Mind has no location

[Dimebag]

Tired of your bullshit on another forums mate. I had to answer this one.

From the point of view of the mind itself

What do you mean by "POV of mind itself"?
There is no such thing, you have a mind, the POV of "mind itself" is YOUR POV. WHICH INDEED happens inside a brain.

mind has no location

BS. IT HAS A LOCATION, inside a brain.

mind is pervasive from its own perspective.

No, it's not.

From an external 3rd person observer, or even an imagined 3rd person perspective, the mind’s location exists inside the brain.

No such thing as "external 3rd person view". EACH VIEW you have is FIRST PERSON view of the mind, which is located inside your brain.

The mind itself can only know itself

The "mind" can't know shit, there is no such thing as "the mind, as a mini alien knowing things". You're the one who possess a mind.

But, -- (not it, you) can also conceptualise, and imagine, or infer, this --- ---, which allows --- to be located by inference, in the brain.

... so according to you, you can leave your brain as much as you want, but you "allow" your mind to be in the brain . Of course this is 100% a fact. You can't be serious.

The mind can also understand that

The "mind" can't understans shit, there is no such thing as "the mind, as a mini alien knowing things". You're the one who understands a mind.

if “you” are the one that understands and knows a mind, what exactly are you then?

a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶b̶s̶e̶r̶v̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶o̶c̶c̶u̶r̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶i̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶(̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶f̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶e̶r̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶f̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶)̶.̶ ̶A̶s̶ ̶s̶u̶c̶h̶,̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶l̶o̶c̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶s̶e̶l̶f̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶i̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶j̶e̶c̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶d̶.̶

What a bunch of word salad rubbish. You learning with Deepak?

S̶o̶,̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶j̶e̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶ (utter nonsense censored)

You're not even wrong , mind is a subset of what a individual posses.y you're so wromg that it's hilarious how you came to this conclusion with a buvh of ridiculous false premises. Mind IS located in your brain. Your brain is located in space. And SOMEWHERE.

Even IF , you could get outside your brain with your mind, you would STILL be located somewhere as long as you flow whatever you want with your mind, each place you go would be somewhere, never ANYWHERE or "EVERYWHERE", no one can be "everywhere", no matter where your mind go you subjectively is somewhere, at some point in time. So your comment is a logical impossility.

O̶b̶j̶e̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶o̶c̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶i̶n̶

Subjectivey one's mind IS located in the brain, there is no "objectively"

Wow, someone’s a little frustrated there. Calm down a little, we’re just tossing up ideas.

I think you are wildly misreading what I am saying.

I have in no way said that the mind, or consciousness, or awareness, can or ever does leave the construct from which it arises, the brain. I never said it can become detached from the brain.

What I have been saying, needs to be understood from a certain perspective. If you currently identify your self with your brain, or your body, then this perspective is likely to and probably has completely gone over your head.

That’s the way identity works. It actually changes your perception of reality.

If you are identified with the body, as in, you, your very essence, is the body, then your understanding of what you fundamentally are, will be, the body.

But, if you inspect your own experience a little more, you might notice that your sense of having a body also appears within awareness. Furthermore, at night, when you dream, you are not your body, you might be identified as something completely different, your identity can shift, and sometimes, is completely absent, from a dream, yet, content still appears.

You need to inspect a little closer what it is you are when things start to be stripped away from your own subjective experience.

What is being pointed at, is that, you are, fundamentally, awareness, or consciousness. Without consciousness or awareness, you have no ability to inspect or identify yourself. If is the fundamental basis of subjective reality. It is the only way you can even know you have a body, or a brain. So, even though awareness needs the body and brain to be aware, without awareness, you have no knowledge of being a body or brain.

This interesting coupling, or interdependent arising, is the basis of our reality. I have in no way denied the existence of “physical” reality, nor of the brain and body being a necessary component of subjectivity and awareness, which is us.

What I am saying relates to the sense of identity.

Most people feel like they are the body, producing actions, having arguments, feeling emotions, reacting to their own emotions. They are heavily invested in the storyline and the narrative that their brains create, this is identification with the ego. It’s completely fine, but, it creates suffering. What they don’t realise is, this sense of awareness that seems to be off in the background somewhere while they are off in the foreground, pursuing all the things their brain throws at them, is actually the basis of what they are, like the screen which the contents of their life’s movie plays. The contents of the movie, continually changes, and, most of the time, they believe everything that happens on that screen, like a person engrossed in a movie.

Keep in mind that is an analogy, meant to draw your attention to the screen like nature of awareness, and the contents of awareness being like the movie on the screen.

When you start paying more attention to this screen like nature of awareness, it’s presence becomes more in the foreground than the contents on the screen. Then, as you notice everything appearing in the screen of awareness, it is LIKE location itself occurs WITHIN awareness.

From a naive realist perspective, this sounds absurd. The naive realist assumes that everything they see and touch, is direct contact with the world out there, not thinking about the mechanisms in the brain which are recreating and representing the “external” world, internally to awareness. Yet, once it’s understood that everything that appears in awareness is a representation, then, it is also known that everything that is ever seen occurs WITHIN awareness (not talking about the ACTUAL external world which we don’t actually have direct contact with).

Hopefully that clears up any confusion.

As to what you mean by other forums, I’m not sure, but if you have a problem with what I am saying here, then let’s talk about it here, and vice versa in other forums.

[dxoutkast]

I have in no way said that the mind, or consciousness, or awareness, can or ever does leave the construct from which it arises, the brain. I never said it can become detached from the brain.

Oh yep, you literally said some type of nonsense of 'mind being somewhere else... rather than you imagining it in your brain', which is utter bs. YOU can only imagine within your mind that your mind going somewhere.

What I have been saying, needs to be understood from a certain perspective. If you currently identify your self with your brain, or your body, then this perspective is likely to and probably has completely gone over your head.

I don't identify with none of that shit and I hold the view that the self is real, and HAS its awareness. If you throw some Rupert Spira type of nonsense you know what's coming.

That’s the way identity works. It actually changes your perception of reality.
If you are identified with the body, as in, you, your very essence, is the body, then your understanding of what you fundamentally are, will be, the body.
But, if you inspect your own experience a little more, you might notice that your sense of having a body also appears within awareness.

Oh look, it didn't even take 5 seconds...and the neo advaita, Rupert Spira rubbish showed up..

No, no, no , no. Nothing "appears within awareness".
You HAVE awareness, if you think you are the body, nothing will change the fact that you are IN a body, and I'm not talking about 'awareness' rubbish, I talk about the entity who posses consciousness.

Furthermore, at night, when you dream, you are not WITHIN your body, you might be identified as something completely different, your identity can shift, and sometimes, is completely absent, from a dream, yet, content still appears.

Had to edit, cos I don't believe none of that, I believe I have a body, and furthermore. At night when I sleep I still in my body, but sleeping.

You need to inspect a little closer what it is you are when things start to be stripped away from your own subjective .
What is being pointed at, is that, you are, fundamentally, awareness, or consciousness. Without consciousness or awareness, you have no ability to inspect or identify yourself. If is the fundamental basis of subjective reality. It is the only way you can even know you have a body, or a brain. So, even though awareness needs the body and brain to be aware, without awareness, you have no knowledge of being a body or brain.

No, the self possess consciousness. You may hate duality but it's true anyway. All non duality does is negate duality and creates another sort of duality.

This interesting coupling, or interdependent arising, is the basis of our reality. I have in no way denied the existence of “physical” reality, nor of the brain and body being a necessary component of subjectivity and awareness, which is us.

Not "arising". You may be hanging out too much with DAM.

What I am saying relates to the sense of identity.
Most people feel like they are IN the body, producing actions, having arguments, feeling emotions, reacting to their own emotions. They are heavily invested in the storyline and the narrative that their brains create, this is identification with the ego. It’s completely fine, but, it creates suffering.

No, no, no, no. The whole world believes they HAVE bodies. Only neo advaita trolls want to change this perspective by forcing this phrase into people, no one believes that. 90% of People believe they have souls are souls in a body. Dualism.

What they don’t realise is, this sense of awareness that seems to be off in the background somewhere while they are off in the foreground, pursuing all the things their brain throws at them, is actually the basis of what they are, like the screen which the contents of their life’s movie plays. The contents of the movie, continually changes, and, most of the time, they believe everything that happens on that screen, like a person engrossed in a movie.
Keep in mind that is an analogy, meant to draw your attention to the screen like nature of awareness, and the contents of awareness being like the movie on the screen.

Cut off these neo advaita words mate.
"Screen of consciousnesa" "screen of awareness"
I don't buy none of this rubbish.

There is your eyes and shit you (the entity who posses consciousness) see everyday. There is no "screen" of anything.

When you start paying more attention to this screen like nature of awareness, it’s presence becomes more in the foreground than the contents on the screen. Then, as you notice everything appearing in the screen of awareness, it is LIKE location itself occurs WITHIN awareness.

No such thing as screen of consciousness or awareness.
No such thing as "within awareness"

You simply see the enviroment, and you posses consciousness and can be aware of the enviroment. Such as if you lose consciousness and awareness under anesthesia all the neo advaita rubbish goes to trash.

From a naive realist perspective, this sounds absurd. , The naive realist assumes that everything they see and touch, is direct contact with the world out there, not thinking about the mechanisms in the brain which are recreating and representing the “external” world, internally to awareness. Yet, once it’s understood that everything that appears in awareness is a representation, then, it is also known that everything that is ever seen occurs WITHIN awareness (not talking about the ACTUAL external world which we don’t actually have direct contact with).
Hopefully that clears up any confusion.

The naive realist assumes that everything they see and touch, is direct contact with the world out there.

And that's exactly a 100% fact.

Some good reading for you:
http://www.owl232.net/papers/dis.htm

[henry quirk]

The naive realist assumes that everything they see and touch, is direct contact with the world out there.

And that's exactly a 100% fact.

[Veritas Aequitas]

The naive realist assumes that everything they see and touch, is direct contact with the world out there.
And that's exactly a 100% fact.

Some good reading for you:
http://www.owl232.net/papers/dis.htm

I agree the Neo-advaitists of the likes of Rupert Spira, DAM, etc. are delusional with their sort of non-duality.

Re Direct Realism.
I agree with direct realism in the sense of empirical realism while not acknowledging what is that real thing that is perceived is not a thing-in-itself, i.e. unconditional or absolutely absolute.

There are direct realists who claimed whatever is that is perceived is the absolute real thing-in-itself that can be verified to be true via the Correspondence Theory of Truth.
However this theory failed due to the presence of the reality-GAP between the perception within the brain and the supposedly real thing-in-itself existing externally.



As in the above above, there is a reality-gap between the perceiver and the lighted-candle.
As such there is no way of knowing there is a candle-in-itself existing by itself independently.

The reality of the "lighted-candle" must always be qualified and conditioned upon the inevitable reality-gap, the perceiver's conditions and the environmental conditions.

[Belinda]

The naive realist assumes that everything they see and touch, is direct contact with the world out there.
And that's exactly a 100% fact.

Some good reading for you:
http://www.owl232.net/papers/dis.htm

I agree the Neo-advaitists of the likes of Rupert Spira, DAM, etc. are delusional with their sort of non-duality.

Re Direct Realism.
I agree with direct realism in the sense of empirical realism while not acknowledging what is that real thing that is perceived is not a thing-in-itself, i.e. unconditional or absolutely absolute.

There are direct realists who claimed whatever is that is perceived is the absolute real thing-in-itself that can be verified to be true via the Correspondence Theory of Truth.
However this theory failed due to the presence of the reality-GAP between the perception within the brain and the supposedly real thing-in-itself existing externally.



As in the above above, there is a reality-gap between the perceiver and the lighted-candle.
As such there is no way of knowing there is a candle-in-itself existing by itself independently.

The reality of the "lighted-candle" must always be qualified and conditioned upon the inevitable reality-gap, the perceiver's conditions and the environmental conditions.

If the lighted candle LC could view LC then LC and LC are identical except for the aspect of LC.

[Dimebag]

How does a direct realist explain things like change blindness, colour blindness, visual illusions such as muller lyer illusions, or many others?

If what we see is the way the world is, with no intervention from the brain, how do these things occur.

And also how do you explain dreams? Seemingly no world is present to create the dream world. Most theories think dreams are bits and pieces of memories assembled in the brain and presented in the perceptual system.

When you hear me say a word, but mis-hear it, why does that happen if what you are hearing just is the sounds out there?

These are serious questions, please don't deflect with ad hominem as you have been doing.

As a direct realist, do you still believe that the sense organs produce the sensations? Or do you think that they are simply apertures which carry the sensations from out there inside your head to where you are, so you, the homunculus, with its own eyes and ears, can hear and see things?

How does direct realism explain internally generated experiences, such as thoughts, or another good example is, hearing music in your head? When you have a song in your head, it can (if you know it well enough) sound exactly like the one you heard on say the radio for example. If your experience is that of direct contact with reality, with no mediating constructive representational layers in the mind and through perception, how can direct realism explain this, and why it is seemingly overlaid directly over the “external direct” conscious experiences of sounds, and blended seamlessly with them?

Another tough one to explain is the way in which the our experiences are seemingly filtered out based on importance, sensory habituation would be an example, a concrete example might be, imagine you spray yourself with a potent body spray, initially you can smell it strongly, but over the course of maybe minutes up to a few hours, your ability to detect that scent is greatly diminished, yet, other people will be able to detect it just as you did initially. So the sensation has seemingly decreased, yet it actually hasn’t. What actually happens, is the neurons detecting those olfactory signals become habituated to them and as they don’t receive any feedback about the smell being important, their strength it takes to detect those signals increases.

Give me an idea of what you mean when you say you believe in direct realism.

[Veritas Aequitas]

If the lighted candle LC could view LC then LC and LC are identical except for the aspect of LC.

The "IF" you proposed above is an impossibility.

You could try, if the perceiver could view[perceive] the perceiver, then there is a possibility.
In this case, the empirical self could perceive the mental self [not an independent soul].

[Veritas Aequitas]

How does a direct realist explain things like change blindness, colour blindness, visual illusions such as muller lyer illusions, or many others?

If what we see is the way the world is, with no intervention from the brain, how do these things occur.

And also how do you explain dreams? Seemingly no world is present to create the dream world. Most theories think dreams are bits and pieces of memories assembled in the brain and presented in the perceptual system.

When you hear me say a word, but mis-hear it, why does that happen if what you are hearing just is the sounds out there?

These are serious questions, please don't deflect with ad hominem as you have been doing.

As a direct realist, do you still believe that the sense organs produce the sensations? Or do you think that they are simply apertures which carry the sensations from out there inside your head to where you are, so you, the homunculus, with its own eyes and ears, can hear and see things?

How does direct realism explain internally generated experiences, such as thoughts, or another good example is, hearing music in your head? When you have a song in your head, it can (if you know it well enough) sound exactly like the one you heard on say the radio for example. If your experience is that of direct contact with reality, with no mediating constructive representational layers in the mind and through perception, how can direct realism explain this, and why it is seemingly overlaid directly over the “external direct” conscious experiences of sounds, and blended seamlessly with them?

Another tough one to explain is the way in which the our experiences are seemingly filtered out based on importance, sensory habituation would be an example, a concrete example might be, imagine you spray yourself with a potent body spray, initially you can smell it strongly, but over the course of maybe minutes up to a few hours, your ability to detect that scent is greatly diminished, yet, other people will be able to detect it just as you did initially. So the sensation has seemingly decreased, yet it actually hasn’t. What actually happens, is the neurons detecting those olfactory signals become habituated to them and as they don’t receive any feedback about the smell being important, their strength it takes to detect those signals increases.

Give me an idea of what you mean when you say you believe in direct realism.

The basic claim of direct or naive realism is 'the thing one perceived is the reality' which is arise from common sense. In this case, the thing exists externally independent of minds.
For those who reflect deeper than the above, there are all sort of criticisms against basic direct realism.

If you research into Direct Realism at present, you will note direct realism has morphed into a more sophisticated theory that deals with all the counters you have raised above, i.e. taking into account the intentional internal states within the mind, the neuro-computations with the mind and the whole of the external environment.

With this new perspective to Direct Realism, the thing do not exists externally independent of minds but rather is linked with the internal mechanisms of the mind. I have no issue with this as long as the contexts are stated clearly.

However, I will have issue with the tradition direct realism where things exist independent of the mind's internal mechanism and processes. In this case there will a reality-gap I had stated above.

[Belinda]

If the lighted candle LC could view LC then LC and LC are identical except for the aspect of LC.

The "IF" you proposed above is an impossibility.

You could try, if the perceiver could view[perceive] the perceiver, then there is a possibility.
In this case, the empirical self could perceive the mental self [not an independent soul].

It is an impossibility for anatomical reasons. I agree.

[commonsense]

So what is perceived is a real thing in itself, and how it is perceived, I.e. what its perception is, is responsible for the reality gap that exists in every experience. No?

[Dimebag]

How does a direct realist explain things like change blindness, colour blindness, visual illusions such as muller lyer illusions, or many others?

If what we see is the way the world is, with no intervention from the brain, how do these things occur.

And also how do you explain dreams? Seemingly no world is present to create the dream world. Most theories think dreams are bits and pieces of memories assembled in the brain and presented in the perceptual system.

When you hear me say a word, but mis-hear it, why does that happen if what you are hearing just is the sounds out there?

These are serious questions, please don't deflect with ad hominem as you have been doing.

As a direct realist, do you still believe that the sense organs produce the sensations? Or do you think that they are simply apertures which carry the sensations from out there inside your head to where you are, so you, the homunculus, with its own eyes and ears, can hear and see things?

How does direct realism explain internally generated experiences, such as thoughts, or another good example is, hearing music in your head? When you have a song in your head, it can (if you know it well enough) sound exactly like the one you heard on say the radio for example. If your experience is that of direct contact with reality, with no mediating constructive representational layers in the mind and through perception, how can direct realism explain this, and why it is seemingly overlaid directly over the “external direct” conscious experiences of sounds, and blended seamlessly with them?

Another tough one to explain is the way in which the our experiences are seemingly filtered out based on importance, sensory habituation would be an example, a concrete example might be, imagine you spray yourself with a potent body spray, initially you can smell it strongly, but over the course of maybe minutes up to a few hours, your ability to detect that scent is greatly diminished, yet, other people will be able to detect it just as you did initially. So the sensation has seemingly decreased, yet it actually hasn’t. What actually happens, is the neurons detecting those olfactory signals become habituated to them and as they don’t receive any feedback about the smell being important, their strength it takes to detect those signals increases.

Give me an idea of what you mean when you say you believe in direct realism.

The basic claim of direct or naive realism is 'the thing one perceived is the reality' which is arise from common sense. In this case, the thing exists externally independent of minds.
For those who reflect deeper than the above, there are all sort of criticisms against basic direct realism.

If you research into Direct Realism at present, you will note direct realism has morphed into a more sophisticated theory that deals with all the counters you have raised above, i.e. taking into account the intentional internal states within the mind, the neuro-computations with the mind and the whole of the external environment.

With this new perspective to Direct Realism, the thing do not exists externally independent of minds but rather is linked with the internal mechanisms of the mind. I have no issue with this as long as the contexts are stated clearly.

However, I will have issue with the tradition direct realism where things exist independent of the mind's internal mechanism and processes. In this case there will a reality-gap I had stated above.

After having my lawyer browse through that paper which dxoutkast posted earlier on direct vs indirect realism, I have come to the conclusion that, that paper is a case of a rather soft interpretation of direct realism, which merely states that, when one observes the world, they are in fact observing by means of perceptions which are internal representations, BUT, those representations directly reflect the reality of the objects in the external world such that there is no difference between our perceptions of the world, and the world ‘in itself’.

Now I find myself having some difficulty distinguishing between direct and indirect realism under that definition, in which case it seems the goal posts have been moved so much in way of terms that the original meaning of the term direct realism seems to no longer hold any important similarity to this newer definition. It has essentially stolen the explanatory real estate from indirect realism, and pushed any adjoining definition of indirect realism into ridiculous territory such that indirect realism is a case of never having any access to the nature of the external world.

I find that definition of indirect realism harsh, but this is what happens when philosophers go too far. We have seen it with free will and here we see it again, the shifting of goal posts to fit their agenda and argue a point.

If what two camps believe in of two different definitions, is essentially more similar than distinct, then there is now a problem with those definitions, and those definitions have become less defined. The clarity has been lost.

Initially when this point was being argued what was being referred to as naive realism or direct realism was that direct realism is a case where there is no internal representation which forms the basis of perception, but rather that somehow the external world find its way inside your head so as if you are peering out from inside with the world entering your head through the apertures if the sense organs.

This above definition of direct realism has of course, been tossed aside as nonsensical in light of what we now know of physics, lights, sound and pressure waves, the functioning of the human sensory and perceptual system. So now philosophers have to find a sneakier way to argue the point which was already settled. Instead they now seem to be arguing over whether the likeness of the internal representation can or would ever reflect some reality of the objects ‘in themselves’.

This, in my mind, is a different question, however also valid and related in a way, and would probably best be served by some redefinition of terms, and clarification of the argument at hand.


The question is now, do we see the world the way it really is, or simply the way which is pragmatically functional?


This is now the question we are arguing, based on that paper which was supplied above, not about whether what we see is the world in itself or a mental representation. That point has already been settled and was admittedly so even by the author of that paper dxoutkast posted.

[henry quirk]

The question is now, do we see the world the way it really is, or simply the way which is pragmatically functional?

we see it as is, as we can

that is: our means of apprehendin' the world are limited: we can't see the entire EM spectrum, can't hear across the entire of sound range, etc...we only apprehend a portion, a segment, of the information available, but that portion is sufficient for us to cross a busy room without bumpin' into strangers, hear a whispered I love you, to butter toast, to drive on the highway, to recognize a friend, to put lead into an enemy's skull, to generally, with success, make our ways through the world without fallin' down and bashin' our heads on the ground

that portion of information we apprehend, therefore, must be accurate and not merely a pragmatically functional approximation

there's nuthin' pragmatic about the seein' the distinct red of a rose or smellin' its fragrance: we see it, smell it, touch it cuz it exists, and it exists as we perceive it, not becuz we perceive it or as a model constructed from disparate info

we don't create or order the world in our heads; the world is and we capture it as is

[Veritas Aequitas]

After having my lawyer browse through that paper which dxoutkast posted earlier on direct vs indirect realism, I have come to the conclusion that, that paper is a case of a rather soft interpretation of direct realism, which merely states that, when one observes the world, they are in fact observing by means of perceptions which are internal representations, BUT, those representations directly reflect the reality of the objects in the external world such that there is no difference between our perceptions of the world, and the world ‘in itself’.

I have not read the whole article.
If the author insist "there is no difference between our perceptions of the world, and the world ‘in itself’" then I would not agree with it.
As I had stated there is always a reality-Gap and there is no reality-in-itself.
Btw, in which part of the article did the author made the above assertion, I will have a look.

Now I find myself having some difficulty distinguishing between direct and indirect realism under that definition, in which case it seems the goal posts have been moved so much in way of terms that the original meaning of the term direct realism seems to no longer hold any important similarity to this newer definition. It has essentially stolen the explanatory real estate from indirect realism, and pushed any adjoining definition of indirect realism into ridiculous territory such that indirect realism is a case of never having any access to the nature of the external world.

I find that definition of indirect realism harsh, but this is what happens when philosophers go too far. We have seen it with free will and here we see it again, the shifting of goal posts to fit their agenda and argue a point.

If what two camps believe in of two different definitions, is essentially more similar than distinct, then there is now a problem with those definitions, and those definitions have become less defined. The clarity has been lost.

Initially when this point was being argued what was being referred to as naive realism or direct realism was that direct realism is a case where there is no internal representation which forms the basis of perception, but rather that somehow the external world find its way inside your head so as if you are peering out from inside with the world entering your head through the apertures if the sense organs.

This above definition of direct realism has of course, been tossed aside as nonsensical in light of what we now know of physics, lights, sound and pressure waves, the functioning of the human sensory and perceptual system. So now philosophers have to find a sneakier way to argue the point which was already settled. Instead they now seem to be arguing over whether the likeness of the internal representation can or would ever reflect some reality of the objects ‘in themselves’.

This, in my mind, is a different question, however also valid and related in a way, and would probably best be served by some redefinition of terms, and clarification of the argument at hand.

The above is very typical.

Most people and philosophers are driven by the default common sense [archaic: the vulgar] and because it work to some extent, they are stuck and be dogmatic [some are very bigoted] about what they experienced and know within the common sense paradigm.
This is what happened with Newton who did great work with common sense and the external physical world [supposedly created by an external God].

Then we have philosophers with greater insights into what is reality, e.g. Einstein who demonstrated the observer's effect that reality is in a way relative to the observers.
Thereafter we have more philosophers and men of deeper insights who demonstrated there is no essence nor substance to the physical world, i.e. there is no solid particle in the depths of the physical world, which could be either a wave or particle depending on the observer's perception.
Those who oppose the above theory will give all sorts of excuses and shift their goal post to wherever it suit them.

You mentioned above it happened with freewill, but note it is happening with every sphere of knowledge where resistance to change and resisting new knowledge seem to be the norm for the majority [perhaps this has survival value to some degree].
Note the changing tunes of the following theories, the flat-Earth, the bearded God, moral-cognitivism, etc.

The question is now, do we see the world the way it really is, or simply the way which is pragmatically functional?

This is now the question we are arguing, based on that paper which was supplied above, not about whether what we see is the world in itself or a mental representation. That point has already been settled and was admittedly so even by the author of that paper dxoutkast posted.

As I had stated, there is no thing-in-itself nor things-by-themselves.
I don't agree with absolute determinism, but things exist deterministically and conditionally.

"Pragmatically functional" is one reason but not THE reason because there loads of things in the universe [stars emerge and implode] that simply exist without any direct utility to humans and others.

Those who insist things exist in-themselves unconditionally will have to prove their claims.

[Dimebag]

Another case of reality not being in line with perception, is phantom limb syndrome, where amputee cases have the sensation of their amputated limb still being present even after it has been removed, as well as feeling pain in the removed limb.

The rubber hand illusion is another case of where human bodily modelling gets it wrong and confuses a rubber hand as its own, including touch sensations when the rubber hand is stroked.

The reality of perception can be bent so that it doesn’t necessarily match up with the world.

So these are cases where perception doesn’t exactly mirror reality.

Perception does its best, and most of the time it is extremely effective at guiding organisms through the world successfully.

Perception has evolved, and we should expect it would have evolved so as to effectively reflect a version of the world which balances accuracy with speed of perception. Imagine you had 100.000% accuracy in perceptions, but, it added an extra 0.5 seconds processing time compared to 99.5% accuracy. This would mean you would never mis-hear things, never mistakenly see a snake when there is really a coiled rope, but your entire perception of the world would be half a second slower than the near enough counterpart.

Who do you would be more likely to survive and pass on their genes?

The close enough one of course.

Natural selection doesn’t care if our perceptions match reality completely accurately, only that we survive to pass on our genes.

[Belinda]

The question is now, do we see the world the way it really is, or simply the way which is pragmatically functional?

we see it as is, as we can

that is: our means of apprehendin' the world are limited: we can't see the entire EM spectrum, can't hear across the entire of sound range, etc...we only apprehend a portion, a segment, of the information available, but that portion is sufficient for us to cross a busy room without bumpin' into strangers, hear a whispered I love you, to butter toast, to drive on the highway, to recognize a friend, to put lead into an enemy's skull, to generally, with success, make our ways through the world without fallin' down and bashin' our heads on the ground

that portion of information we apprehend, therefore, must be accurate and not merely a pragmatically functional approximation

there's nuthin' pragmatic about the seein' the distinct red of a rose or smellin' its fragrance: we see it, smell it, touch it cuz it exists, and it exists as we perceive it, not becuz we perceive it or as a model constructed from disparate info

we don't create or order the world in our heads; the world is and we capture it as is

But there are people who hallucinate and these people see a different world. Some hallucinators suffer greatly from paranoia and cannot recognise a friend. Nonetheless your description of reality is accurate if we take it as we ought to, to be social reality. Social reality allows us to differentiate between hallucinations and reality.

Is mind

1. Identical with brain

2. The workings of brain seen from the individual's own private point of view

2. A separate thing from brain . Separate in the sense mind continues apart from brain , even after brain death.