What if Judas didn't do it?

[Belacqua]

Bel touched on something I've wondered about.  Where does the line between objective and subjective exist?  Do the patterns in the light entering my eye have objective existence?  What about the patterns of electrical activity in my optic nerve?  Does it become subjective when my visual cortex abstracts features out of the stream of neural input?  Or does that happen when our subconscious orders those abstract features into a set of relations?  Or does it necessarily have to enter consciousness itself to become subjective?  Or does it only become subjective when our consciousness "does something" with those perceptions, and what exactly does that mean?

I think as Bel observes, Kant concluded that our awareness and the reality it is aware of are inextricably bound.  So it may make more sense to say the subjective objective distinction is a false dichotomy, and therefore the question of a primacy of consciousness or existence itself may be a false dilemma.

For whatever reason -- I don't know -- we seem to have a habit of thinking dualistically about the mind. 

Even convinced materialists, who see the mind as only an epiphenomenon from the physical brain, and reject any idea of soul or disembodied mind, will sometimes speak of mind as if it is some kind of spark of pure reason. The old guys who saw mind as a tiny portion of God-stuff apparently set the vocabulary that we still tend to fall into.

For example you'll sometimes hear people say (or imply) that if we could just get rid of certain bad influences (religion or other superstitions) then babies would grow up to be entirely rational. 

But if the brain really is responsible, and the brain evolved just as any other organ, then I don't see the subjective/objective distinction as holding very strongly. And the rational/irrational divide probably isn't quite as distinct as one might hope.