Relationship between Object and Percept in perceptions

Metaphysics and Epistemology
1

Hey guys,

I have decided to create a new thread to continue the leading question that has been raised in the following thread about the Matrix:

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=8011&page=6#entry335892

We have been faced with the following claim:

“The form or perception does not contribute anything that the entity-object does not possess in regard to the metaphysically singular status of bounded particulars.”

It has also been claimed that “object” and “entity” are synonyms. Judging on the Objectivist view on how perception works, I disagree, since perceptions means the following:

“There is an Object in reality that exists independent of my perceiving it. When it acts on my senses, I perceive it in the form of a particular entity.”

This rules out the possibility of “object” and “entity” being synonyms. Entities are a product of object-sense-interaction. They exist only while we are perceiving them. They cease to exist when we fall asleep. Objects do not.

So my question was then and is now:

How do we know that “The form or perception does not contribute anything that the entity-object does not possess in regard to the metaphysically singular status of bounded particulars.”?

Is there anything inherent in the nature of perception that necessitates this?

Why does there always have to be a one-to-one relationship between object and entity?

Why not many-to-one? Or one-to-many?

2

Discover, did you get to read the part of my deleted post to Louie concerning the use of synonyms for axiomatic concepts-philosophic primaries before it was deleted?

Here is an example for you:

“All independent existents, when perceived by the senses, are perceived as particular beings with identity”

Does that make being a contribution from the form of perception?

3

Discover said:

“There is an Object in reality that exists independent of my perceiving it. When it acts on my senses, I perceive it in the form of a particular entity.”

Are you making a hypothetical statement here? My statement is meant to be a hypothetical example of using axiomatic statements synonymously in the same sentence. You appear to be claiming that the above is a direct quote though. It doesn’t matter if it is because my point still stands but your quoted statement is not on the Oist research CD. Are you quoting something else?

4

Discover, since I object to the current form of your question-the context you are presupposing in asking it, we have to straighten that out first.

I have a series of questions to ask you but will wait till you answer my first question in #2.

5

Discover, did you get to read the part of my deleted post to Louie concerning the use of synonyms for axiomatic concepts-philosophic primaries before it was deleted?

Here is an example for you:

“All independent existents, when perceived by the senses, are perceived as particular beings with identity”

Does that make being a contribution from the form of perception?

 

Well, the last thing I read from you was post #137.

 

To your example:

 

You are talking about “independent existents”. What do you mean by “existent” here? A necessarily coherent thing? Or just “something”, possibly a collection of multiple things, each of them coherent?

If the former, then no, being is not a contribution from the form of perception, since it was already there before.

If the latter, then yes, being is a contribution from the form of perception, since it wasn’t there before.

 

In any case, whatever the answer, the perceiver is just lucky or in bad luck, since different senses could very well have had different results when interacting with that existent.

6

Discover said:

Are you making a hypothetical statement here? My statement is meant to be a hypothetical example of using axiomatic statements synonymously in the same sentence. You appear to be claiming that the above is a direct quote though. It doesn’t matter if it is because my point still stands but your quoted statement is not on the Oist research CD. Are you quoting something else?

 

No, I wasn’t trying to make a hypothetical statement. I thought I was properly representing what is discussed on http://campus.aynrand.org/classroom/70/:

 

Ayn Rand Campus -> History of Philosophy Lecture 22 -> The Validity of the Senses -> The Objectivist Position

 

and in

 

Ayn Rand Campus -> History of Philosophy Lecture 22 -> Sensory Qualities as Real -> Effects of Causal Primaries Real

 

My “quote” is what I gather from that lecture.

7

Well, I hope my answers are not confusing…?

8

What would a “one-to-many” relation be? Do you mean something like perceiving one object can be done with more than one form? Say, an apple, being perceived by sight or touch?

 

I wouldn’t characterize entities as forms of perception. If you were going off me saying entities are types of objects, I only meant the bounds of an object as can be recognized by human perception. Those bounds exist if you’re asleep or not. It’s not like electrons can be perceived by human perception, but they’re still bounded. I’m not sure if -Rand- thought entity and object are distinguished in this way, or if she thought they’re synonyms.

9

Discovery, Im not confused but truly puzzled how one comes to the confusion here about a difference between the synonyms object and entity. I am absolutely iron clad certain that object-entities are not form dependent for Oism and I have been trying to think of the best way to get you to explain exactly the psycho-epistemic process you have gone through to reach this conclusion.

I can prove right now that you are wrong but really would like to understand this error and how one came to it honestly. Could you please explain the best you can what you read-heard that lead you to think that entities are “object-sense” dependent? Where in those lectures? Your “quote” is a total misrepresentation of what is said on the relation of primaries to “qualities” in the Oist repudiation of the primary-secondary quality distinction…

I’m not trying to offend you by condescending. I want to understand how you came to this idea.

10

Discovery, Im not confused but truly puzzled how one comes to the confusion here about a difference between the synonyms object and entity. I am absolutely iron clad certain that object-entities are not form dependent for Oism and I have been trying to think of the best way to get you to explain exactly the psycho-epistemic process you have gone through to reach this conclusion.

I can prove right now that you are wrong but really would like to understand this error and how one came to it honestly. Could you please explain the best you can what you read-heard that lead you to think that entities are “object-sense” dependent? Where in those lectures? Your “quote” is a total misrepresentation of what is said on the relation of primaries to “qualities” in the Oist repudiation of the primary-secondary quality distinction…

I’m not trying to offend you by condescending. I want to understand how you came to this idea.

One possibility is simply overthinking the issue. One time I was interested in the relationship between a certain pair of concepts, so I wrote out my thoughts at length, using a number of carefully chosen examples and distinctions. The next day I looked at what I had written and I realized that the two concepts were just synonyms. It’s a seductive error to make because you start developing distinct accounts for both concepts and it feels like you’re making progress when actually you’re just playing with words.

11

Synonymousness isn’t important here. Whether entity and object should be treated as synonyms is a separate issue from the connection between objects in reality and representations of objects. It looks like Discovery is thinking about it like Locke might, as in we pick up properties of external objects as sensory primitives which are formed into objects or forms of perception by means of associations and correlations. So an apple-as-perceived would just be a sensory correlation with a detected object. Objectivism doesn’t mention sensory primitives, though; “entity” is the most basic, not sensory primitives. 

12

Louie said:

Synonymousness isn’t important here. Whether entity and object should be treated as synonyms is a separate issue from the connection between objects in reality and representations of objects.

Of course it is important. The very question the OP is asking is predicated on objects NOT being the same as entities and then predicating on that premise a one to one correspondence between two different existents, one object of perception and one form dependent. How can this be missed!!! I want to understand how people do that so easily… I mean that sincerely.

Louie said:

It looks like Discovery is thinking about it like Locke might, as in we pick up properties of external objects as sensory primitives which are formed into objects or forms of perception by means of associations and correlations. So an apple-as-perceived would just be a sensory correlation with a detected object. Objectivism doesn’t mention sensory primitives, though; “entity” is the most basic, not sensory primitives.

How would you differentiate what you claim Discovery is saying from what you claimed about entities and sense perception in the previous thread?

Edit: And what do you mean by “representations of objects”?

13

Of course it is important. The very question the OP is asking is predicated on objects NOT being the same as entities

Yes, but even if they’re not synonyms, the OP question doesn’t necessarily follow from them merely being different concepts. My view is just that entity is a little more specific than object. In the OP, they’re totally different. The rest of your thought didn’t make sense to me.

"And what do you mean by ‘representations of objects’? "

That part isn’t my view, it’s just an “entity” that’s independent of perception. Or that we only get images or ideas of objects, I think that’s Locke’s belief, albeit the object representations are built from observations.

 

14

Discovery, Im not confused but truly puzzled how one comes to the confusion here about a difference between the synonyms object and entity. I am absolutely iron clad certain that object-entities are not form dependent for Oism and I have been trying to think of the best way to get you to explain exactly the psycho-epistemic process you have gone through to reach this conclusion.

I can prove right now that you are wrong but really would like to understand this error and how one came to it honestly. Could you please explain the best you can what you read-heard that lead you to think that entities are “object-sense” dependent? Where in those lectures? Your “quote” is a total misrepresentation of what is said on the relation of primaries to “qualities” in the Oist repudiation of the primary-secondary quality distinction…

I’m not trying to offend you by condescending. I want to understand how you came to this idea.

 

Okay, will probably have to go into more details to explain my psycho-epistemic process.

 

But to give you something right away, just the following. Maybe its better to start with this. If you already detect the error right here, then let me know. Otherwise I would have to get into even more details:

 

 

 

Looking at http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/entity.html I read:

“Of man’s five cognitive senses , only two provide him with a direct awareness of entities”

 

“provide” as in “giving him something” (the senses do). Doesn’t this make it obvious that the entity lies in the stimulated senses? (“stimulated” meaning that an object had to stimulate them). In any case, that the senses are definitely part of what is “the entity”?

 

Obviously, the senses cannot provide us with a direct awareness of external objects, since our consciousness lies behind the senses. They do not “provide” in the sense of just “handing over” external objects to us like a hot potatoe. Yet they provide our consciousness with something that is related to external objects. The senses provide our consciousness with the stimulated state of our senses. Hence the term “entity”.

 

 

 

In the lecture, look at the description about the “energy puffs”:

It says that when the energy puffs which comprise external reality (= certain objects) interact with the energy puffs which comprise human beings (= our senses, in part) the result is: “A man” or “a feather” (= entities), or …

 

Note the words “interact” and “result” here. My understanding of “result of interaction” is that of some kind of output, i.e. a product (the word “product” or “produce” is also mentioned in that passage of the lecture). Like in a chemical reaction. Output un-equals Input. The input being the energy puffs that make up the object. They act on the energy puffs that make up our senses. And the output is “a man”, “a feather” etc. Remember, output un-equals input.

 

So if the objects are the input, and the things we become aware of (“man”, “feather” etc.) are just a “result” (the output) and if we call the latter things entities, then:

Voilà! Objects un-equals entities, too. Because: Output un-equals input.

 

After all, you wouldn’t equate the inputs and outputs of photosynthesis to each other, would you? So why equate objects and entities?

 

 

 

I hope you don’t think that what I am presenting here is Kant. I understand that Kant would pretend like there is some manipulative mental activity going on in the interaction between object and senses, which I am excluding. We get aware of entities only after they have already been created as a result of the interaction. Of the interaction, not of our mind.

 

 

 

I hope you are still not running mad yet. Thanks for your enduring patience and interest :wink:

 

 

 

I still have all the energy puffs necessary to create a drawing that depicts my understanding, if necessary :slight_smile:

15

Discovery said:

 

 

Looking at http://aynrandlexico…con/entity.html I read:

“Of man’s five cognitive senses , only two provide him with a direct awareness of entities”

 

“provide” as in “giving him something” (the senses do). Doesn’t this make it obvious that the entity lies in the stimulated senses? (“stimulated” meaning that an object had to stimulate them). In any case, that the senses are definitely part of what is “the entity”?

 

Obviously, the senses cannot provide us with a direct awareness of external objects, since our consciousness lies behind the senses. They do not “provide” in the sense of just “handing over” external objects to us like a hot potatoe. Yet they provide our consciousness with something that is related to external objects. The senses provide our consciousness with the stimulated state of our senses. Hence the term “entity”.

 

You are stating the exact opposite of the Oist position and Dr. Peikoffs purpose of the “extravagant” hypothetical using “deliberately undefined” “puffs of meta energy”. The whole point of that hypothetical is that the fact that perception is relational does not make it indirect or unreal or somehow unobjective. In fact in the recapitulation of the lecture in OPAR Dr. Peikoff uses the phrase “external entities” when referring to the “objects” that are comprised of these hypothetical “puffs”.

 

OPAR said:

 

 

For the sake of the argument, let us make the extravagant assumption that they are radically different from anything men know now; let us call them “puffs of meta-energy,” a deliberately undefined term.At this stage of cognition, scientists have discovered that the material world as men perceive it, the world of three-dimensional objects possessing color, texture, size, and shape is not a primary, but merely an effect, an effect of various combinations of puffs acting on men’s means of perception.

 

What would this sort of discovery prove philosophically? Ayn Rand holds that it would prove nothing.

 

If everything is made of meta-energy puffs, then so are human beings and their parts, including their sense organs, nervous system, and brain. The process of sense perception, by this account, would involve a certain relationship among the puffs: it would consist of an interaction between those that comprise external entities and those that comprise the perceptual apparatus and brain of human beings. The result of this interaction would be the material world as we perceive it, with all of its objects and their qualities, from men to mosquitoes to stars to feathers.

 

What’s more is that the hypothetical even reverses the synonyms in the same scenario:

 

OPAR said:

 

Man’s consciousness did not create the ingredients, in the present hypothesis, or the necessity of their interaction, or the result: the solid, three-dimensional objects we perceive. If the elements of reality themselves combine inevitably to produce such objects, then these objects have an impregnable metaphysical foundation : by the nature of their genesis, they are inherent in and expressive of the essence of existence.

 

 

Here "objects are said to be the “result” of this “interaction”.

 

In the 1976 lectures (the lecture you are referring to came from these), in Ms. Rand’s presence, Dr. Peikoff answers the question “How would you answer the following argument against the objectivity of concepts? If man did not exist metaphysical entities would still have something in common, even without a human consciousness to identify it as such. Therefore there must be some basis for a Platonic status for concepts?” While answering this question he states “if there were no human beings their would be entities. They would have the attributes they have” Lecture 5 157:12

 

Now Oism holds that “entities are the only metaphysical primaries”. This alone precludes “objects” from producing “entities”.

 

The concept entity is an axiomatic concept and that means it requires synonyms to describe it.

16

OK, I’ll look into it, but if your quotes are right, then I was really just using the wrong terminology for the question I wanted to ask.

 

Instead of “entities”, I think what I should have used is the term “percepts”. Does my question and all the explanations I have made make sense if you replace “entities” with “percepts” everywhere?

 

Now a percept is clearly form-dependent, right?

“percept” = an object/entity as it arrives in our consciousness, i.e. the result of the interaction.

 

Sorry for the confusion, my mistake.

17

What would a “one-to-many” relation be? Do you mean something like perceiving one object can be done with more than one form? Say, an apple, being perceived by sight or touch?

 

 

Yes, and that is, with more than one form simultaneously, i.e. multiple forms, i.e. multiple sense data objects, i.e. multiple percepts. Why not?

 

But really on the perceptual level, not just the sensual one you are mentioning here (sight or touch). Say, something like an apple out there, being perceived in the form of two billiard balls.

18

Yes, but even if they’re not synonyms, the OP question doesn’t necessarily follow from them merely being different concepts.

 

Yes, you’re right, my question doesn’t follow from them merely being different concepts. That’s why I have tried to rephrase my question, since I had gotten the semantics of the term “entity” wrong. I am replacing it with “percept”, hoping that it clears all misunderstandings.

19

Just to make sure we’re still on the same page: There has obviously been a misuse in terminology in forming the leading question of this topic.

 

  1. The thread should properly be named (admins please edit, if possible):

Relationship between Object and Percept in perceptions

 

 

 

 

  1. Were we stand now is the following:

 

Perceptions mean the following:

“There is an Object in reality that exists independent of my perceiving it. When it acts on my senses, I perceive it in the form of a particular percept.”

This rules out the possibility of “object” and “percept” being synonyms. Percepts are a product of object-sense-interaction. They exist only while we are perceiving them. They cease to exist when we fall asleep. Objects do not.

So my question is:

How do we know whether “The form or perception (i.e. the percept) does not contribute anything that the entity-object does not possess in regard to the metaphysically singular status of bounded particulars.”?

Is there anything inherent in the nature of perception that necessitates this?

Why does there always have to be a one-to-one relationship between object and percept?

Why not many-to-one? Or one-to-many?

 

 

A key motivation for answering that question is to know that individual rights are justified, so that anybody - independent of his form of peception - can always be held accountable for violating them.

20

The metaphysically given percept(s) serve as the basis or foundation for the man-made concepts of one or many, or notions of many-to-one and one-to-many. relationships.

 

OPAR, Chapter 2, Sense Perception and Volition: The Senses As Necessarily Valid

The validity of the senses is an axiom. Like the fact of consciousness, the axiom is outside the province of proof because it is a precondition of any proof.

Proof consists in reducing an idea back to the data provided by the senses. These data themselves, the foundation of all subsequent knowledge, precede any process of inference. They are the primaries of cognition, the unchallengeable, the self-evident.

 

Consider tying this in with John Galt’s statement “A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False?—Right or Wrong?” Is it right or wrong for individuals to be free to exercise (or not) the reasoning process for themselves?