I am a physicist and we are all objectivist at some level since otherwise my work would be meaningless. I am always puzzled that Dr. Peikoff does not introduce our brain as the real seat of our senses. Our eyes are cameras. Without the brain, they are useless almost. The red flower and the grey flower are two valid perceptions. However there is two basic possibilities from a scientist point of view assuming the eye balls are identical (like cameras).
One of them, most likely the grey guy who is abnormal, has a brain defect. We can device experiments to determine if the dude has illusions or if his vision is deficient. Or perhaps the red guy, with the rest of us, are deluded. The second possibility seems farfetched but there are optical illusions that fool the majority of humans like the grey checker board illusion.
We can construct machines to determine if our perception of reality suffers optical or sensorial illusions. Bees can see ultraviolet, we cannot. But this was discovered by our brains perceiving and modelling reality with the help of machines. When we say that an electron "exists" it is entirely from models and machines. We cannot see an electron.
"I am always puzzled that Dr. Peikoff does not introduce our brain as the real seat of our senses. Our eyes are cameras. Without the brain, they are useless almost." I don't see that as a particularly essential detail from a philosophical point of view, though it obviously is from a biological point of view.
@@YashArya01 It is not. But Dr Peikoff rejects quantum mechanics as a result of that.... At least this is my impression. Of course many objectivists, including a physicist friend of mine, maintain that he really does not reject quantum mechanics.... Anyway I do believe that our brain is truly the seat of perception.
@@jceepf I think he rejects certain illogical interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as the Copenhagen interpretation, not the whole theory itself.
@@PraniGopu Well I heard him on an old recording calling the entire thing a mess comparable to modern art. The various interpretations of QM are a mess but physicists do not lose sleep on it. Some actually work on these things. For 99.9% of physics, the Copenhagen interpretation leads to correct predictions despite a lack of logic. (Should the observer be a QM object himself?) He might be more subtle these days. The recent confirmations of the Bell equality really put a arrow in the heart of the people who believe in a classical interpretation of the world. In any event, I think that one should accept reality as it is. It is objective but our senses are limited machines. We need our brains to make full sense of it. For example a bee might see a white flower having a purple centre (they can see ultraviolet) we see it white. It does not mean that there are 2 realities (as postmodernists say), but simply that our detection instruments (eyes) are limited. Fortunately we have a brain that allows us to build better instruments. So the concept of classical particles is just an explanation of reality which seems to break down at in the small level--- whether or not Peikoff likes it.
@@jceepf I see. Speaking as a layman, the version of the Copenhagen interpretation that I know feels like as if a high-level mathematician were proving to me that 2+2=5; I can't accept it based on the interpretation's lack of logic. However, based on what you said, it seems that the Copenhagen interpretation, while not a valid explanation, is like a helpful analogy. I'm excited to see what we learn in quantum mechanics, and I want to learn more about it myself. I agree with everything you said in the second part of your comment; after all, the classical interpretation of subatomic particles was based on a more limited cognitive context, so I don't expect it to hold up as our knowledge expands.
There is an implicit presumption that every perceiver will converge, this doesn't follow at all, since you already allowed the difference and validity of perception, all you can affirm is that they perceive something, how or what they perceive can never be inferred, remember also you will be doing that inference through your particular perception which has is totally non-identical to others. All you will achieve at the end of the day is 'I perceive things, and from my perception I believe other beings perceive things to'.
What other beings perceive can be and has been inferred. We may not sense what they sense directly, but we can observe, communicate and develop means to expand our own range of perception. Consider how we know about the hearing range of elephants, or the night vision of cats, or the electroreception of sharks. The convergence of perceptions through a deeper knowledge of reality is discussed here: 35:55. There is one reality, and we are all in it. The laws of logic are absolute, because existence exists and A is A. For these reasons, perceptions and our inferences of them can and do converge.
@@PraniGopu I disagree, even though A=A, that's it, I perceive whatever appears to my senses, that is certainty, any other inference extrapolated from this foundation will be probabilistic, you could also perhaps say, given law of non-contradiction that, for any being that perceives, A is A for all such beings also, else contradiction, but to me that says nothing but merely re-stating the laws of logic which we all know and use, use it in real life or real philosophical discussions. Imagine an objective infinitely large ball (given that we are not omniscient), while all perceiving beings are looking at it, from different sides, each being will be justified in whatever he sees of the ball, they can argue all they want and never agree on "what they see personally", but they can all affirm with certainty that "they see something" (whether idealism or realism), imagine how pale the talk would be if one of the perceiving beings shouts all of a sudden that "I know one thing for certain in which non of you can refute without contradicting himself, and it is that we all perceive something", he would then be met with a response like "ok, now what" 😁. Today I was reading/listening to bishop Berkeley's book (Hylas and Phil), may I know if you have any objections to idealism?
@@africandawahrevival Not only can each of us affirm that "we see something," but we can also affirm--and confirm--that "we see this thing as opposed to that thing." Different perspectives can be communicated, validated and integrated; we don't live in our own bubbles of reality. Incidentally, this is my objection to idealism--at least the subjective variety; it places primacy on our consciousness, not on reality. Some idealist philosophers say we cannot know "true" reality, only our own subjective experience (ex. Kant), while others say we can only know "true" reality through revelations (ex. Plato). However, everyone agrees that knowledge is--in one way or another--subjective. As for objective idealism, it sees consciousness--not yours but some external one--as not the faculty of perceiving reality but the faculty of creating reality. This is explicit in religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but it is also promoted in secular ways, like in the works of Plotinus and Bernardo Kastrup. My objection with such philosophies is that they distort the nature of consciousness. Maybe sometime, I will check out the book you mentioned. It seems interesting.
The causal theory says that you do not observe reality, but that the object causes you to see. An example is that you see a red ball at a distance and so you think you see a red ball at a certain distance and direction, but turns out you are looking at a mirror, and so the causal theory says that you were caused to see a red ball by a mirror, the mirror is the cause of your sight of a red ball and therefore you didn't see a red ball, you saw a mirror and therefore because the ball is not causally responsible for your experience, you do not see it. Well, clearly you do see it. Your interpretation of its distance and direction were incorrect, however you are obviously seeing the ball in the mirror and that doesn't make the ball any less real. The representative theory says that their is a consciousness inside your consciousness who is gathering files and images and gluing them together in a complex cognitive process, and that you don't see reality, but rather you see what the little man in your brain put together. This results in an infinite regress, how did the little man in my brain know to put this image and this image and this smell and this sensation together? Well he must have some sort of complex cognitive process in his mind that allows him to know which information to gather for me. And so on and so on.
You are here bashing Kant but what is the difference between your views, I see you saying "Reality must agree with my perception, else, it contradict itself", that's Kantian to me.
If all perception is valid, then, I perceive the whole objectivists theory as false, really, I am not joking, I do. I get the idea of accepting the validity of all perception, but, like everyone else, at some point you will start pushing your own particular perception as the 'best' or like in the lecture, 'has more quantity of perception'. Remember if A is A, then it doesn't just apply to species but also individuals, so, there is a possibility everyman to completely disagree on something and still be valid, therefore, this objectivists theory is subjective after all.
Not sure what you want to say. Also, you are committing an equivocation; "perception" as used in the video refers to the automatic integration of sensations, not your opinion or your evaluative response to something, let alone something conceptual like a philosophical system. Also, the existence of a more detailed or different form of perception--even within the same species--does not imply a subjective reality. This is discussed here: 29:40, and here: 35:55.
@@PraniGopu I am not referring to sensory forms nor to differences in species, I see the entire objectivist enterprise as merely theoretical, it cannot answer these questions objectively: 1) When we try to apply this method to reality or other aspects of human lives 2) When we differ so closely that we are not merely basing it on sensory perceptions 3) Like, Mr Peikoff mentioned in another video, a philosophy that has no ethics is not gonna be influencial anyway, I don't see how you could apply your methodology to ethics or others, if we want to be scientific, we go to the scientists simple for facts, not objectivists
@@africandawahrevival You do realise that what you're seeing here is a small--though important--part of Objectivism. The questions you have asked are tackled by Objectivism throughout various works. I can recommend some of them if you are interested.
The examples make that lecture so clear.
This lecture is so clear and concise that it’s a joy listening to it!
24:00 + description of being locked up in consciousness was so pointed I felt true claustrophobia!
Thanks for uploading
2:46 Validity of the Senses
I am a physicist and we are all objectivist at some level since otherwise my work would be meaningless. I am always puzzled that Dr. Peikoff does not introduce our brain as the real seat of our senses. Our eyes are cameras. Without the brain, they are useless almost.
The red flower and the grey flower are two valid perceptions. However there is two basic possibilities from a scientist point of view assuming the eye balls are identical (like cameras).
One of them, most likely the grey guy who is abnormal, has a brain defect. We can device experiments to determine if the dude has illusions or if his vision is deficient.
Or perhaps the red guy, with the rest of us, are deluded.
The second possibility seems farfetched but there are optical illusions that fool the majority of humans like the grey checker board illusion.
We can construct machines to determine if our perception of reality suffers optical or sensorial illusions. Bees can see ultraviolet, we cannot. But this was discovered by our brains perceiving and modelling reality with the help of machines.
When we say that an electron "exists" it is entirely from models and machines. We cannot see an electron.
"I am always puzzled that Dr. Peikoff does not introduce our brain as the real seat of our senses. Our eyes are cameras. Without the brain, they are useless almost."
I don't see that as a particularly essential detail from a philosophical point of view, though it obviously is from a biological point of view.
@@YashArya01 It is not. But Dr Peikoff rejects quantum mechanics as a result of that....
At least this is my impression. Of course many objectivists, including a physicist friend of mine, maintain that he really does not reject quantum mechanics....
Anyway I do believe that our brain is truly the seat of perception.
@@jceepf I think he rejects certain illogical interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as the Copenhagen interpretation, not the whole theory itself.
@@PraniGopu Well I heard him on an old recording calling the entire thing a mess comparable to modern art. The various interpretations of QM are a mess but physicists do not lose sleep on it. Some actually work on these things. For 99.9% of physics, the Copenhagen interpretation leads to correct predictions despite a lack of logic. (Should the observer be a QM object himself?) He might be more subtle these days. The recent confirmations of the Bell equality really put a arrow in the heart of the people who believe in a classical interpretation of the world.
In any event, I think that one should accept reality as it is. It is objective but our senses are limited machines. We need our brains to make full sense of it. For example a bee might see a white flower having a purple centre (they can see ultraviolet) we see it white. It does not mean that there are 2 realities (as postmodernists say), but simply that our detection instruments (eyes) are limited. Fortunately we have a brain that allows us to build better instruments. So the concept of classical particles is just an explanation of reality which seems to break down at in the small level--- whether or not Peikoff likes it.
@@jceepf I see. Speaking as a layman, the version of the Copenhagen interpretation that I know feels like as if a high-level mathematician were proving to me that 2+2=5; I can't accept it based on the interpretation's lack of logic. However, based on what you said, it seems that the Copenhagen interpretation, while not a valid explanation, is like a helpful analogy.
I'm excited to see what we learn in quantum mechanics, and I want to learn more about it myself. I agree with everything you said in the second part of your comment; after all, the classical interpretation of subatomic particles was based on a more limited cognitive context, so I don't expect it to hold up as our knowledge expands.
There is an implicit presumption that every perceiver will converge, this doesn't follow at all, since you already allowed the difference and validity of perception, all you can affirm is that they perceive something, how or what they perceive can never be inferred, remember also you will be doing that inference through your particular perception which has is totally non-identical to others. All you will achieve at the end of the day is 'I perceive things, and from my perception I believe other beings perceive things to'.
What other beings perceive can be and has been inferred. We may not sense what they sense directly, but we can observe, communicate and develop means to expand our own range of perception. Consider how we know about the hearing range of elephants, or the night vision of cats, or the electroreception of sharks. The convergence of perceptions through a deeper knowledge of reality is discussed here: 35:55.
There is one reality, and we are all in it. The laws of logic are absolute, because existence exists and A is A. For these reasons, perceptions and our inferences of them can and do converge.
@@PraniGopu I disagree, even though A=A, that's it, I perceive whatever appears to my senses, that is certainty, any other inference extrapolated from this foundation will be probabilistic, you could also perhaps say, given law of non-contradiction that, for any being that perceives, A is A for all such beings also, else contradiction, but to me that says nothing but merely re-stating the laws of logic which we all know and use, use it in real life or real philosophical discussions.
Imagine an objective infinitely large ball (given that we are not omniscient), while all perceiving beings are looking at it, from different sides, each being will be justified in whatever he sees of the ball, they can argue all they want and never agree on "what they see personally", but they can all affirm with certainty that "they see something" (whether idealism or realism), imagine how pale the talk would be if one of the perceiving beings shouts all of a sudden that "I know one thing for certain in which non of you can refute without contradicting himself, and it is that we all perceive something", he would then be met with a response like "ok, now what" 😁.
Today I was reading/listening to bishop Berkeley's book (Hylas and Phil), may I know if you have any objections to idealism?
@@africandawahrevival Not only can each of us affirm that "we see something," but we can also affirm--and confirm--that "we see this thing as opposed to that thing." Different perspectives can be communicated, validated and integrated; we don't live in our own bubbles of reality.
Incidentally, this is my objection to idealism--at least the subjective variety; it places primacy on our consciousness, not on reality. Some idealist philosophers say we cannot know "true" reality, only our own subjective experience (ex. Kant), while others say we can only know "true" reality through revelations (ex. Plato). However, everyone agrees that knowledge is--in one way or another--subjective.
As for objective idealism, it sees consciousness--not yours but some external one--as not the faculty of perceiving reality but the faculty of creating reality. This is explicit in religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but it is also promoted in secular ways, like in the works of Plotinus and Bernardo Kastrup. My objection with such philosophies is that they distort the nature of consciousness.
Maybe sometime, I will check out the book you mentioned. It seems interesting.
Strawberry is fine what if it's traffic light. Who should go or stop
Literally the same principle applies. It makes no difference conceptually speaking
Why the causal and representative theory of perception is wrong 21:29
The causal theory says that you do not observe reality, but that the object causes you to see. An example is that you see a red ball at a distance and so you think you see a red ball at a certain distance and direction, but turns out you are looking at a mirror, and so the causal theory says that you were caused to see a red ball by a mirror, the mirror is the cause of your sight of a red ball and therefore you didn't see a red ball, you saw a mirror and therefore because the ball is not causally responsible for your experience, you do not see it.
Well, clearly you do see it. Your interpretation of its distance and direction were incorrect, however you are obviously seeing the ball in the mirror and that doesn't make the ball any less real.
The representative theory says that their is a consciousness inside your consciousness who is gathering files and images and gluing them together in a complex cognitive process, and that you don't see reality, but rather you see what the little man in your brain put together. This results in an infinite regress, how did the little man in my brain know to put this image and this image and this smell and this sensation together? Well he must have some sort of complex cognitive process in his mind that allows him to know which information to gather for me. And so on and so on.
11:18 sensory Gnosticism is invalid. Interesting way to frame wokeness.
You are here bashing Kant but what is the difference between your views, I see you saying "Reality must agree with my perception, else, it contradict itself", that's Kantian to me.
It's the opposite. He is saying, "My perception must agree with reality, otherwise I contradict myself."
If all perception is valid, then, I perceive the whole objectivists theory as false, really, I am not joking, I do. I get the idea of accepting the validity of all perception, but, like everyone else, at some point you will start pushing your own particular perception as the 'best' or like in the lecture, 'has more quantity of perception'. Remember if A is A, then it doesn't just apply to species but also individuals, so, there is a possibility everyman to completely disagree on something and still be valid, therefore, this objectivists theory is subjective after all.
Not sure what you want to say. Also, you are committing an equivocation; "perception" as used in the video refers to the automatic integration of sensations, not your opinion or your evaluative response to something, let alone something conceptual like a philosophical system. Also, the existence of a more detailed or different form of perception--even within the same species--does not imply a subjective reality. This is discussed here: 29:40, and here: 35:55.
@@PraniGopu I am not referring to sensory forms nor to differences in species, I see the entire objectivist enterprise as merely theoretical, it cannot answer these questions objectively:
1) When we try to apply this method to reality or other aspects of human lives
2) When we differ so closely that we are not merely basing it on sensory perceptions
3) Like, Mr Peikoff mentioned in another video, a philosophy that has no ethics is not gonna be influencial anyway, I don't see how you could apply your methodology to ethics or others, if we want to be scientific, we go to the scientists simple for facts, not objectivists
@@africandawahrevival You do realise that what you're seeing here is a small--though important--part of Objectivism. The questions you have asked are tackled by Objectivism throughout various works. I can recommend some of them if you are interested.
@@PraniGopu please do share them, and do objectivists disagree with eachother given that they use the same tool?
@@PraniGopu Oh, I see.