popeye1945 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 02, 2025 11:24 am
Darkneos wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 11:08 pm
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 10:01 am
It does need clarification. Humans do not evolve culturally; humans make changes in culture. It is in keeping with the nature of technology that when humanity invents something to improve the quality of life for the average person, that person does not need to understand it to benefit from it. This is most often what is considered cultural evolution, but it is the culture or the culture's technology that has evolved, not humanity itself. Your statement to Darkneos says humans evolve mostly culturally, it's splitting hairs, I suppose. Human cultures are monstrosities relative to their culture's foundation, which is the natural world, so of necessity, as culture is once removed from the natural world, its inhabitants are also monstrosities relative to the natural world. This is evident by nature's present chaos, which might be seen as its attempt to cleanse itself. It is again a matter of what the proper foundation for a term is. In our discussions on morality, I stated that the proper foundation of a human system of morality is biology itself, humanity itself. Is there any human morality directed towards nature? Like subject and object, the two can never be separated. Most animals know not to shit in their own nest, but humanity does not.
Biology is not a foundation of morality, at all.
Subject and object are separated by definition, you keep saying they can’t when they clearly already are. You’re the one denying reality.
You also have a very naive view of nature and animals, and calling culture a monstrosity shows you don’t understand it. Hell even non human animals have culture. Culture is nature, in fact everything is, even computers.
Like I said, you have a very stupid and uninformed notion of nature.
The Inseparability of Subject and Object
1. Perception Is Always Filtered Through the Subject
Every experience of an object is mediated by the senses, cognition, and interpretation of the subject.
You never encounter “pure” objects—you encounter your version of them.
Example: A red apple is not “red” in itself. Redness is a perceptual quality created by your visual system interpreting wavelengths of light.
Conclusion: The object is never accessed independently of the subject. They are co-dependent in experience.
2. Quantum Physics Undermines Objectivity
In quantum mechanics, the observer effect shows that the act of observation alters the state of the system.
Particles exist in a superposition until measured—only then do they “collapse” into a definite state.
This implies that observation creates reality, not merely reveals it.
Conclusion: The subject (observer) plays an active role in shaping the object (observed phenomenon).
3. Language and Thought Construct Reality
We don’t perceive raw reality—we perceive conceptualized reality shaped by language and thought.
The word “tree” is not the tree itself. It’s a mental construct that organizes sensory data.
Different cultures and languages carve up reality differently. What one sees as “object,” another may see as “process” or “relationship.”
Conclusion: The object is not independent—it’s shaped by the subject’s cognitive and linguistic framework.
4. Phenomenological Evidence
Philosophers like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty argue that consciousness is always consciousness of something—there’s no pure subject without an object, and no object without a subject to perceive it.
Experience is relational, not dualistic.
Conclusion: Subject and object are two poles of a single experiential field.
5. Eastern Philosophy: Non-Dual Awareness
In Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism, the separation of subject and object is seen as an illusion.
Meditation reveals that the boundary between “self” and “world” is fluid—awareness is not located in a subject, but is the field in which both subject and object arise.
Conclusion: The deepest level of consciousness reveals unity, not division.
To believe in a strict separation between subject and object is to assume that reality exists independently of experience. But every piece of evidence we have—scientific, philosophical, and introspective—suggests that reality is participatory. The subject and object are not two things—they are two aspects of one unfolding process.
1. This is just Kant's "things in and of themselves" bit, but so far there isn't a reason to think that how they appear to us isn't how they are. A red apple is red in itself because it reflects red wavelengths of light. You can argue plants evolved colors a certain way to attract animals.
This however does not mean the subject and object are co-dependent in experience. The object is still accessed independently of the subject.
2. Quantum physics does not undermine objectivity, the observer effect is an issue in science overall because measuring a system alters is, but so far it's not been that big a problem. In QM the math is rock solid, it's just a matter of interpreting it in laymens terms that folks disagree on. If anything it solidifies objectivity.
You also don't understand superposition and NO observation does not create reality (this is a wild misunderstanding of quantum physics). Also observation doesn't mean conscious observer, it just means any interaction with the system. The subject does not play any role in shaping the object (because again observation doesn't refer to a subject in QM).
3. Language is just words referring to things so we can understand reality. Even if you didn't call a tree a tree that wouldn't change anything about it, only how we talk about stuff.
The object is independent, it's not shaped by the subjects cognitive or linguistic framework. All language does is affect how we communicate, not how reality behaves. Where a wasp is a thing or process doesn't change that it stings.
4. This is just flat out incorrect. Consciousness need not be conscious of something (see Eastern philosophy for some of those arguments). There is a pure subject without a pure object and objects exist whether you perceive them or not. Just walk into traffic blindfolded.
Subject and object are not two poles and experience is dualistic not relational.
5. All meditation proves is the effect it has on the brain, it says nothing about reality. Also eastern philosophy doesn't say things are one, that is another illusion. Nor are they connected. In fact that "unity" is nothing but a trick of meditation, it alters blood flow to the brain area that regulates your sense of boundaries in terms of the body, giving the illusion of unity.
You can argue whether one state is more "true" than the other but meditation doesn't reveal anything.
There is also no such thing as deepest level of consciousness.
Reality does exist independently of experience otherwise there would be nothing to experience. Every piece of evidence we have shows they contrary, that reality is not participatory. Philosophy is also not evidence, just arguments. All you've given is just what some folks argue, it's meaningless.
Again, you're just too stupid to understand it. Everything you cited is wildly false and incorrect. You don't understand reality.
Not to mention what you are arguing for is effectively solipisism.