Thanks for interesting comments.
You quote: Since all of these, as well as the background are only whatever their qualities are, when those qualities are perceived, it is the existents themselves that are being perceived. There is nothing else to perceive.
Then comment: He certainly doesn't mean what he says here. One forms the concept of an entity, e.g. a moon of Saturn, after viewing Saturn with a cheap telescope. No one would say that there "is nothing else to perceive" of that entity. If it were true, then the Cassini mission is a waste of time.
First, this is only an article, not a treatise. You seem to have confused percepts and concepts throughout your comments. I may have misunderstood you, but that is the way it seems. You say, for example, "One forms the concept of an entity, e.g. a moon of Saturn, after viewing Saturn," but this is not about forming concepts, it is about percepts. The percept of Saturn was what is viewed, not the concept that follows.
The article does not say that whatever percepts are perceived (at any one time, for example) are all the perceptual qualities that could be perceived. It says, if physical existents are going to be perceived, all there is to perceive about them are perceptual qualities. I do not think what you quoted was ambiguous on that point, but I can see how it could be misread.
Then you said: He makes the mistake here of confusing the infallibility of senses with conceptual entities. The senses do indeed deliver qualities of the physical world (as distinguished from the conceptual world), and do so without fail, so long as they do anything at all. That is due to the fact that they are entirely of the physical world and so any information from them is information about the physical world.
However, just because all objects of conception must ultimately be derived from senses and percepts, does NOT mean that those senses or percepts ARE the entities. In fact, that contradicts the very concepts that describe those entities as a thing physically separate.
I think the confusion here is mostly terminology. Rand, Peikoff, Kelley, and Firehammer all use the same language about perceiving existents. The difference is, the first three think some special process is required to configure perceptual qualities into percepts of entities, and Firehammer contends no special process is required, and all that is required is for perceptual qualities be presented to consciousness just as they are, in the entities themselves, which is the source of the perceptual qualities, since they are already configured in the proper form to be perceived as those entities.
The article does not say the percepts of entities are the entities themselves. In the same sense as the image in the television are the people and things in the image (not the actual people) perception of an entity's qualities is the perception of that entity. It certainly is not a perception of something else.
Another part of the confusion is in making a strict distinction between conceptual and physical worlds.
They are distinct. To not make that distinction would be a blurring of meanings.
The brain is the stratum for our concepts ...
This is a conjecture. No one knows how or where, from the physical aspect, consciousness actually functions. We know there are functions and events in the brain associated with certain percepts, but there are functions and events of other parts of the neurological system associated with those same percepts. But consciousness itself is not physical at all. It is an aspect of life, a self-sustained process that makes the physical organism a living thing. When the process ceases, the organism returns to being just dead matter.
The functions of life process, which "runs" on the physical organism (which remains an organism only so long as the life process continues) is not itself subject to the physical aspects of the organism. Consciousness pertains only to living organisms, and only to the the life process. Neither life or consciousness have any physical properties whatsoever.
Still another part of the confusion which the author seems unaware of is that Rand (correctly) uses "integration" along with differentiation to describe the process of concept formation.
Yes! Mr. Firehammer says she usually uses the word integration correctly, for example in concept formation, but she uses it incorrectly to describe the process of percept formation.
She does not, as the author would have you believe, consider integration to be a magical means of transferring sensory stimuli to conscious awareness.
Go back and read her quotes. It is exactly what she said. She doesn't use the word, "magical," but she does say the "brain" performs some undescribed function by which it integrates "sensory data" into percepts. It is a totally assumed unexplained process, that works "somehow." To me, that is "magic."
Now here is an example of the confusion between percepts and concepts I think you make.
However, this does not mean that a cat or infant recognizes a chair, as something to sit on, in its visual field.
The article is not about concepts. What a chair is for is a concept. No one perceives that. Before one can learn what a chair is or what it is for, it must first be perceived. Before any concepts are formed at all, there must first be percepts. But the Objectivists believe there is no perception of "chairs" at all until the ability to from percepts is "developed." Firehammer says, as soon as a child can see, if a chair is within its visual field, a chair is what it perceives (sees). It will not know what a chair is, or what it is for, or anything else about it, but it will be a chair it sees, and it will be that which the child learns all the other things about. If the visual field itself were a chaos to begin with, how would the perception of anything ever come about? You are right, the brain and the entire neurological system are designed to provide perception from the beginning without any special processing or development.
Now I think you may not understand the Objectivist position on perception, because here is what you said: This is not because the Oist claims that the percepts the baby experiences are different than the percepts you and I experience.
But that is exactly what all of the Objectivist say.
From the article:
"As far as can be ascertained, an infant's sensory experience is an undifferentiated chaos." [Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivism Epistemology, Page 5]
Peikoff makes it very clear, a child's consciousness must be developed to perceive things the way an adult does: "In order to move from the stage of sensation to that of perception, we first have to discriminate certain sensory qualities, separate them out of the initial chaos. Then our brain integrates these qualities into entities, thereby enabling us to grasp, in one frame of consciousness, a complex body of data that was gien to us at the outset as a series of discrete units across a span of time." [Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Page 72)
"The reason you see an entity is that you have experienced many kinds of sensations from similar objects in the past, and your brain has retained and integrated them: it has put them together to form an indivisible whole. As a result, a complex past mental content of yours is implicit and operative in your present visual awareness. In the act of looking at a table now, your are aware of its solidity...." [Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Pages 52-53]
"The most primitive conscious organisms appear to possess only the capacity of sensation. ... Human infants start their lives in this state and remain in it for perhaps a matter of months; ...." [Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Page 52.]
Hank
First, this is only an article, not a treatise.
If the article cannot make any sense, then why would you bother asking anyone to read it and comment? I'm not sure what useful purpose such statements as this serve in a debate.
You seem to have confused percepts and concepts throughout your comments. I may have misunderstood you, but that is the way it seems. You say, for example, "One forms the concept of an entity, e.g. a moon of Saturn, after viewing Saturn," but this is not about forming concepts, it is about percepts. The percept of Saturn was what is viewed, not the concept that follows.
You apparently are suggesting that there is no such thing as a *concept* of a moon of Saturn. Such a mistake on your part goes beyond even the misunderstandings of the article's author, and certainly beyond the common ambiguity people apply to "sensation" and "perception". I was pretty careful to avoid such confusion in what I wrote you so that no misunderstanding of those terms would lead to a general misunderstanding of my comments. I seemed to have failed in that regard to a greater extent than I thought possible.
Article: Since all of these, as well as the background are only whatever their qualities are, when those qualities are perceived, it is the existents themselves that are being perceived. There is nothing else to perceive.
You: The article does not say that whatever percepts are perceived (at any one time, for example) are all the perceptual qualities that could be perceived. It says, if physical existents are going to be perceived, all there is to perceive about them are perceptual qualities. I do not think what you quoted was ambiguous on that point, but I can see how it could be misread.
So your interpretation of "there is nothing else to perceive" is 'that nothing can be perceived exept perceptual qualities'? That is almost as meaningful as "all that can be heard are sounds", or "all that can be seen are sights". My presumption is that the statment was meant to be informative rather than merely space-occupying. I certainly do not think the author meant that, but I am suggesting that proof reading should not be neglected.
I think the confusion here is mostly terminology.
Yes. But the content of Rand's own writings (and the published interviews she gave about them) do not, taken as a whole, contain such confusions or mistakes as this author describes. After reading her epistemology, rather than merely some isolated sentence, one gets a very different impression than this article's author presents.
The article does not say the percepts of entities are the entities themselves.
I believe he is making that mistake. At first I merely thought he was defining "entity" as it percepts. However, despite the author's protestations to the contrary, he appears to be describing a kind of subjectivism. He doesn't seem to realize that what we come to identify as an entity is a concept--distinctions made by our consciousness based upon electrical stimuli from various sensory modalities. The physical world contains photons, thermal motions, atoms of various kinds, van der Waals forces, etc., but it my mind that decides to identify, amidst a dynamic mass of matter, my dad's car.
ME: Another part of the confusion is in making a strict distinction between conceptual and physical worlds.
YOU: They are distinct. To not make that distinction would be a blurring of meanings.
Applying such logic as yours in general is the fallacy of the beard. "A clean shaven man" has meaning. "A bearded man" has meaning. The fact that you can remove the beard one whisker at a time does not mean the concepts are not distinct. Unfortunately, too many folks, apparently yourself included, insist upon denying the space-time continuum which is an underlying fact of all our observations (above quantum levels). Undoubtedly the space-time continuum is not mysteriously suspended for the mechanism of conveying sensory stimuli to objects of consciousness. Of course, since the fine details are not yet understood, I can't be sure. But the interesting thing about a continuum is that "the missing link" is always elusive. Anyway failure to recognize that sharp distinctions are between concepts rather than physical processes (like sensory perception) has led more than just you and the author astray.
ME: The brain is the stratum for our concepts ...
YOU: This is a conjecture. No one knows how or where, from the physical aspect, consciousness actually functions.
Well, any conclusions based upon observations can be called "conjecture" if it doesn't meet your particular level of persuasiveness. However, there has been no shortage of observations of changes in thought and behaviour associated with mechanical and chemical brain alterations. Since similar alterations of other parts of the body have not followed similar patterns, there is a nearly unanimous concensus among degreed scientists and physicians that consciousness is best described as a function of the brain. If you have some other organ in mind, with more persuasive evidence, the whole world is waiting to hear it.
In addition, as I mentioned above, our observations of he world (above quantum scales) are of a continuum in space and time. It would be remarkable if this were suspended for some particular function of the brain (or thymus, or spleen, or wherever you think consciousness resides).
she does say the "brain" performs some undescribed function by which it integrates "sensory data" into percepts. It is a totally assumed unexplained process, that works "somehow." To me, that is "magic."
Can you explain the attenuation of pain perception under hypnosis? Can you explain why the universe behaves more massive than all the available measurable mass? Can you explain the stimuli that drive day to day fluctuations in stock prices? Well, all of these things occur, as does the transmission of electrical stimuli from sensory organs to conscious thought. Not knowing surely is not synonymous with "magic", or we all are a bunch of rattle-shaking voodoo priests.
YOU:Now here is an example of the confusion between percepts and concepts I think you make.
ME:However, this does not mean that a cat or infant recognizes a chair, as something to sit on, in its visual field.
YOU:The article is not about concepts. What a chair is for is a concept. No one perceives that. Before one can learn what a chair is or what it is for, it must first be perceived. Before any concepts are formed at all, there must first be percepts.
Strange how you transform my descriptions of the author's mistakes into mistakes on my part. I realize the author's intended scope did not include concept formation. I also am throughly familiar with Rand's description of concept formation. You are improperly pulling my statement above out of its intended context, which you do comment on later.
Firehammer says, as soon as a child can see, if a chair is within its visual field, a chair is what it perceives (sees). It will not know what a chair is, or what it is for, or anything else about it, but it will be a chair it sees, and it will be that which the child learns all the other things about. If the visual field itself were a chaos to begin with, how would the perception of anything ever come about?
Exactly where his entire thesis collapses. (First, we are neglecting the facts that a newborn's brain and sensory organs are not fully developed, and a baby's eyes do not see what an adults eyes see, but let's not get distracted.) You say "if a chair is within its visual field, a chair is what it perceives". Actually, it perceives electrical stimuli at the end of a causal chain that involves the chair, the floor the chair is on, the window behind the chair, the cat under the chair, the room temperature, the radio on the table, the mom's caressing arms, the rubber pacifier, etc. Having no *conceptual* base with which to interpret these stimuli, they are aptly described as "chaotic". Interestingly, "chaos" is not synonymous with "random", but rather with "disorder and confusion". how would the perception of anything ever come about
By the slow process of concept formation. The mind is capable of automatically identifying patterns (such as translating edges in the visual field). Small patterns in the chaos are identified. Concept formation leads to bigger and more complex patterns. Slowly things start to make sense. Kind of like listening to Brahms. Of course, this is speculative since the precise mechanisms have not been fully elucidated yet. That is, it is unknown--or as you would say, "magic".
Now I think you may not understand the Objectivist position on perception, because here is what you said: This is not because the Oist claims that the percepts the baby experiences are different than the percepts you and I experience.
You misinterpreted my quote. I'll put it back into context for you:
"In fact, although probably an oversimplification, the Oist description of "chaos" is more apt. This is not because the Oist claims that the percepts the baby experiences are different than the percepts you and I experience. It is because the baby can't recall the conceptual structure that you and I can that give our meaning to those percepts."
"As far as can be ascertained, an infant's sensory experience is an undifferentiated chaos." [Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivism Epistemology, Page 5]
Again, this is not necessarily in error. Even if the same occipital cortical fibers fired in the same way in a baby and an adult, the baby's experience is probably best described as chaos.
Peikoff makes it very clear, a child's consciousness must be developed to perceive things the way an adult does:"In order to move from the stage of sensation to that of perception, we first have to discriminate certain sensory qualities, separate them out of the initial chaos."
The author has a point in this quote. Peikoff does seem to say that some conceptualization must intercede between sensory stimuli and perception. But this is a criticism of Peikoff, not Rand.