Subject / Object Distinction

[Wizard22]

I remember when I was a teenager, I was self-centered like you are.

Eventually I grew up though, and as an adult, we need to respect and understand other people's perspectives and literal, physical points-of-view. So that two different people can see the same image, from a different direction, one calls it left, the other calls it right, and both are correct subjectively. However, I also understand, that it seems only a minority of people mature to such a level and sophistication.

Perhaps you too will mature someday.

[Skepdick]

I remember when I was a teenager, I was self-centered like you are.

Eventually I grew up though, and as an adult, we need to respect and understand other people's perspectives and literal, physical points-of-view. So that two different people can see the same image, from a different direction, one calls it left, the other calls it right, and both are correct subjectively. However, I also understand, that it seems only a minority of people mature to such a level and sophistication.

Perhaps you too will mature someday.

You don't need to post your pep talks on a public forum. Just say it to yourself in the mirror...

It's really difficult to communicate to you that by manufacturing perspectives which don't exist; and by talking about perspectives that nobody holds because it's practically impossible to hold them - you are the epitome of a self-centered idiot.

You are playing mind-games. And the game revolves around your mind and the fantasy-world in wich digital images have a "back side".

Nobody wants to visit a broken mind like that... A mind determined to troll itself and everybody else who engages it.

[Wizard22]

Other people exist, Skepdick, hate to break the news to you...

There's not only your solipsistic subjectivity in existence. Other subjects exist. Objects exist. It's not just you.

[Trajk Logik]

It's not a relationship if the sugar was never experienced. The experience is the relationship. So I don't see how something that doesn't exist can be objective. If no observers existed then sugar would just be sugar and there would never be any sweetness.

Everything is a relationship - including sugar. Sugar is a molecule and molecules are a relationship between atoms. Atoms are relationships between protons and electrons, and protons are a relationship between quarks. We will find that quarks are also a relationship, so it is relationships all the way down. There never is anything "physical", just relationships, process, or information all the way down.

So if there aren't any observers then the relationship between sugar and observers does not exist and therefore cannot be objective. It makes no sense to say that something that does not exist is objective.

You're not looking at Objectivity correctly. It's not about looking what does not exist, but about what does already exist, objectively. You really need to plant the premise in your mind, that sugar, as a chemical compound, exists without your subjective experience. Pretend like you've never tasted sugar and never will. Does your ignorance then, in retrospect, precede the existence of sugar, as an experience, or as a chemical compound? No, because it existed before you were ever aware of it, and it will exist while you are unconscious, and long after you or anybody else lived and died.

The worlds is not contingent upon our awareness. Our awareness is contingent upon the world.

This is what you said before, and what I was responding to:

"Sweet" is a descriptor, referent, to the chemical compound. My original assertions state that, sugar, the chemical will be 'sweet' whether I ever taste it or not. The relationship, unexperienced, is Objective. It is beyond my experience. In the same way, that a gold nugget will remain gold, chemically composed and alloyed, whether I ever find it in the ground or not. I can have no experience of gold. It would not change the 'thing' of "gold-ness". This is the disconnection, the S-O Distinction.

I know you are engaged in several conversations here, but please try to remember what you said before, and what I have said so we are not talking past each other.

As you said, and I agreed, that "sweet" is a descriptor, referent, to the chemical compound. If there were no humans around, yes, sugar would still be what it is, but there would be no sweetness. That relationship, or referent as you put it, would not exist, and therefore not be objective. Only the chemical composition of sugar would exist and be objective in this standard. But humans do exist and sweetness does exist and is therefore objective as any other relationship that exists like the relationship of the atoms in the sugar that are is the molecule we call sugar. Gold would still exist as a relationship of atoms as well. But if no humans existed there would be no feel, or color gold. Gold would simply remain a relationship between atoms.

Which you only experience indirectly through their actions or words, but they can lie. So, like I said, all of your knowledge comes from your experiences.

They can also tell the truth. My knowledge comes from my experiences and others' experiences. My knowledge comes from your experiences, right now, as you communicate to me.

Are you saying that you are telepathic? Only then could your knowledge come from other's experiences. You experience their actions, not their experiences. The point is how do you know when someone is telling the truth or lying if not by your prior experiences with their actions?

I don't see how any of this answers my question about what form your knowledge takes. How do you know that you know anything? What are you referring to when you say "I know..."

Potential, hypothetical, and theoretical are just ideas that stem from our ignorance. They are imaginary concepts that have no reality outside of our minds. Either processes interact or they don't. If they don't then those interactions do not exist. There is no potential, only what exists. To say that there is potential is to just be saying you are ignorant to the facts what is, or will be the case. What will be the case is dependent upon what currently is the case. What is, what has been, or what will be has already been determined and our knowledge of it all is lacking, so it seems like there are probabilities, randomness and potential because we are ignorant of what is, what has been, and what will be. This is basic Determinism.

Everything is a matter of belief, especially knowledge.

There is no 100% certain belief—insuchthat a belief is Absolutely True, Omniscient. Everything can be doubted, rejected by the mind, which is the basis of Theory. When I say "I know", myself and most people mean, I believe at 99.999% or 95% or 90%. I'm pretty sure of this information. Or I'm certain (above 90%) of this information. Or I will act on this information. Certainty, knowledge, belief, are ranges of probability. What people consider "100% true", are their core beliefs, values. These are more dangerous, because they're dogmatic. People presume as-if their knowledge is 100%. That's the difference between a closed-mind (not accepting new information) versus an open-mind.

Knowledge, to me, represents tested-tried-and-true beliefs. It doesn't mean they're 100%, but they're above 90% at least. I act on my knowledge, everyday. Everybody does.

Knowledge is a type of belief that has both logical and observable evidence that supports it. Beliefs have only one - logic, but no observational proof, or observation but no logical proof.

Sure, knowledge can be proven wrong with new observations. We do not disagree here. My question is more about what form the information that composes your knowledge take? In saying, "I know..." you say you are pointing at some information that you have, but my questions is what form does that information take? How do you know that you possess information? I'll try to help you out here so we can move this along: Doesn't the information take the form of sensory data - as in visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory and olfactory data? In other words, doesn't your knowledge/information take the form of your prior experiences/observations? To say that you know sugar is sweet is really just pointing at your experience, not just the sugar independent of your experience. Yes, sugar is part of the experience, but not the only part, just as sugar is not just one atom, but a relationship between different atoms of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.

No they aren't. Words are composed of scribbles or sounds. You see and hear them just like you can see and hear a train coming down the tracks. You learn a language by observing how it is used and then testing it out yourself and making adjustments based on your visual and auditory feedback. If languages were not objective then there would be no way we could translate one language to another, but we can, and do. Sure, there will be trends in certain groups to use an existing language differently, but we can still translate what they mean to other words, or else what are they actually saying? We all share the same world, so if we expect to communicate with each other about our experiences of this shared world, then we need to agree on the scribbles and sounds being used to do just that. If we are both using language subjectively then we are essentially talking past each other.

Just because language was used one way "originally", doesn't mean that we can't, or haven't, changed its use to reflect our current understanding of the world. We don't even need to change the language or come up with new words to reflect our new knowledge that our beliefs are about the world, not actually the world. Instead of saying "All Republicans are evil", we say, "I believe all Republicans are evil", and "All Republicans are evil" can be taken as shorthand for "I believe all Republicans are evil". In these cases we are talking about our beliefs, not the things we have beliefs about, which could be mistaken and proven wrong with other observations. Knowledge and beliefs are established by past observations and can change with new observations.

You're missing the point. How do people intuit what each-other means? How do people judge and decide-upon intentions? That has little to do with language...because it happens before language. It happens before a stranger speaks to you or I. You look at somebody, and your mind immediately forms unconscious and subconscious biases. For example, most people presume those in their own neighborhood, street, block, will speak their same language. So it can be surprising when somebody arrives who does not.

Communication is the medium we use to intuit meaning between peoples/Subjects.

What is intuited, are the Objects referred to by and through language. How people understand that, also demonstrates their understanding of Objectivity in general.

It seems that you are missing the point that you made before and I responded to. You seem to be moving the goal-posts here. I don't see how any of this follows from what you said before and what I responded to.

My response to what you just said is that how we intuit what each other means is by actions, which include speaking and writing. When you say something and then act in a way that is contradictory to what you just said, should I think that my understanding of your language-use is wrong, or that you are a hypocrite?

Language evolved from our observations of other's behaviors. How others behave can communicate to you what they might be thinking or aware of. If they start running and screaming, that usually means there is a predator in the bushes and you should run too. We eventually learned to harness those sounds into something more elaborate (thanks to our enlarged brain that evolved to handle complex social interactions) and specific that can refer to states of affairs in the world. Language can communicate more information than just screaming and running.

I never said that objects are distinct from nature. I hope I have made the point that nothing is distinct from nature, including our beliefs and experiences.

Any object that is distinct from our understanding and experience is to just say that there are things in the world that our limited observations can access. We cannot even talk about such things as we can only talk about what we have experienced, not what we haven't.

That's not true. People often speak about what they have not experienced.

This goes back to what I was asking about what form your knowledge/information takes. How can someone speak about something that they have not experienced? They can only ever talk about their experiences, so talking about something you didn't experience is impossible. If you never experienced it, how do you know what it is you are talking about? Do you have any examples of people talking about things they haven't experienced?

There are parts of the universe that do not interact with other parts, but that doesn't mean that because I can image that they do that there is any actual potential that they will. My only point here is we can only ever talk about our experiences and our experiences are relationships with other objects. Just because some object hasn't been experienced doesn't mean it is different than objects that have. We're just talking about different relationships. There is nothing special about experiences either as they are just a type of relationship, and everything is a relationship. So the S-O distinction is meaningless because there is nothing special about unexperienced and experienced objects (relationships) - just different types of relationships.

No, the point I was/am making, is that an object that exists, and is never experienced, demonstrates the S-O distinction, and how vital it is to understand the difference. You and I can use what we do know about Existence, the Universe, Physics, Chemical compositions, science, logic, reason, intuition...we can use it all, to reach out beyond what we directly experience, here and now. We can imagine that 10,000 years ago, Earth was probably this or that way. We can imagine that, across the galaxy, moons, stars, and planets are somewhat like our own.

Or better yet, we can imagine that long after we die, 10,000 years from now, our lives, our experiences, the world as we experience now, were certainly true, and real, and that just because those in the future didn't experience it, yet we now it happens right now. And because of this, just as any person can be as sure of their own Subjectivity, they too can be sure Objectively by the inverse relationship.

Whatever happens right now, is permanent, cannot be deleted or removed, and is as distinct as any other time and moment in Existence.

Because matter cannot be created; and it cannot be destroyed.

And my point was very simple - that you are making certain experiential vs. non-experiential relationships out to be special in some way. Experience is just another type of relationship. I have pointed out numerous times now that sugar is just another relationship. If you were to really obtain a more objective outlook on reality you would be asserting that there is nothing special about un-observed relationships vs. observed relationships. We are merely talking about different types of relationships, but all relationships differ in some way, so why make a stink about certain differences if you are being objective?

Say that you are the only person to exist and that you are the only one to have experiences. Would that mean that your experiences are objective in that they are never observed by someone else?

Again, there is nothing special about observed or un-observed phenomenon. They are all simply relationships. In labeling some of them subjective and objective is showing your own biases to that type of distinction when the universe doesn't care about that distinction. It's relationships all the way down and every relationship is different in their own way. To label some subjective and some objective and that distinction revolves around you as an observer, when observers are nothing special and just another type of relationship, is indicative of your own subjectivity. The S-O distinction is made from a subjective mindset that observers are somehow special and deserve a special label (subjectivity).

I don't believe reality is based on our subjectivity. I believe that reality is based on relationships of which our minds, or experiences are just one type of relationship. I also use the terms "process" or "information". Information includes the notion of aboutness. Our experiences are instinctively understood to be about the world. Effects are about their causes. Information is every where causes leave effects. Our experiences and beliefs are both effects of prior causes and causes of the effects they leave in the world.

From my perspective, as I grow older, I place reality far less in the Subject, and far more in the Object, than I had before...

And my point has been that you are as much an object as everything else in the world, so in not paying attention to your "subject" you are actually ignoring an object. I prefer to refer to objects as relationships as that is what they essentially are, and your experience is just another type of relationship.

[Wizard22]

I know you are engaged in several conversations here, but please try to remember what you said before, and what I have said so we are not talking past each other.

As you said, and I agreed, that "sweet" is a descriptor, referent, to the chemical compound. If there were no humans around, yes, sugar would still be what it is, but there would be no sweetness. That relationship, or referent as you put it, would not exist, and therefore not be objective. Only the chemical composition of sugar would exist and be objective in this standard. But humans do exist and sweetness does exist and is therefore objective as any other relationship that exists like the relationship of the atoms in the sugar that are is the molecule we call sugar. Gold would still exist as a relationship of atoms as well. But if no humans existed there would be no feel, or color gold. Gold would simply remain a relationship between atoms.

No, with respect to objects and objectivity, they don't need to be 'relational' at all, because they don't depend on our Subjective experience. Objects exist, without us, without our experience. The subject, our subjectivity, is what/whom requires 'relation'.

Are you saying that you are telepathic? Only then could your knowledge come from other's experiences. You experience their actions, not their experiences. The point is how do you know when someone is telling the truth or lying if not by your prior experiences with their actions?

Assuming somebody is telling the truth, that they've been to Tokyo, and are describing and explaining it to me, they are transferring a degree of their knowledge to me and you. That knowledge is not completely transferred. We do not inherit their direct experience, but perhaps, their indirect experience. I've seen skyscrapers, so I can understand when he tells me that Tokyo too, has skyscrapers. I can understand that Japanese/Asiatic people live there. I can understand that it is densely populated, etc. Things which I've never seen or experienced, like Japanese Architecture, I've only seen in photos, and would be forced to imagine new information/experience/knowledge. Imagine somebody comes from a distant solar system. It would be more difficult for them to describe and explain their experience.

The knowledge transfer is not 1-for-1.

Knowledge is a type of belief that has both logical and observable evidence that supports it. Beliefs have only one - logic, but no observational proof, or observation but no logical proof.

Sure, knowledge can be proven wrong with new observations. We do not disagree here. My question is more about what form the information that composes your knowledge take? In saying, "I know..." you say you are pointing at some information that you have, but my questions is what form does that information take? How do you know that you possess information? I'll try to help you out here so we can move this along: Doesn't the information take the form of sensory data - as in visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory and olfactory data? In other words, doesn't your knowledge/information take the form of your prior experiences/observations? To say that you know sugar is sweet is really just pointing at your experience, not just the sugar independent of your experience. Yes, sugar is part of the experience, but not the only part, just as sugar is not just one atom, but a relationship between different atoms of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.

Well, that's the groundbreaking discovery isn't it, what type of physical information and data allows for complete knowledge transfer or experience of any kind? Two people can witness the same event, standing next to another in a stadium, and 'experience' things very differently. Subjects have strong biases, strong beliefs, causing strongly different interpretations. So it's never easy to consolidate subjective differences with one-another, let alone the third-perspective objectivity.

It seems that you are missing the point that you made before and I responded to. You seem to be moving the goal-posts here. I don't see how any of this follows from what you said before and what I responded to.

My response to what you just said is that how we intuit what each other means is by actions, which include speaking and writing. When you say something and then act in a way that is contradictory to what you just said, should I think that my understanding of your language-use is wrong, or that you are a hypocrite?

Language evolved from our observations of other's behaviors. How others behave can communicate to you what they might be thinking or aware of. If they start running and screaming, that usually means there is a predator in the bushes and you should run too. We eventually learned to harness those sounds into something more elaborate (thanks to our enlarged brain that evolved to handle complex social interactions) and specific that can refer to states of affairs in the world. Language can communicate more information than just screaming and running.

I was following-up how experience is communicated and interpreted, with respect to knowledge/information/data 'transfer'.

And my point was very simple - that you are making certain experiential vs. non-experiential relationships out to be special in some way. Experience is just another type of relationship. I have pointed out numerous times now that sugar is just another relationship. If you were to really obtain a more objective outlook on reality you would be asserting that there is nothing special about un-observed relationships vs. observed relationships. We are merely talking about different types of relationships, but all relationships differ in some way, so why make a stink about certain differences if you are being objective?

Who's making the stink, me?? Not you? It makes sense to me how objectivity doesn't require subjective 'relationships'. Does it make sense to you?

Say that you are the only person to exist and that you are the only one to have experiences. Would that mean that your experiences are objective in that they are never observed by someone else?

Again, there is nothing special about observed or un-observed phenomenon. They are all simply relationships. In labeling some of them subjective and objective is showing your own biases to that type of distinction when the universe doesn't care about that distinction. It's relationships all the way down and every relationship is different in their own way. To label some subjective and some objective and that distinction revolves around you as an observer, when observers are nothing special and just another type of relationship, is indicative of your own subjectivity. The S-O distinction is made from a subjective mindset that observers are somehow special and deserve a special label (subjectivity).

The S-O Distinction is critical, because it is the main pathway that humans either connect to, or disconnect from, "Nature". Nature is objective. It doesn't require humans to exist. Just like life doesn't require humans to exist. Wipe away all animal life on earth, and plants may very well continue existing. Are they alive? Yes. Are they subjects/subjective? No. Life does not require consciousness. Objects do not require observation/to be seen, to exist. Same with Nature.

Nature is the "objective reality".

And my point has been that you are as much an object as everything else in the world, so in not paying attention to your "subject" you are actually ignoring an object. I prefer to refer to objects as relationships as that is what they essentially are, and your experience is just another type of relationship.

Here is the crux of our dispute then...I do not consider objects "relational". Relationships are purely Subjective, not Objective.

Right?

[Age]

But objectively, a perspective from 'behind' the image, it would appear as a right hand.

There's nothing confusing about this.

Of course there is nothing confusing about it. Your brain has a dysfunction.

You think that a digital image has a "back" side. Your brain dysfunction amounts to your inability to understand dimensionality.
Rather ironic, though that once I perform a horizontal flip of the image (all in software, of course) you can't even tell us which one is the "back" and which one is the "front" side.

BUT, you did NOT 'have to flip it' to NOT be ABLE TO TELL 'us', which one is the so-called 'back' and which one is the so-called 'front'.

FROM the outset 'you' could NOT do 'this' "skepdick".

Almost like you don't understand symmetry groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_group

rotationA.jpg
rotationB.jpg

[VVilliam]

Subject:

Originating/Beginning from the point-of-view or perspective inside a human life, within "the mind" or consciousness.

The Subject is what 'you' are, your self-identity.

Subjectivity requires a (your own) "living perspective".



Object:

Originating/Beginning from the point-of-view or perspective outside a human life, without "the mind" or consciousness.

The Object is what 'you' are not, otherness.

Objectivity does not require a (your own) "living perspective".



Development of Self-Consciousness:

Human infants develop self-awareness at distinct young ages, directly coinciding with their Intelligibility—their ability to become intelligent and to which degree. Generally, the younger an infant can identify him/herself in a mirror, as a distinct object separate from itself, the higher is his or her capability to become greatly intelligent in every subsequent phase of life. Infants which do not become self-aware early, or never become so, thusly cannot be said to have a distinct self-awareness, and so no distinct self-consciousness. Very similar to other mammals in Nature, self-consciousness is not really a requirement of general survival in the wild. Thus self-consciousness is a sign of a very high, but albeit artificial intelligence—insuchthat intelligence beyond a certain level has one beyond "mere-survival" levels. Great intelligence (Self-Consciousness) can become more of a hindrance to an individual, than a help.

Regardless of the utility of great intelligence and self-consciousness in general, the core principle to distinguish the difference, is obvious in the subject-object Division of the brain's intelligence and cognitive functions. You can observe this phenomena routinely on this forum, on other forums, and across daily human life and social interactions. Some people have great self-awareness and self-consciousness, symbolizing heightened intelligence, while a majority of humans do not. Thus there is a separation of base and general intelligence. Self-consciousness implies a very high level of sophistication and complication, when referring to oneself as Subject-or-Object, as-if a single person can take and accept "multiple perspectives" at once. Such ability would lead to distinct pathologies: empathy notably, but also distinct in the full gamut of emotional states—apathy, antipathy, sympathy, psychopathy, sociopathy, etc.

Those without great self-consciousness, thus self-awareness, will severely favor and incline toward Subjectivism and Solipsism as "the only" philosophical solution and frame of perspective in general. Objectification will not make sense, because to the Subjectivist, there is not necessarily an "outside" to his/her own mind.

Re the overall, I think it depends largely on ( what? ) one self identifies as and (why?) one does so.

How one then reacts to "outside" stimulus determines whether ones (in-look) has a dualist or monist "outlook".

Thus, there is no "in" or "out" "look" ( pov ) if one self identifies as a consciousness - say - "having a human experience" rather than identifying as "being human."

In "being consciousness" one is more able to imagine what it might be like to- say - be the consciousness of this planet ( Earth ) even that this would be a very complex undertaking for someone who is currently having a human experience.

Or perhaps try a less complex imagining - say - what it might be like to be dolphin.

Or perhaps even simply, what it might be like to be an "other" human being.

There is no serious reason why "Solipsism as "the only" philosophical solution and frame of perspective in general" need be problematic IF one was willing to "be all things" and treat ones "self" as one treats "others" - as the "same" consciousness through-"out" all that exists.

That said, if one treats ones self too "negatively" or too "positively" rather than - say - most often neutrally and always respectfully - one will also treat "others" in the same way.

Consciousness need not be either subjective or objective but simply "just is" and even "both"

( are we "objects" or "subjects" to one "another" - or just "being"? )