Let's talk about objects of mind. Let's not go into deep theorems of philosophy. Let's try to understand our objects of mind in a simple manner so we can have a good model of what is happening inside out.
First to explain and identify mental objects we will do a thought experiment! Hang on it's going to be fun.
As per the example, imagine you are looking at a flower. When you turn your eyes, you see a flower right? Now imagine you are a newborn baby and forget everything what you have learned so far. You are seeing the world for the first time. Now, let's look at the flower. What do you see? Do you see a flower?
Do you agree there is no flower if you remove layers of knowledge?
Now, do you agree yourself now, and yourself as a newborn baby both saw the same thing? But for the baby, there was no flower, maybe there were some colors. But for the baby there was only some light, which was present. (We really do not know it was even colors)
It seems that the things we have learned since our birth, has influenced markedly on what we see. Essentially it has made a world around us with our own imagination added to the layer of just mere colors, sensations and sounds.
I will give some characteristics of these mental objects .
Mental objects are unique to each and every individual.
We cannot access the world or communicate with the world without these mental objects.
Our values are almost always associated with these mental objects as we are communicating with the world through them
Mental objects change over time.
At one point of time our mind can only access only one object
I will discuss the characteristics one by one. And the importance and application of each. As a start here I will show that how mental objects are unique to each and every individual.
Imagine a family of five, father, mother, son his wife and a grandson. Imagine yourself as each one of them and think about following,
father will see himslef as -> me
mother will see father as -> husband
son will see father as -> father
daughter in law will see -> father in law
grandson will see -> grandfather
Do you see that all of them are talking about same person? Yet for each one of them the mental object of essentially same person, is markedly different. Even you have your own imagination about this father, and I am 100% sure it is different from mine.
Who is correct?
I can answer this question (who is correct ?) in half a day or in a half a sentence. But I will answer it in half a sentence to keep the post shorter.
Everyone is correct but only in their own relative world.
More importantly Let's discuss the importance of knowing, these mental objects which are different for each one of us.
A flower that is beautiful to you may not be necessarily beautiful to another. A loss that is not painful to you maybe very painful to another. Have some empathy and understand and believing what they are saying is true is the only way we can understand what they are experiencing.
Do not go into arguments by observing something from just your point of view. Someone else with more background knowledge may have a better understanding and point of view. After all, only you know nobody is exactly correct as we can never know what is really out there except through our own copy of mental objects !
Thank you for reading Objects of mind - mental representation
You may also like to read: I wish I could be a ghost ( poem )
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