Dreaming is not 'completely subjective'

[Vkothii]

So then.
An objective reality is a reality in which there are objects.

A subjective reality is a reality in which there is the perception of objects.

Is there a mapping or association here already? Is it one to many, as in: one subjective reality containing multiple objects (not multiple objective realities),
or one to one, as in: one subjective to one objective reality?
They are the same thing, right? So an objective reality exists for a subjective one, singular. And a subjective reality "contains" multiple objects, including the subject.

Even with only a single other object to perceive, there would be a subjective reality (containing the single "non-subject", and the single subjective reality, two objects - one of which is a subject, and can "perceive" either).

This objective reality forms, or "projects to" a subjective one which the brain "creates" with neural impulses or signals, persistence, and so on?

 

[Myles]

Sowhat,

As you have chosen not to respond to my post 78, I assume you no longer argue that
"there would be no difference between dreaming and waking". Brain scans have shown that the differences between sleep, waking, being under hypnosis , meditating and so on is a matter of which parts of the brain are active;it's as simple as that.

You are allowing philosophical speculation to replace common sense.

 

[Vkothii]

Sowhat

That's what I'm trying to figure out for myself.
Why haven't you got a ready answer for why we perceive ourselves and the external as objects?

 

[Myles]

As a latecomer, may I make a couple of points. What happens in the brain is clearly subjective and private to each of us.If this were not so, we would all be mind readers. We interpret the world subjectively because we can do no other. A rock is real in some sense but my perception of it is subjective because I do not know what it is to be a rock; I am relying on my senses to provide me with a subjective interpretation,

A bee sees the colour of flowers differently than we do, wheras some animals see everything as shades of grey, which argues for subjectivity.

Light is not a special case. To state the obvious, we know subjectively that light consists of quanta. When we see something ,our perception is the result of how the brain interprets light which reaches it via the retina, and the optic nerve. Light itself corresponds to some sort of objective reality.

We can share our knowledge of the external world by agreeing that a rock is hard, for example. What we are agreeing upon is a quality, hardness, which we attribute to a rock. We are sharing our subjective experience and the fact that we can do this is because human brains are similar in most respects.
Rocks are not aware that they are hard.

Maps are subjective interpretations of an external reality, both of which are experienced subjectively. How can it be otherwise ?

Personal experience is real but no less subjective for all that. Neuronal activity in the brain is objective but cannot be experienced as such.

 

[Vkothii]

Neuronal activity in the brain is objective but cannot be experienced as such.

Not as such, but it is "experience"; it's what represents consciousness and "subjective reality".

Neuronal activity is to experience as DNA is to genes.

 

[Myles]

Not as such, but it is "experience"; it's what represents consciousness and "subjective reality".

Neuronal activity is to experience as DNA is to genes.

What neuronal activity represents is irrelevant to the manner in which it may or may not be experienced.

 

[Enmos]

I think I made it clear I didn't disagree with it. It is however starting outside yourself, with thoughts, by the way, that your consider subjective.

Yep

That depends on how you are defining the word 'light'. If you are talking about the experienced phenomenon and define light as that which is experienced, I disagree. My point is that our starting point in the search for knowledge is via experience. The word light comes from an experienced phenomenon. Later scientists came along and called something that is not 'really the thing we experience as light' and yes I do know what you mean. To get to that scientific definition, the idea of it, we had to use perception, terms drawn from perception or experience, thoughts and so on. Now you can come and say that what we experience isn't really light. OK. I know what you mean and you are correct given the way you are using the word light. But the debt to experience is being skipped over. Everything meaningful is derived from experience and can only be communicated about in experiential terms. Now you want to say that what we call light really isn't light. Who gave you control of that word? Why should we prioritize a theorized idea of light over what we directly experience which is the very medium your theory of light is built on?

But science and especially experimentation is devised to touch on something objective. It gives us indications about objective reality. We can say with a 100% certainty what an objective something is but we can come to understand aspects of it by scientific experimentation.

Again. I am not saying your idea of light - or the idea that you agree with and are repeating is wrong. I am saying it is strange for you to think you can begin there, when in fact you did not. And the history of the word both in our individual lives and in etymology shows this.

I agree to an extent. You have to understand that all of it is within me, all of it is ideas and imagination.
I will post a graphic of what I mean later on, it might help

I don't think you understood what I meant.

I'm pretty sure I did though. Why do you think that ?

Maps are knowable. Some people would say the objects it describes are not. Experience is knowable. Here it is. It is the root. Any theory that tells you that experience is not real has undermined any possible evidence it has. Specific mistakes can of course be made in the way we interpret out experience. Of course. But it you want to make the whole realm unreal, you have no legs to stand on.

What I meant was that most of the map is missing because those parts are unknowable. It is impossible to have the complete map.

 

[Enmos]

So then.
An objective reality is a reality in which there are objects.

A subjective reality is a reality in which there is the perception of objects.

Is there a mapping or association here already? Is it one to many, as in: one subjective reality containing multiple objects (not multiple objective realities),
or one to one, as in: one subjective to one objective reality?
They are the same thing, right? So an objective reality exists for a subjective one, singular. And a subjective reality "contains" multiple objects, including the subject.

Even with only a single other object to perceive, there would be a subjective reality (containing the single "non-subject", and the single subjective reality, two objects - one of which is a subject, and can "perceive" either).

This objective reality forms, or "projects to" a subjective one which the brain "creates" with neural impulses or signals, persistence, and so on?

Reality is objective, and there is only one obviously.
What we perceive of objective reality is subjective. This is what we call subjective reality here, which is somewhat misleading to you perhaps.

 

[Enmos]

As a latecomer, may I make a couple of points. What happens in the brain is clearly subjective and private to each of us.If this were not so, we would all be mind readers. We interpret the world subjectively because we can do no other. A rock is real in some sense but my perception of it is subjective because I do not know what it is to be a rock; I am relying on my senses to provide me with a subjective interpretation,

A bee sees the colour of flowers differently than we do, wheras some animals see everything as shades of grey, which argues for subjectivity.

Light is not a special case. To state the obvious, we know subjectively that light consists of quanta. When we see something ,our perception is the result of how the brain interprets light which reaches it via the retina, and the optic nerve. Light itself corresponds to some sort of objective reality.

We can share our knowledge of the external world by agreeing that a rock is hard, for example. What we are agreeing upon is a quality, hardness, which we attribute to a rock. We are sharing our subjective experience and the fact that we can do this is because human brains are similar in most respects.
Rocks are not aware that they are hard.

Maps are subjective interpretations of an external reality, both of which are experienced subjectively. How can it be otherwise ?

Personal experience is real but no less subjective for all that. Neuronal activity in the brain is objective but cannot be experienced as such.

Thanks, I am no longer fighting alone

 

[Vkothii]

What neuronal activity represents is irrelevant to the manner in which it may or may not be experienced.

I'd say it's entirely relevant to "the manner in which it may or may not be experienced". We know that there's activity - actually trains of pulses, or spikes -in potential- and waves of activity coming and going.

So "the representation', is what you interpret either as a signal trace on graph paper, or it's the neural "representation" of experience, perception, awareness - all that intangible stuff.

Information is independent of how it gets represented, except that there isn't any information unless there is at least one "representation".

Do you now grasp the meaning of "representation" I'm using? How about the meaning of: "information"?

 

[Vkothii]

Reality is objective, and there is only one obviously.

So then. this should make sense: "An objective reality is a reality in which there are objects." --? Does it make sense, or you don't see what it says?

What we perceive of objective reality is subjective.

Does that mean: "A subjective reality is a reality in which there is the perception of objects. " ---? Any closer? You do mean that each subject sees only one objective reality, right?

This is what we call subjective reality here, which is somewhat misleading to you perhaps.

The misleading part, for me, is how this "subjective reality" manages to pop up suddenly, from your model of an "objective reality". How do you conjure it?

Let's see:
" an objective reality exists for a subjective one, singular.
And a subjective reality "contains" multiple objects, including the subject."

Does this concur at all with your model (the one that you claim is "what we call subjective reality here", wherever "here" is)?

"... with only a single other object to perceive, there would be a subjective reality (containing the single "non-subject", and the single subjective reality, two objects - one of which is a subject, and can "perceive" either)."

A subjective reality exists if there is at least a single observer and a single external object - can this external object be the subject, or does there have to be at least one external object that isn't a part of the subject (whatever that might mean)?

"This objective reality forms, or "projects to" a subjective one which the brain "creates" with neural impulses or signals, persistence, and so on?"

IOW, when does this "interaction" you describe of the senses with external stimuli, become subjective, and not objective? In which part of the brain? The neuronal assemblies behind the retina? The optic nerve? The visual cortex? The sum of all neuronal processing involved with "creating" this subjective reality?

Can you locate it? Or is it like some kind of "adjoint space" that is operated on by objective reality, which is where energy and matter are?

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

I agree to an extent. You have to understand that all of it is within me, all of it is ideas and imagination.
I will post a graphic of what I mean later on, it might help

I just find it odd that you consider your ideas, however come to - in your case I would guess via the reading of and mulling over the scientific experiments and conclusions of others - are more real than experienced phenomena. Without the latter you could not have the former. Without the latter being a valid and truth offering contact with 'objective things' you could not have your experiments or anything to mull over. And thus you can end up saying that light is really what we experience, even though this 'light' that we experience was the first doorway to the one you think is 'more real'. If it is more real how can the doorway through which we reach it be unreal?

What I meant was that most of the map is missing because those parts are unknowable. It is impossible to have the complete map.

I agree utterly with this. I think it is scientists, or perhaps their followers, who have the most trouble with this one. They are much more likely to feel they can gauge the liklihood of phenomena that don't seem to sit with current theories, despite what the history of science itself says about how current theories may be limited.

For example. You know somehow that dreams are not in contact with 'objective reality'. How could you possibly know this?

If current ideas about the brain and sleep and locality and so are absolutely limiting and causation happens only in the forms we have discovered, well then your ground is pretty solid. But you can't really know this.

My dreams seem to be in contact with objective reality, sometimes. They are accurate maps. Perhaps even on some level they are the imagistic and felt results of processes not unlike scientific experimentation, amongst other things.

There are always things in between. In the eye there is the lens, the medium - generally air - the fluid in the eye and so on. All of which distorts, separates the subject from the object in both TIME and SPACE and distorts, edits, etc. But somehow you know that dreams cannot be direct perceptions in some process not yet found by science, and despite examples where in dreams people seemed to come in direct contact with objective reality - developed theories, ideas and explanations for objects that withstood later testing.

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

Enmos,
this was a key sentence.

Light is not really the thing we experience as light..

There are a lot of assumptions in this.
And I would say, you are beginning backwards. As if you were born with that map.

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

It seems clear to me that any process that helps me navigate, utilize, create, predict objects or their behavior is to some degree objective.

Much is being made of science and how this process gives us a somewhat objective map of the world. Of what is out there.

I can do this with imagination. I find myself in a power outage and imagine the room. A completely subjective process. Neverthess I make my way through the room without banging my knee in the dark. How could it be completely subjective?

And so it was that at least some dreams have helped people navigate, predict etc. the world of objects. In fact if you get rather good with symbols you can find more information about the outside world in dreams.

But even if you want to relegate as much of it as you can to the subjective, I really cannot see how one can say it is completely subjective.

Is the possibility of complementary or diverse methodologies so frightening?

 

[Myles]

I'd say it's entirely relevant to "the manner in which it may or may not be experienced". We know that there's activity - actually trains of pulses, or spikes -in potential- and waves of activity coming and going.

So "the representation', is what you interpret either as a signal trace on graph paper, or it's the neural "representation" of experience, perception, awareness - all that intangible stuff.

Information is independent of how it gets represented, except that there isn't any information unless there is at least one "representation".

Do you now grasp the meaning of "representation" I'm using? How about the meaning of: "information"?

Whatever it represents, it is experienced subjectively. Is that so difficult to understand ?

 

[Myles]

It seems clear to me that any process that helps me navigate, utilize, create, predict objects or their behavior is to some degree objective.

Much is being made of science and how this process gives us a somewhat objective map of the world. Of what is out there.

I can do this with imagination. I find myself in a power outage and imagine the room. A completely subjective process. Neverthess I make my way through the room without banging my knee in the dark. How could it be completely subjective?

And so it was that at least some dreams have helped people navigate, predict etc. the world of objects. In fact if you get rather good with symbols you can find more information about the outside world in dreams.

But even if you want to relegate as much of it as you can to the subjective, I really cannot see how one can say it is completely subjective.

Is the possibility of complementary or diverse methodologies so frightening?

What does it mean to say that a process is " to some degree objective " ? There are no degrees of objectivity. You experience an objective world subjectively; that's it.

What seems clear to you is beside the point.

 

[Enmos]

So then. this should make sense: "An objective reality is a reality in which there are objects." --? Does it make sense, or you don't see what it says?

Correct, but your approach is a bit labored..

Does that mean: "A subjective reality is a reality in which there is the perception of objects. " ---? Any closer? You do mean that each subject sees only one objective reality, right?

Subjective reality is kind of similar to experience. Subjective reality is just any 'colored' representation of (a part of) objective reality.
Subject don't see objective reality. And there is just one reality; objective reality. Only our experience/perception of it varies.

The misleading part, for me, is how this "subjective reality" manages to pop up suddenly, from your model of an "objective reality". How do you conjure it?

See above.

Let's see:
" an objective reality exists for a subjective one, singular.
And a subjective reality "contains" multiple objects, including the subject."

No that's not right. Objective reality contains everything, including the subject. The subjects experience of objective reality is subjective 'reality'.

Does this concur at all with your model (the one that you claim is "what we call subjective reality here", wherever "here" is)?

'Here', like in this thread.

"... with only a single other object to perceive, there would be a subjective reality (containing the single "non-subject", and the single subjective reality, two objects - one of which is a subject, and can "perceive" either)."

A subjective reality exists if there is at least a single observer and a single external object - can this external object be the subject, or does there have to be at least one external object that isn't a part of the subject (whatever that might mean)?

The external object can be the subject.
Where did you get that quote ? You seem to be subscribing it to me..

"This objective reality forms, or "projects to" a subjective one which the brain "creates" with neural impulses or signals, persistence, and so on?"

IOW, when does this "interaction" you describe of the senses with external stimuli, become subjective, and not objective? In which part of the brain? The neuronal assemblies behind the retina? The optic nerve? The visual cortex? The sum of all neuronal processing involved with "creating" this subjective reality?

Can you locate it? Or is it like some kind of "adjoint space" that is operated on by objective reality, which is where energy and matter are?

To begin with, the senses filter the external stimuli; they can only detect a small part of objective reality. This is in essence where it begins.
Then the brain takes this data and strips it of irrelevant data. Then the remaining data is interpreted using memory and knowledge after which it is presented to the consciousness as subjective reality.
I can locate all the brain areas if you want, except consciousness.

 

[Enmos]

I just find it odd that you consider your ideas, however come to - in your case I would guess via the reading of and mulling over the scientific experiments and conclusions of others - are more real than experienced phenomena. Without the latter you could not have the former. Without the latter being a valid and truth offering contact with 'objective things' you could not have your experiments or anything to mull over. And thus you can end up saying that light is really what we experience, even though this 'light' that we experience was the first doorway to the one you think is 'more real'. If it is more real how can the doorway through which we reach it be unreal?

Agreed. I don't see a problem with that..

I agree utterly with this. I think it is scientists, or perhaps their followers, who have the most trouble with this one. They are much more likely to feel they can gauge the liklihood of phenomena that don't seem to sit with current theories, despite what the history of science itself says about how current theories may be limited.

For example. You know somehow that dreams are not in contact with 'objective reality'. How could you possibly know this?

Maybe there is a confusing to what either of us meant with dreaming. The physiological process of dreaming (brain activity) is objective; the brain is part of objective reality. What is subjective is what we experience of the process, namely the dream.

If current ideas about the brain and sleep and locality and so are absolutely limiting and causation happens only in the forms we have discovered, well then your ground is pretty solid. But you can't really know this.

Well, that raises the question "Can we KNOW anything ?". I think a good case can be made that we can't know anything with a 100% certainty. It would leave us dead in the water..

My dreams seem to be in contact with objective reality, sometimes. They are accurate maps. Perhaps even on some level they are the imagistic and felt results of processes not unlike scientific experimentation, amongst other things.

There are always things in between. In the eye there is the lens, the medium - generally air - the fluid in the eye and so on. All of which distorts, separates the subject from the object in both TIME and SPACE and distorts, edits, etc. But somehow you know that dreams cannot be direct perceptions in some process not yet found by science, and despite examples where in dreams people seemed to come in direct contact with objective reality - developed theories, ideas and explanations for objects that withstood later testing.

Dreams are based on previous experiences, not on current ones..
Maybe some direct perceptions are interwoven, like sounds..
But other than that, if you dream about being in your old school building for example how can the visual experience of that be directly based on objective reality ? Rather it is based on previous experiences of objective reality, thus indirectly based on on objective reality.

 

[Enmos]

Enmos,
this was a key sentence.

There are a lot of assumptions in this.
And I would say, you are beginning backwards. As if you were born with that map.

Well there are different levels to it of course.
What is light ? Obviously the word indicates that what we experience visually. But this definition arose without knowledge of what it is that gives rise to this visual experience.

Maybe it would be better to say that photons are not the same as that which we call light. Of course you could say something is wrong about that as well.. it's like I have said before, language is not helping here..

 

[Enmos]

It seems clear to me that any process that helps me navigate, utilize, create, predict objects or their behavior is to some degree objective.

No, the subjective processes have evolved to work for you, to create a dependable map of the world around you. This doesn't mean it is objective.

Much is being made of science and how this process gives us a somewhat objective map of the world. Of what is out there.

I can do this with imagination. I find myself in a power outage and imagine the room. A completely subjective process. Neverthess I make my way through the room without banging my knee in the dark. How could it be completely subjective?

Because your brain remembers the basic layout of the room, it created a dependable map of it in your head.

And so it was that at least some dreams have helped people navigate, predict etc. the world of objects. In fact if you get rather good with symbols you can find more information about the outside world in dreams.

Sure, but it's all worked out in your head. The brain is pretty good at predicting stuff.

But even if you want to relegate as much of it as you can to the subjective, I really cannot see how one can say it is completely subjective.

Then we might have a misunderstanding of what the word objective means..

Is the possibility of complementary or diverse methodologies so frightening?

I don't know what that means in relation to the matter at hand.