> it is real to me because I can observe myself experiencing it
There is no such thing as "real to me". You are observing a flower. Seeing that flower means having a visual perception caused by that flower. That visual perception presents your knowledge (indeed, is) your knowledge that there is a flower.
When I look at you holding a flower I see the flower and I see you holding it. There's no mystery here. The objects of my seeing are things in the world. There is no 'private world'.
> I certainly don't know enough about the state of my dogs mind
What you 'know enough' to say is irrelevant. The proposition that the dog is seeing a flower is true regardless of what you do, or do not know. Knowledge models reality --- reality doesn't model knowledge. The proposition is true; your theory of knowledge should be revised to account for it.
> I also have friends who have seen a purple flower
The presentation of knowledge we call a visual perception, uses the mechanism of presentation we call 'my visual system' (which includes what I have learned to see). Just as a mountain is presented by different cameras, with different lenses, in different perspectives.
Insofar as I make linguistic utterances based on this presentation I'm engaged in theorising about the causal origins of my perception. Here mistakes are possible, but quite uncommon. If we think the stick is bent, we need only take it out of water to realise that the prior visual perception was caused by the refraction of light.
In this manner we learn what the causal origins of our perceptions are; and hence, rarely make mistakes.
Visual systems may be better at recognising some features of the world than others -- some cameras have zoom lenses. Likewise some may be broken. How your visual system presents your knowledge via seeing is arbitrary (water color, pastel, chalk...). Its built only to ensure that you can reliably infer its causal origin (ie., properties of the world).
But this theorising is irrevelant to what's going on. The propositions, "i know there is a flower", "there is a flower", "i am seeing a flower directly" etc. are all true. Our ability to give a linguistic account of the causal origin of this knowledge is fallible, but reality isnt.
There is no such thing as "real to me". You are observing a flower. Seeing that flower means having a visual perception caused by that flower. That visual perception presents your knowledge (indeed, is) your knowledge that there is a flower.
When I look at you holding a flower I see the flower and I see you holding it. There's no mystery here. The objects of my seeing are things in the world. There is no 'private world'.
> I certainly don't know enough about the state of my dogs mind
What you 'know enough' to say is irrelevant. The proposition that the dog is seeing a flower is true regardless of what you do, or do not know. Knowledge models reality --- reality doesn't model knowledge. The proposition is true; your theory of knowledge should be revised to account for it.
> I also have friends who have seen a purple flower
The presentation of knowledge we call a visual perception, uses the mechanism of presentation we call 'my visual system' (which includes what I have learned to see). Just as a mountain is presented by different cameras, with different lenses, in different perspectives.
Insofar as I make linguistic utterances based on this presentation I'm engaged in theorising about the causal origins of my perception. Here mistakes are possible, but quite uncommon. If we think the stick is bent, we need only take it out of water to realise that the prior visual perception was caused by the refraction of light.
In this manner we learn what the causal origins of our perceptions are; and hence, rarely make mistakes.
Visual systems may be better at recognising some features of the world than others -- some cameras have zoom lenses. Likewise some may be broken. How your visual system presents your knowledge via seeing is arbitrary (water color, pastel, chalk...). Its built only to ensure that you can reliably infer its causal origin (ie., properties of the world).
But this theorising is irrevelant to what's going on. The propositions, "i know there is a flower", "there is a flower", "i am seeing a flower directly" etc. are all true. Our ability to give a linguistic account of the causal origin of this knowledge is fallible, but reality isnt.