Well, since the OP and all posters were happy with the common-language understanding of ‘perception’, and we seemed to understand each other perfectly well, I didn’t feel the need to provide a proper definition. I only find definitions useful to clear up misunderstandings. But if you want one, what about ‘sensory inputs’ (your term)? Problem of course is that ‘sensory’ is ill-defined, as is inputs (which seems to imply a rather distinctive and not universally accepted view of the mind’s interaction with its environment).
This is not what I wanted to say. I was refering (admittedly in an obscure way) to the feeling people have that what they perceive actually exists. You may have perceptions of something without believing that it exists and is in your presence (I do when watching television or a movie), and you may have a perception that something is real. I vaguely remember that medieval philosophers debated on the existence of a ‘common sense’ that ensured that when you hear and see something, you can connect the two senses as perceiving the same object. (I may be wrong here, I have this from secondary sources only)
These days many persons find it hard to believe that we can have any perception above strict sense-data. To my mind, this is the unfortunate effect of a lot of bad science and philosophy being trickled down through movies. (Not that I’m against movies, I just don’t consider them a proper source of information for science or philosophy) The picture of the mind as a brain in a vat, with its only link to the external world being a set of limited sensory devices, has apparently taken a firm hold on the common imagination. While it might be a good metaphor for specific discussions and a good image for certain thought experiments, it is not at all like the actual existence of human beings. Human beings do exist in the world, in which they do not receive sense-data that they convert with image recognition into perceptions of physical objects. Human beings live in a world in which they see a friend and immediately begin to smile, hear a car approaching and jump out of the way. (I’m paraphrasing Heidegger here) It is only when we have reason to doubt our perceptions of things in the world, that we start questioning our perceptions.
I’m not saying you in fact would adhere to the computer metaphor of the brain, but your ‘sensory inputs’ choice of words may easily imply so. You should be wary of uncritically accepting the metaphors that you receive from common culture; philosophy only properly begins when you learn to distance yourself from them, when necessary.
I am an atheist, but find myself compelled to answer this question from the perspective of a pragmatist. To this end, I have to ask: What does it matter?
This question is answered extensively in the anime “Serial Experiments Lain.”
Quick answer: no. If no one remembers something, it never happened/doesn’t exist.
Of course, it still does exist, because god is watching everything, so even if something disappears from the entire world’s collective mindset (say, a girl with a freaky braid) it still doesn’t disappear entirely.
You can make people forget (and things thus disappear) with god-like power that comes from spending too much time on the internet.
Course, the internet isn’t really the internet, but a link from the real world to humanity’s collective soul. Through mastery of this link, interaction with god is possible.
In short, you are all reaching nirvana by reading this post. The internet is god, and you don’t now whether the rest of the world is real or not. Have a nice day.
i think i will posit that, fundamentally, it is quite reasonable to claim that objects do NOT exist independent of human perception.
what makes up the strongest leg of this argument is that by “exist”, we mean “exist in the world we see” (in our perception). what i mean is, suppose we posit that objects do not exist independently. then the human perception is not an object.
what we would mean by that is human perception is not the result of anything we would perceive to be an object independent of our perception. so, if “objects” exist (one that might cause perception), they do not exist in the manner we consider our computer, or candles to exist.
but we do presume human perception exists. we assume we exist (i’ve been involved in a ridiculously long thread about how it can’t be proved). something must cause that perception, if we are to consider whether objects exist independent of it.
therefore (i claim), we could viably consider human perception to be completely different from the objects of human perception, in that we assume it exists while we doubt the existence of the objects it reveals to us. so it seems that the concept that it is something fundamentally different is not terribly difficult to believe.
TTT: What difference does it make if they don’t? As long as the data subject to human perception is consistent, our worlds will seem to exist when we’re not aware of them.
In fact, I think that regardless of consistency of perceptions, our world (worlds?) not only seem to exist, but do in fact exist even when we’re not aware of them. Don’t we all agree on that one?
Problem of course is that ‘sensory’ is ill-defined, as is inputs (which seems to imply a rather distinctive and not universally accepted view of the mind’s interaction with its environment).