as 'moving eyes'.

Our sensations are always interpreted as something other than they are.

and then I settle on one of the closer oaks.

No. You settle on the sensations which you subsequently interpret as "one of the closer oaks".

I think I've made my point. No need to repeat myself regards the bushes and grape vines. However, I must confess an envy for your east window. Sounds lovely.

jamest wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
My eyes flit around a bit, I can feel them do that,

Really? Are your eyes the actual sensations you have of them? Or, are 'your eyes' that which you imbue upon those sensations?

Clearly, your eyes - if they actually exist - must have a substance of their own which transcends your feeling of them. Likewise, a tree does not exist beyond you if it only exists as your sensations/observations of it.

It is not your eyes which "flit around a bit", but your sensations, which you subsequently interpret as 'moving eyes'.

Our sensations are always interpreted as something other than they are.

and then I settle on one of the closer oaks.

No. You settle on the sensations which you subsequently interpret as "one of the closer oaks".

I think I've made my point. No need to repeat myself regards the bushes and grape vines. However, I must confess an envy for your east window. Sounds lovely.

Oh fuck. It's you.

It doesn't matter to my argument whether eyes exist in any ontological fashion. I have feeling that I identify with things I believe are eyes. The point is that there is no percept of the tree in the naive sense of the philosopher/idealist. There is a process and it is never the same from one instant to the next or between two 'observations' of the tree.

So. Rejct your post as a needless escape into your bias. This is about the process not about ontology.

(It's the Minnesota River valley, Hopkins park if you want to google it. I live on one of the remote edges of it.)

SpeedOfSound wrote:
Oh fuck. It's you.

I understand your fear, but I won't hurt you.

It doesn't matter to my argument whether eyes exist in any ontological fashion. I have feeling that I identify with things I believe are eyes. The point is that there is no percept of the tree in the naive sense of the philosopher/idealist. There is a process and it is never the same from one instant to the next or between two 'observations' of the tree.

So. Rejct your post as a needless escape into your bias. This is about the process not about ontology.

The process of one sensation to the next?

(It's the Minnesota River valley, Hopkins park if you want to google it. I live on one of the remote edges of it.)

Googling 'Minnesota River valley, Hopkins park', isn't very productive to be honest. Sounds great, anyway.

Google maps. Try Bloomington, MN then the park.

The process of one sensation to the next?

no. The process leading up to and including the idea that I am observing a tree.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

The process of one sensation to the next?

no. The process leading up to and including the idea that I am observing a tree.

Oh, so what is that process?

jamest wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

The process of one sensation to the next?

no. The process leading up to and including the idea that I am observing a tree.

Oh, so what is that process?

I described what I remember about an instance from a week ago. I'll do it again tomorrow and see if I can stay aware enough to remember more detail.

Which is interesting in itself.

SpeedOfSound, see if you can pick up David Sylvester's book Looking at Giacometti. The process you've described is precisely what Giacometti became aware of - as perhaps no other artist had before or since. Certainly nobody spoke about it with such understanding and penetration. I think this is one of the things that gives his art - especially his drawings and lithographs - such power. At a first glance they look sloppy. But the more time you spend with them the more you realize, no, this guy  isn't drawing 'the object'; rather, he's drawing - with exquisite care, detail, and prolonged attention - what it's like to look at the object. Of course, he felt he never really did it well, but then, what a goal!

Sylvester (a friend of Giacometti's as well as a great art critic) knew precisely what was going on and explored the process quite deeply in his book. The chapter "Residue of a Vision" is especially apropos, as is the interview with Giacometti at the end.

For such a short book (less than 200 pp), this a remarkable work - really a model for how to think about aesthetics, and at an even more basic level, about seeing. Whether or not you like Giacometti's art (I'm a huge fan), it's still an excellent, intriguing and important book. And grist for the mill of our little conversation here.

Purchased. His stuff reminds me of acid trips.

SpeedOfSound wrote:I would like to kick around the idea of a percept by using some specific examples and trying to analyze them with introspection and common sense. I am arguing against the typical usage of the idea that We Observe an Object which I will call WOO.

If I look out my east window with the intention of observing a tree I see about 60 of them along with grape vines and bushes galore. My eyes flit around a bit, I can feel them do that, and then I settle on one of the closer oaks. I can only see the middle part of it but I then decide that I am observing a tree. The observation goes on for a while and my attention shifts from bark texture to branches to what I am intending to do to what I may write about it.

This is a process. A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result. Think procession.

a. Any such percept must happen over time
b. Percepts NEVER happen in isolation. That is there are many objects and blends and many other things happening in the mind during the time of the percept.

Therefore the idea that we can start a philosophical argument with WOO is naive and of little use.

Are processes all that much less woosome than percepts? Things like individual trees or animals seem to be pre-linguistic constructions in the brain; the brain automatically holds them constant while using a variety of sensory inputs and processes to track what the tree or animal is doing. Certainly, it's worth appreciating that a lot of stuff is going on in one's brain at any one time, but it seems a pity to delegitimize the end products, the percepts which we use for getting around.

?

Perhaps the point you are making is more that percepts have a double existence in common sense - I can look at a tree and think that's an objective tree, or I can look at a tree and think that's just a sensation going on in my mind. If I concentrate on the process then the objective aspect drops out, so we lose the objective woo. If this is your argument I'm not sure if it goes far enough. My own view is that the whole subjective/objective problem is because humans use the evolved trick of Theory of Mind, we automatically predict other people by reconstructing what we guess is going on in their brains, so our brains are not only tracking what that squirrel is doing (we file this as "objective") but also what we think the other person thinks the squirrel is doing (which we file as "subjective"). * We not only build up a coherent construct of the squirrel from our own sense-data (as many other animals do), we also build up a coherent construct from what other people have told us, and we have to bear in mind that other people may be telling us active lies, or may be extensively mistaken. Social life is a matter of navigating with smoke and mirrors as well as our own senses. I don't think the subjective/objective split has much to do with processes versus percepts, it's more to do with the multiple mental constructions which we need to track in order to cope with other people as well as the nonsocial environment.

*It's when I realise I'm a person like the other person that I reclassify my objective squirrel as merely my own subjective squirrel, and then the whole thing turns into a hall of mirrors, with endless scope for philosophising.

?

Here is an object we don't see everyday.

WOO1.jpg

I offer WOO1 as an object that is not going to slot into some lifelong familiar like a tree does.

zoon wrote:...

Perhaps the point you are making is more that percepts have a double existence in common sense - I can look at a tree and think that's an objective tree, or I can look at a tree and think that's just a sensation going on in my mind. If I concentrate on the process then the objective aspect drops out, so we lose the objective woo. If this is your argument I'm not sure if it goes far enough. My own view is that the whole subjective/objective problem is because humans use the evolved trick of Theory of Mind, we automatically predict other people by reconstructing what we guess is going on in their brains, so our brains are not only tracking what that squirrel is doing (we file this as "objective") but also what we think the other person thinks the squirrel is doing (which we file as "subjective"). * We not only build up a coherent construct of the squirrel from our own sense-data (as many other animals do), we also build up a coherent construct from what other people have told us, and we have to bear in mind that other people may be telling us active lies, or may be extensively mistaken. Social life is a matter of navigating with smoke and mirrors as well as our own senses. I don't think the subjective/objective split has much to do with processes versus percepts, it's more to do with the multiple mental constructions which we need to track in order to cope with other people as well as the nonsocial environment.

*It's when I realise I'm a person like the other person that I reclassify my objective squirrel as merely my own subjective squirrel, and then the whole thing turns into a hall of mirrors, with endless scope for philosophising.

?

I like the double existence point but I would extend it to a plural. Hence thinking in terms of process. On TOM I see that as just another set of factors in the process. Unless I am concerned with socialization then TOM is just another piece of the puzzle. But you do have an important point here. While taking pictures of and observing WOO1.jpg I had you guys and the forum in mind. A great deal of what was happening to me was modified by that socialization.

There are a few problems, and I think you allude to them, with trying to introspect what happens as I form my impression of an object. We can't actually introspect. We can modify our awareness and this leaves a trace in the hippocampus and that trace can be reconstructed as a story. Undoubtedly a very suspect story.

It's still very dark here but I have yard lights. I am preparing to go out and observe a tree. I want to find a new one, one I have not considered before. That may be tough because I have been walking out there for 12 years now.

later on...

Oh well. The new trees were not so interesting so I picked an old fav, Oak4. Other candidates were those two to the right that are small and scraggly.

For the big oak I had a good sense of it's top, that I could not observe, and a sense of how it is in the summer. Something that struck me is how different trees are to the tree in my head when I post about trees.

Another striking feature is how the snow changes the bark. There was no snow in my mind as we had none yesterday so I had a picture of different bark in my mind.

Now obviously we perceive mediated objects. We imagine they have certain shapes and we see a lot of ideals from our experience. however. Each tree is very different and each look at the tree reveals different things. Even the context in which the object is mediated is very different every single time.

If you look back to my magnetic balls picture you have a toy that makes objects with a practically infinite variety of shapes. The only mediation is that I know they are my toy magnets. The shape is a surprise every time I twist the thing.

SO where in here is the ideal 'I observe B'?

jamest wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
My eyes flit around a bit, I can feel them do that,

Really? Are your eyes the actual sensations you have of them? Or, are 'your eyes' that which you imbue upon those sensations?

Clearly, your eyes - if they actually exist - must have a substance of their own which transcends your feeling of them. Likewise, a tree does not exist beyond you if it only exists as your sensations/observations of it.

It is not your eyes which "flit around a bit", but your sensations, which you subsequently interpret as 'moving eyes'.

Our sensations are always interpreted as something other than they are.

and then I settle on one of the closer oaks.

No. You settle on the sensations which you subsequently interpret as "one of the closer oaks".
.

How do you determine these things?

I said it was a process. You bear that out with your use of 'subsequently'. At the end of the process is the takeaway I walk in the house with. A ghostly after-image of what I had been sensing. Trace memories of the process.

Likewise, a tree does not exist beyond you if it only exists as your sensations/observations of it.

This does not follow. The claim that things do not exist is not valid. Check my recent discussions about the meaning of exist. Exist means that I can walk back out over and over and the same tree will be in my yard and new impressions of it will ensue. What other kind of exist property are you referring to?

I want to keep track of some principles or premises.


a. Any such percept must happen over time
b. Percepts NEVER happen in isolation. That is there are many objects and blends and many other things happening in the mind during the time of the percept.
c. Our minds always have a current context that mediates our perceptions.
d. We cannot communicate what we actually perceive but only a processed or packaged form of it.
e. Our memories of a percept our in this package form.
f. The package can 'set off' other more detailed memories and even random thoughts.
g. The packaging process happens in parallel to the sensing but the package is the take-away.

A. I did not expect to see snow on the bark when I went out this morning. Where did the snow come from?
B. I did not have that particular Oak in mind even though I know it well. Why was it there?

A schematic of the process. The sensory stream enters the mind and the mind has an existing context. The stream interacts with the context and is further modified by the knowledge store in the mind. AAMS (attention/action modification of the stream) changes what the stream is.

The entire process is over some time period t0-t1 and is a dynamical process. Meaning it has feedback.

Packaging is in my opinion what consciousness is and is the difference between being conscious and not. If it is not packaged in some manner that it can be communicated it is not conscious or remembered. This leads a little to some stuff that zoon pointed out.

I do however believe that all mammals, language or not, do this packaging in some manner.

SpeedOfSound wrote:a. Any such percept must happen over time

My initial feeling is that this cannot be the case since time itself would be either a percept or an inference based on percepts.

Sos;

Unless I am misunderstanding you, I think Jamest's criticisms are refining your project, not rejecting it. He seems to me to be pointing out that there are even further processes between the sense and the interpretation and the writing out of your interpretation. Indeed, infinite processes. The closer you look the more you find that what you thought was solid was experienced as fluid, fleeing, nothing. At the heart of all this, I think, is the arrival at something like zeno's paradox -- the impossible relation between motion and presence, experience and knowledge.

Exist means that I can walk back out over and over and the same tree will be in my yard and new impressions of it will ensue.

This seems plainly off from what you have just discovered! Jamests' comments are instructive here, though they may or may not be coming from the "idealist" perspective you aim to refute. How do you posit a "same tree" while also maintaining that your impressions are always different and new? Only by maintaining what you claim is rejected, the "A perceives B"! On the level of "sense" you will find no "same tree", no same self, no identity at all and so no difference! Only utter emptiness. On the level of sense, even the richness of content which belongs to the descriptive project must give way to the abyss of mere being, of simple flux.

Positron wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:a. Any such percept must happen over time

My initial feeling is that this cannot be the case since time itself would be either a percept or an inference based on percepts.

A charitable reading cannot simply rule out the notion that perception reflects reality, can it?