What is the Empirical World?

will we ever be able to say that our prosthetic senses have achieved direct contact with something "real" (as opposed to yet another perception)?

You don't think that we have direct contact with the real? Are the atoms we see with instrumentation not real to you?

I am still trying to figure out what "direct contact with the real" means. Is it like bumping your head on a low doorway? I do that a lot.

He, I think, thinks that when you bump your head on the doorway, you are not actually coming in contact with the molecules of wood on your doorway. You are simply perceiving the molecules. But, this begs the question: Just what are you perceiving then, if not the actual molecules?

And we repeat this whole strong subjectivity ramble.

... I'm not saying they are - merely that they could be ... the fact that we experience electromagnetic waves (in a certain frequency range) as color implies the possibility that what we experience as, say, "space" will turn out to be (in some prosthetically enhanced empirical future) simply a sensorial projection of something not at all like phenomenal space (and much more broad in range, to boot) ... that general relativity appears to have peeled back a layer to reveal not a more detailed accounting of phenomenal space, but rather a highly non-intuitive space-time (and a curved one, at that) already tends accommodate this possibility ... what might be revealed when the next layer is peeled back? ... a difficulty here is that while it would be logically "easy" to demonstrate that space, time, and causality are indeed phenomenal perceptions by discovering what weirdness it is that they are phenomenal perceptions of, it could be logically "hard" to demonstrate that they are not phenomenal perceptions (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) ...

You don't think that we have direct contact with the real? Are the atoms we see with instrumentation not real to you?

People always confuse the notion of perception as something completely mind-dependent. And this is false, as a perception requires there to be something to perceive which is not mind-dependent. Just because we perceive things differently sometimes, does not mean we aren't perceiving the same thing when we do. It just means we are perceiving the same thing differently.

I am still trying to figure out what "direct contact with the real" means. Is it like bumping your head on a low doorway? I do that a lot.

... "direct contact with the real" was perhaps bad phrasing ... let's try another tack: when you perceive "red", this is a perception of a certain wavelength of electromagnetic radiation - what a percept is of (electromagnetic radiation) is qualitatively different than the percept itself (red) ... "direct contact with the real" would instead be the situation where what the percept is of is qualitatively the same as the percept itself ...

so, in this short span of time "the real" has gone from being a "solids" to "atoms that are mostly space but held together by immense nuclear forces"

---------- Post added 12-28-2009 at 01:49 PM ----------



... "direct contact with the real" was perhaps bad phrasing ... let's try another tack: when you perceive "red", this is a perception of a certain wavelength of electromagnetic radiation - what a percept is of (electromagnetic radiation) is qualitatively different than the percept itself (red) ... "direct contact with the real" would instead be the situation where what the percept is of is qualitatively the same as the percept itself ...

He, I think, thinks that when you bump your head on the doorway, you are not actually coming in contact with the molecules of wood on your doorway. You are simply perceiving the molecules. But, this begs the question: Just what are you perceiving then, if not the actual molecules?

And we repeat this whole strong subjectivity ramble.

Reality hasn't changed. How we experience reality has. Or, rather, we have a greater understanding of what we're actually perceiving.

... in which case can it not be said that the empirical world (i.e., our sum experience of reality) changes? ...

So, what does electro magnetic radiation in the wavelength range of 630nm to 740nm look like?

... in a mind-independent reality, it doesn't "look" like anything - "look" is something a mind does ... and maybe trying to describe a mind-independent reality from a mind's perspective is impossible in principle (which would be in accordance with transcendental idealism ) ... so then a mind-independent reality may even be qualitatively different than "electro magnetic radiation in the wavelength range of 630nm to 740nm" - as "red" is an artifact of the human sensory apparatus, it is a possibility that "electromagnetic radiation" could turn out to be an artifact of our current level of technological sophistication ...

Um, if what you mean by empirical world is, the world that we have empirical experiences in.

... the dictionary definition of empirical is "originating in or based on observation or experience" ... so just like "empirical data" refers to "data originating in or based on observation or experience", I assume "empirical world" to refer to "a world originating in or based on observation or experience", i.e., a mind-dependent world that is a projection of a mind-independent reality ...

Hello

I think a clear distinction between observed and percieved would help me understand this interesting topic.

An observation could be an external recording of an interaction (the excitation of a particular electron) and a perception could be an experience of a recording (a colour change in light).

This inference is broken i.e. we percieve red, we do not observe red. Transhuman senses are merely extending the range of perception.

This then leads me to understand the problem posed as "How do we determine if our perception includes all that is able to be percieved?" Is this a part of the problem?

What is a mind-dependent world? A dream? A delusion, a hallucination of some sort?

? ... will we ever be able to say that our prosthetic senses have achieved direct contact with something "real" (as opposed to yet another perception)? - or will our prosthetic senses always be limited by our imagination (like the congenitally blind man who cannot imagine phenomenal sight even when it is described to him)?

Reality is mind-independent. That's what reality is.