Yes, precisely. I’m still giving Claudiu’s excellent queries deeper thought as I go about my business, stopping here and there to wonder about it, and I intend at the moment to provide a more comprehensive and thought-out response later on (or maybe this post will suffice?), which may or may not end up being aligned with what I say in this comment, but what you say here strikes as true at the moment, tentatively-speaking.
So as to be completely in accord with what is indisputable, when one perceives an object and has committed to identifying it, one cannot know with 100 percent assurance whether one has correctly identified or has correctly recognized the perceived object. All that can be known with 100 percent assurance is that an object, a something – such as a shape, color, texture, form, thought, emotion – has happened and has been perceived. This is what can be said to have been experienced. When an object is perceived, say visually and tactilely, then the cognitive process of identification and recognition is automatically applied to the object, categorizing it, and spitting out a label that accords with what the identification process has discerned the object to resemble, in this case “spider”, whereupon further response and interaction ensues, such as feeling horrified or jumping out of one’s seat. The act of identification and recognition that leads up to the classification label “spider” is liable to be, and remarkably often-enough is, erroneous or inaccurate. The perceived object can easily be misidentified, misrecognized, or misclassified. Perhaps it was a cricket rather than a spider; it could have been a stray cotton ball, an hallucination, or it could have indeed been a spider afterall. Yet whatever it was, what is indisputable is that it was an object of perception, something that appeared to one’s consciousness. This is what is being indisputably experienced: the object itself (correctly or erroneously identified).
Is this not fundamentally what “objective” existence is about: the occurrence of the object? Experience occurs when an existent object (“objective existence”) appears or presents itself before, or opposite to, the subject. It is the subject’s observation and encounter with the object (“objective existence”) that produces the experience. Etymologically “object” means “that which presents itself to the sight”:
object (n.): late 14c. … from Old French object and directly from Medieval Latin obiectum “thing put before” (the mind or sight), noun use of neuter of Latin obiectus “lying before, opposite” … from Latin obiectus “that which presents itself to the sight.” Meaning “that toward which a cognitive act is directed” is from 1580s.
object | Etymology, origin and meaning of object by etymonline
The cognitive and affective processes that arise in response to the objects that appear before the subject are also indisputably occurring and are themselves being experienced; they are objects themselves appearing before the subject. Etymologically “experience” means “observation as the source of knowledge”:
experience (n.): late 14c., “observation as the source of knowledge; actual observation; an event which has affected one,” from Old French esperience “experiment, proof, experience” (13c.), from Latin experientia “a trial, proof, experiment; knowledge gained by repeated trials …”
experience | Search Online Etymology Dictionary
Observation requires both subject and object. If there is no object, there is no observation. The existence of the object is a necessary requisite for the experience to take place. Without object, there is no experience to be had thus no knowledge to be gained (of even the most basic variety such as: “experience exists”). No object, no experience; and if there is experience, there is object.
Regarding the inherent accuracy-rate of the identification process – whether the object on the leg is a spider or not, whether the object identified as “leg” is a leg or not – involves matters of probability and functionality occurring mostly automatically and unconsciously, which could be expressed as, “it is probably [this] or it is probably [that] so let’s operate on those assumptions and hope for the best.” Therefore to assert as an indisputable fact that a spider is being experienced is to miss the mark, somewhat, and get caught up in a presumptive, superficial, and sometimes contentious – though perhaps functionally necessary – identification process. It is experience which is happening; it is object by whatever name which is being experienced; it is object by whatever name which exists and is known to exist because it is object by whatever name which is being experienced. Without object there is no experience; without experience there is no knowledge of object. Object and experience (object and subject?) are intertwined in lockstep. I cannot fathom how there can ever be an experience – an encounter or awareness – of an object that does not exist. It is inconceivable.
(tentatively-speaking, still exploring …)
Richard made some remarks that resonate here:
Richard (2004): Other than being apperceptively aware of infinitude I am already ‘clueless’ about the universe.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 49
(2004)
RESPONDENT: Do you, perchance, know what the sun actually is?
RICHARD: No, virtually the only thing regarding the properties of the universe that is readily apparent here in this actual world is its infinitude … matters such as what a star/ planet/ moon/ comet is require observation and illation.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 60
).