(December 23, 2014 at 9:24 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Sure...in that we are sharing an experience. Seems cut and dry. I have reasonable expectations of what a monkey can or cannot see. I think they'd notice a ferrari for essentially the same reasons that I would. We would both be looking at and seeing the same thing.I think this is a philosophical question. The question is whether we both see the thing the same way-- and if not, can either the monkeys or I be said to see what is real? Or is the nature of what we see more a comment on monkeyness and humanity than the actual physical reality of the car?
As I see it, the monkeys and I are viewing the shiny red object in different contexts. To a monkey, a Ferrari in the desert is really a suprising object to be hooted at and have poo thrown on it. To us, the Ferrari is really an upper-class brand-name item worthy of jealousy or at least wonder. But neither of these contexts represents the physical reality?
So who's right? What is the object, really? A collection of particles? Maybe, but since that definition is true for all things we know of, it means nothing. Is it really a Ferrari? If yes, what exactly makes this object a Ferrari, rather than "Oog oog, shiny red, must throw poo."
You say it's still a car, or still a Ferrari-- but not to the monkeys. They do not see that it's a Ferrari. They do not understand (presumably) that it's a car, or a vehicle, or a machine. But this doesn't matter-- because none of those labels really describes a physical reality.
