Philosophy Now Forum

James Markham wrote:What is the definition of an object? And in what capacity, if any, is it that a thing can be classed as fundamentally distinct from the rest of the reality it inhabits?

I think the answer to these questions, is that the defining of object is contingent upon a conscious evaluation of certain distinct qualities or attributes, and not related to any quantity of physical substance. So the identification or defining of objects is an action or mental event, and I believe this can now be shown by the the fact that at the microscopic level all things are constructions of the same fundamental particles, and so the distinctions we make at the macroscopic level, are necessarily only of function, not of any fundamental form. It therefore follows that without the conscious acknowledgement of functions, all objective differentiation is absent, and the concept of object becomes irrelevant.

I think this also indicates that at a fundamental level, the concept of physical quantity cannot be applied to what we term as objects, being as they are only defined by a metaphysical ability to influence mental observations.

To my way of thinking this is a necessary feature of any capacity for interaction between what we class as distinct bodies, for if at some level we didn't have a mutual interchangeable essence, or if that essence was fundamentally physical rather than metaphysical, there would be no capacity for interaction or mutual influence. If an object had no facility to share something of itself, or it was defined and determined by a physical completeness, then it could have no capacity to interact or influence.

So if object A is defined as such by virtue of the fact it is either a composition of parts, or a single non composite body.

And if object B is defined in equal terms.

Then no part of object A can become part of object B without A becoming less than A, and B becoming more than B.

It follows that if A is to influence B, A is necessarily A by virtue of something other than physicality.

So personally I believe this shows that when we define objects, it has nothing to do with any fundamental distinctness of physical substance, but of distinct properties that result from the structuring of something that is fundamentally uniform. The events we experience as reality are a result of activity such as consciousness, gravity and electromagnetism, which interface according to laws applying not to various individual substances, but to various formations of a singular essence.

I'd like to explore what can be said about this essence, science loosely describes it as potential energy, and the laws of physics can predict the manner of events that result from its behaviour, but it's not a substance in the conventional term, nor is it essentially a force. What we know as form and force, are effects of properties that occur from its internal activity, and I think this is what makes it so hard to pin down in thought, when we think of a thing, we tend to think of something tangible, so to restructure our thoughts to understand how all that is apparently physical, is in fact not in essence physical itself, but only potentially so, is counterintuitive.

HexHammer wrote:I don't see the purpose of the question posed, it should be selfexplanatory and it's a fool's errand in wasting time on it.

attofishpi wrote:

HexHammer wrote:I don't see the purpose of the question posed, it should be selfexplanatory and it's a fool's errand in wasting time on it.

Oh my God...i think you have just defined Philosophy!

SpheresOfBalance wrote:I don't think it a fools errand. I think he's trying to make sense of things from the standpoint of QM.

James Markham wrote:Ginkgo, yes that's basically what I'm saying. All difentiation of objective reality is some degree dependent on perception, and at a fundamental level, what exists is not physical.
The only perceived attribute of objects that is not physically accurate, that I'm aware of, is color, as it's due to a reflection of some portion of visible light, yet it is physically accurate, as different physical properties, reflect different portions of the EMS. If you know of others, and the why of it, I'm all ears. Food for thought, touch verifies visual shape, as an accurate physical property.


What interests me is the necessity of this fact, and the impossibility of interaction if things were actual distintict entities. What I believe the implications are, is that our reality is inherently personal, and anything that we interact with, is fundamentally an extension of ourselves, so to me that means we are all aspects of a single existence.

HexHammer wrote:

SpheresOfBalance wrote:I don't think it a fools errand. I think he's trying to make sense of things from the standpoint of QM.

LOL? It's already well defined, and you are too senseless to realize that James Markham could look it up himself, but are either too lazy to do so himelf, or trolling you to do it.

You don't even realize you just did a fool's errand.

SpheresOfBalance wrote:You just don't get it do you? Yet you do it!

HexHammer wrote:

SpheresOfBalance wrote:You just don't get it do you? Yet you do it!

If I had a worker who was to lazy to read up on rudementary stuff himself, but always asked others to have selfexplanatory things explained to him, then he would be a huge burden, and would be terminated immediately.

It's very simple logic!

HexHammer wrote:People without rationallity does not comprehend the nature of relevance, thus they will waste much time with irrelevant things.