"Sensory qualities as real" section in OPAR

[Hazmatac]

Hey, I was wondering why this idea is put in OPAR. Can someone describe what this means, why it's important, and maybe give a couple of concretes? Thanks. (the most important part is "why is this section needed)

Edited July 4, 2009 by Hazmatac

[Grames]

There is the world as it is aka existence and there is the world as we perceive it aka reality. Any philosophy that fails to tightly couple reality to existence is subjected to attack by skeptics leaping into the gap claiming knowledge is impossible because we don't experience existence directly, only a distorted version of it. This often goes hand in hand with dualism as Plato's cave metaphor and his idealistic world of forms, or Kant's noumenal vs. phenomenal, or the medieval scholastic philosopher's debate between nominalism vs realism, or some pragmatist or postmodernist exponent of social subjectivism. (It was the scholastics that came up with the mirror theory mentioned in this section.)

Since the objects we perceive have a nature independent of us, it must be possible to distinguish between form and object; between the aspects of the perceived world that derive from our form of perception (such as colors, sounds, smells) and the aspects that belong to metaphysical reality itself, apart from us. What then is the status of the formal aspects? If they are not "in the object," it is often asked, does it follow that they are merely "in the mind" and therefore are subjective and unreal? If so, many philosophers have concluded, the senses must be condemned as deceivers—because the world of colored, sounding, odoriferous objects they reveal is utterly unlike actual reality. This is the problem, a commonplace in introductory philosophy classes, of the so-called "two tables": the table of daily life, which is brown, rectangular, solid, and motionless; and the table of science, which, it is said, is largely empty space, inhabited by some colorless, racing particles and/or charges, rays, waves, or whatnot.

Other problems bound up in this topic are the idea that the personal is inherently subjective making objectivity impossible and the "two tables" idea which comes up over and over again in the determinism threads I participate in.

[Marc K.]

Hey, I was wondering why this idea is put in OPAR. Can someone describe what this means, why it's important, and maybe give a couple of concretes? Thanks. (the most important part is "why is this section needed)

You ask good questions and I certainly don't want to discourage you from asking but I have a suggestion: tell me what you think, give an answer to the question yourself, tell me where you are in your thinking on the subject and how did you arrive at your position, what did you read that lead you to your conclusion? Knowing this would certainly encourage me to help you correct any errors in your thinking. I like to exchange value for value. It is a value to me to assist someone in understanding Objectivism but I want to know that the person I am dealing with has put some effort into our exchange also.

More importantly for yourself: how are you to know whether any of us is telling you the truth if you haven't already tried to understand the issue? I think you can tell that there are a lot of disagreements, misunderstandings and pure falsities to be found on the forum. Fortunately you can almost always discover the Objectivist position enumerated here also, but you are going to have to judge for yourself, as always.

One easy way to help yourself when you have a question is to look it up on the Ayn Rand Lexicon .

Anyway, just some friendly advice, you can take it or leave it.

As to the question in the title: if the senses don't give us what is real, then no knowledge is possible. There is a reality out there and our connection to it is our senses. If they gave us something that was other than reality, how could we ever discover what is real?

One classic example is the old pencil-in-water proposition. You stick a pencil in a glass of water and it appears to be bent. Some look at this and say: "AHA!!!!, you see, you can't trust your senses, they are tricking you, the pencil isn't really bent but your senses are telling you it is."

But you see our senses aren't fooling us at all. Light travels differently in water than in air so the pencil should look bent. If the pencil didn't look bent, then that would tell us something different about the properties of light and air and water.

The senses do not manipulate reality, they just receive it.

[Ifat Glassman]

Hey, I was wondering why this idea is put in OPAR. Can someone describe what this means, why it's important, and maybe give a couple of concretes? Thanks. (the most important part is "why is this section needed)

Your process of thought is fallible (which is why you need a certain method to think - i.e. reason). Sense data is the automatic, error-proof starting point. If you did not have an error-free starting base you would have no way to validate your knowledge. It's by reducing complex, abstract knowledge to the perceptual level (seeing objects) that you prove an idea.

All of human knowledge is build upon sense-perception. If that is not valid, nothing further in your knowledge is valid, and the whole field of epistemology collapses. So that's why the subject has philosophical significance.

[Hazmatac]

Mark, Grames, and Ifat, thank you for the help. Mark, you said you would like to know what I thought of it. When I started the question, I didn't grasp why sensory qualities as real is important to knowledge. I wasn't sure which direction Peikoff was going in (that it was important to knowledge). It makes more sense to me now, after grames wrote the response. I read the section, but I didn't really "get it" until he helped me out. What I knew was simply sense qualitiies are real, but unsure why that was important really.

[Hazmatac]

Argument I don't have a response for: How can you be certain your/my senses are working?

[JMeganSnow]

Argument I don't have a response for: How can you be certain your/my senses are working?

The same way you're certain of anything: you test. If you have to solve a math problem but you're not certain your answer is correct, the usual thing to do is to try a different method or order of solving the problem to see if you come up with the same answer, right? Don't you do this with your senses all the time?

I know if I'm, say, seeing a shadow I'll usually rub my eyes to clear them of grit and see if that helps, that sort of thing. We all build up a repertoire of experience with our sensory apparatus over time from repeated observation.

So, the real question to ask if and when someone questions your senses is "what evidence do you have that they're *not* working?"

[Marc K.]

Mark, you said you would like to know what I thought of it.

If you don't mind, I'd still like to hear your thoughts on the issue. I don't want to put you on the spot though so feel free not to answer.

Argument I don't have a response for: How can you be certain your/my senses are working?

Jennifer's answer is a good one but also notice the stolen concept that is implied by the question.

What is the only way to be certain of anything? You must check whatever you think you know against reality in order to be certain. And what is your only connection to reality? Your senses. Sense perception is the given and is unassailable, if it wasn't you couldn't be certain of anything.

Certainty rests on the foundation of reality and your perception of it.

Sense perception is presupposed by the concept "certain"