Choice Between Incredible Alternatives

Direct Perception

Indirect Perception

Projection Theory

We are left therefore with a choice between three alternatives, each of which seems to be absolutely incredible! But one of these three hypotheses must be true, to the exclusion of the other two. And the issue is by no means insignificant, for these three hypotheses present very different views of the function of visual processing, or what all that wetware is supposed to actually do.

The problems of Direct Perception and Projection Theory are more serious, for they are of an epistemological nature, i.e. they provide a magical mystical view of perception that sheds no light on the operational principles behind perceptual computation, or how they might be replicated in artificial vision systems.

The problems of Indirect Perception on the other hand are more of a technological or computational nature, for it is difficult to imagine how contemporary concepts of neurocomputation could be reformulated to account for the observed properties of conscious experience.

However Indirect Perception does resolve the epistemological issues inherent in Direct Perception and Projection Theory.

• Indirect Perception resolves the epistemological question by stating that perception occurs exclusively in the brain, where the computational and representational machinery is located, rather than out in the world where there is no such machinery.

• Indirect Perception is consistent with the phenomena of visual illusions, hallucinations, and dreams, all of which appear in the same location as do the objects of perception, i.e. in the phenomenal world, which itself is located within the physical brain.

• Indirect Perception is consistent with the causal chain of vision. Light from "out there" in the external world, enters our physical eye also "out there" in the external world, from whence the signal is transmitted "into here", where it is used to construct the phenomenal world that you see around you, which is located in your brain.

• Indirect Perception also offers guidance for artificial vision systems, for it suggests a computational solution to the vision problem by constructing an internal virtual-reality replica of the external environment.

• Finally, Indirect Perception offers an explanation for the otherwise mysterious properties of phenomenal perspective, which will be described shortly.

If science is to triumph over mysticism therefore, the choice must be made on the facts of the case, regardless of the perceived incredibility of the solution to which those facts point.

(See here forA History of the Epistemological Debate)

(See here for an In-Depth Presentation of the above argument)