We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.

[public hermit]

Have you ever read The Abolition Of Man by C. S. Lewis?

I have not. I should. I think I have a copy.

 

[Chesterton]

I have not. I should. I think I have a copy.

I'll post a bit from the opening of the book. Unless I'm misunderstanding, I think it might be relevant to your OP.

In their second chapter Gaius and Titius quote the well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall. You remember that there were two tourists present: that one called it ‘sublime’ and the other ‘pretty’; and that Coleridge mentally endorsed the first judgement and rejected the second with disgust. Gaius and Titius comment as follows: ‘When the man said 'This is sublime', he appeared to be making a remark about the waterfall... Actually... he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings. What he was saying was really I have feelings associated in my mind with the word “Sublime”, or shortly, 'I have sublime feelings’. Here are a good many deep questions settled in a pretty summary fashion. But the authors are not yet finished. They add: ‘This confusion is continually present in language as we use it. We appear to be saying something very important about something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings. Before considering the issues really raised by this momentous little paragraph (designed, you will remember, for ‘the upper forms of schools’) we must eliminate one mere confusion into which Gaius and Titius have fallen. Even on their own view—on any conceivable view—the man who says 'This is sublime' cannot mean 'I have sublime feelings'. Even if it were granted that such qualities as sublimity were simply and solely projected into things from our own emotions, yet the emotions which prompt the projection are the correlatives, and therefore almost the opposites, of the qualities projected. The feelings which make a man call an object sublime are not sublime feelings but feelings of veneration. If 'This is sublime' is to be reduced at all to a statement about the speaker’s feelings, the proper translation would be 'I have humble feelings'. If the view held by Gaius and Titius were consistently applied it would lead to obvious absurdities. It would force them to maintain that 'You are contemptible' means 'I have contemptible feelings’, in fact that 'Your feelings are contemptible' means 'My feelings are contemptible'.​

 

[public hermit]

I'll post a bit from the opening of the book. Unless I'm misunderstanding, I think it might be relevant to your OP.

In their second chapter Gaius and Titius quote the well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall. You remember that there were two tourists present: that one called it ‘sublime’ and the other ‘pretty’; and that Coleridge mentally endorsed the first judgement and rejected the second with disgust. Gaius and Titius comment as follows: ‘When the man said 'This is sublime', he appeared to be making a remark about the waterfall... Actually... he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings. What he was saying was really I have feelings associated in my mind with the word “Sublime”, or shortly, 'I have sublime feelings’. Here are a good many deep questions settled in a pretty summary fashion. But the authors are not yet finished. They add: ‘This confusion is continually present in language as we use it. We appear to be saying something very important about something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings. Before considering the issues really raised by this momentous little paragraph (designed, you will remember, for ‘the upper forms of schools’) we must eliminate one mere confusion into which Gaius and Titius have fallen. Even on their own view—on any conceivable view—the man who says 'This is sublime' cannot mean 'I have sublime feelings'. Even if it were granted that such qualities as sublimity were simply and solely projected into things from our own emotions, yet the emotions which prompt the projection are the correlatives, and therefore almost the opposites, of the qualities projected. The feelings which make a man call an object sublime are not sublime feelings but feelings of veneration. If 'This is sublime' is to be reduced at all to a statement about the speaker’s feelings, the proper translation would be 'I have humble feelings'. If the view held by Gaius and Titius were consistently applied it would lead to obvious absurdities. It would force them to maintain that 'You are contemptible' means 'I have contemptible feelings’, in fact that 'Your feelings are contemptible' means 'My feelings are contemptible'.​

I think it's relevant. The OP article is based on a fairly fine-grained instance of the interrelation between perception and imagination, based in a specific experiment. But, in general, I think the main issue is the relationship between subjective experience and objective reality, if those terms are acceptable.

If I'm reading Lewis accurately, I am also opposed to a whole-sale reduction so that 1) our experience is solely subjective or even 2) that our experience can be described solely in subjective terms. I think what can throw us off are instances like the two tourists who have different experiences of the waterfall. Obviously, their experience is of one and the same waterfall, even if their experiences differ. Here I can borrow a tactic employed by G.E. Moore, who notoriously proved the existence of his hand by holding up one of his hands to the class and declaring "This is a hand." If we ask the tourists to point to the waterfall they are experiencing, they would both point to the one waterfall before them. So, there is a referent for their common experience, even if their respective experiences of that one referent is radically different.

From the OP article:
As it turns out, reality and imagination are completely intermixed in our brain which means that the separation between our inner world and the outside world is not as clear as we might like to think. If our imagination is vivid enough, we will think it is real and we use our imagination to create our perception of reality, which means, “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.

What do I think is right about the above assertion? I do think reality and imagination are intermixed and the separation between the two is not always as clear as we might like to think. What do I think is wrong with it? I think it is overstated. We can see things as they are to a greater or lesser extent. At least, if you and I are looking at the same waterfall, we could agree on a whole host of "waterfall attributes" that we both see. And, if there were ten of us, we all could agree on many such characteristics, e.g. it is water, flowing down, making a splash, spraying spray, it's cloudy, birds are chirping, etc. Nonetheless, our respective experiences will differ, especially when it comes to evaluations (sublime or pretty).

I do think it is interesting, the claim, that if our imagination is strong enough it can override the readily available perception. That strikes me as intuitively true, at least. Going back to the Hume quote in the OP, our imagination of red and perception of red differ only in strength, e.g. my imagination of red is not quite as vivid as the red "Post Reply" button at the bottom of my screen. That seems right, and if my imagination of something is sufficiently vivid it can override reality, which seems to be what is happening with very vivid hallucinations. I guess my question is, how often does that happen? Rarely, I would think.

Sorry, one more point. I do think the waters get muddier when we consider how we evaluate a state of affairs. My perception of the goodness or wrongness of a state of affairs (or person, or argument, or political position) is too often affected by more than just my perception of what is given. What I imagine to be true about it can radically affect my evaluation. Rarely do we take an objective approach to these kinds of evaluations (limit our evaluation to what is given). We bring so much to the table, I think, because they are so much more important than waterfalls. Or, we seem to think.

 

[Noxot]

What I heard you say is that the big and small of it is comfortably numb in the non reality of bliss. about the rest ..... talking stars eh?

I used to think it crazy but somehow they are bodies of higher parts of reality and are related to spiritual proximity for certain kinds of beings that would otherwise be too incompatible to influence in a good way closer to the naturalistic body we have for existing in the earth, which is different from our spirit.

flesh bodies seem to be useful for transforming very lost entities who can no longer get out of their own insanity. to them earth would be a heaven and something they might want, but they would only flee from heavenly realities that are closer to God. though I could not know all of why how things are as they are. btw a autistic person that had a few NDE has also done a few kinds of drugs and she says NDE were far more grand though she only tried lsd and salvia. she says drug experiences are much more restrictive than were her NDE.

Would you say that we imagine the cosmos as "dead," and therefore, we don't see the reality that it is living? ( I almost thought you were going to bring up pansychism) I'm grasping at straws here, but there is the notion that we have "disenchanted" reality, flattened it to a reductive ontology, and so we are incapable of seeing higher realities. Chesterton said something to that effect, I think.

if the universe is alive then it has more meaning. atheist do have a problem with physicalism though many don't think there is a problem with that ( though I think information is a kind of proof of mind as something fundamental to reality)... so I don't mind if even some atheist start to adopt concepts such as some form of panpsychism since they think it solves some problems of consciousness... some of them want that to answer the "hard problem" I think and then go on their marry way with their atheism. I think the idea of john the baptist "drowning" people for a religious conversion experience which could induce an NDE in people is a real possibility. NDE tend to make people "repent" in an extreme way. though that word in the greek is richer a concept than "repent" which itself could also be linked to spiritual experience.

needless to say I can't be an empiricist according to the wiki description of "In philosophy, empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views of epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions"

 

[public hermit]

if the universe is alive then it has more meaning. atheist do have a problem with physicalism though many don't think there is a problem with that ( though I think information is a kind of proof of mind as something fundamental to reality)... so I don't mind if even some atheist start to adopt concepts such as some form of panpsychism since they think it solves some problems of consciousness... some of them want that to answer the "hard problem" I think and then go on their marry way with their atheism.

I agree, I'm not going to fault anyone who is trying to make sense of our experience in the world, even if I disagree with their fundamental presuppositions. Panpsychism, for the physicalist, does a lot of work, I think. In my opinion, it has more intuitive appeal than a strict reductionism. But I don't have to make those kinds of metaphysical sacrifices, so whatever.

I think the idea of john the baptist "drowning" people for a religious conversion experience which could induce an NDE in people is a real possibility. NDE tend to make people "repent" in an extreme way. though that word in the greek is richer a concept than "repent" which itself could also be linked to spiritual experience.

That's an interesting take. I like it. Are you familiar with any of the Christian contemplatives. Is any of that informing your thinking on this, or no?

needless to say I can't be an empiricist according to the wiki description of "In philosophy, empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views of epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions"

I have a lot of sympathy with this. While I don't eschew empirical approaches to knowing, I find it ridiculous to assume what we can gather with our five sense is the whole of what can be experienced. And, to be candid, some of my youthful approaches to mind expansion definitely widened my epistemic horizon. So, there's no going back after that.

 

[Noxot]

That's an interesting take. I like it. Are you familiar with any of the Christian contemplatives. Is any of that informing your thinking on this, or no?

rupert sheldrake mentioned the baptism drowning idea. offensive and extreme but plausible. maybe other societies also did something like that, like the greeks going in a cave and getting poisoned by a gas? also a NDE of an autistic 7 year old girl mentioned experiencing a star being so happy that it gives life to so much. though one could understand these things as symbols in the spiritual world and not things of our universe that literally happen.

though the plain logic of God being the foundation of us all means he is more us than we ourselves are. I have mystical experiences of God as things or people I experience sometimes, and in a very personalistic way that matches with the unfolding of my life. then there are just philosophic ideas out there like idealism and platoism and stuff like chris langan's ctmu theory of everything. seeing how everything in most major religions are pointing to certain fundamentals that I can work with and try to make sense of. and swedenborg has also been helpful to me. knowing God is infinite kindness and goodness and that the abomination of desolation is truth devoid of goodness is a useful compass.

christian contemplatives for what? origen mentioned the stars being beings and I chalked it up to him living in an olden time that didn't know any better. read a few mystics over my years.

I have a lot of sympathy with this. While I don't eschew empirical approaches to knowing, I find it ridiculous to assume what we can gather with our five sense is the whole of what can be experienced. And, to be candid, some of my youthful approaches to mind expansion definitely widened my epistemic horizon. So, there's no going back after that.

I don't eschew them either, I love experiencing. I just don't feel like being enslaved with bad views of reality. I have faith that God is good and I want to understand as much as I can. I too have had experiences that were good enough to help me along. recently got interested in NDE, I don't think God is exhaustible. I slowly became more open as I sought God. I could not go back either, there is literally nothing but hell without God.

 

[FireDragon76]

Hume's radical empiricism is very similar in some respects to Buddhist philosophy, which is also tends to be empiricist and nominalist.

 

[FireDragon76]

I've posted a bit on this thing in terms of naïve realism and those who believe in it.

Naïve realism (psychology) - Wikipedia

What's amusing is this is basically what Scottish Common Sense realism was, just sexed up. Unfortunately, it played a huge role in the early American intellectual tradition (especially with Jefferson, for instance), and continues to be popular among fundamentalists and evangelicals.

SCSR was the wrong answer to Hume. Kant was much better.