Can there be an object without any subject?

[Tom Sawyer]

But the reason that they have this common model is because there is a red, chair-shaped object in the room. The common model isn't due to something internal to them, it's due to their all looking at the same external object.

What makes it red? The human eyes and visual brain center. What makes it a chair? The shape of the human body. What makes it one? The human perception and the human interpretation of it as a chair.

What makes it red is the wavelengths of light which bounce off of it. Our eyes and brain centre just make us aware of that external fact. Our perceptions and interpretations make it a chair, but that's only because we apply them to the chair shaped object which is sitting out there in the external world being completely unrelated to us.

The reason we have a common model of the chair is because we're all looking at the same chair. The rationale for that model is external to us, not internal to us.

 

[rrr6]

Rational Logics and Cause and Effect

Do you think that there can be an object without any subject? And why?

If gravity is the overall/Universal line-of-relationship observer, for all parts of Universe, then no, an object cannot exist without subjective observer.

Gravity connects all parts of Universe and Universe in whole via a cause and effect determinism.

Rationale, logic and common sense are metaphysical-1 complementary to cause and effect determinism, with much less rigor of course. ;--)

r6

 

[Speakpigeon]

What makes it red? The human eyes and visual brain center. What makes it a chair? The shape of the human body. What makes it one? The human perception and the human interpretation of it as a chair.

What makes it red is the wavelengths of light which bounce off of it. Our eyes and brain centre just make us aware of that external fact. Our perceptions and interpretations make it a chair, but that's only because we apply them to the chair shaped object which is sitting out there in the external world being completely unrelated to us.

The reason we have a common model of the chair is because we're all looking at the same chair. The rationale for that model is external to us, not internal to us.

No, me I agree that it's the brain that makes things look red. It's a no brainer. Unless you think the mind is not a property of the brain? Surely you're not saying that redness is somehow a property of certain electromagnetic waves? Me, I haven't read anything like this in any physics textbooks. Ok, maybe it's because those were French ones. I'm sure you could get to agree on that. Different animals see colours differently even when the wavelengths are the same. So. You can also experience redness without any light, although, of course, this would be in very unusual circumstances. So, redness is not something inside, or a property of, light.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

But the reason that they have this common model is because there is a red, chair-shaped object in the room. The common model isn't due to something internal to them, it's due to their all looking at the same external object.

Surely if people have a common model of the red chair it's because they have a common model of the world around them, but surely this is as much due to sufficiently similar experiences of this world that they must have had throughout their lives as it is to the fact that they must have very similar brains, a fact which is explained by evolution. So the common model requires something internal to them which should be sufficiently similar to each other and we have a good explanation why this could and would be so. The chair is not red; the brain represents it as red, obviously maybe because the light coming off the chair has a certain wavelength or maybe it is a yellow chair but it see it red because my private neurosurgeon is tweaking something inside the visual areas of my cortex. And yes, there is no chair either. Just the model. However, we can assume that there is nonetheless something. Something our brains represent as a chair. But to talk of an actual chair, or a red chair, is just an everyday-life convenience, not anything very accurate to say. I think Kant already said it well in that we don't know the thing-in-itself. Nothing very new then. Of course, it's also conceivable that there is in fact nothing out there, no chair at all, no people in the room, no room, no universe. Just my thoughts of a chair, of people, of a universe. Yet although this is reasonably conceivable and has been conceived by many a few reasonable people it is not generally believed to be so and I don't personally believe it to be so.
EB

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What makes it red is the wavelengths of light which bounce off of it. Our eyes and brain centre just make us aware of that external fact. Our perceptions and interpretations make it a chair, but that's only because we apply them to the chair shaped object which is sitting out there in the external world being completely unrelated to us.

The reason we have a common model of the chair is because we're all looking at the same chair. The rationale for that model is external to us, not internal to us.

No, me I agree that it's the brain that makes things look red. It's a no brainer. Unless you think the mind is not a property of the brain? Surely you're not saying that redness is somehow a property of certain electromagnetic waves? Me, I haven't read anything like this in any physics textbooks. Ok, maybe it's because those were French ones. I'm sure you could get to agree on that. Different animals see colours differently even when the wavelengths are the same. So. You can also experience redness without any light, although, of course, this would be in very unusual circumstances. So, redness is not something inside, or a property of, light.
EB

Red is a wavelength of light. How our minds interpret it is based on what wavelength gets reflected off an object, so the redness is most certainly a property of the wavelength. We don't just see random colours, which is why there's a continuous and uninterrupted gradual change in shade from red to blue. Certain animals may see these shades more clearly or more distinctly, but that doesn't affect the properties of the lightwaves bouncing off of the object anymore than the properties of a table are changed by someone looking at it with or without his glasses.

 

[untermensche]

Red is a wavelength of light....

No. Red is associated with certain wavelengths of light under certain lighting conditions.

Red is something brains create whole. It has no physical correlation only a physical cause.

There is nothing, in theory, that says a brain couldn't have evolved to turn that same wavelength to orange or green, and the truth is all people have a slightly different perception of color. We clearly see this in the case of color blindness.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Red is a wavelength of light. How our minds interpret it is based on what wavelength gets reflected off an object, so the redness is most certainly a property of the wavelength.

So we don't have any subjective experience of redness because we don't actually experience the wavelength of the light coming into our eyes. I hope you agree that the brain doesn't make us experience subjectively the wavelength itself. And you can't call "red" both the colour we do experience subjectively and a property of the light we don't actually experience as such (it's all dark inside our brain's visual cortex right?).

I think some loose talk on the part of scientists got us in this muddle. It was a time when we thought the objects themselves were red. Kids usually still believe that for a while too. Then science came around and discovered that white light could be broken down into a spectrum of rainbow colours, so of course they now insisted that it was the light not the object that was red (or blue, yellow etc.). Many scientists still talk like this. Yet, some time later, other scientists discovered that red was really a sensation, so inside our brain, not outside somehow in the light. But many scientists keep talking as if nothing had happened. Dinosaurs all. Yes, the sensation is triggered in normal circumstances by light coming into your eye but not necessarily so. The current Oxford dictionary of Science define "colour" as the sensation caused by light, not as a property of light.
EB

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Red is a wavelength of light. How our minds interpret it is based on what wavelength gets reflected off an object, so the redness is most certainly a property of the wavelength.

So we don't have any subjective experience of redness because we don't actually experience the wavelength of the light coming into our eyes. I hope you agree that the brain doesn't make us experience subjectively the wavelength itself. And you can't call "red" both the colour we do experience subjectively and a property of the light we don't actually experience as such (it's all dark inside our brain's visual cortex right?).

What are you talking about? We have the subjective experience, but that experience is due to the existence of an external object which has properties. When we touch a table, our brain fires off neurons to have us process a tactile sensation which we recognize as hardness because the external object we're interacting with has that property and we have the ability to recognize this. When we see a wavelength of light, our brain fires off neurons to have us process a visual stimulus which we recognize as red because the external object we're interacting with has that property and we have the ability to recognize this.

 

[Speakpigeon]

So we don't have any subjective experience of redness because we don't actually experience the wavelength of the light coming into our eyes. I hope you agree that the brain doesn't make us experience subjectively the wavelength itself. And you can't call "red" both the colour we do experience subjectively and a property of the light we don't actually experience as such (it's all dark inside our brain's visual cortex right?).

What are you talking about? We have the subjective experience, but that experience is due to the existence of an external object which has properties.

So the subjective experience of red is no different from the property of being somehow red that the light has? We subjectively experience the colour red because somehow red is already in the light? A bit like getting water at the tap because water is actually flowing inside the pipe in your building but also through the pipes all the way the river or the lake?

When we touch a table, our brain fires off neurons to have us process a tactile sensation which we recognize as hardness because the external object we're interacting with has that property and we have the ability to recognize this. When we see a wavelength of light, our brain fires off neurons to have us process a visual stimulus which we recognize as red because the external object we're interacting with has that property and we have the ability to recognize this.

So it is the object which has the property of being red or is it the light bouncing off of it? Or is it all three, the object, the light, and something inside our brain?

You think hardness as we experience it is a property of the object we bump into?
EB

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So it is the object which has the property of being red or is it the light bouncing off of it? Or is it all three, the object, the light, and something inside our brain?

They're all red. If an object has a surface which reflects red light then that object is red. If light has a wavelength within the red spectrum, it's red light. If our neurons fire in the way to allow us to process red light, then we see red.

You think hardness as we experience it is a property of the object we bump into?

What else would it be? What we experience tells us what the object is. That's how we can tell the difference between a pillow and a rock.

 

[fromderinside]

They're all red. If an object has a surface which reflects red light then that object is red. If light has a wavelength within the red spectrum, it's red light. If our neurons fire in the way to allow us to process red light, then we see red.

None of them are red or one or two of them may be red. An object that is illuminated by white light that reflects of red then maybe the object is red or is it spectra that the object absorbs since both definitions refer to the object. Further if illumination is not white, but rather it is a combination of blue and green the color reflected may not be red by the white light illumination standard it is probably a gray or even a brown by that standard so it is not necessarily white even if the definition remains constant for one part of the system being described. If the observer has only green receptors then the red will be seen as green by white light illumination standards and some other color by other color illumination standards and we haven't even gotten to the way light is perceived. Consider Raliegh color versus spectral color. What is the truth and what is seen depends on specifically defining all variables in the perception experiment.

Not to be to much of a Grinch ..... More simply if I'm standing at the westernmost point of Cape Blanco speaking westward with no wind blowing and I yell "Fuck you" is there an object you can discern without interviewing me? If not the contrary point to a subject requires an object is proved.

 

[rrr6]

Our finite, occupied space Universe, has no other to objectively observer or reference or compare too.

Our Universe can reference a part of it self i.e. the finite whole references a finite part.

Ex the finite human biological/soul, references a part of itself called the finger.

At best we can may say. that, the finite, occupied space Universe, can reference the macro-infinite, non-occupied space that embraces it.

r6

 

[Tom Sawyer]

They're all red. If an object has a surface which reflects red light then that object is red. If light has a wavelength within the red spectrum, it's red light. If our neurons fire in the way to allow us to process red light, then we see red.

None of them are red or one or two of them may be red. An object that is illuminated by white light that reflects of red then maybe the object is red or is it spectra that the object absorbs since both definitions refer to the object. Further if illumination is not white, but rather it is a combination of blue and green the color reflected may not be red by the white light illumination standard it is probably a gray or even a brown by that standard so it is not necessarily white even if the definition remains constant for one part of the system being described. If the observer has only green receptors then the red will be seen as green by white light illumination standards and some other color by other color illumination standards and we haven't even gotten to the way light is perceived. Consider Raliegh color versus spectral color. What is the truth and what is seen depends on specifically defining all variables in the perception experiment.

Not to be to much of a Grinch ..... More simply if I'm standing at the westernmost point of Cape Blanco speaking westward with no wind blowing and I yell "Fuck you" is there an object you can discern without interviewing me? If not the contrary point to a subject requires an object is proved.

If you view it under blue light, the object has exactly the same properties but there's just no red spectrum in the light to bounce off it. Saying that this somehow alters the object's properties is no different than saying that if you put a red shirt in a closet and turn off the light, it's suddenly not a red shirt anymore because there's no red specturm of light bouncing off it at the moment.

It's the same if the person viewing it has no red receptors. The properties of the object and the wavelengths of light are exactly the same, but he just doesn't process them correctly. I don't see how your argument here is particularly different from saying that there's no infrared because we don't have receptors for that area of the spectrum. The wavelengths of the light and the spectra of light the object absorbs and reflects hold constant regardless of the properties of the observer.

 

[fromderinside]

I would say we know nothing about seeing infrared if we have no infrared receptors. That's a damn sight more empirical than your flawed analogy rationalization donchthink.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I would say we know nothing about seeing infrared if we have no infrared receptors. That's a damn sight more empirical than your flawed analogy rationalization donchthink.

And our not knowing about it doesn't affect the existence of a colour called infrared at all.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I would say we know nothing about seeing infrared if we have no infrared receptors. That's a damn sight more empirical than your flawed analogy rationalization donchthink.

And our not knowing about it doesn't affect the existence of a colour called infrared at all.

If we didn't exist the colour red wouldn't exist at all but the range of wavelengths between 620nm and 740nm would. So they can't be the same thing.

Also, don't you find it revealing that the spectrum of colours be so different in nature from the corresponding range of wavelengths?

Any intelligent Alien civilization would be able to work out the precise wavelength of the light reflected or coming out of objects on Earth. Yet, it is very likely that only us would experience wavelengths between 620nm and 740nm a being red. An Alien intelligent species, evolved on a different planet, would have its own perception range, probably with no red at all in it or with red corresponding to a different range of wavelengths than 620-740nm.

Impossible to prove though.
EB

 

[Tom Sawyer]

And our not knowing about it doesn't affect the existence of a colour called infrared at all.

If we didn't exist the colour red wouldn't exist at all but the range of wavelengths between 620nm and 740nm would. So they can't be the same thing.

No, the colour red would exist fine as light within that range of wavelengths.

 

[Kharakov]

If we didn't exist the colour red wouldn't exist at all but the range of wavelengths between 620nm and 740nm would. So they can't be the same thing.

No, the colour red would exist fine as light within that range of wavelengths.

So light has qualia? What about the taste Fred or the smell square?

 

[Speakpigeon]

If we didn't exist the colour red wouldn't exist at all but the range of wavelengths between 620nm and 740nm would. So they can't be the same thing.

No, the colour red would exist fine as light within that range of wavelengths.

Don't you make any difference between the wavelengths and the impression of colours we have?

Maybe you think that the colour we experience subjectively is really some electromagnetic wave somewhere inside our brains with a wavelength between 620nm and 740nm too?
EB

 

[fromderinside]

No, the colour red would exist fine as light within that range of wavelengths.

Don't you make any difference between the wavelengths and the impression of colours we have?

Maybe you think that the colour we experience subjectively is really some electromagnetic wave somewhere inside our brains with a wavelength between 620nm and 740nm too?
EB

Ever stand looking at that red car under a sodium lamp only to find, that in daylight it is blue? It turns out that what we see is what we sense and not the objective color of the object in standard light. Yet the color we sense is always defined by what we see in standard light (sun) under standard reflecting conditions. We see the blue car as red because the color red is actually a Raleigh color, a combination, for which the predominant reflection in sodium light is red while in sunlight is blue.

Even so, for human perception object requires subject. Yet, for abstraction and science, both of which are cognitively aware modes of some intelligence being, probably not.

I love reducing rational philosophy to folk philosophy.