The metaphysics of objects

[Ginkgo]

I'm not sure the connectedness of multiple things is sufficient to be called an object. Is a bike an object? I would say yes. Is a team an object? A team of people are connected by information which passes through the air in the form of pressure waves, or sound. Or can be separated even further and be connected by electronic devices. I guess what I am getting at is, connectedness isn't as straight forward as you might think. You might say the parts in the bike are connected physically and each part serves a function, but members of a team are also connected physically (albeit indirectly through a long change of connections), and also serve a purpose.

But i still dont think a team qualifies as an object, so, what is missing from the definition?

Well, an object is something which is not typically viewed as a living animated thing, and also has some specific purpose, function, or use by us as humans. A plant can still bean object even thought is alive, because it is not animated nor self directed. However a cat is not an object as it has its own director, it is not used by humans.

There is still more to say, of of which I haven't thought of yet.

If we leave out the scientific definition of 'object', then from a philosophical point out view just about anything can qualify as an object. You example of a team is interesting because it reminded me of corporate personhood. The object in this case qualifies as some type of person based on a legal definition. Better know as legal fiction for a purpose. Corporations as people are considered in law to have some type of existence and therefore would be regarded as an object of some type.

What types of things have existence is a problem for ontology.

[tillingborn]

What makes for a metaphysical 'object' or a metaphysical 'substance' is a question for ontology. We can and do have physical objects and physical substances. It is also claimed that we can have metaphysical substances.

The funny thing is that, from a philosophical point of view, the physical objects and substances that we take for granted, are metaphysical. They are noumenal 'things in themselves'; we have to infer their existence from the phenomena we presume they are responsible for. They are literally beyond physics, it seems to me; physics is compelled to deal only with the phenomenal, but in order to do so physicists have had to invent concepts like energy to do so.

[SpheresOfBalance]

To the OP's statement:

I can't imagine an object without parts. Even if you can't, even in principle, split it you can always divide it geometrically infinitely many times.

I said:

Can any human 'know' that relative size is 'infinite?' Or if not infinite, their relative position along the line of finite measure, of indeterminate ends?

What I meant, for those that couldn't decipher it, was that before one could say, that which is highlighted above in blue, or talk about it any way, with any degree of certainty, (other than to simply speculate), they'd have to know that relative size is in fact infinite, meaning they'd have to know that, our macro, (the universe), is infinitely large, and thus that our micro, (sub atomic), is infinitely small, as it could be no other way, it would have to be that relative size, is both infinitely large and small to have either. But if one would reject this possibility, that infinite is out of the question, then as to relative size, both in the micro and macro direction, we could not know at what position we are between the two extremes, as we could not necessarily know, that we have, in fact, reached either maximum extent, on our quest to know of these boundaries, as how would they in fact be seen, what would the indicator look like?

Most humans have a real problem with the concept of infinity. They find it almost impossible to visualize, as well as it's inverse, that of end points.

[Bernard]

I think that last paragraph interesting. End points are our creation though and there is only a problem if we forget that we create them for our own necessary convenience. There is nothing unreal about the fact we create them, but unreal to assume they exist outside of the fact we create them. In counting to ten on our fingers there are no fractional numbers because there no fractional fingers. The set of 10 numbers are phenomenologically complete and unable to be altered because they are subordinate items of the counting function.


The real question here is do items/objects exist outside of function or activity? I think Cantor came a cropper when he considered an ultimate infinity (God) among infinite infinities. That is a non-functional entity and therefore unreal. If an infinity is in anyway real or useful to us it would be capable of equalising and stabilising with other infinities

[tillingborn]

The real question here is do items/objects exist outside of function or activity?

I think Berkeley and Quantum Mechanics pose a similar question: does anything exist that isn't being perceived?

[SpheresOfBalance]

The real question here is do items/objects exist outside of function or activity?

I think Berkeley and Quantum Mechanics pose a similar question: does anything exist that isn't being perceived?

Which is, in fact, an absurd notion. It is true that one does not 'know that a thing exists' if they do not perceive it, but it is not true that a thing does not exist, if they do not perceive it. I have irrefutable proof. Let an expert, of a sniper, of a serial killer, know where you live, after telling him that he should shoot you, at some arbitrary time, and that he cannot kill you, as you shall not perceive him, as he sights you through a high powered scope, many yards away. Huh??? Well??? It is an absurd notion, that actually was only meant as a thought experiment, and not, that it actually holds any water.

[tillingborn]

I think Berkeley and Quantum Mechanics pose a similar question: does anything exist that isn't being perceived?

Which is, in fact, an absurd notion.

Well yes, but as Descartes noted: 'One cannot conceive of anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.' Or as Cicero said: 'Nothing so absurd can be said that some philosopher has not said it.' Proving the same is true of wisdom. Berkeley you can take or leave, it's impossible to refute, but as William of Occam would say 'Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.' Since he was a monk though, he probably wouldn't say it about god.
Quantum Mechanics I think you have to take a bit more seriously; as the double slit experiment is purported to show, until a particle interacts with matter, there is no way of knowing where in the universe it is, or even whether it exists; although I understand some progress has been made in nailing the buggers down.
An absurd notion indeed, but one that is at the core of our understanding of the universe.

[SpheresOfBalance]

I think Berkeley and Quantum Mechanics pose a similar question: does anything exist that isn't being perceived?

Which is, in fact, an absurd notion.

Well yes, but as Descartes noted: 'One cannot conceive of anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.' Or as Cicero said: 'Nothing so absurd can be said that some philosopher has not said it.' Proving the same is true of wisdom. Berkeley you can take or leave, it's impossible to refute, but as William of Occam would say 'Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.' Since he was a monk though, he probably wouldn't say it about god.
Quantum Mechanics I think you have to take a bit more seriously; as the double slit experiment is purported to show, until a particle interacts with matter, there is no way of knowing where in the universe it is, or even whether it exists; although I understand some progress has been made in nailing the buggers down.
An absurd notion indeed, but one that is at the core of our understanding of the universe.

Yes, 'purported.' But I see, that in this case as well, it may be, as I have already mentioned to you, that in fact humans, when faced with the unknown, can only characterize something as their limited knowledge allows. I do not know of the specifics of the slit experiments control factors, such that I can comment, as though I know, though I have thought of circumstance whereby it could be seen as an illusion, due to the lack of control/understanding of the dynamics involved. The problem is that it is hard to find records, as to the specifics of any given, "scientific method," used in any particular experiment, such that one can say with certainty. Often people just parrot what someone has told them, as though it is thus necessarily true, as if the mouth piece of authority, is necessarily, the absolute knowledge of reality.

In addition, I do not see that 'existence only when perceived" necessarily follows with the results of the slit experiment.

[Bernard]

The real question here is do items/objects exist outside of function or activity?

I think Berkeley and Quantum Mechanics pose a similar question: does anything exist that isn't being perceived?

Which is, in fact, an absurd notion. It is true that one does not 'know that a thing exists' if they do not perceive it, but it is not true that a thing does not exist, if they do not perceive it. I have irrefutable proof. Let an expert, of a sniper, of a serial killer, know where you live, after telling him that he should shoot you, at some arbitrary time, and that he cannot kill you, as you shall not perceive him, as he sights you through a high powered scope, many yards away. Huh??? Well??? It is an absurd notion, that actually was only meant as a thought experiment, and not, that it actually holds any water.

This reminds when Carlos Castaneda said to the Indian shaman, don Juan, that its implausible as an idea that a shaman can live so as to avoid injury. He gives the example of a sniper who is waiting for him. Don Juan replies he simply wouldn't show up.

But the mistake in the argument of quantum mechanics is that its coming from the stance of a single observer . My argument is that without the activity of perception objects would have no means to come into existence. This infers that perception is the main player of existence, which itself must infer that living things are what constitute the fabric of existence. Thus there is nothing we can perceive that isn't affected by our consciousness because whatever is before us will be a perceptual element or entity.

[SpheresOfBalance]

The real question here is do items/objects exist outside of function or activity?

I think Berkeley and Quantum Mechanics pose a similar question: does anything exist that isn't being perceived?

Which is, in fact, an absurd notion. It is true that one does not 'know that a thing exists' if they do not perceive it, but it is not true that a thing does not exist, if they do not perceive it. I have irrefutable proof. Let an expert, of a sniper, of a serial killer, know where you live, after telling him that he should shoot you, at some arbitrary time, and that he cannot kill you, as you shall not perceive him, as he sights you through a high powered scope, many yards away. Huh??? Well??? It is an absurd notion, that actually was only meant as a thought experiment, and not, that it actually holds any water.

This reminds when Carlos Castaneda said to the Indian shaman, don Juan, that its implausible as an idea that a shaman can live so as to avoid injury. He gives the example of a sniper who is waiting for him. Don Juan replies he simply wouldn't show up.
Yes, I too have dabbled in hallucinogens, so I see that you're having problems with the doors of perception, understood! You can't 'not show up,' as you in fact exist, or do you in fact plan on killing yourself before the sniper does? Either you 'act' like you're stupid or are just being stubborn, I believe it to be the latter. The point, besides that of your stubbornness, is that one does not need to perceive a killer, for them to shoot you in the back, at which point, your death proceeds, whether you knew it or not. If you were the only man on the planet, and a meteorite, the size of a quarter, hit you square in the back of your head at, thousands of miles an hour, you'd instantly die, despite the fact that there were no observers.


But the mistake in the argument of quantum mechanics is that its coming from the stance of a single observer . My argument is that without the activity of perception objects would have no means to come into existence. This infers that perception is the main player of existence, which itself must infer that living things are what constitute the fabric of existence. Thus there is nothing we can perceive that isn't affected by our consciousness because whatever is before us will be a perceptual element or entity.
Total hogwash, you would see yourself a god, sheesh! Obviously, one can eat too many mushrooms, cacti, fungus and other such, naturally occurring vegetation. The very word 'perceive' means "after the fact" one of its synonyms is "discover" NOT "invent."

[Bernard]

Way of wavelength. What have hallucinogens to do with anything. Castaneda spent a 14 year apprenticeship with Don Juan, only the two first of which dealt with 'power plants' and only under very strict conditions. Carlos was the most sober man you could ever meet and I met him.


I would see every being a God, as my post obviously postulates.


Perception is what it means: conscious apprehension and interpretation.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Way of wavelength. What have hallucinogens to do with anything. Castaneda spent a 14 year apprenticeship with Don Juan, only the two first of which dealt with 'power plants' and only under very strict conditions. Carlos was the most sober man you could ever meet and I met him.


I would see every being a God, as my post obviously postulates.

"The Teachings of Don Juan - A Separate Reality - Tales of Power" by Carlos Castaneda.

This last sentence of yours is the problem with society today, everyone thinks themselves a god as they destroy, because they believe as gods they can get away with it, NOT TRUE! We are in fact of one origin, and as contrasted by the truth of the universe, that came long before the organism that eventually became man, could even understand the concept of "observer," is a puny, insignificant, foolish, barbaric, animal, that if your belief is any indication, has far outlived its place in the cosmos, with such absurd notions. God is the forces that created us more complex chemical machines, and came long before the chemical animal, for it to finally be so blind, as to think it is the god, that created itself. What a joke, some can spin. I actually took you seriously, once! No more my friend, can you say megalomaniac? So when are you going to erect your monument, that outdoes Ramses II? Or maybe you have already done so, in your minds eye, but I see that you're "third eye blind."

[Bernard]

Surely it can be the only sane conclusion that living things exclusively compose existence and have always, and will always do so. That Goddy-Woddy or Biggy-Wiggy-Bang-Wang created everything one day, at a comfortable distance in time away from us - even though they shouldn't have existed when only nothing existed - is little more than a trite bedtime story.

Get with it: life is what existence is about, and living beings are the only source of life.

[Bernard]

No no no. There is nothing self or anthropo- centric in this.
Man is still the ego at the centre of everything ( and, yes, is therefore God above all) because he is special because he is more alive than anything else is or is likely to be. We are just one life form among endless life forms with no overseer. Every being is God because there is no God. I think you misunderstand.

Way of wavelength. What have hallucinogens to do with anything. Castaneda spent a 14 year apprenticeship with Don Juan, only the two first of which dealt with 'power plants' and only under very strict conditions. Carlos was the most sober man you could ever meet and I met him.


I would see every being a God, as my post obviously postulates.

"The Teachings of Don Juan - A Separate Reality - Tales of Power" by Carlos Castaneda.

This last sentence of yours is the problem with society today, everyone thinks themselves a god as they destroy, because they believe as gods they can get away with it, NOT TRUE! We are in fact of one origin, and as contrasted by the truth of the universe, that came long before the organism that eventually became man, could even understand the concept of "observer," is a puny, insignificant, foolish, barbaric, animal, that if your belief is any indication, has far outlived its place in the cosmos, with such absurd notions. God is the forces that created us more complex chemical machines, and came long before the chemical animal, for it to finally be so blind, as to think it is the god, that created itself. What a joke, some can spin. I actually took you seriously, once! No more my friend, can you say megalomaniac? So when are you going to erect your monument, that outdoes Ramses II? Or maybe you have already done so, in your minds eye, but I see that you're "third eye blind."

[SpheresOfBalance]

Surely it can be the only sane conclusion that living things exclusively compose existence and have always, and will always do so. That Goddy-Woddy or Biggy-Wiggy-Bang-Wang created everything one day, at a comfortable distance in time away from us - even though they shouldn't have existed when only nothing existed - is little more than a trite bedtime story.

Get with it: life is what existence is about, and living beings are the only source of life.

You couldn't be more wrong!