Let us take the claim that objects are dependent upon being perceived.
My question is what is the difference between an object perceived by none, one or many? Does the object change in some way with the number of perceivers?
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Let me be clear: the claim is, a mind is not a thing.
A mind is a process of a thing.
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Looking at another thinker I see an external object. And yet I see an internal in the external. My mind is therefore someone else’s external as well. A further example of problem of internal/external duality.
In other words, internal and external are relative terms with an impossible basis. My internal is someone else’s external.
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Does something come into existence because they are thinkable or are thought of?
There is a difference between the existence of thinker and the possible existence of the thinkable object.
In fact, for something to be thinkable there needs to be a thinker for the potential act of thinkability.
To think is to imply there is something to do the thinking. All actions are done by something.
This is true of qualities and relations as well. There need be something to embody the quality. And there need be things to relate to each other.
Without a thinker there are no thoughts and thinking.
The number of thoughts one has does not increase the number of objects in existence.
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Yes, I am making a choice. I am drawing a conclusion from the evidence of experience of what I have perceived and what I can can infer.
There are real physical objects which have spatial/temporal location, have effects upon other objects, perceivable by the senses, and are thinkable.
“If you can poke a stick at it, it’s real,” someone I talk regularly with likes to say.
Interestingly, abstract “objects” have the opposite definitions bar one – they are thinkable as well. In other words, there is something different and important about the process of thinking.
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If the physical is of secondary importance then what is its function to that which is of primary importance?
There is a danger to downgrading the physical over the non-physical, namely there is no access to the latter realm.
Justifications of this are in general claims of a priori knowledge and existence when we only have a posteriori knowledge to work with.
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There are two reasons for using the term “object reality” rather than “objective reality”. Firstly, the term objective reality connotes perception. We perform acts of objectivity when the point here is to state what exists. Secondly, space and time are seemingly constants which therefore can be ignored.
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There are two objects. One is similar to the other. From experience I assume their characteristics are similar to one another as well.
This body has a mind. It is therefore reasonable to assume other similar bodies have minds as well.
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Earlier I said I have direct perception to my thoughts but it is more accurate to say that I have perceptual access to my thoughts.
In the view of Descartes to think is to know that one exists. But the question is to exist as what, as mind or as mind in body? In some ways dualism is correct. There does seem to be these two separate “things”. I will argue that one is an illusion. I will argue that one relies on the other.
The way we have access to the mind is important. I believe without the body we have no mind. I believe this because of the evidence, not because of blind faith.
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I believe many philosophers and philosophies perceptually mis-arrange the internal and external worlds.
This mis-arrangement can be evidenced from their language. The descriptions given usually speak of separate worlds. This in itself is not a problem. The problem is in what way are they separate. The common mis-arrangement is one of internal and external worlds being exclusive, when in reality, the external world, by definition, includes the internal world.
theoria 