> Some philosophers would argue that it is impossible for someone to
> be mistaken about the nature of his perceptions, but I disagree. If
> a hallucinator thinks he is seeing a purer red than he has ever seen
> before, it could be that in some sense the red is actually the same
> as what he has always seen, but that part of his mind which judges
> purity is not working properly. Similarly, if he thinks he is
> seeing a mandala of infinite fractal complexity, and is
> simultaneously perceiving every minute detail far beyond the
> resolution he is normally capable of, again I would suggest that he
> may be simply misjudging how much detail he is actually perceiving.
Some of this might be right but there must be some level where
things just are. For example, we don't really "judge" that a basket
ball is larger than a pea. Our representation of a basketball simply
takes up much more space in our 3D visual field than a pea does and
that is how we just know that it is larger. We don't have to make
calculations, measurements to compare, or judge anything... one is
just larger in our conscious awareness than the other. Drugs may even
effect our memory of such but if something is larger in our
consciousness than something else, then it is larger, no judging that
can be mistaken about it.
Brent Allsop