/lit/ - Literature

Here's some sense data: who cares, faggot

>>5770059
I think that Bishop George Berkeley, Gilbert Ryle, and the OP care.

>>5770064
Well, two of those people are dead, and if I have my way, the third is soon to be...

>>5770064
They're dead

>>5770059

I care, that's why I'm asking.

>>5770051
Just because knowledge is an illusion of reality doesn't mean you don't have to operate within the parameters of that illusion to continue your own survival.

You don't have to recognize the illusion as an illusion to live, but if you do recognize the illusion you can either die for the patrician life or keep living while understanding that you're only interacting with the world in a handful of possible ways, but that this is not a bad thing.

>>5770083

That's no really an answer to the question I'm asking, which is whether we can analyse the concept of sense data, or whether at some stage in the debate I've missed an important point.

Unless I'm misinterpreting the question:

Obviously sense data cannot be trusted as an independently valid source of information. However, knowing this, life must go on functionally in the same way as before. The only difference is whether or not one can have absolute confidence in what is observed (one cannot).

>>5770089
I observed ur mom on my dick last night and that definitely was real lmao

>>5770086
"analyse the concept of sense data" I guess I'm a little unsure what this implies.

We can separate sense datas, compartmentalize them, and reproduce them either individually or, to some degree, in union. We know there are aspects of our world that our bodies cannot interact with.

Could you rephrase your question or define your terms?

>>5770089

I think you've got it better than that other guy, but that's not really my point.

I accept that, if Berkeley's understanding of sense data (as a distinct thing) is accurate, we have no reason to believe that physical things (as understood by the naive realist) exist. This seems to be the point you're debating, but it's not really contentious.

The problem is Berkeley's understanding of sense data as an independent thing, and whether we can analyse it.

>>5770104

If I could define my terms I wouldn't have a problem, the problem is that I cannot define or analyze the term 'sense data'.

We can only 'separate sense data' if they can in principle exist as independent things. But my question is exactly whether they can, and I'm finding it difficult to make an argument either way. I'm asking if anyone can offer an argument for or against this, because I definitely cannot.

>>5770107
You don't "see" with your eyes, your eyes just relay discrete data about the physical interactions of the world around us to your brain which then interprets in union with your other immediate senses to produce as holistic an image of reality as we can given what sensory inputs are available. In this way, we know "sense data" is an abstract reflection of the world that our mind can utilize for the continued existence of our being.

Those senses are inadequate to interpret reality as a whole, but are adequate to interpret the parts of reality that we would need to interpret in order to advance as a species in a competitive world with other types of encountered sensory beings.

>>5770125

I'm really not sure what you're saying here, apologies if I'm being obtuse. Perhaps you could repeat this with plainer language?

Whether the senses are adequate to 'interpret reality as a whole' isn't really an issue here I don't think

>>5770148

A sense is traditionally defined as a type of information human beings take in about the world around them or their specific, immediate place within it. You have different faculties within your body that allow you to measure different parameters of the world. If you close your eyes, you still have every sense available to you except sight. Thus sight is a discrete sensory evaluation of the world around you.

Another approach would be to understand what happens when such senses are malfunctioning due to aberrations in normal human systems. The "self" is a sense because some people can lose that, perceive themselves as a series of selfs instead of a single, and it then has detrimental real world effects on their continued survival.

Sense data is the discrete units of measured reality compiled by our brain in something like real-time so that we can continue existing as long as possible.

>>5770180

You're really missing the point I think.

I'm not asking what a sense is, I can easily investigate what scientists have concluded in physically understanding sight et cetera. I'm asking if sense-data, the things that (some would say) the eye apprehends, exists and can be understood as existing independently.

I'm not sure in which way your post explains this.

If I may, I'd like to return to something you said earlier to clarify my issue: ' "sense data" is an abstract reflection of the world'.

This phrase, I think, is the mot clearly you've addressed my question. However obviously the definition is inadequate, because it could define any piece of abstract artwork as a 'sense data', which they are not (or are, if you're Berkeley?).

All I need is a definition of sense data, perhaps a place to start, a point of analysis?

I suspect I may have been correct to say that it wasn't analysable though. So any suggestions on how, if this is true, we could conclude that one explanation or the other is adequate?

>>5770180

'discrete units of measured reality'..?

>>5770208
A sense data would then simply be the specific way a sense compartmentalizes the world for your brain?

The sense data of sight would be the empirical interactions between light photons and the cones and rods of your eyes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell#Humans

The sense data of touch would be the responsive repulsion of the light magnetic fields between two objects as recorded by your nervous system? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatosensory_system#Fine_touch_and_crude_touch

>>5770218
Discrete units of measured reality = the way your physical senses separate different parts of reality and communicate those to the brain.

>>5770232
Or if you're asking not of the interactions themselves but how the interactions are conveyed to the brain, it's electrical impulses stimulating different sections of the brain that are conditioned to treat different electrical impulses as meaning different things.

Though Berkeley really just means the individual sensory responses being combined to create a unified whole that isn't technically an accurate reflection of reality, but one that was naturally selected to be most useful to us thus far. I can't imagine how he would care about the electrical impulses, but rather the function they serve to produce within us.

I would 100% say that any artwork, abstract or not, is sense data. Abstract art is simply an attempt to reproduce within given bounds of the medium the raw sense data that would initialize a specified and intended internal reaction within the observer.

>>5770208
Shameless plug, I'm actually arguing that exact premise about art at my uni right now in hopes of one day getting our education system's head out of its ass in reference to art-education.

This presentation acts as a rough summary of the treatise I'm finishing up this week, turns out my class wasn't a big fan of reading intense semiotic understands of the world when being told "you're teaching chilluns wrong."
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XRJJplS6WxCMB8YwlC7kVaECfLxz4K8jJDsv8-zCHNs

My alternative is something like a cross between recess and art class that is enacted in a guided way by field specialists without regard for arbitrary social biases towards any given medium. I call it the Artzone. It's the hippiest thing I've ever advocated and I hate that it's the best solution I've found.

>if that janitor from /v/-last-night is hanging around, please don't cry to a mod and get me banned from /lit/. Getting banned from /v/ is telling me I can't piss in the public swimming toilet; it's probably a good thing in the long run. Getting banned from /lit/ would be genuinely harmful to the progression of my various theories.

>>5770208
I see it like this, you have established two things as existing before we address sense data. The first being consciousness, to perceive. The second being senses, or some kind of 'contraption', existing as part or along with your consciousness (basically just something internally existing that causes what we describe as a feeling).

Sense-data is just a variable for whatever is the reason that the sense 'fired'. It could be anything, all we know is that the sense fired, sense-data is the cause, the 'x'.

>>5770232

Bringing empirical research into this problem cannot clarify it, only confuse it.

I am asking about what we already know and understand, not what we can learn through empirical research.

I'm asking what we mean when we say 'sense data' - this can't be determined by research because plenty of people have said the word, and understood it coherently (or at least apparently they have), without having researched it empirically.

Okay, but this definition doesn't say anything about the concept of 'sense data'. It doesn't matter what my physical senses do, because I can't assume that I have physical senses until I've resolved this problem.

>>5770250

If you're suggesting that abstract art is equivalent to sense data, and you don't mean it in a Berkelian sense, then we've departed from any form of coherent debate, because that certainly isn't what I mean or what Berkeley meant.

When I speak about sense data I am speaking, crudely put, about a subjective perception of some kind. Obviously I can't provide greater clarity, as that's my very question. But, unless you are making some kind of physicalist argument, which doesn't seem to be the case, it is nonsense to talk about qualia in terms of the way that senses work.

Anyway, I think it turns out that /lit/ isn't the place to look for help with Philosophy. But thanks anyway, people who have replied.

>>5770291

If you're getting ideas for a Degree on /Lit/ then you are phenomenally retarded

>>5770314
Disregard this I was thinking of something entirely different fffuuuccckkk

>>5770314

If you're merely describing consciousness as the potential for perception, then perhaps that is fair. It seems unnecessary and dangerous to involve that concept though.

So, sense-data is simply whatever is perceived? I can sympathise with this position, but isn't this a baseless assumption?

If I am Ryle, then I think that we perceive objects. In this case, to describe them as 'sense-data' seems just a linguistic oddity and not to have meaning.

If I am Berkeley, then I think that we perceive sense-data.

So the point seems to be that either way we must simply make an assumption? Either we assume that sense-data exist as separate things, or we assume that in some way they are inseparable from perception or objects.

So the problem cannot be satisfied?

I haven't read him, but it seems like for Berkeley thought qua thought takes ontological precedence over thought qua sense perception.
Descartes doubted sense data because although they are a direct experience, they are not what is experiencing them. Berkeley's universe is ontologically monistic: there is only thought, and the subject is what is thinking it. God, people-subjects. Subjective idealism implies that ideas (thoughts) are more fundamental than the sensations they interpret.

>>5770322
Okay, then to use a metaphor, to ask for help experiencing your sense data in a non-empirical fashion would be to ask me to tell you how to move your arm. I can't. It's just something that we do. You move your arm by moving your arm. You can condition yourself to isolate the sense data out of its union likes the great scholars of the past, or you can use empirics to do it for you. I can't teach you to isolate your senses because you're already doing it to varying degrees. You'll have to sit down for whatever time it takes to isolate your individual perception senses in order to determine what they are.

I honestly can't believe I'm having to argue this jackass I know irl's point, but an intuitive (non-empirical) understand of a thing is entirely possible, but only on a personally subjective basis and only through introspection.

To be fair though, a person can definitely talk about a thing's effect on our reality without being able to define what that thing is yet. That's why we can currently math out gravity's effects.

>>5770322
I tend to run my independent ideas against /lit/ in order to crowdsource the arguments opposing it so I can better argue my point irl. It's actually proved to be incredibly helpful and has produced real world results reflective of it.

What would be more retarded is getting my ideas for degrees from books and throwing them into the academic echo chamber and hoping I jacked off enough dead guys for my professors to validate my existence.

>>5770334

Berkeley's ontological theory isn't what is at issue here because he ontological theory succeeds the epistemic one, and the latter is what I'm finding problematic.

>>5770333
Yeah I re-read your initial post and realized I misinterpreted it.

Sense-data seems, for Berkeley, seems to just be anything that affects whatever we are (consciousness?) coming through our senses (as typically defined 5 senses). So essentially, I know I have the sense-data of seeing a laptop screen.. but all that means is exactly that.. I see the sense-data of a laptop screen, not 'I see a laptop screen'.

What I think is interesting would be hallucinations, has he ever talked about those? Does he count a hallucination, that we acknowledge during the hallucination as a hallucination, as sense-data? I would say he does.

I think that Ryle is saying (I'm pretty unsure about this one) that the sense-data (NOT the physical) exists outside our consciousness within our sense which are OUTSIDE and SEPARATE from our consciousness. Since they exist independently of our consciousness (I would think parallel, but separate), they are just as much a part of the physical world and since we experience them they must exist by definition.

>>5770366

>I tend to run my independent ideas against /lit/ in order to crowdsource the arguments opposing it so I can better argue my point irl. It's actually proved to be incredibly helpful and has produced real world results reflective of it.
>What would be more retarded is getting my ideas for degrees from books and throwing them into the academic echo chamber and hoping I jacked off enough dead guys for my professors to validate my existence.

I'm not surprised that someone who needs to ask /Lit/ to find objections to his theory believes that all other Philosophers do to succeed is 'jack off dead guys'.

>>5770373
The two are intertwined. There are only ideas perceived by subjects for him. Observing sense data will only tell you about an idea.
>The problem is Berkeley's understanding of sense data as an independent thing, and whether we can analyse it.
It seems to me like we can analyze sense data, but that our analysis will only tell us about the ideas that sense data gives us information about. Any conclusions about physical objects would be baseless for Berkeley, since there are no physical objects. Our sense data is valid, but it is only data about ideas.

>>5770395
/lit/ is literally a dialectic, there isn't a better place to throw ideas.

>>5770395
I'm not philosophy anon, I actually create work that is intended for human use and systemic improvement.

And yes, in most university curriculum, they very much do want you to jack off dead guys to the ideological gratification of your authoritative superiors.

I'm sure you can in a short time come up with every possible argument against your own theories, I'm sorry I'm such a pleb.

>>5770407
But it's the internet anon, nothing here matters, not even abstract concepts. It's only good for titillation and baww threads.

>>5770379

Oh okay, no problem.

As far as Berkeley is concerned, a thing is either a sense-datum or a mind, so yes he would argue that a hallucination is a sense-datum.

No, I think you're getting confused here. What Ryle is saying is that sense-data don't really exist in the way that Berkeley conceives them - I think, although I can only offer an interpretation, he felt that they were somehow inseparable from the process of perception, so clearly it is nonsensical to speak of them 'existing' here or there or anywhere.

But this is my problem - how can we establish this? It seems to do so, we need to assume that it is true, but the same is true of the opposite position.

>>5770420
>But it's the internet anon, nothing here matters
People still believe this?

>>5770407

Yes there is, a place where people are generally disposed to think about things. There are a great number of places where you could find better quality thinking, something which has recently occurred to me.

>>5770420

And Philosophy isn't intended for 'human use and systematic improvement'? Also, I'd like some updates in the future about how successful you are with that end, call me when you've solved a problem (any problem at all).

>>5770399

They are, I'd agree, but the epistemological theory must precede the ontological one, surely?

I think this is to overcomplicate it: the sense data themselves seem to be something so simple that they don't allow analysis.

It depends in what sense we are talking about 'physical objects', but this isn't relevant. What I'm asking about, is what we actually mean by 'sense-data', and whether we can be justified in describing it in this way. There need be no ontological theory for that because it's a question about what is perhaps literally the most basic kind of perception.

>>5770420
"do not take the internet seriously" is not the same as "nothing here matters"

>>5770448
Yes, you can, but /lit/ is also fine if you're feeling lazy. I don't know anyone IRL to talk to about Hegel, and they don't teach him at my university (every philosophy professor I've asked about him has admitted to not having read him), so I shitpost about him here.

>>5770465

Oh, Hegel! No wonder all of your posts have been abstruse and full of random, irrelevant bs.

>>5770448
How does he define sense data? That would be a good place to start.
I would define sense data as what we experience directly that tells us about the world outside of our mind and name the 5 senses as examples of things that conduct sense data. I would say that the most basic kind of perception is the perception of immediate thought, which is what we use to interpret our sense data.

>>5770470
Edgy.

>>5770480

He doesn't because it isn't a term he uses, which is problematic because while he is clearly referring to it I'm not sure he ever quite defines it. Probably instead he refers to (I'm sure you understand that I don't have time to check) sense-data as something like 'the evidence of the senses' or something in that vein at least.

I can understand this temptation - but that seems to beg the question. If it's the case that we directly observe, then we assume that sense-data and objects are separate, but this is only an assumption.

Of course you didn't say 'observe', you said 'experience', which is more problematic. If Ryle were correct, and we directly observe material objects, we might 'directly experience' sense-data, but this of course wouldn't be in the way Berkeley meant it.

>>5770486

Says the guy who takes continental philosophy seriously and moans that his professors are so much more ignorant than he is - I think you've got a monopoly on the edge there

>>5770508
>If it's the case that we directly observe, then we assume that sense-data and objects are separate, but this is only an assumption.
Is it an assumption or a consequence?
>Of course you didn't say 'observe', you said 'experience', which is more problematic
Sense data is observation. Below sense data is the experience of sense data, i.e., pure consciousness. The 'I' which thinks interprets sense data. A blind human is no less a human for lacking vision, so clearly consciousness and the human-ness of a human being aren't dependent on sense data.

>>5770514
>and moans that his professors are so much more ignorant than he is
No, I said they haven't read Hegel, not that they're more ignorant than I am. There's a difference.

>>5770291

Why would you provide a definition of art that relies on the concept of 'Art' in at least two places?

'Art is the process of people who make art making art'

Really informative

>>5770526

>Sense data is observation

What do you mean by this? Part of observation? I'd agree with that, I think Ryle would too. But, therefore, if we say this we're assuming Ryle's conclusion and I'm not sure we've justified it. The same is true with Berkeley if you meant 'we observe sense-data'.

>Consciousness etc...

I'm not sure I agree with this but I'm also not sure it is necessary for the discussion - what every consciousness is, I'm not really sure how it influences our explanation of the concept of sense data.

>Is it an assumption or a consequence?

It's an assumption. I can only 'directly observe sense-data' if they are separate from whatever else could possibly be observed.

>>5770526
>Sense data is observation

Wouldn't it be the result of observation? Observation being the contact of something to the sense, and sense data being the yield of that contact and subsequent relay of that sense-data to the pure consciousness. All this would be the process of perception.

>>5770551

This is what Ryle is saying - Sense-data is a component of the process of observation. It cannot be observed itself, and this is why we do not need to infer the existence of objects from sense data.

>>5770544
>What do you mean by this?
I mean that observation necessarily involves sense data, and that every sense datum is necessarily part of an observation. If you aren't observing with your senses, you aren't observing at all.
>what every consciousness is, I'm not really sure how it influences our explanation of the concept of sense data.
The two are very much bound up together, and I think any discussion of what sense data is must involve a discussion of what consciousness is. In what sense are these thing 'senses' and in what sense is it 'data' if there isn't anything doing the sensing and nothing interpreting the data?
>>5770551
>Wouldn't it be the result of observation?
Yeah, probably.

>>5770051
All your senses tell you virtually everything you know about your environment, and virtually all other people agree with your perceptions in almost every respect (aside from colour and taste, etc.). You have to obey your sensory data to avoid being killed or hurt, and the correlation between your senses is usually perfect. Further, it can mostly be verified empirically (your sense of which object is heavier, etc).

However, you decide to hypothesize that all that is "not adequate justification," and that it is more likely--despite an utter lack of evidence--that there is some other "reality" that you have no way of grasping. You want to waste your time jerking off about the imperfection of your senses.
Why not just go to church? It's basically the same thing.

>>5770570

>I mean..

Oh excellent, then I think you hold the same position I've been attributing to Ryle.

How could we draw this conclusion then, without begging the question?

>In what sense are these thing 'senses' and in what sense is it 'data' if there isn't anything doing the sensing and nothing interpreting the data?

Okay, but this is something you need to establish first. It may very well be true that we cannot understand sense-data without understanding consciousness, but this is the question I am asking, roughly. You need to establish that it is necessary, and I don't see that an explicit understanding of consciousness is really necessary for an understanding of sense-data.

At this point, I'll reiterate my question, because I think we're on the same page:

Berkeley argues that sense-data can exist as separate things (though dependent on minds) and be observed

Ryle argues that sense-data are part of the process of observation and really aren't separable in this way

How could we establish these claims? Homunculus?

>>5770558
It sounds like Berkeley doesn't exclude sense-data as being a metaphysical element, which means the two can never really be reconciled.

>>5770593

My position is that our common-sense understanding of the world is accurate. I'm arguing that Berkeley, who says the opposite, is wrong.

But please, if you can provide a substantial argument for the claim that sense-data and perception are inseparable concepts, go ahead.

>>5770600

I don't know what you mean by a 'metaphysical element' or by this 'being reconciled' and I'm not sure what you mean it to be 'reconciled' with.

>>5770606
Then why did you say "Clearly this is true," after Berkeley's absurd claim about inadequate justification? Am I confusing posters here?

>>5770631

No you aren't.

Clearly it is true, that if Berkeley is right insofar as sense-data exist independently of perception, it is also the case that we have no reason to infer the existence of physical objects from them.

>>5770635
Ah, I see. Both of those statements are too absurd to argue, so I'm done here. Cheers.

>>5770635
There is no way to know which one is true without assuming. It's just not possible. Solipsism too stronk.

>>5770051
>Clearly this is true
Clearly you are stupid. Occam's Razor, nignog.

>>5770653

What is absurd about them?

>>5770671

It must be possible, or all our knowledge about the external world is unjustified.

>>5770708

What - Occam's razor allows us to distinguish between two theories which both adequately explain the facts. The point of Berkeley's claim is that direct realism doesn't explain the facts, so idealism is the only option.

I actually thought /Lit/ was visited by people interested in Philosophy, but I guess it's just 99% posers. That sucks.

>>5770725
>I actually thought /Lit/ was visited by people interested in Philosophy, but I guess it's just 99% posers. That sucks.
It's visited by people interested in -literature-, you fag. It's called /lit/. Philosophy is only obliquely related to this board.
To explain my comment: almost all humans observe the same things when we look at the same place. The most likely explanation for this is that there is anobjrctive reality and real objects that we can observe. Occam's Razor advises us that the most likely explanation is generally the right explanation. Which means that Berkeley's ideas are bunk, or at least not worth considering.

>>5770765
>it's true because most humans think it is true intuitively!
Great criteria for truth.

The truth is that we have no evidence for concepts such as "subject", "object", "things" beyond their utility. And practicality towards life is not an indication of truth, truth is often hard fought for.

>>5770785
That's the fucking opposite of what I said. Learn to read.

>>5770969
So you said it's true because of the rational inquiries of the few?

>>5770596
>How could we draw this conclusion then, without begging the question?
It may simply be true because of the definitions of the terms involved. It's also generally agreed upon. Question it, by all means, but science and most philosophy operates under these assumptions.
>You need to establish that it is necessary, and I don't see that an explicit understanding of consciousness is really necessary for an understanding of sense-data.
Consciousness is the thing that interprets sense-data. This is a matter of definitions.
>Consciousness: pure thought.
>Sense data: Information about the world outside of consciousness' immediacy that is interpreted by consciousness
>Observation: determining the state of affairs in the world outside of consciousness
To your question:
>How can we establish these claims?
By looking at the meanings of the terms involved and drawing these conclusions from them. If we agree that sense data is necessarily involved in the process of observation, and that consciousness is likewise involved (which we do, if we're using these definitions), and that observation is essentially what happens when consciousness turns its attention to sense data, we can probably agree with Ryle. Berkeley, however, is slightly more problematic here, since he thinks we can observe sense data, although by our definition of observation and of sense data, consciousness can't observe sense data without sense data, which is of course problematic.
>>5770609
I'm not the guy you were responding to, but Berkeley operates on numerous metaphysical assumptions that you seem to think don't matter. I would argue that they do matter, particularly in the area of sense perception, considering the nature of his philosophy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Berkeley think that things only exist as ideas in the mind, and when there is nothing perceiving them they aren't there/they don't exist?

>>5770051
>The reason Berkeley felt that physical objects (as understood by a naive realist) don't exist is that there is not adequate justification for an inference from the existence of sense data to the existence of such 'physical objects'
>Clearly this is true

>there is only a little evidence of thing existing
>therefore this thing certainly does not exist

You philosophists are so clever! I wish I was that smart!

>>5771428
You missed it brah, he's saying something more like this.

>the evidence isn't evidence of anything but itself
>therefor no conclusion can be drawn but that the evidence itself exists and nothing more

>>5770725
>I actually thought /Lit/ was visited by people interested in Philosophy, but I guess it's just 99% posers. That sucks.

Lit is indeed visited by some people interested in philosophy, though why you think that group excludes "posers" is beyond me. I consider them often synonyms.
But no, I am not one of those "let us ponder ontology" people. I can't stand the endless semantic games that pass for deep thought among undergrads taking philosophy, and I didn't get a doctorate in literature because I gave a damn about philosophy. It's not my fault this site doesn't have a /phil/ board to get all the existential crises types their own virtual coffee-shop. I'm not a "poser," I'm a literary scholar and enthusiastic reader of fiction, and this board is named /lit/.