Well done, Ed. In one half-sentence you’ve solved all the conundrums of the natural world. Scientists can now pack their bags and take a long vacation. Since it’s all down to unthinking instinct, there’s no need to investigate possible reasons for animal behaviour, what sort of internal mechanisms – hormonal, chemical etc – may be involved. We can just dump all that stuff in to the category of unthinking instinct, and, er, stop thinking about it.

Fact is, spiders don’t get it “perfectly first time”. Sure, the overall plan of the web is
programmed into them by evolution, but each spider incorporates “guesswork” and “choices” into making their individual webs. So it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that spiders do some sort of low level “thinking”. If you deny that spiders make some very minimal choices, the alternative is the Cartesian notion of animals as mere machines. I don’t think that’s a viable hypothesis.

As for the vaunted distinction between “instinctual” animals and “conceptual” humans, biological programming exists in humans too. For example, the body of a first-time mother "knows" how to deliver a baby, while the mother also acts on guesswork and choices in the delivery. 

And what about most men’s reaction to Jennifer Aniston standing perky in a T-shirt: considered and thoughtful appraisal, or something a bit more instinctive?

I think it’s futile to try to draw the distinction between animals and humans along an “instinctual/conceptual" divide. The difference isn’t about mechanisms per se, it’s about how those mechanisms operate. Human beings have a complexity and self-awareness that sets them apart from animals, even though we also exhibit many animal traits.

Ed: “Both the lion and the infant can successfully differentiate objects perceptually…”:

So we agree that there might be some sort of classification going on in the lion’s brain. We also agree that despite this similarity, human consciousness is of an entirely different kind to animal consciousness.

Just for you, Ed I checked out Mr Firehammer’s essay. He’s got a nice writing style, and makes a good critique of the Objectivist theory of perception, especially the notion that the infant’s first few months are merely a buzz of sensations.

After all, if consciousness requires an object, and the infant experiences only fleeting sensations, this implies the infant lacks human consciousness. I find this hard to believe, given that the infant has some pretty vital survival requirements during this period, such as identifying the nipple. (Fans of Jennifer Aniston will appreciate the value of this human ability.)

Regi also points out that the transition from sensations to percepts is left unexplained. One day, it’s a buzzing confusion, the next, we find not only integrated percepts but implicit axiomatic concepts as well. To get from there to here Rand is implicitly relying on a priorism, all the while denying she’s doing any such thing.

This is all well and good, but while Regi suggests traditional direct realism as a corrective to standard Objectivist perception theory, he doesn’t actually defend it. He just thinks it’s a good idea if Objectivists were to adopt this position.

A defence of direct realism need not be complicated. Pick a standard example – the bent-stick illusion will do – and consider: the stick looks bent; the stick is straight. Reconcile, while firmly maintaining that we perceive objects just as they are.

Brendan

So how is this different from: the stick looks bent, the stick is straight? You’ve just paraphrased the original problem and presented it as a solution. If “awareness as such” is bent, while the object remains straight, there’s a clear disjunction between appearance and reality, which is just what the problem is all about.

In what way does your formulation support direct rather than an indirect awareness, and where does modus tollens fit in? Also, the issue isn’t resolved by appeal to refraction, since we both agree that refraction accounts for the bent-stick illusion. Our difference is over what this means for theories of perception.

Brendan

As for making sure "Fred reads them" you reveal once again your ignorance. I teach PWNI every semester. In addition to the title essay, I also teach "Faith and Force" and "Causality vs Duty." As to the latter I have written an entire chapter, chapter five, on it in my book AYN RAND, OBJECTIVISTS AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

Your analysis of "Kant versus Sullivan" indicates that you probably did not read the two preceding essays in Rand's PHILOSOPHY WHO NEEDS IT? 

I teach PWNI every semester. In addition to the title essay, I also teach "Faith and Force" and "Causality vs Duty."

Ed: “1a: a direct pickup of the consistencies (invariants) of the environment over time
1b: the faculty that accomplishes the relational phenomenon: awareness.”

Earth to Ed, too much static. I’m sorry, old chap, you’re losing me. Plain English please.

Perception is the direct pick-up of matter (e.g. olfactory chemo-reception) or energy (e.g., visual reception of photons) in our environment.

Ed: “Instead, [things perceived] are ecological, in the sense that they are the properties of the environment relative to an animal.”

 

If you mean the observer perceives from its particular perspective, I agree. But that’s normally understood to support indirect theories.

But the particularity of perspective doesn't discount direct perception -- which was the point that you're intending to allude to when you bring up how particularity has been historically used in order to support indirect theories. Again, you're falling into Kant's blind-because-your-eyes-perceive-in-a-certain-way trap. Take 2 guys and a red balloon, for instance.

One guy is color-blind and talks about a gray-appearing balloon. The other guy isn't and speaks of it as red. According to the indirect theory, they're "seeing" different things (different sense data or qualia) -- but they're not seeing different things when they look at that one-and-the-same balloon (they're seeing the same thing, differently).

The balloon has identity and so does our perceptual apparati. Both identities need be taken into account when explaining someone's perception of the matter and energy in the world.

Ed: “Brendan, as I said above…phenomenal qualities or physical properties (qualia) cannot be assumed to entirely account for our perception, which is not a static photographic picture, but instead, a 3-D interactive movie.

Again, “interactive” suggests a contribution by the subject, that is, indirect perception.

See above.

Ed: “Fine then. Reword premise 2 to: "we perceive the exact properties of the environment relative to us - ie. the ambient optic array that we use to guide our action in the environment over time”

 

So is the stick really bent, or does it just appear to be?

It just appears to be (but you knew that, didn't you, Brendan?).

Ed: “Okay, but do you know the real identity of the Morning Star, or not…Or do you need more a posteriori experience in order to make such a bold claim about actually knowing the identity of these "two" objects of discussion?

 

Again, I don’t follow, Ed. The fact that the Morning and Evening Stars are two senses of the same referent is an empirical discovery, and therefore known a posteriori. Why is that a bold claim?

All discoveries are, by definition, a posteriori. However, once discovered and integrated, the knowledge about the fact in question becomes a priori. Once one comes to know that the 2 things that one has perceived have all along been one thing, no further experience is required to identify those 2 different perceptions of the self-same thing. At this point in our knowledge accrual, we can "pull away" from further experience and arrive at new truths about old things perceived (by mere analysis).

Ed: “Although I have to admit that necessary truth is that which could not be otherwise - do you agree with this qualified claim, Brendan?”

 

A necessary truth is by definition one that could not be otherwise, so of course I agree. As an addendum, please abandon the notion that indirect theories necessarily imply scepticism.

To see how indirect perception necessarily leads to solipsism, go here.

Ed