| the concepts we develop through sensory-motor interaction with our environment structure our perception so-as-to-present a certain "level of abstraction" over the environment But just as `sum([2, 4, 6])` presents `12`, it does so via directly summating `2`, `4`, `6`. That our perception is aggregating and abstracting does not mean that it isnt caused directly by those things which it aggregates and abstracts. Here, "seeing" is the `sum`, `[2, 4, 6]` are the atoms, and `12` is the perception. A case in point: a frog can detect a single photo. Is there any sense here in which a frog's qualitative sensation of a "flicker" is not directly caused by a photon? And likewise, that redness of the apple is just an abstract presentation of photons of light scattering of the atoms of its surface. The causal chain here is direct. Light does not "go via" purgatory first, we see, directly, the objects of the world. |