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Can I consciously perceive a duck in a duck-rabbbit while it does not appear to be a duck?

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I don't think I can. I can appear to perceive things that aren't there (often, I think these traffic lights are a man), but I'm not sure I can be tricked into not appearing to perceive what I am consciously perceiving. I may be tricked into thinking the moon is a man in the sky or made of cheese, but I am still perceiving the moon, right?

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If I am conscious of some face, do I appear to be conscious of it? What about vice versa?

I am asking becasue I think eveything appears to end at another time other than the precise time it ends, because nothing is precisely "now", despite everything ending in some present moment, and I don't think that's possible for my death, and I'm trying to work out how to phrase that best to myself.

I think I can appear to perceive what I do not, not vice versa (as per the above), so that after something has ended for me it can yet appear to have ended to me: but, anyway, the same certainly cannot be said of death.

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    i think some of these questions i do should be -1, but most should be at zero, as they are not utter nonsense @Rushi agreed we don't need to think of it all as interactive, though i often do, but there should be space for people who are seriously trying to find answers to questions they cannot read about IMVHO even if that is a comment
    – user71399
    Commented Sep 15 at 5:19
  • my current thinking about this is that i can indeed die (and not be reborn) from a god's eye view, but arguably no such thing is possible, and so it shall remain quite moot to me
    – user71399
    Commented Sep 15 at 5:27
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    I am not quite sure what "perceived" and "appear as" are getting at, but there is a distinction between two senses of "seeing as" or aspect seeing that Wittgenstein makes in PI based on duck-rabbit, as perception and as attitude, see Marquez. Addis describes it thus, "what was seen in the usual sense had not altered but what was seen in the sense of being allied to thinking had. Aspect change was not an alteration of perception but of attitude." If this is it then no, aspect "appearing" is a precondition for attending to it.
    – Conifold
    Commented Sep 15 at 8:12

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To perceive something is to have a sense experience caused by a thing.

Can I consciously perceive a duck in a duck-rabbbit while it does not appear to be a duck?

You can have a sense experience that there is a duck when looking at a duck-rabbit. But there is no "duck" to perceive. You are not perceiving a duck. You are perceiving the drawing, and your perception of that drawing is a duck (sometimes).

In the above, I am distinguishing between:

  • the thing you're perceiving or having a perception of; and
  • what your perception of that thing is.

That will always be some degree of remoteness or approximation between the real thing and what one's perception of the thing is. In many situations the perception reflects enough of the real thing to be useful: e.g. when one perceives a traffic light and the perception is that it is a traffic light.

You also provide an example where the perception is inaccurate: looking at the moon and having the sense experience of seeing cheese. In that case, you are perceiving the moon, and your perception is that it is cheese.

You cannot have a perception that a thing is a duck unless it appears to you to be a duck.

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  • +1 "You cannot have a perception that a thing is a duck unless it appears to you to be a duck." The OP should consider that "At the most basic explanatory level, Kant conceives of the mind as constituted by two fundamental capacities (Fähigkeiten), or powers, which he labels “receptivity” (Receptivität) and “spontaneity” (Spontaneität). ... the power of spontaneity needs no such prompting. It is able to initiate its activity from itself, without any external influence." Thus, deliberately shifting your perception from one to another representation is a spontaneous...
    – J D
    Commented Sep 15 at 21:10
  • act and what you perceive is, well, what you are receptive to perceiving. So, if you don't see a duck, then you don't see a duck because you have chosen not to see the duck (and see the rabbit instead). plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-conceptualism
    – J D
    Commented Sep 15 at 21:12

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