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relationship to a goal. Knowledge of these facts help us understand (1) how the
object can have a subjective property (as an affordance, for example), (2) why the
object is less than the thing-in-itself and (3) how the object can still be empirically
“real.” The perceived object is simpler than the thing-in-itself (a prerequisite to
comprehension) – while remaining importantly related to the actual thing. This
relationship is the encoding of some genuine regularity across some dimension(s).
The perceived object is thus a low-resolution image of the thing-in-itself. The
concept, in turn, is an abstracted simplification of the perceived object (but retains
some not-entirely-subjective relationship to that object).
The constituent elements of an object, the object itself, and the many
objects and situations of which the object itself is a constituent element are all
equally real. All of this extraneous reality must be stripped away, before a given
object can be seen or put to use, by applying a pragmatic framework of reference
to the object, specifying its relationship to a goal. Perception simplifies the world,
without sacrificing functional grip. The perceiver learns what resolution-level is
relevant to a given operation by interacting pragmatically with the patterns
amenable to perception. The pattern that manifests itself at the appropriate level is
granted object status. In every act of perception, therefore, entropy at some levels
of resolution is reduced to a minimum, while at others it is allowed to approach
the infinite. Thus the complexity characterizing the thing-in-itself can be
successfully, if temporarily, dealt with.
When we see, we do not see much of what is there (Simons & Rensink,
2005). The fact that each object-pattern is involved in many invisible arrays
means that things have many invisible properties. This is a good thing, when new
problems emerge. Old objects can be investigated for new properties. However, it
This implies as well, that the perceptual object is an axiom of the concept and, conversely, that an object may be nothing
more than an well-practiced concept – of the species, the social group, or the individual, following Barsalou (1983). What
is axiomatic about the object is that it is a representation of the thing-in-itself, sufficient for some delimited purpose. What
is axiomatic about the concept is that it is a sufficient representation of the object.
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