henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 11:19 am
If you suffered from Charles Bonnet Syndrome [++] you could one day out of a sudden see a 'real' lady speaking to you in a room whereas others with you at that time only see a framed picture of a woman on the wall.
If you are a naive [direct] realist, you will readily accept that the woman you saw is really real until you are certified and convinced by a psychiatrist you were suffering from Charles Bonnet Syndrome.
In other words: if you were ill you might make mistakes, be in error.
This is not a decent example of why direct realism is incorrect.
Even a healthy person, with unimpaired mind might make mistakes. Direct realism offers no immunity from error.
The point is there are so many counter-examples against Direct [naive] Realism and one has to accept it with all the relevant qualifications.
Then, please, offer some counter-examples...I look forward to grindin' them to dust.
It is common for people to make mistakes in perceptions, example seeing snake within a shady or dark location when it is actually a piece of rope. Such mistakes in perception are due to various conditions of the person is in. This can easily be corrected upon investigation.
However, what I have presented are illusions that are natural and unavoidable even with knowledge of what is going on.
In the case of the Charles Bonnet Syndrome, the person cannot avoid the illusions due to his state of mind. Thus even if the person is told of the illusion, it will still happen again and again and the only way is for the person to rationalize it away.
But the problem is when the person is not aware he has the Charles Bonnet Syndrome, thus via naive realism will take what is perceive as really real.
What is I am presenting are illusions that are natural, inevitable and unavoidable that pose a problem to naive realism.
There are various types of such natural illusions, e.g. empirical, logical, based on pure reason, etc.
That one see the Sun as appearing larger on the horizon than the midday Sun is not a mistake but it is a natural, inevitable and unavoidable illusion.
Note this optical illusion,
In the above case, no matter how you understand the illusion, you will never be free from its illusory effects which is natural, inevitable and unavoidable.
There are load of such illusions in reality where the naive realists would not be aware to take note and rationalize, thus there are many "illusions" that the naive realists would take for real based on what they are perceiving.
Thus naive realism by itself is a faulty theory.
On the other hand, the indirect realist would not based his interpretation of reality based solely on perception but will ensure further verifications for everything that is perceived before confirming what is real is really real [btw not absolutely real].
It is not only that one has to deal with empirical illusions but there are those based on thoughts on perception which are natural, inevitable and unavoidable that are very complex and sophisticated that can lead to very dire consequences.