Don't Go There: Reply to Crooks

From the fact that experiencing is in the head, nothing follows about the nature, location—or even the existence—of the experiencing's presumed object. It does not follow that direct realism "cannot possibly be true" (Smythies, 1989, p. 84); much less that "that the experienced world is wholly locked up within one's brain"; much less still, that it must be "located" in in some spiritual "place" outside of physical space (à la Descartes) or some "higher-dimensional space (higher relative to the physical world)" (Smythies, 1989, p. 98). Direct realism is not only consistent with all the known neurophysiological facts, it coheres far better with surrounding and grounding science—and the neuroscience itself—than the Smythian alternative towards which Crooks (2002, this issue) tends; and it may be had for a reasonable naïve phenomenological cost. Socrates to Theaetetus: "And if someone thinks mustn't he think something?"—Th.: "Yes, he must."—Soc.: "And if he thinks something, mustn't it be something real?"—Th.: "Apparently." And mustn't someone who is painting be painting something real!—Well, tell me what the object of painting is: the picture of a man (e.g.), or the man that the picture portrays. (Wittgenstein, 1958, § 518)