Phenomenology

Some links for those who want a little background on phenomenology. From phenomenologycenter.org
From the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy

As far as I can tell, phenomenology is just one of the ways that philosophers use to indulge themselves in mysticism. We make extensive use of xrays and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging for medical purposes. We send robots to mars, to report what we cannot ourselves perceive. It seems to me that we are not entirely trapped by our perceptions.As for the limits of empiricism -- my view is that, at least in principle, we can eventually gain knowledge of anything in the cosmos that is relevant to us. And whatever it is that we find, we will consider to be natural (part of nature). It makes me wonder about supernaturalism, for it seems to me that supernaturalists are defining their God to be what is not relevant to us.

Thus we are not limited by what we can directly perceive. Maybe we can call it indirect perception, when our instruments measure xrays (or some other thing), and we then perceive the measurements. I'll take that as meaning indirect perception. That is, it includes what we can somehow measure.If there is anything that affects us then, at least in principle, we could use its affects on us as a way of measuring it. Thus we can deal with whatever affects us, whether directly or indirectly.Can there be something which does not affect us even indirectly? That's certainly a possibility. But I don't see any reason to lose sleep over that possibility.

Maybe your experience when you see blue is the same as my experience when I see red. Maybe your experience when you smell a rose is the same as my experience when I smell onions. How could we ever tell? Does it really matter?