Experience and Object
by Dennis J. Darland
July 29, 2008
Last revised 16.12.2008 08.26 time
Copyright © 2008 Dennis J. Darland
Some contentions:
  1. We ordinarily conflate our experience of an object with the object itself.
  2. Most of our sensory experiences are caused by objects external to us.
  3. This is useful - it is usually the object that we need to respond to - we respond to the object via the experience.
  4. Our nervous systems and brains are highly developed organs to produce the experiences we have of objects.
  5. Most of our words are more useful when taken to be about the objects - not the experiences.
  6. However, we apply the words indirectly - based on our experiences.
  7. Consider - if we put our right hand in a container of very warm water and our left hand in a container of very cool water. Then we put both hands in a container of lukewarm water. The right hand feels the water is cold while the left hand feels the water is warm.
  8. Our experiences are subjective and relative - but they are still of an underlying reality.
  9. The three containers all have temperatures measurable in physics.
  10. Similarly our value judgments are subjective and relative - but this does not prove there are not underlying objective values.
  11. Our words and actions more often apply to the objects rather than the experiences because we need to respond to the objects with our bodies - not merely contemplate the experience.

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