Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes' Choice wrote:I think we are done here, hey?

Okay by me. And thanks for the intellectual conversation. (...I'm being sincere here).

RG1 wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:I think we are done here, hey?

Okay by me. And thanks for the intellectual conversation. (...I'm being sincere here).

No problem twas a pleasure.

At the risk of stirring it up again.

The "object/subject" spectrum has to be about the relation of ideas CONNECTED with the real and the perceived. Thus an "objective object" is tautological and not "non-existent" as such.
In and of itself it is meaningless to call an object "objective". Objectivity is a plea to reject personal preference and bias. In the head of decent minded people, it is an attempt to share the views of their fellows in the matter of shared cultural and social values. I can also simply be an attempt to avoid suspect judgements of quantity by the use of things like rules and gauges, avoiding perceptual errors.
None of this says that the thing measured, the Lemonade, or the guilt of the criminal do not relate at some level to real things in the real world (whatever that might be); the mistake is to assert that THEY can be objective. Objective is what you do with that information, how it relates, and especially how it relates to ultimately arbitrary scales and measures that are agreed upon by one's own language community.
So the gallon of petrol is not objective. The idea, the fact, the statement about the petrol, that it is 1 gallon is what is objective about the gallon of petrol. The fact that the petrol relates to a standard is objective. It does not inhere in the object.
To call morality objective, in the sense that it exists regardless of humans, is not only stupid, but an abuse of language.

RG1 wrote:Well, dependent, of course, upon your meaning of “objective object”, I have to disagree. As I have previously shown, it is possible to ‘know’ an object exists, even though we cannot subjectively experience this object. If this is the case, then would you agree that there IS such thing as an “objective object” (i.e. an object that is known, independently of subjective experience)?

No I wouldn't agree. I agree that there's such a thing as a reality which exists independently of our experience of it but I don't agree that it's possible, even in principle, to objectify such a reality in such a way that it has any ontological status. However we may be disagreeing purely on a semantic matter here rather than a substantive one because I have a deep distaste for the word "objective". As a philosopher of science a chill runs down my spine every time I see a scientist use the phrase " objective observation", which I regard as an oxymoron almost as ridiculous as "creation science". An observation is an act of cognition and an act of cognition is subjective by definition.

RG1 wrote: Obvious Leo wrote:
It's also worth maintaining a distinction between that which we perceive and that which we are aware of perceiving, because modern neuroscience tells us that these are by no means synonymous concepts.


I can’t seem to comprehend this phrase - “that which we are aware of perceiving”. What is this? Can you give an example? Isn’t “being aware” the same as (or a form of) “perceiving”? So are you saying that we can perceive our perceiving? ...Sorry, I’m lost on this one.

Sure we must perceive our perceptions but more often than not we're actually not aware of perceiving them. I used to drive 75km to work every day and I often arrived there without being aware of anything whatsoever which occurred on the highway in the course of my commute. I'm certain I was driving perfectly safely but the executive function areas of my brain were busy doing more important shit and would only have kicked in if something unusual happened which required my immediate attention. . Nowadays I spend a lot of time in my garden and experience exactly the same thing. I'm quite sure I'm not unique in this respect and that this is true for everybody. There's a big difference between what we perceive and what we attend to.

You seem to be muddying meaning with xyz.

We have all unique DNA code identifiers.
Consciousness is bounded to it's avatar.

However the debate is, why is consciousness bounded to a particular avatar as opposed to some other, like your mother. And the other debate is, is the fact that it is bounded to your particular avatar, is this important or meaningless.

Persons arguing for the "Important" side of this debate, will use ethics and hocus pocus based arguments.

Person arguing for the "Meaningless" side of this debate, will use nihilism based arguments.

Both will use emotional appeals (positive, additive, vs. nihilistic, negating.)